Dark fire, p.1
Dark Fire, page 1
Dark Fire
Elizabeth Lowell
Prologue:
“You want me to do what?” Trace Rawlings asked, raising dark eyebrows.
The man called Invers sighed and rubbed his palm over his thinning hair. “You heard me the first time.“
“I’ve been back in Quito for less than an hour,” Trace pointed out. “That damned Polish orchid hunter you sicced on me was the genuine article. He was after orchids, period, and he would have taken on hell with a bucket of water to get to them.”
Invers tried to look sympathetic. He failed. He needed Trace too badly to be diverted by something as useless as compassion.
Trace swore under his breath and glared at the small passport photo Invers had given to him. A woman’s face stared back at him. Cynthia Edwinna Ryan McCall had black hair, midnight eyes, skin as fine as expensive porcelain, a remote expression and a father who could make highly placed American embassy officials sweat bullets.
“Hell,” Trace muttered. He looked up, pinning Invers with a jungle-green glance. “After this, we’re even.”
Invers let out a rushing breath. “We’ll be better than even, Trace. I won’t forget this, believe me.”
Trace grunted.
“She’ll land in a few minutes, so we’ll have to be quick. The passport is issued in the name of Cynthia Ryan. She won’t tell anyone who she really is. Also, she doesn’t know that her father has been in contact with us.”
“Does it matter?”
Invers rubbed his palm over his head again, a sign of his unhappiness. Silently he wondered just how much of the story he could tell Trace before the other man would throw up his hands and back out. To anyone who didn’t know Big Eddy, the whole story would sound preposterous. To anyone who did know him, the whole story would sound like what it was: preposterous but all too true.
“You ever meet Big Eddy McCall when you were in the States?” Invers asked cautiously.
“No.“
“Um. Well. Ms. Ryan doesn’t get along with her father. Not surprising. Nobody really gets along with Big Eddy. You go along with him or you go under. Nothing personal, you understand. That’s just the way he is. A real steamroller.”
Trace granted again. “What about her?”
“Ms. Ryan? Oh, she must be at least as stubborn as he is. More stubborn in some ways. Every man her father has picked out for her has been thrown back in his face. He’s finally given up on marrying her off.” Invers paused as though struck by a new thought. “By God, that’s quite an accomplishment. I think she might be the first human being ever to say no to Big Eddy and make it stick.“
“So?”
Invers rubbed his head again as he gave Trace a sideways glance. Everything Invers had said so far was technically true. Big Eddy had given up on marriage for his daughter. He had not, however, given up on the idea of grandchildren. He wanted an Edward Ryan McCall IV to be born as soon as possible. One of his sons had produced a grandchild. That wasn’t enough. Big Eddy wanted about a dozen other grandkids as backup for life’s nasty little surprises. That was where his daughter came in. Big Eddy had finally figured out that a woman didn’t have to be married in order to have children.
Invers didn’t think Trace was ready to hear about that part of Big Eddy’s proposed deal. In fact, Invers doubted if Trace would ever be ready to stand at stud for Big Eddy, much less to find out that it had been Raul’s idea in the first place. It was the better – indeed the only – part of valor to tell half-truths to Trace and to let Big Eddy believe what he wanted to believe about the man he had ordered Invers to hire. And never to mention Raul at all.
“Um. Well. Big Eddy’s daughter goes by the name of Cindy Ryan and is in business with a woman called Susan Parker. That’s where you come in.“
Trace arched his eyebrows again. It wasn’t like Invers to loop around a subject eight times before getting to the point.
“Ms. Parker comes to Quito several times a year to buy cloth,“ Invers continued. “This time her native buyer didn’t show up, so she hopped a bus over the Andes to go looking for him.“
“Did she find him?“
“No. She won’t, either,“ Invers added with uncharacteristic bluntness. “When he wasn’t buying cloth he was smuggling emeralds out of Colombia. He stiffed one of his connections and hasn’t been heard from since.“
Trace shrugged. “It happens.“
“Yes. Well. Ms. Parker hasn’t been heard from for ten days, either. Not officially, that is.“
Green eyes focused on Invers with startling intensity. “And unofficially?“
“Unofficially she is the pampered guest of Senor Raul Almeda," Invers said. “Senor Almeda would like her to remain for a while longer. That’s why his shortwave radios are all on the fritz.“
Trace hissed an obscenity that Invers chose not to hear.
“From all indications, Ms. Parker isn’t burning down the house trying to leave,“ Invers said.
The left corner of Trace’s mouth kicked up slightly. Raul was a good friend as well as a connoisseur of elegant women. Raul was also very well connected to the government of Ecuador, which was why Invers looked so unhappy at the thought of displeasing him.
“So what’s the problem?“ Trace asked. “Is Ms. Parker’s family worried about her?“
“She has no family, but apparently she’s rather close to Ms. Ryan, who is flying to Ecuador to find out what happened to her partner.“
“I still don’t see the problem. Just tell Big Eddy’s daughter that her friend is shacked up with every woman’s dream lover.“
“I suggested a similar solution to Senor Almeda.“
“Raul didn’t go for it?“
“No. He can be rather, um…“
“Autocratic,“ Trace said flatly. “He was born too late. He should have been an emperor.“
Invers, being a diplomat, chose not to point out that Raul was descended from French, Spanish and Inca royalty, and ruled his immense land holdings like the tyrants his ancestors had been. A benevolent tyrant, granted, but a tyrant nonetheless.
“In any case,“ Invers said smoothly, “we all want to avoid any suggestion of an, urn, incident We can’t have Ms. Ryan running around raising an embarrassing hue and cry for Ms. Parker. If we tell Ms. Ryan that Ms. Parker is quite happy on the Almeda hacienda, Ms. Ryan will want to talk to her. Then we’ll have to tell her that the radio isn’t functioning at the moment and won’t be functioning in the near future. I don’t think Big Eddy’s daughter will find that explanation, um, acceptable.“
Eyes closed, Trace went over all that Invers had said. And more importantly, all that he had not said.
“You’re quite certain that Raul’s latest captive is a happy captive?“ Trace asked, focusing on Invers with an intensity that made the other man long to be elsewhere.
“As of five days ago, yes.“
“Do you have any indication that Ms. Parker or Ms. Ryan are involved in smuggling of any kind?“
“No, thank God,“ Invers said fervently.
“Then what is it, precisely, that you want me to do?“
“Allow Ms. Ryan to hire you to ‘find’ her friend. Take your time getting to the Almeda hacienda, and – “
“How long?“ Trace interrupted.
“Four or five days. A week at most. Senor Almeda isn’t known for the duration of his, um, enthusiasms.“
Trace smiled slightly but said only, “Stalling shouldn’t be a problem. That early storm made a mess of the mountain roads.“
“It disrupted communications, too,“ Invers added without missing a beat. “Be sure to point that out to Ms. Ryan.“
“No problem. Hell, it’s the simple truth.“
“There is no such thing as a simple truth,“ Invers muttered beneath his breath.
Trace smiled rather grimly. “Anything else?“
“Don’t reveal that you know Ms. Ryan is Big Eddy McCall’s daughter. And be very, very certain that Ms. Ryan doesn’t know you have been hired by her father. Otherwise she’ll walk out on you and try to hire another guide. That would make things exceptionally, um, difficult for the embassy.“
“Have I been hired by Big Eddy? I thought I was just doing you a favor.“
Smiling blandly, Invers offered Trace one-half of a very complex truth. “Big Eddy requested of the embassy that we hire the best man in Ecuador to guide and protect his daughter while she’s here. She would, after all, make a tempting kidnap target. You’ll be paid one thousand American dollars a day for your, um, efforts.“
Trace’s green eyes narrowed. “That seems excessive.“
“Big Eddy is excessively rich. Think of it as combat pay,“ Invers added, smiling thinly.
“Are you really expecting someone to grab her?“
“No. But face it, Trace. I’m not sending you on a picnic. Any woman who can stand up to Big Eddy could teach stubborn to a Missouri mule.“
“I’m hardly known as a pushover,“ Trace pointed out.
“Yes. I am well aware of that fact.“
Invers smiled and silently wished that he could go along with Trace and Cindy Ryan. It would be worth considerable inconvenience to find out who taught stubborn to whom.
Chapter 1
Good
work, Invers. It saves a lot of wear and tear on the hunter when the prey walks right into the trap, Trace thought sardonically as he watched the tall, raven-haired woman weaving through the smoky bar toward him.
At that moment Trace was ready to accept any break Lady Luck was passing out. He had left Invers less than twenty minutes before. No time to shower, shave, change clothes or do anything else in the way of recovery from the past six weeks of trying to keep J. Ivar Polanski, orchid collector extraordinaire, from killing himself or someone else while pursuing living baubles to adorn spoiled rich women such as the one crossing the crowded room right now.
Not that Cindy Ryan needed any decoration, Trace decided as she came a bit closer. The face-only photograph hadn’t done her justice. She had the kind of figure that made a man…restless.
“Mr. Rawlings? I’m Cynthia Ryan.“
The voice was a husky contralto that made every one of Trace’s masculine nerve endings stir. His physical response irritated him. So instead of responding immediately, he sipped at the fine Scotch that the waitress had put in front of him a few moments earlier. Without saying a word he let the smoky, intimate taste of the liquor expand through him like a kiss from the kind of woman he had always wanted and never found. Only after the taste on his tongue had dissipated to a shimmering echo of heat did he look up.
At that moment Cindy found herself hoping she was mistaken and that this man was not Trace Raw-lings. It was all she could do not to step backward when his cool green eyes focused on her. The man lounging at the small table with his long legs stretched in front of him wasn’t what she had expected to hire. She couldn’t believe mat mis man with his stained khaki bush clothes, scarred boots and a dark, three-day stubble on his heavy jaw, was the guide the American embassy had enthusiastically recommended that she hire. Could this be the bilingual backcountry genius who had no peer in Quito, Ecuador or anywhere else up and down the South American Andes?
“Trace Rawlings?“ Cindy repeated, knowing her voice was too husky, too skeptical, and unable to do anything about it The man was frankly unnerving.
He radiated the kind of relaxed, clearly undomesti-cated presence that people associated with cats stretched out in a patch of sunlight. Big cats. Black jaguars, for instance. Dangerously handsome, dangerously powerful, dangerously sleek, dangerously… dangerous.
“That’s me.“
Trace’s voice was a perfect match for his appearance. The resonances were deep, predatory and compelling. Nerve endings Cindy didn’t know she had stirred and shivered in dark response.
“Do you have any identification?“ Cindy asked finally, frowning as she looked Trace over once more.
Her opinion hadn’t changed since her first glance at him. There was nothing reassuring about Trace Rawlings, and Cindy very much needed reassurance right now. Susan had been missing for ten days, and Susan, whatever her quirks, was not the type to vanish without leaving so much as a note for her friend.
Trace felt his irritation turn into a razor edge of anger at the dubious looks he kept getting from Big Eddy’s snooty daughter. Coolly Trace gave Cindy precisely the kind of once-over she had just given him.
“ID?“ he asked softly. “Sure thing.“ He turned and called to the bartender in machine-gun Spanish and instantly was answered in the same way. “Anything else?“ Trace asked indifferently, reaching for the Scotch once more.
“I beg your pardon?“
Someday, you ‘11 do just that, princess – and mean it, Trace thought with a surge of purely masculine emotion as he sipped the aromatic golden liquor. Snotty rich girls who go slumming in the wrong places tend to get men knifed in back alleys. And beneath that thought was another: God, if Cindy’s partner is half as sexy, no wonder Raul wanted to sabotage the radio, lock all the doors and drop the keys into the nearest sacred well.
“You wanted ID. Paco vouched for me,“ Trace said carelessly. “We’ve known each other for years.“
“But I don’t understand Spanish.“
Trace shrugged. “Tough taco, princess. It’s the language of the day around here.“
Cindy’s black eyes narrowed. When Trace focused his attention once more on his Scotch, she fought a sudden, sharp struggle with her temper. Normally she would have been the first to find humor in the situation confronting her, but nothing was normal for her right now. She was tired, had a screaming headache from Quito’s ten thousand feet of altitude and was worried about Susan.
In no way did Cindy feel like catering to the irrational male whims of a lean, dark, down-at-the-heels American who had gone native.
“Well, Tarzan, put this in your taco,“ Cindy drawled. “Invers at the embassy told me that a man called Trace Rawlings has been known to hire himself out…if the price is right. So I guess I’ll just have to start naming figures. When the price is right, Trace Rawlings will stand up and be counted.“
Only the fact that Cindy had been raised by a steamroller disguised as a father, and had an older brother whose temper was frankly formidable, gave her the courage not to turn and run when Trace looked up at her. There was a long silence while she returned him stare for glare.
Slowly Trace smiled.
Cindy felt tiny shivers chase up and down her spine. If she had believed she could outrun Trace, she would have sprinted for the door right then. But she knew she couldn’t outrun him, so she didn’t even try. Trace was acclimatized to Quito’s staggering altitude, but lack of oxygen would bring her down before she had taken thirty steps. There was no choice for her now but to dig in right where she was and brazen it out the way she had always done with her father.
Besides, Susan was somewhere out in the wilds alone, and this was the wild man who could find her.
“One hundred dollars a day,“ Cindy said, her voice too husky, almost breathless.
Trace’s cold green eyes looked Cindy over again in a very leisurely manner, admiring all the velvet curves and alluring shadows, noting with a kind of distant surprise that she had made no effort to enhance or even to announce the feminine bounty beneath her clothes. The off-white jumpsuit she wore was loose and wrinkled. The belt around her waist could have been tightened several more notches without cutting into tender flesh. She wore flat sandals rather than heels, which would have emphasized the sway of her shapely hips. Her toenails were bare of polish. So were her fingers. If she wore makeup, it didn’t show in the bar’s dim light.
Maybe that’s why Big Eddy keeps picking out men for her – she’s so rich she’s never bothered to learn all the little tricks and traps poor girls use to get men interested.
“Two hundred.“
Trace flicked another disparaging glance over Cindy and went back to his Scotch. The most important thing I’ll teach her is that there are some things money can’t buy – and Trace Rowlings is right at the top of the list.
“Three hundred.“
Angrily Trace wished that he had told Invers to go spit up a rope. But Trace hadn’t been that smart. Instead he had promised to keep an eye on Big Eddy’s obviously spoiled daughter. In order to do that Trace had to appear to be hired by her…which meant she would think she had bought him.
Combat pay. And I’ll earn every nickel of it.
Trace shrugged again. His pride could take it. He had suffered far worse blows and survived. And he owed Invers.
“Four hundred.“
Trace stretched, bringing his long arms and large hands high over his head. Cindy measured his size and length and realized with a sudden curious weakness in her knees that she was within his reach.
“Five hundred,“ she said in a rush.
“Princess, you just hired yourself a guide.“
Cindy looked at Trace and wondered how Red Riding Hood would have felt if she had hired the Big Bad Wolf to guide her through the terrors and traps of the forest.
She would have felt the way I do now. Scared!
“All right.“ Cindy took a deep breath, telling herself she was relieved to have hired a guide, wishing she believed it. “My friend and business partner, Susan Parker, came to Quito to buy native weavings. But she doesn’t speak Spanish so she has a native buyer who meets her in Quito and turns over all the cloth from the various native villages on his circuit. You see, we have clothing boutiques on both coasts of the U.S. and Susan is a designer, and we…never mind, that’s not important,“ Cindy said, realizing that she was babbling but unable to stop completely. Trace was too unnerving. She wanted to run but she couldn’t, so the next best thing was to finish hiring the jungle cat, find Susan and get the hell away from those disdainful green eyes.
