Diana Palmer - Roomful of Roses

She stared helplessly, trying to reconcile her memories with the man before her. He seemed to find her equally fascinating, if the searching, stunned expression on his usually impassive face was anything to go by.

“You’re older,” she said in a tone that was unconsciously soft.

He nodded. “So are you, honey.”

Casual endearments were as much a part of him as his square-tipped fingers, but the word caused an odd sensation in Wynn. She didn’t understand why, and she didn’t like it.

“What are you doing here?” she asked reasonably.

He raised both eyebrows as he lifted the smoking cigarette in his hand to his chiseled mouth. “My plane was hijacked,” he said with a straight face.

She pursed her lips. “Try again.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Very few planes are hijacked to south Georgia, in my experience,” she murmured. The words were just something to keep her mind occupied while her eyes helplessly roamed over him and she tried to fire up the old antagonism.

“What experience?” he asked carelessly, narrowing his eyes as he studied her. “How old are you now?”

“Just months away from my inheritance,” she reminded him with a smile. “When Andy and I marry, I’m a free woman.”

“Andrew Slone,” he muttered, leaning back in the chair with a sigh. “How in hell did you get landed with him? Is he blackmailing you?”

She gasped. “I love him!”

“Elephants fly,” he scoffed. He ground out the cigarette in the ashtray on the table beside his chair. “You’d stagnate married to a man with his hang-ups.”

“What do you know about his hang-ups?” she challenged.

He met her eyes squarely and a wild little tremor went through her stomach. “Enough to know I’m going to stop you from making the mistake of your young life. I grew up with Andrew, for God’s sake, he’s a year older than I am!”

“I like older men,” she shot back. “And he’s just thirty-six, hardly a candidate for a nursing home!”

She stopped herself abruptly. Why should she justify her feelings for Andy to McCabe, for heaven’s sake? “What do you think you are, McCabe, the Spanish Inquisition? You don’t have any right to burst in here and start grilling me...and what are you doing here, anyway?”

“Don’t get hysterical,” he said soothingly. “I’m here to help you sort yourself out, that’s all. Just until I recuperate.”

“I don’t need help, and why do you have to recuperate here?”

“Because my mother left the country, servants and all, when she realized I was on my way back,” he said nonchalantly. “I let the lease on my apartment expire and the only quarters I have at the moment are in Central America.” His eyebrows arched. “You wouldn’t want me to go back there to heal?”

She averted her eyes before he could read the very real fear in them. “Don’t be absurd,” she said.

“Then ‘here’ was the only place left.”

“You could stay at Katy Maude’s,” she offered. “She has plenty of bedrooms—”

“All upstairs,” he reminded Wynn. “And before you think of it, the love seat she had the last time I came home was two feet shorter than I am. You do remember that I’m six-foot-three?”

How could she forget, when he towered over everybody? “Ed’s sofa is plenty long,” she grumbled.

“His brother-in-law is visiting him next week.”

She moved closer to the chair, her arms folded across her chest, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Odd that he didn’t mention that when he told me you were here.”

“It’s press day,” he observed. “He’s out of his mind. Probably cursing you already. Surely you can’t be spared right now?”

“I’m on my lunch hour,” she began.

“Great. I’m starved. How about a sandwich or two?”

“Now, just a minute, McCabe,” she said forcibly. “We haven’t decided where you’re staying yet, much less—”

“I didn’t have any breakfast,” he sighed, laying a big hand on his flat stomach. “Hardly any supper last night. The press hounded me to death at the airport—” he peeked up to see how she was reacting “—and I was too tired to go out.”

She felt herself weakening and cursed her own soft heart. “Well, there’s some ham in the fridge, and I bought potato chips yesterday.”

“Ham’s fine,” he agreed quickly. “Thick, mind, and with lots of mustard. Got some coffee?”

She threw up her hands. “I can’t argue with you!”

“You never could, and win,” he reminded her. He moved and winced, and his face went oddly pale.

She looked at the big leg resting on the hassock. Ed had said something about a torn ligament, but the shape of a thick bandage was outlined against one powerful thigh under the khaki fabric. A bandage.

Her eyes went slowly back up to his. “That’s no torn ligament,” she said hesitantly.

His shaggy head leaned back. “Hard to fool another journalist, isn’t it, Wynn? You’re right. I didn’t pull a ligament. You know how the press can make mistakes.”

Her own face paled. “You’ve been shot.”

He nodded. “Bingo.”

She could feel her heart going wild, her knees threatening to buckle. It was an odd way to react. She drew in a slow breath.

“You were with those journalists who were killed, weren’t you, McCabe?” she asked with quiet certainty.

His darkening eyes fell to his leg. “I’d just left them, in fact,” he said. “We were going to follow an informer to a meeting with a high-level government official. Very hush-hush. It blew up in our faces. I got away by the skin of my teeth and spent the night in a chicken house. I nearly bled to death before I was able to get back to town.”

Her heart was hurting now. No one had known what a close call he’d had. It was just dawning on her that he could have died. She felt oddly sick.

“How far did you walk?”

“A few miles. The bullets did some heavy damage, but I was flown to New York and treated by a very apt orthopedic surgeon. I’ll have a limp, but at least I didn’t lose the leg.”

She stared at him, memorizing every hard line of his face. It had been a compulsion, even years ago, to look at him. She enjoyed that even when she imagined she hated him. It was a effort to drag her eyes away.

“I’d better get lunch,” she said numbly.

“I’m all right, Wynn,” he said quietly, watching her, “if you’re concerned with the state of my health. There were times when I imagined you might not mind if I caught a bullet,” he added calculatingly.

She avoided his eyes. “I don’t want you to die. I never did.”

She walked into the kitchen and made the sandwiches automatically, wondering at her own horrified reaction to his wounds. He was in a dangerous business, she’d always known that, and why should it matter? But it did! Her eyes closed and she leaned heavily against the counter. Life without McCabe would be colorless. She had to know that he was somewhere in the world, alive.

With an effort, she loaded a tray with coffee and chips and the sandwiches and carried it back into the living room. McCabe was still sitting where she’d let him; his face was drawn, a little paler than before.

“You’re in pain,” she said suddenly.

He laughed mirthlessly. “Honey, I’ve hardly been out of it for the past week, and that’s God’s own truth.”

“Do you have anything to take?”

“Aspirin,” he said with a grin. “You know I don’t like drugs, Wynn.”

“You might make an exception in cases like this,” she burst out, sitting across from him on the sofa.

“I’m a tough old bird. My hide’s just about bullet-proof.”

She handed him the plate with his sandwiches and chips. “How long will it take for it to heal?”