“Penny bolted. I think she got stung in the ear. But I’m fine. Drake rescued me.” She smiled to alleviate her mother’s worries.
“I heard. The boys said River found the stinger and removed it.” Inez closed the door and crossed the room to lay a hand on her daughter’s forehead. “You don’t feel dizzy or faint? No pain anywhere?”
“No, really, I’m quite all right.”
Her mother ignored her. “Maybe you should see the doctor. I can drive you to town.”
“That won’t be necessary. I go in for my monthly checkup Tuesday. That’s only two more days. I don’t want to bother the doctor on a Sunday.”
Inez sighed and backed off. “If you start hurting, call me right away. Or if your water breaks.”
“I will.”
Maya watched her mother retrace her steps to the door, ready to return to the kitchen to prepare the evening meal for the Colton family, and whoever else might be in residence.
Her parents had been wonderful to her, after getting past the first shock of her news that she was expecting. They had immediately assumed she and Andy Martin, a local math teacher, would be marrying soon. They had been even more shocked when she’d had to tell them that Andy, the man she’d been seeing regularly until a few months ago, wasn’t the father.
Andy was her friend, but he wasn’t her lover.
Alone once more, Maya crossed her arms over her abdomen and silently prayed that Drake wouldn’t discover she was eight months pregnant with his child.
She thought of summer and starry nights and the blossoming of hot, wild passion that had known no bounds. They had made love in her bed, in his, in the sweet-smelling, prickly hay stored in the stable and barn.
After they’d danced several times at his father’s birthday party, Drake had made a quick trip to Prosperino, the tiny town that served the ranchers and dairy farmers and tourists who stayed at the many bed-and-breakfast inns along the coast around here. His dark, smoldering glances had told her why the trip was necessary—birth control.
But they hadn’t made love that night. During the toast to Joe Colton in celebration of his sixtieth birthday, someone had shot at the Colton patriarch. The ranch had been in an uproar for hours, the police milling about and questioning everyone over and over. No one had gone to bed until daybreak.
However, there had been other nights. “I’ll take care of you,” he’d said just before they’d made love. “Don’t worry about anything.”
And she had believed him.
She would have laughed at how foolish she’d been, except she felt too raw, too vulnerable at this moment and might end in tears. She wouldn’t go to the table with weepy eyes and increase her parents’ worry over her.
Knowing she had to, she rose, squared her shoulders and dressed. She would be expected to join the ranch staff who ate in the big dining area at one end of the kitchen. As someone had once remarked, life goes on.
The Colton family and friends usually ate in the formal dining room or in the sunroom that separated the living room from the patio cupped in the center of the U-shaped house. Drake would be with them, so she wouldn’t have to face him on top of everything else.
She dried her hair, pushed it back with butterfly clips and checked that her two charges were ready for dinner. They, too, were relegated to the kitchen now during meals, except for special occasions when their mother wanted to show them off.
Maya suppressed the cynical thought about her employer. The Coltons paid her salary as well as her tuition to college. Another few months and she would have a degree in early childhood education. Then she would take her child and leave the ranch.
Her heart gave a painful lurch at the thought of going away from all she knew and loved. Her parents would miss her. So would the boys. She would miss all of them dreadfully. However, she was twenty-six, old enough to make her own way in the world without depending on anyone.
When she, Joe Junior and Teddy entered the kitchen, an instant silence fell over the group gathered there. Glancing around, her eyes met the golden ones of her nemesis. “What are you doing here?” she blurted.
Heat rushed into her face at the quick stares she received from the house staff. He was a Colton. He could eat anywhere he pleased.
“Waiting for my brothers,” he explained easily. “I wanted to thank them for their help this afternoon.”
“Huh, it wasn’t anything,” Joe said. “You’re the one who saved Maya.”
“Yeah,” Teddy agreed. “You were really quick. Can you teach me to jump on a horse like that, without using the stirrup to get up?”
Drake laughed, his teeth flashing white against his deeply tanned skin. “You only need to grow another few inches and you’ll have no trouble.”
The boys, tall and rangy for their ages as all the Colton men were, claimed seats on either side of their older brother, their eyes filled with admiration as they gazed at him. Drake stood and pulled out a chair on the other side of Teddy for her. When he was seated again, the boys asked a thousand questions about his life in the SEALs.
“Where ya been this time?” Joe asked.
“Central America.”
“I wish I could go there,” Teddy said, envious.
“No, you don’t,” Drake told him. “It was hot, the mosquitoes were as big as magpies and I had the boniest donkey God ever created to ride over the mountains.”
He told funny stories during the meal, distracting them from the dangerous nature of his duties with the elite unit. Maya wondered what new scars he might have on his strong, lithe body.
Immediately, visions of his six-one, sinewy frame flooded her mind. She’d touched him all over, discovering every mole, every tiny imperfection…and every scar that spoke of a life lived dangerously close to the edge.
There’s no place in my life…
He’d made love to her, then written those words as she lay sleeping, innocently believing in a future that included them and their children and a lifetime of sharing. The table blurred. She held the anguish in by dint of will. No one would see her cry, she had vowed eight months ago, after that first awful storm of grief had passed.
She ate the delicious meal without tasting it. Every time her eyes met Drake’s over Teddy’s blond curls, a shiver rushed through her. His gaze boded no good for her.
Drake stood at the window of his dark room and stared at the windows across the central courtyard patio. Maya’s room. He knew it well. Once it had been his.
A flurry of emotion ran through him. Need. Anger. Despair. Loneliness. Name it and he’d felt it during the past eight months, even during hot nights in the humid jungles of Central America when he should have been concentrating on the business at hand.
His mission: rescue an American diplomat kidnapped by drug dealers and held in a mountain stronghold. He’d nearly
