Texas…Now and Forever (8 page)

“Listen and listen good, cowboy! You're dead wrong on every count but one. The man who snatched our child has demanded a ransom, but I didn't come here intending to shake you down for the two million. I don't want your money, Callaghan!”

“Is that right?”

“That's right, dammit!”

He looked anything but convinced. “Then what do you want?”

“Your help. You're the one man I can take with me when I go after my baby.”

“Right.” Skepticism cut deep into his voice. “Because you've suddenly decided to admit I'm her father?”

“No, you jackass. Because you're blind.”

He reared back, jerking away as if she'd hauled off and open-handed him. He recovered almost immediately, though. She'd give him that. Whatever else Luke had lost in the jungles of Central America, he could still spring to the attack with lethal agility.

“Why don't you run that by me one more time?” he suggested with biting derision. “I'm having a little trouble understanding exactly how my impaired vision plays in this situation.”

“I'll tell you exactly how it plays. I just got a call from the kidnapper. He told me to get together two million in unmarked, nonsequential bills. He said he'd contact me later with instructions on when and where to deliver it. At the same time, he swore… He warned…”

She choked. Swallowing hard, she forced out the words that sliced at her throat like shards of glass.

“He warned that I'd never see Lena alive again if there was a police officer or a federal agent anywhere within a hundred miles when I make the delivery. That's why I'm asking—why I'm begging you to go with me. He'd suspect anyone else, think I was trying to set him up, but he wouldn't…That is, he couldn't…”

“He wouldn't worry about a blind man.”

She bit her lip, hating to throw his disability in his face but determined to use whatever weapon she could.

“Look, all I need is for you to distract Frank, to divert his attention for a few seconds. I'll take it from there.”

“Frank?” His black brows came together. “Are you talking about Frank Del Brio?”

“Yes. We suspected it all along. After the shoot-out the other night, we were certain. But until he called a little while ago, we didn't know what he wanted for her.”

Luke reached for her again, his hands fumbling until they locked around her upper arms. He pulled her up, as if to feel and not just hear what she had to say.

“Who's ‘we'?” he demanded fiercely. “Who the hell are you, Daisy? And what's your connection to the Texas mob?”

She hesitated, trying to decide which bomb to
drop first, searching for a way to lay bare the secrets she'd buried deep inside her for so long.

Suddenly the slamming of car doors ricocheted through the night, followed by the thud of running footsteps. The sound triggered an instant response in Luke. Shoving Haley behind him, he spun to meet the threat he could hear but not see. Pinned against the car, she wiggled frantically until she made out the shadowy figures rushing toward them with weapons drawn.

“Move away from her!” the lead runner shouted.

She felt Luke tense, sensed him readying to spring.

“It's okay!” Grabbing the sleeve of his blue denim shirt, she held him back. “They're FBI!”

“What?”

The two agents fanned out to either side, weapons held high, no doubt remembering Sean Collins's terse instructions to keep his star witness safe at all costs.

“Move away from her, Callaghan. Slow and easy. Keep those hands right where we can see them.”

Luke complied. He took a step to the side, his hands held at waist level.

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Haley shoved her hair out of her eyes and eased out from behind the
protective shield of his body. The lead agent kept Luke covered while he speared her with a quick glance.

“You okay, Miss Mercado?”

The man beside her went still. Absolutely still.

“Mercado?” he echoed softly. Dangerously. “Did he just call you Miss Mercado?”

H
aley swallowed a curse. She'd imagined a hundred different scenarios in which she finally revealed her real identity to Luke. None of those scenarios had been played out in a parking lot, with guns drawn.

Nor had she expected this sudden, Arctic silence. Disbelief, yes. Anger, of course. The kind of deep, visceral anger a man once accused of causing Haley Mercado's death was entitled to feel. She suspected that would come, though, and soon.

Delaying the inevitable, she answered the agent's question first. “Mr. Callaghan wasn't threatening me. We were just talking.”

“Didn't look much like talking from where we sat,” he returned. “You sure you're okay?”

“Yes.”

He eyed Luke speculatively. “Want us to hang loose while you finish your chat, Miss Mercado?”

“No. Please, just leave us alone.”

“All right. If you say so. But we're close if you need us.”

They retreated to the van, shutting the doors behind them. Stillness settled over the parking lot once more. The hot, dusty quiet plucked at Haley's raw nerves like a hag with boney fingers. Bracing her shoulders, she turned to Luke.

He might have been carved from the granite dug out of the hills of north Texas. He stood rigid, unmoving, his eyes narrowed to slits. As if he could actually see her. As if he was trying to strip away the layers of lies and deceit with which she'd cloaked herself.

“I wanted to tell you the truth, Luke. You and the others. I couldn't.”

He didn't answer. The silence stretched tight and thin. He broke it with a savage command.

“Get in the car.”

“What?”

His jaw worked. “Get in the car. You've got some serious explaining to do, Miss Mercado. I've got a few things to say to you, too, but I'll be damned if I'll say them in a parking lot with the FBI and God knows who else listening in.”

 

The white van followed them all the way to Luke's sprawling estate on Lake Maria.

Since the Callaghans had made their millions in oil and the stock market, the property Luke had inherited didn't run to thousands of acres like the
cattle ranches owned by the Carsons and Wainwrights, Mission Creek's two most prominent families. The house sat on five hundred acres of prime real estate, though, bounded by the lake to the east and low, rolling hills to the west.

Haley pulled up at massive wrought-iron gates, which slid open at a click of the thin, quarter-size remote dangling from the key ring Luke dug out of his pocket. When she drove through, the gates slid shut again.

“Stop here for a moment,” Luke snapped.

Aiming the remote at some invisible target, he clicked out a code. Haley neither saw nor heard any evidence of the security system he was obviously reactivating, but she guessed it would be elaborate given his long and frequent absences from Mission Creek.

While her rust-spotted sedan idled just inside the gates, the FBI van rolled to a halt outside. Its headlights blazed in her rearview mirror. She half expected the driver to lean on the horn and demand entrance, but he must have radioed the FBI command center for instructions. A moment later the van backed up and parked beside the stone gate-post.

Seeing the FBI settling in on the other side of the gate raised an odd, prickly sensation on Haley's skin. She'd worked with them for more than a year,
passing information, receiving coded instructions. Now Sean Collins's team was on the other side of the fence, literally, and she was on her own.

No, not on her own. She was with Luke.

The prickly sensation intensified, raising goose bumps all up and down her arms.

“It's set,” the man beside her said tersely. “Just follow the drive. The house is about a mile up.”

“I know.”

Her soft reply didn't go down well. Like Haley, Luke had to be remembering the little sister who'd tagged along when Ricky had come to shoot pool or to check out the lasted foal sired by the Callaghan championship stud. The same little sister Luke had believed dead all these years.

“That's right,” he bit out. “You do.”

He stared straight ahead into his own private darkness while Haley negotiated the drive. The tires swooshed on the tarmac. A smooth, manicured lawn rolled down to the lake. A shiver rippled along her spine as she glanced off to the left. She couldn't see the water in the darkness, but she knew it was there.

She had so much to explain, so much to account for. Dreading the ordeal ahead, she brought the car to a stop under a tall portico supported by white columns on either side. A massive wrought-iron coach lamp hung suspended by chains, illuminat
ing the wide front steps and double doors framed by additional lamps. Easing out from behind the wheel, Haley rounded the front of the car to take Luke's arm.

“I've learned to count the steps,” he informed her, shaking loose of her hold. “I manage in my own home.”

“Sorry.”

“Just walk ahead of me.”

He wasn't just counting his steps, she realized a moment later. He was listening to the echo of her footfalls, first on the drive, then on the stairs, and pacing himself accordingly. Once he'd gained the wide porch, he moved with confidence.

Skimming his left hand down the door, he found the key slot and inserted a narrow plastic card with his right. The card unlocked the door and activated the lights inside. Brushing past him into the soaring, two-story foyer, Haley waited while he reinserted the card, this time into a wall unit that contained several rows of infrared discs and a palm-size screen.

“That's a pretty elaborate security system,” she murmured.

“Tyler designed it to my specifications. The sensors emit silent pulses instead of sound.” His mouth twisted. “The sequencing of those pulses allows even a person who can't see to pinpoint the
location of an intruder without letting him know he's being tracked.”

Like a panther stalking its prey in the night.

With a little shiver, Haley followed him into the living room just off the hall. The cavernous room faced east, with a long wall of windows to let in the morning light. The windows were shuttered now, and the only illumination came from a desk lamp that flickered on at their approach. The inch-thick Persian area rugs that used to cover the oak floorboards had been removed, she saw. Probably so Luke wouldn't trip over them. The floor plants were gone, too, no doubt for the same reason.

The man-size sorrel-leather sofas and chairs were still there, though, arranged in comfortable groupings facing the massive stone fireplace that dominated the room. So was the rack of the Texas longhorns mounted above the mantel. A good twelve feet long, the horns speared to sharp tips.

Haley's glance drifted to the exquisitely woven Mexican blanket draped across the back of one sofa. The colorful throw was a treasured gift, she knew, from the couple who'd acted more like surrogate parents to Luke than his own, irresponsible uncle.

“I hope we didn't disturb Mr. and Mrs. Chavez, coming in so late like this.”

“They moved out of the main house into the
guest cottage three years ago,” Luke informed her in a clipped tone. “They needed space for their grandkids to romp and tear around when they come to visit.”

With four bedrooms, a wraparound porch, and a breathtaking view of the lake, the guest cottage was larger than most family homes. The Chavezes' lively brood would certainly have room to romp. The rest of the staff, Haley remembered, lived off the grounds. So it was just her and Luke, all alone in this two-story mansion.

As if reading her thoughts, he tossed his hat onto one of the chairs, hitched his hips against a high sofa back and folded his arms. “All right, Haley. No one's going to interrupt us now. You've got a few things to explain. Why don't you start with your miraculous resurrection from the dead?”

She ran her tongue over dry lips. She'd held her secrets for so long, guarded every word, measured every lie, that she had to drag the truth from deep inside her.

“I'll have to begin before my resurrection.”

“Begin wherever the hell you want,” he said with brutal callousness. “Just get on with it.”

Haley shoved her hands into the front pockets of her jeans. It shamed her to admit she'd run away. Shamed her even more to admit the reasons why.

“I don't know how much you knew about my family's business,” she began.

“I'd heard rumors,” Luke said acidly.

More than rumors. Hell, he couldn't have formed such a close friendship with Ricky and not suspected the source of the Mercado family income.

“Then you have some idea of the kinds of things my uncle Carmine was involved in. He and Frank Del Brio.”

“Oh, I've got a good idea what your fiancé was involved in.”

Stung by the derision in his voice, Haley fired back. “I didn't get engaged to him by choice, you know.”

“No, I don't know. If you didn't want to marry Del Brio, why the hell did you wear his ring?”

“Because Frank knew every detail of my father's involvement in Uncle Carmine's operations. He threatened to leak what he knew if I didn't marry him.”

“I only met your uncle a couple of times,” Luke scoffed, “but I can't see Carmine Mercado allowing anyone to set up his brother and force his niece into marriage against her will.”

“Can't you? Maybe that's because you're an outsider. You don't understand the family. My uncle wanted me to marry Frank. Carmine trusted
him. More than he trusted my father by that time. So I went along with the engagement. I had to. But I began plotting my escape the same day.”

“Right. Your escape.” His jaw hardened. The disdain in his voice took on the cutting edge of disgust. “You don't have to tell me about your escape. I was there, remember? So were Tyler and Spence and Flynt.”

His fury flared white-hot. Leaping across the room, it singed Haley from head to toe.

“Do you know how many frantic hours we spent searching for you? Do you have any idea of the guilt we've all carried since that night?”

“Yes, I—”

“No, lady, you don't. You can't. Any more than you can imagine how it feels to stand trial for the wrongful death of your best friend's sister.”

“I didn't mean for you to take the blame! Any of you! I intended to slip away during the barbecue that night. I'd planned to leave my sandals and coverup by the shore so people would think I'd gone swimming and drowned. But when I went out in the speedboat with you and we almost hit that tree, I—I took advantage of the situation.”

“You sure did. Just out of curiosity, whose decomposed body did they pull out of the lake?”

“I don't know. I'm guessing Frank arranged to have that body dropped in the lake to solidify the
case against you. He would have wanted you and the others to pay for his fiancée's supposed death.”

Luke gave a short, bitter laugh. “That's understating the case considerably. Del Brio did everything but bribe the jury. Hell, for all I know, he probably did that, too.”

“Carl said he tried.”

“Carl? Carl Bridges?”

“Yes.”

“Let me get this straight. You were in communication with my attorney?”

“Yes.”

“During the trial?”

“Before, during and after,” she admitted. “The judge helped me slip out of the country. He arranged for a fake passport and got me set up in London. He was also the one who told me about the trial. I know you won't believe me, Luke, but I wouldn't have let you or the others take the blame. I was ready to jump a plane and come home as soon as I heard charges had been filed against you.”

“Sure you were.”

“The judge talked me out of it. He swore he'd get you off. I sent proof that I was still alive, just in case, but he never had to use it.”

“So why did you come back?” he demanded. “That night, two years ago, when I bumped into
you at the Saddlebag, why did you come out of hiding then?”

“I came back to see my mother. She was in the hospital. She'd been badly beaten. It was made to look like a mall mugging, but it was a warning to my father to tow the line.”

That pulled Luke up short. With a low, savage oath, he pictured the woman who'd always treated him with the loving warmth she showed her own son.

“I'd heard Isadora was hospitalized, but after the trial things got so bad between me and your family that I didn't want to upset her with a visit. She died soon after that, didn't she?”

“Yes, she did.”

She couldn't have feigned the raw pain in her reply. A good chunk of Luke's anger melted as the enormity of what she was telling him sank in.

“I need a drink,” he muttered. “How about you? I keep some cognac here in the bar, but I could brew coffee or—”

“Cognac's fine.”

Measuring his steps, he crossed to the built-in bar and felt for the Waterford decanter glinting in the soft light. The heavy crystal stopper chinked as he removed it and nudged brandy snifters under the decanter's lip. After pouring healthy portions
for both of them, he carried the snifters back across the room and held one out.

When Haley reached for it, her fingers brushed his. The heat was still there, Luke discovered with a jolt. The same glowing spark they'd fanned into flames two years ago.

Retreating, he moved to the sofa. Haley followed his lead. Luke heard the soft whoosh of the leather cushions as she settled in a chair on the far side of the marble slab that served as a coffee table.

“So you came home to visit your mother,” he said, picking up where they'd left off. “After which you stopped in at the Saddlebag for a drink and we ended up in bed.”

“Yes.”

He heard the wince in her voice at his phrasing, followed by a blunt honesty that surprised him.

“Just for the record, I don't regret that night, Luke. I could never regret it. It gave me Lena.”