The Stealth Commandos Trilogy (43 page)

“Is there a problem?” Honor asked, surprised at the heated glance he gave her. She was equally aware of their tight quarters and of Johnny’s presence. Though his hair was tied back in a ponytail, it did little to subdue the animal magnetism he exuded, and neither did the business suit he wore. It astonished her that a pair of men’s linen slacks could be so blatantly sexy. And it annoyed her that she couldn’t keep her eyes off his hand as he worked the car’s stick shift!

“Hell, yes, there’s a problem,” he said huskily, gearing down as a car pulled in front of them. “Isn’t there always?”

Honor swayed toward him, her leg colliding with the very hand she’d been watching. The friction of silk sliding along bare skin created sparks of static that traveled up her thigh like an electrical charge. She jerked back and returned his heated glance, determined not to respond to him. But her mind had other ideas. It flashed X-rated images of a man sliding his hand up a woman’s skirt, of steamy sex in parked cars.

“Is there a problem?” he asked, his smile darkly ironic as he echoed her words.

As they approached the outskirts of Phoenix, Honor forced her thoughts to the ordeal that lay ahead of them, the confrontation with her father. She’d sent Christmas and birthday cards, but other than that she’d had no contact with Hale Bartholomew in over a decade, and she was terribly nervous. He was a powerful man. He was intelligent, articulate, ruthless—all those qualities she’d seen in Johnny the first time she’d watched him argue a case. But her father had the hometown advantage of having friends in high places. He also believed passionately in his principles, however misguided others might think they were. She wasn’t sure even Johnny could win against such a man.

“What’s your plan for dealing with my father?” she asked as they pulled into the parking lot of the Bartholomew Building.

“I’m going to play it by ear, look for his weakest link. The public-exposure angle could work.”

“That was my idea,” she said, surprised.

He acknowledged her with a faint smile. “Yes, I know.”

Moments later, having maneuvered their way past the ground-floor security, Honor and Johnny stepped off the executive elevator and faced their second hurdle, the receptionist.

“She couldn’t be any worse than your receptionist,” Honor told Johnny under her breath as they approached the woman’s desk. “Hello, I’m Honor Bartholomew,” she said, smiling pleasantly. “Mr. Bartholomew’s daughter.”

The young woman looked startled. “His daughter? Do you have an appointment?”

Honor ignored the question. “Is he alone?” she asked, glancing at the vaultlike double doors.

The receptionist rose protectively. “Yes, but he’s busy. If you’ll have a seat, I’ll let him know you’re here.”

“Not necessary,” Honor said breezily, waving Johnny along with her. “We want to surprise him.”

The double doors led to a hallway of executive offices. Carried along by her own boldness and ignoring the receptionist’s calls to stop, Honor moved swiftly toward her father’s suite at the end of the hall. Fortunately she remembered the way.

Hale Bartholomew hung up the telephone as she and Johnny entered. “Honor?” he said, rising. “What are you doing here?”

Honor hadn’t realized how hard her heart was thumping until she stopped and caught her breath. All the starch and stiffness seemed to drain out of her as she came face-to-face with her tall, distinguished father. He looked even more aged and gaunt than he had on television. “Can we talk to you, Father?” she asked.

“What is it?” he demanded, obviously surprised and reluctant. “Why didn’t you call?”

“I thought you might refuse to see us.” Honor searched the lines and furrows of her father’s craggy face for any indication of his feelings. She knew he’d turned things around in his mind when she left. He’d made her the guilty party, the thankless child abandoning a well-meaning parent. Her father had always been a master at revising life to suit his purposes, and yet she wanted to believe her leaving had affected him in some way.

She felt her resolve collapsing under his silent scrutiny. After so many years of trying to win his love and approval, she would have thought herself immune, but clearly she wasn’t. She searched his slate-gray eyes for any signs of acceptance. Was he at all glad to see her?

“Who’s this with you?” he asked, turning his attention to Johnny.

“You remember Johnny Starhawk,” Honor said tentatively.

Her father’s face went slack with surprise, but Johnny nodded to the older man as if he hadn’t noticed. He didn’t seem the slightest bit ruffled by her formidable father. On the contrary, he looked as though he might even be relishing the oncoming battle.

“Johnny’s going to be representing the Apache teenager who’s been charged with sabotaging the mine,” Honor explained.

Hale’s eyes glittered with anger. “Honor, this is outrageous! I’m not going to jeopardize the state’s case by talking to the boy’s attorney, I don’t care who he is!”

He turned his wrath on Johnny next. “I think you’d better get out of here, young man. Immediately!”

“Father—”

“It’s all right. Honor,” Johnny said. “I’ve grown up a little since the last time your father kicked my butt out of town. He’s not going to do it again.” He turned to her father. “If you don’t want to hear what I’ve got to say, Mr. Bartholomew, there are plenty of people who do, including the media.”

“Are you threatening me?” Hale blustered.

“Don’t think of it as a threat,” Johnny said calmly. “Think of it as an ironclad contract. I’ve got all the evidence I need to close your operation down indefinitely—fraudulent chemical analyses, falsified reports, numbers doctored to meet government standards.” He drew the photocopied reports from his briefcase and handed them to Hale.

Honor watched with alarm as her father read the reports. His face was blotched with angry color, and when he glanced up, his voice was raspy. “Where did you get these?” he demanded to know. “From someone on my office staff?”

Johnny closed his briefcase quietly. “I don’t reveal my sources. But if I were you, I’d think twice about letting this fight go public.”

“I didn’t falsify those reports,” Bartholomew said harshly. “And I don’t know who did.”

“Of course, you didn’t,” Johnny cut back. “We know how that works, don’t we? You guys at the top never get your hands dirty. You have some minion to take care of the problem, and you let him know you don’t care
how
he gets it done. Right?”

As if declaring war, the older man crushed the reports in his hand and threw them in his wastebasket. “Don’t underestimate me, young man,” he warned. “That would be a serious mistake.”

Johnny lifted his head, his eyes catching the glare from the window. “The mistake has already been made, Mr. Bartholomew, and it’s going to cost you dearly. The toxins seeping from your holding pool are poisoning the reservation’s pasturelands. The tribe’s livelihood is being destroyed, and it’s just a matter of time before human health is affected, if it hasn’t been already. The personal damage suits alone will bankrupt you.”

“It would take an act of God to bankrupt me, Starhawk.”

“Maybe that can be arranged.”

The two men locked eyes for a moment, and Johnny knew he was dealing with a worthy adversary. Hale Bartholomew might be past his physical prime, but he was as mentally sharp and cunning as ever. The man was a gut-fighter.

“There’s more than just the dollar cost,” Johnny said. “The tribe will be perceived as victims, and the media blitz will turn public opinion in their favor. Activists from all over the country will haunt you, Mr. Bartholomew. They’ll picket your home and all your other business interests, not just the mine. They’ll turn your life into one long protest rally from hell.”

“Are you done?” Bartholomew asked.

“No,” Johnny said, “I’m just getting started. If you don’t clean up your act where the mine’s concerned, compensate the tribe for their losses, and arrange to have the charges dismissed against the boy, I’m going to have plenty more to say, in court.”

The older man hit an ornate brass humidor on his desk, banging the lid with a loud crack. “My daughter should have warned you that I don’t respond well to intimidation tactics, Mr. Starhawk. If you think you can beat me in court, then why are you here now? Tipping your hand, I might add.”

“I’m here to save us all some grief, Mr. Bartholomew. A court fight will be time-consuming and costly.”

“I have plenty of time and money,” the older man snapped. “Do your clients?”

Honor stepped forward, appalled at what was happening. They were going at each other verbally like two pit bulls. “Father, for heaven’s sake, accept his terms,” she urged. “I’ve seen the reports. Whether or not you had anything to do with them, your company did, and you’re responsible. The mine is polluting reservation land. Why can’t you just admit it?”

She drew in a breath as she met his stony gaze, and her voice began to tremble. “Why can’t you do the right thing for once?”

He leaned forward on his desk, his arms unsteady. “You walked out of my life a long time ago, Honor. That act stripped you of any right to preach to me about ethics. I won’t have you marching into my office haranguing me about my responsibilities, do you hear me?”

“Yes, I hear you.” Honor felt a surge of hurt and fury. How many times had she answered him with exactly those words? How many times had she swallowed whatever she’d needed to say because he wouldn’t allow her to speak?

Johnny touched her arm, but she waved him off.

“Yes, I did hear you,” she repeated with quiet force as she approached her father’s desk. “Now you hear me, dammit. If you don’t accept Johnny’s terms, and this case goes to court, I will be up there on the stand, testifying against you.”

“Honor, don’t be ridiculous. You can’t—”

“Yes!” she said, “I can, and I will.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing!”

“I know how you make deals. Father. Did you forget that I was there when you invited the judge to dinner after Johnny’d been sent away? I heard the two of you congratulating each other on your cleverness at having Johnny’s sentence dismissed on the condition that he leave town. The judge received an important appointment that same year, didn’t he?”

Her father stared at her in shock, the color slowly draining from his face. He slumped into his chair, and for a moment Honor was frightened for his health.

“How could you do this?” he asked her, indicating Johnny. “How could you align yourself with
him
?”

Honor heard the prejudice in his tone, but instead of anger, she felt pity. Her father’s world was so narrow. Her twin brother was the only one who had ever been able to please him, and that was because he’d made Hale, Jr., into a replica of himself. Perhaps she was fortunate to have escaped her father’s love.

“Good God, child,” Hale Bartholomew said. “All these years and you still haven’t come to your senses?”

“No, you’re quite wrong, Father,” she said, all the anger gone out of her. “I have come to my senses, just this moment.” It was true, she realized. Several insights had come upon her in the last few moments, stunning insights about herself, her father, and Johnny.

Summoning courage, she prepared herself to deal with the two most difficult and intimidating men in her life. “I’m in love with Johnny,” she said with uncharacteristic bluntness. “I’ve always loved him. I’m even thinking of asking him to marry me.”

Honor hazarded a glance at Johnny and saw that he’d gone nearly as pale as her father. Neither man said a word. She seemed to have rendered them both speechless. It was Honor’s first real taste of her own power, and it hit her in such a dizzying rush, she almost smiled.

Aware of her father’s stricken expression, she felt a welling sympathy. “I know you can’t understand this, but it’s what I truly want, and it’s taken me a long time to find the courage to say it.” There was something else she needed to say. “I love you. Father,” she told him softly. “In spite of everything, I always have. All I ever wanted was your love and approval when I was a child, but I realize now that I don’t need either to survive. Still, I hope someday we’ll learn to understand and accept our differences, and perhaps even build a bridge back to each other.”

She hesitated, saddened when her father couldn’t seem to bring himself to look up at her. She stepped back from both men and saw that Johnny couldn’t look at her either. He seemed completely preoccupied, as if he’d vanished into some inner world. Either he was still thunderstruck, or he simply hadn’t wanted to hear what she had to say. Suddenly her father’s spacious office seemed small and claustrophobic.

“Make the right decision about the mine, Father,” she said, brushing past Johnny as she left.

Moments later she was across the street from the Bartholomew Building, walking in the same park she and Hale, Jr., had played in as children. The sky was a sharp cerulean blue, and the breezes rustling through the trees overhead made it an unusually mild day for midsummer.

Honor stopped at the edge of a small fountain, remembering how Hale had gone wading there once and been caught by their father. Hale had cried and immediately been forgiven. Honor, of course, wouldn’t have thought to disobey in the first place. Things had changed drastically, she realized. She didn’t regret a word of what she’d said in her father’s office. It had been imperative that she tell him how she felt. She’d had to open her heart where both men were concerned, even if it meant losing them.

“Honor?”

It was Johnny’s voice, but she didn’t turn, afraid to face him. She felt almost clairvoyant where he was concerned, as if she were able to read the future in his eyes. One look and she would know everything.

“The lady seems a little tense,” he said, coming up behind her. “I’ll bet she could use a massage?”

“Massage?” Had she heard him correctly? He actually sounded as if he might be smiling, having fun with her. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or angry. “If the lady were any more tense, she’d be one of the park’s statues. I think it’s going to take more than a massage, thank you.”

“What is it going to take?”