by Diana Palmer
He went to answer it. As he opened the door, he gave Winnie a concerned look. A tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed woman in a tailored suit with her long hair in a bun came into the apartment, wearing spiked high heels and an attitude. She gave Winnie a long look that didn’t soften the ice in those eyes.
“This is your new wife?” the woman asked haughtily.
“Yes, Cammy,” Kilraven said. “Don’t I get a hug?”
She did hug him, warmly, laughing. “You look wonderful. Who’s that?” she asked, frowning at the boy in the wheelchair.
“I’m Matt,” he said with a grin. “I’m Winnie’s brother. Don’t let the wheels fool you, I’m dangerous. I shot five Hunters!”
“Halo,” Cammy groaned. “Is there any male in Texas who doesn’t play that game?”
“Not many, including my brother, who has his own copy,” Kilraven assured her. “Come and meet Winnie Sinclair. She works for Jacobs County EOC as a 911 operator.”
“Does she?” Cammy went into the kitchen, her arms folded tight across her breasts. She gave Winnie a cold appraisal.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Winnie began apprehensively.
Cammy made a sound in the back of her throat. “McKuen hasn’t said anything about you at all. This is a very quick wedding. Are you pregnant?”
Winnie gave her an astonished stare. “Well, if I am, we’ll call the local television stations and offer them interviews. It will make headlines everywhere!”
“Excuse me?”
“A woman getting pregnant without having sex,” Winnie said in a low voice so that Matt wouldn’t hear.
“You won’t sleep with him?” Cammy asked, shocked. “Well, some wife you’re going to be! Did you trick him into marrying you when you found out he had a big ranch and was rich?” she continued doggedly. “You’re after his money, aren’t you?”
Winnie stood up to her full height, which was almost a head shy of Cammy’s. “For your information, Mrs. Kilraven…”
“Blackhawk,” came the terse reply. “My name is Blackhawk. So is his,” she indicated Kilraven, “but he won’t use it.”
“My choice, Cammy,” came the droll reply.
“For your information, Mrs. Blackhawk,” Winnie continued haughtily, “my brother is Boone Sinclair of Comanche Wells. You might have seen his photo on the cover of the national ranching magazine this month? The issue about going green on the range?”
Kilraven retrieved his copy of Modern Ranching World from the coffee table and helpfully handed it to Cammy. His eyes were twinkling with amusement.
Cammy read ranching magazines. She loved the ranch. And she knew exactly who Boone Sinclair was the minute she saw his face on the cover of the magazine. “Those Sinclairs?” she asked hesitantly.
“Yes,” Winnie said icily. “Those Sinclairs. My people are related to every royal house in Europe. My great-grandmother was the daughter of a titled Spanish don, and quite wealthy. Her mother was the niece of the King of Spain!”
Cammy wanted very badly to throw a loftier genealogy back at Winnie, but her ancestry had produced no person more elevated than a grain merchant in Billings, Montana. She went red in the face.
“As for marrying your stepson for his money,” Winnie added cuttingly, “I could probably buy and sell you on my inherited oil and gas holdings alone!”
Cammy swallowed. Hard. She glared at Winnie furiously, looking for a comeback.
“If you’ll excuse me now, I have to do the dishes,” Winnie said with a huff, and turned back into the kitchen. “By the way, I can make homemade bread, too. Can you?”
Cammy marched back into the living room, grabbed her purse and coat, and glared at her stepson, who was trying his best not to laugh. She slammed the magazine into his outstretched hand.
“I am never coming back to this apartment in my life as long as you’re married to that…that little blond chain saw!” she exclaimed with a furious dark glare toward the kitchen. “Goodbye!”
She stormed out of the apartment and slammed the door for effect.
Kilraven burst out laughing. He kept it up until his eyes teared. “Well, that’s a first,” he told Winnie, hugging her affectionately. “Cammy used to send women running. Jon and I couldn’t keep a girlfriend when we were in high school. I thought she’d cut you up like fish bait. And you send her running out the door.” He hugged her again, rocking her in his big arms. “My little blond chain saw,” he murmured at her ear, and kissed it.
“You’re not…mad?” she faltered.
He lifted his head. He smiled at her. “I’m not mad.”
“I didn’t mean to be so unkind,” she began.
“Cammy will conveniently forget everything you said and come back with a wedding gift in a day or two, then she’ll try to make friends with you.” He grinned at her dubious expression. “You’ll see. She’s all bluff. What she dislikes most is people she can run over.”
“I used to let people do that,” she confessed. “Working with you inspired me to greater heights.”
He bent and nuzzled her nose with his. “I’m inspired, too. Cammy ran like a scalded cat. I’ve got to call Jon and tell him. He’s in New York on a case,” he added, reminding her why his brother had missed the wedding.
Matt winked at her. He’d heard all that, but didn’t comment.
Kilraven pulled out his cell phone. Winnie, feeling elated and proud of herself, walked back to the kitchen.
“Hey, Jon,” Kilraven said into his cell phone, “guess who married a little blond chain saw today!”
12
Winnie settled down with Matt and Kilraven after she’d put the dishes in the dishwasher and stored the leftovers. There were only two controllers and they were using a split screen to battle each other. But when Winnie came in, Matt relinquished his and sat coaching her. It was fun.
About midnight, Matt said good-night and wheeled himself into Kilraven’s equipment room where a bed had been made up. Kilraven walked Winnie to hers, making it obvious that he had no intention of sharing it with her, wedding night or not.
“We agreed,” he said gently. “Didn’t we?”
She smiled. “Yes.” She tried not to sound disappointed. She’d had sleepless nights since their interlude on his sofa.
He caught her waist and lifted her up so that he could put his lips to her ear and wouldn’t be overheard. “But just in case, are you on the pill?”
She shivered at the deep, husky note in his voice. She cleared her throat. “Yes. The doctor started me on it two days ago.”
“Good.”
“We aren’t going to,” she began.
His lips slid from her ear down to her soft mouth and claimed it suddenly with a hunger and intensity that made her shiver from head to toe. His big hands lifted her hips up into his and ground them into the sudden hardness. A surge of heat throbbed down her stomach and made her breath catch under his mouth as he rotated her thighs against his and she moaned helplessly. She felt him smile as he suddenly lifted his head and looked straight into her shocked eyes.
“We aren’t going to?” he mused. “Are you sure?”
Her face flamed. He was driving her mad, but she had to consider where this was going to end. He was going to take her to Nassau to get him a conversation with a senator’s wife, and then he was going to toss her out the door. She had to keep that in mind.
“Yes,” she said quietly. It didn’t help when she shivered.
His eyebrow jerked. He set her back on her feet and studied her for a long, somber moment.
“Addictions are hard to cure,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. Hard, considering that her knees were shaking and her voice was unsteady. “The best way to avoid them is not to create them.”
“Sensible,” he agreed. A corner of his very sensuous mouth curved up. “Little blond chain saw,” he added in a soft, amused tone as his silver eyes glittered possessively over her flushed face. “Sleep well.”
She managed a smile. “Yo
u, too.”
He turned and left her. He didn’t seem particularly disappointed, because he went right back to his game as if nothing had happened.
Winnie went into the guest bedroom, put on her pajamas and crawled under the covers. It must be the strangest wedding day any woman ever had.
SHE GOT UP EARLY THE next morning after a viciously sleepless night and cooked a nice breakfast. Matt wheeled into the kitchen a few minutes later, grinning.
“Smells good,” he said. “I’m not used to anybody cooking breakfast, especially since Mom got back on homicide,” he added. “She gets called out at all hours of the night. Sometimes she doesn’t even get home until I’m ready to leave for school.”
“What do you eat?” she wondered.
“Cereal, mostly,” he said. “I like it, you know. I wasn’t criticizing. Mom works hard.”
She smiled at him. “Matt, you’ve got to be the nicest boy I ever met,” she told him sincerely. “I’m glad you turned out to be my little brother.”
“Thanks,” he replied, surprised.
“Oh, it’s not what you think,” she teased. “The older ones always picked on me because I was the baby. Now you’re the baby!”
He chuckled. “I get it. I’m the lowest link in the food chain.”
“Or thereabouts.” She laughed.
“Where’s Kilraven?” he wondered.
“Probably still asleep,” she said. “I’m sure I heard plasma rifles going off around daylight.”
“Poor guy. I guess he doesn’t get much time to play games when he’s really on the job.”
“I guess not,” she agreed.
“It was a nice wedding,” he said.
She nodded. “I thought so, too.”
“You sure you’re really married?” he asked in a deliberately discreet tone.
She glanced at him and smiled. “You ever hear about going undercover?”
“Sure. Mom knows a narc who does that.”
“When you go undercover, sometimes you do things so they appear to be one thing, when they’re really another thing,” she continued.
He was quick. “So you’re pretending to be married, but you have a license to prove it if anybody asks.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You’re good,” she said.
“My mom’s a homicide detective,” he reminded her. He frowned. “Our mom’s a homicide detective,” he corrected.
She smiled. “I forgot.”
“We going to see her today?”
“You bet,” she said enthusiastically. “When do you go back to school?”
“Did you have to bring that up?” he groaned.
“Sorry. I did.”
“Monday.” He sighed. “I’ve got homework for it, too, can you imagine? Over the weekend!”
“Education is not for the weakhearted,” she pointed out.
“I guess so. Did you like school?”
“Not really,” she confessed. “I went to college for two years, but I got sick one winter and failed a course when it was too late to do an ‘incomplete.’ Blew my GPA. I didn’t really like my major, anyway, so I went home and got a job working as a clerk for the Jacobsville Police Department. That’s where I met Kilraven.”
“His first name’s McKuen,” he reminded her. “Why don’t you call him that?”
“I’m not sure it would be safe,” she said thoughtfully.
“You could always call him Mac.”
“Going to loan me some body armor first?” she asked dubiously.
He laughed. “Right.”
“One of us had better tell him breakfast is ready,” she said when she put biscuits and eggs and bacon on the table. She started to set the table.
“One of us. He’s your husband.”
“Yes, but he’s your brother-in-law,” she replied. “I think you should call him. He might throw things.”
He shot her a grin and turned the wheelchair. “No guts, no glory,” he called over his shoulder.
She sighed with relief. She hadn’t wanted to mention that Kilraven might sleep raw, and she wasn’t walking into that bedroom if he did. Prude, she told herself, you’re married. Yes, she answered herself, but remember what you told yourself about addictions?
She turned right back to the cabinets and pulled out silverware.
KILRAVEN DRAGGED IN five minutes later, fully dressed, his hair immaculately combed. But he was red-eyed and half-asleep.
He pulled out a chair, yawning, and sat down, smiling at Winnie when she put a cup of hot coffee under his nose. “Thanks,” he said. “I didn’t go to bed until the early news came on.”
“I heard,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“Plasma rifles, sniper rifles, grenades…”
“Sorry,” he said as he sipped coffee.
She laughed. “Don’t feel guilty. When I have days off, I do the same thing. I wasn’t really sleepy, either,” she confessed, avoiding his suddenly amused glance, “but I finally drifted off myself. Matt slept like a rock.”
“I always sleep like a rock,” Matt said with a grin.
Kilraven didn’t reply. He slept fitfully, and it was rare even now that he spent an entire night asleep. The past haunted him.
Winnie saw the pain in his face that he couldn’t quite hide, and she felt a stab of conscience that she couldn’t be the person he wanted her to be. She couldn’t spend a night in his arms and go on with her life, she thought miserably, even if he could.
He sipped coffee, ignoring the food.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Matt asked. “These biscuits are really good.”
Kilraven glanced at him, frowning, then at the platters of food. “Good Lord,” he exclaimed, looking at Winnie. “You made biscuits?”
She nodded. “I can do all sorts of breads.”
He reached for one, pulled it apart, buttered it and put on strawberry jam. He bit into it and his eyes closed. He almost groaned. “I haven’t had a homemade biscuit since I was a kid,” he confessed, smiling. “We had this cook, Laredo, who could do almost anything with flour, even cakes. He made the most delicious biscuits, but these are even better.”
Winnie smiled. “Thanks.”
He reached for the platters of bacon and eggs. “I’m not used to a hot breakfast, but I’ll bet I could adapt, if I tried.”
Matt chuckled as he reached for another biscuit. “Me, too. Homicide detectives don’t have time to do a lot of cooking.”
“Neither do Feds,” he pointed out.
“Or 911 operators.” Winnie raised her hand.
“This lady at dispatch saved Mom’s life last year,” Matt related. “She went to interview a witness in a homicide and he turned out to be the perp. Mom managed to hit 911 on her cell phone, inside her coat while the guy was threatening her with a gun.” He grinned. “She had two squad cars in less than two minutes, believe it or not, with sirens and lights going full tilt. While they were diverting the suspect, Mom disarmed the perp, knocked his legs out from under him and cuffed him, all this before the uniformed officers even got to the door!”
“Wow,” Winnie said, impressed.
“The dispatcher knew Mom,” Matt continued, “and she found two squad cars in the vicinity on her computer and sent them.”
“Quick thinking,” Kilraven said. He grinned at Winnie. “Your sister saved my butt in a similar manner.”
“You did?” Matt asked, waiting to be told how.
Winnie shrugged. “I just had a hunch that he needed backup.”
“Yes, and sent it before I was able to call and ask for it,” he added pointedly.
“Mom knows stuff before it happens, too,” Matt said. “She was at the hospital when they brought me in, after her ex-husband tried to kill me.” His face was somber. “She said she knew. She saw it, in her mind. It’s sort of scary, sometimes.”
“Yes, it is,” Winnie confessed. “I see things that I wish I couldn’t see.”
“Well, I’m glad you saw that I needed help,�
�� Kilraven informed her, “or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
She grinned at him. He grinned back.
HE FINISHED BREAKFAST and pulled out his cell phone. “I’ve got to call my brother and find out if there’s any new intel on the case.”
He moved into the next room. The phone rang and Joceline Perry answered it.
“Hi, Perry,” he said, using her last name, as he always did. “Is the boss in?”
“I understand that he doesn’t do many concerts these days,” she cracked, referring to the real “Boss,” Bruce Springsteen.
“Funny girl,” he muttered.
“And that was a movie with Barbra Streisand,” she said with mock excitement.
“Give me my brother or I’ll come down there and anoint you with India ink.”
“Terroristic threats and acts!” she exclaimed.
“Joceline…!”
“That’s more like it,” she told him.
There was a click. “Blackhawk,” Jon’s voice came over the line.
“Can you do something for me?” Kilraven asked.
“Sure. What do you want?”
“Go out into the waiting room, find something wet and dump it over Joceline’s head.”
“Let me check the deductible on my medical insurance first,” Jon mused. “What do you want? Advice on how to manage the ‘little blond chain saw’ or how to calm Cammy down?” he added with a chuckle.
“Cammy’s been talking to you,” he replied.
“Not talking so much as shouting,” Jon replied complacently. “I’d just turned my cell phone on when I got back from New York and walked into my apartment, and it was already ringing. I gather that Cammy’s sense of superiority was temporarily displaced by feelings of inadequacy.” He chuckled. “I have to meet Winnie. She must be a firecracker.”
“Actually, she’s not,” Kilraven replied pensively. “She’s shy and quiet around people she doesn’t know. But Cammy was pretty overbearing, especially when I mentioned that Winnie was a 911 operator. I’m sure she knew that Boone Sinclair was recently on the cover of the nation’s top cattle magazine because we all subscribe, but she didn’t connect Winnie with him until I put the magazine in her hand.” He chuckled. “She does now.”
