Sandra Brown - The Devil's Own.pdf - Brown, Sandra - Monkey14

HER PLAN WAS FOOLHARDY

But if it was the only way to save nine children, then she would try.

HE HADN’T STAYED ALIVE BY BEING MR. NICE GUY

He was the most disreputable and dangerous-looking man in the bar. That’s why

she wanted him.

THEY WERE UNDER FIRE

Together they fought the odds…and the burning

hungers that made the steamy days and nights

doubly dangerous….

this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other

means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and

recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the

written permission of the publisher, Mira Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills,

Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author

and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They

are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author,

and all incidents are pure invention.

MIRA and the star colophon are trademarks of Mira Books. Printed in U.S.A.

One

He was drunk and, consequently, just what she needed.

She studied him through the smoky, dusty haze of the cantina, where he sat on a

bar stool, nursing his drink. The glass was chipped, its dark amber contents cloudy.

He didn’t seem to notice as he frequently raised it to his lips. He sat with his knees

widespread, his head bent low between hunched shoulders, his elbows propped on

the greasy surface of the bar.

The tavern was crowded with soldiers and the women who entertained them in

rooms upstairs. Squeaky fans, rotating desultorily overhead, barely stirred the thick

pall of tobacco smoke. The cloying essence of cheap perfume mixed with the stench

of the unwashed bodies of men who had spent days in the jungle.

Laughter was everywhere, but the mood wasn’t particularly jovial. The soldiers’ eyes

didn’t smile. There was an aura of desperation to their merrymaking. They took their

fun as they took everything else, violently.

They were young for the most part – tough, surly men who lived on a razor’s edge

between life and death every day. Most wore the uniform of the army of the current

military regime. But whether they were locals or international mercenaries, all had

that same hard look about their eyes. They were full of suspicion. Wariness

shadowed every grin.

The man Kerry Bishop had her sights on was no exception. He wasn’t Latin – he was

American by the looks of him. Hard, well-defined biceps bulged beneath his sleeves,

which had been rolled up so tightly they encircled his arms like rope. His dark hair

hung long and shaggy over his shirt collar.

The portion of his jaw Kerry could see was covered with several days’ growth of

beard. That could be either a benefit or a handicap to her plan. A benefit because the

partial beard would help disguise his face, and a handicap because few officers in the

regular army would go that many days without a shave. El Presidente was a stickler

for good grooming among his officers.

Well, she’d just have to chance it. Of the lot, this man was still her best bet. He not

only looked the most inebriated, but the most disreputable – lean and hungry and

totally without principle. Once he was sober, he would no doubt be easy to buy.

She was getting ahead of herself. She had to get him out of there first. When would

the driver of that military truck, the careless one who had negligently left his keys in

the ignition, return to find that the keys were gone? At any moment, he could come

looking for them.

The keys now rattled in the pocket of Kerry’s skirt each time she moved her legs on

her journey across the room toward the man drinking alone at the bar. She dodged

couples dancing to the blaring music, warded off a few clumsy passes and averted

her eyes from the couples who were too carried away by passion to bother seeking

privacy.

After spending almost a year in Montenegro, nothing should surprise her. The nation

was in the throes of a bloody civil war, and war often reduced human beings to

animals. But what she saw some of the couples doing right out in the open brought

hot color to her cheeks.

Setting her jaw firmly and concentrating only on her purpose for being there, she

moved closer to the man at the bar. The closer she got, the surer she became that

he was exactly what she needed.

He was even more fearsome up close than he had been at a distance. He wasn’t

actually drinking, but angrily tossing the liquor down his throat. He wasn’t tasting it.

He wasn’t drinking for pleasure. He wasn’t there to have a good time, but to vent

his anger over something. Perhaps to blot some major upset from his mind? Had

someone welshed on a deal? Double-crossed him? Short-changed him?

Kerry hoped so. If he were strapped for cash he’d be much more receptive to the

deal she had to offer him.

A pistol had been shoved into the waistband of his fatigue pants. There was a long,

wicked machete bolstered against his thigh. At his feet, surrounding the bar stool,

were three canvas bags. They were so packed with the tools of his trade, that the

seams of the bags were strained. Kerry shuddered to think of the destruction his

private stash of weaponry was capable of. That was probably one reason why he

drank alone and went unmolested. In a place like this, fights frequently broke out

among the hot-blooded, trigger-happy men. But no one sought either conversation

or trouble with this one who sat on the last bar stool in the row.

Unfortunately for Kerry, it was also the seat farthest from the building’s only exit.

There would be no slipping out a back door. She would have to transport him from

the rear corner to the door. To succeed hi getting him to leave with her, she would

have to be her most convincing.

With that hi mind, she took a deep breath, closed the remaining distance between

them, and sat down on the bar stool next to his, which fortuitously was vacant. His

profile was as rugged and stony as a mountain range. Not a soft, compassionate

line in evidence. She tried not to think of that as she spoke to him.

"A drink, senor? " Her heart was pounding. Her mouth was as dry as cotton. But she

conjured up an alluring smile and tentatively laid her right hand on his left one.

She was beginning to think he hadn’t heard her. He just sat there, staring down into

his empty glass. But, just when she was about to repeat her suggestion, he turned

his head slightly and looked down at her hand where it rested on top of his.

His, Kerry noticed, was much larger than hers. It was wider by half an inch on either

side, and her fingertips extended only as far as his first knuckles. He was wearing a

watch. It was black, with a huge, round face and lots of dials and gadgetry. He wore

no rings.

He stared at their hands for what seemed like an eternity to Kerry, before his eyes

followed her arm up, slowly, to her shoulder, then up and right, to her face. A

cigarette was dangling between bis sullen lips. He stared at her through the curling,

bluish-gray smoke.

She had practiced her smile in a mirror to make sure she was doing a fair imitation

of the women who solicited in the cantinas. Eyes at half-mast. Lips moist and

slightly parted. She knew she had to get that come-hither smile right. Everything

hinged on her being convincing.

But she never got to execute that rehearsed, sultry smile. It, like most everything in

her brain, vaporized when she gazed into his face for the first time. Her heavily

rouged lips parted all right, but of their own accord and with no direction from her.

She drew in a quick little gasp. The fluttering of her eyelashes was involuntary, not

affected.

His face was a total surprise. She had expected ugliness. He was quite goodlooking.

She had expected unsightly traces of numerous military campaigns. He had but one

scar, a tiny one above his left eyebrow. It was more interesting than unsightly. His

face didn’t have the harsh stamp of brutality she had anticipated, only broodiness.

And his lips weren’t thin and hard with insensitivity, but full and sensual.

His eyes weren’t blank, as were those of most of the men who killed for hire. His

eyes, even though they were fogged with alcohol, burned with internal fires that

Kerry found even more unsettling than the heatless glint of indifference. Nor did he

smell of sweat. His bronzed skin was glistening with a fine sheen of perspiration, but

it gave off the scent of soap. He had recently washed.

Quelling her shock and trepidation – because for some strange reason, his lack of

standard looks frightened her more than reassured her – she met his suspicious

stare steadily. She forced herself to audition that seductive smile she’d spent hours

Sandra Brown - The Devil's Own.pdf

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