Untameable: Merciless

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She walked in, holding Markie’s hand more for her own comfort than his. Jon was propped up on pillows, wearing a burgundy silk pajama top that was unbuttoned over his broad chest. His long hair was loose around his shoulders, a little tousled, as if he’d been sleeping.

He looked at Markie and smiled. “Hello.”

“Hello,” Markie said. He moved to the bed and leaned on it. “I’m sorry you got shot.”

“Yes. Me, too.”

“You got nice dogs,” Markie said. “And I like your fish, too.”

“Thanks.”

“Dieter likes me.”

“I’m not surprised,” Jon said. “He’s very fond of children. We got him from a family in Germany. He was our first breeding dog. He’s sired several generations of wonderful pets.”

“He’s gorgeous,” Joceline agreed. “I was surprised at how gentle he is.”

Jon smiled at her and winced when he shifted position. “He’s gentle until he needs to be aggressive.”

“I guess you have to have good security here,” she said.

“I’ve had a few threats over the years. At least I don’t have to check the underside of my vehicles for bombs, though,” he added flatly.

She shook her head. “Your brother attracts trouble.”

“Yes, and it’s contagious, apparently.” He reached beside him and touched a button. “Megs, would you come in here, please?”

There was a soft, female voice that answered. A couple of minutes later, a small, dark woman with long black hair and brown eyes came into the room, wiping her hands on her spotless white apron. She stopped when she saw the visitors and broke into a wide smile.

“Welcome,” she said in her softly accented English. “I knew you were coming, so I have prepared something very special for dinner. You like sushi, I am told.”

Joceline gasped. “How did you know?” It was her secret passion and she couldn’t afford to have it very often.

“I told her,” Jon said with a smile. “You came out to eat with Mac and me once, a few months ago. I’ve never seen anyone enjoy a dish so much.”

“I love it,” she confessed, but didn’t add that her budget wouldn’t stand much of it. Sushi was frightfully expensive.

“We have a guy on the payroll who was a sushi chef before he decided he wanted to be a cowboy,” Jon explained. “I sent Megs to fetch him. We have fresh seafood flown here from California, so he can slice and dice to his heart’s content.”

“Thank you,” she said with genuine appreciation.

“My pleasure,” he replied. “It’s a small repayment for the inconvenience of you having to come up here to do my work.”

“I didn’t mind,” she protested.

“Sushi is raw fish,” Markie said with his blunt honesty, and made a face.

“Yes, but our chef can also make fish sticks and homemade French fries,” Jon murmured with twinkling black eyes. “I hear somebody really loves those.”

“Me!” Markie exclaimed. “And lots of ketchup on!”

The adults laughed.

“I am making cookies, also,” Megs said. “Would your son like to come into the kitchen and help me? He can test the cookies, if you don’t mind,” she added dryly.

“Oh, please, can I?” Markie asked his mom, hugging her legs and looking up at her with melting blue eyes. “Please?”

“Go on,” Joceline said and lifted him up to kiss his rosy cheek.

“Aww, Mom,” he protested, wiggling to be put down.

“Have fun,” she called as he followed a laughing Megs out the door.

“Megs?” she asked Jon when they were alone.

“A private joke,” he said warmly. “She overdid the nutmeg in eggnog one Christmas and I started calling her Megs. It stuck.”

She smiled. “She’s very nice. Everybody here is nice, especially that cowboy you sent to the airstrip to drive us here. The one with red whiskers. Sloane Callum.”

“Oh, yes. You liked him?” he asked.

“Very much. He offered to teach Markie how to ride later.” She frowned. “He said an odd thing, that he wouldn’t be offended if I didn’t want him to, later.”

He chuckled. “Some people don’t like to have him around. He knows it and doesn’t take offense. He and Cammy get into it once in a while. He’s very opinionated. So is she, of course.”

“He hunts, he said, and then he added that he hunted animals, too.”

“Callum spent some time in prison for hunting men,” he said abruptly.

Her eyes widened. “That was him? The hit man you told me about?” she exclaimed.

He nodded. “He was very young and his mother was dying of cancer. He fell in with a bad crowd, but they took him in after and slowly led him into doing things he should never have done. He wound up in prison. He got out, went into a rehabilitation program and ended up here. He’s been with us for over ten years now.”

She was impressed. “And no blemishes on his record in all that time?”

He pursed his lips. “He did try to go after Jay Copper, when it came out that he’d ordered the hit on Mac’s wife that also led to the murder of Mac’s daughter, Melly. He was very fond of Melly. He had a son of his own, an illegitimate one. When he went to prison, and his profession became public knowledge, his girlfriend left him.”

“What happened to his son?” she wondered.

“God knows. He tried to find him, but I don’t think he ever did. He was concerned that the boy probably wouldn’t want to know him.”

She didn’t say anything. She was trying to decide how she’d feel if she’d found out that her father was a hired killer. She really didn’t know.

“This house is huge,” she said, for something to talk about that wasn’t controversial.

“Too big,” he mused. “My mother doesn’t socialize much, except when she’s trying to get me married. She gives parties and invites her candidate of the week.”

“Sorry.”

“You have no idea how hard it is to find places to hide on this ranch,” he said wistfully. “She’s getting familiar with all the ones I’ve found, so now I have to stay in San Antonio most of the time to escape her.”

“She probably wants more grandchildren,” she told him and averted her eyes.

“She’s rather pushy,” he said gently. “I’m sorry she was rude to you. She was rude to Mac’s wife, too, but Winnie took her down a few pegs,” he added. “She still calls her the ‘little blonde chainsaw,’ but she says it with affection now.”

“Winnie’s nice.”

“Very nice.” He studied her with narrowed black eyes. “You’re pretty nice yourself,” he said quietly. “Coming all this way, inconveniencing yourself, just to work.”

“You couldn’t come to the office,” she pointed out.

“No, I couldn’t. I’m sorry you had to take the child out of school.”

“I spoke to his teacher. They understand the situation. It will be all right. He’ll catch up. He’s very bright.”

“He’ll like it here, I think. There’s a lot for a child to do. He seems to love animals.”

“He does. He’s always begging me for a dog. But we live in an apartment, and it’s not allowed.”

She thought of her apartment, and then of the break-in, and shivered.

“We talked about the attempted burglary,” he said suddenly. His jaw tautened. “And the phone call that came after it. They are part of the reason I insisted on bringing you up here, where we can keep you and your son safe. I hate that you’re mixed up in this.”

She was surprised, and touched. “Thanks,” she said softly, “but we both work for a highly visible law enforcement agency. It’s unrealistic to think there would never be a risk involved in it.”

“It shouldn’t involve your son,” he said bluntly.

“I used to be naive enough to think that no human being would ever harm a child.”

“Wishful thinking.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” she asked. She drew in a long breath. “That’s what scared me about having my apartment broken into, the fact that someone might hurt Markie. He’s all I have in the world.”

He frowned. “You said your … Markie’s father,” he corrected, “was killed overseas.”

She averted her eyes. “Yes.”

“Did you care for him?”

She bit her lip. “Very much.”

An odd expression touched his handsome face. “I’m sorry.”

She turned away. “It was a tragedy, in many ways.”

“Would you have married him, you think?”

Unseen, her hands dug into the fabric of her jeans. “He didn’t have those sort of feelings for me,” she managed to say.

“He had some sort, or you wouldn’t have Markie,” he said, and then groaned silently at the slip of the tongue.

She swallowed, hard, and turned back to him. Her face was pale. “Please. It’s difficult to talk about something so personal,” she said heavily. “Could we change the subject?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I hear that the Chinese have a restaurant where robots deliver meals to the table.”

A surprised laugh escaped her tight throat. “What?”

He chuckled. “I read it on a virtual news site.”

“The internet has revolutionized the way we share information,” she replied.

“So it has. What was your boyfriend’s name?” he added suddenly.

“Mr. Blackhawk …!”

“Jon. We’re not at the office.” His gaze slid over her with a strange intensity. “What do people call you?”

“Sir?”

“What do people call you? Surely you have friends, family …”

“All my family is dead, except my mother, and we don’t have any contact now,” she blurted out. “I lost touch with my high school friends. I had a friend when I was training as a paralegal, but she married and moved to California.”