The Mercenary Read online

  * * *

  CLUB TIMES

  For Members’ Eyes Only

  Tyler Murdoch meets Mickey Mouse—fact or fiction?

  I’m still in shock over the wedding of Fiona Carson and Clay Martin. Most of us have been wearing black for weeks now that another bachelor is off the market, but survival is our middle name here at Lone Star Country Club. We’re sure that Grace Carson gave darling Fiona some cooking lessons, but it’s going to take a lawman to keep that filly from wandering all over the stables at night. Not that I’m implying anything by this….

  We’d like to wish LSCC-hunk-of-the-month Tyler Murdoch a fabulous journey. When probed over his impending departure, he quirked his handsome brow and said to woman-about-town Maddie Delarue Bridges that he was “going to Disneyland.” Say hi to Mickey for us, Tyler! Wait, now that I think about it, do you think he was pulling a fast one on us?

  Grace Carson wanted me to drop a little line about our annual “shake-and-cake” dance marathon at the club. You bring a cake, then go out on our ballroom dance floor and shake. We’re awarding the winners of the shake-and-cake contest a sumptuous dinner in our Empire room followed by a serenade by our own club manager, Harvey Small (who’s been taking Irish Tenor lessons). Don’t forget the ear-plugs!

  In good weather or bad, make you best stop of the day right here at the Lone Star Country Club!

  * * *

  About the Author

  ALLISON LEIGH

  began her career early by writing a Halloween play that her grade-school class performed for her school. Since then, she’s delighted to say her tastes have turned from ghosts and goblins to happily-ever-afters. She loves having her characters enter her life for a while, and freely admits that the true highlights of her day as a writer are when she receives word from readers that they laughed, cried, or lost a night of sleep with those characters. Born in Southern California, Allison has meandered her way through several states, finally settling in Arizona with her family, where she maintains a love-hate relationship with the pizza-oven summer heat and the beautiful days that masquerade as winter. She loves to hear from her readers, who can write to her at P.O. Box 40772, Mesa AZ 85274-0772 or [email protected].

  “I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the LONE STAR COUNTRY CLUB series. Working with the other authors whose work I’ve so enjoyed as a reader was a particular honor for me. Living for a time with the adventures of Tyler Murdoch and Marisa Rodriguez was a true pleasure. I hope you’ll enjoy the ride and feel some of their excitement, passion and love, too.”

  ALLISON LEIGH

  THE MERCENARY

  Welcome to the

  Where Texas society reigns supreme—and appearances are everything.

  A steamy jungle, danger at every turn, two complete opposites…sparks are bound to fly!

  Tyler Murdoch: He’s a vital member of a covert military agency, willing to go where most wouldn’t dare. The last thing he needs on this mission is the “help” of a feisty Latina who makes his blood boil and his alpha male libido beg for release. The harder he tries to ignore the smell, the feel of her, the more he knows he’ll do anything to make her his….

  Marisa Rodriguez: Once burned by love, she refuses to be vulnerable again. But she cannot ignore the passion that smolders between her and the all-too-male mercenary she’s been ordered to assist. And as the hot jungles begin to heat up, Marisa knows her resolve is crumbling when it comes to resisting someone she wants so badly.

  Missing from Mission Creek: When baby Lena is kidnapped from the Carson ranch, Flynt Carson and the town of Mission Creek embark on a desperate search for the missing infant. The clock is ticking…but they’ll stop at nothing to bring the culprit to justice.

  This book is dedicated to Judy, who saw a spot for me when I needed it;

  to Ben, gifted with words, wisdom and “knowing it all”

  Deb for all those morning walks and great talks; and the talented women, fellow writers all, of “SSE01.”

  If it weren’t for all of you, this one would never have been finished on time. Thank you.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  One

  “Oh, hell, you can’t be serious.”

  Tyler Murdoch muttered the words aloud even though there was no one to hear.

  He squinted against the sunlight—particularly bright and unrelenting as it reflected against the limitless expanse of arid, tan dirt surrounding the minuscule airfield—and focused on the woman who’d just stepped outside. There was only one small patch of shade afforded by the utilitarian building that served the so-called aeropuerto and she’d paused in it. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t see her just fine.

  He wished he couldn’t see her just fine. Then he could pretend that she wasn’t the person he was there to meet.

  Despite the checklist in his hand, he looked her way again. No way could she be the linguistics expert he was to hook up with before flying down to Mezcaya. No damn way.

  But he had a bad feeling in his gut that she was.

  And Tyler Murdoch trusted his gut instincts. They’d kept him alive too many times in his thirty-five years of life to be disregarded now just because he didn’t like the way that woman looked standing over there in that patch of shade. Besides, he’d checked the airfield from east to west and knew that the site was secure. The dust-coated SUV that had arrived and had hastily departed only minutes ago had been exactly the vehicle that Tyler had been watching for. There was no reason for anyone else to be here at this carefully and deliberately abandoned airfield other than the person he was there to meet.

  He managed not to swear a blue streak and looked away from her to focus on the clipboard in his hand. But he knew the checklist of supplies by heart and all he saw in his mind was the woman.

  No, he didn’t like the way the woman looked. The last thing he needed was to be distracted by some female on an op this important. Westin’s life depended on Tyler. There was no damn way he’d fail his former commander; he owed the man too much.

  None of which alleviated the impatience rising in him, or his annoyance with his superiors for sticking him with that woman. Everyone knew he didn’t like working with females. He didn’t care what kind of statement that made about him. He wasn’t interested in being politically correct, nor was he particularly concerned with equality between the sexes. As far as Tyler was concerned, a woman could sell out her country just as easily as a man.

  God knows Sonya had.

  He reached through the open door of the plane and tossed the clipboard into the cockpit where it landed next to the captain’s seat. His seat.

  He might be in charge of this expedition down to Mezcaya, but he was well and truly stuck with Miss Universe over there standing in the shade.

  He’d been told his linguistics expert was a native of Mezcaya who’d been in Embassy service for a while, but Tyler was damned if he could see how. From this distance, she looked too young to have done much of anything. Except maybe graduate from college. Maybe.

  But then, Sonya hadn’t exactly been decrepit with age, either, and she’d managed to cause plenty of damage.

  Disgusted with thoughts that were too old to be plaguing him now, Tyler spun on his heel and deliberately strode toward the building. He had a mission to accomplish, and no one, particularly a beautiful woman, was going to get in his way.

  It was the heat, Marisa told herself, that made
her feel unsteady on her feet. The heat. And maybe a touch of nervousness over the opportunity she’d been presented. It was just so important. If she could only succeed at this, so much could be changed.

  The heat and nervousness. Yes, that was all.

  She kept her hands folded loosely over the handle of her slender briefcase by sheer willpower. What she wanted to do was run a hand over her hair; make sure that the unruly waves were still neatly contained in the chignon at her nape. She wanted to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun that even the small overhang above her could not soften.

  She watched the dirt cloud up in small puffs around the man’s heavy, laced boots as he approached, and told herself firmly that she did not want to turn tail and run. She’d endured things far worse than that steady, grim glare of his. Much worse.

  The thought ought to have steadied her. It unsettled her that it didn’t. So she schooled her expression and stared right back. Right up until the moment when he stopped, a mere yard away. If it was possible, his hair was even darker than hers. No glints of red, no strands of chestnut, or even silver. It was jet-black. Not quite military short, but definitely an uncompromisingly no-fuss cut. And it suited the blade of his nose, the sharp cheekbones and hard jaw. There was nothing at all about his hard appearance, including the camouflage pants and khaki T-shirt that strained against his broad shoulders to suggest he was anything but what he was—a warrior.

  Pressing her lips softly together, she inhaled deeply and kept her leather-shod feet firmly planted. She’d been warned that Tyler Murdoch might be somewhat difficult to work with—his expression certainly indicated just that—but she was on this mission whether he liked it or not.

  She stuck out her hand in greeting. “Mr. Murdoch.”

  His eyes, as darkly brown as the coffee her abuela had fixed every morning of her childhood, flickered disinterestedly over her outstretched hand. “They didn’t tell me that M. Rodriguez was a woman.”

  As a beginning, it could have been worse. It also could have been better. “Marisa,” she supplied, aware of the difference between his softly drawling speech—pure U.S. of A—and her speech that still held a trace of her homeland no matter how many diction classes Gerald had foisted upon her.

  She finally lowered her hand and took a slender envelope from the pocket of her briefcase. She held it out. “A letter from the former ambassador to Mezcaya.”

  He took the envelope from her, sliding it in his back pocket without a second look. “Do you have any other ID?”

  “Um, well, yes.” She unzipped another pocket and pulled out her wallet, flipping it open. She thought he’d just look at her license, but he took the wallet right out of her hands and began removing cards, not even studying them first.

  “What are you doing?”

  He handed her back the wallet, sans license, insurance cards and anything else that personally identified her. “My job,” he said flatly and moved past her through the door.

  She shifted, hurriedly following him into the shadowed interior. “Don’t you want to verify my credentials? You didn’t even read the letter from Ambassador Torres.”

  He slowly turned his head, looking at her over his shoulder. And Marisa couldn’t prevent the tremors that skidded down her spine. “If you weren’t M. Rodriguez, you’d hardly be here at this miserable excuse for an airfield. What happened to the driver who brought you?”

  “He headed back to the city.” A fact she felt sure the man already knew. Since the moment she’d accepted the invitation to participate in this “expedition,” her life had become a whirlwind.

  Tyler had gone into the minute office in the rear of the building. “Didn’t it bother you to be left here, alone?” he asked. “This place is a long way from civilization.”

  She couldn’t see what he was doing in the office. She raised her voice a little. “I wasn’t alone. You were here.” She simply would not admit to any unease even though it was greater now than it had been when the driver tore off in a flurry of dust. Tyler would undoubtedly take her unease as weakness, and she’d learned long ago to keep displays of weakness to a minimum, particularly when dealing with tall, formidable-looking men.

  Another leftover from Gerald.

  Tyler came back out of the office. He barely spared her a glance as he headed for the door. “What makes you think I’m safe?”

  Her lips parted and she blinked. The driver had assured her that the man standing by the sleek plane was indeed the one she was to meet.

  He was just trying to frighten her.

  She headed after him. Her briefcase bumped her knees so she slid the long strap over her shoulder. “Mr. Murdoch—”

  “We’re wheels up in five,” he interrupted flatly. “If you’re gonna back out, do it now. We’ve got several hours of flight time ahead of us. If this place seems rough, it’s only going to get worse.”

  Her chin lifted. “You forget, Mr. Murdoch, I come from Mezcaya. I grew up in worse.” And she had dreamed for years of leaving it.

  His lips twisted, making his hard features look even harder. “I don’t forget anything, honey.”

  The words seemed like a challenge, and anger sparked inside her. But she couldn’t afford to lose her temper over this man’s arrogance. “Nor do I, Mr. Murdoch,” she assured.

  Tyler looked down at her, noting the perfectly oval face and the delicate golden-toned skin strikingly offset by her drawn-back hair. Even in the dimness inside the building, it held the gleam of onyx and for a second she reminded him of someone, though he couldn’t quite place whom.

  He’d freely admit she was an honest-to-God beauty, but it was the glint in those almond-shaped golden eyes that piqued a reluctant interest deep inside him. He reined it in. He was on duty. She was a woman and he was stuck with her. “Four minutes.” He walked through the doorway.

  “My suitcase is by the corner of the building,” she said after him.

  “Then I guess you’d better get it,” he suggested blandly, and headed toward his plane. He almost smiled as he heard the soft word she muttered behind his back. He’d been called far worse.

  He’d flown to this bit of nothing in Guatemala and had been on the ground less than two hours. Still, Tyler did a quick walk around the plane. He climbed up and took a last look in the fuel tanks because every pilot worth his wings knew that fuel gauges were notoriously inaccurate, even in as sweet a honey as his Pilatus. When he was satisfied that all was as it should be, he looked beyond the wings of the plane and wondered how a runway could be so damn bad and still be called a runway.

  He climbed inside the plane and watched Marisa haul her suitcase over the hard-packed ground toward the plane. She had to lean back against the weight of it, and he could only imagine what she’d packed. Hair stuff. Makeup. Every single useless thing imaginable, he figured, considering the place they were headed.

  She was still grumbling under her breath when she hefted the case through the passenger door and climbed in after it. Tyler wasn’t so language-challenged not to know that she was seriously besmirching his ancestry in Spanish. Frankly, as far as he was concerned, she was pretty much on target.

  Amused despite himself, he looked back through the opened cockpit door to watch her settle in one of the four passenger seats. Behind the seats, the rest of the cabin was used for cargo, of which Tyler had plenty. For anyone curious enough to look, Tyler would appear to be an American very anxious to get lost in another country.

  Marisa was wiggling in the spacious leather seat, and her cheeks turned pink when she realized he was watching her. “It’s a nicer plane than I’d expected,” she admitted.

  “My plane isn’t run-of-the-mill enough for the casual drug-runner?” It was spacious, but he still had to bend over to move around as he secured the passenger door. He’d already checked the cargo door.

  “Is that what we’re supposed to be? Drug runners?” Her eyes had gone wide, making her look every bit as young as the twenty-five her license had divulged.
/>   “The only thing we’re supposed to be is inconspicuous,” he said as he belted himself back into his seat and cranked up the engine.

  “And being dismissed as a drug-runner is safer than being suspected of something else,” she concluded, raising her voice to be heard above the engine.

  “It’s Mezcaya.” What else was there to say? The particularly turbulent little Central American country was torn between a terrorist group known as El Jefe, and the rebellious natives who neither honored El Jefe’s rule nor the ineffectual leaders who governed the land. It would be better to be mistaken for drug-runners than what they really were.

  Which was one of the reasons he was using his private plane. Made it even more removed from military operations.

  Marisa swallowed the unease that ran through her as Tyler donned a pair of headphones and set the plane rolling slowly across the rutted runway.

  Mezcaya. Her homeland. Would it even welcome her back?

  Don’t think about that.

  The plane was gathering speed, admirably skimming over the ruts, but still it was rough going. She leaned over and slid her briefcase more firmly under the seat, then sat back and closed her eyes. She’d never been terribly fond of flying but had learned to tolerate it, first for her duties with the Embassy, then later because of Gerald.

  Still, this plane, as nice as it was, was considerably smaller than the jets she was accustomed to, and her fingers curled anxiously around the armrests when the nose lifted from the ground and the sharp ascent pressed her back into her seat.

  There were a dozen questions she wanted to ask Tyler Murdoch. But through the narrow cockpit opening she could see that he still wore his headphones, and even if not for them, she knew he wouldn’t welcome any questions or comments from her.