Stranger in Paradise (Home Front - Book #2)

by Barbara Bretton

  Panmunjom. The Yalu River. Inchon. Places that had been unknown three years ago were on every tongue today. The fledgling United Nations was stretching its wings with this conflict, and Mac didn’t have a hell of a lot of confidence that the outcome would be what everyone hoped for.

  He liked his battles clearly defined, with good guys and bad guys, and an ending like one in a Hollywood B-movie. When you can’t even call a war a war, you’re in big trouble. He’d made reference to those feelings in a column three months ago and, before he knew what hit him, he found himself transferred back to the European beat.

  At least with a coronation, there was no doubt about who the good guy was, not when she wore a frilly white dress and a crown of diamonds and emeralds and rubies. Leave it to the English: they moaned about the obsolescence of royalty in the nuclear age, but give them an occasion to break out the glass coach and the high-stepping horses, and they come out in number to cheer their monarch on.

  All you had to do was look around at the faces in the crowd and you’d see he was absolutely right. The wiry reporter in front of him was probably from a working-class family in Birmingham. That gent over by the bobby had Oxford written all over his aristocratic face and a bloodline bluer than the Danube. Charwomen mingled with society grande dames—at least the grande dames who hadn’t received an invitation from the queen. Rich man, poor man, beggerman, thief. They were all represented in the throng. School kids, young mothers, beautiful women with glossy black hair tumbling over their shoulders—

  Wait a minute. His gaze returned to the vision jockeying for a front-row position in the dense knot of people near the bobby... she’d smell like rose petals in the spring... her voice would be gentler than a summer rain... Small delicate features in a fine-boned cameo of a face framed by a silken cascade of lustrous waves. If she topped five foot two, she was lucky... candlelight and soft music... she’d step into his arms, her head resting against his chest as they danced... It was a wonder she hadn’t been trampled by the mob. In New York, she would have been flattened in a minute.

  But this wasn’t New York. This was London. Girls with porcelain skin like that didn’t live in Queens or Brooklyn. Her eyes are blue, he thought, ignoring the roar of the crowd and the clip-clop of horses’ hooves approaching. Cornflower blue...

  “Hey, Yank! Where you off to? The queen’s about to arrive.”

  Mac no longer cared. He pushed his way into the crowd to meet the woman of his dreams.

  * * *

  Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, wife of Prince Philip of Greece, the Duke of Edinburgh, mother of Prince Charles and Princess Anne, was about to be crowned Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other Realms and Territories, head of the Commonwealth, defender of the faith—and Jane Townsend, loyal subject and hardworking newspaper reporter, could think of nothing but her feet.

  And why shouldn’t she? Stylish shoes were dreadful things, really, but Jane had never been one to sacrifice vanity for practicality. For three days now she’d been running all over London, from Covent Garden to Downing Street to Hyde Park, covering the story of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, and she had come to one very important conclusion: high heels were the devil’s own invention. She glared down at the feet of the male reporters who flanked her. Sensible brogans. Casual Italian loafers. One enterprising soul actually wore field-hockey shoes.

  She sighed. It was a man’s world. No doubt at all in her mind. She wondered how successful Lowell Thomas or Edward R. Murrow would have been had they been forced to track down their big stories while wearing three-inch heels.

  Not that she was about to stop wearing her fashionable shoes. When you were only five foot one and a quarter, you did everything you possibly could to gain extra inches and sought to repair the damage later with a long soak in a hot tub and the fortification of a dry martini. But even with the dreadful high heels on, she still was having one bloody awful time getting a glimpse of the avenue in front of Westminster.

  For all she knew, Lillibet, as the new queen was known to her family and friends, was doing a jig right there for all the world to see.

  All the world save Jane Townsend.

  Not that it came as any surprise to Jane. She had known coming back to London would be difficult at best. If it hadn’t been for the grand nature of the event, she would have told Leo to cover the story himself. She was too practical a girl to write about fairy tales and happily-ever-after. She knew there were no happy endings. You didn’t lose your mother when you were a little girl of six and believe in nursery stories for long.

  It seemed to Jane she had done her best work on the very first day of the festivities. The sight of families camping out along the sidewalk with blankets wrapped around them against the chill drizzle called to mind the darkest days of the war. Families had huddled under blankets then, too, down below the streets in the underground tube stations. Instead of fireworks, it had been the Luftwaffe lighting up the night sky with terror. Her brother, dead on the beaches of Normandy. Her father, lost in an air raid not two blocks from where she was standing right now. The streets were filled with ghosts of friends long gone, and Jane marveled that she had let her editor convince her to return to the city of her birth. Even the queen wasn’t enough to erase the sorrow in her heart.

  “Give us a smile now, will you, lovey?” A rosy-checked man with a big fat cigar winked at her. “No need to look so serious on such a splendid day.”

  Ha! Jane fought down the urge to kick him in his stubby shins. There was nothing like a lecherous old man to bring one back to the matter at hand. If she didn’t return home to Liverpool with a smashing feature story, her editor would have her head on a silver platter. Leo Donnelly had handed her the plum assignment of the century, and here Jane was, dithering on about her sore feet and thinking longingly of a warm bubble bath and a cool martini.

  Your job is all you have, Jane. See to it you don’t lose it, as well.

  She uncapped her fountain pen and opened to a fresh page in her spiral-bound notebook. “Sorry,” she said as she elbowed the woman on her right. “A bit cramped here.”

  Describe the atmosphere, Leo had said. Our readers want to know all the details. Well, unless the readers of the Liverpool Times and Tribune were wildly interested in word portraits describing the backs of men’s suit coats, Jane was in a great deal of trouble.

  Think, girl, think. Certainly there was something she could say. She’d already described the noise—loud—the weather—drizzly and cold—and the footwear—varied. Leo had said Jane and Lillibet had a lot in common. Jane had laughed at that until she gasped for breath, but now she was desperate enough to investigate that notion.

  The brand-new queen was twenty-seven.

  So was Jane.

  Elizabeth had lustrous dark hair and Wedgwood-blue eyes.

  So had Jane.

  Elizabeth also had a handsome prince for a husband, two blond and beautiful storybook children, and the crown of the British Empire.

  So much for comparisons.

  Family. Didn’t it always come down to that in the end? That endless chain of relationships, bound in blood and bone, that defied the years and the wars and the onslaught of modern life.

  Family. The one thing everyone had.

  Everyone, that is, except Jane. Her family was no more than a memory now, a distant memory of love and caring that had disappeared from her life before she was old enough to fully appreciate just how important it was. All that was left of the Townsend clan was Jane, unmarried and destined to remain so, and her dotty Uncle Nigel who wiled away his days in the Oxford library writing his masterwork on Leo Trotsky and catering to his bonbon-loving wife. Jane had been three years out of London before Nigel knew she’d even left.

  She sighed and fished her coronation schedule from her pocket.

  A roar rose up from the crowd and she craned her neck to see if the queen had finally arrived at Westminster Abbey. She tapped the shoulde
r of the balding reporter in front of her. “May I?” she asked, gesturing toward the front of the knot of correspondents pressing against the wooden barricade.

  He gave her a look generally reserved for insects and other pests, and she wished the rest of his ginger-colored hair would fall out.

  “Bloody hell,” she swore under her breath, grateful that no one could hear her. How on earth would she ever finish this story for Leo if she couldn’t see? A bobby with a cheerful face winked at her from his post a few yards away. Flirting was well and good, but if he really wanted to be of assistance, he could part the crowd like Moses parted the Red Sea and let her get a look at what, if anything, was happening in front of Westminster.

  A low male voice rumbled in her ear. “Got a problem?”

  She turned, looking up into the dazzling green eyes of an extremely handsome stranger. Tall, strong, with shoulders wide as the Thames. An American, she thought. You rarely found men like that in England, men who looked as if they’d spent most of their lives outdoors chopping down trees or climbing mountains, or whatever it was that healthy red-blooded American males were purported to do. She gave him her best smile. “If you happen to have a stepladder with you, I’d be forever in your debt.”

  “Can’t help you there,” he said, grinning in the way most Americans of her acquaintance liked to grin. “Left my stepladder in my hotel room.”

  “More’s the pity,” Jane murmured, aware that the top of her head barely reached his collarbone.

  “I have an idea,” he continued, those forest-green eyes never leaving hers. “Afraid of heights?”

  She shook her head. “Fearless, I’m ashamed to admit. Not terribly ladylike, but true.”

  The expression on his face told her he found her more than satisfactory. A warmth started sliding upward from her toes.

  He extended a bear paw of a hand. “Mac Weaver. New York Times.”

  She stared as her own hand disappeared into his. “Jane Townsend. Liverpool Times and Tribune.”

  He started to laugh. “Leo Donnelly’s an old drinking buddy of mine.”

  “Leo Donnelly,” said Jane, “is everybody’s old drinking buddy, Mr. Weaver.”

  “Mac.”

  She looked at her hand, still hidden within his grasp. “Jane.”

  His grin widened, but he released her hand. She was almost sorry he’d given up so easily. “Trust me?”

  “With my life,” she said solemnly, aware of the twinkle that must be in her own eyes.

  “On the count of three,” he said, placing a hand on either side of her waist. “One... two... three.”

  Her breath rushed from her lungs in a gasp of utter surprise. One moment she was standing there on the ground, and the next she was swept up into the air and deposited on his shoulder.

  “How’s the view?” he asked, one hand against her right hip, holding her steady.

  “Perfect.” It took a gargantuan effort to remember why it was she found herself up there in the first place. Oh, yes. The queen. “I think I see her coach in the distance!” She pointed down the road. “If you look closely, you can see the crimson-and-gold harnesses on the Windsor Greys.”

  “What’s a Windsor Grey?”

  She explained about the elegant horses bred for royal use only, but her mind was only partially engaged. His light brown hair was thick and shiny, bleached in spots by the sun to the color of golden wheat. He didn’t slick it down with hair tonic like the men she knew or have the barber clip it close to his head. In fact, it looked as if he paid his hair little attention, except to keep it clean and have it trimmed now and again. It brushed the collar of his trench coat and the urge to run her fingers through the unruly tendrils almost overpowered her.

  Almost, but not quite.

  Gathering what was left of her wits, Jane launched into a spirited explanation of royal esoterica, which must have sounded absurd coming, as it did, from a woman seated atop a stranger’s shoulder.

  But Jane was nothing if not accustomed to maintaining her composure in untoward situations. You didn’t live through six years of war and not learn how to cope.

  “I see her!” Mac Weaver sounded like a kid in his excitement. He whistled low. “Will you get a load of that coach? I’d trade my MG for that baby in a minute.”

  “My uncle Nigel would say that coach represents all that’s wrong with England today.”

  Mac Weaver’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Your uncle Nigel would love my pal Danny. Danny’s a devout Leninist, although you don’t say that too loud in the States these days.”

  “Uncle Nigel’s a Trotskyite,” said Jane, praying she wouldn’t fall from her perch. “If he had his way, he’d hand out the crown jewels in Piccadilly Circus.” Uncle Nigel had been the Townsend family’s pet eccentric, a quasi-socialist professor at Oxford University whose opinions on politics and religion usually ran counter to everything Jane believed in. Now he was all the family she had left, and she loved him despite their differences.

  Of course, Nigel had steadfastly refused to attend the coronation. “Rubbish,” he’d said, looking up from his textbooks and his sherry. “Girl should be ashamed, giving in to tradition that way.” Jane, however, had the feeling that even curmudgeonly Nigel Townsend was peering out the window of his flat, hoping for a glimpse of the pomp and splendor.

  The crowd erupted in cheers of “Long live the Queen!” when Elizabeth II turned their way and gave a royal wave of her hand. Jane—cynical practical Jane—found herself cheering along with everyone else as the coach moved past them.

  “So you don’t agree with your Uncle Nigel,” Mac Weaver said once the cheering died.

  Jane quickly smoothed her hair and tried to regain her composure. “I’m afraid I’m a staunch capitalist with a soft spot for royal tradition.”

  “I like a woman with respect for tradition.”

  I like a man with green eyes, she thought. “You can put me down now, Mr. Weaver.”

  “Mac. I said you can call me Mac.”

  She bit back a smile. “You can put me down now... Mac.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” she countered. Dear God, he was an attractive man. He rather reminded her of a fair-haired Clark Gable, all-American swash and buckle, tempered with a dash of European flair, although he’d probably be the first to disagree. Americans so rarely wanted to admit to anything as suspect as style.

  “Pretty obvious why not, don’t you think, Janie?”

  “Janie!” She started to laugh despite her best intentions. “No one has ever called me Janie before.”

  “Good. That’ll be my name for you.”

  She started in surprise. “Your name for me?”

  Those green eyes of his twinkled wickedly. “I know we have a language barrier, but I think my meaning’s pretty clear.”

  “A pet name?”

  He shrugged and she clutched at the top of his head for support. “Pet name, nickname, whatever you want to call it.”

  “I thought pet names were an offshoot of familiarity.”

  She blushed as she became aware of his hand against her thigh and the fact that his mouth was no more than six inches from her rib cage.

  “Hard to get much more familiar than this, Janie.”

  “Point well-taken. Now put me down.”

  “I don’t think so.” He shaded his eyes with his free hand and looked out over the crowd. “There are more coaches coming.”

  “The queen’s coach was the last one.”

  “What about Princess Margaret?”

  “She’s in Westminster.”

  “The Queen Mother?”

  “Westminster.”

  “Prince Philip? Her kids? Her best friend?”

  “Put me down, Mac.”

  “I’m enjoying myself.”

  “And I’m pleased indeed, but we’re attracting attention.”

  “Doesn’t bother me.”

  She caught the eye of the handsome bobby who’d smiled at her earlier. “I
could have you pinched for kidnapping.”

  “You needed my help. I’m just doing my duty as a red-blooded male faced with a damsel in distress.”

  He wasn’t listening to her. Not even a little bit. What was more, he didn’t care. Normally Jane was quite proficient in putting young men in their places. This, however, was not your average young man. Mac Weaver was older and wiser and, heaven help her, a great deal sexier than the chaps who usually tried to chat her up for a date. Jane was used to being in control of most situations, and this lack of control was intensely frustrating.

  And intriguing.

  “If I put you down, you won’t take off, will you?”

  She gestured regally toward the crowd swarming about them. “Mercury couldn’t take off, as you put it, through this mass of humanity.” Good. She sounded aloof, as if she were studying for her “O” levels.

  Again the feel of his large hands encircling her waist. Again the rush of delight as he lifted her into the air. Slowly he lowered her to the ground and she held her breath as her belly, her rib cage, her breasts brushed against his muscular chest. Dangerous... very, very dangerous....

  Say thank-you and goodbye. That was exactly what she would do. Polite, but detached. Courteous, yet distant. She had work to do, after all. And so, she imagined, did he.

  But the ground beneath her feet didn’t seem as steady as it had a few minutes earlier, and the air smelled somehow sweeter and the word goodbye never passed her lips. Instead she stood there, fiddling with her notebook and pen, the touch of his hands still palpable against her waist, while he studied her.

  “You’re older than you look, aren’t you?” he said.

  “That’s an impertinent question.” A pause, then, “How old do I look?”

  His fair brows slid together in a frown. “Twenty. Twenty-one.” Again that wicked gleam in his eyes. “Barely legal.”

  She struggled to retain her English composure. His intent was all too clear. And all too thrilling. “You’re right, Mr. Weaver,” she said. “I am older than I look.”