Mercenary's Woman (7 page)

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MERCENARY'S WOMAN

DIANA PALMER

49

situation, it's just basic common
sense to get out of the
way as quickly as possible if there's any chance of
escape,
and
pride be damned."

"I'll
remember," she said, all her confidence vanishing.
She could see in Eb's eyes that he'd watched
that recruit
die, and had to live with the
memory forever in his mind.
Probably
it was one of many nightmarish episodes he'd
like to forget.

"Sometimes
retreat really is the better part of valor,"
he said, smiling.

"You're educational."

He smiled slowly.
"Am I, now?" he asked, and the way
he looked at her didn't have much to
do with teaching her
self-defense. "I can think of a few areas where you
need...improvement."

She glanced at
Stevie, who was still falling on the mat.
"You shouldn't try to shoot ducks in a
barrel," she told
him. "It's unsporting."

"Shooting is not what I have in mind."

She cleared her
throat. "I suppose I should try falling
some more." She brightened.
"Say, if I learn to do this well, I could try falling on an
adversary!"

"Ineffective
unless you want to gain three hundred
pounds," he returned. He grinned.
"Although, you could
certainly experiment on me, if you want to. It might im
mobilize me. We
won't know until we try it. Want me to
lie down and let you practice?" he added
with twinkling
eyes.

She laughed, but
nervously. "I don't think I'm ready to
try that right away."

"Suit yourself. No hurry. We've got plenty of time."

She remembered Jess
and the drug lord and her eyes
grew worried. "Is it really dangerous for us at
home...?"

He held up a
cautioning hand. "Stevie, how about a soft
drink?"

"That would be
great!"

"There are some
cans of soda in the fridge in the
kitchen. How about bringing one for me and
your aunt as
well?"

"Sure
thing!"

Stevie took off like a bullet.

"Yes, it's
dangerous," Eb said quietly. "You aren't to
go alone, anywhere, at
night. I'll always have a man
watching the house, but if you have to go to a meeting
or
some
such thing, let me know and I'll go with you."

"Won't that
cramp your social life?" she asked without
quite meeting his eyes.

"I don't have a social life," he
said with a faint smile.
"Not of the
sort you're talking about."

"Oh."

His face tautened.
"Neither do you, if I can believe
Jess."

She shifted on the
mat. "I haven't really had much time
for men."

"You don't have
to spare my feelings," he told her
quietly. "I know I've caused you some
sleepless nights.
But you've waited too long to deal with it. The longer you
wait, the harder it's
going to be to form a relationship with
a man."

"I have Jess and Stevie to think about."

"That's an excuse. And not a very good one."

She felt uncomfortable with her memories. She wrapped

her arms around her chest and looked at him with shattered

dreams in her eyes.
He took a sharp
breath. "It will never be like that

again," he said curtly. "I
promise you it won't."
She averted her eyes to the mat "Do you think Jess

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WOMAN

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51

and Dallas have done each other in by
now?" she asked,
trying
to change the subject.

He moved closer, watching her stiffen,
watching her
draw away from him mentally.
His big, lean hands caught
her
shoulders and he made her look at him.

"You're older now," he said, his
voice steady and low.
    
"
You should know more about men than you did, even
if
you've had to learn it through
books and television. I was
fiercely
aroused that day, it had been a long, dry spell, and
you were seventeen years old. Get the picture?''

For the first time,
she did. Her eyes searched his, warily,
and nodded.

His hands contracted on her soft arms.
"You might try
it again," he said
softly.

"Try what?"

"What you did
that afternoon," he murmured, smiling
tenderly. "Wearing sexy clothes and
perfume and making
a beeline for me. Anything could happen."

Her eyes were sadder
than she realized as she met his
even gaze. "I'm not the same person I
was then," she told
him. "But you still are."

The light seemed to
go out of him. His pale eyes nar
rowed, fastened to hers. "No," he
said after a minute.
"I've changed, too. I lost my taste for commando
work a
long
time ago. I teach tactics now. That's all I do."

"You're not a family man," she replied bravely.

Something changed in
his face, in his eyes, as he studied
her. "I've thought about that a lot recently," he contra
dicted. "About a home and children. I might
have to give
up some of the contract work I do, once the kids came
along. I won't allow my children anywhere near
weapons. But I can always write field manuals and train teachers in
tactics and strategy and
intelligence-garnering," he added.

she

"You don't know that you could
settle for that,"
pointed out.

"Not until I
try," he agreed. His gaze fell to her soft
mouth and lingered there. "But
then, no man really wants
to tie himself down. It takes a determined woman to make
him want
it."

She felt as if he
were trying to tell her something, but before she could ask him to clarify what
he'd said, Stevie
was back with an armful of soft drinks and the moment
was lost.

Jess and Dallas
weren't speaking at all when the others
arrived. Dallas was toying with a cup of
cold coffee, look
ing
unapproachable. When Eb came in the door, Dallas
went out it, without a word or a backward glance.

"I don't need to ask how it went," Eb murmured.

"It would be pretty pointless," Jessica said dully.

"Mama, I learned
to do breakfalls! I wish I could show you," Stevie said, climbing into his
mother's lap and hug
ging her.

She fought tears as
she cuddled him close and kissed
his sweaty forehead. "Good for you! You
listen when Eb
tells you something. He's very good."

"Stevie's a natural," Eb
chuckled. "In fact, so is your
niece."
He gave Sally a slow going-over with his eyes.

"She's a quick
learner," Jessica said. "Like I was,
once."

"I have to get
back," Eb said. "There's nothing to
worry about right now," he added,
careful not to speak too bluntly in front of the child. "I have everything
in
hand.
But I have told Sally to let me know if she plans to
go out alone at night,
for any reason."

"I will,"
Sally promised. She didn't want to risk her
aunt's life, or Stevie's, by being too independent.

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53

Eb nodded.
"We'll keep the lessons up at least three
times a week," he told Sally.
"I want to move you into
self-defense
pretty quickly."

She understood why and felt uneasy. "Okay."

"Don't
worry," he said gently. "Everything's going to
be fine. I know
exactly what I'm doing."

She managed a smile for him. "I know that."

"Walk me to the door," he coaxed. "See you, Jess."

"Take care,
Eb," Jessie replied, her goodbye echoed by
her son's.

On the front porch,
Eb closed the door and looked down
into Sally's wide gray eyes with concern and
something
more
elusive.

"I'll have the
house watched," he promised. "But you
have to be careful about even normal
things like opening
the door when someone comes. Always keep the chain lock
on until you know who's out there. Another thing,
you have to keep your
doors and windows locked, curtains
drawn and an escape route always in
mind."

She bit her lip
worriedly. "I've never had to deal with
anything like this."

His big, warm hands
closed over her shoulders. "I
know. I'm sorry that you and Stevie have been
put in the
line of fire along with Jess. But you can handle this," he
said confidently.
"You're strong. You can do whatever
you have to do."

She searched his
hard, lean face, saw the deep lines and
scars that the violence of his life had
carved into it, and
knew that he would never lie to her. Her frown
dissolved.
His confidence in her made her feel capable of anything. She smiled.

He smiled back and
traced a lazy line from her cheek
down to her soft mouth. "If Stevie
wasn't so unpredicta-

ble, I'd kiss you," he said quietly.
"I like your mouth
under
mine."

Her caught breath was
audible. There had never been
anyone who could do to her with words what he could.

He traced her lips,
entranced. "I used to dream about
that afternoon with you," he said in a sensuous tone. "I
woke up sweating, swearing, hating myself
for what I'd
done." He laughed
hollowly. "Hating you for what I'd
done, too," he added.
"I blamed us both. But I couldn't
forget
how it was."

She colored
delicately and lowered her eyes to his broad chest under the shirt he wore. The
memories were so close
to the surface of her mind that it was impossible not to
glimpse them from time to time. Now, they were blatant
and embarrassing.

His lean hands moved
up to frame her face and force her eyes to meet his. He wasn't smiling.

"No other man
will ever have the taste of you that I
did, that day," he said roughly.
"You were so deliciously innocent."

Her lips parted at
the intensity of his tone, at the faint
glitter of his green eyes. "That isn't
what you said at the
time!" she accused.

"At the
time," he murmured huskily, watching her
mouth, "I was hurting so much
that I didn't take time to
choose
my words. I just wanted you out of the damned
truck
before I started stripping you out of those tight little
shorts you were wearing."

The flush in her
cheeks got worse. The image of it was
unbelievably shocking. Somehow, it had never
occurred to
her that at some point he might undress her, to gain ac
cess...

"What an expression," he said, chuckling in spite of

MERCENARY'S
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55

himself. "Hadn't you considered
what might happen when
you came on to me that hard?"

She shook
her head.

His fingers slid into the blond hair at
her temples where
the long braid pulled it
away from her face. "Someone
should
have had a long talk with you."

"You did," she recalled nervously.

"Long and
explicit, the day afterward," he said, nod
ding. "You didn't want to hear it, but I made you. I
liked
to think that it might have saved you
from an even worse
experience."

"It wasn't
exactly a bad experience," she said, staring at his shirt button.
"That was part of the problem."

There was a long, static silence.
"Sally," he breathed,
and his mouth
moved down slowly to cover hers in the
silence
of the porch.

She stood on tiptoe
to coax him closer, lost in the mem
ory of that long-ago afternoon. She felt his
hands on her
arms, guiding
them up around his neck before they fell
back
to her hips and lifted her into the suddenly swollen
contours of his muscular body.

She gasped, giving him the opening he
wanted, so that
he could deepen the kiss. She felt the warm hardness of
his mouth against
hers, the soft nip of his teeth, the deep
exploration of his tongue. A warm flood of
sensation
rushed
into her lower abdomen and she felt her whole body go tense with it. It was as
if her body had become perfectly
attuned to this man's years ago, and could
never belong
to anyone else.

He felt her headlong
response and slowly let her back
down, lifting his mouth away from hers. He
studied her
face, her swollen, soft mouth, her wide eyes, her dazed
expression.

"Yes," he said huskily.

"Yes?"

He bent and nipped
her lower lip sensuously before he pushed her away.

She stared up at him
helplessly, feeling as if she'd just been dropped from a great height.

His eyes went to her
breasts and lingered on the sharp
little points so noticeable at the front of her blouse, the fabric
jumping with every hard, quick beat of her heart.

She met that
searching gaze and felt the power of it all the way to her toes.

"You know as well
as I do that it's only a matter of
time," he said softly. "It always
has been."

She frowned. Her
mind seemed to have shut down. She
couldn't quite focus, and her legs felt
decidedly weak.

His eyes were back on
her breasts, swerving to the
closed
door, and to both curtained windows before he
stepped
in close and cupped her blatantly in his warm,
sensuous hands.

Sally's mouth opened
on a shocked gasp that became suddenly a moan of pleasure.

"I won't hurt
you," he whispered, and his mouth cov
ered hers hungrily.

It was the most
passionate, adult kiss of her life, even
eclipsing what had come before. His hands
found their way
under her sweatshirt and against lace-covered soft flesh. Her body
responded instantly to the slow caresses. She curled into his body, eagerly
submissive.

"Lord, what I
wouldn't give to unfasten this," he
groaned at her mouth as his fingers toyed
with the closure
at her back. "And sure as hell, Stevie would come outside
the minute I did, and
show and tell would take on a whole
new meaning."

The idea of it amused
him and he lifted his head, smiling
down into Sally's equally laughing eyes.