Merrick's Eleventh Hour

“Is that what I’m doing, trying to get you in bed?”

“That’s usually where you want me when you first come home. A new routine tonight?”

“No. I like the old routine.”

“That’s why you’re staring at my mouth?”

“You always kiss me right about now. Da, I like the old routine. So where is my welcome-home kiss, wife?”

Callia went up on her tiptoes, one hand curling around his neck as she offered him a warm kiss. When she would have pulled away, he slid his hands over her backside and pulled her into him, lengthening the kiss.

She was naked beneath the flimsy caftan. He released a primal moan, then let her go.

“Give me a quick update on Erik so I can concentrate on my wife.”

“He’s still opposing college,” she said, giving way to her disappointment and frustration over her most recent argument with her son. “He wants to work with you.”

“And that frightens you?”

“Shouldn’t it?”

“You know I would never let anything happen to our son.”

“Can you please talk to him.”

“You mean change his mind?”

“Please?”

“I’ll speak to him. I see you’ve already started working your magic on decorating the villa. Not overdoing it are you?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“Fine isn’t wonderful. Zeta told me you had an asthma attack a few days ago.”

“Spring pollen,” she said to dismiss the incident that had put her on her back for two days. She still wasn’t feeling a hundred percent—it would take days—but she would deal with it as she always had, without complaint. “So you like what I’m doing with the house?”

“I like whatever you like. The villa is adequate. Soon to be beautiful. Whatever you want.”

“You spoil me.”

“I have an ulterior motive. A spoilt wife is happy and content.” He cupped her face and kissed her again. “A man would have to be crazy not to give you whatever you wanted, just to be in the company of that smile. Now then, what were you saying about our routine?”

He liked it when she made the first move. Dutifully, she reached up and began unbuttoning his shirt. Three buttons open and she spotted an angry red scar that hadn’t yet healed completely. “What happened?”

“A minor accident. A careless mistake.”

“You’re never careless.” She stepped away from him, reluctant to ask him what had happened, but needing some kind of assurance that nothing had changed. That they were still safe. “Who did that to you?”

She saw his eyebrows furrow. “You know the rules, and you know by now that I’m indestructible.”

He left her standing on the veranda and walked back into the bedroom. He removed his shirt, and she saw more scars overlapping the old ones that had ravaged his body years ago. Some horrible injustice—a betrayal before they had met—is how he’d explained what had to have been a near death experience.

Callia understood betrayal. Her own had left her scarred, and although the wounds weren’t visible, she’d been cut deeply and forever changed.

She stepped into the bedroom, still watching him. Naked, he tossed the gold coverlet off the bed and stretched out on the blue satin sheets.

“Show me, Callia. Show your husband how beautiful you are. I want to feast my eyes on every inch of you. I’ve thought of nothing else the entire time I’ve been away.”

She slid the caftan off her slender shoulders and let it fall to the floor. For a woman in her forties, she was still trim, her breasts high and firm, her curvy body and slender legs toned like an athlete from years of long walks on the guarded beaches of Greece.

His eyes moved slowly over her as she came to him and curled up beside him. She knew he liked to be touched, and again she made the first move, gliding her fingers gently over his bare chest. Then lower.

A moan of pleasure made his eyes drift shut. “That’s it, work your magic.”

“You’re tired. You should sleep.”

When his eyes remained closed and he didn’t answer, she attempted to leave the bed, but his hand snaked out and gripped her wrist. Eyes open, he said, “Straddle me, Callia. I’ll sleep later.”

With Merrick’s duties at Onyxx left in Sly McEwen’s capable hands, and Harry Pendleton’s blessing, he prepared to leave for Greece. He made a quick trip back to the country house to pack, then arrived at the airport early in the afternoon. Before he boarded the plane he called Sully Paxton to apprise him of the recent turn of events.

“I’m flying to Rome. I don’t want to give Cyrus a heads-up, so I intend to avoid the airport in Athens. He’s probably got it staked out. We both know why he wants me back in Greece. He’s expecting me to lead him to you and Melita.”

“You know he’s left someone behind in Washington to follow you.”

“They won’t be on my ass for long. I want to talk to Melita when I get there.”

“The report I sent you was complete. She answered every one of your questions about Cyrus to the best of her knowledge. Remember, Melita grew up in a bubble. One that Cyrus built around her. He kept her in the dark on his business affairs, and virtually a prisoner at Lesvago until he moved her to Despotiko. We know more about the bastard than his own daughter does.”

“I’d still like to talk to her. Maybe a few new questions might spark a memory that could help us find him. It’s all we have right now.” Merrick gave Sully some last-minute instructions. “Send your man Hector to Crete with a boat. Tell him to leave it in Iráklion for me.”

“It’ll be there. Have a safe trip.”

The flight left on schedule. Merrick forced himself to sleep on the plane knowing that when he arrived in Greece his days and nights would be rolled into one. He reached Rome after a rough trip over the ocean. Three people on the plane from Washington took the same flight to Iráklion on the island of Crete. Two businessmen and one woman.

Merrick rented a room at a resort hotel, changed clothes and waited for the cover of night. Leaning on a cane, dressed as if he were years older, he shuffled his feet toward a taxi and instructed the driver to take him to the harbor.

As Sully Paxton had promised, Hector had left a sixty-foot sport cruiser christened Aldora—winged gift—for him. Hector had been a guard at Despotiko during Melita and Sully’s incarceration. More loyal to Melita than Cyrus, Hector had been an integral part in her escape with Sully months ago. Since then he had remained with them on Amorgós.

Sure no one had followed him, Merrick boarded the Aldora and sped away into the night in the gutsy twelve-hundred-horsepower yacht. She had a lean underbelly, an enclosed cockpit, one stateroom, a bathroom and galley—everything a man would need to survive months at sea.

An hour before dawn, Merrick reached Amorgós. He spotted the villa on the southeast coast. When he reached the hidden cove, he saw Sully’s wicked speed-demon cruiser moored in the harbor. He studied the villa on the top of a rugged hillside. Sully had chosen the spot with strategy in mind. No one could enter the cove without being seen. Already Sully Paxton was heading down the hillside, that silly little goat of Melita’s trailing him in the moonlight.

Merrick leaned into the dock railing as Sully came toward him.

“Were you followed from D.C.?” Sully asked.

“All the way to Crete. No problem after that. They weren’t looking for an old man with arthritis.”