Читать книгу Her Kind of Hero - Diana Palmer - Страница 10

The look on Callie’s face was priceless. “How did you know?” she asked.

He smiled. “Micah talks about you a lot.”

That was a shocker. “I didn’t think he wanted anybody to know I even existed,” she pointed out.

He pursed his lips. “Well, let’s just say that he has ambiguous feelings about you.”

Ambiguous. Right. Plainly stated, he couldn’t stand her. But if that was true, why had he come himself to rescue her, instead of just sending his men?

She drew in a breath as he tended to her. “Am I going to be okay?”

“You’re going to be good as new in a few days.” He smiled at her. “Trust me.”

“Micah seems to.”

“He should. I taught him everything he knows about surgery,” he chuckled. “I was a year a head of him when we were in graduate school, and I took classes for one of the professors occasionally.”

She smiled. “You’re very good.”

“So was he,” he replied grimly.

She hesitated, but curiosity prodded her on. “If it wouldn’t be breaking any solemn oath, could you tell me why he didn’t finish his residency?”

He did, without going into details. “He realized medicine wasn’t his true calling.”

She nodded in understanding.

“But you didn’t hear that from me,” he added firmly.

“Oh, I never tell people things I know,” she replied easily, smiling. “I work for a lawyer.”

He chuckled. “Do tell?”

“He’s something of a fire-eater, but he’s nice to me. He practices criminal law back in Jacobsville, Texas.”

He put the medical equipment to one side and told her she could get dressed.

“I’m going to put you on some antibiotics to fight off infection.” He studied her with narrowed eyes. “What you’ve been through is traumatic,” he added as he handed her the prescription bottle. “I’d advise counseling.”

“Right now,” she said on a long breath, “I’m occupied with just trying to stay alive. The drug dealer is still after me, you see.”

His jaw tautened. “Micah will take care of you.”

“I know that.” She stood up and smiled, extending her hand. “Thanks.”

He shook her hand and shrugged. “Think nothing of it. We brilliant medical types feel obliged to minister to the masses…”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Micah groaned as he entered the room, overhearing his friend.

Dr. Candler gave him a look full of frowning mock-hauteur. “And aren’t you lucky that I don’t have to examine you today?” he drawled.

“We’re leaving. Right now.” He took Callie by the hand and gave the other man a grin. “Thanks.”

“Anytime. You take care.”

“You do the same.”

Callie was herded out the door.

“But, the bill,” she protested as he put her out a side door and drew her into the vehicle that was waiting for them with the engine running.

“Already taken care of. Let’s get to the airport.”

Callie settled into the seat, still worrying. “I don’t have anything with me,” she said miserably. “No papers, no clothes, no shoes…”

“I told you, Maddie got all that together. It will be waiting for us at the airport, along with tickets and boarding passes.”

“What if Lopez has people there waiting for us?” she worried aloud.

“We also have people waiting there for us,” Bojo said from the front seat. “Miami is our safest domestic port.”

“Okay,” she said, and smiled at him.

He smiled back.

Micah and Bojo exchanged a complicated glance. Bojo turned his attention back to the road and didn’t say another word all the way to the airport. Callie understood. Micah didn’t want her getting too friendly with his people. She didn’t take offense. She was used to rejection, after so many years in foster care. She only shrugged and looked out the window, watching palm trees and colorful buildings slide past as they wove through side streets and back onto the expressway.

The airport was crowded. Micah caught her by the arm and guided her past the ticket counter on the way to the concourses.

“But…” she protested.

“Don’t argue. Just walk through the metal detector.”

He followed close behind her. Neither of them was carrying anything metallic, but Micah was stopped when a security woman passed a wand over the two of them and her detector picked up the residual gunpowder on his hands and clothing. The woman looked at her instrument and then at him, with a wary, suspicious stare.

He smiled lazily at the uniformed woman holding the wand. “I’m on my way to a regional skeet shooting tournament,” he lied glibly. “I sent my guns on ahead by express, unassembled. Can’t be too careful these days, where firearms are concerned,” he added, catching Callie’s hand in his. “Right, honey?” he murmured softly, drawing her close.

To Callie’s credit, she didn’t faint at the unexpected feel of Micah’s arm around her, but she tingled from head to toe and her heart went wild.

The airport security woman seemed to relax, and she smiled back. She assumed, as Micah had intended, that he and Callie were involved. “Indeed you can’t. Have a good trip.”

Micah kept that long, muscular arm around Callie as they walked slowly down the concourse. He looked down, noting the erratic rhythm of her heartbeat at her neck, and he smiled to himself.

“You have lightning-quick reflexes,” he remarked after a minute. “I noticed that in Cancún. You didn’t argue, you didn’t question anything I told you to do, and you moved almost as fast as I did. You’re good company in tight corners.”

She shrugged. “When you came in through the window, I didn’t know who you were, because of that face mask. Actually,” she confessed with a sheepish smile, “at first, I figured you were a rival drug dealer, but I had high hopes that you might be kind enough to just kill me and not torture me first if I didn’t resist.”

He drew in a sharp breath and the arm holding her contracted with a jerk. “Strange attitude, Callie,” he remarked.

“Not at the time. Not to me, anyway.” She shivered at the memory and felt his arm tighten almost protectively. They were well out of earshot and sight of the security guard. “Micah, what was that wand she was checking us with?”

“It detects nitrates,” he replied. “With it, they can tell if a passenger has had any recent contact with weapons or explosives.”

She was keenly aware of his arm still holding her close against his warm, powerful body. “You can, uh, let go now. She’s out of sight.”

He didn’t relent. “Don’t look, but there’s a security guard with a two-way radio about fifteen feet to your right.” He smiled down at her. “And I’ll give you three guesses who’s on the other end of it.”

She smiled back, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “The lady with the nitrate wand? We’re psyching them out, right?”

He searched her eyes and for a few seconds he stopped walking. “Psyching them out,” he murmured. His gaze fell to her soft, full mouth. “Exactly.”

She couldn’t quite get her breath. His expression was unreadable, but his black eyes were glittering. He watched her blouse shake with the frantic rate of her heartbeats. He was remembering mistletoe and harsh words, and that same look in Callie’s soft eyes, that aching need to be kissed that made her look so very vulnerable.

“What the hell,” he murmured roughly as his head bent to hers. “It’s an airport. People are saying hello and goodbye everywhere…”

His warm, hard mouth covered hers very gently while the sounds of people in transit all around them faded to a dull roar. His heavy brows drew together in something close to anguish as he began to kiss her. Fascinated by his expression, by the warm, ardent pressure of his mouth on hers, she closed her eyes tight, and fantasized that he meant it, that he wasn’t pretending for the benefit of security guards, that he was enjoying the soft, tremulous response of her lips to the teasing, expert pressure of his own.

“Boss?”

They didn’t hear the gruff whisper.

It was followed by the loud clearing of a throat and a cough.

They didn’t hear that, either. Callie was on tiptoe now, her short nails digging into the hard muscles of his upper arms, hanging on Micah’s slow, tender kiss with little more than willpower, so afraid that he was going to pull away…!

“Micah!” the voice said shortly.

Micah’s head jerked up, and for a few seconds he seemed as disoriented as Callie. He stared blankly at the dark-headed man in front of him.

The man was extending a small case toward him. “Her papers and clothes and shoes and stuff,” the man said, nodding toward Callie and clearing his throat again. “Maddie had me fly them over here.”

“Thanks, Pogo.”

The big, dark man nodded. He stared with open curiosity at Callie, and then he smiled gently. “It was my pleasure,” he said, glancing again at Micah and making an odd little gesture with his head in Callie’s direction.

“This is Callie Kirby,” Micah said shortly, adding, “my…stepsister.”

The big man’s eyebrows levered up. “Oh! I mean, I was hoping she wasn’t a real sister. I mean, the way you were kissing her and all.” He flushed, and laughed self-consciously when Micah glared at him. Callie was scarlet, looking everywhere except at the newcomer.

“You’ll miss your flight out of here,” Micah said pointedly.

“What? Oh. Yeah.” He grinned at Callie. “I’m Pogo. I’m from Saint Augustine. I used to wrestle alligators until Micah here gave me a job. I’m sort of a bodyguard, you know…”

“You’re going to be an unemployed bodyguard in twenty seconds if you don’t merge with the crowd,” Micah said curtly.

“Oh. Well…sure. Bye, now,” he told Callie with an ear-to-ear smile.

She smiled back. He was like a big teddy bear. She was sorry they wouldn’t get to know each other.

Pogo almost fell over his own feet as he turned, jerking both busy eyebrows at his boss, before he melted into the crowd and vanished.

“Stop doing that,” Micah said coldly.

She looked up at him blankly. “Doing what?”

“Smiling at my men like that. These men aren’t used to it. Don’t encourage them.”

Her lips parted on a shaken breath. She looked at him as if she feared for his sanity. “Them?” she echoed, dazed.

“Bojo and Peter and Pogo,” he said, moving restlessly. He was jealous, God knew why. It irritated him. “Come on.”

He moved away from her, catching her hand tightly and pulling her along with him.

“And don’t read anything into what just happened,” he added coldly, without looking at her.

“Why would I?” she asked honestly. “You said it was just for appearances. I haven’t forgotten how you feel about me, Micah.”

He stopped and stared intently down into her eyes. His own were narrow, angry, impatient. She wore her heart where anyone could see it. Her vulnerability made him protective. Odd, that, when she was tough enough to survive captivity by Lopez and still keep her nerve during a bloody breakout.

“You don’t have a clue how I feel about you,” he said involuntarily. His fingers locked closer into hers. “I’m thirty-six. You’re barely twenty-two. The sort of woman I prefer is sophisticated and street-smart and has no qualms about sex. You’re still at the kissing-in-parked-cars stage.”

She flushed and searched his eyes. “I don’t kiss people in parked cars because I don’t date anybody,” she told him with blunt honesty. “I can’t leave Dad alone in the evenings. Besides, too many men around Jacobsville remember my mother, and think I’m like her.” Her face stiffened and she looked away. “Including you.”

He didn’t speak. There was little softness left in him after all the violent years, but she was able to touch some last, sensitive place with her sweet voice. Waves of guilt ran over him. Yes, he’d compared her to her mother that Christmas. He’d said harsh, cruel things. He regretted them, but there was no going back. His feelings about Callie unnerved him. She was the only weak spot in his armor that he’d ever known. And what a good thing that she didn’t know that, he told himself.

“You don’t know what was really going on that night, Callie,” he said after a minute.

She looked up at him. “Don’t you think it’s time I did?” she asked softly.

He toyed with her fingers, causing ripples of pleasure to run along her spine. “Why not? You’re old enough to hear it now.” He glanced around them cautiously before he looked at her again. “You were wearing an emerald velvet dress that night, the same one you’d worn to your eighteenth birthday party. They were watching a movie while you finished decorating the Christmas tree,” he continued absently. “You’d just bent over to pick up an ornament when I came into the room. The dress had a deep neckline. You weren’t wearing a bra under it, and your breasts were visible in that position, right to the nipples. You looked up at me and your nipples were suddenly hard.”

She gaped at him. The comment about her nipples was disturbing, but she had no idea what he meant by emphasizing them. “I had no idea I was showing like that!”

“I didn’t realize that. Not at first.” He held her fingers tighter. “You saw me and came right up against me, drowning me in that floral perfume you wore. You stood on tiptoe, like you did a minute ago, trying to tempt me into kissing you.”

She averted her embarrassed eyes. “You said terrible things…”

“The sight of you like that had aroused me passionately,” he said frankly, nodding when her shocked eyes jumped to his face. “That’s right. And I couldn’t let you know it. I had to make you keep your distance, not an easy accomplishment after the alcohol you’d had. For which,” he added coldly, “your mother should have been shot! It was illegal for her to let you drink, even at home. Anyway, I read you the riot act, pushed you away and walked down the hall, right into your mother. She recognized immediately what you hadn’t even noticed about my body, and she thought it was the sight of her in that slinky silver dress that had caused it. So she buried herself against me and started kissing me.” He let out an angry breath. “Your father saw us like that before I could push her away. And I couldn’t tell him the truth, because you were just barely eighteen. I was already thirty-two.”

The bitterness in his deep voice was blatant. She didn’t feel herself breathing. She’d only been eighteen, but he’d wanted her. She’d never realized it. Everything that didn’t make sense was suddenly crystal clear—except that comment about his body. She wondered what her mother had seen and recognized about him that she hadn’t.

“You never told me.”

“You were a child, Callie,” he said tautly. “In some ways, you still are. I was never low enough to take advantage of your innocence.”

She was almost vibrating with the turmoil of her emotions. She didn’t know what to do or say.

He drew in a long, slow breath as he studied her. “Come on,” he said, tugging her along. “We have to move or we’ll miss our flight.” He handed her the case and indicated the ladies’ room. “Get changed. I’ll wait right here.”

She nodded. Her mind was in such turmoil that she changed into jeans and a long-sleeved knit shirt, socks and sneakers, without paying much attention to what was in the small travel case. She didn’t take time to look in any of the compartments, because he’d said to hurry. She glanced at herself in the mirror and was glad she had short hair that could do without a brush. Despite all she’d been through, it didn’t look too bad. She’d have to buy a brush when they got where they were going, along with makeup and other toiletries. But that could wait.

Micah was propping up the wall when she came out. He nodded, approving what Maddie had packed for her, and took the case. “Here,” he said, passing her a small plastic bag.

Inside were makeup, a brush, a toothbrush, toothpaste and deodorant. She almost cried at the thoughtful gift.

“Thanks,” she said huskily.

Micah pulled the tickets and boarding passes out of his shirt pocket. “Get out your driver’s license and birth certificate,” he said. “We have to have a photo ID to board.”

She felt momentary panic. “My birth certificate is in my file at home, and my driver’s license is still in my purse, in my car…!”

He laid a lean forefinger across her pretty mouth, slightly swollen from the hard contact with his. “Your car is at your house, and your purse is inside it, and it’s locked up tight. I told Maddie to put your birth certificate and your driver’s license in the case. Have you looked for them?”

“No. I didn’t think…”

She paused, putting the case down on the carpeted concourse floor to open it. Sure enough, her driver’s license was in the zipped compartment that she hadn’t looked in when she was in the bathroom. Besides that, the unknown Maddie had actually put her makeup and toiletries inside, as well, in a plastic bag. She could have wept at the woman’s thoughtfulness, but she wasn’t going to tell Micah and make him feel uncomfortable that he’d already bought her those items. She closed it quickly and stuck her license in her jeans pocket.

“Does Maddie really look like me?” she asked on the way to the ticket counter, trying not to sound as if she minded. He’d said they resembled one another earlier.

“At a distance,” he affirmed. “Her hair is shorter than yours, and she’s more muscular. She was a karate instructor when she signed on with me. She’s twenty-six.”

“Karate.”

“Black belt,” he added.

“She seems to be very efficient,” she murmured a little stiffly.

He gave her a knowing glance that she didn’t see and chuckled softly. “She’s in love with Colby Lane, a guy I used to work with at the justice department,” he told her. “She signed on with us because she thought he was going to.”

“He didn’t?”

He shook his head. “He’s working for Pierce Hutton’s outfit, as a security chief, along with Tate Winthrop, an acquaintance of mine.”

“Oh.”

They were at the ticket counter now. He held out his hand for her driver’s license and birth certificate, and presented them along with his driver’s license and passport and the tickets to the agent on duty.

She put the tickets in a neat folder with the boarding passes in a slot on the outside, checked the ID, and handed them back.

“Have a nice trip,” she told them. “We’ll be boarding in just a minute.”

Callie hadn’t looked at her boarding pass. She was too busy trying to spot Bojo and Peter and the others.

“They’re already en route,” Micah told her nonchalantly, having guessed why she was looking around her.

“They aren’t going with us?”

He gave her a wry glance. “Somebody had to bring my boat back. I left it here in the marina when I flew out to Jacobsville to help Eb Scott and Cy Parks shut down Lopez’s drug operation. It’s still there.”

“Why couldn’t we have gone on the boat, too?”

“You get seasick,” he said before he thought.

Her lips fell open. She’d only been on a boat once, with him and her mother and stepfather, when she was sixteen. They’d gone to San Antonio and sailed down the river on a tour boat. She’d gotten very sick and thrown up. It had been Micah who’d looked after her, to his father’s amusement.

She hadn’t even remembered the episode until he’d said that. She didn’t get seasick now, but she kept quiet.

“Besides,” he added, avoiding her persistent stare, “if Lopez does try anything, it won’t be on an international flight out of the U. S. He’s in enough trouble with the higher-ups in his organization without making an assault on a commercial plane just to get even for losing a prisoner.”

She relaxed a little, because that had been on her mind.

He took her arm and drew her toward a small door, where a uniformed man was holding a microphone. He announced that they were boarding first-class passengers first, and Micah ushered her right down the ramp and into the plane.

“First class,” she said, dazed, as he eased her into a wide, comfortable seat with plenty of leg room. Even for a man of his height, there was enough of it.

“Always,” he murmured, amused at her fascination. “I don’t like cramped places.”

She fastened her seat belt with a wry smile. “Considering the size of you, I can understand that. Micah, what about Dad?” she added, ashamed that she was still belaboring the point.

“Maddie’s got him under surveillance. When Pogo goes back, he’ll work a split shift with her at your apartment to safeguard him. Eb and Cy are keeping their eyes out, as well. I promise you, Dad’s going to be safe.” He hesitated, searching her wide, pale blue eyes. “But you’re the one in danger.”

“Because I got away,” she agreed, nodding.

He seemed worried. His dark eyes narrowed on her face. “Lopez doesn’t lose prisoners, ever. You’re the first. Someone is going to pay for that. He’ll make an example of the people who didn’t watch you closely enough. Then he’ll make an example of you and me, if he can, to make sure his reputation doesn’t suffer.”

She shivered involuntarily. It was a nightmare that would haunt her forever. She remembered what she’d suffered already and her eyes closed on a helpless wave of real terror.

“You’re going to be safe, Callie. Listen,” he said, reading her expression, “I live on a small island in the Bahamas chain, not too far from New Providence. I have state-of-the-art surveillance equipment and a small force of mercenaries that even Lopez would hesitate to confront. Lopez isn’t the only one who has a reputation in terrorist circles. Before I put together my team and hired out as a professional soldier, I worked for the CIA.”

Her eyes widened. She hadn’t known that. She hadn’t known anything about him.

“They approached me while I was in college, before I changed my course of study to medicine. I was already fluent in French and Dutch, and I picked up German in my sophomore year. I couldn’t blend in very well in an Arabic country, but I could pass for German or Dutch, and I did. During holidays and vacations, I did a lot of traveling for the company.” He smiled, reminiscing. “It was dangerous work, and exciting. By the time I was in my last year of residency, I knew for a fact that I wouldn’t be able to settle down into a medical practice. I couldn’t live without the danger. That’s when I left school for good.”

She was hanging on every word. It was amazing to have him speak to her as an equal, as an adult. They’d never really talked before.

“I wondered,” she said, “why you gave it up.”

He stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I had the skills, but as I grew older, the less I wanted roots or anything that hinted at permanence. I don’t want marriage or children, so a steady, secure profession seemed superfluous. On the other hand, being a mercenary is right up my alley. I live for those surges of adrenaline.”

“None of us ever knew about that,” she said absently, trying not to let him see how much it hurt to know that he couldn’t see a future as a husband and father. Now that she knew what he really did for a living, she could understand why. He was never going to be a family man. “We thought it was the trust your mother left you that kept you in Armani suits,” she added in a subdued tone.

“No, it wasn’t. I like my lifestyle,” he added with a pointed glance in her direction. He stretched lazily, pulling the silk shirt he was wearing taut across the muscles of his chest. A flight attendant actually hesitated as she started down the aisle, helplessly drinking in the sight of him. He was a dish, all right. Callie didn’t blame the other woman for staring, but the flight attendant had blond hair and blue eyes and she was lovely. Her beauty was like a knife in the ribs to Callie, pointing out all the physical attributes she herself lacked. If only she’d been pretty, she told herself miserably, maybe Micah would have wanted more than an occasional kiss from her.

“Would you care for anything to drink, sir?” the flight attendant asked, smiling joyfully as she paused by Micah’s side.

“Scotch and soda,” he told her. He smiled ruefully. “It’s been a long day.”

“Coming right up,” the woman said, and went at once to get the order.

Callie noticed that she hadn’t been asked if she wanted anything. She wondered what Micah would say if she asked for a neat whiskey. Probably nothing, she told herself miserably. He might have kissed her in the airport, but he only seemed irritated by her now.

The flight attendant was back with his drink. She glanced belatedly at Callie and grimaced. “Sorry,” she told the other woman. “I didn’t think to ask if you’d like something, too?”

Callie shook her head and smiled. “No, I don’t want anything, thanks.”

“Are you stopping in Nassau or just passing through?” the woman asked Micah boldly.

He gave her a lingering appraisal, from her long, elegant legs to her full breasts and lovely face. He smiled. “I live there.”

“Really!” Her eyes lit as if they’d concealed fires. “So do I!”

“Then you must know Lisette Dubonnet,” he said.

“Dubonnet,” the uniformed woman repeated, frowning. “Isn’t her father Jacques Dubonnet, the French ambassador?”

“Yes,” he said. “Lisette and I have known each other for several years. We’re…very good friends.”

The flight attendant looked suddenly uncomfortable, and a little flushed. Micah was telling her, in a nice way, that she’d overstepped her introduction. He smiled to soften the rejection, but it was a rejection, just the same.

“Miss Dubonnet is very lovely,” the flight attendant said with a pleasant, if more formal, smile. “If you need anything else, just ring.”

“I will.”

She went on down the aisle. Beside him, Callie was staring out the window at the ocean below without any real enthusiasm. She hated her own reaction to the news that Micah was involved with some beautiful woman in Nassau. And not only a beautiful woman, but a poised sophisticate, as well.

“You’ll like Lisse,” he said carelessly. “I’ll ask her to go shopping with you. You’ll have to have a few clothes. She has excellent taste.”

Implying that Callie had none at all. Her heart felt like iron in her chest, heavy and cold. “That would be nice,” she said, lying through her teeth. “I won’t need much, though,” she added, thinking about her small savings account.

“You may be there longer than a day or two,” he said in a carefully neutral voice. “You can’t wear the same clothes day in and day out. Besides,” he added curtly, “it’s about time you learned how to dress like a young woman instead of an elderly recluse!”