Heart of Winter

by Diana Palmer

  “The iceman calleth,” Becky said, whistling through her teeth. “And was he in a snit! He said to tell you that you can—” She cleared her throat. “Well, that you can sit up here in the city and freeze for all he cares, and that if he never sees you again, it will be too soon.” She cocked her head at Nicky. “Does he drink? Because he sounded as if he had a snootful!”

  That didn’t sound like Winthrop. “Are you sure it was Winthrop?” she asked.

  “Boy, am I sure.” Becky shook her head. “He even spelled it for me.” She smiled with mischief in her eyes. “He got it right on the third try, anyway.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “Oh, my, isn’t what the switchboard operator had to say. She’s thinking of filing charges against him for his use of language.” She turned to go back to her own office, still shaking her head. “Poor old guy. What did you do to him, Nicky?”

  Nicky wasn’t sure. But if he was that angry, she must have gotten under his skin a little. She sat back and waited for new developments.

  But when a week went by with no more word from him, she fell into a black depression. Gerald came back to work a new man. The honeymoon in the Bahamas had been ecstatic, and he could hardly keep his feet on the floor while Nicky brought him up to date on what was happening in the office.

  “Yes, I can handle all that,” he sighed. He watched her closely. “I hear Winthrop called you.”

  She flushed. “Sort of.”

  “I hear he was drunk at the time,” he added.

  “How did you hear that?”

  “Mary,” he said. “She was snickering so hard that I could barely understand her. She said he went off into the mountains and dared anybody to bother him.”

  “Will he be all right?” she asked with concern she couldn’t help.

  “Winthrop?” he asked as if she’d taken leave of her senses.

  “Well, he isn’t Superman.”

  “Don’t tell him that. He’s just taken out another lease on the cape,” he murmured.

  “If he wants to go off in the mountains in a snit just because I wouldn’t come to the wedding, that’s his problem,” she said shortly. “Anyway, he didn’t really want me there.”

  “That isn’t what Mary said.”

  “What do you want to do about this letter?” she asked, attempting to change the subject.

  He started to speak, then changed his mind and settled for work. They fell back into a pleasant routine, and Winthrop wasn’t mentioned again. Nicky was sure that he was only angry because she hadn’t fallen all over herself getting back to Montana. She didn’t dare hope it was because he’d started to care for her.

  He didn’t call. He didn’t write. Christmas Eve came and Nicky gave up hoping that she’d hear from him. She wished her boss a merry Christmas, sent her love to Sadie and went to Lexington for the holidays.

  Her father met her at the airport in his Lincoln, with Carol beside him, and took time to have the driver run them through town so that she could see the beautiful Christmas decorations.

  “It’s just like old times,” Nicky sighed. “I always did love the way they decorate the city.”

  “Me, too. You ought to see the decorations we have at the house,” her father said with a twinkle in his eyes.

  “And your present,” Carol added, also twinkling. “It was really hard to wrap, so I gave up trying and just stuck a bow on it.”

  Nicole had presents for both of them in her luggage: a pipe for her father and for Carol a bottle of her favorite perfume. But she frowned, wondering what they could have gotten her that made them both look so smug.

  She didn’t have long to wait. They piled out at the steps and she walked toward the enormous brick house with feverish curiosity. It was decorated with boughs of holly and red velvet ribbon, and she took a minute to tell Carol how pretty it looked.

  “Thanks,” Carol laughed. “I did it all myself. With a little help from your dad,” she acknowledged with a wink in his direction.

  “Your present’s in the living room,” her father added as he helped Carol out of her mink coat. “We’ll go see about some hot cider while you open it.”

  “Aren’t you coming?” she asked.

  Her father helped her out of her tweed coat, nodding at the pretty green silk dress that matched her eyes. “You look very nice. No, we’re not coming. Not just yet. Go on, now. And Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”

  He kissed her cheek and then went away, whispering to Carol, who glanced over her shoulder at Nicky and giggled.

  Boy, it sure was some strange Christmas, she told herself as she opened the living room door. And then she stopped dead. Because her present wasn’t under the huge lighted Christmas tree. It was sitting on the sofa, looking toward her furiously, with a glass of whiskey in one lean hand.

  “Merry Christmas,” Winthrop said curtly.

  Her mouth flew open. He had a bow stuck on the pocket of his gray vested suit, and he looked hung over and pale and a little disheveled. But he was so handsome that her heart skipped wildly, and she looked into his dark eyes with soft dreams in her own.

  “You’ve got a bow on your pocket,” she said in a voice that sounded too high-pitched to be her own.

  “Of course I’ve got a bow on my pocket. I’m your damned Christmas present. Didn’t you listen to your father?” He got up, setting the glass down with enough force to shake the table, and started toward her, limping just a little. He didn’t look like a present, he looked murderous. “I can’t eat,” he said accusingly. “I can’t sleep, I can’t work. I spent a week up in the mountains trying to get you out of my head, and all I got was drunk. I’m hung over, bleary-eyed and half mad with wanting you.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad, Winthrop,” she whispered. Her heart went wild. “Because I’m half mad with wanting you, too…Oh!”

  The tiny cry was lost under his devouring mouth. He had her up in his arms, barely pausing to kick the door shut before he carried her back to the sofa and stretched her out on its velvety length under the formidable weight of his body.

  She protested the intimacy of his hold, but he shook his head and took her mouth under his again, glorying in its breathless response.

  “No more fighting,” he breathed into her parting lips. “There’s no need. You’re mine, now. That gives me the right to take any liberties I please with you, and this is only the beginning. You’re going to marry me, lady. I’ve got all the necessary papers. All we need is a blood test, and that’s scheduled an hour from now. We’re going to have a Christmas wedding.”

  Tears stung her eyes. She looked up at him through a drowsy haze, her body intimately pressed to his, her eyes wide and soft and loving. “You don’t want to get married,” she whispered.

  “Yes, I do,” he corrected her. He looked stern and solemn and very adult. But the look in his eyes was so tender that it knocked the breath out of her. “I just didn’t know it until I let you walk out the door. And then I couldn’t get you to come back. I thought I didn’t care.” He bent, brushing her mouth with exquisite gentleness. “But I can’t quite make it without you, Nicky,” he added huskily. “I’ve never been so alone. Come home where you belong. I’m too old, and too cynical, and not quite the man I used to be, but I…” He took a slow breath. “I love you, little one.”

  Tears ran down her face. She didn’t imagine he’d ever said that in his life, and she felt the faint shudder that ran through his body when she arched hers to search blindly for his mouth.

  “I love you, too,” she breathed. “Deathlessly. Hopelessly. With all my heart!”

  “Yes, I know, you say it quite often,” he murmured, nuzzling her nose with his. “After a while, I began to enjoy hearing it. You got under my skin from the very first time I saw you, so busy at your desk. I convinced Gerald that he needed to bring you out with him,” he confessed lazily, shocking her. “I didn’t realize why, of course, until I had you in my arms. Then it all fell into place, and I did my best to run. But I was caught, even t
hen. God, I’ve been miserable without you!”

  He kissed her hungrily and she felt his hands at her hips, lifting her up into an embrace that made her shudder and gasp and go scarlet.

  “This is part of loving,” he whispered into her mouth. “Part of marriage. It’s beautiful. Don’t be afraid of it.”

  “I’m…not.” She looked straight into his dark eyes and imagined how beautiful it would be joining with him in loving union, softness to hardness, tender rhythm on cool sheets in the darkness. And she gasped again. “Oh, my,” she whispered shakily.

  “Oh, my, indeed,” he whispered. “Yes, sweet, just that way. Intimate and ardent…your body and mine. For all the long, achingly sweet nights of our lives. I’ll be your fulfillment, and you’ll be mine. And there’ll never be another secret between us.”

  She cradled his head in her hands and pulled it gently toward her. “I’ll give you children.”

  He smiled softly. “Yes.” His head bent. “Merry Christmas, sugarplum.”

  She smiled back as she gave him her mouth. “You delicious Christmas present, you…”

  Outside the door, two people with a bottle of champagne and four glasses were congratulating themselves on their little surprise.

  “Should we knock?” Carol asked.

  Dominic White pursed his lips. “Sounds a little premature.” He grinned at the muffled laughter behind the door. He lifted an eyebrow. “Suppose we sample the champagne? Just to make sure it’s not corked?”

  “A brilliant idea,” Carol agreed, linking her hand through his arm.

  “I have another. How do you feel about a double wedding?”

  Carol reached up and kissed his cheek. “Ecstatic,” she sighed. “Can we get a blood test and a license in time?”

  “Honey, I ain’t a millionaire for nothin’,” he drawled.

  “As long as you know I’m only marrying you for your money,” she reminded him with a mischievous smile.

  “Mercenary hussy,” he accused. And he grinned. They went into the office and closed the door. And after a minute, laughter was coming from that room, as well. Outside, the first flakes of snow began to fall. A white Christmas was well under way.

  IF WINTER COMES

  Chapter One

  It was an election morning in the newsroom, and Carla Maxwell felt the excitement running through her slender body like a stab of lightning. The city hall beat which she shared with Bill Peck was a dream of a job. Something was always happening—like this special election to fill a vacant seat created by a commissioner’s resignation. There were only five men on the city commission, and this was the Public Works seat. Besides that, the two men running for it were, respectively, a good friend and a deadly foe of the present mayor, Bryan Moreland.

  “How does it look?” Carla called to Peck, who was impatiently running a hand through his gray-streaked blond hair as he hung onto a telephone receiver waiting for the results from the city’s largest precinct.

  “Neck and neck, to use a trite expression.” He grinned at her. He had a nice face, she thought. Lean and smooth and kind. Not at all the usual expressionless mask worn by most veteran newsmen.

  She smiled back, and her dark green eyes caught the light and seemed to glow under the fluorescent lights.

  “What precinct are you waiting for?” Beverly Miller, the Society Editor, asked, pausing by Peck’s desk.

  “Ward four,” he told her. “It looks like…hello? Yes, go ahead.” He scribbled feverishly on his pad, thanked his caller and hung up. He shook his head. “Tom Green took the fourth by a small avalanche,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Now there’s a surprise for you. A political novice winning a city election in a three-man field with no runoff.”

  “I’ll bet Moreland’s tickled to death,” Carla said dryly. “Green’s been at his throat ever since he took office almost four years ago.”

  “He may not run again now,” Beverly laughed. “He hasn’t announced.”

  “He will,” Peck said confidently. “Moreland’s one hell of a fighter.”

  “That’s the truth,” Beverly said, perching her ample figure on the edge of Peck’s desk. She smiled at Carla. “You haven’t been here long enough to know much of Moreland’s background, but he started out as one of the best trial lawyers in the city. He had a national reputation long before he ran for mayor and won. And despite agitators like Green, he commands enough public respect to keep the office if he wants it. He’s done more for urban renewal, downtown improvement and city services than any mayor in the past two decades.”

  “Then why do we keep hearing rumors of graft?” Carla asked Peck when Beverly was called away to her phone.

  “What rumors?” Peck asked, even as he began feeding his copy into the electronic typewriter.

  “I’ve had two anonymous phone calls this week,” she told him, pushing a strand of dark hair back under the braided coil pinned on top her head. “Big Jim gave me the green light to do some investigating.”

  “Where do you plan to start?” he asked indulgently.

  “At the city treasury. One particular department was singled out by my anonymous friend,” she added. “I was told that if I checked the books, I’d find some very interesting entries.”

  “Tell me what you’re looking for, and I’ll check into it for you,” he volunteered.

  She cocked her head at him. “Thanks—” she smiled “—but no thanks. Just because I’m fresh out of college, don’t think I need a shepherd. My father owned a weekly paper in south Georgia.”

  “No wonder you feel so comfortable here,” he chuckled. “But remember that a weekly and a daily are worlds apart.”

  “Don’t be arrogant,” she chided. “If you tried to hire on at a weekly, you’d very likely find that your experience wouldn’t be enough.”

  “Oh?”

  “You have one beat,” she reminded him. “City Hall. You don’t cover fashion shows or go to education board meetings, or cover the county morgue. Those are other beats. But,” she added, “on a weekly you’re responsible for news, period. The smaller the weekly, the smaller the staff, the more responsibility you have. I worked for Dad during the summers. I was my own editor, my own proofreader, my own photographer, and I had to get all the news all the time. Plus that, I had to help set the copy if Trudy got sick, I had to do layout and paste-up and write ads, and set headlines, and sell ads…”

  “I surrender!” Peck laughed. “I’ll just stick to this incredibly easy job I’ve got, thanks.”

  “After seventeen years, I’m not surprised.”

  He raised a pale eyebrow at her, but he didn’t make another comment.

  Later, as they were on their way out of the building, Peck groaned while he scanned the front page of the last edition.

  “God help us, that’s not what he said!” he burst out.

  “Not what who said?” She pushed through the door onto the busy sidewalk and waited for him.

  “Moreland. The paper says he stated that the city would pick up the tab for new offices at city hall….” Peck ran a rough hand through his hair. “I told that damned copy editor twice that Moreland said he wouldn’t agree to redecorate city hall! Oh, God, he’ll eat us alive tonight.”

  Tonight was when one of the presidential advisers was speaking at a local civic organization’s annual meeting, to which she and Peck were invited. It would be followed by a reception at a local state legislator’s home, and Moreland would certainly be there.

  “I’ll wear a blond wig and a mustache,” she assured him. “And you can borrow one of my dresses.”

  His pale eyes skimmed over her tall, slender body appreciatively, before he considered his own compact, but husky physique. “I’d need a bigger size, but thanks for the thought.”

  “Maybe he won’t blame us,” she said comfortingly.

  “We work for the paper,” he reminded her. “And the fact that a story I called in got fouled up won’t cut any ice. Don’t sweat it, honey, it’s my fault not
yours. Moreland doesn’t eat babies.”

  “I’m twenty-three, you know,” she said with a smile. “I was late getting into college.”

  “Moreland’s older than I am,” he persisted. “He’s got to be pushing forty, if he isn’t already there.”

  “I know, I’ve seen the gray hairs.”

  “Most of those he got from the accident,” he murmured as they got to the parking lot. “Tragic thing, and so senseless. Didn’t even scratch the other driver. I guess the other guy was too drunk to notice any injuries, even if he had them.”

  “That was before my time,” she said. She paused at the door of her yellow Volkswagen. “Was it since he was elected?”

  “Two years ago.” He nodded. “There were rumors of a split between him and his wife, but no confirmation.”

  “Any kids?”

  “A daughter, eight years old.”

  She nodded. “She must be a comfort to him.”

  “Honey, she was in the car,” he told her. “He was the only survivor.”

  She swallowed hard. “He doesn’t look as if bullets would scratch him. I guess after that, they wouldn’t.”

  “That’s what I hear.” He opened the door of his car. “Need a ride to the meeting?”

  She shook her head. “Thanks, anyway. I thought I might toss my clothes in the trunk and stop by a laundromat after the reception.”

  He froze with his hand on the door handle. “Wash clothes at a laundromat at midnight in an evening gown?”

  “I’m going to wear a dress, not an evening gown, and the laundromat belongs to my aunt and uncle. They’ll be there.”

  He let out a deep breath. “Don’t scare me like that. It’s not good for a man of my advanced years.”

  “What a shame, and I was going to buy you a racing set for Christmas, too.”

  “Christmas is three months away.”

  “Is that all?” she exclaimed. “Well, maybe I’d better forgo the meeting and go Christmas shopping instead.”

  “And leave me to face Moreland alone?” He looked deserted, tragic.