Till Death Us Do Part

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“Umm.” With Jed’s thigh pressed against hers and his grip firmly on her shoulder, it was impossible to think clearly, but she clamped down hard on her instinctive urge to pull away. She knew Sanchez was watching, and they had to keep playing by the script Jed had tossed her.

He’d told the general that they were engaged! How were they ever going to pull it off? How could they possibly act as if they were madly in love? As if they were lovers? Contemplating that led to memories of his kiss, which made her heart lurch inside her chest. Perhaps the most disturbing thing of all was that she still felt a tingle of awareness between them like a humming electric current. It had started when he’d kissed her, and she wanted to pretend it wasn’t there. But she was coming to realize she couldn’t wish it away.

Jed’s arm was around her shoulder, but he was leaning forward responding to a question from the general. As she switched her focus to the conversation flowing so easily in Spanish, she realized for the first time how close the two men must have been.

“So why didn’t you come to me when Marissa was first apprehended?” Sanchez asked.

“I tried. Ask that undercover man who took her into custody on the patio. He wasn’t letting anyone through to you.”

“He had his orders. But you should have let me know she was your woman.”

Jed laughed. “I remember how you close ranks when you think you’ve been crossed. For all I know, you were going to assume I was part of a plot against you. Then you would have arrested me as well as her. And we’d both be up the creek without a paddle.”

“You’ve got a point,” El Jefe conceded.

The give-and-take between the men continued. Marissa missed a number of allusions that must have referred to events they both remembered well. She didn’t much like being excluded, but she had enough sense to keep her mouth shut and let Jed remind the general of their old bond. She’d rather have the State Department on the job. But Victor Kirkland wasn’t the one who had shown up to win her freedom. It seemed that Victor had tossed her to the wolves, and Jed had stepped in. Perhaps his friendship with the general might be the only thing that would get her out of here.

Or was that what was really going on, she wondered with a sudden little jolt. Jed had appeared out of nowhere like a knight in shining armor. But the rescue could have been staged, too. And he could be counting heavily on her vulnerability.

She swallowed painfully. Were Jed and Sanchez putting on a performance for her? Was this all part of some diabolical plan to get her to talk about what she’d found in the general’s office? Did they think that if she wouldn’t tell Sanchez anything, she’d spill the beans to Jed?

But if he was here to trick her, what about the familiar way he’d mentioned Cassie and Abby and Sabrina? He’d met her sister when they’d all been on an assignment together in Colombia. But he’d never met any of the other women from 43 Light Street. He’d made it sound as if they were all working together to get her out of here. Yet that could be faked, as well—when there was no way to get in touch with anyone whose name he’d mentioned so casually.

She had sense enough to know she was too off balance to make any coherent judgments. Her head swam with plots and counterplots as the jeep pulled up in front of the hacienda, where two guards in dress uniforms snapped to attention. She saw the curtains move at one of the windows and wondered who was watching. Jed helped her out of the jeep and kept his arm around her, guiding her toward the house.

Before they reached the front door, it opened. A teenage girl with long dark hair and liquid brown eyes came hurrying out. She had Miguel’s features, and Marissa remembered that his dossier had mentioned a daughter and a long-dead wife. But there had been hardly any information about either one.

The girl stopped a few feet from the group.

“Clarita, you’re not supposed to be out here,” Sanchez said in a voice that raised the hairs on the back of Marissa’s neck. If he could speak that way to his daughter, what might he do to a female prisoner?

The girl merely shrugged, clearly accustomed to his intimidating manner. “I’m not one of your soldiers. I don’t have to follow orders.”

“Everyone in this house follows my orders.”

“Yes. And unfortunately everyone in San Marcos, too.”

It was a dangerous response, Marissa thought as she waited to see what El Jefe would do. She couldn’t imagine he was enjoying this little scene. His face contorted. “We’ll discuss it later.”

The girl looked as if she were about to say something more. At the last moment she turned toward Jed, her expression softening. “You came back to us. I knew you would after I saw you the other night.”

“I have business with your father.”

As the girl’s gaze swung from Jed to Marissa and back again, she went through another rapid change of mood. This time her eyes held a mixture of bewilderment and hurt. “I’m sorry I ran away from you on the patio. I thought you came to see me, and we’d have fun together again. Like in the old days.”

Jed seemed perplexed, no more equipped for this scene than Sanchez. “I do want to see you.”

“Then why do you have your arm around the woman prisoner? Why are you protecting her from my father?”

“Marissa is my fiancеe.”

The girl’s expression went from questioning to fury in the space of a heartbeat. “She can’t be.”

“I fell in love with her. And I came here to bring her home.”

“Oh.” Several seconds of silence ticked by before Clarita tipped her head toward Marissa. “Are you good in bed? Is that what he likes about you?”

“That’s enough,” Sanchez roared. “Go to your room this instant before you embarrass yourself further.”

Marissa stood with her cheeks burning while the girl turned and flounced away. Before she reached the house she pulled a hibiscus blossom off a nearby bush, crushed it in her hand and tossed it onto the pavement.