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Desperado
Diana Palmer
Risking his neck is all in a day's work…Tough and relentless, Cord Romero lives for the adrenaline rush that comes with being a mercenary for hire. But this time the job is personal. Having barely survived a murder attempt from an elusive enemy, Cord is determined to neutralize his foe–the head of a multinational corporation that fronts a child labor ring. In order to get closer to his target, Cord joins forces with the Lassiter Detective Agency, where he's reunited with his childhood friend Maggie Barton. Maggie is no longer the impressionable young woman he once knew. She is now strong, independent and in charge of her own life–and, professionally, Cord's equal. She has one vulnerability: a tragic secret from her past that threatens her relationship with Cord…and sets her up as a pawn for his deadly enemy.Cord cannot afford to be distracted during the most important case of his life. But Maggie plays an indispensable part in unraveling the links to his enemy's crimes. Forced to trust each other for their very survival, Cord and Maggie embark on a lethal game of cat and mouse that can leave only one winner standing.
Risking his neck is all in a day’s work…
Tough and relentless, Cord Romero lives for the adrenaline rush that comes with being a mercenary for hire. But this time the job is personal. Having barely survived a murder attempt from an elusive enemy, Cord is determined to neutralize his foe—the head of a multinational corporation that fronts a child labor ring. In order to get closer to his target, Cord joins forces with the Lassiter Detective Agency, where he’s reunited with his childhood friend Maggie Barton. Maggie is no longer the impressionable young woman he once knew. She is now strong, independent and in charge of her own life—and, professionally, Cord’s equal. She has one vulnerability: a tragic secret from her past that threatens her relationship with Cord…and sets her up as a pawn for his deadly enemy.
Cord cannot afford to be distracted during the most important case of his life. But Maggie plays an indispensable part in unraveling the links to his enemy’s crimes. Forced to trust each other for their very survival, Cord and Maggie embark on a lethal game of cat and mouse that can leave only one winner standing.
Praise for the novels of New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author DIANA PALMER (#ulink_674975a9-5174-5769-a5bb-3a9020b69236)
“Palmer demonstrates, yet again, why she’s the
queen of desperado quests for justice and true love.”
—Publishers Weekly on Dangerous
“A strong mystery intertwines with this romance, which
has plenty of emotional ups and downs and includes
delightful, intriguing and familiar characters.”
—RT Book Reviews on Dangerous
“The popular Palmer has penned another winning
novel, a perfect blend of romance and suspense.”
—Booklist on Lawman
“Sensual and suspenseful.”
—Booklist on Lawless
“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who
captures the essence of what a romance should be.”
—Affaire de Coeur
“This is a fascinating story…
It’s nice to have a hero wise enough to know when
he can’t do things alone and willing to accept help
when he needs it. There is pleasure to be found
in the nice sense of family this tale imparts.”
—RT Book Reviews on Wyoming Bold
“Diana Palmer is one of those authors whose books
are always enjoyable. She throws in romance,
suspense and a good storyline.”
—The Romance Reader on Before Sunrise
“Lots of passion, thrills, and plenty of suspense…
Protector is a top notch read!”
—Romance Reviews Today on Protector
Desperado
Diana Palmer
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader (#ulink_571bfedd-0994-5446-aac6-15fd6ab90fee),
I started out as a newspaper reporter, at the age of seventeen. By the time I married, at age twenty-five, I was working as a district correspondent for two daily newspapers, and full-time on a local weekly newspaper. At the age of thirty-three, I saw my first novel published and produced my greatest creative work, our son Blayne. Now, as I look back on a career that spans decades, I can see a common thread in the process that led me to being a full-time author—insanity!
Just kidding. But it does help to be a little out of kilter if you want to do this for a living. Example: Cash Grier is featured in my novel Renegade. Now, he started out as a very minor character in a novel called The Texas Ranger. I thought that was the end of it. Imagine my surprise when he suddenly appeared as assistant police chief of Jacobsville, Texas, in Lawless. No, I didn’t put him in the position. He walked into my office, creatively speaking, sat down in my chair, put his big booted feet on my desk and announced that he was taking over my book. This did not sit well. But he proved impossible to evict, so I wrote Renegade, hoping he might take the hint and leave. As you know, if you read my books, this was also an optimistic and futile wish. He has never left. One of my readers, Cinzi, keeps hoping I will toss Tippy under an ice cream truck and give Cash Grier to her. I really can’t. Tippy would start haunting me.
On the other hand, Cord Romero, in Desperado, started out also in another book, in my Most Wanted series. He turned up in a few other books, as well. He wasn’t as pushy as Cash, but he did fascinate me. So he got a book of his own, and a happy ending. I’m big on those. Life doesn’t give us many. Fiction should take up the slack, or at least, that’s my own philosophy.
While Cash’s story played out in Jacobsville and New York City (one of my favorite places!), Cord wound his way through Texas and Europe in an effort to save the lives of exploited children. He also found out some interesting and tragic things about his foster sister in the process. A lot of Jacobsville’s mercenaries also turn up in Desperado, including Rodrigo Ramirez, of Fearless, and Bojo, who was featured in Lord of the Desert.
Both these books are epic love stories, with twists and turns and many red herrings. I hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.
I am busy working on other projects, most notably a new Wyoming series beginning with Sara Brandon from Texas Born and a book about Stanton Rourke from Invincible. I am also reworking my science fiction novels in The Morcai Battalion series. The Morcai Battalion: The Recruit, which really is a love story about Dr. Madeline Ruszel and the alien Cehn-Tahr commander Dtimun, has new scenes and will be out from Mills & Boon HQN in both ebook and paperback form in December 2014. I am rewriting its sequel, The Morcai Battalion: Invictus, and it will appear in print in late 2015. There will be other books in the series, notably The Morcai Battalion: Ship’s Surgeon with Dr. Edris Mallory in 2016. In my spare time, I sleep. :)
Thank you so much for all your kindness to me over the years, dear readers. I am your biggest fan!
Love,
Diana Palmer
To the doctors and nurses of
Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois,
who saved my life, and to the wonderful staff,
with thanks from a grateful patient.
Contents
Cover (#u5710459a-722c-577a-bde8-fa8b43abd5d3)
Back Cover Text (#uda39ee24-3504-5d98-8fd0-7b39588d0ac0)
Praise (#ulink_9b1632fe-300e-53e4-9863-dccfc2f4b168)
Title Page (#u693f51df-5814-5675-87c0-aeb67bbe1452)
Dear Reader (#ulink_ef691f73-ce54-5930-936c-60c4daca1633)
Dedication (#ud10f1b4d-7356-514d-8515-562819288e4b)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_c960e76b-5afb-5582-97ac-ed8f4791a7b4)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_fd77d460-3fa0-56e1-8a1e-73310702367a)
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Extract (#u6f21c2a0-690f-5b2f-b097-11ae68b3e93a)
Copyright (#ufde82631-3cf1-51fb-9637-60471d6cb966)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_aa614e16-c161-549b-a2f1-bb02bfe70ae4)
THE RANCH OUTSIDE Houston was big and sprawling. It was surrounded by neat white fences, which concealed electrical ones, to keep in the purebred Santa Gertrudis cattle that Cord Romero owned. There was also a bull, a special bull, which had been spared from a corrida—a bullfight—in Spain by Cord’s father, Mejias Romero, one of the most famous bullfighters in Spain just before his untimely death in America. Once Cord grew up and had money of his own, Cord had traveled to his elderly cousin’s ranch in Andalusia to get the bull and have it shipped to Texas. Cord called the old bull Hijito, little boy. The creature was still all muscle, although most of it was in his huge chest. He followed Cord around the ranch like a pet dog.
As Maggie Barton exited the cab with her suitcase, the big bull snorted and tossed his head on the other side of the fence. Maggie barely spared him a glance after she paid the driver. She’d come rushing home from Morocco in a tangle of missed planes, delays, cancellations and other obstacles that had caused her to be three days in transit. Cord, a professional mercenary and her foster brother, had been blinded. Most surprising, he’d asked for her through his friend, Eb Scott. Maggie couldn’t get home fast enough. The delays had been agony.
Perhaps, finally, Cord had realized that he cared for her...!
With her heart pounding, she pressed the doorbell on the spacious front porch with its green swing and glider and rocking chairs. There were pots of ferns and flowers everywhere.
Sharp, quick footsteps sounded on the bare wooden floors in the house and Maggie frowned as she pushed the long, wavy black hair away out of her worried green eyes. Those steps didn’t sound like Cord’s. He had an elegance of movement in his stride that was long and effortless, masculine but gliding. This was a short, staccato step, more like a woman’s. Her heart stopped. Did he have a girlfriend she didn’t know about? Had she misinterpreted Eb Scott’s phone call? Her confidence nosedived.
The door opened and a slight blond woman with dark eyes looked up at her. “Yes?” she asked politely.
“I came to see Cord,” Maggie blurted out. Jet lag was already setting in on her. She didn’t even think to give her name.
“I’m sorry, he isn’t seeing people just yet. He’s been in an accident.”
“I know that,” Maggie said impatiently. She softened the words with a smile. “Tell him it’s Maggie. Please.”
The other woman, who must have been all of nineteen, grimaced. “He’ll kill me if I let you in! He said he didn’t want to see anybody. I’m really sorry...”
Jet lag and irritability combined to break the bonds of Maggie’s temper. “Listen, I’ve just come over three thousand miles—oh, the hell with it! Cord?” she yelled past the girl, who grimaced again. “Cord!”
There was a pause, then a cold, short, “Let her in, June!”
June stepped aside at once. Maggie was made uneasy by the harsh note in Cord’s deep voice. She left her suitcase on the porch. June gave it a curious glance before she closed the door.
Cord was standing at the fireplace in the spacious living room. Just the sight of him fed Maggie’s heart. He was tall and lean, powerfully built for all his slimness, a tiger of a man who feared nothing in this world. He made his living as a professional soldier, and he had few peers. He was handsome, with light olive skin and jet-black hair that had a slight wave. His eyes were large, deep-set, dark brown. His eyebrows were drawn into a scowl as Maggie walked in, and except for the red wounds around his eyes and cheeks, he actually looked normal. He looked as if he could see her. Ridiculous, of course. A bomb he’d tried to defuse had gone off right in his face. Eb said he was blind.
She stared at him. This man was the love of her life. There had never been anyone but him in her heart. She was amazed that he’d never noticed, in the eighteen years their lives had been connected. Even his brief, tragic marriage hadn’t altered those feelings. Like him, she was widowed—but she didn’t grieve for her husband the way he’d grieved for Patricia.
Her gaze fell helplessly to his wide, chiseled mouth. She remembered, oh, so well, the feel of it on hers in the darkness. It had been heaven to be held by him, kissed by him, after years of anguished longing. But very quickly, the pleasure had become pain. Cord hadn’t known she was innocent, and he was too drunk to notice at the time. It was just after his wife committed suicide, the night their foster mother had died...
“How are you?” Maggie blurted out, hesitating just beyond the doorway, suddenly tongue-tied.
His square jaw seemed to tighten, but he smiled coldly. “A bomb exploded in my face four days ago. How the hell do you think I am?” he drawled sarcastically.
He was anything but welcoming. So much for fantasies. He didn’t need her. He didn’t want her around. It was just like old times. And she’d come running. What a joke.
“It amazes me that even a bomb could faze you,” she remarked with her old self-possession. She even smiled. “Mr. Cold Steel repels bullets, bombs, and especially, me!”
He didn’t react. “Nice of you to stop by. And so promptly,” he added.
She didn’t understand the remark. He seemed to feel she’d procrastinated about visiting. “Eb Scott phoned and said you’d been hurt. He said...” She hesitated, uncertain whether or not to tell him everything Eb had said to her. She went for broke, but she laughed to camouflage her raw emotions. “He said you wanted me to come nurse you. Funny, huh?”
He didn’t laugh. “Hilarious.”
