Lazaro's Revenge

When he’d crushed the Galvаns.

When he’d had his revenge.

But this wasn’t the time. Right now she was exhausted and afraid, and she was a guest in his house.

“Let me take your coat,” he said, softening the edge to his voice, knowing he had a hard voice, and a brusque manner. He wasn’t known for his sensitivity, or civility.

He extended a hand for her coat but she took a frightened step back.

Zoe nearly screamed when his hand reached out. She couldn’t let him touch her again. She couldn’t let him anywhere near her, feeling trapped, helpless, far too vulnerable. Again she was reminded of his height, his size. There was something about him that exuded strength, not just in terms of muscle, but control…power.

She pressed her thin coat more tightly to her body. “I’d like to keep my coat.”

His heavy eyebrows lifted. “You’ll get it back.”

He was making fun of her. Heat banded across her cheekbones and she lifted her chin. “I’m cold.”

“Come closer to the fire then. It should warm you.”

He led her from the wide high-ceiling hall into a surprisingly spacious sitting room, the dark-beamed ceiling as rustic as the floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace. Yet the furnishings were luxurious, from the vibrant scarlet and gold rug covering the wood-planked floor to the deep plush sofas and chairs clustered in small groupings. The artwork on the walls were all massive canvases, oversize oil paintings in vivid brush-strokes—electric blue, blood red, hot yellow.

This was no simple ranch house.

Zoe moved past the wrought-iron and leather coffee table with its stacks of books toward the fire. Her legs felt brittle, her muscles taut.

With a fleeting glance at the bookcases behind her, she reached out to the stone hearth, trembling fingers spread wide to capture the fire’s heat.

Kidnapped, she repeated silently, she’d been kidnapped. It still hadn’t completely sunk in. Would it ever?

She remembered disembarking the plane, remembered filing out of the jet-way with the other passengers and entering the gate area to discover a waiting throng.

She remembered scanning the crowd, looking for Dante, or a driver. Dante had promised someone would be there to meet her. But she didn’t see Dante, or anyone holding a sign. There were mothers and young children, businessmen in suits on cell phones, elderly seniors in wheelchairs but no one for her.

Her eyes had suddenly watered as she felt a pang of loss. Normally something like this wouldn’t upset her, but it hadn’t been a normal month. Her father was getting so much worse. He seemed to have forgotten everything now and it was awful watching him fade before her eyes. He’d been a smart man, and a loving man, always generous with others.

Her eyes continued to well with tears and she dug in her shoulder bag for her sunglasses. She’d cried most of the flight, and the oversize black sunglasses had come in handy then, too. The truth was, she’d cried so much in the last month she should be out of tears, but somehow the tears just kept coming.

Sunglasses in place she felt better. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on the positives. She was here to see Daisy. Soon she’d be reunited with her sister. Things would be better once they were together.

It was at that very moment when he approached her, the man in the black coat and shirt, the unsmiling man with a piercing gaze and a strong beaked nose.

“Miss Collingsworth?” he’d said, his voice impossibly deep, so deep she’d blinked behind her sunglasses as she let his voice sink into her, tangible and real.

Zoe recalled that her travel guide said Argentine men—a blend of Latin passion and European sophistication—were lethally attractive and while she wouldn’t call this man classically handsome, he was arresting…no, intriguing, in a primitive sort of way.

“I’m Zoe,” she’d answered, her heart doing a strange double beat. She’d been up all night and was overly tired. She’d never traveled out of Kentucky before and had felt ambivalent emotions about the trip to Argentina. She wanted to see Daisy, yet she hated putting her father in a nursing home. True, he wouldn’t stay there long, just the two weeks she was in Argentina, but it had been awful driving him there, awful leaving him there.

“Do you have any bags?” the man asked.

“Just one,” she answered. “It’s a large case so I checked it through.”

His dark head inclined, his glossy blue-black hair cut short. “If you give me your tag, I’ll get it for you.”

His hand stretched toward her, his palm wide, fingers long, well-shaped. He fit his skin somehow. He looked comfortable with himself and she’d given him the tag. They went to baggage claim and he lifted the heavy case off the carousel as though it weighed nothing. A limousine was waiting for them outside baggage claim and they drove straight to the helicopter pad.

It wasn’t until they were in midair and she’d begun to ask questions about Daisy and her pregnancy, about the Galvаn estancia, about life on the pampas that he’d told her to stop talking.

Actually, what he’d said was, Be quiet, do as you’re told, and everything will be fine.

Zoe drew a deep breath and stared at the fire with its red and gold dancing flames.

She was shaking again, more violently now than earlier, and with each uneven breath she could smell the acrid scent of burning wood and smoke, yet the heat wasn’t enough. She couldn’t stop shivering. Couldn’t control her nerves.

She heard him walk behind her, heard the clink of glass, the slosh of liquid, another clink. He was pouring himself a drink. What kind of kidnapper embraced leather books, modern art and brandy decanters? What kind of man was he?

Zoe battled her fear. There had to be a good explanation. People didn’t just abduct other people without having a purpose, a plan.

“Drink this.”

His cool hard voice sliced into her thoughts, drawing her gaze up, from the fire to his chiseled features, his expression inexplicably grim. “I don’t drink.”

“It’ll warm you.”

She glanced at the balloon-shaped brandy glass in his hand, quarter filled with amber liquid, and shrank from him. “I don’t like the taste.”

“I didn’t use to like it much when I was your age, either.” He continued to hold the glass out to her. “You’re shivering. It’ll help. Trust me.”

Trust him? He was the last man she’d ever trust. He’d taken her from Daisy, Dante, from the reunion she’d long anticipated. Her throat threatened to seal closed, her temper rising as her anger got the best of her.

She turned on him, arms bundled across her chest. “Who are you, anyway? I don’t even know your name.”

“Lazaro Herrera.”

The name rolled off his tongue, fluid, complex, sensual. The r’s trilled, the z was accented, the vowels so rich and smoky they could have been aged whiskey.

Lazaro Herrera.

It was a name that fit him, a name that echoed of strength and muscle and power. “I think I’ll take that drink,” she whispered.

His fingers brushed hers as he handed her the glass. “Sip it. Slowly.”

His skin was warm yet his touch scalded her. She nearly dropped the glass. “Why are you doing this?”

He shrugged, a vague shift of his massive shoulders. “I have reasons.”

“But what did I do? You don’t even know me.”

“This isn’t about you.”