Diana Palmer - Harden

As if sensing his scrutiny, her head abruptly turned from the man with her, and he saw that her eyes matched her dress. They were the purest silver, and despite the smile and the happy expression, they were the saddest eyes he’d ever seen.

She seemed to find him as fascinating as he found her. She stared at him openly, her eyes lingering on his long, lean face with its pale blue eyes and jet-black hair and eyebrows. After a minute, she realized that she was staring and she averted her face.

They sat down at a table near him. The woman had obviously been drinking already, because she was loud.

“Isn’t this fun?” she was saying. “Goodness, Sam, I never realized that alcohol tasted so nice! Tim never drank.”

“You have to stop thinking about him,” the other man said firmly. “Have some peanuts.”

“I’m not an elephant,” she said vehemently.

“Will you stop? Mindy, you might at least pretend that you’re improving.”

“I do. I pretend from morning until night, haven’t you noticed?”

“Listen, I’ve got to—” There was a sudden beeping sound. The man muttered something and shut it off. “Damn the luck! I’ll have to find a phone. I’ll be right back, Mindy.”

Mindy. The name suited her somehow. Harden twisted his shot glass in his hand as he studied her back and wondered what the nickname was short for.

She turned slightly, watching her companion dial a number at a pay phone. The happy expression went into eclipse and she looked almost desperate, her face drawn and somber.

Her companion, meanwhile, had finished his phone call and was checking his watch even as he rejoined her.

“Damn,” he cursed again, “I’ve got a call. I’ll have to go to the hospital right away. I’ll drop you off on the way.”

“No need, Sam,” she replied. “I’ll phone Joan and have her take me home. You go ahead.”

“Are you sure you want to go back to the apartment? You know you’re welcome to stay with me.”

“I know. You’ve been very kind, but it’s time I went back.”

“You don’t mind calling Joan?” he added reluctantly. “Your apartment is ten minutes out of my way, and every second counts in an emergency.”

“Go!” she said. “Honest, I’m okay.”

He grimaced. “All right. I’ll phone you later.”

He bent, but Harden noticed that he kissed her on the cheek, not the lips.

She watched him go with something bordering on relief. Odd reaction, Harden thought, for a woman who was obviously dating a man.

She turned abruptly and saw Harden watching her. With a sultry laugh she picked up the piña colada she’d ordered and got to her feet. She moved fluidly to Harden’s table and without waiting for an invitation, she sat down, sprawling languidly in the chair across from him. Her gaze was as direct as his, curious and cautious.

“You’ve been staring at me,” she said.

“You’re beautiful,” he returned without inflection. “A walking work of art. I expect everyone stares.”

She lifted both elegant eyebrows, clearly surprised. “You’re very forthright.”

“Blunt,” he corrected, lifting his glass in a cynical salute before he drained it. “I don’t beat around the bush.”

“Neither do I. Do you want me?”

He cocked his head, not surprised, even if he was oddly disappointed. “Excuse me?”

She swallowed. “Do you want to go to bed with me?” she asked.

His broad shoulders rose and fell. “Not particularly,” he said simply. “But thanks for the offer.”

“I wasn’t offering,” she replied. “I was going to tell you that I’m not that kind of woman. See?”

She proffered her left hand, displaying a wedding band and an engagement ring.

Harden felt a hot stirring inside him. She was married. Well, what had he expected? A beauty like that would be married, of course. And she was out with a man who wasn’t her husband. Contempt kindled in his eyes.

“I see,” he replied belatedly.

Mindy saw the contempt and it hurt. “Are you…married?” she persisted.

“Nobody brave enough for that job,” he returned. His eyes narrowed and he smiled coldly. “I’m hell on the nerves, or so they tell me.”

“A womanizer, you mean?”

He leaned forward, his pale blue eyes as cold as the ice they resembled. “A woman hater.”

The way he said it made her skin chill. She rubbed warm hands over her upper arms. “Oh.”

“Doesn’t your husband mind you going out with other men?” he asked mockingly.

“My husband…died,” she bit off the word. She took a sudden deep sip of her drink and then another, her brows drawn together. “Three weeks ago.” Her face contorted suddenly. “I can’t bear it!”

She got up and rushed out of the bar, her purse forgotten in her desperate haste.

Harden knew the look he’d just seen in her eyes. He knew the sound, as well. It brought him to his feet in an instant. He crammed her tiny purse into his pocket, paid for his drink, and went right out behind her.

It didn’t take him long to find her. There was a bridge nearby, over the Chicago River. She was leaning over it, her posture stiff and suggestive as she held the rails.

Harden moved toward her with quick, hard strides, noticing her sudden shocked glance in his direction.

“Oh, hell, no, you don’t,” he said roughly and abruptly dragged her away from the rails. He shook her once, hard. “Pull yourself together, for God’s sake! This is stupid!”

She seemed to realize then where she was. She looked at the water below and shivered. “I…wouldn’t really have done it. I don’t think I would,” she stammered. “It’s just that it’s so hard, to go on. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep…!”

“Committing suicide isn’t the answer,” he said stubbornly.

Her eyes glittered like moonlit water in her tragic face as she looked up at him. “What is?”

“Life isn’t perfect,” he said. “Tonight, this minute, is all we really have. No yesterdays. No tomorrows. There’s only the present. Everything else is a memory or a daydream.”

She wiped her eyes with a beautifully manicured hand, her nails palest pink against her faintly tanned skin. “Today is pretty horrible.”

“Put one foot forward at a time. Live from one minute to the next. You’ll get through.”

“Losing Tim was terrible enough, you see,” she said, trying to explain. “But I was pregnant. I lost the baby in the accident, too. I was…I was driving.” She looked up, her face terrible. “The road was slick and I lost control of the car. I killed him! I killed my baby and I killed Tim…!”

He took her by the shoulders, fascinated by the feel of her soft skin even as he registered the thinness of them. “God decided that it was his time to die,” Harden corrected.

“There isn’t a God!” she whispered, her face white with pain and remembered anguish.

“Yes, there is,” he said softly. His broad chest rose and fell. “Come on.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Home.”

“No!”

She was pulling against his hand. “I won’t go back there tonight, I can’t! He haunts me….”

He stopped. His eyes searched her face quietly. “I don’t want you physically. But you can stay with me tonight, if you like. There’s a spare bed and you’ll be safe.”

He couldn’t believe he was making the offer. He, who hated women. But there was something so terribly fragile about her. She wasn’t sober, and he didn’t want her trying something stupid. It would lie heavily on his conscience; at least, that was what he told himself to justify his interest.

She stared at him quietly. “I’m a stranger.”

“So am I.”

She hesitated. “My name is Miranda Warren,” she said finally.