Home To Texas - Ransom My Heart Part 9

she asked.

"Maybe," he agreed.

"I don't know what's going on, but I have to tell you--" "You're

supposed to know," she interrupted angrily.

"You're the one who's supposed to have all the experience at this. Allthe d.a.m.n expertise.""Yeah," he agreed."That is what you hired me for, isn't it?"She could probably hear the bitterness. Despite it, he wasn't angry at her any longer. He was just frustrated because he didn't understand

what was going on. Felt inadequate."Where are we going?" she asked, forced to move again in response tothe sudden pressure of his hand against her back.

"We're going to have lunch. Somewhere public. Very visible."

"To give them another chance to contact us?"

He didn't answer the obvious, and so she asked the question he didn't have an answer for. The one he'd been dreading.

"You still think they will, don't you?"

He didn't know what he thought anymore. He didn't know much of anything except whoever was doing this didn't give a d.a.m.n about the effect it was having on Amanda's mother. The trouble was, Chase was finding out how much he did. Five years, her marriage, the fact that she had given birth to another man's child--none of those things, he was finding, had changed any aspect of the way he had always felt about Samantha Kincaid.

Chapter Five.

They ate at a small loncheria near the square, Chase choosing a table from which he could watch the Land Rover.

There wasn't much conversation. Samantha picked at her meal, pushing the food around rather than eating it, but stoically Chase made himself eat. He worked at appearing as confident as possible, given the fact that nothing was going the way it was supposed to.

It was not until after four that the town began to exhibit signs of renewed life. They wandered out into the plaza, again mingling, again allowing the kidnappers the opportunity to make contact.

But it was a long time later, after the shadows had begun to lengthen across the square at twilight, when Chase felt that instinctive tightening of the muscles along the back of his neck. This time it was a feeling that they were being watched. With Samantha's growing tension and unspoken distress as the slow hours of their vigil pa.s.sed, he sure as h.e.l.l hoped that what he was feeling was valid and not just wishful thinking.

They finally wandered into a cramped little shop that sold painted animals, about the only place they hadn't visited during the day. The carved wooden shapes on display were fantastical, portraying creatures of myth rather than reality, and the multihued, hand painted designs that covered their soaring wings and abstract bodies were incredibly beautiful, intricately detailed.

Chase watched as Samantha ran her fingers over the smooth surface of one of them, a stylized rendering of a cat. He knew she was thinking about her daughter. About how much any child would love such a toy. In a couple of years, the baby would be old enough to enjoy the carving for its bold, childlike exuberance. Old enough if... Someone pushed aside the curtain that separated the shop from the heat of the street, and Chase's gaze swung away from Samantha's fingers to focus on the doorway. The newcomer was simply dressed, wearing what most of the men they had seen here today had worn--jeans and a cotton shirt. The eyes of the man who had entered met Chase's and then widened in surprise. Their gazes locked for a second before the man nodded slightly, almost a greeting, and then moved quickly back out the doorway through which he'd entered.

It took Chase maybe ten seconds to remember where he had seen that face. It wasn't remarkable. A southern face, more mestizos, perhaps, darker and flatter than the faces of most of the norteos they'd encountered today. But he remembered it, all right. Someone he had dealt with before.

Another kidnapping. Another negotiation. Maybe two years ago. In Monterrey, Chase thought.

The man hadn't expected to see him here. That had been obvious by his reaction, by the shock in his eyes. And then he had disappeared. There was no one else in the shop, and if the man had been sent here by Amanda's kidnappers, it seemed to Chase that it would have been more natural for him to have stayed. To have spoken to the proprietor. To have spoken to them. The three of them together in the small shop should have provided the perfect opportunity, and yet again, nothing had happened as it should have.

Chase walked to the doorway, trying not to appear to hurry. Like at the church, however, when he looked out across the darkening square, there was no sign of the man.

It was dark enough and there were enough people around that he spent a

couple of minutes making sure of that.Chase stepped out onto the sidewalk and walked a few feet down thestreet. He stopped, allowing his eyes to scan the darkening squareagain. Then he leaned back against the adobe wall of the building,trying to present the picture of a patient husband who has seen theinside of one too many shops, but who is willing to wait for his wife,who apparently wasn't yet through with her shopping.

Samantha came out less than two minutes later carrying a package. When she saw him leaning against the wall, she walked over to him, her eyes questioning.

"What happened?" she asked."I looked up and you were gone. Did something happen?""I saw someone I recognized.""Who?""We didn't exchange names. When we met down here before, it wasn't a social occasion." He looked back across the square, still hoping for

another glimpse of the man.

"You mean ... you saw someone who was involved in another kidnapping?"

He nodded, his eyes still on the street before him."He seemed surprised to see me," he added."Would our kidnappers be?""I don't know. It may have nothing to do with Amanda.""Just a coincidence?" she asked, but her voice expressed her doubt."Maybe. There have been a h.e.l.l of a lot of coincidences, it seems to me, since the beginning of all this."

"I don't understand."

He turned toward her then, studying her face. That had sounded

sincere, and he couldn't read any deception in the green eyes.

"Maybe I'm just being paranoid," he acknowledged.

"I don't like it when things don't go according to plan."

"So what's the plan now?"

Good question, he thought. Another one he didn't have a very good answer for.

"If we aren't contacted in the next couple of hours, I think we ought

to think about finding a place to stay for the night. The shops will

begin to close around nine."

"I was afraid..." she began, her voice very soft, but when she went on, she had forced it to be stronger.

"I.

thought you'd probably want to head back."

"Maybe they had car trouble," he said. He allowed himself to smile at

her, hoping the lame joke would be rea.s.surance.

As much as he hated the uncertainty of this, he could imagine what she was feeling.

"I need to call Sam, I guess," she said.

"Do that from the hotel. It'll be safer."

She nodded.

"Let's walk some more," he suggested, automatically putting his hand

against her back. They had taken a few steps before he noticed the package she was carrying.

"You got the cat?" he asked."I thought she'd like it. We have a calico at home. Not as colorfulas this one, but nearly."

For the first time today, her lips tilted upward. She was remembering, he knew. Remembering life before all this had happened to change it forever. He could empathize with that. He understood how much one event could change everything, could change what you had always thought your life would turn out to be.

"We'll get her back," he said. He had made these same easy a.s.surances to her before, and all of them had turned out to be far from true. He didn't know why she should believe anything he had to say anymore.

"Thank you for telling me that," she said softly.

At her tone, he turned to look down into her eyes.

"I thought you'd given up," she explained.

"I've been afraid all afternoon that you'd want to get in the car andjust leave. I'm glad you don't.""I'll get her back, Samantha. That's my job."

Something changed in the depths of those remarkable green eyes even as he watched.

"Of course," she said, "a screw up like that probably wouldn't look too good on your rsum, would it? Bad for business, I guess."

She moved past him, increasing her pace until they were no longer walking side by side. For a moment she had seemed like the old Samantha, the one who had liked him, who had admired the man he was. Chase fought the sharp sense of regret that he'd destroyed that moment.

The best man for the job. The hired help. But that was all he needed to remember in his dealings with the Kin-ca ids he reminded himself. He just needed to remember his place.

"No," SaMaNltA sam, working at keeping her voice as normal as possible. She could see the surprise in Chase's eyes. She was making a fool of herself. What he'd proposed was for her own safety. She understood all the reasons, but she still didn't think it was necessary. Or a good idea.

"I'm a big girl now, Mr. McCullar, and I'm not afraid of the dark, thank you very much."

"There's no way--" "I said, get another room," she ordered sharply.

It had come out wrong. Demanding. Rich b.i.t.c.h. That wasn't a tone she normally used. She didn't talk to people that way. But she wasn't about to spend the night in the same hotel room with Chase McCullar. She didn't stop to a.n.a.lyze why she was so opposed to that. She just acknowledged, to herself at least, that she was. Very opposed.

"I thought you weren't ready to go back," he said.

"Go back? Across the border? What does that have--" "Because you're going to be where I can keep an eye on you, or you're going back to being Sam's responsibility.

There's not an option here, Mrs. Berkley. Not about that."

He wasn't bluffing. She could read it in his eyes. Ice blue and cold, far colder than she'd ever seen them.

And I'll be glad to return your a.s.surance," he added.

She shook her head slightly, not understanding the comment.

"Your virtue's certainly safe with me. Even the first time, if you'll remember..."

At least he had the grace not to finish it. He just let the brutal reminder trail away. She had been the one who had come on to him that night--undressing like she thought she was some exotic dancer, a stripper or something. A two-dollar wh.o.r.e was more like it, she thought bitterly. She could feel the heat of that memory flooding into her cheeks.

That was the worst part of being a redhead--the d.a.m.n blushing. She still hadn't learned how to do anything about that.

"I've got a million dollars and Sam Kincaid's daughter to look after," he continued when she couldn't get past the embarra.s.sment to come up with a rejoinder.

"I'm a hundred miles from nowhere, in a place where you make your own law. I'm trying to carry out kidnap negotiations that for some reason seem to have fallen apart. I signed on for all that, I guess, but I don't intend to spend the night wondering what's going on in your room. Wondering whether I'm going to have to be negotiating next for your release.

I've got about all I can handle already, Mrs. Berkley, so we share this room or we go back to Texas."