Desperado (17 page)

“What is it?” she asked.

He looked vaguely uncomfortable. “It’s for the discomfort,” he murmured.

She was horrified. Had he asked one of the women in the household…?

He smiled helplessly at her expression. “I had to use some myself,” he said sheepishly.

Her eyebrows lifted. This was really interesting. Men got sore, too?

He chuckled. “Yes,” he said, as if he knew what she was thinking. “Men do, too.”

“Wow.”

“Now you know,” he said complacently. He finished with the brush and put it on the table. “But just for the record, if last night was my last few hours on earth, I wouldn’t have one single regret.”

“Neither would I.” She drew his hand to her mouth and kissed the callused palm. “I love you with all my heart.”

“As I love you,” he bit off. He bent, tugging her mouth up so that he could kiss it with fierce possession.

A few seconds later, he forced himself to lift his head. His eyes were turbulent, his heartbeat violent. “The more I have you, the more I want you, Maggie,” he said huskily. “That isn’t going to stop. That’s why we have to get married. I’m old-fashioned about kids. Nobody’s calling mine bastards.”

Her fingers touched his hard mouth. It was contagious. She was beginning to believe she could have his child. Her eyes were wide and soft with wonder, with anticipation. It was all part of the fantasy. It wasn’t real. But she was insulated, cocooned, right now. She could believe. She could love. She could accept love and the phantom image of pleasure. She could dream.

“You can have anything you want,” he whispered hoarsely, seeing acceptance and joy in her face and misreading the day-dreamy look. “I’ll stay home and raise cattle.”

And he’d hate it, and her, and the baby, she thought. But it was a dream, and they could share it for now. The risk of
someone discovering her past was too formidable to let her look very far ahead, especially with Cord. He was going to be so disgusted if he ever found out. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to keep him in the dark, in that one way. She was certain she couldn’t get pregnant, after what the doctors had said, and she’d been honest with him. He didn’t believe it, but it wouldn’t make any difference. She’d grow old alone, but she would have these exquisite, delicious memories of Cord making love to her. Along with the excitement and danger of the present, there was the physical delight of it. She was grateful for every second that he looked at her with desire.

“You’re not talking to me,” he mused.

“Does it matter?” she asked, letting her eyes trace every inch of him that was visible in her long vanity mirror. “I just want to look at you. You’re perfect, Cord. All of you.”

He sighed. Something was bothering her, and she didn’t want to tell him. He knew it was more than her miscarriage. He spared a mental curse for her ex-husband who’d cost them their child, and for his own maltreatment of her that had kept her from telling him she was pregnant. He cursed the past for the misunderstandings, the torment. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. He wanted a family and a home and her in it. But she was only giving lip service to his suggestions. Why? What else was she hiding?

He decided that he was going to have to ignore her right to privacy and dig further into her past. She was never going to tell him. He would have to find it out himself.

But he didn’t let on. He smiled. “I like looking at you, too, sweetheart,” he said softly. “With or without clothes.”

She smiled back. And for a few precious seconds, they were almost one person.

The plane trip to Amsterdam didn’t take long at all. After a pleasant snack and desultory conversation with Cord about their delightful visit with Jorge, they were landing at Schiphol Airport.

It was big and sprawling and most of the signs were in Dutch and English. A few were in Polish, and she remarked on it.

“They have a large immigrant Polish population,” he told her. “But you’ll find signs in Japanese, as well. They get tourists from all over.”

“Do I have to drive again?” she moaned.

“They drive on the same side of the road we do,” he chuckled. “Just like in Spain and Gibraltar and Morocco. But, no, you don’t have to drive. We’ll get a cab to our hotel.”

“Where are we staying?”

“Where the action is,” he teased. “Right on the Dam Square. The palace is across the street, a wax museum is next door, there’s a sidewalk café, exclusive clothing shop windows to explore, the war memorial, and just down the street a ways, the canals.”

“We can see the canals?” she exclaimed.

“We can go on them. There are boat tours. I won’t be able
to see anything,” he teased, alluding to his dark glasses. “But you will. You can be my eyes.”

They both knew it was a joke, but they didn’t know if anyone was watching or listening who had ties to Gruber, even in the airport. Stealth was the word of the day.

She took his hand in hers. “I’ll be your eyes, your ears, anything you want me to be,” she whispered huskily. “Just so you know,” she added softly, “the past few days were worth everything that’s happened to me in my life. Everything!”

That sounded final. He frowned. What was she trying to say to him?

“We should go,” she said, looking around. “How do we get out of the airport?”

“Through passport control and customs, just like Spain,” he told her. “Follow the signs.”

“They’re in Dutch!” she wailed.

“They’re in English, too. Just keep looking.”

They tugged their carry-on luggage on wheels along behind them, with Maggie leading Cord by the hand as they made their way first to a money-changing booth, and then through passport control and then to the customs desk, where they were passed through. They walked out into bright sunshine and hailed a cab. The cabs, like those Maggie had seen in other countries, were Mercedes-Benzs. She remarked on it.

“They’re dependable,” he chuckled. “That’s why so many people have them.” He paused to give the name of the hotel
to the driver. The man tried to ask a question in English. Cord, surprising Maggie, switched immediately to Dutch. He and the man laughed together and exchanged pleasantries.

“I told you I spoke Dutch,” he said after they were underway, grinning at Maggie’s surprise.

“It sounds fascinating,” she replied.

“It’s an interesting language. And the Dutch are fascinating people, as you’ll discover when you’ve been here a couple of days. They’re intelligent, industrious, and they have one of the most efficient land-claiming operations on earth. You did know,” he added, “about the system of dykes that holds back the ocean?”

“I read
National Geographic,
” she pointed out. “Yes, indeed, I know how the dykes work and how desperately the Dutch people have to fight to keep their country above water. It’s awe-inspiring.”

He nodded. He noticed the driver’s eyebrows raised and repeated what he and Maggie were saying in Dutch. The driver grinned at Maggie and increased his speed.

It took several minutes to get through the city of narrow streets and trolley cars and bicyclers. There were bicycle lanes next to the trolley tracks. The streets were so filled with natives and tourists that it was a wonder to Maggie that anybody could move at all.

“It’s so crowded!” she exclaimed. “Is it because of the summer tourist season?” she asked as they approached a huge
hotel and pulled up to the door under an awning, where a uniformed man waited to greet them.

“It’s always crowded,” he assured her, reaching into his pocket for the fare in Dutch guilders.

“Is this it?” she asked as the doorman helped her from the cab. She wasn’t terribly impressed with the outside, and nearby, where a statue sat in the cobblestoned square, dozens of young people lounged around looking bored. Some had guitars with cups sitting nearby, obviously for tips.

“This is it. Wait until you see inside,” he added with a grin.

She took his arm and led him to the desk. The whole of the inside was carpeted. The desk was long and busy. Beautifully upholstered furniture was spread around the lobby. There was a photograph of the royal family including Queen Beatrice on a nearby wall, a reminder that the Netherlands had a monarchy.

Past the chairs was a dining room, and elaborate desserts and tea in delicate china cups were being placed on linen-covered tablecloths.

“Isn’t it too early for supper?” Maggie asked. “People are eating…”

“That is high tea, Madam Romero,” the clerk told her with a smile, lifting his eyebrows at her look of surprise. “When you are taken to your room, you might like to come back down and experience it, if you haven’t before. Also, we have an exquisite restaurant with a world-class chef, and our morning room for breakfast is a botanist’s dream.”

“Yes, it is,” Cord replied, pushing the register to one side. “You need to sign us in, Mrs. Romero,” he added pointedly.

She could tell that his eyes were smiling behind those dark glasses. She didn’t have to ask if they were sharing a room, either.

I
n fact, they were sharing a suite. It had a sitting area, with a fax machine and phone, a safe and a small bar with a refrigerator, and a separate bedroom with a double bed. The bathroom didn’t have a whirlpool bath, but Maggie wasn’t sorry. Her memories of those were delightful, but temporarily uncomfortable.

Cord tipped the bellboy, and waited to speak until he’d explained where everything was and how it worked to Maggie and closed the door behind him.

Cord put his finger to his chiseled mouth and took out the electronic device, which was now familiar to Maggie. He swept all the rooms twice before he was satisfied that there were no bugs in the room. But afterward, he glanced across the way at the building behind the hotel, and when he closed the blinds, he put another device on the table and activated it.

“In case anyone’s listening, all they’ll hear is static,” he told Maggie.

“But there aren’t any bugs, are there?” she asked, confused.

“A man in the building across from us could point a microphone this way and even through glass and concrete, he could hear us whisper,” he confided. “He can even see us, through the walls—or, rather, our body heat—with an infrared device that’s readily available on the market.”

She shook her head. “I never heard of such things.”

“You will, if you ever go to work for Lassiter.” He took her by the shoulders and bent to kiss her forehead gently. “I’ve got some work to do on the laptop, but we can go down and sample high tea first, if you’d like to?”

“I would,” she confessed. “I’ve read about it for years, and I don’t know what it is, really.”

“Let’s go find out, then!”

It was delightful. There were cucumber sandwiches, small pastries, any sort of tea you liked, or coffee with real cream, and even fruit and vegetable medleys with dipping sauce. There were also real linen napkins.

“It’s so elegant,” Maggie exclaimed, fascinated by the people around her as well as the little meal.

He smiled through his dark glasses. “So are you,” he said softly. “Elegant, strong, fearless and passionate,” he added huskily.

“Adjectives that would also apply to you,” she replied.

He reached across for her hand and held it close. “We make an interesting couple.”

“Don’t we, though?” She smiled and reached for her teacup.

There were all sorts of shops on the same level as the lobby, with expensive designer goods as well as souvenirs. Maggie bought watercolors of the canals, along with wooden-shoe key chains and blue delft china pieces that doubled as salt-and-pepper shakers.

“I know, I’m a tourist at heart,” Maggie confided. “But I can’t go home without taking something for my friends. I wonder how Gretchen is doing in my job?”

Cord grinned. “I know, but I’m not saying,” he murmured. “They’ve had their own little disturbances lately. But very soon, you’re going to see your friend Gretchen in a way that will shock you.”

“We’re going to Qawi?” she exclaimed.

“Not yet.”

“Tell me!” she insisted.

But he wouldn’t. When they got back to the hotel room, he suggested that she have a nap. While she slept, he plugged in his laptop and went to work, sneaking inside protected files with an ease that would have sent cold chills up Maggie’s soft arms.

Three hours later, she woke up. Cord was already dressed in a suit. He looked strange, remote, and his eyes were very dark and shadowed.

“Did I oversleep?” she asked worriedly.

He shook his head, a mere jerk. “You need to put on something nice,” he said in a neutral tone. “It’s a five-star restaurant and it will be full. I made reservations for eight.”

“Eight! I’ll never get used to the time people eat in Africa and Europe,” she murmured as she slid her long legs off the bed and sat up.

“It grows on you,” he said. “I’ll wait in the sitting room. I’ve got a few more contacts to make.”

“Cord?”

He paused with his hand on the doorknob. He wouldn’t look at her.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, concerned. “Has something happened?”

“Something.” His voice was oddly choked. “Come out when you’re ready.” He closed the door.

It was as if all the teasing and delight in each other’s company had gone in a puff of smoke. Cord was good company, pleasant and courteous, and as remote as if he were living on another planet. He barely looked straight at Maggie, and he was unusually tense. He ordered whiskey as well—something she’d never known him to do. He didn’t drink.

After the second highball, he ordered a seafood dish for himself and a special salad that Maggie wanted. They ate in silence. She finally got up to help herself at the dessert counter mainly to get away from his brooding countenance. She
couldn’t imagine what had upset him like that. She knew instinctively that he’d had an emotional blow of some sort. She wondered if there was another woman in his life, if he’d had second thoughts about their sudden intimacy, if he had cold feet about committing himself to her. Maybe he’d satisfied his hunger and his curiosity about her body, and he was already tired of it. That thought was depressing, so she picked up a flan and a piece of cake and devoured both with after-dinner coffee. Cord sat nursing a third highball and didn’t eat half his seafood. He had no dessert at all.

The worst surprise came when they were back in the room. He took off his dark glasses and suggested quietly that she might want to go to bed, because they had a long day ahead of them. She asked wasn’t he coming, and noted that he stiffened as if the question was actually offensive to him.

She swallowed a choking misery of lost confidence, smiled forcibly and went into the bedroom alone.

He didn’t come to bed. When she woke the next morning, she found him sprawled on the sofa, still in his suit, with disheveled hair and smelling of whiskey. She noted four empty little bottles of it stacked on the coffee table along with two empty Coke cans and a glass. On top of what he’d had in the restaurant, that was enough to render even a strong man like Cord unconscious. It bothered her that he drank like that. Something had to have gone wrong. She didn’t know what.

But what upset her most was something she found in the fax machine, a message that had come from Houston, from
Lassiter’s detective agency. It contained only a couple of sentences, but they were enough to make her wish she was dead. The message gave the date of a trial, and she knew whose. There was one other brief sentence. “Hard copy confiscated and destroyed, no negatives. Information available when you return, if you insist on seeing it.”

She didn’t wake him. She went down alone to breakfast, feeling numb. Lassiter had somehow managed to get the information about her away from Stillwell, but he still had it. Cord knew there was something, and wanted to see it. Lassiter was going to let him, unless she intervened. She could tell Cord herself. Or she could play for time and simply vanish when this was all over and they went back to the States. She had her memories. Perhaps they would be enough.

She knew why Lassiter hadn’t included particulars of the case in a fax. It was too explosive, and Gruber would be around. Her face paled as she wondered if Gruber, too, knew what was in those files? He must, because he’d been in the office with Adams and Stillwell when Lassiter said he’d heard about the information on the tape. All three men knew, whether or not they could prove it. If they’d obtained hard copy once, what was to stop them from duplicating it again?

Her life seemed less valuable now. She was going to be prey for the rest of her life if she didn’t find a secure hiding place. It would take her away from Cord, because he was going to see the truth for himself when they got back to Houston. Once he knew—damn Lassiter for offering to tell him!—she’d
be alone for the rest of her life. Tears of frustrated fury stung her eyes. Lassiter could have found some excuse not to tell him! He sold her out. Every single human being she’d ever known had done that. Why would she never learn that she couldn’t trust people?

She sipped hot coffee, infused with warm cream, and stared fixedly at her untouched breakfast. She must make an effort to eat something, she told herself. Starving would solve no problems. She picked up her fork and made small inroads into bacon and eggs and a buttery croissant. Idly her eyes went to the abundant greenery in the huge structure, which was like an indoor greenhouse. Ordinarily she would have delighted in her surroundings. Now she just felt sick.

She was aware of movement, and looked up into Cord’s quiet, lifeless eyes.

“Care for company?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

She shrugged, and wouldn’t meet his gaze.

He knew then, without a doubt, that she’d seen what was in the fax machine before he took out the sheet of paper and destroyed it.

He put down his own breakfast and coffee and pulled out the chair next to hers.

“Secrets are dangerous, Maggie,” he said curtly.

She lifted her eyes to his. She looked like a cornered cat. “If you read that file about me that Lassiter has, when you get back to Houston,” she said, her voice trembling as she chose her words carefully, “you’ll never see me again in your lifetime.”

His hand hesitated on the thick china coffee mug. He studied her, frowning. “Is it really that important?” he asked warily.

She swallowed. Her hands trembled as she picked up her own coffee mug. “Can’t you just have somebody burn it?” she asked on a cold laugh.

“Can’t you tell me what’s in it?” he countered.

She spilled coffee, hot coffee, on her slender hands. She managed to set the cup down without doing further damage. Cord cursed under his breath and got a napkin around her stinging fingers, wiping them gently.

“You don’t share anything,” he said in a slow, cautious tone. “I had to find out about the miscarriage and your husband’s abuse the hard way. Now here’s one more secret that you’re not going to tell me. You don’t trust me at all.”

“That’s right.” She looked straight into his eyes. “You’re already suspicious of me,” she said, nodding when he reacted to the remark. “Lassiter told you just enough to make you wonder, to question what you think you know about me, about my life. You want to see the file. You want to know everything. But there are secrets that should stay buried, Cord. There are things about me that you should never have to know.”

“That’s rather an odd wording, isn’t it?” he asked curiously.

She lowered her eyes quickly to her stale breakfast. “I hate my life,” she said huskily.

“Maggie!”

“I do!” She put down her napkin and pushed back her chair. “I never should have gone back to Houston,” she said wildly. “I should have stayed in Tangier, found a job doing something, anything, so that I would never have had to see you again!”

His face hardened. “You haven’t been acting as if you felt that way,” he said at once, and then could have bitten off his tongue when he saw her reaction. “Certainly not in bed with me!”

She felt the accusing words like a body blow. “No, I haven’t acted that way,” she said in a thready whisper. “I’ve been behaving…just as people always expected that I would, when I…grew up!”

She whirled and took off, right out the door of the hotel into the street, with her purse clutched close against her body. Cord couldn’t chase her, at least, not without giving up the pretense of blindness, and why would he risk that? She didn’t know where she was going, anyway. She had her purse, but not her passport, it was locked up, with her airline tickets and Cord’s passport, in the safe in the hotel room. But she could get away from Cord for a while, and she was going to.

She made her way to a shop that sold tickets for the canal boat ride, a two-hour tour of the city by water. She doubted that Cord could find her in the throngs of people, and she didn’t care. If Gruber or his people had followed them, if he was watching her, so much the better. Maybe he’d shoot her and put her out of her misery!

That was great thinking for a strong, adult woman, she
thought, chiding herself for her cowardice. But she was losing Cord already and it hurt so much that she wasn’t thinking clearly. What he’d said before was exactly what he was going to say when he knew the truth about her. He thought she was a tramp. Maybe she was. Maybe she always had been. With the ticket in hand, she followed the clerk’s directions down the long street to where the tour boat was docked.

Cord was furious. He’d already made one serious error of judgment, and at the worst possible time. He had agents here in Amsterdam who were processing the information he’d given them from Gruber’s safe, and they were even now questioning his business associates over a thriving child pornography network. In fact, there was a studio within a stone’s throw of the hotel where Interpol agents, aided by Dutch police, were serving a warrant at that very moment. Gruber was securely linked to Global Enterprises, where surprise raids in Africa, South America and the United States were taking place this very day. Stillwell was already in custody, along with Adams, and both men were so intimidated by a contact of Lassiter’s that they’d sworn never to reveal a word about Maggie to anyone.

Gruber, however, was a different story. He’d blow Maggie’s cover if he could, any way he could, to the international press if he could get them on the story. By now, he knew that Cord had unmasked his illegal operation, and he would be out for revenge.

Cord was going to tell Maggie at breakfast that she had to stay close to him, in the hotel, where she’d be safe while Gruber was being taken into custody. But he’d made stupid mistakes, blurting out things he should never have voiced. The fax had been a really stupid one. He could have asked Lassiter to e-mail him the message, but he’d been busy on the Internet at the time and Lassiter needed to reach him at once. It made him furious that he’d been careless enough to let Maggie see that fax. He’d done collateral damage already, and then he’d made that defensive remark about her going to bed with him, which put the knife into her with a vengeance. She’d never forget. He could understand how she felt, too. The information he’d seen had been…traumatic.