Midnight Rainbow

by Linda Howard

  She’d been right; he was afraid to take the chance, afraid to leave himself open to more hurt. But he was hurting anyway. He’d be a fool if he let her get away.

  But first there were old rifts to try to heal.

  He loved his parents, and he knew they loved him, but they were simple people, living close to the earth, and he’d turned into someone they didn’t recognize. His sister was a pretty, blond woman, content with her job at the local library, her quiet husband, and her three children. It had been a couple of years since he’d even seen his nephew and two nieces. When he’d stopped by the year before to tell his parents that he’d retired and had bought a farm in Tennessee, they’d all been so uncomfortable that he’d stayed for only a few hours, and had left without seeing Rae, or the kids.

  So he drove down to Georgia, and stood on the weathered old porch, knocking on the door of the house where he’d grown up. His mother came to the door, wiping her hands on her apron. It was close to noon; as always, as it had been from the time he could remember, she was cooking lunch for his father. But they didn’t call it lunch in this part of the country; the noon meal was dinner, and the evening meal was supper.

  Surprise lit her honey-brown eyes, the eyes that were so like his, only darker. “Why, son, this is a surprise. What on earth are you knocking for? Why didn’t you just come in?”

  “I didn’t want to get shot,” he said honestly.

  “Now, you know I don’t let your daddy keep a gun in the house. The only gun is that old shotgun, out in the barn. What makes you say a thing like that?” Turning, she went back to the kitchen, and he followed. Everything in the old frame house was familiar, as familiar to him as his own face.

  He settled his weight in one of the straight chairs that were grouped around the kitchen table. This was the table he’d eaten at as a boy. “Mama,” he said slowly, “I’ve been shot at so much that I guess I think that’s the normal way of things.”

  She was still for a moment, her head bent; then she resumed making her biscuits. “I know, son. We’ve always known. But we didn’t know how to reach you, how to bring you back to us again. You was still a boy when you left, but you came back a man, and we didn’t know how to talk to you.”

  “There wasn’t any talking to me. I was still too raw, too wild. But the farm that I bought, up in Tennessee…it’s helped.”

  He didn’t have to elaborate, and he knew it. Grace Sullivan had the simple wisdom of people who lived close to the land. She was a farm girl, had never pretended to be anything else, and he loved her because of it.

  “Will you stay for dinner?”

  “I’d like to stay for a couple of days, if I won’t be messing up any plans.”

  “Grant Sullivan, you know your daddy and I don’t have any plans to go off gallivanting anywhere.”

  She sounded just like she had when he had been five years old and had managed to get his clothes dirty as fast as she could put them on him. He remembered how she’d looked then, her hair dark, her face smooth and young, her honey-gold eyes sparkling at him.

  He laughed, because everything was getting better, and his mother glanced at him in surprise. It had been twenty years since she’d heard her son laugh. “That’s good,” he said cheerfully. “Because it’ll take me at least that long to tell you about the woman I’m going to marry.”

  “What!” She whirled on him, laughing, too. “You’re pulling my leg! Are you really going to get married? Tell me about her!”

  “Mama, you’ll love her,” he said. “She’s nuts.”

  * * *

  HE’D NEVER THOUGHT that finding her would be so hard. Somehow he’d thought that it would be as simple as calling her father and getting her address from him, but he should have known. With Jane, nothing was ever as it should be.

  To begin with, it took him three days to get in touch with her father. Evidently her parents had been out of town, and the housekeeper either hadn’t known where Jane was, or she’d been instructed not to give out any information. Considering Jane’s circumstances, he thought it was probably the latter. So he cooled his heels for three days until he was finally able to speak to her father, but that wasn’t much better.

  “She’s in Europe,” James explained easily enough. “She stayed here for about a week, then took off again.”

  Grant felt like cursing. “Where in Europe?”

  “I don’t really know. She was vague about it. You know Jane.”

  He was afraid that he did. “Has she called?”

  “Yes, a couple of times.”

  “Mr. Hamilton, I need to talk to her. When she calls again, would you find out where she is and tell her to stay put until I get in touch?”

  “That could be a couple of weeks. Jane doesn’t call regularly. But if it’s urgent, you may know someone who knows exactly where she is. She did mention that she’s talked to a friend of yours…let’s see, what was his name?”

  “Sabin,” Grant supplied, grinding his teeth in rage.

  “Yes, that’s it. Sabin. Why don’t you give him a call? It may save you a lot of time.”

  Grant didn’t want to call Kell; he wanted to see him face to face and strangle him. Damn him! If he’d recruited Jane into that gray network…!

  He was wasting time and money chasing over the country after her, and his temper was short when he reached Virginia. He didn’t have the clearance to go in, so he called Kell directly. “Sullivan. Clear me through. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “Grant—”

  Grant hung up, not wanting to hear it over the phone.

  Ten minutes later he was leaning over Kell’s desk. “Where is she?”

  “Monte Carlo.”

  “Damn it!” he yelled, pounding his fist on the desk. “How could you drag her into this?”

  “I didn’t drag her,” Kell said coolly, his dark eyes watchful. “She called me. She said she’d noticed something funny and thought I might like to know. She was right; I was highly interested.”

  “How could she call you? Your number isn’t exactly listed.”

  “I asked her the same thing. It seems she was standing beside you when you called me from Dallas.”

  Grant swore, rubbing his eyes. “I should have known. I should have been expecting it after she hot-wired that truck. She watched me do it, just once, then did it herself the next time.”

  “If it’s any consolation, she didn’t get it exactly right. She remembered the numbers, but not the right order. She told me I was the fifth call she’d placed.”

  “Oh, hell. What kind of situation is she in?”

  “A pretty explosive one. She’s stumbled across a high-rolling counterfeiter. He has some high-quality plates of the pound, the franc and several denominations of our currency. He’s setting up the deal now. Some of our comrades are very interested.”

  “I can imagine. Just what does she think she can do?”

  “She’s going to try to steal the plates.”

  Grant went white. “And you were going to let her?”

  “Damn it, Grant!” Kell exploded. “It’s not a matter of letting her and you know it! The problem is stopping her without tipping the guy off and sending him so deep underground we can’t find him. I’ve got agents tiptoeing all around her, but the guy thinks he’s in love with her, and his buyer has watchdogs sniffing around, and we simply can’t snatch her without blowing the whole thing sky high!”

  “All right, all right. I’ll get her out of it.”

  “How?” Kell demanded.

  “I’ll get the plates myself, then jerk her out of there and make damned certain she never calls you again!”

  “I would deeply appreciate it,” Kell said. “What are you going to do with her?”

  “Marry her.”

  Something lightened in Kell’s dark face, and he leaned back in his chair, looping his hands behind his head. “Well, I’ll be damned. Do you know what you’re getting into? That woman doesn’t think like most people.”

&n
bsp; That was a polite way of saying it, but Kell wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. Within moments of meeting her, Grant had realized that Jane was just a little unorthodox. But he loved her, and she couldn’t get into too much trouble on the farm.

  “Yeah, I know. By the way, you’re invited to the wedding.”

  * * *

  JANE SMILED AT FELIX, her eyes twinkling at him. He was such a funny little guy; she really liked him, despite the fact that he was a counterfeiter and was planning to do something that could really damage her country. He was slightly built, with shy eyes and a faint stutter. He loved to gamble, but had atrocious luck; that is, he’d had atrocious luck until Jane had started sitting beside him. Since then he’d been winning regularly, and he was now devoted to her.

  Despite everything she was having fun in Monte Carlo. Grant was being slow coming around, but she hadn’t been bored. If she had trouble sleeping, if she sometimes woke to find her cheeks wet, that was something she had to accept. She missed him. It was as if part of herself were gone. Without him there was no one she could trust, no one in whose arms she could rest.

  It was a dangerous tightrope she was walking, and the excitement of it helped keep her from settling into depression. The only thing was, how much longer was it going to last? If she saw that Felix was finally going to make up his mind who to sell to, she would be forced to do something—fast—before the plates got into the wrong hands.

  Felix was winning again, as he had every night since he’d met Jane. The elegant casino was buzzing, and the chandeliers rivaled in brilliance the diamonds that were roped about necks and dripping from ears. The men in their formal evening wear, the women in their gowns and jewels, casually wagering fortunes on the roll of the dice or the turn of a card, all created an atmosphere that was unequaled anywhere in the world. Jane fit into it easily, slim and graceful in her black silk gown, her shoulders and back bare. Jet earrings dangled to her shoulders, and her hair was piled on top of her head in a careless, becoming twist. She wore no necklace, no bracelets, only the earrings that touched the glowing gold of her skin.

  Across the table Bruno was watching them closely. He was becoming impatient with Felix’s dithering, and his impatience was likely to force her hand.

  Well, why not? She’d really waited as long as she could. If Grant had been interested, he’d have shown up before now.

  She stood and bent down to kiss Felix on the forehead. “I’m going back to the hotel,” she said, smiling at him. “I have a headache.”

  He looked up, dismayed. “Are you really ill?”

  “It’s just a headache. I was on the beach too long today. You don’t have to leave; stay and enjoy your game.”

  He began to look panicky, and she winked at him. “Why don’t you see if you can win now without me? Who knows, it may not be me at all.”

  He brightened, the poor little man, and turned back to his game with renewed fervor. Jane left the casino and hurried back to the hotel, going straight to her room. She always allowed for being followed, because she sensed that she always was. Bruno was a very suspicious man. Swiftly she stripped off her gown, and she was reaching into the closet for a dark pair of pants and a shirt when a hand closed over her mouth and a muscular arm clamped around her waist.

  “Don’t scream,” a low, faintly raspy voice said in her ear, and her heart jumped. The hand left her mouth, and Jane turned in his arms, burying her face against his neck, breathing in the delicious, familiar male scent of him.

  “What are you doing here?” she breathed.

  “What do you think I’m doing here?” he asked irritably, but his hands were sliding over her nearly-naked body, reacquainting himself with her flesh. “When I get you home, I just may give you that spanking I’ve threatened you with a couple of times. I get you away from Turego, and as soon as my back is turned you plunge right back into trouble.”

  “I’m not in trouble,” she snapped.

  “You couldn’t prove it by me. Get dressed. We’re getting out of here.”

  “I can’t! There are some counterfeit plates that I’ve got to get. My room is being watched, so I was going to climb out the window and work my way around to Felix’s room. I have a pretty good idea where he’s hidden them.”

  “And you say you’re not in trouble.”

  “I’m not! But really, Grant, we’ve got to get those plates.”

  “I’ve already got them.”

  She blinked, her brown eyes owlish. “You do? But…how? I mean, how did you know—never mind. Kell told you, didn’t he? Well, where did Felix have them hidden?”

  She was enjoying this. He sighed. “Where do you think he had them?”

  “In the ceiling. I think he pushed up a square of the ceiling and hid the plates in there. It’s really the only good hiding place in the room, and he isn’t the type to put them in a safety deposit box in a bank, which is where I’d have put them.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” he said, annoyed. “You’d have put them in the ceiling, just like he did.”

  She grinned. “I was right!”

  “Yes, you were right.” And he probably never should have told her. Turning her around, he gave her a pat on the bottom. “Start packing. Your little friend is probably the nervous sort who checks his hidey-hole every night before he goes to bed, and we want to be long gone before he does.”

  She dragged down her suitcases and started throwing clothes into them. He watched her, sweat popping out on his brow. She looked even better than he remembered, her breasts ripe and round, her legs long and shapely. He hadn’t even kissed her. He caught her arm, swinging her around and catching her close to him. “I’ve missed you,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers.

  Her response was instantaneous. She rose on tiptoe, moving against him, her arms coiled around his neck and her fingers deep in his hair. He’d had a haircut, and the dark blond strands slipped through her fingers to fall back in place, shaped perfectly to his head. “I’ve missed you, too,” she whispered when he released her mouth.

  His breathing was ragged as he reluctantly let her go. “We’ll finish this when we have more time. Jane, would you please put on some clothes?”

  She obeyed without question, pulling on green silk trousers and a matching green tunic. “Where are we going?”

  “Right now? We’re driving to the beach and turning the plates over to an agent. Then we’re going to catch a flight to Paris, London and New York.”

  “Unless, of course, Bruno is waiting just outside the door, and instead we end up sailing across the Mediterranean.”

  “Bruno isn’t waiting outside the door. Would you hurry?”

  “I’m finished.”

  He picked up the suitcases and they went downstairs, where he checked her out. It all went like clockwork. There was no sign of Bruno, or any of the men she had dubbed “Bruno’s goons.” They turned the plates over to the promised agent and drove to the airport. Jane’s heart was thudding with a slow, strong, powerful beat as Grant slipped into the seat beside her and buckled himself in. “You know, you never did actually tell me what you’re doing here. You’re retired, remember? You’re not supposed to be doing things like this.”

  “Don’t play innocent,” he advised, giving her a look from molten gold eyes. “I saw your fine hand in this from the beginning. It worked. I came after you. I love you; I’m taking you to Tennessee; and we’re going to be married. But you’d better remember that I’m on to your tricks now, and I know you’re too slick for your own good. Did I leave anything out?”

  “No,” Jane said, settling back in her seat. “I think you have everything covered.”

  * * * * *

  If you’re looking for romance, sensuality and heart, don’t miss these great titles by NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author

  LINDA HOWARD

  Mackenzie’s Legacy

  Mackenzie’s Heroes

  “Linda Howard writes with power, stunning sensuality and a storytelling abi
lity unmatched in the romance drama. Every book is a treasure for the reader to savor again and again.”

  —New York Times bestselling author IRIS JOHANSEN

  “You can’t just read one Linda Howard!”

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  ISBN-13: 9781460394625

  MIDNIGHT RAINBOW

  Copyright © 1986 by Linda Howington

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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