Desperado (13 page)

Eventually they came to a wrought-iron gate with the name “Romero” on a painted board beside it. Cord got out and opened the gate. She drove the car through, and then he shut it again. Minutes later, they drove up between fenced pastures to an elegant arched home that resembled adobe structures Maggie had seen in Texas. The house was white with a red-tiled roof, and two shaggy dogs sat on the front porch next to a white-haired man leaning on a cane.

“Cousin Jorge was my grandfather’s brother’s son,” Cord informed Maggie as she stopped the car. “Which makes him my cousin.”

“He’s very elegant, isn’t he? He looks like an aristocrat.” Maggie commented as the elderly gentleman made his way down the steps to greet them.

“He’s a card,” he replied, smiling. “You’ll see what I mean when you get to know him.” He got out of the car and let the old man come to him, hugging him warmly. They exchanged greetings before Maggie was introduced. The old man took her hand to his lips with a flourish.

“It is a great pleasure to meet the most important woman in my cousin’s life,” Cousin Jorge said in passable English, and grinned.

She laughed self-consciously. “I’m only his foster sister, but I’m very glad to meet you, too,” she replied.

He gave her an odd look but he shrugged. “Please, come in. I have had rooms made ready for you…” He hesitated, both eyebrows coming together in a monstrous scowl. “You do not share a room?” he added suspiciously.

Maggie burst out laughing. “Oh, that will be the day,” she burbled helplessly and didn’t dare look at Cord.

The old man chuckled. “Forgive me. I do not, how does one say it, ‘move with the times.’”

“Don’t you feel bad,” Maggie said easily, taking his arm. “I don’t move with them, either. Sad that we can’t say the
same for some other people,” she added with a meaningful glance at Cord.

When they were in the house, Cord took off the dark glasses. “I’m in disguise,” he told the old man somberly. “I was injured in an accident, and the man who did this to me—” he indicated the wounds on his face “—wants to try again. I came out of the country to throw him off the track.”

“You must tell me all about it,” Jorge said with a smile. “I am no stranger to violence, as you recall. Come.”

He led them out of the hall, into the living room. The interior of Jorge Romero’s house was immaculate, like something out of a designer magazine. The floors were marble, old, elegant. The wood was stained oak. The carved ceiling was a work of art. There were Persian carpets on the floors and silk curtains at the windows. The furniture was covered in silk as well, except for the deep, high-backed armchairs, which were leather.

“Your home is beautiful,” Maggie remarked.

“A bachelor’s home must substitute for a wife and children,” he informed her with a sad smile. “I lost my fiancée during our civil war here. She was a beautiful young girl whose smile lifted my heart. She was by my side in the thick of battle, and a bullet ended her life. I was never inclined to replace her.”

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said with genuine sympathy.

He shrugged and smiled at her. “We all have trials as we
go through life. Mine have been less traumatic than those of many other people,” he explained. “Sit here,” he offered her a seat on the dainty little sofa. “And I will have Marisa bring us hot chocolate. You like hot chocolate?” he added quickly.

“I love it,” she agreed with a smile.

“That is good. As you drink coffee in America, we drink chocolate in Spain. I am fond of it.”

He excused himself and walked toward the back of the house.

“I like him,” Maggie told Cord.

“He likes you. I’m not allowed to sit there,” he added, standing over her with his hands deep in his slacks pockets. “It’s where his fiancée sat, when his father owned this house and Jorge was courting her.”

“I’m flattered,” she replied.

He searched her face quietly. “I wish we could share a room, Maggie,” he said quietly.

She averted her eyes. “Don’t.”

His indrawn breath was low and impatient. “You won’t let me in, will you?” he asked curtly. “You meet every overture with a mad dash for the door.”

She studied her clenched fingers. “You said…”

“I lied!” He turned away from her. “I’m going out of my mind.”

She didn’t understand. Her green eyes followed him as he walked to the window and looked out.

While he was brooding, Jorge came back, and very soon
Cord’s outburst was lost in conversation laced with delicious hot chocolate served in dainty china cups.

Jorge didn’t own a television. That evening, they all went out onto the wide, long front porch and sat in rocking chairs, listening to the cattle low in the distance.

“This is wonderful,” Maggie remarked dreamily, closing her eyes. “It’s just like at Cord’s ranch, late in the evening.”

“You live with him?” Jorge queried.

“No. I’m staying there for a while,” she replied. “It’s rather complicated.”

“She doesn’t want to tell you that we’re being targeted by the assassin I mentioned earlier,” Cord told the old man, despite Maggie’s attempt to hush him up. “He’s buying and selling little children into slave labor, and we’re trying to shut him down.”

The old man became a stranger. He leaned forward, his lean face intent in the yellow light beaming out through the windows.

“Three of my men were with me in the Republican army,” he told Cord. “We are old, but at your disposal.”

Cord grinned. “Thanks. I may take you up on it. I brought along a few friends,” he added to Maggie’s surprise. “You’ll find them bivouaced in your pasture, one of your grain storage sheds, and in the barn out back. I hope you don’t mind.”

Jorge chuckled. “Mind? It will be like old times. An ad
venture!” He hesitated. “But the lovely little one here…!” he exclaimed.

“She’d go right into the trenches with me,” he told Jorge, “just as your Louisa did with you.”

The old man and Cord shared a look that Maggie couldn’t begin to interpret, but it made her feel warm inside.

“What I propose to do,” Cord said, “with your permission, is leave a man here disguised as myself. I want you to appear to travel to Tangier with Maggie, as if you’re showing her this part of the world. Are you game?”

“I live a boring and uncomplicated life,” Jorge said with a twinkle in his dark eyes. “Adventure becomes the stuff of legends to such a man as I have become.”

“I’m not leaving you!” Maggie said at once, her wide eyes riveted to Cord.

His heart lifted. “I’m not leaving you, either,” he said gently. “I’m going in disguise, as Jorge.”

The old man chuckled. “You must have silver hair and walk with a stoop,” he pointed out.

Cord grinned. “One of my men was on the stage. He’s an expert at disguise. My own parents wouldn’t know me when he gets through working on me.”

Jorge looked sad for a moment. “I remember your parents, very well indeed. Your father had magic in his hands, in his body. He was not Sanchez, but he was skilled.”

“Sanchez Romero was my grandfather,” Cord told Maggie.

“Yes. I have a poster…”

The old man opened a huge cabinet and took out a poster of a bullfight, vivid with reds and yellows under the thick black lettering. It advertised the final appearance of the great Sanchez Romero in the great bullring in Madrid. He removed a painting, a portrait of the same man.

“He was magnificent,” Maggie said against her will, drinking in the elegant, muscular lines of the handsome black-haired man. He had an arrogance and grace of carriage, even in the painting, which was striking and attractive.

“He was gored as he stood on tiptoe to deliver the
muerte,
” the old man said sadly. “I was just behind the
barrera,
cheering him on.” His eyes closed. “It was as if the bull had a bundle of colorful rags on his horns. Sanchez’s
traje de luz
shone like pure gold in the sunlight as the bull ran around the ring, to the horror of the crowd.” He glanced at Maggie, waiting for her reaction.

She only smiled sadly. “I had an uncle who died in a rodeo outside Houston,” she said. “Dangerous sports are always life-threatening. But people die on football fields of heatstroke.”

“You will wish me to remain inside during your absence,” the old man said suddenly, glancing at Cord.

He nodded. “And away from your friends.”

“I understand.” He grinned. “I am to be ‘undercover.’”

Cord chuckled. “You’ll be safe, as well,” he pointed out. “Some of my men will remain here. Two others will be with Maggie and me, also ‘undercover.’”

“You are a brave young woman,” Jorge told Maggie.

She grinned at him. “I’ve lived a boring life myself until lately. I’ve got a trench coat on layaway,” she added with a mischievous glance at Cord.

He smiled at her with obvious pride. It made her heart fly.

M
aggie listened while Cord outlined his plans for travel to Tangier the following day. They would drive one of Jorge’s Mercedes to the ferry and go across to Tangier, car and all. In Tangier, they would stay with Cord’s cousin, Jorge’s grand-nephew, Ahmed, a Berber who owned a small import/export business there.

There was no time for a leisurely visit while Gruber and his friends worked at obliterating traces of their collaboration. Cord would have to work fast. Meanwhile, the visit to his cousin would give the impression that he was staying with family during his recuperation, and Maggie was taking advantage of the holiday to see Morocco as well as Spain in the company of Cord’s cousin Jorge. If Gruber checked, Cord told Maggie, he’d find out that Jorge had cousins in Tangier, which was true. In fact, Cord—disguised as Jorge—
and Maggie would be staying with one of them who lived in the city.

She tried not to be concerned about the masquerade, but it worried her. She wasn’t afraid for herself. She was fearful of what might happen to Cord if Gruber discovered his disguise and his real intent. The headquarters of Global Enterprises was in Tangier. If Gruber realized that she and Cord were digging for evidence, their lives would be in terrible danger. Despite the company of those shadowy friends of Cord’s, she had reservations. They were compounded by the knowledge of what Gruber and his cronies would do to her if they discovered her part in this. She knew they wouldn’t hesitate to make public her most terrible secrets. She remembered Lassiter’s stern advice, that she should tell Cord the truth. But not yet, she told herself. Not just yet.

It wasn’t surprising that she had a nightmare after she went to sleep. The tension of the past few days, compounded by the threats of blackmail, brought back horrible memories of her childhood.

She was sobbing piteously when she felt strong arms lift her close to a warm, strong bare chest. She was cradled there, her nose ticking in the thick pelt of hair, while she cried.

“There, there,” a soothing deep voice whispered at her ear while a big hand smoothed her long, wild hair. “You’re perfectly safe. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

She became slowly aware that she was no longer dreaming. The spicy scent of Cord’s cologne was in her nostrils, along
with the prickly feel of the thick hair that ran in a wedge down his chest to his belly.

Her hands were flat against his body, feeling its strength. She’d been relaxed while he held her, but now she was nervous again. Her eyes opened and she drew back a breath.

The bedside light was on. The door was closed. She was sitting up in the concealing lacy white cotton gown she’d brought to sleep in, with its puffy sleeves and modest neckline. Cord was sitting on the bed beside her in a towel.

He lifted an eyebrow amusedly at her flush. “You’ve seen me without it,” he reminded her.

She swallowed. She was still uneasy with him, with any man, like this. She realized that her inhibitions and distaste for intimacy had all but ruined her life.

He pushed back the thick hair from her cheek. “Don’t you think it’s time you told me the truth, Maggie?” he asked softly.

She bit her lower lip, hard. “I’d rather die,” she said on a husky laugh, but she meant it.

“Why?”

Her face contorted. “Painful subjects are best left alone.”

He tilted her eyes up to his. He was somber, stern-looking. He felt the tension in her hands and he smoothed them out gently, pressing her long fingers against his skin. “I was on the Internet, when we flew here,” he remarked out of the blue.

“So?” she murmured noncommittally.

“Aren’t you curious about why?” he persisted slowly.

Her eyes lifted to his and a flash of fear brightened them
momentarily. Surely he couldn’t have found out anything there, not when the files were protected….

He drew in a deep breath. “I don’t even know how to tell you.” His fingers slid around hers, warm and strong. “Lassiter mentioned something to me while we were talking, about a criminal case that came up in Houston at the same time as the hotel fire that killed my parents.” He searched her eyes. “I don’t know why, but it started me thinking about criminal cases…So I dug into some old files, using codes I haven’t resorted to in years, and I found out…” He hesitated, noting the look of stark horror on her white face.

She tried to jerk away from him, sick, horrified at having him see the photos, knowing the truth. She sobbed like a wounded thing as she fought his hands.

But he was far too strong. He eased her down onto the bed and pulled her against him, holding her gently but firmly, with her wet cheek pressed against his chest.

“You should have told me years ago,” he whispered harshly. “God, when I realized what I’d done to you…!” His indrawn breath was harsh. His arms tightened, containing her helpless shivers. “I gave you hell. I hurt you, made you afraid of me—so afraid that you had to hide the truth. How do I apologize for what you went through because of the way I behaved? And I never even knew…You and your damned secrets, Maggie!” he concluded with fierce anger.

“Amy thought it best…” she began hoarsely.

“Amy?” He drew away from her, scowling. “Amy was dead when you married Evans,” he said, misunderstanding.

Her eyes opened wider. She didn’t understand what he meant.

He grimaced. He looked down at her with pain in his dark eyes. “We made a baby together, the night Amy died,” he said unsteadily. “Evans caused you to miscarry, in a drunken rage.” He ground his teeth together and there was anguish in his expression. “God, baby, I’d have killed him if I’d known…!”

She reached up and caught him around the neck, pulling him close, so close! He didn’t know about the other! It was all right. She buried her face in his throat, clinging.

She felt something damp against her cheek. Tears stung her own eyes. “I never would have told you,” she choked, her voice breaking. “I never wanted you to have to know. I knew it would hurt you, so much…!”

He groaned. His mouth searched over her face in hot, quick kisses that suddenly slowed and became breathlessly tender. His big body relaxed into hers, pressing her gently into the mattress. He whispered something she couldn’t understand as one long, powerful leg insinuated itself between both of hers through the cotton gown.

Ordinarily she would have been intimidated by the movement. She would have been nervous, shy, hesitant. But he was sharing grief with her. She’d lost their child and now he knew. The pain was suddenly bearable, only because he knew.

“Oh, Cord,” she whispered brokenly, accommodating the slow, sensuous brush of his body over hers. Her arms curled around his chest. “I wanted our baby,” she said at his ear. “I wanted him so much. And Bart hit me and hit me! I remember…I remember lying there, bleeding and broken, cursing him at the top of my lungs for what I knew he’d done. I told him I’d tell you, and he’d never have a minute’s peace for the rest of his miserable life.” Her eyes stung with tears. “I told him I’d get even with him if it was the last thing I ever did…!” She swallowed. “He killed himself,” she whispered. “I made him kill himself. I’ve had to live with that, too, on top of everything else…!”

“Damn him. If he hadn’t committed suicide, I’d have killed him myself!” he choked.

“He was an alcoholic and I never knew until after I married him. I suspected I was pregnant. I wanted the baby to have a name, and I was afraid to tell you…”

“Yes. I was cruel to you. Horribly cruel.”

She nuzzled her face against him. “You were shocked. I’d been engaged. You thought I was experienced. It’s all right.”

“It will never be all right,” he said harshly. “I didn’t even think about consequences.”

“We’d both been drinking,” she said quietly. “Don’t beat yourself to death with it. It won’t change a thing.”

“It won’t,” he agreed heavily. “I’m sorry you had to go through that alone.”

Her hands smoothed over his dark hair. “I phoned Eb.”

“Yes, I remember you told me that,” he said, and his tone was cold.

“I…was going to have him get in touch with you,” she confessed, “in a moment’s insanity. But then they told me about my husband’s wreck, and I didn’t make the call.”

His big hands slid warmly against her body as he shifted slowly. His mouth brushed at her throat, stirring her. “I would have come immediately,” he whispered. “In fact, I did come, soon afterward, the minute I heard that you were in the hospital. I never knew exactly why you were there.” His hands contracted bruisingly. “You were at home by then but you wouldn’t even look at me!”

She kissed his throat gently. “You’d have seen right through me if I had. I wanted only to spare you the heartache. It was over. Telling you would have accomplished nothing, except to hurt you.”

He made a rough sound in his throat. His mouth found her breast through the thick cotton and pressed hard against it. “I deserved to be hurt.”

She smiled through her excitement. It was drugging, to be held so close by him, so hungrily.

“I’ve never hurt you deliberately.”

“I wish I could say the same.”

Her fingers toyed with his thick hair. It was delightful to be able to touch him, lie with him, be with him. Her body tingled, and she felt no fear at all, only a sense of unreality. One of her long legs moved involuntarily, sliding against his. To her
surprise, the tiny movement aroused him blantantly, and at once.

He stiffened. “I think you’d better not do that again,” he said through his teeth.

“Sorry.”

He let out a heavy breath at her ear. “I wish we were in a hotel.”

“Why?” she asked curiously.

He laughed deep in his throat. “I could call room service for an emergency condom.”

She laughed, too. Her mouth moved lazily against his hot neck. “I like feeling you like this,” she said, her voice faintly surprised.

His big hand caught her hip and pulled it up into his, letting her feel the full power of the arousal. His fingers contracted and he shivered faintly. “I want to go inside you,” he breathed at her ear.

Her soft gasp was audible. She couldn’t believe he’d said something so blatant.

He moved lazily against her, while his mouth slid to the square neckline of the gown. He traced its line with his lips, nuzzling under it to draw his mouth against the petal-soft skin.

She moved restlessly, burning up with pleasure. “That feels good,” she murmured dazedly.

His tongue traced a pattern on her flesh. “Let me take your gown off, and I’ll show you something that feels even better.”

“You never struck me as the sort of man who’d ask first,” she teased breathlessly.

“Only with you,” he replied. “Does this thing unsnap or unbutton?”

His fingers nudged buttons out of buttonholes while she laughed softly. He lifted his head and looked down into her eyes. He eased his forefinger under the edge of the fabric and teased a path halfway to her hard nipple, watching her like a hawk to judge her reaction.

Her lips parted. She was finding it increasingly hard to breathe normally. Her nails bit into his upper arms as he poised just above her. Impulsively, she looked down. The towel had fallen away from his hips, but they were pressed so closely together that she couldn’t see anything.

“Want to look?” he asked gently, and lifted himself a few inches above her, to let her see.

Her breath caught. He was amazingly beautiful, like a sculpture she’d seen once. She lay still, just staring at the perfection of his lean, hard-muscled body. He looked formidable, but she wasn’t afraid of him.

“You’re very aroused,” she whispered boldly and lifted her eyes back up to his.

His hand slid gently inside the gown to cover her soft breast. “Hard and hungry,” he agreed. “But if you’ll let me have you, I can promise you it won’t hurt. Lovemaking is beautiful. It has a rhythm. It builds like a symphony. The pleasure is more exquisite than words can describe.” He searched her eyes while he caressed her tenderly, feeling her helpless response in the lifting of her body toward his hand. “I want you very much.”

“I don’t…take anything,” she managed to say.

His fingers found her nipple and tested its hardness, his forefinger brushing it gently until she stiffened with pleasure. “I don’t have anything to use. It would be reckless. Irresponsible.” He smiled slowly, his dark eyes flashing. “It would be delicious!”

Her expression was one of excited curiosity. She’d never had pleasure from a man. Even with him, it had been uncomfortable and frightening. She no longer felt the inhibitions or fear. The tenderness he’d shown her in recent days had changed her. Perhaps it had changed him, too, because he wasn’t making demands.

Her fingers lifted to trace his hard, chiseled mouth. Her eyes gleamed with wonder. “Cousin Jorge wouldn’t like it.”

He only smiled.

Her body shifted, just a breath. It arched faintly.

His fingers went back to the buttons and slowly unfastened them to her waist. “Sit up,” he whispered.

He drew her up with him and slid the gown down over her hips, tossing it off the bed along with his towel. Under it, she was wearing simple cotton briefs. He removed those, too, with his mouth making exciting forays over her belly, so that she didn’t protest her sudden nudity.

He nipped her hip with his teeth and laughed at her hushed giggle. His lips opened slowly on her flat stomach while his hand found her in a way she hadn’t experienced in her adult life. The touch brought back terrible memories and she started
to protest when a shock of delight arched her hips. It reflected in the eyes that met his when he lifted his head.

He held her startled gaze while he coaxed her body expertly to permit even greater liberties.

“This is just the beginning,” he whispered as she began to move involuntarily and whimper rhythmically with the deft touch of his hand. “I’m going to make you climax,” he said huskily as his mouth lowered to hers. “And when you reach it, I’m going into you, hard and deep!”

She moaned into his mouth, the words as arousing as what he was doing to her eager, delighted body. Her nails bit into him. “It’s…wonderful,” she choked.