Jessica didn’t seem at all surprised. She only nodded. “I thought he might,” Jessica said quietly. “I had a call from a former colleague about what’s going on. I’m afraid I may have landed you in some major trouble, Sally.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Didn’t you wonder why I insisted on moving down here so suddenly?”
“Now that you mention it—”
“It was because Ebenezer is here, and we’re safer than we would be in Houston.”
“Now you’re scaring me.”
Jessica smiled sadly. “I wouldn’t have had this happen for the world. It isn’t something that comes up, usually. But these are odd circumstances. A man I helped put in prison is out pending retrial, and he’s coming after me.”
“You…helped put a man in prison? How?” Sally asked, perplexed.
“You knew that I worked for a government agency?”
“Well, of course. As a clerk.”
Jessica took a deep breath. “No, dear. Not as a clerk.” She took a deep breath. “I was a special agent for an agency we don’t mention publicly. Through Eb and his contacts, I managed to find one of the confidants of drug lord Manuel Lopez, who was head of an international drug cartel. I was given enough hard evidence to send Lopez to prison for drug dealing. I even had copies of his ledgers. But there was one small loophole in the chain of evidence, and the drug lord’s attorneys jumped on it. Lopez is now out of prison and he wants the person responsible for helping me put him away. Since I’m the only one who knows the person’s identity, I’m the one he’ll be coming after.”
Sally just sat there, dumbfounded. Things like this only happened in movies. They certainly didn’t happen in real life. Her beloved aunt surely wasn’t involved in espionage!
“You’re kidding, right?” Sally asked hopefully.
Jessica shook her head slowly. She was still an attractive woman, in her middle thirties. She was slender and she had a sweet face. Stevie, blond and dark-eyed, didn’t favor her. Of course, he didn’t favor his father, either. Hank had had black hair and light blue eyes.
“I’m sorry, dear,” Jessica said heavily. “I’m not kidding. I’m not able to protect myself or you and Stevie anymore, so I had to come home for help. Ebenezer will keep us safe until we can get the drug lord back on ice.”
“Is Ebenezer a government agent?” Sally asked, astounded.
“No.” Jessica took a deep breath. “I don’t like telling you this, and he won’t like it, either. It’s deeply private. You must swear not to tell another soul.”
“I swear.” She sat patiently, almost vibrating with curiosity.
“Eb was a professional mercenary,” she said. “What they used to call a soldier of fortune. He’s led groups of highly trained men in covert operations all over the world. He’s retired from that now, but he’s still much in demand with our government and foreign governments as a training instructor. His ranch is well-known in covert circles as an academy of tactics and intelligence-gathering.”
Sally didn’t say a word. She was absolutely speechless. No wonder Ebenezer had been so secretive, so reluctant to let her get close to him. She remembered the tiny white scars on his lean, tanned face, and knew instinctively that there would be more of them under his clothing. No wonder he kept to himself!
“I hope I haven’t shattered any illusions, Sally,” her aunt said worriedly. “I know how you felt about him.”
Sally gaped at her. “You…know?”
Jessica nodded. “Eb told me about that, and about what happened just before you came to live with Hank and me in Houston.”
Her face flamed. The shame! She felt sick with humiliation that Ebenezer had known how she felt all the time, and she thought she was doing such a good job of hiding it! She should have realized that it was obvious, when she found excuse after excuse to waylay him in town, when she brazenly climbed into his pickup truck one lovely spring afternoon and pleaded to be taken for a ride. He’d given in to that request, to her surprise. But barely half an hour later, she’d erupted from the passenger seat and run almost all the half-mile down the road to her home. Too ashamed to let anyone see the state she was in, she’d sneaked in the back door and gone straight to her room. She’d never told her parents or anyone else what had happened. Now she wondered if Jessica knew that, too.
“He didn’t divulge any secrets, if that’s why you’re so quiet, Sally,” the older woman said gently. “He only said that you had a king-size crush on him and he’d shot you down. He was pretty upset.”
That was news. “I wouldn’t ever have guessed that he could be upset.”
“Neither would I,” Jessica said with a smile. “It came as something of a surprise. He told me to keep an eye on you, and check out who you went out with. He could have saved himself the trouble, of course, since you never went out with anyone. He was bitter about that.”
Sally averted her face to the window. “He frightened me.”
“He knew that. It’s why he was bitter.”
Sally drew in a steadying breath. “I was very young,” she said finally, “and I suppose he did the only thing he could. But I was leaving Jacobsville anyway, when my parents divorced. I only had a week of school before graduation before I went to live with you. He didn’t have to go to such lengths.”
“My brother still feels like an idiot for the way he behaved with that college girl he left your mother for,” Jessica said curtly, meaning Sally’s father, who was Jessica’s only living relative besides Sally. “It didn’t help that your mother remarried barely six months later. He was stuck with Beverly the Beauty.”
“How are my parents?” Sally asked. It was the first time she’d mentioned either of her parents in a long while, She’d lost touch with them since the divorce that had shattered her life.
“Your father spends most of his time at work while Beverly goes the party route every night and spends every penny he makes. Your mother is separated from her second husband and living in Nassau.” Jessica shifted on the bed. “You don’t ever hear from your parents, do you?”
“I don’t resent them as much as I did. But I never felt that they loved me,” she said abruptly. “That’s why I felt it was better we went our separate ways.”
“They were children when they married and had you,” the other woman said. “Not really mature enough for the responsibility. They resented it, too. That’s why you spent so much time with me during the first five years you were alive.” Jessica smiled. “I hated it when you went back home.”
“Why did you and Hank wait so long to have a child of your own?” Sally asked.
Jessica flushed. “It wasn’t…convenient, with Hank overseas so much. Did you get that tire replaced?” she added, almost as if she were desperate to change the subject.
“You and Mr. Scott!” Sally exploded, diverted. “How did you know it was bald?”
“Because Eb phoned me before you got home and told me to remind you to get it replaced,” Jessica chuckled.
“I suppose he has a cell phone in his truck.”
“Among other things,” Jessica replied with a smile. “He isn’t like the men you knew in college or even when you started teaching. Eb is an alpha male,” she said quietly. “He isn’t politically correct, and he doesn’t even pretend to conform. In some ways, he’s very old-fashioned.”
“I don’t feel that way about him anymore,” Sally said firmly.
“I’m sorry,” Jessica replied gently. “He’s