Chapter Eleven

Probate was a little easier because in his will, Amelia's grandfather had left what little there was to Amelia. It was a long-standing will, which he'd never changed. It was just as well, because there was very little that anyone could inherit. It did, however, give Amelia a break from having to deal with the legal aspects. Her great-aunt had her own fine attorney and he handled everything.

Amelia moved in with Valeria in Victoria, although it was a wrench to leave Jacobsville where she was born. She found a job as secretary to an attorney, through her great-aunt's attorney, which made life a little easier. It didn't pay a lot, but it allowed her to pay rent—which she insisted on doing—and buy a few new pieces of clothing.

She forced herself not to think about Cal. She didn't know anybody who had ties to him, and that helped a lot. Absence, she thought, might just do the trick. It was a lie. She thought about him all the time, missed him, relived that night over and over in her thoughts. She wasn't going to be able to stop loving him. But at least she wouldn't have Edie rubbed in her face over here with her great-aunt.

Life went on, in a dull, everyday way. Amelia went to work, came home, cooked, watched the news with Valeria and went to bed.

Valeria couldn't understand why her great-niece went to bed with the chickens, and said so.

"I'm just tired," Amelia replied with a smile. "I think it's aftereffects of losing Granddaddy."

Valeria sighed. "I know, child. I miss him, too. Except for you, he was the last family I had."

"What was he like, when he was young?"

She shook her head. "The black sheep of the family! Honestly, he embarrassed Mama so much that she threatened to give him away. You know, family names are handed down for generations. Black marks are handed down with them. So far, there's never been a blight on ours. It's quite an accomplishment, in this day and time." She shook her finger at Amelia. "You make sure you never disgrace us, either, young lady. That's an order."

Amelia just grinned and said, "Yes, ma'am."

But it grew harder and harder to do much of anything when she got off work, and she was feeling nauseous. Her clothes were growing too small, and it wasn't because she turned the dryer heat up too high. Her breasts and her waistline were expanding.

With something like panic, she bought a home pregnancy kit after she got off work the next Friday and took it home, sneaking it into the bathroom. She could tuck the used kit in the tote she carried to work and dispose of it someplace Valeria wouldn't see it.

But all her plans flew away when she actually used the kit. It was positive. She was pregnant.

She sat down on the commode lid and felt the shock all the way to her feet. She had no contact with Cal, who'd already said he didn't want ties. She had a job, but she lived in a smallish city with a reputation-conscious elderly woman who would never adjust to a pregnant out-of-wedlock great-niece. So what did she do now?

Dazed, she dropped the kit into the trash can without thinking and went to her room and sat on the bed. Panic would surely set in soon. She had to figure out what to do next.

Not that she had any intention of getting rid of her child. She could move back east or west, someplace where Cal would never know she was still alive. He'd think she'd used the morning-after pill, so he had no need to check on her anyway. She could go away, invent a fictional husband...

She looked up to find her great-aunt in the doorway, holding the box and the used pregnancy test in her hands.

"You little slut!" she hissed.

Amelia got off the bed. "It's okay. I'm going to move out. Nobody will know. I can go back east..."

"Disgraceful! It was that mercenary who lived across the street, wasn't it? Oh, yes, my brother told me all about how close you were. He did this and just left you?"

"It's not like that," Amelia began.

"You tramp! You pack your things and get out of my house right now!" she almost screamed at the younger woman.

There were many replies that Amelia could have used, but none of them would have worked. "Okay," she said softly, because her volatile relative was about to lose control. "I'll just go downstairs and get my suitcase out of the closet," she added, and walked toward the staircase.

"Of all the evil, despicable things women do to themselves these days, they're no better than...!"

Amelia wasn't listening. She got to the staircase and the first step.

"How could you, Amelia?" Valeria wailed. "How could you do this!"

"Aunt Valeria," she began.

"You...traitor!"

In a fever of rage, Valeria reached out and pushed her, violently.

Her horrified face was the last thing Amelia saw. The last thing she heard was, "No! Oh, no, I didn't mean it!"

She came to in the hospital with a concussion and she'd lost the baby. The doctor, an older man, was apparently her great-aunt's physician.

"Valeria is very sorry," he said at her bedside. "She has these rages. You may not know that she's diabetic and she cheats on her diet with candy and sweets. It's landed her in the hospital twice. I know," he added gently, "it doesn't excuse what she's done to you. But it explains it."

"I won't go back there," Amelia said solemnly. "And I won't see her." She looked at the doctor with sad brown eyes. "I wanted my baby. I loved his father, so much."

The doctor winced. "I am truly sorry. Is there any way I can help?"

"If someone would go to my great-aunt's house and pack my things," she said, "I'd be much obliged. I had my cell phone in my pocket..."

He opened the drawer beside her bed, took it out and handed it to her. "Good thing you have a charging case," he added.

She turned the charge on. "It is. I'll call my employer and explain. Or sort of explain. God knows, I wouldn't want to embarrass my snow-white aunt for any reason," she added bitterly.

He didn't answer that. "I'll ask one of the aides to do that for you after she gets off work. She can bring your stuff in with her tomorrow."

"Thanks very much," she said.

"It's little enough to do. And I am sorry."

Her bags were packed and brought to her hospital room, along with her notebook computer.

Valeria, still in the heat of anger after having been up all night, and hearing from her physician that Amelia had lost the baby, remembered hearing that Cal had gone back to work for the police in San Antonio. It was his fault, all of this. Her great-niece would never speak to her again, all because of him. He'd ruined the girl, dirtied her reputation. Valeria had regrettably lost her temper and done something unforgiveable. The guilt about the baby ate at her until she realized that it was all Cal's fault. None of this would have happened if he hadn't seduced her innocent great-niece. Then he'd just walked away, with no consequences, leaving the girl to take care of herself. Well, he wasn't getting away with it, either! She tracked him down.

He answered the phone, puzzled because only a handful of people knew him well enough to call him.

"I'm Amelia's great-aunt, Valeria," she introduced herself with sugary sweetness.

"Amelia!" He groaned. "How is she? Is she okay? I was going to call her last night and check on her. I should have done it sooner, but things have been hectic around here..."

"That's why I phoned. To tell you how she is. I just wanted to tell you not to worry about the baby," she said in a tone dripping with sarcasm. "Amelia went to a clinic yesterday, and had the baby removed. So you're all set now, aren't you? You can go on your merry way with no consequences whatsoever and seduce someone else's innocent relative!"

And she hung up.

Cal just sat for a moment, shocked out of his mind. He'd assumed that Amelia had taken the morning-after pill, so he hadn't been concerned. He'd missed her terribly, but he'd been dealing with the aftermath of Ngawa, and his mind had been on much more horrible things than poor Amelia and how she'd managed after her grandfather died. It shamed him that he'd just walked away, without telling her how he really felt. Not that he'd realized how he felt, until very recent days. He'd known where Amelia was, and he had every intention of getting her back into his life. Until right now, when he knew how little emotion she felt for him. She hadn't bothered to tell him about their child. She didn't want it. The thought tortured him. He thought she loved him. It was the one certainty in his miserable life. Had she thought he wouldn't want the baby? That he'd cut her out of his life? Or had she just never loved him in the first place?

He still had Amelia's phone number. He tried to call her, but the call went to her voice mail. Since she'd never set it up, she never got it. She didn't recognize the number in her missed-call file and assumed it was a telemarketer and erased it.

That night a very drunk Cal showed up at Edie's apartment. She was feeling good, high as a kite, and delighted to see him—in any condition. "Why, come in! You look like something the dog brought in, darling," she laughed.

"She got rid of it."

"Excuse me?"

He sat down heavily, his head in his hands. "I lost my head. I swear to God I thought she got the damned morning-after pill, but she didn't. She was pregnant. She went to a damned clinic!"

"Well, sweetheart, if you wanted her to take the pill, why is getting rid of the child so shocking? It's the same thing."

"It's not." His dark eyes were blazing. "She should have told me. She should have given me a choice!"

"Her body, her choice," she replied.

"Fathers have no rights?" he asked belligerently.

"Boy, are you high," she murmured. "Listen, most women don't want kids. They ruin your figure and your life, and you never look the same. I never wanted any. I still don't."

He'd thought of nothing but Amelia for days. Missed her. Ached to see her. Guilt had kept him away. He'd just walked away from her, without a word of explanation. Now he was in a fog of misery. He'd meant to go after her, now that he'd finally reconciled himself with the anguish of Ngawa. In fact, he'd gone to a jewelry store and bought a set of rings. Amber diamonds, unique, like Amelia with her blond hair and dark, dark eyes. He'd been thinking about marriage. He knew she loved him. And he was only just discovering the anguish of a life that she wasn't part of. He'd had plans, to go and see her in Victoria. As he'd told her aunt, he'd meant to phone her that night and try to explain. And now, this. Proof that she wanted nothing more to do with him. If she'd loved him, she'd have wanted the child.

"She betrayed me," he said furiously. "She sold me down the river!"

"That's right," she agreed. "She truly did. So," she added, cocking her head, "why don't we pay her back? Let's get married. That will show her how little she means to you!"

"Married." He blinked. He was having trouble concentrating.

"Sure! Let's go get a marriage license!"

"I'm drunk."

"No problem. I have strong coffee. I'll fix you right up."

So three days later, he married Edie in the office of the justice of the peace. And immediately afterward, he sent Amelia a text message, having remembered belatedly that she hadn't ever set up voice mail on her phone. It was one of the things he'd promised to help her do.

But he tried calling again, and this time he got through.

"You miserable excuse for a human being!" he raged the minute he heard her voice. "You didn't want the baby, so you just got rid of it? I had no right to know, to be told what you planned to do?"

"Cal, please listen..."

"To what, more lies? Damn you! Damn you to hell! I thought you were different, that you valued life, that you cared about me, that you..." He broke off. He couldn't even say the word. "Well, great, you're free now, no need to disturb your perfect life with any complications, right?"

"It's not...!" she tried again, horrified at what he was thinking.

"I never wanted you for keeps in the first place," he said in an icy tone. "One night was more than enough. Edie and I just got married, by the way, so thanks for helping us out by making sure I wouldn't be hit with child support. And you have a terrific life, Amelia. Just don't ever get in touch with me again. I hope you burn in hell!"

He hung up, wishing he could have slammed the receiver down. He was still cursing ten minutes later, and he'd made inroads into a new bottle of rum he found in Edie's liquor cabinet. By the time she came back from her shopping trip, he was passed out on the sofa.

Amelia had answered her cell phone just as they were getting things ready to release her from the hospital. She just stared at her phone blindly. How had he known about the baby? Maybe one of the hospital staff knew him and had phoned him. He must be in and out of the hospital a lot in his line of work, talking to victims of violent crime. But this was Houston, not San Antonio, so how would he have known?

The furious tirade had broken her heart. She'd still loved him, despite everything. But his harsh condemnation ended that part of her life very neatly. Cal thought she'd deliberately gotten rid of the baby. He wanted nothing to do with her. He was married. He wished Amelia in hell. And her only crime had been to love him.

Now she had no ties, nothing to hold her to Texas or Jacobsville, even less to her great-aunt. With the small amount of money she had left, she hired a car to take her down to Jacobsville and wait for her while she spoke to Eb Scott. On the off chance, she had her belongings with her.

She could lie to the world, but not to Eb. She told him the whole miserable story, from the beginning to the painful end.

"He didn't seem like that kind of man," Eb said when she finished. "But then, we never really know people, do we?"

She smiled sadly. "I guess not." She cocked her head. "I have no place to go. I lost my job because I couldn't contact them for two days to tell them where I was—and I wouldn't have dared tell them why I was in the hospital, or my great-aunt would have murdered me. You said once that you'd give me a job if I asked. I'm asking."

He studied her. He'd never trained a female operative, but she was good material to work with. She was smart, and a dead shot—something he'd tease her about for years, that he trained her to shoot—and she could follow instructions.

"Okay," he said. "But you're on trial temporarily. That work? Either one of us isn't satisfied at the end of a month, we'll make decisions."

She smiled. "Okay. Thanks. And you won't mention any of this to Cal, if you ever see him? Promise me, please."

"Easy promise," he replied. "And his loss."

"He's married."

"What?" Eb asked, shocked.

"This fancy woman he knows in the city. I guess she was more his style than I was. He called me..." She didn't add what else he'd said.

"Did you answer him?"

"Blocked his number." She smiled sadly.

He chuckled. "Nice move. Okay." He got up from the table. "Let's get you settled."

She hadn't told him about the rest of the furious one-sided conversation, that Cal hated her guts and accused her of getting rid of her child. She still wondered how Cal knew.

There was one attempt by her great-aunt, in the years that followed, to contact her, to apologize.

She didn't answer the text. In fact, she blocked Great-Aunt Valeria's number. She could forgive an old woman who had a dangerous medical condition. But wanting to be around her was another thing altogether. It was too much a reminder of the anguish.

She could have gone back to college and studied chemistry, but learning the skills of demolition from a real-life expert—Cord Romero—was so much better than sitting at a desk. She was a good student.

And not only in demolition. Time after time she won competitions on the firing range.

"I taught her everything she knows," Eb would lie glibly.

Everybody laughed. They knew better.

She learned all the dark skills of a mercenary, and learned them well. Within months, Eb was sending her on missions. He was careful to exclude her from anything especially dangerous, without her knowledge. He didn't want her death on his hands. But she made him proud.

There was only one slip, although it was a bad one. She set the time just a few seconds off on an explosive device, and a man died. She took the heat for it from his friends, one of whom later went to work briefly as a foreman for one of her clients. She never denied her part in the man's death. She went to his funeral and let his relatives get all the anguish out of their systems. She knew how they felt. Her lost baby was never far from her thoughts. But at the end of the funeral, she was forgiven, because that was how Texans lived their faith. Without forgiveness, faith was a poor thing.

Ty Harding showed up once in Wyoming when she was working as a bodyguard for Wolf Patterson's future wife. She was polite but cool to him. She wanted no more involvement with men. She listened to her comrades talk about women they'd been involved with, because they treated her as just one of the guys, and she learned how few of them ever really cared about a woman they took out. It was a painful lesson, but she learned it well.

She became, in her turn, a person of faith, because it was all she had to hold on to in some of the desperate situations her work took her to.

The men teased her about it, but they stopped using profanity and obscenity around her, and talking about their conquests. They saved that for bar crawling, something in which Amelia never indulged.

The years passed slowly. She heard about Cal from time to time from people who didn't know about her involvement with him. He was now a captain in the San Antonio Police Department. Someone mentioned that strings had to have been pulled because that was a meteoric rise. She knew better. Cal was just conscientious and careful, and compassionate. Well, he had compassion on the job. None for the mother of his lost child.

His wife had died, she heard. It didn't interest her. That was the past. She lived from day to day, mission to mission. Life had made her tough as nails.

Or so she thought.

Until one Friday evening she went into Fernando's in San Antonio when she was between missions to get takeout. And she walked right into Cal Hollister.

She gave him a look that would have fried bread and went straight out the front door and hailed a taxi. She didn't even look his way as the car pulled out into traffic.

A day later, she found him behind her as she exited her apartment and started down the street to the restaurant where she was to meet a clandestine contact for Eb.

She whirled and glared at him from eyes like hot flames. "What do you want?" she asked icily.

"I want to talk to you," he said shortly.

"What would you like to say that you didn't say six years ago just after your wedding?" she asked with venom.

He closed his eyes. "I was drunk when I married her."

"It takes three days to get a marriage license," she said sweetly. "Were you drunk for three days?"

His own dark eyes burned. "What if I was?"

"Not my problem," she said. "And I'm working, if you don't mind."

"Working? At what?"

She turned, pulling back her jacket to reveal the gun at her hip.

He looked shocked. "You're in police work?"

"I work for Eb Scott," she said quietly. "I'm one of his top operatives."

She could have sworn he lost two shades of color from his tanned face. "Operative...and he hired you?"

"He trained me." She gave him a cold look. "When I got out of the hospital, I had nowhere to go. I couldn't stay with my great-aunt and I lost my job. I went to see Eb and he hired me."

"Wait, what do you mean, when you got out of the hospital? I thought it was a clinic."

"A clinic?"

He was really glaring now. "The clinic where you had the baby, removed, I believe your great-aunt said when she called me?"

She looked at him with horror. Great-Aunt Valeria had done that to her, lied to Cal? "She called you," she said, as if in a fog.

"Yes, she called me, to make sure I knew that I didn't have anything to worry about..." He was hesitating because of the look on her face. "Hospital?" He was still trying to make sense of it.

She drew in a long breath. So now she knew why Valeria had tried to apologize. It wasn't enough to push her down the staircase. She'd ruined any hope that Cal might care about her. Not that he had. He'd married that woman, hadn't he?

She looked up at him with sad eyes. "Some things are better just left in the past," she said. "I'm sorry about your wife. Someone told me, I don't even remember who, that she'd died."

He'd hated his wife. He stared at Amelia, idly wondering why she looked no older than she had when they were close. She hadn't aged. "What hospital?" he persisted.

She just smiled. "It was a long time ago. We're different people now. Strangers. And I'm working. Goodbye, Cal."

"Working on what?" he asked before she could turn away.

"Nothing that concerns you. A project of Eb's overseas."

His blood ran cold. "Overseas, where?" he asked curtly.

"Cal, this doesn't concern you. It's Eb's business. I'm not breaking any laws here. I even have a concealed-carry permit for the pistol, okay?"

He was still just staring at her. "You haven't aged," he said, almost in a daze.

She laughed shortly. "Thanks. But it's not true. Harding said just the other day that I was going gray."

"Harding? That guy who had the crush on you?" he asked.

She nodded. "He's working for Lassiter's detective agency again. He left it, but he went back. The money was too good. He works out of Houston, but he helps us out sometimes."

He hated the idea of Harding. He was still jealous of her, after all the long years in between, all the anguish.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked harshly.

She raised both eyebrows. "About what?"

"You know damned well about what!"

"When it would have mattered, you didn't want to know," she said simply. "I tried to get the pill, but my grandmother's best friend was at the pharmacy counter. I couldn't do it. Then the truck broke down so I couldn't get to San Antonio and then Great-Aunt Valeria came."

He saw the pattern, all too well. "You had my phone number."

"You walked away at my grandfather's funeral and never said another word to me."

Reminding him, subtly, that Edie had been with him. Another in a long line of mistakes he'd made along the way.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. "I was dealing with things I could barely face. My whole life was in flux. I made...bad decisions."

"You made the ones you needed to make," she said simply. "Edie was gorgeous," she recalled with a sad smile. "I'm just ordinary, but she would have drawn eyes everywhere. Isn't that what men want? A wife that makes other men envious?"

He was shocked speechless. She thought he'd thrown her over for Edie because she wasn't pretty enough for him. It was an absolute lie, and it made him even more ashamed, that he'd given her that impression.

"It was a great gesture, though, bringing her to the funeral. Making sure I couldn't say anything that might embarrass you."

"That wasn't why," he said heavily.

She looked at her watch. "I'm really late. Just chalk the whole thing up to misplaced lust and don't worry about it... Cal!" she exclaimed, because he had her by the shoulders and he looked devastated. Anguished.

"It wasn't," he bit off.

She laughed. It had a hollow sound. She drew back from his hands, and he let go. "I work with men. They talk, all about their conquests, how they talk a woman into doing what they want and how they get rid of her afterward. I've been educated. I know all the tricks."

He winced. "It wasn't like that."

She just sighed. "It was exactly like that. You said it yourself. You'd gone for a long time without a woman, and I was very obviously besotted."

"I never said that about you," he said curtly.

"Really? Edie did. She said you laughed about it, that you were both very grateful that I, how did she put it, removed the problem baby from the equation." She even smiled.

Edie had called her. He hadn't known. What in the world had she said? On the other hand, Amelia had gone to a clinic. A clinic!

"Women are treacherous," he said coldly.

"And men are weasels," she shot back. "I'm going."

She turned and walked off toward the restaurant.

"Will you stop threatening to pull a gun on me and listen to me?" he yelled, losing his temper.

She had her hand on her pistol without thinking. "I am not trying to shoot you!" she raged.

He was suddenly aware that two of his own officers were standing by a patrol car, along with a very pregnant Clancey Banks and her husband, along with a tall, Italian-looking man who held a pretty brunette in his arms. They were all suppressing laughter. Cal was never flustered or out of control. The gossips would feed on this for weeks, he thought irritably.

He cleared his throat. This wasn't going to be easy to explain. And, worse, the object of his hunt had escaped. He didn't even see which way she went.

The rest of the day was taken up with Clancey giving birth to her first child. Banks, a Texas Ranger and the proud father, was absolutely strutting. The baby was precious. He hated wishing it was his. He'd almost had one. Thanks to Amelia, that had never happened.

He got through the rest of the day and went home, to the Santa Gertrudis ranch he'd bought years ago with some of the proceeds of his brief mercenary career. His wife had hated the place, preferring to drink herself to death at her apartment in San Antonio. All those years married, and he'd never touched her. She threw Amelia up to him all the time. He didn't care. He hated Amelia for what she'd done.

But he couldn't get out of his mind what she'd said, about being in the hospital. Why would they put her in the hospital after she'd gone to the clinic? Had there been complications?

And what sort of mission was Eb sending her overseas on? He thought of two possible areas of interest in the news and his blood went cold.

He made a pot of coffee, sat down with a cup of strong black Colombian and called Eb Scott.