Midnight Hour

by Debra Dixon

  It was supposed to be a joke, but it didn’t come out that way. Her voice caught in the middle. Those were words she had never expected to hear. Or deserved to hear.

  As Iris Munro hung up the phone, Sully decided the setting around her—pastel colors and expensive bleached wood—was the perfect complement for a drop-dead blonde. Little Iris was definitely going to be one of those. Right now she was Goldilocks with Elizabeth Taylor eyes that were much too serious. She wore short faded overalls and a green T-shirt. Only one of the straps was fastened. He wasn’t sure if it was a statement or an omission.

  “Well, that was my aunt,” Iris explained unnecessarily as she fell gracefully back into the profusion of cushions on the white sofa. Her feet, encased in clunky combat boots, looked too big for the rest of her. “I told you she was coming. She’ll be here soon. You can wait if you want.”

  “Thanks.”

  Iris brightened suddenly. “Unless you want to leave your card? I can have her call you tomorrow.”

  “That’s okay. I think I’ll wait.”

  Iris shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Sully fought laughter. The kid already had the I’m-a-teenager-I-could-care-less look nailed.

  Taking a seat in one of the pale-blue-and-white-striped chairs across from the couch, Sully loosened his tie. Thank God the aunt was on her way. His questions would only have alarmed Phil Munro’s daughter. She might talk tough, but she was still a little girl. The aunt would be better. It had been one helluva day, and he was ready for it to be over.

  More than ready.

  If Munro had returned any of his calls, Sully would have closed the case, cursed his new chief for sending him on a wild-goose chase, and happily gone home to his wood shop. Turning a few more spindles for his chair backs was preferable to sitting here with the sick feeling he’d stumbled into bad news. Yessiree, buddy. One brief phone conversation with Munro, and he could have been knee-deep in sawdust right now instead of knee-deep in suspicion.

  Sully tugged his fingers through his hair, smiled at the kid and hoped his instincts were wrong for once. The odds were against it. Munro couldn’t be reached, and no one knew where he was—not his secretary, his vice president, his pilot, or his daughter. Wherever the man was, he wasn’t on a scheduled business trip or a family vacation. The man’s associates agreed it wasn’t unusual for Munro to disappear for a few days, but Sully didn’t like coincidences. Not even ones as farfetched as a psychic warning about an incommunicado executive.

  Iris heard the gate buzzer before he did and bounced off the couch. “She’s here!”

  Although Sully had a good view of the foyer, he stood up and moved closer. The butler, who had been hovering in the hallway, halted Iris with a hand on her arm and went to let in the aunt. He checked the peephole first and then cracked the door. Sully figured he was more bodyguard than butler.

  “Aunt Jessica!” Iris went flying toward her, barreling into her and sending the woman back a step. “I’m so glad you’re going to stay while Daddy’s gone!”

  Sully didn’t move. Other than to close his mouth.

  He had imagined a blonde. He had expected pretty. Rich women could usually manage pretty, and he could usually manage them. He’d had plenty of practice; Houston had more than its share of rich, attractive women who liked to flirt with danger.

  So much for expectations.

  Aunt Jessica was a sensual brunette whose genetic makeup could just as easily have been Italian as Spanish. The woman wore simple and very short khaki shorts, a red silk T-shirt, and running shoes. Her legs were a shade longer than the Texas legal limit and had probably caused more than one bar brawl—assuming she frequented bars.

  Instinct told Sully she’d seen the inside of one or two. She didn’t have the look of an ivory tower princess. This was a woman who could call a spade a spade and bring a man to his knees. In fact, most men would be perfectly happy to hit their knees in front of that body. Sully wondered how many already had.

  Nothing about her dovetailed with his expectations of Phil Munro’s sister. And then there was the startling white streak in her long dark hair, and the way she reacted to her niece. She patted the girl awkwardly on the shoulders as if unsure of how to hug the kid. Finally she set Iris away and turned to the butler.

  “Would you get my bags out of the car?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sully’s eyebrow rose at the sarcasm in the man’s tone. He wasn’t certain if the distaste was for the woman or for the task Iris volunteered to help with the bags, and suddenly they were left alone. When Aunt Jessica looked at him for the first time, Sully added dangerous to the list of things he hadn’t expected.

  Trouble had arrived in Jericho.

  Read on for an excerpt from Linda Cajio’s Rescuing Diana

  One

  “What’s your latest game?”

  “Will you go to the highest bidder?”

  Backed up against the buffet table, Diana Windsor forced herself to tune out the almost rude questions the reporters surrounding her were asking. At the moment she owed herself a small celebration. Smiling privately, she toasted the end of her long search with a sip of champagne. The expensive wine had an odd sharpness she knew she’d never acquire a taste for, and the bubbles tickled her nose, making her want to sneeze. It was worth drinking the stuff, though, Diana thought as she absently adjusted her wire-rimmed glasses on her nose. She’d just found the perfect face. Now all she had to do was persuade its owner to loan it to her.

  “Is your appearance here an indication that Princess Di is on the market for the software companies?” a persistent reporter asked.

  Diana wrinkled her nose at the nickname. A few years ago someone in the press had christened her with it, as she not only had the same first name as the Princess of Wales, but also the royal British family was the House of Windsor. She was well aware that the nickname was a nasty inside joke too. The last person she resembled was the elegantly cool blonde princess. Glancing down at her navy skirt and white blouse, she decided she probably looked just like the out-of-touch hermit everyone in the computer industry thought she was. Should she have bought a new blouse or something for this reception? she wondered as she gazed around the luxurious, three-storied, glass-enclosed room. Everyone was more dressed up than she. It had been a long time since she’d attended a social event in the computer industry. Years ago the correct dress had been T-shirts and jeans, and this morning she had feared she would be overdressed in a skirt and blouse.…

  The Face! Diana realized she was forgetting about the man whose face she needed. Rising on tiptoe, she tried to catch a second glimpse of the man, but it was impossible to see over the heads of the reporters, who kept her crowded against the buffet table.

  “Darn it!” she muttered under her breath, wishing the pesky journalists would go bother someone else. She just had to have that face to study so she could get it exactly right. The Face was her Sir Morbid.

  It really was odd, she thought, that the Face didn’t resemble the type she’d originally been searching for. But the moment she had seen it, something inside her had known this was it. From her first glimpse of the man standing in a quiet spot by a window, she’d been inexplicably drawn to his craggy, virile features and his crooked smile.

  She wondered what kind of man was behind that smile.…

  “Excuse me,” she murmured, setting her glass down on the buffet table. She began to gently squeeze her way between a man and a woman who were firing questions at her.

  They jostled her back.

  As she was pushed into the table, Diana realized two things at the same moment. One was that the reporters wouldn’t allow her to escape without answering their questions. And two was that she was practically sitting on a large platter of shrimp pâté. She knew it had to be the shrimp, since she’d been standing next to the gooey stuff when the reporters had surrounded her. Now she could feel the wet mass beginning to seep through her skirt.

  She tried to shove hersel
f away from the table, but the reporters, almost shouting their questions now, had drawn even closer. One more time she attempted to move, but failed again:

  Firmly settling onto the shrimp dish, Diana sighed. Something told her she was better off sitting unobtrusively in the hors d’oeuvres and answering a few questions. She certainly wasn’t getting any closer to the Face and its owner by fighting the reporters.

  “I’m here,” she finally said to them, “because this is a reception to introduce the Omega computer to the public. Its chief designer, Bill Osmond, is an old friend of mine, and the computer’s extraordinary breakthrough graphics and multitasking capabilities are a giant step forward in the industry—”

  “Are you designing software for the Omega?” one reporter interrupted, and shoved a microphone in her face.

  She blinked at the microphone, then began a cautious reply. “Probably—”

  The reaction was instant and complete. Shouting to one another, the reporters turned with cattlelike grace and stampeded across the enormous reception room toward a small group of men, one of whom was Bill Osmond.

  Diana blinked again, having no idea what she had said to make them so excited. She couldn’t remember having said anything, and certainly nothing important. She’d only intended to say that the software companies who bought her programs would probably port them over to the Omega. Oh, well, at least she wouldn’t be bothered by them anymore. Maybe shrimp pâté was an as yet undocumented lucky charm. And now that the reporters had left she could concentrate on the Face and the completion of her latest adventure game.

  She grinned, pleased she’d finally be finishing months of concentrated and painstaking work. With each game she had created, she had challenged herself and, she hoped, the future players, by using new and different devices. But this time she’d done something no one had ever done before. She’d added voices that replied to the players’ questions, and even gave hints when necessary. But she’d never been able to “draw” human features very well on the computer, so she’d hit upon the idea of using real faces for the program graphics. The face for Sir Morbid, her hero, had eluded her, though … until now.

  Suddenly she remembered she still hadn’t made contact with the man whose face she wanted to use. Groaning at her worse-than-usual absent-mindedness, she began to look around the crowds of people, trying to spot him again.

  “Excuse me.” said a deep, gravelly voice.

  Startled, Diana glanced up, then gaped in astonishment as she stared into the Face’s deep brown eyes.

  The man stared back at her, his straight, nearly black brows drawn together in a frown. As she’d first noticed, he was not truly handsome, but was extremely virile. His face was lean, rugged. Up close, she could see he was in his thirties. There was a cleft in his chin and his nose had a little bump that marred its straightness, indicating it had once been broken. The smile lines at the comers of his eyes and bracketing his mouth stood out sharply against his tan. His brown hair, brushed back from his forehead, had red and gold highlights.

  As Diana gazed at the Face, a potent sensation sizzled along her nerve endings, accompanied by an awareness she’d never before felt. She found her attention focusing on the man’s faintly musky scent, his tall, hard body under the three-piece beige suit, his fingers gently clasping the wineglass.…

  “Do you know you’re sitting in the shrimp pâté?” he asked, jarring her from her mesmerized perusal.

  “It keeps the reporters away,” she said, not moving. Now that she’d been reminded of what she was sitting on, she noticed the damp chill spreading ever farther across her derriere. At the same time she felt a hot blush creeping up her neck. Of all the times to be caught in the shrimp! This really was beyond embarrassment, she thought. She decided the best way to save herself from her ridiculous situation was just to bluster her way through it. Besides, if she left to clean off her skirt, she might lose the man in the interim.

  Politely she asked, “Why? Did you want some pâté?”

  His face went blank for a moment; then he replied, “Maybe later.”

  “Good.” She took a deep breath for courage and leaned closer to him. “Could I ask a favor of you? What I want isn’t difficult, but it will be tiring.”

  “You want me to rescue you from the shrimp and carry you off into the ladies room, right?”

  She chuckled. He even thought like a knight. “Forget the shrimp. What I need is you. It’s very important to me, and I promise to give you credit when it’s done. You’re perfect, absolutely perfect. I’ve been searching for you all over, and I was getting desperate, but now I’ve found you. I’ll pay, too. After all, it will take up several hours of your time. Just please say yes, because I don’t know what I’ll do if you say no.”

  It was his turn to gape in astonishment at her.

  “Please,” she repeated, smiling, hoping her rambling speech hadn’t repelled him. “I’ve just got to have your face.”

  His face!

  Adam Roberts shook his head in bewilderment. Whatever he’d been expecting her to ask of him, it certainly wasn’t to borrow his face. In fact, he’d had the distinct impression she’d been asking for something entirely different. And that request would have been even more improbable than this one, considering what his brother Dan had told him about Diana Windsor.

  According to Dan, who owned a software company, Diana Windsor was a brilliant, much-sought-after, yet hermitlike computer-games designer whom the media had dubbed Princess Di. Computer-software companies competed almost viciously to have a Diana Windsor game, as she had a reputation for producing best sellers. Dan claimed her “Space Pirates” had sold in the millions and was still in the top twenty on software charts after five years. Diana Windsor, it seemed, was the crown jewel of programmers.

  Dan had also said she was called the Virgin Queen.

  As Adam gazed at her sweet heart-shaped face and huge, guileless violet eyes, he silently cursed whoever had given her that particular nickname. Still, he had to admit there was something virginal about her. He’d been watching her ever since Dan had pointed her out among the reception guests. In her plain skirt and blouse, she stood out like a peahen among the expensively and lavishly dressed peacocks here. And she wasn’t beautiful. Other than her eyes, there was nothing striking or exotic about her features, although he readily admitted he did like the way her nose turned up at the end. He also liked the dimple that had appeared when she smiled.

  She had an aura of innocence, in spite of the most spectacular female body he’d ever seen. Her breasts were high and full, the rounded slopes beckoning to a man. Her waist was tiny, her stomach flat. Her hips flared dramatically, and her legs were shapely, her ankles trim. She had had her back to him at one point earlier, and he would have given a fortune to see her sable-brown hair let loose from its bun to tumble down the perfect line of her spine. More worldly females seemed to pale in comparison to her virginal allure, and he’d been drawn to her for that reason.

  There was something very intriguing, too, about a woman blithely sitting in shrimp pâté while telling a man she wanted his face.

  Naturally it was intriguing, he thought. It made one wonder whether she really was Diana Windsor or a psychiatric-ward escapee.

  “Well, yes or no?” she asked.

  No, Adam told himself. He was better off staying away from women who sat in shrimp and asked men for their faces. The whole business was crazy, and, besides, he still had no idea what she wanted with his face. But still …

  “Yes,” he said, acknowledging that intrigue did win over common sense sometimes.

  “Wonderful!” she exclaimed, smiling at him. “This is great! I finally have my Sir Morbid.”

  “Sir Morbid?”

  “That’s you.”

  Before Adam could question her further, she rose from her squishy seat. He watched in amusement as half the shrimp pâté rose with her.

  “Yuck,” she said, trying to see over her shoulder to access the damage. “I thi
nk I was better off staying put.”

  “Probably,” he agreed, and reached for the serving knife next to the platter. “Shall I scrape?”

  Diana hesitated for a moment, not sure what would be the least dumb thing to do right now. Then she realized the man was perfectly at ease with his suggestion. Sighing inwardly, she attempted to match his aplomb by giving him a lopsided grin. “Scrape away,” she said. “Please.”

  He spread one hand across the back of her waist to keep her skirt steady, and Diana instantly felt the temperature in the room rise at least twenty degrees. She forced herself to stand as still as possible and ignore his almost intimate touch.

  As he leaned forward and began removing the muck off her skirt, Adam realized she hadn’t allowed him to do the dirty work as a kind of male/female game playing. There had been too much amusement in her eyes when she’d said “please.” Sexually aware and interested women usually signaled something else, and Diana hadn’t.

  Lord, he thought, what if she really and truly were a virgin?

  “Well, Diana, you’ve done it again.”

  Adam instantly stop scraping at the sound of a stranger’s voice. Straightening, he saw a man smiling smugly at Diana, who let out a loud groan.

  “Jim Griegson! You would have to show up now,” she said in a disgusted tone, shaking her head.

  “Problem?” Adam asked, coldly eyeing the man. Inwardly he was surprised at the sudden urge to protect his shrimp-sitting possible virgin.

  “No problem,” Griegson replied, raising his eyebrows. He pointed to the hors d’oeuvres now littering the floor. “What is that stuff, anyway?”

  “Shrimp pâté,” Diana said. “I suppose I’ll be reading about this in ‘The Last Byte.’ ”

  Griegson laughed. “Definitely. Actually, Diana, rumor has it that you’re writing programs exclusively for the Omega.”

  “I am?”

  “That’s what the reporters who talked to you are saying. Bill Osmond was very excited to hear it too. Seems even he didn’t know anything about it.”