Roomful of Roses Read online

  "Nope," he replied calmly. "No spare room."

  "He could sleep on the couch!"

  "In his condition? Couldn't ask an injured man to do that," he said.

  "I could," she replied coldly. "I can't have McCabe in the house alone with me. Katy Maude's not due home for several more weeks, she's just getting over her heart attack, and she couldn't take the excitement of constant arguing."

  "You and Katy don't argue," he observed.

  "But McCabe and I do," she reminded him. "Constantly. On every subject. And Andy will go through the ceiling!"

  "Oh, him," Edward said, dismissing the ether man with a wave of his hand. "Andy's one of those liberal city fellows. He won't think a thing about it."

  "Are we talking about the same Andrew Slone?" she asked. "My fiance, who went on local television to protest a theater advertisement in the Ashton Daily Bugle because it showed a woman's bare bosom?"

  Edward looked at her over his glasses. "Hmm. You might have a problem there, sure enough."

  "You set me up," she accused. "You invited McCabe here."

  "Well, he suggested it," he admitted. "Called to ask if we'd seen the story in the I)aper, mentioned what bad shape he was iii I knew you wouldn't mind," he ridded with a grin. "After all, he's your guardian."

  "Guardian! My tormentor, my inquisitor, my worst enemy, and you've put him under my own roof!" she wailed. "Why didn't you send him to Katy Maude's house?"

  "Because there's no one in it," Edward said reasonably. "He can hardly walk at all, Wynn," he reminded her. "How would he get along?"

  "He's a reporter," she ground out. "He's lived on pure nerve for so long that he'd probably survive without water on thedesert! Doesn't his mother live in New York now? Why didn't he go stay with her?"

  "She left the country when she found out he was coming back from Central America," Edward laughed. "You know

  Marie, she's scared to death to let him get a foothold in her house. He'd have the servants fired and the house remodeled in two days' time."

  "Not my house, he wouldn't," she muttered. "Marie always did find excuses to hide out from his father and from him."

  "He's hurt," he reminded her. "Poor wounded soldier, and you'd turn him out in the cold!"

  Her full lips pouted at him. "You don't know McCabe like I do," she argued.

  "He wants to meet your fiance," he continued. "He's concerned about your future."

  "He wants to dictate it, that's why," she growled, standing. "Well, he won't get away with it. He's not going to wrap me around his thumb!"

  "Where are you going?" he called.

  "Off to war," she called back. "Where's my elephant gun?"

  "But the paper "

  "I'll read it later," she grumbled.

  "Our paper," he thundered. "The one we won't get out if you don't get in here and help me make it up!"

  "I'm taking my lunch hour late," she told him. "I'll be back in an hour."

  Edward threw up his hands. "An hour. We're already an hour behind schedule and she'll only be gone an hour. Judy, I tell you..."

  But Wynn wasn't listening. She was running for her car, with sparks flying from her green eyes. If McCabe thought he'd been through a war, he hadn't seen anything yet!

  Chapter Two

  Wynn could sense McCabe watching her even as she opened the unlocked door of the white frame cottage behind Katy Maude's monstrous Victorian house on Patterson Street. She stormed in, her hair flying, her step sounding unusually loud on the bare wood floors and area rugs.

  "McCabe!" she yelled, tossing her camera, purse and sweater onto the chair in the hall. But only an echo greeted her.

  She turned to go into the living room, which she'd redecorated the year before with western furniture and Indian rugs. She stopped short just inside the doorway and caught her breath.

  McCabe was sitting quietly in her big armchair by the fireplace, one big foot propped on the hassock, wearing leather boots and a safari suit that would have looked comical on any native of Redvale. But it suited his dark tan, his faintly tousled thick blond hair, which needed trimming badly.

  All the years rolled away. He looked just as Wynn remembered him, big and bronzed and blond - larger than life. His craggy face looked battle-worn, and the light eyes that were neither gray nor blue but a mixture of the two narrowed as they roamed boldly over her slender body.

  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'ssake, 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 spar
ed 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 leis 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 an 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 left 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?"

  "Another month or so," he said with obvious distaste. "The bone has to knit back properly."

  She stared at his leg again. "Are you wearing a cast?"

  "No. The bone's not broken clean through. But it aches all the time, and I don't walk well. There's a lot of me for that bone to support."

  Her eyes ran up and down him quickly.

  "Yes, there is," she agreed.

  "I really do need a place to stay," he said over his coffee. "It's not easy for me to get around in this condition. Surely even in this little town, people will be able to understand that. I don't care about gossip, but I imagine you do."

  "Yes," she agreed, glancing at him warily.

  "Andy's going to go right through the ceiling, regardless."

  "Let me handle Andy," he said generously. "Man to man, you know."

  That didn't quite ring true, but perhaps she'd misjudged McCabe. She hoped so.

  "Won't you be bored to death staying in Redvale for a whole month?" she asked as she finished her sandwich and washed it down with coffee.

  "If I didn't have anything to do, I might," he agreed. "I don't have another book due for six months, and I was between assignments, so I took a job here in town."

  She stared at him with dawning horror.

  "What job?"

  "Didn't Ed tell you?" he asked pleasantly. "I'm going to edit the paper for the next month while he goes on vacation."

  Chapter Three

  Wynn felt as if she'd been kicked in the stomach. She simply stared at him.

  "Edit the paper?" she echoed. "Ed's paper? My paper? You'll be my boss?"

  "You got it," he said pleasantly.

  "I quit."

  "Now, Wynn ..."

  "Don't you `now Wynn' me!" she said, setting down her coffee cup with a loud crack. "I can't live with you and work with you for a solid month and stay sane!"

  He lit a cigarette and watched her with an odd, quiet smile. "What's the matter, honey, afraid you won't be able to resist seducing me?"

  She went scarlet and started to jump to her feet. Unfortunately, in the process, her knee hit the tray and knocked it off onto the floor. Bits of ham and bread floated in a puddle of coffee at McCabe's feet while he threw back his head and laughed uproariously.

  Her slender hands clenched at her hips and she counted to ten twice.

  Before she could think up something had enough, insulting enough, to say to him, the phone rang. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed up the receiver.

  "Hello!" she said shortly.

  There was a hesitation and a cough. "Uh, Wynona?"

  "Andy!" she gasped, glaring at McCabe. Her hand twisted the cord nervously. "Oh, hi, Andy, how are you?"

  "Ed said you'd gone home for lunch," her fiance said suspiciously. "He said you had a visitor. A guest," he emphasized. "Wynona, have you gone crazy? McCabe may be your guardian, and an older man, but he's a bachelor and we're not married and you simply can't let him stay there!"

  His thin voice had gotten higher and wilder by the second, until he was all but shouting.

  "Now, Andy," she said soothingly, trying to ignore McCabe's smug grin, "you know how it is. McCabe's been injured and he's not even able to walk!"

  "Then how is he going to get to bed? Are you going to carry him back and forth?"

  She started laughing. She couldn't help it. First McCabe appeared out of the blue with bullet wounds, and now Andy was hysterical....

  "Wynona?" Andy murmured.

  "Have you got a wheelbarrow I could borrow?" she asked through tears.

  "A what? Oh, I see." He chuckled politely, and then sighed. "I'm jumping to conclusions, of course. But I remember McCabe. Can I help feeling threatened?"

  "I'm engaged to you," she reminded him, furious at McCabe's open eavesdropping.

  "Yes, I know," Andy said, softening audibly. "It just hit me sideways, that's all."

  "McCabe is my guardian," she said, glaring at McCabe, who was watching her with a wicked smile. She looked away quickly. "Anyway, he's old
."

  "He's a year younger than I am," Andy murmured.

  "I didn't mean that!" Wynn twisted the telephone cord viciously. "It's press day, Andy, I'm just not thinking straight."