Her Kind of Hero: The Last Mercenary

It was followed by the loud clearing of a throat and a cough.

They didn’t hear that, either. Callie was on tiptoe now, her short nails digging into the hard muscles of his upper arms, hanging on Micah’s slow, tender kiss with little more than willpower, so afraid that he was going to pull away…!

“Micah!” the voice said shortly.

Micah’s head jerked up, and for a few seconds he seemed as disoriented as Callie. He stared blankly at the dark-headed man in front of him.

The man was extending a small case toward him. “Her papers and clothes and shoes and stuff,” the man said, nodding toward Callie and clearing his throat again. “Maddie had me fly them over here.”

“Thanks, Pogo.”

The big, dark man nodded. He stared with open curiosity at Callie, and then he smiled gently. “It was my pleasure,” he said, glancing again at Micah and making an odd little gesture with his head in Callie’s direction.

“This is Callie Kirby,” Micah said shortly, adding, “my…stepsister.”

The big man’s eyebrows levered up. “Oh! I mean, I was hoping she wasn’t a real sister. I mean, the way you were kissing her and all.” He flushed, and laughed self-consciously when Micah glared at him. Callie was scarlet, looking everywhere except at the newcomer.

“You’ll miss your flight out of here,” Micah said pointedly.

“What? Oh. Yeah.” He grinned at Callie. “I’m Pogo. I’m from Saint Augustine. I used to wrestle alligators until Micah here gave me a job. I’m sort of a bodyguard, you know…”

“You’re going to be an unemployed bodyguard in twenty seconds if you don’t merge with the crowd,” Micah said curtly.

“Oh. Well…sure. Bye, now,” he told Callie with an ear-to-ear smile.

She smiled back. He was like a big teddy bear. She was sorry they wouldn’t get to know each other.

Pogo almost fell over his own feet as he turned, jerking both busy eyebrows at his boss, before he melted into the crowd and vanished.

“Stop doing that,” Micah said coldly.

She looked up at him blankly. “Doing what?”

“Smiling at my men like that. These men aren’t used to it. Don’t encourage them.”

Her lips parted on a shaken breath. She looked at him as if she feared for his sanity. “Them?” she echoed, dazed.

“Bojo and Peter and Pogo,” he said, moving restlessly. He was jealous, God knew why. It irritated him. “Come on.”

He moved away from her, catching her hand tightly and pulling her along with him.

“And don’t read anything into what just happened,” he added coldly, without looking at her.

“Why would I?” she asked honestly. “You said it was just for appearances. I haven’t forgotten how you feel about me, Micah.”

He stopped and stared intently down into her eyes. His own were narrow, angry, impatient. She wore her heart where anyone could see it. Her vulnerability made him protective. Odd, that, when she was tough enough to survive captivity by Lopez and still keep her nerve during a bloody breakout.

“You don’t have a clue how I feel about you,” he said involuntarily. His fingers locked closer into hers. “I’m thirty-six. You’re barely twenty-two. The sort of woman I prefer is sophisticated and street-smart and has no qualms about sex. You’re still at the kissing-in-parked-cars stage.”

She flushed and searched his eyes. “I don’t kiss people in parked cars because I don’t date anybody,” she told him with blunt honesty. “I can’t leave Dad alone in the evenings. Besides, too many men around Jacobsville remember my mother, and think I’m like her.” Her face stiffened and she looked away. “Including you.”

He didn’t speak. There was little softness left in him after all the violent years, but she was able to touch some last, sensitive place with her sweet voice. Waves of guilt ran over him. Yes, he’d compared her to her mother that Christmas. He’d said harsh, cruel things. He regretted them, but there was no going back. His feelings about Callie unnerved him. She was the only weak spot in his armor that he’d ever known. And what a good thing that she didn’t know that, he told himself.

“You don’t know what was really going on that night, Callie,” he said after a minute.

She looked up at him. “Don’t you think it’s time I did?” she asked softly.

He toyed with her fingers, causing ripples of pleasure to run along her spine. “Why not? You’re old enough to hear it now.” He glanced around them cautiously before he looked at her again. “You were wearing an emerald velvet dress that night, the same one you’d worn to your eighteenth birthday party. They were watching a movie while you finished decorating the Christmas tree,” he continued absently. “You’d just bent over to pick up an ornament when I came into the room. The dress had a deep neckline. You weren’t wearing a bra under it, and your breasts were visible in that position, right to the nipples. You looked up at me and your nipples were suddenly hard.”

She gaped at him. The comment about her nipples was disturbing, but she had no idea what he meant by emphasizing them. “I had no idea I was showing like that!”

“I didn’t realize that. Not at first.” He held her fingers tighter. “You saw me and came right up against me, drowning me in that floral perfume you wore. You stood on tiptoe, like you did a minute ago, trying to tempt me into kissing you.”

She averted her embarrassed eyes. “You said terrible things…”

“The sight of you like that had aroused me passionately,” he said frankly, nodding when her shocked eyes jumped to his face. “That’s right. And I couldn’t let you know it. I had to make you keep your distance, not an easy accomplishment after the alcohol you’d had. For which,” he added coldly, “your mother should have been shot! It was illegal for her to let you drink, even at home. Anyway, I read you the riot act, pushed you away and walked down the hall, right into your mother. She recognized immediately what you hadn’t even noticed about my body, and she thought it was the sight of her in that slinky silver dress that had caused it. So she buried herself against me and started kissing me.” He let out an angry breath. “Your father saw us like that before I could push her away. And I couldn’t tell him the truth, because you were just barely eighteen. I was already thirty-two.”

The bitterness in his deep voice was blatant. She didn’t feel herself breathing. She’d only been eighteen, but he’d wanted her. She’d never realized it. Everything that didn’t make sense was suddenly crystal clear—except that comment about his body. She wondered what her mother had seen and recognized about him that she hadn’t.

“You never told me.”

“You were a child, Callie,” he said tautly. “In some ways, you still are. I was never low enough to take advantage of your innocence.”

She was almost vibrating with the turmoil of her emotions. She didn’t know what to do or say.

He drew in a long, slow breath as he studied her. “Come on,” he said, tugging her along. “We have to move or we’ll miss our flight.” He handed her the case and indicated the ladies’ room. “Get changed. I’ll wait right here.”

She nodded. Her mind was in such turmoil that she changed into jeans and a long-sleeved knit shirt, socks and sneakers, without paying much attention to what was in the small travel case. She didn’t take time to look in any of the compartments, because he’d said to hurry. She glanced at herself in the mirror and was glad she had short hair that could do without a brush. Despite all she’d been through, it didn’t look too bad. She’d have to buy a brush when they got where they were going, along with makeup and other toiletries. But that could wait.

Micah was propping up the wall when she came out. He nodded, approving what Maddie had packed for her, and took the case. “Here,” he said, passing her a small plastic bag.

Inside were makeup, a brush, a toothbrush, toothpaste and deodorant. She almost cried at the thoughtful gift.

“Thanks,” she said huskily.

Micah pulled the tickets and boarding passes out of his shirt pocket. “Get out your driver’s license and birth certificate,” he said. “We have to have a photo ID to board.”

She felt momentary panic. “My birth certificate is in my file at home, and my driver’s license is still in my purse, in my car…!”

He laid a lean forefinger across her pretty mouth, slightly swollen from the hard contact with his. “Your car is at your house, and your purse is inside it, and it’s locked up tight. I told Maddie to put your birth certificate and your driver’s license in the case. Have you looked for them?”

“No. I didn’t think…”

She paused, putting the case down on the carpeted concourse floor to open it. Sure enough, her driver’s license was in the zipped compartment that she hadn’t looked in when she was in the bathroom. Besides that, the unknown Maddie had actually put her makeup and toiletries inside, as well, in a plastic bag. She could have wept at the woman’s thoughtfulness, but she wasn’t going to tell Micah and make him feel uncomfortable that he’d already bought her those items. She closed it quickly and stuck her license in her jeans pocket.

“Does Maddie really look like me?” she asked on the way to the ticket counter, trying not to sound as if she minded. He’d said they resembled one another earlier.

“At a distance,” he affirmed. “Her hair is shorter than yours, and she’s more muscular. She was a karate instructor when she signed on with me. She’s twenty-six.”