Excerpt of Morgan's Mercenaries: Man of Passion by Lindsay McKenna

"Morgan, I'm glad you could make it," Ben Worthington said, standing up from behind his large cherry desk and thrusting his square hand out toward him.

"Ben, it's been awhile since we saw one another," Morgan replied. Grasping the secretary of the Navy's hand firmly, he saw Ben's blue eyes narrow with concern, and wondered once again what had prompted his old friend's sudden invitation.

"Have a seat," Ben invited. "Becky," he called to his assistant, who sat in the outer office, is the coffee on the way?"

Morgan took a seat in the leather wing chair at the corner of Worthington's desk and looked around the spacious Pentagon office. All kinds of Navy memorabilia — paintings, photos, diplomas — were affixed to the walls. Ben had been a Navy pilot on the carrier Enterprise during the Vietnam War. Ben's desk looked just as cluttered and busy as his own, Morgan thought. Through the venetian blinds Morgan could see a patch of blue sky and fluffy white clouds. It was spring in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of cherry trees with white perfumed blossoms surrounded the Capitol and nearby monuments.

As Worthington's prim and brisk secretary entered the office, silver tray in hand, Morgan gave her a nod. She smiled and handed him a white china cup decorated in gold trim.

"If I remember right, Mr. Trayhern, you like your coffee straight?"

Grinning, Morgan took the proffered cup and saucer. "Indeed I do, Becky. You've got a long memory."

She smiled broadly and gave her boss his coffee. "Details are important around here, as you know, sir." She set the tray on a cherry coffee table that sat off to one side, near the cream-colored, buttery-soft leather sofa. "And in case either of you wants a midmorning snack, there's a delicious coffee cake drizzled with caramel just begging to be eaten."

Groaning, Morgan thanked the tall, graceful secretary, whose red hair had become peppered with silver since he'd last seen her. In her midfifties, Becky had been working for Ben Worthington for a long time, and she was more than just an assistant, she was his right hand.

"I need that coffee cake like I need a hole in my head," Morgan confided to Ben as Becky quietly closed the door to the office to leave them in complete privacy.

Ben raised his thick, sandy-colored brows as he sipped his coffee. "Makes two of us. I don't get out and exercise like I used to." He looked around the office. "Maybe it's this place."

"Or the pressures and crises that keep popping up to throw you off your scheduled maintenance," Morgan said, his mouth twisted wryly.

"I see you know that one, too."

"My middle name is crisis," Morgan agreed with a chuckle. He eyed the coffee cake. "I shouldn't, but I'm going to...." Rising to his full height, he unbuttoned his dark blue pinstripe jacket and moved over to the coffee table. Twisting to look over his shoulder at Ben, he asked, "Want to join me in collusion?"

Laughing, Ben patted his girth. "I'm twenty pounds over right now, Morgan. I don't dare."

"I just thought I'd have some company so I wouldn't feel so guilty about cutting such a huge piece for myself," he murmured as he sliced off a healthy portion and placed it on a china plate. Picking up the plate along with one of the forks and white linen napkins Becky had thoughtfully left behind, Morgan moved back to the wing chair and sat down.

"What's on your mind, Ben?"

Scowling, Ben put his coffee aside and picked up one of several gold-framed photographs on one side of his massive desk. "How long have we known one another?"

Morgan sat back and chewed on the sweet, mouth-melting coffee cake. "Almost as long as Perseus has been in existence," he replied, referring to the covert government organization he headed.

Moving his hands over one small photo, Ben studied it. "That was ten years ago. Arianna was only fourteen years old when you formed Perseus." He looked up. "She's my youngest of three children." Turning the photo around, he placed it so that Morgan could get a good look at her.

"Pretty young lady," Morgan commented. The photograph showed a woman of perhaps twenty-four or -five sitting among a number of potted plants in a greenhouse. She was delicate looking, with short, blond hair and her father's sky blue eyes in an oval face. She was dressed in a pair of jeans, a pink tank top and tennis shoes. The expression on her face was one of pure joy.

Ben leaned back in his chair, his hands folded across his belly. "Arianna was only eight when her mother died of leukemia. She was the youngest and it was very hard on her. She was too young to understand...and her mother's death changed her forever.... I tried to help, but I was hurting so much myself that I'm afraid I didn't do a very good job of being a parent at that time...."

Morgan lost some of his joviality as Ben turned another framed photograph around for him to look at. It showed Ben and his wife, Ellen. "I'm sorry for your loss," he murmured sincerely. In some respects, Ellen reminded him of his own wife, Laura, who also had blond hair. "Arianna really takes after your wife, doesn't she?"

"In every respect," Ben muttered. "Which is why I asked you to drop by and see me." Ben waved his hand. "I know you have other appointments today, equally important, and I'm grateful you could squeeze this impromptu visit into your schedule."

Morgan finished the tasty coffee cake. He blotted his lips with the napkin and picked up the cup of coffee. "I'm glad I could do it. I gather this involves something personal instead of professional?"

Ben sat for a moment, his square face stern, his jowls set, his gaze pinned on his daughter's photograph. Rousing himself, he nodded. "Yes...it concerns Arianna. And what she thinks she's about to do."

Morgan heard the pain in the man's somber voice and sympathized, though he had a feeling he knew what was bothering him. Ben was a hard-hitting Type A personality — a born leader, who liked to control every nuance of his life. As secretary of the Navy, his commanding leadership was a good thing. But Morgan wondered how Ben's controlling personality might have impacted his family. He'd seen too many military men who were far too rigid with their wife and children. "Fill me in on how I can help you," Morgan said.

Ben sighed and picked up the picture of his daughter, holding it as he spoke. "Arianna is so much like her mother that since she's grown up, I sometimes forget and think Ellen's in the town house whenever Arianna comes over. Arianna's twenty-five now, and has just graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in business and a minor in Spanish."

"Impressive," Morgan murmured. He thought of his own children, who were growing up quickly. Jason was ten now, and little Katy wasn't far behind. And the fraternal twins, Peter and Kelly, were a year old. "I've got a college fund already established for my four kids. I'm hoping they'll see the benefits of a college education like your daughter, Arianna, has."

Worthington's mouth tightened slightly. "I forced her into getting a degree in business. Maybe it was wrong of me, but I wanted Ari to have a solid foundation, so she could earn money and control her own life instead of having it controlled by others. She's a very intelligent girl, if she'd just settle down."

Touching the frame, Ben continued unhappily, "She's a dreamer, not a hard-core business type, Morgan. My wife was a dreamer, too. Lord, she had so many dreams. Ellen loved to travel. She wanted to go around the world. She loved orchids, and I had a small greenhouse built for her. Ellen and Arianna spent hours out in that little steamy box where she grew all those orchids. In fact, the year before Ellen died, she made a concerted effort to be with Arianna. They spent a couple hours every day, up until the last two weeks before her death, out in that greenhouse."

Touched, Morgan murmured, "It was a parting gift of love that Ellen gave to her then."

Ben's normally hard face softened somewhat. "Yes...Ari was all she had left. Our son, Kirk, was at the Naval Academy at the time." He gave Morgan a pained look. "I think you already know our middle daughter, Janis, died at age thirteen. She took a stupid dare from a boy at a riding stable. He bet that the horse she was riding couldn't jump a four-foot fence. It didn't, and she fell off and broke her neck, dying instantly. It was a blow to all of us, but especially Ellen." Rubbing his neck, Ben muttered, "I sometimes think that the shock of her death — the trauma of our loss — triggered Ellen's leukemia. She contracted the disease six months after Janis died. It's too coincidental, in my book."