Roomful of Roses Read online

  "I can understand that," he said. "I'd have felt the same way if you'd told me he was your lover. But I wouldn't have hit you."

  "No," she agreed. "Probably you would have kissed me, the way you did Friday night."

  He searched her face quietly, and the room was suddenly alive with tension and remembered passion. "That backfired me, didn't it?" he murmured. "I never meant to get so involved."

  She felt herself go hot, because she'd been the same way, utterly out of her head.

  He nodded. "Yes, it was the same for you, wasn't it? Two sane people who touch each other and go mad."

  Her lips parted. "I ... I have my own life here and I like it. I don't want to ... complicate it."

  "You don't want to sleep with me," he interpreted. "Why?"

  Her eyes fell. "Because I couldn't survive it."

  "At the moment, I'm doubtful if I could either," he said, touching his thigh with a harsh laugh. "But with the right encouragement . . ."

  She blushed to her hairline and stood up. "I need to get some sleep. Mondays are rough, remember? I imagine you could use a little rest, too."

  He got to his feet and stood in her way as she started past him. "I missed you," he said shortly. "I didn't like that - missing someone."

  "Join the club," she said with a nervous laugh.

  "Wynn, are you in love with Andy?" he asked quietly.

  She drew in a steadying breath; he was much too close. "No," she admitted.

  Relief washed away some of the lines from his face. "Afraid of me?" he asked, studying her eyes closely.

  "Oh, you do terrify me, all right," she said facetiously, but it was the truth.

  He sighed heavily. "Yes, I realize that. It isn't making things easier."

  She went into her room and closed the door before she weakened and threw herself onto his big body and begged him to love her.

  Monday was always frantic, the last full day to gather news and ads, since the press deadline was at noon on Tuesday. Wynn covered a visit from the lieutenant governor of the state, who was in Redvale to see firsthand the necessity for the mayor's proposed water-system expansion. By the time she'd driven to the airport, followed him around with the camera and taken pictures and then got back to the office to write the story, the piece had already taken all morning. There had been other reporters covering the story as well, from neighboring towns, and she had had to wait her turn to get to the politician.

  "I want this ready by the deadline too,"

  McCabe said curtly, tossing a page of badly typed copy at her. "Rewrite it while you're at your desk."

  She glanced at it and frowned. "This is a suicide," she told him. "Ed doesn't run suicides."

  "Ed isn't here."

  "McCabe, it's rough enough on the family "

  "It's news. Print it." And he got up and walked heavily out of the room, cane in hand.

  She did the political story first and then fiddled and fumed around with the suicide story until she'd written it in such a manner that it didn't read like a suicide at all. She'd noticed that the sheriff's department was still investigating the facts surrounding the man's death, so she smugly stated that he had died of unknown causes.

  McCabe, having taken the story over the phone, was, naturally enough, interested to read the final version. And when he did, he exploded.

  "It wasn't of unknown causes, unless you call a bullet through the brain mysterious," he growled at her, slamming the copy down on her typewriter, his gray eyes blazing.

  "This is a small town," she shot back, rising to battle. "You're only here to recuperate, but I live here twenty-four hours a day, and so do Ed and the rest of the staff. You may be a big-time journalist, and the manner of a man's death may not mean that much to you, but here it's a matter of honor. Did you even notice his last name?" she added, gesturing toward the copy. "I don't know him personally, but his family is one of the oldest and finest in the community. When we needed a city park, they donated land. When there was a charity drive, they gave hundreds of dollars. When the Burner family was burned out, they gave them a home until they could find a new one. Those are special people, McCabe, and I can't see trading on their tragedy to fill a hole on your front page." She got up from the desk. "If you want to run it, go ahead, but you rewrite it and please add your byline. And if you do rule it you can have my resignation on the spot. I'd rather go hungry than be accused of promoting sensationalism."

  He was watching her with narrowed eyes. "And this is exactly why I never wanted you connected with reporting," he said. "You're too soft, Wynn. You care too much."

  "Isn't that better than being dead inside?" she returned hotly. "I try my best to be objective, McCabe, and I never take sides. But I can't see capitalizing on tragedy."

  "It's news, you little mule," he told her. "News. That comes first in this business, not personal feelings and misgivings. We aren't here to censor it, we're here to present it to the public."

  "Ah, but there's another angle," she told him. "Ed says there's a fine line between the public's right to know and the public's need to know. If it was a violent murder, I wouldn't argue, because knowing about it might protect someone from having it happen to them. But a man's suicide, done quietly, for deeply personal reasons . how do you fit that in with the public's need to know?"

  He blinked. "It's news."

  "Suppose it was your mother?"

  He actually winced.

  "You've been in international journalism too long," she said quietly. "You've forgotten how it is in small towns. I meant it. If you print this -" she picked up the story "- I'll go right out the door. And tomorrow's Tuesday."

  He drew in a deep breath. "That's blackmail. And I oughtn't to let you get away with it." He lifted his chin arrogantly. "But if you feel that strongly about it, I'll back down this once." He emphasized the last two words. "In the meantime, you

  remember that I'm editing this paper, and I'll do it my way."

  "Yes, McCabe," she said with a sweet, demure smile.

  He caught her chin and planted a hard, rough kiss on her startled mouth. Fortunately there was no one to see it, but Wynn blushed anyway.

  "Not bad," he murmured with a faint smile. "But it's better when you open your mouth and kiss me back in that slow, hot way you did in your bedroom."

  "McCabe!" she burst out, putting a hand over his mouth before anyone could hear him.

  He kissed her palm and turned away.

  "All right, you're safe in here. Too many witnesses," he added from the doorway.

  She sat down heavily and stared after him. Well, she'd expected him to get his own back. But she'd won. She threw the story into the trash can.

  But if she'd expected that that was all the revenge McCabe meant to take, she was badly mistaken. Later that afternoon, them, was a bank robbery. Wynn, sitting at her desk, heard it come over the police scanner and automatically opened the filing cabinet to pull out her camera and strobe light.

  She was putting her pad and pen into her purse when McCabe walked in.

  "Where are you off to?" he asked.

  "There's a bank robbery in progress at Farmer's Bank," she burst out. "I'm on my way."

  "Oh, no, you're not!" he growled, taking the camera away from her. "Sit down."

  "McCabe!"

  "Sit down, I said!" he barked harshly, forcing her down into the chair. "Bank robbers carry guns, you little fool!"

  "McCabe, it's my job," she said. "It's what I do!"

  "Not when I'm here, it isn't." He looked oddly pale. "You sit there and listen on the scanner. When the action's over, call the police and get the story. You can go down and get pix of them carrying him off to jail, if you like, when they make an arrest, and you can interview the bank staff and get pids of them. But you don't leave this office while it's going down, do you understand?"

  "Ed would let me go!" she flashed.

  "Ed couldn't stop you." His face was set into rigid lines, and for the first time since he'd been back, she saw
the man underneath the careless, easygoing mask. She saw right through to the steel that had carried him through all the years in the front lines.

  "Now, stay put," he said shortly. "Or would you like to spend a few weeks in the hospital with a bullet through you? Maybe I should have let you change this bandage after all," he added, his gray eyes flashing wildly. "Do you know how big a hole a pistol makes?"

  "I thought you were shot with a rifle," she faltered.

  "I was shot at point-blank range with a pistol," he told her flatly. "And except for a friend in the junta who knocked the guard's arm and then helped me escape, it would have been through the head. I was being executed for trying to save those other journalists."

  She burst into tears as the impact of what he'd confessed hit her. She sat there trembling all through her body and feeling as if a part of her was dying of terror.

  "Now, you know," he said with a cold smile. "So don't get adventurous, will you darling? Being shot is a sobering experience." And he turned and went back out, closing the office door behind him.

  She hardly heard the scanner at all. She couldn't seem to stop crying. McCabe was being executed, executed, executed ... If not for that soldier, he'd be dead now, and she'd never have held him, kissed him, touched him. It was a nightmare that she couldn't escape and she didn't know how she was going to stay sane if she kept thinking about it. Because she was in love with him. Horribly, hopelessly in love with him. And when he was healed, he was going to climb on a plane and fly straight back to that other world, that bloody world where his life was at risk every second. And she knew she'd never survive the fear again. It was one thing to worry about a man she'd hero-worshiped, quite another to worry about a man she loved, knowing there'd never be another man she'd want or need so much. He'd given her a glimpse of his own private hell just now, and she'd fallen in head-first.

  Ten minutes later, Kelly burst into the room, all eyes. "I just heard about the robbery on my scanner," he said excitedly. "They've made an arrest. Can I go? would you mind? I'll get good pix, honest I will."

  Wynn handed him the camera like a zombie. "Don't forget to roll the film after each shot," she said dully.

  "Sure, I won't forget this time." He paused at the doorway. "You okay?"

  She nodded. "Interview the bank people, too, Kelly."

  "Will do! See you later."

  And he was gone like a shot. She finally dragged herself back together and finished her stories. It was time to go home before McCabe came back into the room, and he studied her for a long time before he spoke.

  "Let's go home," he said quietly.

  She nodded, getting up from her desk and gathering her purse. She followed him out, calling good-bye to the others woodenly.

  After a meal that neither of them seemed to enjoy, McCabe went off into the living room to watch the news and Wynn took a bath and finished a dress she'd been sewing for days. She called good night to McCabe without having spoken to him at all, and went to bed.

  She went to sleep early, emotionally exhausted, and found herself sitting straight up in bed hours later as a wild, harsh cry woke her.

  She blinked, listening in the darkness. The window was open, but when she looked at the moonlit night outside, she didn't see anything. The sound came again, louder. And she suddenly realized that it was coming from McCabe's room.

  Wynn got out of bed in her thin blue cotton gown and didn't stop to grab a robe. She burst into McCabe's room without even knocking and found him thrashing like a madman on the crisp white sheets. The cover had long since been kicked away, and he was nude. But she was past embarrassment, pushed there by the horror in his voice.

  "McCabe," she said, shaking him as she sat down beside him on the bed. "McCabe, wake up!"

  It might not have been the thing to do when a person was having a nightmare, but she couldn't bear to hear the raw terror in his deep voice as he cried out.

  She shook him again, harder, and he jerked upright, his eyes open wide, so that in the moonlight they looked pagan and fierce.

  He caught his breath sharply and there was a strange glitter in his eyes, a moisture.

  "Oh, God," he ground out, shaking. "God."

  He put his head in his hands and breathed roughly. "Oh, Wynn, someday I'm afraid I won't wake up in time ..."

  She put her arms around him and drew his shaggy head down on her shoulder. Her hands soothed him, stroking his head gently. "It's all right," she said softly. "You're safe. You're safe, McCabe."

  His own arms went around her with a heavy sigh and he held her, shaking and damp with sweat, his heart thundering.

  "Did I wake you?" he asked wearily. "I'm sorry. I don't often have nightmares like this, but I've been told I get pretty loud."

  Told by whom? she wondered with a wild flare of jealousy. But this wasn't the time or place for that. He was in trouble and everything womanly in her reached out to help.

  His hands bit into her back. "I shouldn't have told you what I did this afternoon, about how I got shot," he said unexpectedly. "I regretted it the minute the words were out, but I was so afraid that you'd get in the line of fire ..."

  She felt her breath catch. "You were afraid ... for me?"

  "No, for the bank robbers," he ground out angrily. His hands flattened on her back and seemed to savor the warmth of

  her body under the thin gown. "Of course, for you."

  "I've done it before," she whispered.

  "That's what frightened me so, thinking you had." His head nuzzled against her neck, her shoulder. His hands moved up and down lazily at her back, causing sensations that were faintly shocking.

  "I can take care of myself - isn't that your favorite line?" she asked with a laugh.

  "So I keep saying." He was still getting his breath back. "That was one hell of a nightmare."

  Her hands soothed him. "McCabe, tell me about it."

  "No." He held her tight for an instant before he let her go and slid back down onto the pillows with a hard sigh. "All that thrashing around knocked the bandage loose. Wynn, will you faint if I turn on the light?"

  She felt a jolt go through her body, but she said weakly, "No."

  He reached out, and light flooded the room. He propped himself against the headboard and grimaced as he looked down. "Damn."

  She followed his gaze, almost losing her poise entirely as her eyes passed over his nudity with helpless wonder. He was . perfect.

  But when she saw the wound, the extent of it, she lost her self-consciousness. "Oh, McCabe, no wonder it hurts so," she ground out, gritting her teeth at the discoloration and the marks where the stitches were.

  "They told me it was going to be a while before I'd feel like running races," he said.

  "Now you know why. Can you rebandage it? I'll even pull the sheet over my hips while you're gone."

  "Thanks a lot," she managed, getting to her feet without glancing his way, her face so bright it could have lit the way through a blizzard.

  When she came back, armed with antiseptic and fresh bandages from the medicine cabinet, he had the sheet over his narrow hips and was watching her with eyes that were faintly wicked.

  "I wish I'd had a camera," he murmured, watching her go to work efficiently and silently on the wound. "That was an enlightening experience."

  "I'm trying to think of it as a forced anatomy lesson," she muttered.

  He only laughed, watching her deal with the wound. She put on the fresh bandage and taped it in place, trying not to enjoy the feel of his hard-muscled thigh under her slender fingers.

  He was studying her, his eyes going to the bodice of the nightgown. It would be the same one he'd unbuttoned several nights back, she thought miserably.

  "If Katy Maude could see this, she'd faint dead away," Wynn said unsteadily.

  "You told Andy we were lovers," he reminded her. "And I told him the samething."

  Her eyes jerked up. "You did what?"

  "I went to see him," he said with malicious pleasure.
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  "Oh, McCabe, you didn't hit him?"

  He stared at her. "After what he did to you? My God, what kind of man would I be to let him get away with that? Of course I hit him!"

  She felt as if the roof had fallen on her.

  "It didn't occur to you that he'll spread gossip all over town about us now?"

  "It occurred to me."

  "And it didn't bother you one bit, either, did it?" she grumbled. "You'll be off in a few weeks, and why should you care about my reputation?"