Free Freedom's Price by Suzanne Brockmann

through the air as he started down the stairs.
    Liam braced himself as he headed toward the kitchen. It was still early—he wouldn’t put it past Marisala to have come down to grab a quick cup of coffee while still in her nightclothes. She probably slept in an oversized T-shirt, her long, tanned legs bare, God help him.
    But as he went into the kitchen he saw that Marisala was dressed. She wore baggy knee-length, cutoff shorts slung low on her waist and a midriff-baring tank top that revealed a small tattoo high up on her left arm. It was a single flame—the symbol of the San Salustiano Freedom Fighters. He remembered the first time he’d seen it—after she’d broken him out of the government prison. With the tattoo and the fresh, jagged scar on her beautiful face, and the way she held an AK-47 as if it were an extension of her body, he’d wept for the loss of her youth and innocence.
    She was talking as he came in, leaning against the kitchen counter with a mug in one hand, part of the Sunday paper in her other, speaking in her native Spanish.
    It took him a moment to realize that she wasn’t talking to him, or even to the puppy, who was happily tearing at a clean rag with her sharp little teeth.
    Marisala was talking to the man and woman who were sitting at his kitchen table. They were both ragged and dirty, and the woman was heavily pregnant.
    Liam did a double take. Where the hell had
they
come from? But he knew the answer before Marisala even turned to greet him. She had gone out for another walk this morning and come home with two more strays.
    “
Buenos dias
,” Marisala said cheerfully. “You actually slept last night.”
    He had. He’d fallen asleep some time after two A.M ., and he’d stayed asleep, dreaming those intensely erotic dreams about Marisala.
    Her hair was loose in a wild cloud of curls around her head, just the way she’d worn it in his dreams. He went toward the cabinet to get himself a mug, unable to meet her gaze for fear she’d be able to read his mind.
    “It looks like you’ve been busy,” he said levelly.
    “Your column in the paper,” she accused him, “it’s something you wrote months ago.”
    “Yeah.” He couldn’t even glance at her. “I didn’t have the time to write something new this week.”
    “
Por favor, Señor Bartlett
.” The extremely pregnant woman pushed back her chair and hauled herself clumsily to her feet. “Sit. Please. You will allow me to get your coffee and breakfast, no?”
    “No,” Liam said firmly. “Thank you. You look like you need to sit down more than I do.”
    “But—” The young woman looked from Liam to Marisala in alarm.
    Liam poured himself a cup of coffee as Marisala spoke to the couple in a low voice. He turned to face her. “So. I see you’ve hired me a cook.” It was all he could do not to laugh. Trust Marisala to find two needy, desperate people living on the street and offer them not only food and shelter, but a way for them to keep their pride.
    On closer examination, he saw that the man and the woman were both impossibly young. The man was in his early twenties at the most and the girl hardly more than a baby herself.
    “Liam, I’d like you to meet Inez and Hector Perez. They came from Puerto Rico, via New York. They are here in Boston looking to get away from…certain family troubles.”
    Liam glanced at Inez’s tautly rounded belly. Family troubles indeed.
    “And yes, you’re right. I told them you might be interested in hiring them. Inez tells me she’s quite a good cook,” Marisala continued.
    Hector was gazing grimly down at the table, embarrassment tingeing his aristocratic cheekbones. Liam could relate. It was never easy to take charity. God knows he’d taken more than his share down in San Salustiano.
    “How about you, Mr. Perez,” he asked the young man directly. “What’s your trade?”
    “I am a landscaper.”
    Liam nodded. A landscaper. If Marisala had her way, he was about to become, no doubt,