Last night with her had been everything he’d dreamed of-and more. All these years, he’d never been sure that Winona would ever notice him, that he could win her, that the chemistry would ever fire for her the way he’d always felt it.
Now he knew better. They had enough chemistry to fuel a couple of planets. Big ones.
Damnation, if he wasn’t daydreaming of having it all with her. Really. All. Love. A lifetime. The whole kit and kaboodle.
Temporarily, though, he had to concentrate on serious things. He sobered-as did Ben-when they reached Robert Klimt’s hospital room. Both quietly entered.
Although Justin wasn’t Klimt’s physician, he’d been automatically stopping to check and evaluate Klimt’s progress ever since the plane crash. The last time he’d seen him before that had been the night of the Texas Cattleman’s Club gala. Justin couldn’t say that he’d liked the little banty rooster, but it was still another thing to see the man so reduced. Silent. Helpless. He checked Klimt’s pulse, touched his skin, automatically read and assessed all the tubes and machines connected to the patient.
“There is no guessing when he’ll wake up from this coma?” Ben asked.
“Not really. His main doctor-Busher-is a good man. He also brought in some outside opinions, just to make absolutely sure he wasn’t missing something.” Because even an unconscious patient could sometimes hear and take in certain things, Justin was careful to voice his answer positively. “Let’s just say that the sooner he wakes up, the more optimistic we’re all going to feel. And I’m trying to think what else has happened that I need to fill you in on…”
“Well, mostly what I wanted to know was the status of the patients that were part of the plane crash and could have been witnesses, or known something. But in the meantime-is Aaron still in Washington?”
“Yes. I believe Walker finally reached him by telephone yesterday, so Aaron at least knows about the jewel theft and Riley Monroe’s murder. I just wish he’d get home. No one knows about diplomatic channels and problems the way Aaron does. Obviously no one wants to run around accusing or raising suspicion about anyone from Asterland if we can help it. Relations with that country are precarious enough. But the Asterlanders are naturally getting more and more upset that we haven’t found a cause for the plane crash.”
Ben stared at the silent Klimt and all the beating, bleeping machines he was hooked up to. “If he would just wake up…maybe he saw something, knew something. The fire on the plane started so close to where he and the lady Helena were sitting. And two of the jewels were just as close. If anyone knows anything, it has to be him.”
Justin nodded. “All of us feel the same. We really have no proof that the plane crash was related to the theft. To risk an international incident for nothing gives us all the willies. But I suspect that Asterland is going to send someone to investigate on their own if our authorities don’t start coming up with answers soon.”
“I would do the same in their shoes.” Ben shifted on his feet. “And in the meantime, we’re still missing the red diamond. At least, we can eliminate one suspect from the list. It’s a cinch Klimt doesn’t have it.”
“That’s the only thing we’re really sure of right now.” Justin hesitated. “What concerns me is that others could be in danger. Whoever killed Monroe wasn’t just a thief. He was willing to murder. And if the killer was someone on that plane, there are others who could be vulnerable-either because they saw something or knew something. Even if they didn’t realize it at the time.”
“You’ve talked with Lady Helena?”
“I’ve seen her every day. She’s a trooper. But right now I can’t begin to guess if she saw anything. She has almost no memory of the crash. I don’t mean that she’s suffering an amnesiac condition, but that what she went through was extremely traumatic. What emotional and physical energy she has is entirely focused on her injuries and healing. And she still has months of recovery ahead of her. Maybe she could still remember something, but who knows when?”
Ben paused. “Well, have you had a chance to talk to Winona?”
“Yes. Last night. She didn’t even hesitate. She offered to do anything she could.”
“She understands why the Club wants this kept quiet? To protect the work we do?”
“Yeah. And she understands how ticklish it is, communicating between local authorities and feds and safety agencies and diplomats. It’s not that she has power, but it’s not power we’re looking for, and for damn sure, we’re not looking to impede anyone’s investigation. Only to make sure the innocent are protected in this complicated mess. She’ll help advise us.”
“I have always had the impression that she is a good woman. An unusually special woman.” Ben studied his face with sudden intentness.
Swiftly Justin lifted a wrist to check his watch. “It’s after five. I have to go.”
“You’re meeting her.”
“Yeah. And either you quit smiling at me or I’ll have to slug you,” Justin said wryly, as they both exited Klimt’s room with a last glance at the Asterland cabinet member.
“I wasn’t smiling at the serious situation.”
“God knows, neither was I.”
“But I admit I was smiling at you. One mention of her name, and you are-how do they say it?-bouncing off the walls. A sudden smile on your face that is close to blinding. Oh, how the mighty do fall.”
“Watch it, Sheikh. We have an expression in Texas. You’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’.”
“We have an expression like that in the Middle East, too. In fact, I think all countries have an expression like that. We’re meeting again on Tuesday night? To determine what to do with the two jewels, whatever new security measures we want and so on?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. In the meantime, try to remember to eat. To sleep. To not sing in the rain. And to climb down from the clouds before you drive.”
“I’m going to remember this conversation when you fall in love. And I’m never going to let you hear the end of it,” Justin vowed darkly.
“Yeah, yeah.” Ben smiled, but then he sobered. “Justin…you have not been happy since you came back from Bosnia. Always, there is this dark look at the back of your eyes, the silence. You work, the long hours, but it’s like something is running after you, and you cannot catch it, see it, stop it. This woman…it is good to see you coming alive again. I am glad for you. I mean it.”
Justin was smiling when he walked out to the parking lot. But when he climbed in his car and started the Porsche engine, a chill chased up his spine that had no relationship to the howling winter wind.
He couldn’t wait to see Winona.
He couldn’t have been happier with how last night had gone between them.
He hadn’t thought about Bosnia in a long time now, nor had the chronic nightmares troubled him since Winona had become personally involved in his life. But now, suddenly, he felt itchy, edgy. Win was coming to care for him. Just maybe, the sky was the limit between the two of them. It was just that sometimes, he felt like Bosnia was a smudge of dirt on his face that refused to wash off. Nothing seemed to make those memories go away, not completely.
Forget it, he told himself swiftly. Think about her. Nothing else.
So he tried.
Nine
When Winona heard the knock, she swallowed hard, and then hustled to answer the door. It was just before six, so she knew it was Justin. All day she’d been higher than a kite, looking forward to seeing him again…and she still wanted to see him, but the circumstances had sure changed.
She yanked open the door, carrying Angel. The baby was dolled up to go out to dinner, wearing an ultracool pink jumper with an ultracool pink heart sweater and pink booties. She could have won over the heart of a stone; she was that adorable-if she hadn’t been screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Darn it, Justin, I’m afraid-” Winona started to say.
“Eh?” He cupped a hand over his ear, as if he needed a megaphone to hear over
the symphonic volume.
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to go out to dinner,” she shrieked.
“Yeah, it does look like we’d better come up with plan B.” He stepped in, quickly shut the door on the draft and, as soon as he’d peeled off his jacket, waggled his fingers.
“Trust me, you don’t want her,” Winona assured him.
“Hey, she can cry just as good in my arms as yours, can’t she? I take it we’re not in a real good mood.”
“She’s not hungry, not tired, not sick, not anything, so PMS is my best guess. I just didn’t expect it to hit before she was six months old.”
“Now, don’t be criticizing my second-best girl.” He kissed Win first-on the tip of the nose-and then swooped the baby in his arms. Startled, Angel stopped the faucet for a second and looked him over. “I’m the handsomest guy you’ve seen all day, right, darlin’?”
Winona wanted another kiss. One significantly stronger and deeper and more romantic than that peck on the nose. But Angel seemed to be considering what she thought of the heartthrob with the Sam Elliot eyes in the doorway. Then she decided. First there was a heartrending sniff, and then another melodious bloodcurdling cry designed to alert all neighbors in a ten-mile radius that she was Not Happy.
“Okay,” Justin said. “Get your coat and the baby’s coat. We’re bumping this pop stand.”
“Justin, we can’t take her anywhere like this.”
“Well…I do think she’s a little young to be blackmailing us into taking her to Disney World, but I’m almost sure we can come up with something that’ll win a smile out of Her Highness.”
There were circles under his eyes. There were circles under hers. Winona theorized that possibly the baby guessed what they’d been doing the night before, and wanted to make sure they never, ever, had an opportunity to do it again. But she simmered down for the ride in the car, and only let out an occasional squeal-as if to keep in practice-as Justin carried her into his house.
“I just figured it might work better at my house because I knew we didn’t have to worry about dinner. Myrt made something, left it in the fridge. Corned beef, I think? I’m not sure, but I know it’s something we could put together quickly. And in the meantime, there’s a bunch of things I want to talk with you about.”
She wasn’t sure how he managed it. Within five minutes, he’d taken her jacket, ordered her shoes off, poured her a glass of merlot, and was leading her through the house. His bossiness wasn’t the surprise. It was all he was managing to do while holding Angel at the same time. And the baby had quit crying-as long as she was bouncing along in Justin’s arms.
“Really, Win, it doesn’t matter to me which house we choose to live in. If you want to stay at your place, that’s fine. But I do have a ton of space here. And Myrt’s already installed. Not that those details make this house so great-for one thing, as many bedrooms as there are upstairs, maybe they’re too far from the master bedroom? We couldn’t hear the baby if we set her in a bedroom upstairs? So then I was thinking, maybe this room would make a good nursery…”
He pushed open the door to his downstairs office, which was wainscoted in teak with a burgundy-striped wallpaper above. Background lighting illuminated his expensive computer setup. A couch overlooked glass doors and the view of the water-garden landscaping in his backyard.
“This is all too dark. I figured we’d throw all this junk-”
“Junk?”
“Stuff. All this stuff could go upstairs in one of the spare rooms. We could just rip out the wainscoting and dark wallpaper. Do baby colors-whatever baby colors are. There’s a lot of room for a crib and rocker and all. And next door’s a bathroom-although right now, that room’s too dark, too. I mean, for right now, we could just make these two rooms work easily enough. It’s not like Angel’s crawling or walking yet. I can hire a couple of strong backs as soon as tomorrow to start moving the heavy furniture around.”
Once back in the kitchen, he tried to put Angel in her baby carrier. She let out a prompt, furious squeal. He picked her up again.
He talked about safety gates and baby monitors. He talked about turning in his Porsche for a “grown-up car” that would more easily accommodate a baby car seat and groceries. When the telephone suddenly rang, he again tried to put down Angel. Again she squealed. Again he picked her back up again, and answered the phone call while carrying her around.
He found the bread, scooped the lettuce from the refrigerator, knifed on fancy mustard and made corned beef sandwiches on rye, holding Angel the whole time. He looked at the baby once, as if debating whether it was worth even trying to eat without her on his shoulder, and then just ate one-handed.
Before dinner was over, Winona was in love with him.
All right, all right, she’d realized that she’d fallen before this. But some of those earlier feelings were surely lust. And as extraordinarily powerful-and desired-as that lust was, this was a different kind of love. This was watching Royal’s most eligible and supposedly most self-indulged and spoiled bachelor working heart and soul to charm a baby. This was watching a doc who’d put in a ten-hour day-after making love to her all night-never lose patience with a fractious little one. This was watching Justin be a father. This was seeing his patience and gentleness and giving nature without him having a clue how much he was revealing.
“Justin?”
“What?”
“You’re making all those marriage and life plans so fast that you’re scaring the life out of me. You’ve thought so many things through already, as if you were really that sure-”
“I am sure, Win. We’re going to love being married. I just know it. The faster the better. If we don’t get all the details resolved ahead, so what? We’ll just do things as we go.”
The baby blew a bubble in his face. That was it for Winona. “If you don’t mind my changing the subject from marriage for just a minute. I just wanted to mention…if it’s all right with you-the very minute Angel goes to sleep-I’m going to jump your bones.”
Smooth as silk, Justin chucked the baby’s chin. “Well, that’s it. What do I have to bribe you with to get you to bed?”
Winona chuckled, but there was no hurrying Angel into doing anything. The baby had had a super day, but something just seemed to hit her wrong around the dinner hour, and she was nonstop fretful-unless Justin was holding or walking her.
“I have an idea,” he announced finally.
“Ideas aren’t helping us. We need a miracle,” she said wryly.
But it seemed that Justin was capable of coming up with one of those, too. In the cobalt-and-marble bathroom downstairs, he started filling the whirlpool tub. While Winona stripped the baby down in the warm, moist air, he fetched candles from around the house, lit them and chose a CD to play a muted, low bluesy sax-achy, yearny love songs, one after the other.
“See how fast I managed to get your mom naked? And you thought I wasn’t very bright, didn’t you, Angel?”
It was a romantic setting for lovers, not for a baby’s bath. The warm jetted water. The candle scents and quivering lights. The yearning love songs. The darkness and nakedness and Justin’s dark, soft eyes looking at her from the far corner of the tub, his bare toes caressing her bare toes.
The baby chortled and giggled, either from the safety of Justin’s arms, or hers. Angel seemed to think this party had been arranged just for her-which it had-and the little ham managed to keep both the adults chuckling…yet Winona kept looking at Justin. And yeah, she could feel the desire seeping and building between them. But she also could see him relaxing, just as Angel was. Letting down his hair. Letting go.
Possibly because she’d always had such a hard time letting go herself, she had always recognized how closely Justin held his emotions. In his work, he gave freely. It wasn’t as if he were a stingy man with his heart. But what he personally wanted and needed in his own life, he rarely showed the world, including her…especially since he’d come back from Bosnia.
&nb
sp; Watching the baby try to grab his nose, hearing Justin’s gentle laughter, seeing his natural easiness with the darling, Winona fell in love all over again. Deeply. Painfully. Irrevocably.
She rose from the tub abruptly.
“Did you see that view, Angel?” Justin teased. “Your mom is trying to drive me crazy. And doing an outstanding job of it.”
“We can’t stay here all night.”
“Why? She’s happy.”
“Because she’ll turn into a prune, you goose. But keep her in here for a couple more minutes, okay? While I go heat up a bottle and fix a place for her to sleep?”
Naturally she’d brought a diaper bag and a change of clothes for the baby, but several hours before, it really hadn’t occurred to her that they might be spending the night. Now, wrapped in a towel, she prowled the downstairs, spotting a half-dozen places where she could set up a secure sleeping arrangement for Angel, just trying to pick the best. She decided on the couch in Justin’s office, where she could push two chairs against the open couch edge to create a secure barrier. Then there was the business of finding the equivalent of a rubber sheet, and a real sheet, and blankets, and then getting the bottle warmed.
By the time she slipped back in the bathroom, Ms. Prune seemed to be out of the water and was on a thick, fat towel next to the tub, chortling her head off while Justin tickled her.
“Sheesh. We were trying to settle her down,” she scolded.
“She doesn’t want to settle down. She likes being naked. You know who I think she takes after?”
“You. All day,” Winona murmured.
“I was thinking about you. To think that you’ve been walking around my house that way all this time and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it…it boggles the mind.”
“Well, I admit, I’d been thinking about boggling something of yours, too, Doc. But it wasn’t your mind.”
Millionaire M.D. Page 13
