The Mercenary and the New Mom by Merline Lovelace

Author:Merline Lovelace [Lovelace, Merline]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-06-08T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Sabrina was right.

Another hour—hell, another few minutes—and they both would have plunged right off the deep end. Jack acknowledged that stark fact, accepted it, fought it all during the drive to the sprawling Wentworth estate in Freemont Springs, some miles west of Tulsa.

Alone in the heavy darkness of the summer night, with the concrete whirring under the Jag’s tires and every muscle in his body aching with unrelenting need, he could admit that Sabrina Jensen had become a hunger, a thirst. He wanted her. He craved her. No woman had ever tied him in so many knots. Unless he wanted to stay that way, Jack decided grimly, he’d better put the tantalizing, green-eyed waitress from his mind.

Yeah, right. As if he could.

Gritting his teeth, he tried to concentrate on the two-lane country road, on the call from Trey, on the situation in Qatar. On anything but the regret in Sabrina’s eyes when she walked away from him tonight.

Trey’s call certainly gave him plenty to think about. The news that dissident factions in Qatar had already heard rumors of the secret accord Ali carried back with him worried Jack. Big time. He’d been in the business long enough to know that once rumors began circulating, trouble soon followed.

Reaching for his cell phone, he made a quick call to the Wentworth twenty-four-hour operations center. The senior controller on duty was an engineer and an old field hand. Like Jack, he’d learned the business the hard way. He didn’t question the instructions to heighten security at the Wentworth operational sites in Qatar.

“Consider it done, Jack.”

“Call me if anything breaks over there.”

“You got it.”

By the time the high stone wall encircling the thousand-acre estate Joseph Wentworth had carved out of the Oklahoma hills appeared in the headlights, the hard stroke of Jack’s pulse had slowed. He couldn’t seem to shake his biting regret at having let Sabrina walk away, though. It stayed in his thoughts as he pulled up to the massive wrought-iron front gates. Infrared sensors picked up the signal from the transmitter installed under the Jag’s hood. Like silent, well-trained sentinels, the huge gates slid open, then shut once more.

A sense of coming home settled over Jack as he swept up the long drive. He knew every curve and turnout along the quarter-mile approach to the main house. He and his younger brother and sister had even named each of the graceful statues tucked into picturesque alcoves at strategic viewpoints.

The stables appeared first, a long low building of native stone covered with ivy. Then the garages with attached chauffeur’s quarters and the artist’s studio. Tucked into a grove of towering elms was the two-story stone butler’s cottage that had been converted into a guest house some years ago.

Gravel spit under the Jag’s tires as it passed the cottage and headed for the sprawling, three-story main house. Constructed of native stone quarried on the estate and cut with a diamond-bladed saw, the mansion sat atop a rolling rise. In daylight, it commanded

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