Texas…Now and Forever (11 page)

“Considering that you and Marisa have been married for all of three weeks,” Spence retorted, “I'm surprised he could get you out of bed at all.”

“It took some doing,” Luke drawled.

“What can I say?” the mercenary replied with a goofy grin. “I've finally been broken to the bit.”

“From what Marisa's told me,” Spence re
torted, “you're a long way from being broken to the bit. But if anyone can do it, she can.”

Silently, Haley agreed. She'd only crossed paths with Tyler's fiery, fiercely independent new wife a couple of times. The brief encounters had made a definite impression.

“I still can't believe all three of you went down in flames so quickly, one right after another.” Shaking his head, Luke snapped closed the laptop's lid. “Single women all over the world are probably weeping as we speak.”

The good-natured jab elicited a quick response from Flynt.

“You'll understand when you give up your free-wheeling bachelor ways,” he predicted with the utter confidence of a man who, against all odds, had been given a second chance at love. His blue eyes flickered in Haley's direction before returning to his friend. “And in case you've forgotten, you've got a daughter to help raise now.”

Haley stiffened. She wasn't prepared to discuss Luke's role in Lena's future. They'd work out the necessary arrangements if—when!—they got Lena back.

Luke evidently shared her reluctance to discuss the matter in front of his friends. Charging them to keep him posted on their progress during the
next few hours, he sent them off on their various assignments.

With their exit, the intense energy levels that had swirled around the kitchen for the past hour seemed to drop a good ten or twenty amps. Suddenly Haley felt as drained. Pushing out of her chair, she started clearing the table of the plates and coffee mugs.

“You don't have to do that,” Luke informed her. “Teresa has a helper who comes in. She'll take care of the dishes.”

“I need to keep busy.”

“Suit yourself.” Tucking the laptop under his arm, he left her to her self-appointed task. “I'll be in the den.”

Trailing his right hand along the marble countertop, he made his way out of the kitchen and down the hall. His footsteps echoed on the polished parquet floorboards. Belatedly, Haley realized the Persian runner that used to add such a glow of jewel-like colors to the hall was gone. Rolled up and stored away like the ones in the living room, she guessed, so Luke wouldn't trip over it.

Thinking how both their worlds had changed so dramatically, Haley collected the dirty dishes. A few minutes later she tucked the last of them into the dishwasher, wiped her hands on a handy towel and followed Luke to the den.

He was standing at the front windows, his hands shoved into his back pockets, staring through the sparkling panes as though he could actually see the glorious Texas morning now spreading its gold across the surface of the lake.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“We wait.”

“W
hy doesn't he call?”

Clutching a dew-streaked iced-tea glass in a tight fist, Haley checked her watch. It was almost noon. Three and a half hours since Luke had sent his friends off on their appointed tasks. Fifteen since Frank Del Brio's call last night. She'd just about worn a rut in the den's hardwood floor with her pacing.

“He wants to keep you on edge,” Luke stated calmly, following the sound of her voice.

“Well, he's doing a damned good job of it.”

She'd been a bundle of nerves all morning. A call to the hospital assured her her father was holding his own. That had helped steady her, for a little while anyway. But the slow, dragging hours had piled tension on top of fear on top of frustration.

“He'll try to up the pucker factor until you won't stop to think when he does call, you'll just jump. Don't play into his hands, Haley. Sit down. Force yourself to relax.”

“I can't make myself visualize a soft gray haze
right now,” she muttered, too tense to attempt the relaxation technique that had worked so well last night. “I don't want to think about anything except Lena.”

“So visualize her. Better yet, help me visualize her. Tell me about her.”

The ploy worked. Haley's emotions shifted instantly from gnawing worry about her daughter to the remembered joy of cuddling her small, warm body. With a sigh, she dropped down in the over-stuffed leather chair next to Luke's.

“She's so beautiful. Honestly! This isn't just a proud mother speaking. She's got fat little apple cheeks and the happiest gurgle. And she was born with the most incredible head of hair. Thick and black, like yours. The nurses tied a pink bow in it the day we left the hospital.”

Swirling the ice in her watered-down tea, Haley savored the memory. What could have been such a wrenching experience for a single woman had in fact been the most momentous event of her life.

“She has your eyes, too. At least she did the last time I saw her,” she added with a hitch in her voice. “That was four months ago. Four months! She was just coming up on her first birthday.”

“Is that the magic point?” Luke asked, dragging her back from the brink again with his deliberate
calm. “One year? After that, a baby's eye color doesn't change?”

“Not if the books I read are right. Supposedly the pigment cells in the irises accumulate and the eye color matures by the time the baby's a year old.”

“So she's got my hair and eyes. What did she inherit from you?”

“My stubbornness,” Haley replied without hesitation. “For such a tiny bit of fluff, she's got a temper she doesn't mind showing every so often. She has my skin tone, too, compliments of her Italian heritage. Her nose is still just a button, thank goodness. I'm hoping she doesn't develop the little bump in the bridge my mother passed on to me. I didn't miss that when the cosmetic surgeon gave me a new nose.”

“The surgeon did a good job. I remember thinking you looked familiar when you first walked into the Saddlebag that night. I couldn't place you, but there was something. Your walk maybe, or the way you held yourself. But I knew I'd never seen your face before. I would have remembered it. What do you look like now?”

With a start, Haley remembered he'd never seen her in her Daisy Parker persona. He'd left the country just before she began her stint as a waitress
at the country club. When he returned, he'd lost his sight.

“I have the same face I did that night at the Saddlebag. I just use a lot more makeup.”

Or she had, until the shoot-out three nights ago that left her father in ICU and Haley buttoned up in the FBI's safe house. She'd hardly eaten or slept since, let alone bothered with makeup.

“When I first went undercover, I had injections to make my lips fuller. I've lost weight these past months, too. Except for my hair, which is a lighter blond now, I'm pretty close to the woman I was two years ago.”

She hesitated, then placed her glass on a coaster and slipped out of her chair to sit on her heels beside his. Reaching for his left hand, she guided it to her cheek.

“Do you recognize that woman, Luke?”

The roughened pads of his fingers moved across her cheek to her nose. With a small frown of concentration, he followed the smooth slope down and up again before tracing the line of her brows. Leaning forward, he brought his right hand up to join the left. His palms cupped her cheeks. His thumbs moved over her lips in slow exploration.

Haley's breath caught. His touch was light and gentle, but her skin prickled with each slow stroke. He was so close to her now, his elbows resting on
his knees, his face mere inches from her own as he rediscovered the woman whose mouth and body he'd claimed repeatedly the night they'd conceived their child.

At the memory of those stolen hours Haley felt her womb clench in a spasm of pure sexual need. She hadn't been with another man since that night with Luke, hadn't felt the least desire for someone else's touch.

She closed her eyes, determined to level the playing field with Luke. With each quiver of her nostrils she took in the faint, lime-scented tang of his aftershave. With each brush of his thumbs along her lips she tasted herself on his skin. She heard his breathing quicken, roughen. Felt his hands slide to her nape.

Sensation after sensation crashed through her. Her belly clenched again, lower, harder. Liquid heat poured into her veins. Two years of pent-up emotion burst through the dike. She could scarcely breathe. Part of it, she knew, was sheer relief that he'd put the past behind them and agreed to help her get Lena back. Another part—deeper, more visceral—was the want she'd carried with her for as long as she could remember. The want that had led her to take his hand that night at the Saddlebag. Hunger arced through her. Fierce. Unrelenting.

He pulled her closer, communicating his own
need in a way that drew an instinctive response. Rising up her knees, she looped her arms around his neck and brought her mouth to his.

After the first startled instant, he got into the kiss. His mouth slanted over hers, as hard and hungry as Haley's was warm and willing.

She was breathless when she finally sank back on her heels. Eyes wide open now, she stared up at his face and tried to rein in her wildly galloping thoughts. Luke got his under control before she did.

“Yep,” he said with a wry halfsmile. “You're most definitely the woman you were two years ago. And more, Haley. One helluva lot more.”

She had no idea how to respond to that. Thankfully she didn't have to. The intercom buzzed at that moment, ripping through the sensual haze enveloping her. Startled, she twisted around, lost her balance and ended up in a heap on the floor beside Luke's chair.

The intercom buzzed again, three short, impatient jabs, before he got to it.

“It's Spence, Luke. Flynt's with me. We've got the cash and a high-speed scanner. Open the gates.”

 

Haley hadn't stopped to consider how many hundred-dollar bills it would take to meet Del
Brio's ransom demand. Her eyes widened as Spence opened a well-worn leather case and dumped its contents onto the kitchen table.

“There you are,” the former D.A. announced. “Twenty thousand hundred-dollar bills, banded in bundles of ten thousand dollars each.”

“Twenty thousand bills!” Haley gasped. Four faces swung in her direction. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I didn't do the math. Tell me what to do.”

“Your job is to unband a bundle and fan out the bills so I can run this optical scanning wand over the serial numbers. Flynt will man the laptop and make sure the data enters correctly. Then you pass the bills to Luke and he'll mark a corner of each with this stuff Tyler left us.”

The “stuff” came in an unmarked, quart-size plastic container. It gave off a light, almost fruity odor when Spence unscrewed the lid and carefully filled a tubelike marker with a pinpoint sponge tip.

“I don't understand,” Haley said. “If we're scanning in the serial numbers, why is it necessary to mark the bills, as well?”

“Federal Reserve banks have the personnel and the resources to conduct periodic screens of serial numbers,” Spence explained. “They can help authorities track dispersal patterns across the country over an extended period of time. For quicker results, we're treating the bills with a chemical that
reacts instantly when exposed to the kind of fluorescent lights used in department and grocery stores.”

The lawyer's mouth curved in a wicked grin. “If you think that stuff smells distinctive now, you should take a whiff of it once it's been exposed to fluorescent lighting.”

“Del Brio may pass one or two of the bills,” Luke said with grim satisfaction. “That's all he'll pass. Okay, folks, let's get to it.”

It was slow work. Physical, too. Haley had kept in shape the past twelve months hauling heavy trays and working ten- to twelve-hour shifts, but her back soon sent out warning signals each time she bent over to fan the bills.

Teresa Chavez came in a half hour after they got started. When she saw her kitchen table carpeted in hundred-dollar bills, her eyes bugged out. She didn't have to be told what they were doing, though. Luke had already informed her of the ransom demand.

“How can I help?” the housekeeper asked.

“We've got a good routine going,” Luke replied, “but we're sure working up an appetite. You could rustle us up some lunch.”

With a start, Haley realized her breakfast of cinnamon toast and Mexican lasagna had long since worn off. With the same enthusiasm as the men
she fell on the coleslaw, thick-slabbed ham sandwiches and baked beans Teresa produced. After tucking the hearty meal under their belts, they went back to work with renewed energy.

They'd marked almost a fourth of the bundles when the phone rang. Everyone at the table froze. Their eyes cut instantly to flickering red light on the cordless house phone.

Luke rapped out two swift commands. “Flynt, get on the extension in my office. Teresa, let it ring twice more before you answer it.”

The rancher sprang out of his chair. The housekeeper gulped and moved toward the cordless phone.

“Damn,” Spence muttered as the phone shrilled a second time. “We should have had Tyler rig a tracking device on your house phones.”

“Haley and I talked about that,” Luke replied grimly. “Del Brio's too smart to stay on the line long enough to work a trace. He proved that last night. I've hooked up a recorder, though. I'll get—”

He broke off at the third ring. Cocking his head, he listened intently as Teresa punched the talk button on the cordless phone.

“Callaghan residence.” Her dark eyes shifted to Haley. “Yes, she's here.”

Sick certainty curled in Haley's stomach. It was Frank. It could only be Frank.

“Who may I say's calling?”

The reply sent red rushing into the housekeeper's cheeks. Her lips folded into a thin line, she marched across the room and held out the phone.

“This
malhechor
says he's your fiancé.”

Haley jammed the phone to her ear with a white-knuckled fist. “Is Lena all right? Is she there with you?”

Frank's chuckle floated over the line. “She's here, babe. Right beside me.”

“How do I know you're not lying?”

“What, you want me to pinch her or something to make her squeal?”

“No!” The idea of Frank bruising her baby's delicate skin made her frantic. “No, please! Don't hurt her!”

With a smothered oath, Luke reached across the table and pried the phone out of her hand. “This is Callaghan, Del Brio.”

“Well, well. So she came to you for the money, did she?”

“You know damned well she did or you wouldn't have called here.”

“Don't get smart with me, Callaghan. I'm the one holding all the cards in this hand.” Sloughing
off his false geniality like a snake shedding its skin, Del Brio switched gears. “Rumor is you're the brat's father. That true?”

“Yes.”

“Have you and Haley been getting it on all this time? Were you doing her when she was wearing my ring?”

There was more than anger behind the questions. There was an overlay of sick, twisted jealousy. Luke made a mental note of both before replying.

“If I was, she wouldn't have been wearing your ring. You couldn't keep her then, and you're sure as hell not going to have another chance at her.”

“What, you think you're gonna get between us, you blind, useless cripple? I don't think so. I've seen the way your friends lead you around like a puppy on a leash. Haley needs a real man.”

“Like you?”

“Yeah, like me. She's mine, Callaghan. You hear me? You might have slipped past me once when I wasn't looking, but I'm telling you now, I'm going to—”

“You're going to what, Del Brio?”

As if realizing how much of himself he'd exposed, he abruptly switched topics. “You got the two million?”

“I've got it, but you won't see a penny until we have proof Lena's alive and well.”

“Proof? You want proof? All right, I'll give you proof. I'll send you one of the brat's fingers.”

“Cut the crap, Del Brio. You're a businessman. You wouldn't pay for damaged goods and neither will I. Send proof, then we'll talk.”

With a click of a button, Luke cut the connection.

Absolute silence followed. Spence frowned in intense concentration. Teresa Chavez stared at her employer. Haley sat in stunned shock.

She cleared her throat. Slowly. Painfully. Even then, all she could manage was a hoarse croak. “Damaged goods? Were you talking about Lena?”

Luke smothered a curse. He could hear the near panic she was fighting to control. For a second or two he considered glossing over Del Brio's threat. Just as swiftly he discarded the idea. He and Haley were in this together. A team. Besides, she'd probably insist on listening to the tape of the call.