Mercenary's Woman Read Free

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 hap pened.
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

18
    MERCENARY'S
WOMAN
    could. But I was leaving Jacobsville
anyway, when my parents divorced. I only had a week of school before grad uation 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," Jes sica 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
shat tered
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 sub ject.
    DIANA PALMER                                      19
    "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 qui etly. "He isn't politically correct, and he
doesn't even pre tend 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 been alone most of his life. He needs to be
loved."
    Sally picked at a
cuticle, chipping the clear varnish on her short, neat fingernails. "Does he
have family?"
    "Not anymore.
His mother died when he was very young, and his father was career military. He grew up in the army,
you might say. His father was not a gentle sort of man. He died in combat when Eb was in his twenties. There wasn't any other family."
    "You said once that you always saw
Ebenezer with beautiful women at social
events," Sally recalled with a touch
of envy.
    "He pays for
dressing, and