Her Kind of Hero: The Last Mercenary - Diana Palmer

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figure. She was simply ordinary. She never attracted attention from men, and Micah had found her totally resistible from the day they met. Why not? He could have any woman he wanted. She’d seen him with really beautiful women when she and her mother had first come to live with Jack Steele. Besides, there was the age thing. Callie was barely twenty-two. Micah was thirty-six. He didn’t like adolescents. He’d said that to Callie, just after that disastrous encounter—among other things. Some of the things he’d said still made her blush. He’d compared her to her mother, and he hadn’t been kind. Afterward, she’d been convinced that he was having an affair with her mother, who didn’t deny it when Callie asked. It had tarnished him in her eyes and made her hostile. She still was. It was something she couldn’t help. She’d idolized Micah until she saw him kissing her mother. It had killed something inside her, made her cold. She wondered if he’d been telling the truth when he said he hadn’t seen her mother recently. It hurt to think of him with Anna.

      She stopped at a crossroads, her eyes darting from one stop sign to another, looking for oncoming traffic. While she was engrossed in that activity, the car following her on the deserted road suddenly shot ahead and cut across in front of her, narrowly missing her front bumper.

      She gasped and hit the brake, forgetting to depress the clutch at the same time. The engine died. She reached over frantically to lock the passenger door, and at the same time, three slim, dark, formidable-looking men surrounded her car. The taller of the three jerked open the driver’s door and pulled her roughly out of the car.

      She fought, but a hand with a handkerchief was clapped over her nose and mouth and she moaned as the chloroform hit her nostrils and knocked her out flat. As she was placed quickly into the backseat of the other car, another man climbed into her little car and moved it onto the side of the road. He joined his colleagues. The dark car turned around and accelerated back the way it had come, with Callie unconscious in the backseat.

      Micah Steele roared away from the scene of his latest disagreement with Callie, his chiseled mouth a thin line above his square jaw. His big hands gripped the steering wheel with cold precision as he cursed his own lack of communication skills. He’d put her back up almost at once by being disparaging about the neat beige suit she was wearing with a plain white blouse. She never dressed to be noticed, only to be efficient. She was that, he had to admit. She was so unlike him. He seemed conservative in his dress and manner. It was a deception. He was unconventional to the core, while Callie could have written the book on proper behavior.

      She hadn’t believed him, about the danger she and her stepfather—his father—could find themselves in. Manuel Lopez wasn’t the man to cross, and he wanted blood. He was going to go to the easiest target for that. He grimaced, thinking how vulnerable Callie would be in a desperate situation. She hated snakes, but he’d seen her go out of her way not to injure one. She was like that about everything. She was a sucker for a hard-luck story, an easy mark for a con artist. Her heart was as soft as wool, and she was sensitive; overly sensitive. He didn’t like remembering how he’d hurt her in the past.

      He did remember that he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. He stopped to have a sandwich at a local fast-food joint. Then he drove himself back to the motel he was staying at. He’d been helping Eb Scott and Cy Parks get rid of Lopez’s fledgling drug distribution center. Just nights ago, they’d shut down the whole operation and sent most of Lopez’s people to jail. Lopez’s high-tech equipment, all his vehicles, even the expensive tract of land they sat on, had been confiscated under the Rico statutes. And that didn’t even include the massive shipment of marijuana that had also been taken away. Micah himself had tipped off the authorities to the largest shipment of cocaine in the history of south Texas, which the Coast Guard, with DEA support, had appropriated before it even got to the Mexican coast. Lopez wouldn’t have to dig too deeply to know that Micah had cost him not only the multimillion-dollar shipment, but the respect of the cartel in Colombia, as well. Lopez was in big trouble with his bosses. Micah Steele was the reason for that. Lopez couldn’t get to Micah, but he could get to Micah’s family because they were vulnerable. The knowledge of that scared him to death.

      He took a shower and stretched out on the bed in a towel, his hands under his dampblond hair while he stared at the ceiling and wondered how he could keep an eye on Callie Kirby and Jack Steele without their knowing. A private bodyguard would stick out like a sore thumb in a small Texas community like Jacobsville. On the other hand, Micah couldn’t do it himself without drawing Lopez’s immediate retaliation. It was a difficult determination. He couldn’t make himself go back to the Bahamas while he knew his father and Callie were in danger. On the other hand, he couldn’t stay here. Living in a small town would drive him nuts, even if he had done it in the past, before he went off to medical school.

      While he was worrying about what to do next, the telephone rang.

      “Steele,” he said on a yawn. He was tired.

      “It’s Eb,” came the reply. “I just had a phone call from Rodrigo,” he added, mentioning a Mexican national who’d gone undercover for them in Lopez’s organization. He’d since been discovered and was now hiding out in Aruba.

      “What’s happened?” Micah asked with a feeling of dread knotting his stomach.

      “He had some news from a friend of his cousin, a woman who knows Lopez. Have you seen Callie Kirby today?” Eb asked hesitantly.

      “Yes,” Micah said. “About two hours ago, just as she was leaving her office. Why?”

      “Rodrigo said Lopez was going to snatch her. He sounded as if they meant to do it pretty soon. You might want to check on her.”

      “I went to see her. I warned her…!”

      “You know Lopez,” Eb reminded him somberly. “It won’t do her any good even if she’s armed. Lopez’s men are professionals.”

      “I’ll do some telephoning and get back to you,” Micah said quickly, cursing his own lack of haste about safeguarding Callie. He hung up and phoned the adult day care center. Callie would surely be there by now. He could warn her…

      But the woman who answered the phone said that Callie hadn’t arrived yet. She was two hours late, and her stepfather was becoming anxious. Did Micah know where she was?

      He avoided a direct answer and promised to phone her back. Then, with a feeling of utter dread, he climbed into the Porsche and drove past Kemp’s law office, taking the route Callie would have taken to the adult day care center.

      His heart skipped a beat when he reached the first intersection outside the city. At this time of day, there was very little traffic. But there, on the side of the road, was Callie’s yellow VW, parked on the grass with the driver’s door wide-open.

      He pulled in behind it and got out, cursing as he noted that the keys were still in the ignition, and her purse was lying on the passenger seat. There was no note, no anything.

      He stood there, shell-shocked and cold. Lopez had Callie. Lopez had Callie!

      After a minute, he phoned Eb on his car phone.

      “What do you want me to do?” Eb asked at once, after Micah had finished speaking.

      Micah’s head was spinning. He couldn’t think. He ran a hand through his thick hair. “Nothing. You’re newly married, like Cy. I can’t put any more women in the firing line. Let me handle this.”

      “What will you do?” Eb asked.

      “Bojo’s in Atlanta visiting his brother, but I’ll have him meet me in Belize tomorrow. If you have a number for Rodrigo, call it, and tell him to meet me in Belize, too, at the Seasurfer’s Bar. Meanwhile, I’ll call in the rest of my team.” He was remembering phone numbers and jotting them down even as he spoke. “They’re taking a holiday, but I can round them up. I’ll go in after her.”

      Eb suggested calling the chief of police, Chet Blake, because he had contacts everywhere, including relatives in positions of power—one was even a Texas Ranger. Micah couldn’t argue. If Eb wanted to tell the man, let him. He was going to get to Callie

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