Tender Stranger

by Diana Palmer

  Minutes later they were sitting in a small office, going over and over what had happened for the airport security people and three men who looked very much like federal officers. It didn’t take long, and they were told that they’d have to appear in court, but Dani hardly heard any of it. She was trying to deal with the realization that she was married to a professional mercenary soldier. And she didn’t know what to do.

  Her eyes studied him as he spoke to the other men. He didn’t look like one. But the air of authority that had puzzled her, his confidence, the way he seemed to take command of things—yes, it made sense now. She even knew when it had happened, back when that woman had made a fool of him. That was the beginning. And now he had a lifestyle he liked, and a biddable little wife who’d be waiting back at home while he went around the world looking for trouble.

  She lifted the cup of coffee they’d brought her and sipped it quietly. No, sir, she thought, her eyes narrowing. No, sir, she wasn’t going to be his doormat. She cared for him, but there had to be more to a relationship than sex. And if that was all he wanted from her, he could go away.

  A cold sickness washed over her as she realized how much a part of her life he’d become. So quickly, he’d absorbed her. All she had to do was look at him and she ached to hold him, to be loved by that warm, powerful body. She knew so much about him, things she blushed even remembering. But none of it was real. She couldn’t sit alone at home while he went out and risked his life. My God, she thought, no wonder he didn’t want children! How could he have kids in his line of work? They’d never even see their father! As for Dani, how could she live with worry eating at her like an acid? Every time he left she’d be wondering if she’d ever see him again. She’d wonder, and not know, and eventually the not-knowing would kill her soul. No, she thought miserably. Better to have a sweet memory than a living nightmare. He’d have to divorce her. She knew already that he wouldn’t give up his way of life. And she couldn’t stay married to him under the circumstances. So there was nothing left. A dream, ending too soon.

  After the meeting was over they walked quietly outside the terminal. The captain followed them, along with the male flight attendant who brought Dani’s purse and her sack of books.

  “What now?” she asked helplessly.

  “The airline will pay for hotel rooms,” the captain said with a kind smile. “Tomorrow we’ll fly you to Greenville.”

  Dutch looked hunted as he glanced over the captain’s shoulder. “The press corps has taken up residence,” he growled.

  “No stomach for stardom?” the captain grinned.

  “None whatsoever,” came the taut reply. “Dani and I are catching the next flight out of here tonight,” he added flatly. “I’m afraid that the international wire services will have a field day.”

  “Probably so,” the captain agreed. “It seems our erstwhile hijackers have some interesting ties to a certain Central American dictator and a few communist strings as well.” He sighed. “They’d have wanted weapons once we landed,” he said, glancing at Dutch.

  “Yes. And they’d have gotten them,” the blond man said. He lit a cigarette.

  “Used that knife very often?” the captain asked quietly.

  Dutch nodded. “Far too often, in years past.”

  “Would you mind telling me what occupation you’re in?” he was asked.

  Dutch eyed him quietly. “Care to make an educated guess?”

  “Covert operations.”

  He nodded, noticing Dani’s hollow-eyed stare. He looked down at her with unreadable eyes. “I’m a professional mercenary. My specialty is logistics, but I’m handy with small arms as well, and I have something of a reputation with that knife. I made it myself.” He glanced at the captain. “When the surgeons get it removed, I’d like to have it back.”

  The captain nodded. “I’ll have it gold-plated, if you like. You saved us one hell of a mess. Any time you need help, just let me know.”

  “That isn’t likely, but thank you.”

  The captain walked away and Dutch smoked his cigarette quietly while the press converged on the pilot once he was alone.

  “Is that why you wanted to avoid the press?” Dani asked hesitantly. He frightened her. Despite the fact that she’d read The Dogs of War twice and seen the film three times, she could hardly believe what she was hearing. It was like watching a movie. All of it. The hijacking, the way he’d handled the hijackers, the matter-of-fact way he’d dealt with all of it. Her eyes were glued to his face while she turned it all around in her mind. She was married to a soldier of fortune. Now what was she going to do?

  He saw that look in her eyes and could have cursed. Fate was giving him a hard time.

  “I don’t like publicity,” he said. “My private life is sacred.”

  “And where do I fit into your life?” she asked quietly. It was too soon to ask that, but things needed to be said now.

  “You’re my wife,” he said simply.

  “Why did you marry me?” she asked.

  He looked hunted. His eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched. He took a deep puff of his cigarette before he replied. “I wanted you.”

  So that was all, she thought. It didn’t hurt, although she was sure it was going to, when the numbness wore off. She was still in a state of shock. She had risked her life, seen a man wounded in front of her eyes, learned that her husband was a mercenary….

  He was watching her face, and he felt a violence of emotion that made him dizzy. She was under his skin. In his very soul. How did he get her out?

  “Yes, I thought so,” she said too casually. She searched the face her hands had touched so lovingly. “And what did you expect that our married life would be like? That I’d sit home and wait while you went away and came home shot to pieces year after year?”

  He felt shocked. Taken by surprise. He stared at her intently. “I thought…we’d each have our own lives. That we could enjoy each other. Belong to each other.”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry. I couldn’t live that way. You’d better divorce me.”

  It was almost comical. His spinster wife of a week was showing him the door. Him! Women had chased him for years. They’d practically hung out windows trying to snare him because of his very elusiveness. And this plain little frumpy bookseller was showing him the door!

  “You needn’t look so shocked,” she told him. “I’m only saving myself a little heartache, that’s all. I can’t live with the knowledge that your life is constantly in danger. I’d be destroyed.”

  “I’m not suicidal, for God’s sake,” he began.

  “You’re not superhuman, either,” she reminded him. “There are scars on you. I didn’t realize what they were at the time, but now I know. And one day you’ll stop a bullet. I don’t want to be sitting alone waiting for the phone to ring. I’m strong. But I’m not that strong. I care too much.”

  It amazed him that he felt those last four words to the soles of his feet. She cared about him. Of course she did; it was written all over her, in the soft gray eyes that had worshipped him when he loved her, in the hands that had adored him. It was infatuation or hero worship, he knew, but it had been flattering. Now it meant something more to him. Now it mattered that she was turning him away.

  “We’ll talk when we get to Greenville,” he said firmly.

  “You can talk all you like,” she said, walking away from him. “I’ve had my say.”

  “You little frump!” he burst out, infuriated.

  “Look who’s calling whom a frump!” she threw back, whirling, all big angry gray eyes behind her glasses and flying hair and flushed cheeks. “Who do you think you are, big, bad soldier. God’s gift?”

  He wanted to strangle her, but he laughed instead.

  “And don’t laugh at me,” she fumed. “It was all a line, wasn’t it? You told me I was beautiful to you, but I was just a pickup, something to play with between wars!”

  “At first,” he agreed. He finished his cigarette and g
round it out under his shoe. “But not now.”

  “That’s right, now I’m a liability,” she told him. “I’m a holiday interlude that’s over.”

  He shook his blond head. She got prettier by the day, he mused, watching her. He’d called her a frump only because he was so angry. He smiled slowly. “You aren’t over, pretty girl.”

  “I’m a frump!” she yelled at him.

  A passing flight attendant grinned at her. “Not quite,” he murmured, and winked.

  Dani picked up her bag of books and started walking toward the terminal.

  “Where are you going?” Dutch asked.

  “Back home,” she told him. “I’ve got a bookstore to run.”

  “Stop.”

  She did, but she kept her back to him. “Well?”

  He hesitated. It was uncharacteristic. He didn’t know what to do next. If he pushed her, he could lose her. But he couldn’t let go, either. She’d become important to him. He didn’t want to think about never seeing her again.

  “Thank about it for a while,” he said finally. “For a few weeks, until I get back.”

  “Back?” She turned, not caring if he saw her pain. Tears bit at her eyelids and she felt sick all over.

  Oh, God, it hurt to see her like this! He glared toward the horizon, jamming his hands into his pockets. He’d never seen that expression on a woman’s face in his life. He’d come to the brink of death with cool disdain more times than he cared to remember, and now the look on a woman’s face terrified him.

  She fought to get herself under control. She took a slow, deep breath. “I won’t change my mind,” she said, sure now that it would be suicide to stay with him.

  “All the same, I’ll be in touch.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  He met her eyes, searching them. “I’m already committed to this job. I can’t back out.” It was the first time in years that he’d explained himself, he realized.

  “I don’t want to know,” she said firmly. “You have your life, and I have mine. If you’d told me in the very beginning, I wouldn’t have come near you.”

  “I think I knew that,” he said softly. He sketched her with his eyes, memorizing her. “Take care of yourself.”

  “I always have.” She let her eyes love him one last time. She ached already at their parting. It would be like losing a limb. “You take care of yourself, too.”

  “Yes.”

  She stared at her wedding ring, and he saw the thought in her eyes.

  “Leave it on,” he said gently. “I—would like to think that you were wearing my ring.”

  The tears burst from her eyes. She didn’t even look at him again, she turned and broke into a run, suitcases and all, crying so hard that she could hardly see where she was going. Behind her he stood quietly on the apron, alone, watching until she was out of sight.

  Chapter Seven

  Nothing was the same. The first day she was home Dani went into the bookstore the same as always, but her life was changed. Harriett Gaynor, her small, plump friend, gave her odd looks, and Dani was almost certain that Harriett didn’t believe a word of the story her employer told her about the Mexican holiday. Then the next day the papers hit the stands.

  “It’s true!” Harriett burst out, small and dark-eyed, her black hair in tight curls around her elfin face. “It’s all here in the paper, about the hijacking, look!”

  Dani grimaced as she looked down at the newspaper Harriett had spread over the counter. There was a picture of the pilot, and a blurred one of the uninjured hijacker being carried off the plane. There wasn’t a picture of Dutch, but she hadn’t expected to see one. He seemed quite good at dodging the press.

  “Here’s something about the man who overpowered the hijacker….” Harriett frowned and read, catching her breath at the vivid account. She looked up at Dani. “You did that?”

  “He said they would have asked for automatic weapons once we were in Miami,” Dani said quietly.

  Harriett put the paper down. “A professional mercenary.” She stared at her best friend. “I don’t believe it. Didn’t you ask what he did before you married him?”

  “If you saw him, you wouldn’t be surprised that I didn’t,” Dani told her. She turned away. She didn’t want to talk about Dutch. She wanted to forget. Even now, he was on his way to another conflict….

  “No man is that good-looking,” Harriett said. “Not even Dave.” Dave, a pleasant man, wasn’t half the scrapper his pint-size wife was. “By the way, Mrs. Jones called to thank you for her autographed books.”

  “She’s very welcome. It was nice, getting to meet some of the authors at the autographing.” She checked the change in the cash register as they started to open the shop.

  “Where is he now?” Harriett asked suddenly.

  “Getting a good lawyer, I hope,” Dani said, laughing even though it hurt to say it. “We’re setting a new record for short marriages. One week.”

  “You might work it out,” came the quiet reply.

  Dani wouldn’t look at her friend. “He makes his living risking his life, Harrie,” she said. “I can’t spend mine worrying about him. I’d rather get out while I still can.”

  “I suppose you know your own mind,” Harriett said, shrugging. “But when you decide to go adventuring, you sure go whole hog, don’t you? Marrying strangers, overpowering hijackers…”

  She went away muttering, and Dani smiled at her retreating back. Yes, she’d had an adventure all right. But now it was over, and she’d better tuck her bittersweet memories away in a trunk and get on with her life. The first step was to put Dutch out of her mind forever. The second was to stop reading the newspaper. From now on, every time she learned about a small foreign war, she’d see him.

  Of course, it wasn’t that easy. In the weeks that followed, everything conspired to remind her of him. Especially Harriett, who became heartily suspicious when Dani began losing her breakfast.

  “It’s the curse of Montezuma,” Dani said shortly, glaring at her friend from a pasty face as she came out of the bathroom with a wet paper towel at her mouth.

  “It’s the curse of the flying Dutchman,” came the dry reply.

  Dani laughed in spite of herself, but it was brief. “I am not pregnant.”

  “I had a miscarriage,” Harriett said quietly. “But I’ve never forgotten how it felt, or how I looked. You’re white as a sheet, you tire so easily it isn’t funny, and your stomach stays upset no matter what you do.”

  It was the same thing Dani had been dreading, hoping, terrified to admit. But she’d arrived at the same conclusion Harriett had. She sat down on the stool behind the counter with a weary sigh.

  “You crazy child, didn’t you even think about contraceptives?” Harriett moaned, hugging her.

  Harriett, only four years her senior, sometimes seemed twice that. Dani let the tears come. She wept so easily these days. Last night a story on the news about guerrilla action in Africa had set her off when she spotted a blond head among some troops. Now, Harriett’s concern was doing it, too.

  “I’m pregnant,” Dani whispered shakily.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Oh, Harrie, I’m scared stiff,” she said, clutching the older woman. “I don’t know anything about babies.”

  “There, there, Miss Scarlett, I doesn’t know anything about birthin’ babies my own self, but we’ll muddle through somehow.” She drew away, smiling with a genuine affection. “I’ll take care of you.” She searched Dani’s eyes. “Do you want to have it?”

  Dani shuddered. “I saw a film once, about how babies develop.” She put her hand slowly, tenderly, to her flat abdomen. “They showed what happened when a pregnancy is terminated.” She looked up. “I cried for hours.”

  “Sometimes it’s for the best,” Harriett said gently.

  “In some circumstances,” she agreed. “But I’ll never see it as a casual answer to contraception. And as for me,” she said shifting restlessly, “I…want his baby.” Sh
e clasped her arms around herself with a tiny smile. “I wonder if he’ll be blond?” she mused.

  “He may be a she,” came the dry reply.

  “That’s all right. I like little girls.” She sighed dreamily. “Isn’t it amazing? Having a tiny life inside you, feeling it grow?”

  “Yes,” Harriett said wistfully. “It was the happiest time of my life.”

  Dani looked up and smiled. “You can share mine.”

  Harriett, tougher than nails, grew teary-eyed. She turned quickly away before Dani could see that vulnerability. “Of course I can. Right now you need to get to a doctor and see how far along you are.”

  “I already know,” Dani said, remembering the morning in Dutch’s room, the exquisite tenderness of that brief loving. “I know.”

  “You’ll need vitamins,” Harriett continued. “And a proper diet.”

  “And baby clothes and a baby bed…” Dani was dreaming again.

  “Not until after the seventh month,” Harriett said firmly. “You have to be realistic, too. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. But it helps not to get too involved too soon.”

  “Spoilsport!” Dani burst out, half-irritated.

  “The doctor will tell you the same thing,” Harriett said. “Dani, I bought baby furniture when I was a month along. I miscarried at four months, and had all those bright new things to dispose of. Don’t do it.”

  Dani immediately felt repentant. She hugged Harriett warmly. “Thank you for being my friend. For caring about me.”

  “Someone has to.” She glowered up at Dani. “Are you going to tell him?”

  “How?” Dani asked. “I don’t even know his address.”

  “My God, she’s married to a man and she doesn’t know where he lives.”