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  “She is dead to me, Julie,” he interrupted with a bite in his voice. “After tonight, I never want to hear the woman’s name or have you refer to her.”

  Julie opened her mouth to argue, then made a different decision, but she withheld it for the time being. With a smile in her voice, she said, “No one gets a second chance from you, right?”

  “Right,” he said implacably

  “Except me.”

  He brushed his knuckles over her smooth cheek. “Except you,” he agreed.

  “How many chances do I get?”

  “How many do you need?”

  “A lot of them, I’m afraid,” she said with such a gusty sigh that Zack burst out laughing and snatched her into his arms. When he let her go, he noticed the small silver chain peeking out from between the side of her collar and her throat. “What’s that?” he asked.

  She put her chin against her chest. “What’s what?”

  “This,” he said, looping his finger under the chain.

  Afraid that the sight of the ring would remind him of the ugliness of Mexico City, Julie hastily put her hand against her chest, trapping the ring. “Leave it alone. Please!”

  Zack’s eyes narrowed at her anxiety, and he felt again the unfamiliar stirrings of suspicion. “What is it?” he asked, careful to keep his voice reasonable. “A gift from an old boyfriend?”

  “Something like that. I’ll stop wearing it.”

  “Let’s see it,” Zack said.

  “No.”

  “A man has a right to know something about the taste of his predecessors.”

  “He had wonderful taste! You’d approve. Leave it alone.”

  “Julie,” he warned, “you are a rotten liar. What’s attached to that chain?” Without giving her a chance to stop him, he brushed her hands aside and pulled out the chain.

  A platinum wedding band gleamed in his hand, diamonds sparkling in the light.

  Tenderness washed through him, and he pulled her onto his chest. “Why were you afraid for me to see that?”

  “I’m afraid of anything that might remind you of Mexico City. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget the way you looked at me before you realized I hadn’t led them to you by accident . . .” Her voice shook, “Or the change in your face when you realized it was deliberate. I know I won’t. Not ever. I’ll always be afraid to see that look.”

  Zack regretfully postponed making love to her and moved her off his chest, sitting up. “Let’s get it over with.”

  “What?” she said, panicking already. “Where are you going?”

  “Do you have a VCR?”

  Her fear turned to puzzlement. “In the living room.”

  79

  WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” SHE asked as Zack sat down beside her and the videotape he’d taken out of his briefcase began to run. Nervously, she teased, “I hope it’s Dirty Dancing and not a sexy scene from one of your movies.”

  He put his arm around her and quietly said, “It’s the tape I’ve watched several times today, the one the FBI confiscated of us in Mex—”

  She shook her head wildly, trying to grab the remote controller. “I don’t want to see that. Not tonight! Not ever again!”

  “We’re going to watch it together, Julie. You and I. After that, it won’t be able to come between us or hurt us, and you won’t have to be afraid.”

  “Don’t make me watch this!” she said, shaking as the voices began to explode in the airport. “I can’t stand it!”

  “Look at the screen,” he said implacably. “We were there together, but I never knew until today what you were doing while they were taking me into custody, and I have a feeling you don’t have a clear recollection of it either.”

  “Oh, yes, I do! I remember exactly what they were doing to you! I remember that it was my fault!”

  He turned her face to the screen. “Watch you, not me. Watch and you’ll see what I did—a woman who was suffering more than I was.” Julie dragged her gaze to the television set, staring blindly at a scene she only wanted to forget. She saw herself screaming at everyone not to hurt him, saw Paul yanking her back, shouting at her that it was “all over,” saw Hadley walking up to her with a malicious grin and dropping the ring into her hand. She saw herself clutching the ring and weeping.

  Zack’s voice was aching and tender, “Julie,” he whispered, pulling her tight, “look at you, darling, and see what I see. It was just a ring, a piece of metal and stones. But look at how much it meant to you.”

  “It was the wedding ring you picked out for me!” she said fiercely. “That’s why I was crying.”

  “Really?” he teased softly. “I thought you were crying because the diamonds were so small.”

  Her mouth dropped open, and an hysterical giggle slid out even while she blinked back the tears from her wondrous eyes.

  “Now watch this,” he added with a grin, pulling her tighter. “This is my favorite part. Don’t watch what they’re doing to me,” he said quickly when she started to jerk her gaze away from the Federales’ raised clubs. “Watch what you’re doing to Hadley on the right of the screen. That,” he added admiringly, “is one hell of a right hook you have, lady.”

  Julie forced herself to watch and was slightly surprised and shamefully pleased to see herself attacking that particular human being. “I don’t actually remember much of that,” she whispered.

  “No, but I’ll bet Hadley remembered what comes next. When Richardson dragged you off and you couldn’t get at Hadley with your nails or hands, you—”

  “Kicked him!” Julie narrated, watching in shock.

  “Right in the groin,” Zack said proudly with a laugh as Hadley doubled over, clutching himself. “Do you have any idea how many men there are in this world who’ve longed to do that?”

  Julie shook her head in silence, watching the end of the film as a doctor rammed a hypodermic into her arm and Paul held her. Zack let the VCR keep running and sobered as he looked at her. “I’m going to tear Hadley to pieces legally before I’m done. I have a meeting scheduled with the Texas Board of Criminal Justice week after next. When I’m finished with him, he’ll be occupying one of his own cells.”

  “He’s a devil!”

  “And you,” Zack said somberly, tipping her chin up, “are an angel. Do you have any idea how I’ve felt every time I watched you on that film?”

  She shook her head, and he said, “I felt loved. Incredibly, completely, unconditionally loved. Even when you thought I was a deranged murderer, you were still fighting and crying for me.” Lowering his mouth to hers, he whispered, “I have never known a woman who has as much courage as you . . .” He kissed the corner of her eye, dragging his lips across her cheek to the corner of her mouth. “Or as much love to give.” His hands slid under her sweatshirt and down the waistband of her jeans. “Give it to me, darling,” he whispered, “all of it . . . now.” He opened her mouth with his, deepening the kiss, his hands moving over her soft bare skin, his tongue searching her mouth, driving slowly into it, and when she unbuttoned his shirt with shaking fingers and spread it open and touched him, the moan he heard was his. But the ringing in his ears came from the doorbell, and the pounding in his brain he slowly realized was a fist hammering on the door. Swearing, Zack sat up, intending to take her into the bedroom, and held out his hand.

  “Julie!” Ted’s voice accompanied the second round of hammering on the door.

  “It’s my brother!” she said.

  “Can’t you suggest he go away and come back tomorrow?”

  She was about to nod, when Ted’s laughing voice called, “Answer this door for your own good. I know you’re in there,” and she shook her head instead, hastily tugging her shirt back down and trying to restore order to her hair. “I’d better see what he wants.”

  ‘I’ll wait in the kitchen,” Zack said, raking his hands through his hair.

  “But I want him to meet you since he’s here.”

  “You want him to meet me now?” He glanced