Diana Palmer - Diana Palmer Collected 1-6 - Soldier of Fortune / Tender Stranger / Enamored / Mystery Man / Rawhide and Lace / Unlikely Lover

She half turned. “What would?”

“Never mind.” He sighed as he put the remains of their meal into the trash can and replaced the tray in the rack on their way out. “Just a few adjustments that have to be made, that’s all.”

That didn’t make sense, but she didn’t pressure him. He didn’t pressure her, either, leaving her outside her apartment building with a rueful smile.

“I hate being stood up for the damned laundry,” he muttered, hands in his pockets.

“New experiences teach new things,” she murmured dryly. “Besides, I can’t finish out the week in dirty clothes.”

That put a damper on things. Her smile faded at the memory of how little time they had left together. His face grew harder.

“Well…thanks for lunch,” she said awkwardly.

“We could do it again tomorrow,” he said before she went inside.

Her eyes lifted. She wanted to. She wanted to, desperately. She tried to convince herself that it would be a mistake, but her body tingled and her heart surged at the idea.

“Yes,” she said under her breath.

His chest rose and fell, as if in relief. “Suppose I pick you up about ten-thirty?”

She hesitated. “Church is at eleven.”

“Yes, I figured it would be,” he said with a rueful smile. “I hope the angels won’t faint at having me in their midst.”

All the color drained out of her face as she stared up at him, and she couldn’t have said a word to save herself.

“Well, I won’t embarrass you,” he muttered curtly. “I do know not to stand up and yell ‘Hallelujah’ every five minutes or to snore in the front pew.”

“I didn’t say anything,” she said.

“I still have a soul, too, even if it has taken a few hard knocks over the years.” He lifted his shoulders and let them fall. “I…need to go back. All the way back.” His eyes held hers. “Gabby?”

“I’m Methodist,” she said.

He smiled. “I used to be Episcopalian. The denomination doesn’t matter so much, does it?”

She shook her head. “We can walk from my apartment.”

He nodded. “See you tomorrow.”

He turned to get back into the car, but she moved forward and touched his arm. The light contact of her fingers froze him. He looked down at her.

“Would you…bend down a minute?” she whispered.

Like a sleepwalker, he bent his tall frame and she stood on tiptoe to put her mouth warmly, hungrily to his.

He moaned, starting to reach for her, but she drew back with a wicked, warm smile.

“Try that again when we aren’t in a public place,” he said, challenging her.

Her heart jumped. “Dream on.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ve done very little else this past week,” he said, letting his eyes roam over her slender body. “Gabby, have you ever thought about having children?”

She could hardly believe what she was hearing. Her face burned with pleasure, her heart sang with it. “Oh, yes,” she whispered huskily.

“So have I.” He started to speak, caught himself, and smiled hesitantly. “See you in the morning.”

“’Bye.” She stood there and watched him drive off. It was probably all some wild daydream and she’d wake up back in the office, typing. But when she pinched herself, it hurt. She went upstairs and put the clothes in the dryer and tried to convince herself that J.D. had actually said he was going to church with her.

But the next morning, she was sure she’d misunderstood him. She dressed in a pretty white dress with matching accessories and at precisely ten-thirty, she started out the door. Of course, J.D. wasn’t going to church, she told herself firmly. What a stupid thing to…

The doorbell rang as she was opening the door. And there he was. He was wearing the same vested gray suit she’d seen him in earlier that week, but he looked different now. More relaxed, more at ease, much less rigid.

“Shocked?” he asked wickedly. “Did you expect I’d changed my mind and gone fishing instead?”

She burst out laughing and her green eyes sparkled. With her long hair piled in an old-fashioned coiffure, she seemed part of another era.

“Little Miss Victorian,” he murmured, studying her. “How exciting you look. So demure and proper.”

He looked as if he’d give a lot to change that straightlaced image, and she dropped her eyes before he could see how willing she felt.

“We’d better get started,” she murmured, easing past him.

“I like that gauzy thing,” he remarked minutes later as they walked up the front steps of the gray fieldstone church.

“You can wear it sometimes, if you like,” she said teasingly.

His eyes promised retribution. She eased her hand into his, and all the fight went out of him. He smiled at her, and his eyes were warm and possessive.

J.D. paid a lot of attention to the sermon, which was about priorities and forgiveness and grace. He sang the hymns in a rich baritone, and he seemed thoughtful as the benediction was given.

“Mind waiting for me?” he asked as they rose to file out at the end of the service.

She searched his hard face and shook her head. “Not at all.”

He left her and went to speak to the minister who was waiting until the rest of the congregation had left. The two men stood talking behind the rows of pews, both solemn, their voices low. Then they shook hands and smiled at each other. J.D. came back and grasped Gabby’s hand warmly in his for a minute.

“I’m taking your minister to lunch instead of you,” he said with a mischievous smile. “How about getting into something casual and I’ll pick you up in a couple of hours?”

She looked hard at him. “Are you all right?” she asked. She was trying to see beyond the fixed smile to something deep and wounded inside him.

He drew in a slow breath and the smile faded. “You frighten me sometimes, Gabby,” he said softly. “You see too much.”

She couldn’t think of any response to that. She touched his hand briefly and watched him walk away. Something was in the wind, a change. She frowned as she turned toward her apartment, her steps slow and deliberate. She wondered why he was taking her minister to lunch, if he had something on his conscience.

She changed into jeans and a button-up blue cotton blouse and then paced the floor for the next two hours. Wild thoughts raced through her mind, the wildest one being that J.D. might decide to chuck it all and go in search of First Shirt and Apollo.

It was three hours before he showed up. By then Gabby had consumed half a pot of coffee and chewed two fingernails to the quick. Her nerves were raw, and she actually jumped when the knock came at the door.

She let him in, too shaken to disguise the frightened uncertainty in her wide eyes.

“I thought you’d stood me up.” She laughed nervously. “I was just about to give up and start watching a movie on TV. Do you want some coffee, or some cake…?”

He put a finger across her mouth to stop the wild words. His dark eyes looked into hers. “We have to learn to trust each other a little more,” he said softly. “And the first thing you need to know about me is that if I ever give my word, it’s good for life. I’m not going back to Shirt and the others, Gabby. That’s a promise.”

Tears burst from her eyes like rain from a storm cloud. She put her face in her hands and walked away.

“I’m sorry,” she choked out, hating the fact that she’d given her feelings away.

He didn’t say a word. He followed her, and when he caught up to her, he lifted her gently in his big arms and headed straight for the bedroom.

She had just enough sanity left to realize where they were going. She opened her mouth to protest, and his came down on it, open and moist and tenderly possessive.