LITMIR.BIZ

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the only thing he could. But I was leaving Jacobsville anyway, when my parents divorced. I only had a week of school before graduation before I went to live with you. He didn’t have to go to such lengths.”

      “My brother still feels like an idiot for the way he behaved with that college girl he left your mother for,” Jessica said curtly, meaning Sally’s father, who was Jessica’s only living relative besides Sally. “It didn’t help that your mother remarried barely six months later. He was stuck with Beverly the Beauty.”

      “How are my parents?” Sally asked. It was the first time she’d mentioned either of her parents in a long while, She’d lost touch with them since the divorce that had shattered her life.

      “Your father spends most of his time at work while Beverly goes the party route every night and spends every penny he makes. Your mother is separated from her second husband and living in Nassau.” Jessica shifted on the bed. “You don’t ever hear from your parents, do you?”

      “I don’t resent them as much as I did. But I never felt that they loved me,” she said abruptly. “That’s why I felt it was better we went our separate ways.”

      “They were children when they married and had you,” the other woman said. “Not really mature enough for the responsibility. They resented it, too. That’s why you spent so much time with me during the first five years you were alive.” Jessica smiled. “I hated it when you went back home.”

      “Why did you and Hank wait so long to have a child of your own?” Sally asked.

      Jessica flushed. “It wasn’t…convenient, with Hank overseas so much. Did you get that tire replaced?” she added, almost as if she were desperate to change the subject.

      “You and Mr. Scott!” Sally exploded, diverted. “How did you know it was bald?”

      “Because Eb phoned me before you got home and told me to remind you to get it replaced,” Jessica chuckled.

      “I suppose he has a cell phone in his truck.”

      “Among other things,” Jessica replied with a smile. “He isn’t like the men you knew in college or even when you started teaching. Eb is an alpha male,” she said quietly. “He isn’t politically correct, and he doesn’t even pretend to conform. In some ways, he’s very old-fashioned.”

      “I don’t feel that way about him anymore,” Sally said firmly.

      “I’m sorry,” Jessica replied gently. “He’s been alone most of his life. He needs to be loved.”

      Sally picked at a cuticle, chipping the clear varnish on her short, neat fingernails. “Does he have family?”

      “Not anymore. His mother died when he was very young, and his father was career military. He grew up in the army, you might say. His father was not a gentle sort of man. He died in combat when Eb was in his twenties. There wasn’t any other family.”

      “You said once that you always saw Ebenezer with beautiful women at social events,” Sally recalled with a touch of envy.

      “He pays for dressing, and he attracts women. But he’s careful about his infrequent liaisons. He told me once that he guessed he’d never find a woman who could share the life he leads. He still has enemies who’d like to see him dead,” she added.

      “Like this drug lord?”

      “Yes. Manuel Lopez is a law unto himself. He has millions, and he owns politicians, law enforcement people, even judges,” Jessica said irritably. “That’s why we were never able to shut him down. Then I was told that a confidant of his wanted to give me information, names and documents that would warrant arresting Lopez on charges of drug trafficking. But I wasn’t careful enough. I overlooked one little thing, and Lopez’s attorneys used it in a petition for a retrial. They got him out. He’s on the loose pending retrial and out for vengeance against his comrade. He’ll do anything to get the name of the person who sold him out. Anything at all.”

      Sally let her breath out through pursed lips. “So we’re all under the gun.”

      “Exactly. I used to be a crack shot, but without my vision, I’m useless. Eb will have a plan by tomorrow.” Her face was solemn as she stared in the general direction of her niece’s voice. “Listen to him, Sally. Do exactly what he says. He’s our only hope of protecting Stevie.”

      “I’ll do anything I have to, to protect you and Stevie,” Sally agreed at once.

      “I knew you would.”

      She toyed with her nails again. “Jess, has Ebenezer ever been serious about anyone?”

      “Yes. There was a woman in Houston, in fact, several years ago. He cared for her very much, but she dropped him flat when she found out what he did for a living. She married a much-older bank executive.” She shifted on the bed. “I hear that she’s widowed now. But I don’t imagine he still has any feelings for her. After all, she dropped him, not the reverse.”

      Sally, who knew something about helpless unrequited love, wasn’t so quick to agree. After all, she still had secret feelings for Ebenezer…

      “Deep thoughts, dear?” Jessica asked softly.

      “I was remembering the reruns we used to see of that old TV series, The A-Team,” she recalled with an audible laugh. “I loved it when they had to knock out that character Mr. T played to get him on an airplane.”

      “It was a good show. Not lifelike, of course,” Jessica added.

      “What part?”

      “All of it.”

      Jessica would probably know, Sally figured. “Why didn’t you ever tell me what you did for a living?”

      “Need to know,” came the dry reply. “You didn’t, until now.”

      “If you knew Ebenezer when he was still working as a mercenary, I guess you learned a lot about the business,” she ventured.

      Jessica’s face closed up. “I learned too much,” she said coldly. “Far too much. Men like that are incapable of lasting relationships. They don’t know the meaning of love or fidelity.”

      She seemed to know that, and Sally wondered how. “Was Uncle Hank a mercenary, too?”

      “Yes, just briefly,” she said. “Hank was never one to rush in and risk killing himself. It was so ironic that he died overseas in his sleep, of a heart condition nobody even knew he had.”

      That was a surprise, along with all the others that Jessica was getting. Uncle Hank had been very handsome, but not assertive or particularly tough.

      “But Ebenezer said he served with Uncle Hank.”

      “Yes. In basic training, before they joined the Green Berets,” Jessica said. “Hank didn’t pass the training course. Ebenezer did. In fact,” she added amusedly, “he was able to do the Fan Dance.”

      “Fan Dance?”

      “It’s a specialized course they put the British commandos, the Special Air Service, guys through. Not many soldiers, even career soldiers, are able to finish it, much less able to pass it on the first try. Eb did. He was briefly ‘loaned’ to them while he was in army intelligence, for some top secret assignment.”

      Sally had never thought very much about Ebenezer’s profession, except that she’d guessed he was once in the military. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. A man who’d been in the military might still have a soft spot or two inside. She was almost certain that a commando, a soldier for hire, wouldn’t have any.

      “You’re very quiet,” Jessica said.

      “I never thought of Ebenezer in such a profession,” she replied, moving to look out the window at the November landscape. “I guess it was right there in front of me, and I didn’t see it. No wonder he kept to himself.”

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