by JoAnn Ross
“But, what?” he prompted when her voice trailed off.
“I don’t know.” She rubbed at her temple. “I seem to remember someone advising me against it, but I can’t remember who.”
“How about the guy who gave you that rock?”
She considered that, looked at the stone glittering on her finger and drew a complete blank. “Perhaps.”
“Perhaps he’s not from around here. Maybe he wanted you to relocate.”
“That’s a possibility.” She sighed as the mental exhaustion returned. “This is obviously a dead end for now. How about something else?”
“Actually, there’s not much left to tell. Except for your bra size, which is 34B.”
“How on earth do you know that?”
“They gave me your bloody clothes at the hospital. Since I was your husband.”
“Oh. But you already said that we’re not really married.” Her soft voice, which went up a little at the end of the sentence, asked him to please be honest about this all-important fact.
“No,” he reconfirmed. “We’re really not.”
“Okay.” That settled, she closed her eyes again and wondered why, if they weren’t married, being in his arms like this felt so nice. And why she couldn’t remember a single thing about a man she’d obviously promised to marry.
The first bedroom he came to was as elaborately decorated as the downstairs. Roarke pulled back the embroidered spread and laid her on the mattress of the four-poster bed.
She roused again as she felt the mattress against her back. “I can’t sleep in sequins.”
Personally, he thought she’d been doing a pretty good job of that already during those last few yards down the hall, but not wanting to start an argument, he merely pulled his black T-shirt over his head.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Giving you my shirt. What did you think?”
Embarrassed color rose in her cheeks. “Never mind.” She snatched the shirt from his outstretched hand and marched into the adjoining bathroom with more energy than he would have suspected she could muster.
“There should be toothpaste and brushes in the medicine cabinet,” Roarke called in to her through the closed door. “Shayne said they keep the place pretty well stocked for unexpected visitors.”
“I found them. Thanks.” A toilet flushing. Roarke heard water running. Then, nothing.
He waited. Waited some more. Finally, beginning to worry that her head injury was worse than he’d been led to believe, he decided to forgo privacy to save her life. He knocked once—a hard, no-nonsense rap—then pushed the unlocked door open.
Daria was standing with her back against the wall, sound asleep.
5
ROARKE STOOD IN the doorway, looking at her. She was as pale as the shell-shaped porcelain sink and, engulfed in the black shirt that came down nearly to her knees, she looked small and frail and vulnerable.
He found the fact that she could sleep at all—let alone standing up—amazing. Then again, knowing all too well how depleted you could feel when the adrenaline rush faded, Roarke decided it wasn’t all that surprising.
Had she been there when the Justice Department lawyer was murdered? he wondered yet again. Despite Mike’s concerns, Roarke didn’t consider Daria a suspect. Although he knew that appearances all too often proved deceptive, there was no way this woman was a cold-blooded killer. He would bet his life on that.
Which you’ve done before, a nagging voice reminded him. And nearly lost.
He shook off that depressing thought and reminded himself that his near-fatal relationship with Natasha Adropov was yesterday’s ball score. Today was what counted. And what he had to do was figure out what exactly Daria Shea had gotten herself involved in that would have cops willing to kill a federal attorney, then come gunning for a prosecutor. Even a deputy one. Whatever it was, it was guaranteed to make a dynamite story. Headline news all over the country. Hell, it would probably get beamed around the world. The resulting fame would definitely shoot him right back up to the top of his profession, and Roarke wondered why the idea didn’t give him as much pleasure as it once would have.
Perhaps Mike was right. Perhaps they were getting old.
Now that was a damn depressing thought.
Now that he thought about it, Roarke realized that he’d felt old when he’d stepped on that plane in Moscow, ancient when he’d landed in New York, and beyond even that by the time he’d checked into the Whitfield Palace. But that had been this morning, in what now seemed like another world, another time. Before he’d met Daria.
Drinking in the sight of those smooth, slender legs, Roarke felt that all-too-familiar pull of desire and reluctantly admitted that he wanted her. Who wouldn’t? Brains and beauty were an appealing combination in any woman; toss in an extra helping of danger and he would be forced to worry about his masculinity if he didn’t want to bed her.
But it went deeper than that, dammit. Beneath the journalistic curiosity and the male hunger, he felt an almost irresistible urge to protect her. The feeling, unbidden and unwelcome, made him all the more resolved to avoid entrapment.
Under different circumstances, he might have enjoyed tumbling the sheets with spunky, smart Daria Shea. Factor in the desire he’d witnessed in her wary gaze, and Roarke had no doubt that she would enjoy it, as well. But from the moment he’d found her lying facedown in a puddle at the feet of a cop who might have attempted to assassinate her, she’d become a story.
And that made her off-limits.
“Hey.” He ran the back of his hand down her face. Her eyes flew open, her knees sagged, and if he hadn’t caught hold of her she would have landed on the marble floor. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in bed?”
“Bed.” She sighed the word as if it were the most beautiful in the English language. “Yes.” Her lashes drifted shut and she fell asleep again. This time in his arms.
The top of her head was just under his chin, and Roarke breathed in the scent of the hospital clinging to her hair. But beneath the antiseptic smell, he caught a faint whiff of that fragrance that, along with the enticing feel of her breasts pressed against his chest, caused another stir of forbidden desire.
He picked her up, carried her back into the bedroom, laid her on the mattress and covered her with a cotton sheet that was so finely woven it could have been spun from silk. Her hand, lying on top of the sheet, was bruised. He ran his finger over the purple mark; her skin was magnolia-soft and fragrant. He wondered if she smoothed that scented lotion all over her body, wondered if the man whose ring she was wearing enjoyed rubbing it on her back, her legs, her breasts....
Disgusted by the raw need that surged through him, Roarke dropped her hand, not gently, onto the mattress and resolutely turned away.
“Why don’t you just strip yourself naked, tie a bunch of sticks of dynamite around yourself and walk into a convention of pyromaniacs, O’Malley?” he muttered as he left the bedroom. And temptation.
He had calls to make. A story to break. And then, he reminded himself, he could get on with his life as planned. Alone.
THE MOONLIT SPACE was unfamiliar, but Daria knew she was somewhere in the bayou. She was crouching in the shadow of a giant cypress, staring ahead of her in horror at the back of a young man. A rope around his neck was tied to a tree branch overhead; his feet dangled just inches above the ground.
Daria was aware of shadowy figures that seemed to be moving toward the hanging man. There was a hole in his chest large enough to put her fist into; through that gaping hole, she could see his heart, still alive and pumping blood. It spurted up like a geyser, drenching her in sticky red warmth.
And then she screamed.
Jerked out of a restless sleep, Roarke leaped from the chair and was at her bedside in a single long stride. She was sitting up, her eyes as wide, staring straight ahead at nothing. And screaming her head off.
“Daria.” He ran an awkward, ineffectual hand down her hair. “Hey, it’s okay.” He p
atted her shoulder. “You were dreaming. It was only a nightmare.”
He wasn’t certain she could even hear him. Then, when the horrible sound coming from her throat suddenly stopped, he knew he’d gotten through.
“No.” She shook her head, then looked up at him. Roarke watched as the confusion in her eyes changed to horror. “It was a nightmare.” A sob caught in her throat; she drew in a deep, shuddering breath to clear it away. “But I wasn’t dreaming. Not when it happened, anyway.”
“When what happened?”
“The murder.”
His fingers tightened on her shoulders. He relaxed them and forced a calm voice. “The one in the hotel room?”
She blinked, the confusion returning. “No. This happened in the bayou. They shot him.”
Since Roarke didn’t believe even the NOPD cops would risk detection by dragging a body back from the bayou and sticking it in Daria Shea’s hotel room, he realized that they were now talking about two murders. And maybe more. Enough to bring a Justice Department investigator to town? Perhaps.
“Who was shot? And who did it?”
She opened her mouth. Then closed it. “I don’t know. I don’t recognize...the victim.” She dragged a trembling hand down her face. “I don’t understand why I can’t see the others. I can see him. So clearly. Oh, God, too clearly.”
When Roarke realized that he would do anything to banish the bleak frustration darkening her eyes, he knew he was in deep, deep trouble. Ignoring his vow to keep his distance, he sat down beside her on the bed and put his arm around her trembling shoulders.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. The doctor said some memory loss was expected. Besides, you just gave us another clue.”
“What?”
“You said them. Obviously there was more than one person involved in the shooting.”
She thought about that for a long, silent moment. “You’re right They were wearing camouflage uniforms. And carrying shotguns.”
A shotgun could make one hell of a hole in a man. Roarke wasn’t surprised she was having nightmares.
“See? It’s starting to come back. Just like the doc predicted.”
“Not soon enough.” She sighed and rubbed her temples. “I have the most excruciating headache.”
“I’ll get you something.”
“How? We didn’t stay around the hospital long enough to have anyone write us a prescription.”
“I found some painkillers in the downstairs bathroom.” When she looked up at him in surprise, Roarke shrugged. “I guess they’re a standard item in the spy business.”
Despite the pain it caused, Daria shook her head. “Your mother must go crazy with worry about her sons,” she murmured. “Your brother the spy, you who spend your time chasing wars in all the world’s hot spots, Mike...” She paused, obviously puzzled. “Did you say what Mike did for a living?”
“No.” There had been a good reason for that. Knowing that she was just going to keep asking, Roarke said, “He’s a detective.”
She reacted precisely as he’d expected. “A detective?” Her voice was a mere sliver of shaky sound. “A New Orleans Police detective?”
“He used to be.” His hand caressed her hair again in an attempt to ease her fear. “But he quit about the time you joined the prosecutor’s office. He’s gone private. Providing corporate security, stuff like that.”
She belatedly recalled Michael having mentioned something about crooked casino dealers when they’d met, but she’d been so confused at the time, she had’t really been paying attention,
“I was afraid—”
“I know.” He ran the backs of his fingers down her face, avoiding the darkening bruise. “But Mike’s one of the good guys. The best.”
When she didn’t immediately answer, he said, “You don’t believe me.”
“I do,” she whispered. It was the truth.
“You shouldn’t. You’re not in any position to believe anyone. And you damn well shouldn’t trust anyone.”
She looked up at him, puzzled. “Are you saying I shouldn’t even trust you?”
He laughed and Daria thought she’d never heard a sadder sound. “Especially not me.” His voice was rough. His eyes dark.
She knew that she should distance herself emotionally from this man now, this very minute. She should break the compelling, almost-hypnotizing eye contact. That was, of course, what she should do. What any sane, sensible woman, especially a woman who was, apparently, a deputy prosecutor with a logical mind would do. Unfortunately, there was not a single logical thing about the way Roarke O’Malley made her feel.
Finally, unable to stand the way he was looking down at her, with those patient, unblinking, unemotional eyes, she swallowed and gathered up the scattered remnants of her composure.
“I suppose that would make us even, then,” she said, with a detachment she was a very long way from feeling. “Because I get the impression that you don’t trust me, either.”
His answering smile was chilling. “Not on a bet.” That said, he stood. “I’ll go downstairs and get you a pill.”
He was at the door when she called out to him.
“Yeah?” He glanced back over his shoulder and felt a stir of complex and perilous emotions.
“Thank you.” Her soft smile reached her pain-fogged eyes, turning them to amber. “For everything.”
How did she do it? He was ten feet away from her, a distance that should have been safe, yet, as he looked at her sitting amid those tangled sheets, her hair tousled, Roarke felt himself being pulled into dangerous waters.
“You don’t have to thank me.” Steeling his heart against an involvement he couldn’t afford, he made his tone purposefully gruff. “I’m a reporter, remember. And you just happen to be the best story I’ve stumbled across in months. You’re also my ticket back to the big time.”
Bull’s-eye. The soft flush drained from her face as the brusque shot hit its mark. He watched her teeth bite into lips that had begun to tremble.
You’re a son of a bitch, O’Malley, he told himself as he turned back and continued out of the room. As he walked down the ridiculous Gone with the Wind staircase, he assured himself that he’d done the right thing. The only thing possible. The attraction that had sprung up between them from the beginning was as dangerous for her as it was for him.
If he was to keep her alive while he unearthed the truth about what had happened to her, he would need a clear head, a cool mind. If he allowed himself to be distracted by her not-inconsiderable charms, they could both end up dead. And if he found himself forgetting to keep his distance, all he had to do was remember the last time he’d played Sir Galahad to a female in distress..
Daria watched him leave the room, then turned her head into the fluffy down pillow. She was confused and frustrated, scared and angry. And although she knew, with ever fiber of her being, that she was not the type of woman to find dark, dangerous men the slightest bit appealing, she was shockingly, disturbingly attracted to Roarke O’Malley.
“He’s right,” she muttered. “You can’t trust anyone. Including him.” And even though she’d already made the mistake of trusting him with her life, she was determined to keep her heart to herself.
The thing to do, she decided, was to use him to help her find out what case she’d been working on that had almost gotten her killed. As a reporter, he was accustomed to digging out stories. And what facts he couldn’t unearth, perhaps his brother, the cop-turned-private-detective, could.
She would use Roarke O‘Malley just as he claimed to be using her. And if everything turned out all right in the end—and she could not allow herself to believe it wouldn’t—she would get to put some murderers behind bars and he would get an exclusive on a dynamite story.
Then, after they’d both gotten what they wanted, she could get on with her life. Alone.
“Well, not exactly alone,” she murmured, glancing; down at the ring that was glittering like ice in the slanting silver moonlight strea
ming into the room.
Why was it, she wondered yet again, she had no memory of the man she’d promised to spend the rest of her life with? She suspected that if Roarke were her fiancé, she wouldn’t have forgotten him for a moment.
Unwilling to dwell on that disturbing thought while her head was pounding, she closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep.
THERE WERE DEFINITELY advantages to being a war correspondent. Accustomed to sleeping on planes, trains, camel caravans, and on the hard ground with rockets streaking overhead, Roarke had no trouble catching a few zzzs in the chair beside Daria’s bed. She’d been asleep when he’d returned with the Percocet and reasoning that it probably wasn’t all that wise to take medication with a head injury anyway, he hadn’t wakened her.
He could have claimed a bed in one of the other rooms, but again, because of her head wound, he didn’t want to risk leaving her alone all night. He slept lightly, aware of the traffic outside on the street—he’d almost forgotten how this city never slept—the creaking sounds of the hundred-and-forty-year-old house settling down for the night, the occasional tapping of the rain on the roof, the bark of a dog in the distance and the whistle of its owner as it was summoned back into the house.
It was a little before dawn when he woke, amazingly refreshed considering that he should still have been suffering from major jet lag. Adrenaline, he thought. Not the jolt that comes from danger, like last night’s high-speed chase, but the energizing feeling he always got when working on a hot story.
Using the bathroom down the hall, he showered, shaved, then checked out the clothes Shayne had assured him he would find in the closets. A look at the selection revealed that spies came in almost all sizes. But unfortunately not his. He did find some silk boxers that not only fit, but felt damn good against his skin, and a cashmere sweater that was too snug, but since Daria was currently wearing his T-shirt, it would have to do.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” he recalled his father saying on one of his infrequent visits home. Not that any beggar Roarke had ever run across sported cashmere.
