SALLY HAD VIOLENT, PASSIONATE DREAMS that night. She moved helplessly under invisible caressing hands, moaning, arching up to prolong their warm, sweet contact. Her body burned, swelled, ached. She whispered to some faceless phantom, pleading with it not to stop.
There was soft, deep laughter at her ear and the rough warmth of an unshaven face moving against her skin, where her heart beat frantically. Slowly it occurred to her that it felt just a little too vivid to be a dream…
Her eyes flew open and blond-streaked brown hair came into focus under them in the pale dawn light filtering in through the window curtains. Her hands were enmeshed in its thick, cool strands and when she looked down, she realized that her pajama top was open, baring her to a marauding mouth.
“Eb!” she exclaimed huskily.
“It’s all right. You’re only dreaming,” he whispered, and his mouth slid up to cover her lips as the hair-roughened skin of his muscular chest slid over her bare breasts. She felt his legs entwining with her own, felt the throb of his body, the tenderness of his hands, his mouth, as he learned her by touch and taste.
“Dreaming?”
“That’s right.” He lifted his lips from hers and looked down into misty gray eyes. He smiled. “And a lovely dream it is,” he added in a whisper as he lifted away enough to give his eyes a stark view of everything the pajama top no longer covered. “Lovelier than I ever imagined.”
“What time is it?” she asked, dazed.
“Dawn,” he told her, smoothing her long hair back away from her flushed face. “Everyone else is still asleep. And there are no bugs, of any sort, in here with us,” he added meaningfully.
She touched his rough cheek gently, studying him as he’d studied her. He was still wearing the pajama trousers, but his broad chest was bare. Like her own.
He rolled over onto his back, taking her with him. He guided her hands to his chest with a quiet smile. “I was going to let you wake up alone,” he murmured. “But I didn’t have enough willpower. There you lay, blond hair scattered over my pillows, the pajama top half off.” He shook his head. “You can’t imagine how lovely you look in the dawn light. Like a fairy, all creamy and gold. Irresistible,” he added, “to a man who’s abstained as long as I have.”
She traced the pattern of hair over his breastbone. “How long have you abstained?”
“Years too long,” he whispered, searching her eyes. “And that’s why I set the alarm in Dallas’s room to go off five minutes from now. It will wake him and he’ll wake Jess and Stevie. Stevie will come looking for you.” He grinned. “See how carefully I look after your virtue, Miss Johnson?”
She gave her own bare torso a poignant glance and met his eyes again.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Virtue,” he emphasized, “not modesty. I don’t seduce virgins, in case you forgot.”
She couldn’t quite decide whether he was playing or serious.
He saw that in her face and smiled gently. “Sally, the hardest thing I ever did in my life was to push you away one spring afternoon six years ago,” he said softly. “I had passionate, vivid dreams about you in some of the wildest places on earth. I’m still having them.” His hand swept slowly down her body, watching it lift helplessly to his touch. “So are you, judging by the sounds you were making in your sleep when I came to bed about ten minutes ago. I crawled in beside you and you came right up against me and touched me in a way I won’t tell you about.”
She searched his eyes blankly. “I did what?”
“Want to know?” he asked with an outrageous grin. “Okay.” He leaned close and whispered it in her ear and she cried out, horrified.
“No need to feel embarrassed,” he chided. “I loved it.”
She knew her face was scarlet, but he looked far more pleased than teasing.
He traced her lower lip lazily. “For a few tempestuous seconds I forgot Lopez and last night, and just about everything else of any immediate importance.” His eyes darkened as he held her poised above him. “I’ve lived on dreams for a long time. The reality is pretty shattering.”
“Dreams?”
He nodded. He wasn’t smiling. “I wanted you six years ago. I still do, more than ever.” He brushed back her disheveled hair and looked at her with eyes that were tender and possessive. “I’m your home. Wherever I go, you go.”
She didn’t understand what he meant. Her face was troubled.
He rolled her over onto her back and propped himself above her. “From what I know of you, my lifestyle isn’t going to break you. You’ve got spirit and courage, and you’re not afraid to speak your mind. I think you’ll adjust very well, especially if I give up any work that takes me out of the country. I can still teach tactics, although I’ll cut down my contract jobs when the babies start coming along.”
“Babies?” She looked completely blank.
“Listen, kid,” he murmured dryly, “what we’re doing causes them.” He frowned. “Well, not exactly what we’re doing. But if we were wearing less, and doing a little more than we’re doing, we’d be causing them.”
Her whole body tingled. She searched his eyes with a feeling of unreality. “You want to have a child with me?” she asked, awed.
“Oh, yes. I want to have a lot of children with you,” he whispered solemnly.
She laid her hands flat on his broad chest, savoring its muscular warmth as she considered what he was saying. She frowned, because he hadn’t mentioned love or marriage.
“What’s missing?” he asked.
“I teach school,” she said worriedly. “My reputation…”
Now he was frowning. “God Almighty, do you think I’m asking you to live in sin with me, in Jacobsville, Texas?” he asked, with exaggerated horror.
“You didn’t say anything about marriage,” she began defensively.
He grinned wickedly. “Do you really think I spent so much time on you just to give you karate lessons?” he drawled. “Darlin’, it would take years of them to make you proficient enough to protect yourself from even a weak adversary. I brought you over here for practice so that I could get my arms around you.”
Her eyes brightened. “Did you, really?”
He chuckled. “See what depths I’ve sunk to?” he murmured. He shook his head. “I had to give you enough time to grow up. I didn’t want a teenager who was hero worshiping me. I wanted a woman, a strong woman, who could stand up to me.”
She smoothed her hands up to his broad shoulders. “I think I can do that,” she mused.
He nodded. “I think you can, too. Can you live with what I do?”
She smiled. “Of course.”
He drew in a slow breath and his eyes were more possessive than ever. “Then we’ll get Jess out of harm’s way and then we’ll get married.”
She pulled him down to her. “Yes,” she whispered against his hard mouth.
Seconds later, they were so close that she wasn’t certain he’d be able to draw back at all, when there was a loud knock at the door and the knob rattled.
“Aunt Sally!” came a plaintive little voice. “I want some cereal and they haven’t got any that’s in shapes and colors. It’s such boring cereal!”
Sally laughed even as Eb managed to drag himself away from the tangle of their legs with a groan that was half amusement and half agony.
“I’ll be right there, Stevie!”
“Why’s the door locked?” he called loudly.
“Come on here, youngster, and let’s see if we can find something you’d like to eat,” came a deep, amused adult voice.
“Okay, Dallas!”
The voices retreated. Eb lay shivering a little with reaction, but he grinned when Sally sat up and looked down at him with love glowing in her eyes.
“Close call,” he whispered.
“Very,” she agreed.
He took a long, hungry last look at her breasts and resolutely sat up and fastened her buttons again with a rueful smile. “Maybe food is a bearable substitute for what I really want,” he mused.
She leaned forward and kissed him gently. “I’ll make you glad we waited,” she whispered against his mouth.
Several heated minutes later, they joined the others at the breakfast table, but Eb didn’t mention future plans. He was laying down ground rules for the following week, starting with the very necessary trip Sally and Stevie must take to school the next day.
“We could keep him out of school until this is over,” Dallas said tersely, glancing at the child who was sitting between himself and Jessica. “I don’t like having him at risk.”
“Neither do I,” Jessica said heavily. “But it’s possible that he won’t be. Lopez has a weakness for children,” she said. “It’s the only virtue he possesses, but he’s a maniac about abusive adults. He’d never hurt Stevie, no matter what.”
“I’d have to agree with that,” Eb said surprisingly.
“Then life goes on as usual,” Jessica said. “And maybe Lopez will make a mistake and we’ll have him. Or at least,” she added, “a way of getting at him.”
“What about Rodrigo?” Dallas asked abruptly.
“He phoned me late last night,” Eb told him. “He’s already in town, in place. Fast worker. It seems he has a relative, a ‘mule’ who works for Lopez in Houston, a distant relative who doesn’t know what Rodrigo really does for a living. He got Rodrigo a job driving a truck for the new operation here.” He let out a breath through his teeth. “Once we get Lopez’s attention away from Jess,” he added, “that operation is going to be our next priority.”
“Can’t you just send the sheriff over there to arrest them?” Sally asked.
“It’s inside the city limits. Chief Chet Blake has jurisdiction there, and, of course, he’d help if he could,” Eb told her. “But so far, all we have on Lopez’s employees is a distant connection to a drug lord. Unless we can catch them in the act of receiving or shipping cocaine, what would we charge them with? Building a warehouse is legal, especially when you have all the easements and permission from the planning commission.”
“That’s why we’re going to stake out the place, once this is over,” Dallas added. He glanced from Jessica to Stevie with worried eyes. “But first we have to solve the more immediate problem.”
Jess felt for his hand on the table beside her and tangled her fingers into it. “We’ll get through this,” she said in a soft tone. “I can’t cold-bloodedly give a human being’s life up to Lopez, no matter what the cost. The person involved risked everything to put him away. And even then, his attorneys found a loophole.”
“Don’t forget that it took them a couple of years to do that,” Eb reminded her. “He won’t be easy to catch a second time. He has enough pull with the Mexican government to keep them from extraditing him back here for trial.”
“I hear DEA’s going to put him on their top ten Most Wanted list,” Dallas said. “That will turn up the heat a little, especially with a fifty-thousand dollar reward to sweeten the deal.”
“Lopez would double their bounty out of his pocket change to get them off his tail, even if we could find someone crazy enough to go down to Cancún after him,” Eb said.
“Micah Steele would, in a second,” Dallas replied.
Eb chuckled. “I imagine he would. But he’s been working on a case overseas with Cord Romero and Bojo Luciene.”
“Bojo, the Moroccan,” Dallas recalled. “Now there’s a character.”
Eb was immediately somber. “Okay, tomorrow morning I’ll follow Sally and Stevie in to school. Dallas can tail them on the way home. We’ll stay in constant contact and hope for the best.”
“The best,” Dallas replied, “would be that Lopez would give up.”
“It won’t happen,” Eb assured him.
“Have you considered contacting your informant?” Dallas asked Jessica. “If we could get him back to the States, we could arrange around-the-clock protection and get him into the witness protection program, where even Lopez couldn’t find him.”
She grimaced. “I thought of that, but I honestly don’t know how to locate my informant,” she said sadly. “The people who could have helped me do it are dead.”
Eb scowled. “All of them?”
Jessica nodded with a sigh. “All of them. About six months ago. Just before my accident.”
“Rodrigo might be able to dig something up,” Dallas said.
“That’s very possible,” Eb agreed. “Jessica, you could trust him with the name. I know, you don’t want to put your informant in danger. But if we can’t find him, how can we protect him?”
She hesitated. Then she shifted in her chair, clinging even more tightly to Dallas’s big hand. “Okay,” she said finally. “But he has to promise to keep the information to himself. Can I trust him to do that?”
“Yes,” Eb said with certainty.
“All right, then. When can we do it?”
“Tomorrow after school,” Eb said. “I’ll get Cy Parks to run into him ‘accidentally’ and slip him a note, so that Lopez won’t get suspicious.”
Jessica’s head moved to rest on Dallas’s shoulder. “I wish I’d done things differently. So many people at risk, all because I didn’t do my job properly.”
“But you did,” Dallas said at once, sliding a protective arm around her. “You did what any one of us would do. And you did put Lopez away. It’s not your fault that he slipped out of the country.”
Jessica smiled. “Thanks.”
“You going to marry my mama, Dallas?” Stevie piped up.
“Stevie!” Jessica exclaimed.
“Yes, I am,” Dallas said, chuckling at Jessica’s red face. “She just doesn’t know it yet. How do you feel about that, Stevie?”
“That would be great!” he said enthusiastically. “You and me can watch wrestling together!”
“Yes, we can.” Dallas kissed Jess’s hair gently and looked at his son with proud, possessive eyes.
Sally, watching them, knew that everything was going to be all right for Jessica, once they were out of this mess. She’d be free to marry Eb and she’d never have to worry about her aunt or her cousin again. Even more important, Jessica would be loved. That meant everything to Sally.
* * *
EB FOLLOWED THEM TO school the next morning, keeping a safe distance. But there were no attempts on them along the way, and once they were inside the building, Sally felt safe. She and Stevie went right along to her class, smiling and greeting teachers and other children they knew.
“It’s gonna be all right, isn’t it, Aunt Sally?” Stevie asked at the door to her classroom.
“Yes, I think it is,” she said with a warm smile.
She checked her lesson plan while the students filed into the classroom. A boy at the back of the room made a face and caught Sally’s attention.
“Miss Johnson, there’s a puddle of something that smells horrible back here!”
She got up from her desk and went to see. There was, indeed, a puddle. “I’ll just go and get one of the janitors,” she said with a smile.
But as she started out the door, a tall, quiet man appeared with a mop and pail.
“Hi, Harry,” she said to him.
“Hard to be inside today when it’s so nice outside,” he said with a rueful smile. “I should be sitting on the river in my boat right now.”
She smiled. “I’m sorry. But it’s a good thing for us that you’re here.”
He started to wheel the bucket and mop away when one of the wheels came off the bucket. He muttered something and bent to look.
“I’ll have to carry it. Can I get one of these youngsters to help me carry the mop?” he asked.
“I’ll go!” Stevie volunteered at once.
“Yes, of course,” Sally said. “Would you rather I went with you?”
He shook his head. “No need. This strong young man can manage a mop, can’t you, son?” he asked with a big grin.
“Sure can!” Stevie said, hefting the mop over one shoulder.
“Let’s away then, my lad,” the man joked. “I’ll send him right back, so he won’t miss any class,” he promised.
“Okay.”
She watched Stevie go down the crowded hall behind Harry. It wasn’t quite time for class to start, and she didn’t think anything of the incident. Until five minutes later, when Stevie hadn’t reappeared.
She left a monitor in charge of her class and went down the hall to the janitor’s closet. There was the broken bucket, and the mop, but Stevie was nowhere in sight. But the janitor was. He’d been knocked out. She went straight to the office to phone Eb and call the paramedics. Fortunately Harry only had a slight concussion. To be safe, he was taken to the hospital for observation. Sally felt sick. She should have realized that Lopez might send someone to the school. Why had she been so gullible?
Eb arrived at the front office with the police chief, Chet Blake, and two of his officers. They went from door to door, combing the school. But Stevie was no longer there. One of the other janitors remembered seeing a stranger leave the building with the little boy and get into a brown pickup truck in the parking lot.
With that information, the police put out a bulletin. But it was too late. They found the pickup truck minutes later, abandoned in another parking lot, at a grocery store. Stevie was nowhere to be seen.
* * *
THEY WAITED BY THE telephone that afternoon for the call that was sure to come. When it did, Eb had to bite down hard on what he wanted to say. Jessica and Sally had been in tears ever since he brought Sally home to the ranch.
“Now,” the voice came in a slow, accented drawl, “Stevie’s mother will give me the name I want. Or her son will never come home.”
“She had to be sedated,” Eb said, thinking fast. “She’s out cold.”
“You have one hour. Not a second longer.” The line went dead.
Eb cursed roundly.
“Now what do we do?” Sally asked.
He phoned Cy Parks. “Did you get that message sent for me?” he asked.
“Yes. Scramble the signal.”
Eb touched a button on the phone. “Shoot.”
Cy gave him a telephone number. “He should be there by now. What can I do to help?”
Eb didn’t have to be told that the news about Stevie’s abduction was all over town. “Nothing. Wish me luck.”
“You know it.”
He hung up. Eb dialed the other number and waited. It rang once. Twice. Three times. Four times.
“Come on!” Eb growled impatiently.
On the fifth ring, the receiver was lifted.
“Rodrigo?” Eb asked at once.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to put Jessica on the line, and leave the room. She’ll give you a name. You know what to do with it.”
“Okay.”
Eb gave the receiver to Jessica and motioned everybody out of the communications room. He closed the door.
Jessica felt the receiver in her hands and took a deep breath. “The name of my informant was Isabella Medina,” she said quietly. “She worked as a housekeeper for…”
There was an intake of breath on the other end of the line. “But surely you knew?” he asked at once.
“Knew what?” Jessica stammered.
“Isabella was found washed up on the rocks in Cancún, just before Lopez’s capture,” Rodrigo said abruptly. “She is long dead.”
“Oh, good Lord,” Jessica gasped.
“How could you not know?” he demanded.
Jessica wiped her forehead with a shaking hand. “I lost touch with her just before the trial. I assumed that she’d gone undercover to escape vengeance from Lopez. She wasn’t going to testify, after all. She only gave me sources of hard information that I could use to prosecute him. Afterward, there were only three people who knew about her involvement, and they died under rather…mysterious circumstances.”
“This is the name Lopez wants?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said miserably. “He’s got my son!”
“Then you lose nothing by giving him the name,” he said quietly. “Do you?”
“No. But he may not even remember her…”
“He was in love with her,” Rodrigo said coldly. “His women have a habit of washing up on beaches. The last, a young singer in a Cancún nightclub, died only weeks ago at his hands. There is no proof, of course,” he added coldly. “The official cause of death was suicide.”
He sounded as though the matter was personal. She hesitated to ask. “You knew the singer?” she ventured.
There was a pause. “Yes. She was…my sister.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“So am I. Give Lopez the name. It will pacify him and spare your son any more adventures. He will not harm the boy,” he added at once. “I think you must know this already.”
“I do. At least he has one virtue among so many vices. But it doesn’t ease the fear.”
“Of course not. Tell Scott I’ll be in touch, and not to contact me again. When I have something concrete, I’ll call him.”
“I’ll tell him. Thank you.”
“De nada.” He hung up.
She went into the other room, feeling her way along the wall.
“Well?” Sally asked.
“My informant is dead,” Jessica said sadly. “Lopez killed her, and I never knew. I thought she’d escaped and maybe changed her name.”
“What now?” Sally asked miserably.
“I give Lopez the name,” Jessica replied. “It will harm no one now. She was so brave. She actually worked in his house and pretended to care about him, just so that she could find enough evidence to convict him. Her father and mother, and her sister, had been gunned down in their village by his men, because they spoke to a government unit about the drug smuggling. She was sick with fear and grief, but she was willing to do anything to stop him.” She shook her head. “Poor woman.”
“A brave soul,” Eb said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” Jessica said. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling chilled. “What if Lopez won’t believe me?”
“You know,” Eb said quietly, “I think he will.”
“Let’s hope so,” Dallas agreed, his eyes narrow and dark with worry.
Sally put a loving arm around her aunt. “We’ll get Stevie back,” she said gently. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Jessica hugged her back tearfully. “What would I do without you?” she whispered huskily.
Sally exchanged a long look with Dallas. She smiled. “I think you’re going to find out very soon,” she teased. “And I’ll be your bridesmaid.”
“Matron of honor,” Eb corrected with soft, tender eyes.
“What?” Jessica exclaimed.
“I’m going to marry your niece, Jess,” Eb said gently. “I always meant to, you know. And,” he added with mock solemnity, “it does seem the least I can do, considering that she’s saved herself for me all these years, despite the blatant temptations of college life…”
“Temptations,” Sally chuckled. “If you only knew!”
“Explain that,” Eb challenged.
She let go of Jessica and went close to him, sliding her arms naturally around his hard waist. “As if there’s a man on the planet who could compare with you,” she murmured, and reached up to kiss his chin. Her eyes literally glowed with love. “There never was any competition. There never could be.”
Eb lifted an eyebrow. “I could return the compliment,” he said in a deep, quiet tone. “You’re in a class all your own, Sally mine.”
She laid her cheek against his hard chest. “They’ll give Stevie back, won’t they?” she asked after a minute.
“Yes,” he said, utterly certain.
Sally glanced at Jessica, who was close beside Dallas now, leaning against him. They looked as if they’d always belonged together. Things had to turn out all right for them. They just had to. Lopez might have one virtue, but Sally wasn’t at all sure that Eb was right. She only prayed that Stevie would be returned when Jess gave up the informant’s name. If Lopez did keep his word, and that seemed certain, there was a chance. She had to hope it was a good one.