15
It was a very close contest, but most people agreed that Rourke and Clarisse outclassed the other two couples. Temporarily at least.
“We’ll have a rematch one day,” Matt said drily. “So don’t gloat too much.”
Rourke just grinned.
Clarisse was talking to Tippy at the snack table when Rourke’s phone rang. He excused himself and went outside to answer it.
“Ya,” he said curtly, all business. “What’s up?”
The caller on the other end relayed the latest information they’d been able to glean in their surveillance. Things were coming to a head. There had been some chatter on an open line that led them to believe Sapara’s man was ready to make his move.
“You keep him in sight,” Rourke told him firmly. “If anything goes wrong, there won’t be a place on the planet where I won’t find you.”
The other man assured him that he was on the ball.
“Just don’t get careless,” Rourke said quietly. “More is at stake here than I can even tell you. Keep your eyes open.”
He hung up. Then he scrambled the line and called Chet Billings at Cash’s house.
“What are you doing back?” Chet asked, surprised.
“I came over to challenge Cash to a tango contest,” came the facetious reply. “No, I’m on a job, mate. Anything going on there that I should know about?”
“Yes.”
“What?” Rourke asked, worried.
“Cash’s brother-in-law just creamed Kilraven in a battleground,” Chet said.
“Kilraven? Well! I’ll have to tell Cash. It will make his evening.”
“I don’t doubt it. These guys and their video games. Waste of time if you ask me. Takes away time from hard drinking and gun swapping.”
“Listen, you could use a sweet little woman to reform you,” Rourke mused. “Someone young and pretty...”
“I don’t want someone young and pretty. Or old and ugly. I like living by myself. Nobody tries to take the TV controller away from me,” he added firmly.
“Okay. But you don’t know what you’re missing.”
“We heard you were on a job up in San Antonio,” Chet said.
“Ya. Something boring,” he added, just in case the line was being monitored. You could never tell. “I’ll be on my way back home in a few more days.”
There was a pause. “Mrs. Carvajal will miss you,” Chet said surprisingly.
Rourke’s heart jumped. Of course she would. But, then, he wasn’t leaving. Not unless he could persuade her to go home with him. It was early days. Still, she loved kissing him. Amazing that she didn’t hate him, after what he’d put her through. He thought of making a home with her and his son, having other kids, growing old together. It made him feel warm inside.
“Listen, if you stay with her, you need to think seriously about getting out of fieldwork,” Chet said abruptly. “Women don’t like the constant upset. They worry. Especially when they know what you do for a living.”
Rourke chuckled. “Oh? Somebody worrying about you, is there?”
There was a pause. “Somebody who wants to. She’s just a kid, though.”
“It’s the mileage, mate, not the age,” came the quiet reply. “Keep your eyes peeled. I don’t know much, but I really am expecting trouble. It may come unexpectedly, and not in the form I’m thinking about.”
“I’m always expecting trouble,” Chet replied.
“That makes two of us. I’ll talk to you again before I leave for home.”
“Sure. See you.”
Rourke hung up. Then he made one last call. “I want you to check something out for me,” he said, and fell into Norwegian as he outlined the information he wanted from his contact.
“How did you know I spoke Norwegian?” the man asked.
“Don’t kid me. You specialized in languages. I happen to know you’re fluent in about eight of them, and that’s one.”
There was an amused chuckle. “Well, in my business it does pay to throw the enemy off track. Okay. What do you want to know?”
Rourke told him.
“Good God, not in the States!” came the shocked reply. “Surely not!”
“He isn’t here. But his assassin is. I had a contact working on this info, but he hasn’t come through. I need to know if the man has other contacts, ones that aren’t obvious. And I need to know quickly. Lives are at stake. That’s no bull, mate. That’s fact.”
“Give me ten minutes. I’ll call you back.”
“Use this number. I’m carrying a throwaway phone.” He called out the number.
“You really don’t trust anybody, do you?”
“Comes from years of working covertly,” Rourke chuckled. “We get cautious.”
“Indeed we do. I’ll get back in touch as soon as I can find that information for you.”
“I owe you one.”
“Yes, you do,” came the thoughtful reply. “I won’t forget that, either.”
Rourke sighed. “Feel free,” he said. “You pirate.”
There was another chuckle and the line went dead.
* * *
The last dance was a slow, bluesy tune about lost love. Rourke drew Clarisse close to him and linked her small hand with his.
“All those years we’ve known each other, and we never danced together,” he whispered.
She didn’t dare tell him that they had, those magic days in Manaus. “You thought I didn’t know how, I expect,” she laughed shyly.
He lifted his head and his pale brown eye looked into hers. “I didn’t want you to know how vulnerable I was,” he corrected, and his expression was solemn. “Just looking at you could arouse me, Tat,” he confessed. “It’s still that way, all these years later.”
Her high cheekbones colored delicately.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” he said at her lips. “You’re quite beautiful. It’s a normal reaction.”
“Oh.”
His arm contracted around her. “That could have been put better,” he said with a soft sigh. “Listen, I was a rounder in my teens and early twenties,” he said gently. “I never dated the same woman twice. I was damned lucky that I didn’t catch some social disease that would make me untouchable, or even something that could have killed me.” His hand smoothed up and down her spine. “But that all ended one Christmas Eve in Manaus,” he said, his voice husky with feeling. “I have never wanted anyone the way I wanted you that night. Never, Tat.”
She bit her lower lip. “That’s just desire...”
He shook his head, very slowly. “No. It’s not.” His fingers teased their way between hers and he drew her even closer as he made a sharp turn. He felt her shiver at the almost-intimate contact. “I want you very badly. But it’s a hell of a lot more than a physical hunger.”
She drew in a long breath. “I don’t know very much about men,” she faltered. Then she flushed, because she’d been married and Rourke thought Joshua was Ruy’s son.
“Look at me.”
The quiet authority in his deep voice brought her eyes up.
“I know more than you think I do, Tat,” he said very quietly. “And when this job is done, and I have time to sit down and talk to you, we’re going to make some decisions together.”
“What...sort of decisions?”
He bent and brushed his mouth tenderly over her soft lips. “Permanent decisions,” he murmured. “Very permanent.”
Her heart began to race. “There are things you don’t know,” she began sadly.
“And none of them matter.” He drew her close, stopped dancing and bent to kiss the breath right out of her. “I am never leaving you again. Not as long as I live.” His pale brown eye was flashing with feeling. “My job can go to hell. I’ve already paid too high a price for it.”
Her face colored with faint shock. She looked up at him, all eyes, her heart in her eyes, her young body very still. Did he remember that he’d left her to do one last job, one that nobody else apparently could do? Had his memory returned?
She wanted so badly to ask him. But the music stopped and couples started walking off the dance floor.
He smiled softly. “Time enough for discussions later,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose. “Right now, we need to go get Joshua and take you home. You’re wilting, my love.”
She laughed softly. “I suppose I am.”
“You still tire easily,” he said. “And you’re very thin. We’ll work on all that, when I get this job done.”
“The job, it isn’t dangerous, Stanton?” she worried aloud.
His fingers smoothed over her soft cheek. “No,” he lied. “Just intelligence work. We’re trying to shut down a human trafficker, that’s all. No guns, love,” he added, stretching the truth like taffy between two vises. It was all for her own good, of course. He didn’t dare tell her the truth, that she was in far more danger than he was right now. “Let’s go get your son and get you both to bed, okay?”
She smiled sleepily. “Okay, Stanton.”
* * *
They drove to Cash’s house and picked up the baby. Mariel sat with him in the backseat, cooing at him in his baby carrier after it was strapped in.
“Did you have fun?” Clarisse asked the woman.
“It was very nice,” she replied. “I can’t remember the last time I danced.”
“I’m surprised that Jack wasn’t there,” Clarisse said on the way home, frowning. “I’m sure he told me he’d planned to come. I saw him in the grocery store yesterday. Mariel, you remember—you went with me.”
“Yes, he did say he was coming. Perhaps he had a date, yes?” Mariel teased.
“Perhaps so. I had a lovely time,” she told Rourke.
He glanced at her warmly. “So did I.”
“The two of you dance so beautifully together,” Mariel sighed. “I have two left feet.”
“You cook like a French chef,” Clarisse told her warmly. “We all have things that we’re good at.”
“True.”
Rourke carried the baby inside in the carrier and lifted him out, pausing to kiss one chubby little cheek before he put him down in the crib for his mother.
The baby was still asleep, after all the jostling. Rourke looked down at him with muted hunger. His son. His child. He had to hide the pride and sadness the child kindled in him. It made his face look very somber.
Clarisse turned Joshua on his side and pulled a light blanket over him. Beside her, Rourke was oddly distracted. He’d had a phone call just as Clarisse went in Cash’s house with Mariel to get Joshua. Ever since, he’d had a worried expression.
“Is something wrong?” Clarisse asked him when they were on the porch and he was starting to leave.
He touched her cheek gently. “Nothing much. Just something connected with the job. Going to kiss me good-night?” he asked softly.
She flushed. “Don’t tease.”
“I’m not teasing, baby.” He drew her to him hungrily and bent to her mouth. “I’m dead serious...”
The kiss was long, hard, ardent. He wrapped her up against him and groaned. She felt it, too, the anguished hunger for something far more violent, more passionate than the kiss, even if it was as hot as chili peppers.
His hands slid down her back and drew her hips hard against his. “I’m dying for you,” he said huskily. “Can you feel it?” he whispered against her soft mouth as he let her feel the power of his arousal.
“I can...feel it,” she whispered, a little shy even now with him.
“Oh, God, I want you!” he managed roughly as the kiss grew more insistent.
She shivered as the passion danced through her slender body and made it shiver. “We can’t, Stanton,” she moaned. “It’s a small town. People gossip...”
“I saw a very pretty ring in a jewelry store downtown,” he said against her mouth. “I’ll bet it’s just your size, too.”
She was surprised. “A ring?”
“Two rings,” he murmured, still kissing her. “Diamonds and sapphires. Blue stones, like your beautiful eyes, Tat.”
She stared up at him. “You mean get married?” she faltered. “You want to...marry me?”
He nodded solemnly. “Yes. Get married. It’s far too late, at that. It should have happened when you were seventeen. But better late than never.”
“You really want to marry me?”
“With all my heart!” He folded her against him and rocked her in his arms, his face buried in her soft throat. A shudder ran through him at the prospect of being her husband, being Joshua’s father, raising a family with her. “We can live here, since we have so many friends in town. But we can spend summers at the compound next door to K.C. near Nairobi. The baby can play with my lion.” He chuckled. “Well, after he’s a bit older anyway.”
She was dumbfounded. All her dreams were coming true. “But, you don’t remember the past few months...”
He lifted his head. His pale brown eye looked steadily into her blue ones. “I remember that you’re my whole world,” he said quietly. “That’s really all I need to remember. I have no life without you. I have nothing without you!” He brushed his mouth hungrily over hers. “Will you marry me, Tat?” he asked huskily.
Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Yes,” she choked. “Oh, yes...!”
He looked down at her with an expression that said far more than words. There was such joy, such hunger in it that he looked like a man who’d won the lottery. He lifted her against him and kissed her until her mouth was sore, and then he kissed her again. His body was in torment. He had to leave or explore alternatives.
“We have to stop,” he groaned. A shudder ran through him. “I want you so much that I could have you right here standing up. I have to go back to Jake’s house. Right now!”
“No,” she moaned. “Not yet!” Her arms clung to him. She lifted her body against him provocatively and drew his head down to hers so that she could kiss him again.
He barely had the willpower to resist her at all. He caught her arms in his hands and gently tugged them down from his neck. “Tat, my darling, I would truly hate for our first time to be standing up against a wall, trying not to let ourselves be overheard,” he managed with deathbed humor. He was working around the truth, at that, because he knew it wasn’t their first time. He was going to tell her the truth, all of it, but not until they were safely married. And definitely not tonight. He was deliberately giving anyone watching the idea that his mind was on Tat’s sweet body, and not on any other single thing.
Clarisse laughed at the outrageous statement, because he sounded so desperate.
She pulled back, reluctantly. “Okay. If you won’t let me seduce you, I guess you’ll have to go back to Jake’s house.” She reached up and touched his face with a loving hand. “And I do like sapphires.”
He was remembering the emerald ring he’d given her before, his mother’s ring. He didn’t dare admit that he remembered, or how it hurt him to recall it.
“I like sapphires, myself,” he said, smiling as he put her away, reluctantly. “I’ll see you in the morning, then,” he said. There was an odd note in his voice. It disturbed her, and she didn’t know why.
“Is everything all right?” she asked.
“It’s fine.” He switched to Afrikaans, but smiled so that anyone looking wouldn’t think he was being serious. “Remember what I told you to do if Lopez shows up here. Promise me.”
“I will. What’s going on?”
“Nothing dire,” he lied. He kissed her again and the way he looked at her made her think of warships going out to sea. He looked at her as if he wasn’t certain he’d see her again.
“Are you all right?” she asked aloud, concerned.
He framed her face in his hands, bent and kissed her with breathless tenderness. “You are my whole world,” he whispered in Afrikaans. “My love. My life.”
Tears stung her eyes. “And you are mine,” she whispered back in that same tongue.
He drew away at last and took a steadying breath. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said softly. “Sleep tight.”
She smiled drowsily, deeply in love and happier than she’d been since Rourke left Manaus the last time. “You, too.”
“Tot siens,” he said in Afrikaans. He winked at her and went down the steps whistling. It was all an act. Tonight, he had a serious and dangerous task to perform. He only hoped everything went as planned.
* * *
Clarisse had put the baby to bed. Mariel wasn’t sleepy, so she said she’d watch a movie and listen for Joshua in case he woke up. She knew Clarisse must be tired. She was still weak from her illness.
“That’s sweet of you,” Clarisse told the other woman. “Thanks.”
“It’s no problem,” Mariel said. She seemed unusually alert. A minute later, there was a knock on the door.
“I’ll go,” Clarisse laughed. “It’s probably Rourke. He must have forgotten something...”
Mariel walked off down the hall in the middle of the sentence.
Frowning, Clarisse opened the front door. It was Jack Lopez. But he didn’t smile. He looked oddly smug. She walked out onto the porch with him, curious.
“Jack,” she said. “It’s a little late for company...”
“No, actually, it’s just the right time,” he said with a faint smile as he hand went to his pocket. “You have so much company that it’s really been hard trying to get you alone for a minute.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?” He pulled a pistol out of his pocket. “Sapara says hello,” he added with a deep, sarcastic laugh. “So long, Mrs. Carvajal. Tell your late husband he shouldn’t have slept with the patio door open. And don’t worry about your baby. He’ll be joining you very soon.”
He raised the pistol.
Clarisse remembered Rourke’s warning, the promise she’d made that she hadn’t understood until right now.
“You can tell my late husband yourself,” she said in a tight, cold voice. And without warning, she dropped to the ground and rolled away from him. She didn’t know if it would work, if Rourke even had someone in place watching. But this was the only chance she had, and she took it.
Seconds later, the shocked man standing over her froze and stared down at her with a blank look on his face as the top of his head seemed to explode in a gush of blood. She closed her eyes, because she didn’t want to have to see it. She felt a spray of blood fall down on her averted face, smelled the metallic odor of it and tried not to throw up. A fraction of a second later, she heard a crack like the sound of lightning striking and a thud like a melon shattering.
There were running footsteps. Clarisse stayed on the ground. Her mouth was dry. Her heart was racing like a wild thing. She looked up in time to see Rourke running toward her.
“Are you all right?” he asked quickly.
“Yes.” Her voice sounded choked. She sobbed, reaction hitting her after the fact. “Rourke!” she cried.
He paused just long enough to put a finger on the neck of the downed man, checking for a pulse that he knew he wouldn’t find. The sniper rifle was still in one big hand. He drew Tat up with him, held her very close and bent to kiss her with bruising intensity.
“Thank God you remembered!” he groaned, and he kissed her again, so hungrily that his lips and arms bruised. His powerful body shuddered as he realized how many things could have gone wrong. He could have lost her in an instant. He kissed her even harder. But he drew back almost at once. This wasn’t the time.
He jerked out his cell phone and punched in a number. “Well?” he asked in a tone vibrant with anger and relief. His face was solemn. “Ya, that’s what I thought. Take the shot. Don’t argue with me, damn it, do it now! Right now! Take the shot...! Yes? Yes!” he said with a rough sigh of relief. “No, I can’t wait. There’s no time. I’ll call you.” He broke the connection, punched another button, spoke one word into it, turned off the phone and ran into the house, propping the rifle against the wall on the way.
He’d motioned Tat behind him just before he ran down the hall to the baby’s room. She followed in his footsteps, wondering why he was in such a hurry. The man lying cold on the ground was no threat anymore, certainly not to Joshua!
When they got to the nursery, Mariel was in the rocking chair holding the baby, just starting to put a bottle to his mouth. Shocked, she looked up at Rourke and then at Clarisse, standing close to him with blood all over her blouse, her face, her throat. The assassin’s blood.
“Why, Mrs. Carvajal, you’re bleeding!” Mariel exclaimed. “I thought I heard a gunshot! Are you all right?”
“I’m...fine. Why are you giving the baby a bottle?” Clarisse asked. It was strange, because Mariel knew that she nursed Joshua.
“He was hungry and I thought you had gone to bed,” Mariel said simply.
“But he was asleep,” Clarisse protested, not grasping the situation at all.
Rourke moved forward, as quick as a cat, and took the bottle from her fingers with a gloved hand. “Get up,” he said in a voice that rang with authority. “Now!” he added harshly when she hesitated.
“What is wrong?” the woman asked tremulously. “I was only going to feed him!”
Rourke put the bottle on the floor. “Clarisse, take the baby. Do it quick, honey!”
Clarisse didn’t hesitate, but she was looking more confused by the minute. She took Joshua from Mariel’s arms. She almost had to force him out of them. She stepped back, aware of an odd gleam in Mariel’s eyes.
“Check his pulse,” Rourke said at once.
She laid her head against the baby’s chest. Joshua was awake and looking up at her, not even upset, or so it appeared. “It sounds all right,” she faltered. “Rourke, what’s going on?”
“Sit down,” he told Mariel, because the woman had stood up. When she hesitated, he pulled a .45 Colt ACP smoothly out of its holster and leveled it at her. “I think you’ve seen gut wounds before,” he said in a voice like ice. “They aren’t pretty.”
“You must be kidding,” Mariel gasped, but she sat down. “Señora Carvajal, the man is crazy!”
It did seem that way. For just a second, Clarisse wondered if the head wound had caused Rourke to act out of character. But then she remembered Lopez aiming a pistol at her. He wouldn’t be doing this without a good reason.
While she was debating what to say next, sirens came screaming up outside the house. Doors slammed.
Cash Grier came running into the house with two uniformed officers right behind him. His pistol was out as he followed Rourke’s curt voice down the hall and into the baby’s room.
Cash let out a breath when he saw Clarisse holding Joshua in her arms.
“Thank God,” he said heavily. “I was afraid we wouldn’t be in time.”
“You and me both, mate,” Rourke said. His eyes had never left Mariel. “One of my operatives has a dossier on her. We got it from Interpol. She’s wanted in more countries than I used to be,” he added.
“Any warrants outstanding?” Cash asked.
“Yes. One, in Belgium, for assassination. We’ve been in touch with authorities there. But you may not want to discuss extradition until you have the contents of that baby bottle screened.” He indicated it on the floor beside the rocking chair, and his one brown eye was glittering with fury. “She had it at his lips when I came in. We need to take Joshua to the emergency room and have him checked, just to be sure.”
“The bottle...?” Clarisse faltered, holding the baby closer.
“Poison, unless I miss my guess,” Rourke said coldly, glaring at the woman, who flushed under the murderous fury of the stare.
Clarisse’s horrified gasp was audible in the room. She held Joshua close to her heart and buried her face in his little body. She was shivering as she stared with horror at the woman she’d trusted with his life.
“I admit nothing,” Mariel said with faint contempt. “And I might have failed, but this will not be the only attempt...”
“I’m afraid it will be,” Rourke replied.
“Señor Sapara will have me bailed out by dawn tomorrow,” Mariel assured him with a cold smile while one of Cash’s officers read her rights to her.
Rourke pulled out his cell phone and made a call. His face was harder than ever. “Ya. Good job. Yes, I’ll tell him.” He hung up. The smile he gave the would-be assassin was smug and merciless. “The local police in Manaus have just picked up Arturo Sapara’s body,” he told her. “Along with those of two of his assistants. He won’t be bailing anybody out.”
Mariel’s face lost color. “You are lying!”
He didn’t even answer her. “I left Jack Lopez just outside the front door,” Rourke told Cash.
“We noticed.” Cash pursed his lips. “I just had a call from Rick Marquez’s father-in-law.”
Rourke nodded. “It was sanctioned. Even if it hadn’t been,” he added, looking at Clarisse and the child in her arms with an expression so full of emotion that it burned, “I wouldn’t have hesitated. He had a pistol leveled at her.”
“I can understand how you felt. How did you know where to find Sapara?” Cash asked as they were all going out the door together. One of his officers had already put Mariel in the back of a patrol car. Rourke had the sniper rifle in his hand.
“I have a man on my team who can track spirits across water,” Rourke chuckled. “He has contacts in a number of unmentionable places.”
“A blessing,” Cash replied.
Rourke put an arm around Clarisse’s thin shoulders. “My biggest one today, among many others,” he agreed. He kissed Clarisse’s hair. “Come on, baby. We need to make sure she didn’t get any of that formula into Joshua. I’ll drive you.”
“I’ll need a statement from both of you,” Cash said. “But it can wait until morning,” he added with a faint smile.
“Thanks, mate,” Rourke said with genuine gratitude. “It’s been a long night. I wasn’t sure of the outcome, either.” He glanced at Clarisse. “Thank God you didn’t question what I told you to do, and that you remembered when to do it!”
“It sounded very odd at the time, what you told me,” she said. “And I didn’t understand why you told me in Afrikaans and refused to let me tell Mariel.” She grimaced. “She would have killed the baby...!”
He held her close. “I knew about her, as soon as I knew who Jack Lopez really was. You see, I was the only person we had who’d ever seen him face-to-face. I trained him, in fact, over a decade ago. It was blind luck that I remembered in time.”
She wanted to ask if he’d remembered anything else, but he was already herding her toward the car. He locked the sniper rifle in the trunk. Then he let her put Joshua in the backseat, but he watched how she put the baby carrier that doubled as a car seat in place, smiling as he touched the baby’s soft little cheek.
“When this is all over, I’m going to have a nervous breakdown,” she said huskily when they were pulling up at the emergency room entrance of the hospital.
“When it’s over, I’m going to join you,” he agreed.
They walked in with the baby. Dr. Copper Coltrain was waiting for them. He did a cursory examination and smiled, because he found no evidence that Mariel had got any of the deadly liquid inside that little mouth.
“Micah’s off tonight. So is Lou,” he added, referring to his wife, Louise, who was also a physician. “She’s in the last stages of pregnancy and having a hard time getting around, so I’m subbing for her. I wish Drew Morris hadn’t decided to specialize in radiology, so he’d at least be on call when Lou was incapacitated,” he chuckled, referring to their former partner in the practice.
“I hear that Carson Farwalker’s planning to fill that spot briefly, until he decides whether or not to become an internist,” Rourke mused.
“He is. He’s very good. Come on back. We’ll draw blood and check the baby thoroughly.” He shook his head, his red hair flaming in the overhead lights. “A woman who’d kill a child for money. I still have a hard time believing there are people like that on the planet.”
“So do we,” Rourke said, his arm around Clarisse as they walked into the cubicle.
“Let me get one of the lab techs in here to draw blood. It’s always better to err on the good side of caution,” Coltrain said. “Be right back.”
After he left, she looked up at Rourke with soft, loving eyes. “You saved my life,” Clarisse said huskily. “And Joshua’s. I never even suspected...!” She bit her lower lip. “I have no judgment about people. I’ll never hire another housekeeper as long as I live!”
“She was very convincing,” he said softly. “You couldn’t have known. It was Lopez who put the anopheles mosquitoes in your house in Manaus,” he added. “He killed your husband.” His face went taut. “He almost killed you, as well.”
She tried to find the right words and faltered on them. “You knew about the mosquitoes? But how...? I never told you!”