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“Daddy, I need to talk to you,” she said the moment the meal was finally over.
“Sure, sweetheart.” The phone rang. He frowned. “Oh, Levi, I forgot, Whitt and Robin and I are expecting a conference call,” he apologized. “Can it wait until later?”
Levi started to say “No.” Something inside her feared it couldn’t wait, but she told herself she was being silly.
“Sure. I’m going to give Natalie a ride home,” she said, touching her father’s broad shoulder, feeling a strength that reassured her. “I won’t be long.”
He smiled and covered her small hand with his large one as he gazed down at her. His eyes suddenly shimmered and, quite without warning, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly. “Trust me, Levi, everything’s going to be all right,” he whispered so softly she was afraid she hadn’t heard him right. “I love you. Remember that always.”
She clung to him, more afraid than ever. “Daddy—”
He pulled back. Whitt called from down the hall to say they were waiting for him. “I have to go.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “Drive carefully. No, drive skillfully,” he said over his shoulder as he strode down the hall.
Levi watched him go. Although James Marshall wore a prosthesis in place of the leg he’d lost in Vietnam, he seldom let it show in his gait. Only when he was tired or upset did he limp. He was limping now, she noted.
He stopped at the doorway to his den and turned to look back at her. “Great to see you again, Natalie. Sorry to hear your car broke down, though.”
Levi watched him disappear into the room and close the door behind him as she fought the ridiculous feeling that she might never see him again.
“Are you all right?” Natalie asked beside her. “You’ve been acting weird today.”
“I’m worried about Daddy,” Levi said, thinking that when she got back to the ranch, she’d check with the foreman about a cut fence before she spoke with her father. She desperately wanted to be wrong. Or at least, if not wrong, get some answers that would make her feel a little less frightened.
“Don’t worry, he’ll make a great president,” Natalie said.
“Yeah?” So why did she feel that might not happen? Was it a premonition? Or just wishful thinking? “What if I don’t want to be a president’s daughter?”
Natalie slipped her arm around her friend. “Just think of the men who’ll want to date you.”
They both laughed. It felt good. “You want to call a tow truck for your car before we leave?”
“On Thanksgiving? No way. I’ll get it towed tomorrow. Come on, I’ve been dying all day to tell you about this guy I met at work.”
They crossed the wide veranda, the afternoon mild and scented with the fragrances of fall in the Texas Hill Country.
* * *
THE MOMENT LEVI PULLED OUT of the ranch road and headed down the two-lane county road that led into San Antonio, she picked up two vehicles tailing behind her instead of the usual one. She watched for a moment in her rearview mirror. Had her father increased her private security?
Levi sped up, then slowed. Both cars stayed the same distance behind her. The increased security could just be a precaution as the time neared for the senator to announce his candidacy for president. Or it could validate all her fears.
“What is it?” Natalie asked, turning to look back.
“Just more big, strong men paid to protect me,” Levi said. “Can’t wait until I have Secret Service following me everywhere.”
“Oh, you’ll love all that attention.”
“Sure, wait until we double-date.” Her father had hired the full-time security guards for her over a year ago, right after he received a death threat at the ranch. While it had turned out to be nothing, he’d kept the security guards on as a precaution. “You hang around me and we’ll both be old maids.”
“Remember that one time?” Natalie said, laughing. “That really cute bodyguard your father hired?”
Levi only half listened as she checked her rearview mirror again to see that both vehicles were still behind her. She had to admit that normally she resented the intrusion in her life, but today the security guards reassured her. They made her feel everything really might be all right, because she knew others like them were guarding the ranch right now. Guarding her father.
“Can you believe my new car broke down?” Natalie bemoaned as they passed the Mustang convertible parked on the edge of the road. “It’s a good thing Robin came along when she did.”
“Your car just quit?”
Natalie shrugged. “I told you we should have taken auto mechanics in college.”
“Or at least date someone who knows how to fix cars,” Levi suggested. “So tell me about this guy you met.”
They talked and laughed on the way to Natalie’s house, the cool night air blowing in the windows. It wasn’t until later, long after Levi was on the county road headed back home, the day dying around her and an approaching thunderstorm darkening the sky, that she happened to glance into her rearview mirror.
Her foot came off the gas. She stared into the mirror, then turned to look out the back window.
There were no car lights behind her. No cars. Nothing but empty road. She was alone. Completely alone.
Panic curled tight fingers around Levi’s throat as she stared back at the growing darkness. She swallowed, telling herself there was no cause for concern. But the lie wouldn’t go down. She’d lost her security guards. Wasn’t that what she’d often wished for? Freedom? Anonymity? What she considered an ordinary life?
She stared at the empty gravel road behind her. Suddenly she had her freedom, but she knew instinctively, this was not what she wanted. Not today.
For a moment, she thought about turning around and going back to look for them. But the thunderstorm was right behind her, moving in fast.
She sped up, watching the road ahead as she picked up the car phone and hurriedly dialed the ranch. Her hand shook as she held the phone against her ear and checked the rearview mirror. Nothing but the storm, the empty back road and the growing darkness.
She’d known for years that there were people who might use her to get to her father, but until tonight she hadn’t realized just what that meant, the danger not only to herself but ultimately to her father. She was Senator James Marshall McCord’s daughter. His only offspring. The daughter of a possible future president. He’d done everything he could to protect her from publicity and keep her out of the public eye. But being a politician’s daughter had always come with a price, none higher than at this moment.
As she waited for the phone to ring, she tried to think of a half-dozen good reasons why the security men weren’t behind her. She couldn’t come up with even one. They’d been told never to leave her. Never. Under any circumstances. They wouldn’t disobey Senator James Marshall McCord. They’d all been handpicked by him personally. So where were they?
It took Levi a moment to realize the phone wasn’t ringing. She hurriedly dialed again, thinking she’d missed a number, but halfway through she heard the silence and knew the phone was dead. She shook it, then checked the battery. For a long moment, she stared, uncomprehending, into the empty hole where the battery should have been. Had it fallen out? How could that have happened?
Her fear escalating, she threw down the phone and locked all the car’s doors. Ahead, the solitary beams of her headlights cut through the dark late Texas afternoon, making her feel all the more vulnerable.
She pushed down on the gas pedal, gathering speed, gathering courage. She was safe. There was a logical explanation for this. A logical explanation for everything that had happened today. But she knew better. She was alone for the first time since her father’s death threat more than a year ago. All alone on an isolated back road, miles from the ranch, miles from town.
Fear mixed with anger. She didn’t want this. Any of it. Her father had put his life in danger and hers, as well. Tears of anger blurred her vision.
The car fishtailed around a corner and she slowed, but not much. She knew she was driving too fast. But she felt an urgency to get to the ranch as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the road ahead was even more narrow and full of curves as it wound through the hills, and the storm was gaining on her.
She careened around another corner and was forced to slow even more for the next one. Ahead she could see Natalie’s new car in the barrow ditch where she’d left it earlier.
If the Mustang hadn’t broken down, Levi would be at the ranch now. The thought raced past, making her heart race with it. Surely Natalie’s car trouble wasn’t part of some plot to—To what? To get her out on this road today?
She was telling herself she was just being overly suspicious when she looked in her rearview mirror again. Instead of the blank darkness, light shone a few miles behind her. One of her security guards?
Suddenly she could think of several scenarios to explain their temporary absence. Maybe one had broken down, like Natalie’s car. Just an odd coincidence. Nothing to panic over.
Or maybe there’d been an accident involving one or both of the cars. It didn’t matter. She was convinced that at least one of them was with her again. She let out a sigh of relief as she waited for the car to catch her.
But as the vehicle neared, she saw that it wasn’t a set of headlights but a solitary light speeding toward her. And the vehicle didn’t slow, nor did it drop in behind her. It kept coming, moving faster than she thought necessary or prudent.
Ahead she could see a sharp curve in the road. Behind her, the single light grew larger and larger until it filled her car, blinding her.
At the curve, she belatedly realized she was going too fast. She hit the brakes and the car began to slide around the corner. Behind her, the single headlight stayed on her. But as she came out of the curve, it moved up fast on her left and roared past.
That was when she saw that it wasn’t a car at all but a motorcycle. A dark, hooded figure hunched over the bike as it disappeared over the next rise in a cloud of dust and dusky darkness.
Shaken, Levi slowed the car and relaxed her hands on the wheel, keenly aware of the trembling in her fingers, in her legs. She tried to calm herself. She felt idiotic. She’d actually thought the biker had planned to force her off the road. Instead, the fool was probably just trying to outrun the storm.
This wasn’t like her. She didn’t panic easily, didn’t let things spook her. But she was spooked.
Behind her, the road was again empty but darker as the storm swept in. Ahead, the single headlight beam of the motorcycle shone in the distance then disappeared around a bend in the road.
It comforted her a little just knowing she wasn’t alone on this back road. The ranch wasn’t far now. Another five miles to the turnoff. Then she’d be home. Safe.
Rain began to fall, huge, sopping drops that pelted the windshield like pebbles. Lightning lit the sky for an instant, then thunderclouds obliterated everything like some ominous eclipse.
She turned on the wipers, dropped down a hill and around a sharp curve. Her headlights picked up the stone abutments of the bridge over the creek and something else. Something in the middle of the road at the mouth of the narrow bridge. Something large and bright. The rain-streaked shine of polished chrome turned into a motorcycle. The motorcycle lay on its side in the middle of the road, the rider sprawled next to it, blocking the road.
Levi laid into her brakes, the car skidding through the downpour toward the fallen bike and rider.
The fool, she thought frantically. He’d been going way too fast for the conditions and the storm had still caught him.
She stopped the car just feet from the rider. Her headlights pierced the falling rain to illuminate skid marks in the gravel and mud, the wrecked bike, the motionless rider.
Levi didn’t remember rolling down her window as she brought the car to a standstill. But now rain swept in, accompanied by a low, mournful moan.
In the headlights, she saw the rider lift one arm, then let it drop again. As the rider tried to get up, the hood fell back, exposing a head of long red hair and a distinctive female profile. Another moan shattered the stillness.
Levi hesitated, but only for an instant. She realized that the woman could lie there for hours and no one else might come along on this road tonight, especially with it being Thanksgiving.
After opening the car door, Levi got out, the rain drenching her to the skin through the thin cotton of her holiday dress as she started toward the downed biker.
A boot heel crunched on the gravel behind her. Levi started to turn. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the outline of a large dark figure, but before she could react, strong arms enveloped her, lifting her off her feet. A massive hand muffled her screams as she was dragged backward through the rain.
In the glare of the headlights, she watched the redhead get effortlessly to her feet and turn to look at her. For a fleeting instant, Levi thought she saw surprise in the woman’s expression. Then she felt something prick her skin. And everything went black.
Chapter Two (#ulink_7b25a198-b6aa-5ce7-82a7-ef0c6eb120f7)
Levi swam in a sea of warm darkness, caught in its seductive hold. She didn’t know how long she’d been under as she began to swim toward the surface, sensing the light above her growing brighter.
If only she could open her eyelids, but the effort was too much. Her limbs felt leaden and her mind groggy and jumbled with strange, terrifying images that danced in and out and seemed so real. She tried to grasp one, but it scudded away, a wisp no more tangible than smoke.
Still shrouded in the ominous dreams, she finally managed to surface, opening her eyes a crack, afraid of what she’d find. She blinked, becoming aware of two things. She was in a small airplane—a private jet, by the plush interior and propellerless hum—and she was not alone.
* * *
FROM ACROSS THE AISLE, Seth Gantry watched her come out of the drug-induced sleep. The resemblance had been startling. He’d seen it the moment she stepped from her car into the glare of the headlights. Her hair, a tumble of dark burnished waves cascading around her shoulders. Her body, slim and long, softened by full curves.
It had stopped him like a shotgun blast to his chest. Shanna. He’d stood, too stunned to move. For one breath-stealing moment, he’d believed it really was her standing there. Then she’d turned and he’d seen the woman’s face. And reality had come like a blow.
But even now in the light of the plane’s interior, he could see similarities between the two women. The hair. The wide-set eyes fringed with dark lashes. The high cheekbones.
But he could also see differences. The full, sensual mouth. The patrician features.
And yet when she opened her eyes, he thought they would be blue. As blue as Texas bluebonnets. And as filled with that silent pleading as the last time he’d looked into them.
The woman opened her eyes, blinked, then looked over at him. They weren’t blue at all, but a surprising pale violet. And all he saw in them was a drugged blankness.
She wasn’t Shanna. Not that he’d really believed she was. Except for that split second of insanity. So why did just looking at her hurt so much?
“Hello,” he said, his voice rough with emotions he thought he’d buried years ago. Obviously he hadn’t buried them deep enough. Disappointment sat on his chest, making each breath a hard-won victory.
She blinked again, looking at him with an empty vagueness that confirmed the heavy-duty muscle relaxant had done its job.
The question was: How much did she remember? She looked confused and probably incoherent. But would she experience the usual short-term memory loss?
He hoped so. It would be better if she didn’t remember what had happened to her, he thought, absently rubbing his hand where she’d bitten him. Seth liked fight in a woman. Just not this woman. And not now.
As he watched her, he remembered the feel of her in his arms—her surprising physical strength, as well as her strength of will. He waited expectantly, still seeing Shanna in her and wishing he didn’t.
She offered a drunken lopsided smile. There was no sign of nausea, he thought, pleased with his choice of drugs. Nor any fear in her expression. Yet. He knew it would take a few minutes before she’d be coherent and by then they’d have landed and she wouldn’t be his problem anymore. This was one job he’d be glad to have over.
She frowned and looked around, her gaze questioning. He wondered if every emotion this woman felt showed as clearly on her face, or if it was just her drugged, uninhibited state. Again he felt that tug of interest and found himself wondering about her. He caught himself. It didn’t matter. Actually, it was better not to know. It made things easier. Less personal. And that’s the way he liked them.
“You’re in a plane,” he said in response to the look. “We’ll be landing soon.”
The brows unfurrowed. She blinked and seemed to study the plane as if she thought she should recognize it. Why did he get the feeling she’d been in a private jet before? For the moment, she seemed satisfied with his answer and he was glad of that.
When she looked at him again, the violet eyes registered flashes of random emotions from confusion to curiosity. But it was the intelligence he saw there that worried him. Intelligence and strength of will? Seth hoped he wouldn’t regret that he hadn’t handcuffed her to the seat.
* * *
SHE WAS FLYING? It didn’t surprise her. She felt airborne and wasn’t sure she even needed the aircraft. Her thoughts zipped in and out like fighter planes, so fast she couldn’t catch even one for more than an instant. Her body floated as if weightless, although it seemed to be slumped in the plush seat. Her brain was unable to get her limbs to respond.
She smiled to herself, relishing this alien notnecessarily-unpleasant feeling. If she’d been able to reason, she’d have been horrified at this inability to think or move, let alone the idea of waking in a jet with a strange man. She didn’t even like to have more than a glass of wine because of her need to be in control at all times.
But that Levi was gone. This Levi couldn’t care less. She soared. Free. And it felt...delicious.
While she had no fear of flying, she did wonder how this cowboy had ended up on her magic carpet ride. As she looked over at him, she also wondered who he was and how she felt about him. She had no idea how she should feel about him, since her mind was still senseless and her body wonderfully insensible, but she felt something. In fact, her awareness of him seemed magnified, as if just one touch, even one whiff, would tell her everything she needed to know.
She closed her eyes and sniffed. Mmm. Very male. Unique as fingerprints and just as telling, his masculine scent seemed to fill her with what she knew instinctively were small truths about him. Strong. She smiled as another truth invaded her senses. Sexy. Very sexy. She opened her eyes, drunk with the essence of him, and grinned. At least she thought she grinned.
He gave her a small smile. She thought she felt her grin deepen into a smile, but who knew. She liked to think at least her lips were working.
“Would you care for some juice?” he asked.
Nice voice. Soft, considerate and something else that dodged her grasp. Apprehensive? That didn’t make any sense. What would he have to be apprehensive about?
