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Micah's temper to approach you."
"You do," she said without thinking.
"Ah, but I am indispensable," he told her. "Ro-drigo is not. He has enemies in
many countries overseas and also, Lopez has a contract out on him. This is the only
place he has left to go where he has any hope of survival. He wouldn't dare risk
alienating Micah."
She frowned. "I can't think why approaching me would do that. Micah tolerates
me, but he still doesn't really like me," she pointed out. "I overheard what he
said to you, about using me as bait."
He smiled. "Yes. Curious, is it not, that when one of the other men suggested the
same thing, he paid a trip to the dentist?"
"Why?"
"Micah knocked out one of his teeth," he confided. "The men agreed that no one
would make the suggestion twice."
She caught her breath. "But I heard him tell you that very thing...!"
"You heard what he wanted me to think," he continued. "Micah is jealous of me,"
he added outrageously, and grinned. "You and I are friendly and we have no
hostility between us. You don't want anything from me, you see, or from him. He has
no
idea how to deal with such a woman. He has become used to buying expensive things
at a woman's whim, yet you refuse even the gift of a few items of necessary
clothing." He shrugged. "It is new for him that neither his good looks nor his
wealth make an impression on you. I think he finds that a challenge and it
irritates him. He is also very private about his affairs. He doesn't want the men
to see how vulnerable he is where you are concerned," he mused. "He had to assign
me, along with Peter and Rodrigo, to keep a constant eye on you. He didn't like
that. Peter and Rodrigo are no threat, of course, but he is afraid that you are
attracted to me." He grinned at her surprise. "I can understand why he thinks this.
I hardly need elaborate on my attributes. I am urbane, handsome, sophisticated,
generous..." He paused to glance at her wide-eyed, bemused face. "Shall I continue?
I should hate to miss acquainting you with any of my virtues."
She realized he was teasing then, and she chuckled. "Okay, go ahead, but I'm not
making you any marriage proposals."
His eyebrows arched. "Why not?"
"Micah's put me off men," she said, tongue-in-cheek. "He's already upset because
I won't propose to him." She gave him a wicked grin. "Gosh, first Micah, then you!
Having this much sex appeal is a curse. Even Lopez is mad to have me!"
 He grinned back. She was a unique woman, he thought, and bristling with courage
and character. He wondered why Micah didn't see her as he did. The other man was
alternately scathing about and protective of Callie, as if his feelings were too
ambiguous to unravel. He didn't like Bojo spending time with
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her, but he kept her carefully at arm's length, even dragging Lisse over for the
shopping trip and using her as camouflage. Callie didn't know, but Lisse had been a
footnote in Micah's life even in the days when he was attracted to her. She hadn't
been around much for almost a year now.
"After we deal with Lopez, you must play down your attractions," he teased.
"Providing twenty-four-hour protection is wearing on the nerves."
"You're not kidding," she agreed, wandering farther down the beach. "I'm getting
paranoid about dark corners. I always expect someone to be lurking in them." She
glanced up at him. "Not rejected suitors," she added wryly.
He clasped his hands behind him and followed along with her, his keen eyes on
the horizon, down the beach, up the beach-everywhere. Bojo was certain, as Micah
was, that Lopez wasn't likely to give them time to attack him. He was going to
storm the island, and soon. They had to be constantly vigilant, if they wanted to
live.
"Do you know any self-defense?" Bojo asked her curiously.
"I know a little," she replied. "I took a course in it, but I was overpowered
too fast."
"Show me what you know," he said abruptly. "And I will teach you a little more.
It never hurts to be prepared.
She did, and he did. She learned enough to protect herself if she had time to
use it. She didn't tell him, but she was really scared that Lopez might snatch her
out of sight and sound of the mercs. She prayed that she'd have a fighting chance
if she was in danger again.
Callie had convinced herself that an attack would come like a wave, with a lot of
men and guns. The last thing she expected was that, when she was lying in her own
bed, a man would suddenly appear by the bed and slap a chloroformed handkerchief
over her mouth and nose. That was what happened. Outside her patio a waiting small
boat on the beach was visible only where she was situated. The dark shadow against
the wall managed to bypass every single safeguard of Micah's security system. He
slipped into Callie's bedroom with a cloth and a bottle of chloroform and
approached the bed where she was asleep.
The first Callie knew of the attack was when she felt a man's hand holding her
head steady while a foul-smelling cloth was shoved up under her nose. She came
awake at once, but she kept her head, even when she felt herself being carried
roughly out of her bedroom onto the stone patio. She knew what to expect this time
if she were taken, and she remembered vividly what Bojo had taught her that
afternoon. She twisted her head abruptly so that the chloroform missed her face and
landed in her hair. Then she got her hands up and slammed them against her captor's
ears with all her might.
He cried out in pain and dropped her. She hit the stone-floored patio so hard
that she groaned as her hip and leg crashed down onto the flagstones, but she
dragged herself to her feet and grabbed at a shovel that the yardman had left
leaning against a stone bench close beside her. As her assailant ignored the pain
in his fury to pay her back, she swung the shovel and hit him right in the head
with it. He
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made a strange sound and crumpled to the patio. Cal-lie stared out toward the boat,
where a dark figure was waiting.
Infuriated by the close call, and feeling very proud of the fact that she'd
saved herself this time, she raised the shovel over her head. "Better luck next
time, you son of a bitch!" she yelled harshly. "If I had a gun, I'd shoot you!"
Her voice brought Micah and two other men running out onto the patio. They were
all armed. The two mercs ran toward the beach, firing as they made a beeline toward
the little boat, which had powered up and was sprinting away with incredible speed
and very little noise.
Micah stood in front of Callie wearing nothing but a pair of black silk boxer
shorts. He had an automatic pistol in one hand. His hair was tousled, as if he'd
been asleep. But he was wide-awake now. His face was hard, his dark eyes
frightening.
He moved close to her, aware of her body in the thin nylon gown that left her
breasts on open display in the light from inside the house. She didn't seem to
notice, but he did. He looked at them hungrily before he dragged his gaze back up [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]