Ann picked up the airline ticket and opened it.
Mike saw her broad brow wrinkle instantly. And then she snapped an unsettled look in his direction. He almost asked why, but then she pursed her lips and began sifting through the rest of the papers, reading intently.
“Morgan,” she protested in a strangled tone, “what’s going on here? This isn’t an assignment for another mission.” Ann stared accusingly at Houston again. “These are orders to go down to his clinic in Lima and help him out for six weeks.”
“Yes,” Morgan murmured, sipping his coffee contentedly, “it is.”
Stunned, Houston looked at Ann’s upset features and then at Morgan. “What?” He couldn’t have been hearing right. His heart pounded briefly in his chest as he sat up at full attention. Ann was coming to Lima with him? The news staggered him. Elated him. Worried him. He saw the undiluted fear in Ann’s eyes as never before. His hands wrapped around the arms of the chair. What was going on here?
Waving her thin hand across the file, Ann sputtered, “Morgan, this isn’t a mission assignment. This—this is—charity work!”
“It’s a mission,” Morgan soothed. “A very important one. Laura and I think you’re the perfect person to help Mike get this little clinic up and running.” He smiled slightly, satisfied with his plans. “As a matter of fact—” he glanced down at the gold Rolex watch on his wrist “—there’s a load of medical supplies being trucked from Mesa, Arizona, over to Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix right now. Ann, you will be responsible for over fifty thousand dollars’ worth of medical supplies once you two land in Lima. And then I expect you, with your usual precision and organizational skills, to take the six weeks and get Mike’s clinic up to full speed like it should be.”
Gasping, Ann shut the folder with finality. Her eyes flashed. “You planned this, Major Houston.”
Mike’s mouth dropped open and he quickly snapped it shut. “Now, just a minute, Ann,” he muttered as he unwound from the chair and stood up, “I didn’t know anything about this.” And he hadn’t. But he felt her anger directly. Those gray-blue eyes of hers turned icy cold when she was upset. Disliking the fact that he was being accused of something he was innocent of, he looked at Morgan. “Tell her, will you?”
“Mike knew nothing about this, Ann. It was actually Laura’s idea. We spent several evenings planning it out, making the necessary phone calls and getting everything lined up.”
Glaring at Houston, Ann closed her fingers tightly over the folder. “Morgan, one thing I learned about this Peruvian cowboy in the last two months I’ve spent here is that he’s a master of manipulation.”
“Oww, that hurts,” Mike protested. Not that it wasn’t true. “Sure, I rob Peter to pay Paul, so to speak, in order to get the money I need to finance our military efforts down in Peru, but—”
“You’ve got a mind like a steel trap,” Ann accused in a low voice. “You probably purposely dropped the information about your clinic to Laura because you know she has such a soft heart for people who are in trouble or need help.”
Anger stirred in Houston. One thing he didn’t like was being wrongly accused. He saw the desperation in Ann’s eyes and heard the raw pain in her voice. He was receiving so many confused emotional signals from her that he didn’t have time to sort them all out. Keeping his voice soothing, he rasped, “Look, Ann, I had no idea when Laura buttonholed me about a month ago, and nosed around about what I did down in Lima, that she’d take the information and do something like this with it.”
“Ann, calm down,” Morgan said in his deep voice. “This isn’t a prison sentence.”
“Really?” Ann glared steadily in Houston’s direction.
“Really,” Morgan repeated. He sat up and placed his cup on the coffee table in front of him. “Why be so upset? It’s spring in Peru. It’s warm. It’s a beautiful country and Lima is one of the most sophisticated and affluent cities in South America. I’ve arranged everything for you. There’ll be a van waiting at the Lima airport. The medical supplies will be loaded into it and Mike can drive you to the clinic. There’s another car there waiting for you. It was bought earlier and registered in the clinic’s name, since the clinic’s got a nonprofit status. You can use it to drive back and forth to the nice apartment we’ve rented for you.” He smiled at her. “For once you aren’t going to be flying around in a helicopter with a flak jacket and helmet on, wondering if you’re landing in a hot fire zone. This is a pretty safe assignment. Quiet. Probably pretty boring, but I’m sure it will be immensely satisfying to you emotionally. It isn’t that you don’t like children. I know different.”
Houston prowled restlessly around the perimeter of the living room. He watched Ann give him livid, stabbing looks of raw accusation every now and again, despite the fact that Morgan had an incredibly soothing effect on her—any woman, in fact. Mike wished he had the skill, but didn’t. “Look,” he protested in frustration, “if Ann doesn’t want to go, there’s nothing I can do about that. But maybe I can take the edge off things a little bit for her.” He leaned down and picked up the thirty-thousand-dollar check.
“Here, put this with the rest, since you’re going to have to put up with me six weeks longer than you thought.” He handed Ann the donation and the personal check Morgan had written out to him. He could see the fear deep in her eyes. Anger warred with sadness and heartbreak within him. Trying his best to gather his strewn emotions, he rasped, “You want to run a clinic, it takes money. So here it is. And if you’re pissed off and distrusting of me and my intentions, well, that’s okay. I know the truth—I had nothing to do with this assignment of yours. I won’t be around the clinic that much to be a pain in the ass to you, anyway. Fair enough?” He put both checks in her hands. Her gaze wavered as she met his hard, angry eyes.
Houston turned, shook Morgan’s hand, thanked him and left. He needed to get out of the house and calm down. As he went out the front door, the coolness of the Arizona morning hit him. Throwing back his shoulders, he descended the wooden steps quickly and headed toward the corral. Damn! Everything’s screwed up. Everything! As he took long, steady strides, Mike rubbed his aching chest.
But although this wasn’t how he’d planned things to go with Ann, a tiny part of him was euphoric that she would be coming to Lima with him. He would have more time with her, even if the opportunities to see her would be severely limited down there. As he halted at the corral, where twenty Arabians were feeding, he placed his elbows on the uppermost rung of the pipe fence. The metal felt cooling to him, to his smarting anger and frustration.
Closing his eyes, Houston tried to wrestle with all his emotions. Ann thought he’d set this whole thing up. It was obvious she hadn’t believed Morgan when he’d explained that Mike had nothing to do with it. Her anger was real. And so was that terror banked in her eyes. Closing his fists, Mike took a deep, unsettled breath of air into his chest. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t erase the sweet power of Ann’s mouth upon his, her incredible, hungry response to him. But although her mouth, her body signaled one thing, her mind held sway over her actions. What a helluva fix he was in now! More than anything, Mike wanted to somehow convince Ann that he was innocent of dragging her on this assignment. Judging from her anger, she probably wasn’t going to give him an opening very soon to explain. Maybe, on the flight down to Lima, she’d cool off and he could reason with her. He hoped so. Or maybe Morgan could soothe her because Mike certainly couldn’t!
“Morgan, I don’t want to go down there,” Ann declared.
He shrugged and sipped his coffee. “Calm down, Ann. This is an excellent assignment.” He smiled up at her drawn features. She looked cornered but Morgan didn’t really want to let her out of this one. Worried that Escovar, one of the most powerful of all the drug dealers in South America, was going to go after Mike Houston in earnest once Mike was back in Peru, Morgan wanted a backup. He didn’t want to tell Houston