Untameable: Merciless

“BUT SHE’S SUCH a sweet girl,” Cammy argued over the phone. “She’s pretty and she knows all the right people!”

“She spent thirty minutes giving me news bulletins on the latest fashions and hairstyles,” Jon muttered.

There was an exasperated sigh. “At least she’s better dressed than that acid-tongued secretary of yours!”

“Administrative assistant,” Jon corrected. “And Joceline at least manages within her budget. She doesn’t have to borrow to buy clothes.”

“It does show,” came the sarcastic reply.

Jon frowned. “Cammy, don’t you remember being poor?” he asked quietly.

“I do remember, and I’m your mother, so stop calling me by my first name.”

“Sorry, force of habit. Mac does it all the time.”

“Call him McKuen, if you please. I hate that nickname.”

“So does he.”

“Your secretary has a child out of wedlock,” Cammy continued, unabated. “I hate having you associated with someone like that.”

He felt himself bristling. “We live in the twenty-first century,” he objected.

“Yes, and morality is all that separates us from savagery,” she shot back. “We have rules of conduct to keep civilization from floundering. Just look around you at the outrageous things people are doing! Women don’t raise children anymore, they run corporations! Do you wonder why the crime rates among juveniles are so high? Who’s teaching them values? Who’s …?”

He cleared his throat. “Cammy, I’m due in court.”

She stopped short, still seething. “You should get another secretary.”

“I’m so glad you called. Have a nice day. I’ll phone you on the weekend.”

“Come to the ranch for the weekend,” she suggested.

Where her candidate would be waiting with glee.

“Afraid I can’t, there’s a stakeout.”

“You’re a senior agent, surely you can delegate!”

“Not on this one. Now I have to go. Really.”

“I don’t like it that you work on that violent crimes squad. You could work white collar crime! Jon …”

“Bye, Cammy!”

“Don’t call me …!”

He put down the receiver and let out a puff of air. That was when he noticed Joceline, outside the door he’d forgotten to close. She was very pale and she didn’t speak. She walked in, forced a smile and laid a document on his desk. While he was trying to find something to say, and worrying about how much of that conversation she’d overheard, she walked out and closed the door.

Joceline sat down at her desk heavily and tried to block out the sound of Jon’s mother’s voice, which had been audible even several feet away from the telephone. Most agents used cell phones, and eavesdropping wasn’t really possible, but Jon used a landline in the office. And Cammy Blackhawk’s voice carried. Joceline felt sick to her stomach as she registered the other woman’s overt hostility toward her.

She knew that people talked about her. Gossip was unavoidable in her situation, even in modern times, in a city. Cammy Blackhawk was a throwback to another generation, one just slightly less tolerant and open-minded than younger people today. It didn’t help that Joceline was hopelessly in love with her attractive boss, or that she had uncomfortable dreams about him.

He enjoyed being single. He rarely dated, and even when he did, it was usually a professional woman, an attorney or a district court judge. Once it had been an attractive public defender. But it was usually only one date. Like the one he’d had with Joceline. She didn’t dare think too much about that.

She was curious about why he didn’t date. She couldn’t ask him, of course. It was far too personal a question. But she’d overheard him talking to his brother once about how aggressive women could be. Knowing that his supposedly chaste reputation was like a red flag to a permissive female, she imagined that he’d been faced with imminent seduction more than once and didn’t like it. As his mother was moral, so was he. They were both conservative to the back teeth, in fact.

Joceline looked at the photo of Markie that she kept in her wallet. He was a mix of his mother and father. He had his father’s elegant straight nose and his black hair. His father was good-looking, and smart. She hoped that Markie would follow his father in that respect.

She sighed over the photograph. Her fascination with her pregnancy had grown by the day while she carried Markie. He was a beautiful child, blue-eyed and slender, with a mischievous expression that was characteristic of him. He loved to play hide-and-seek. He enjoyed video games, especially Super Mario Brothers. He was constantly begging for a puppy or a kitten, but she’d explained gently that it was impossible. He was in day care while she worked, although now he was in preschool part of the day, and day care the rest, and they had no yard for a dog to play in. They had no room, either. It was a one-bedroom apartment, and Markie slept in a small bed near hers. It was wiser that way at night, due to medical problems that she’d never shared with her boss. She worried about her child constantly. There were good medications for his condition, but the ones she used didn’t seem to work, especially in the spring and fall of the year. The leaves were just starting to fall in San Antonio as the weather turned cooler, and Markie was having more trouble than usual. It was no wonder that she had dark circles under her eyes and was late to work. Especially after a night like last night …

“… I said, did Riley Blake call?” Jon repeated.

Joceline jumped and dropped the small plastic photo insert she’d been holding.

Frowning, Jon picked it up. He stared at the child in the photograph with curiosity. “He looks like you,” he said finally as he handed the insert back to her.

She put it away quickly. “Yes,” she stammered. “Sorry, sir.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at her with open curiosity. “We have those bring-your-child-to-work days here, but you never bring your son with you.”

“It would be inconvenient,” she said. “Markie is a bit of a pirate when he’s in company. He’d be making hats out of files and standing on the desk,” she added with a laugh.

His eyebrows arched. Cammy had said that Jon had been singularly mischievous as a young boy.

Joceline glanced at him. “They think he may have attention deficit disorder,” she said. “They wanted to put him on drugs….”

“What? At his age?” he exclaimed.

She shifted. “He’s in preschool,” she said. “He unsettles the other children because he’s hyperactive.”

“Are you going to let them medicate him?” he asked, with real interest.

She looked up, her blue eyes troubled. “I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. “It’s a hard issue to deal with. I thought I’d discuss it with our family doctor and see what he thinks, first.”

“Wise.” He drew in a long breath. “That’s a decision I’d have a hard time with, too.”

She managed a smile. “Times have changed.”

“Yes.”

She searched his black eyes and her body tingled. She looked away quickly. This would never do. She fumbled her purse back under her desk. “I was going to print out that brief for you,” she said, opening a file on the computer. “And you’re having lunch with the deputy sheriff in that potential federal kidnapping case.”

“Yes, we thought we’d discuss the case informally before lawyers become involved.”

She gave him a droll look. “I thought you were a lawyer.”

“I’m a federal agent.”