desk. “You know that J.D.’s sister is married to that Italian businessman who made a fortune in shipping and lives in Palermo, Sicily?”
She nodded.
“And you know that kidnapping is sometimes a fast method of funding for terrorist groups?” he continued.
She felt herself going pale. “They got his brother-in-law?”
“No. They got his sister when she went alone on a shopping trip to Rome.”
She caught her breath. “Martina? But she’s the only family he has!”
“I know that. They’re asking for five million dollars, and Roberto can’t scrape it up. He’s frantic. They told him they’d kill her if he involved the authorities.”
“And J.D. is going to Italy to save her?”
“However did you guess?” Dick grumbled. “In his usual calm, sensible way, he is moving headfirst into the china shop.”
“To Italy? With me?” She stared at him. “Why am I going?”
“Ask him. I only work here.”
She sighed irritably as she rose to her feet. “Someday I’m going to get a sensible job, you wait and see if I don’t,” she said, her eyes glittering with frustration. “I was going to eat lunch at McDonald’s and leave early so I could take in that new science-fiction movie at the Grand. And instead I’m being bustled off to Italy…to do what, exactly?” she added with a frown. “Surely to goodness, he isn’t going to interfere with the Italian authorities?”
“Martina is his sister,” Dick reminded her. “He never talks about it, but they had a rough upbringing from what I can gather, and they’re especially close. J.D. would mow down an army to save her.”
“But he’s a lawyer,” she protested. “What is he going to do?”
“Beats me, honey.” Dick sighed.
“Here we go again,” she muttered as she cleared her desk and got her purse out of the drawer. “Last time he did this, we were off to Miami to meet a suspected mob informer in an abandoned warehouse at two o’clock in the morning. We actually got shot at!” She shuddered. “I didn’t dare tell my mama what was going on. Speaking of my mama, what am I supposed to tell her?”
“Tell her you’re going on a holiday with the boss.” He grinned. “She’ll be thrilled.”
She glared at him. “The boss doesn’t take holidays. He takes chances.”
“You could quit,” he suggested.
“Quit!” she exclaimed. “Who said anything about quitting? Can you see me working for a normal attorney? Typing boring briefs and deeds and divorce petitions all day? Bite your tongue!”
“Then may I suggest that you call James Bond,” he said, “and ask if he has any of those exploding matches or nuclear warhead toothpicks he can spare.”
She gave him a hard glare. “Do you speak any Spanish?”
“Well, no,” he said, puzzled.
She rattled off a few explicit phrases in the lilting tongue her father’s foreman had used with the ranch hands back during her childhood. Then, with a curtsy, she walked out the door.
Gabby had seen J.D. in a lot of different moods, but none of them could hold a candle to the one he was in now. He sat beside her as stiff as a board on the plane, barely aware of the cup of black coffee he held precariously in one big hand.
Worst of all was the fact that she couldn’t think of anything to say. J.D. wasn’t the kind of man you offered sympathy to. But it was hard just to sit and watch him brood without talking at all. She’d rarely heard him speak of his sister, Martina, but the tenderness with which he described her had said enough. If he loved any human being on earth, it was Martina.
“Boss…” she began uneasily.
He blinked, glancing toward her. “Well?”
She avoided that level gaze. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.” Her long, slender fingers fidgeted with the skirt of the white suit she was wearing. “I know how hard it must be for you. There’s just not a lot that people can do in these kinds of situations.”
A peculiar smile touched his hard features for a moment. He swallowed a sip of coffee. “Think not?” he asked dryly.
“You aren’t serious about not contacting the authorities?” she persisted. “After all, they’ve got special teams for these sorts of things….”
He glanced down at her. The look stopped her in midsentence. “Those special teams, Darwin, they are not infallible. I can’t take risks with Martina’s life.”
“No,” she said. She stared at his hands. They were so gracefully masculine, the fingers long and tapered and as dark olive as his face, with flat nails and a sprinkling of hair, like that curling around the watch on his wrist. He had powerful hands.
“You aren’t afraid, are you?” he asked.
She glanced up. “Well, sort of,” she confessed. “I don’t really know where we’re going, do I?”
“You should be used to that by now,” he reminded her dryly.
She laughed. “I suppose so. We’ve had some adventures in the past two years.”
He lifted the coffee cup to his lips, staring at her narrowly over the rim. “Why aren’t you married?” he asked suddenly.
The question startled her. She searched for the right words. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I suppose I just haven’t bothered to get involved with anyone. Until almost four years ago, I was living in a small town in Texas. Then I came up here to work for a cousin, he died, you needed an assistant…” She laughed softly. “With all due respect, Mr. Brettman, you’re kind of a never-ending job, if you know what I mean. It just isn’t a nine-to-five thing.”
“About which,” he observed, “you’ve never once complained.”
“Who could complain?” she burst out. “I’ve been around the country and halfway across the world, I get to meet gangsters, I’ve been shot at…!”
He chuckled softly. “That’s some job description.”
“The other assistants in the building are green, simply green, with envy,” she replied smugly.
“You aren’t an assitant. You’re a paralegal. In fact,” he added after another swallow of coffee, “I’ve thought about sending you to law school. You’ve got a lot of potential.”
“Not me,” she said. “I could never get up in front of a courtroom full of people and grill witnesses like you do. Or manage such oration in a summing up.”
