Roomful of Roses

by Diana Palmer

  "You don't have that choice, McCabe!" she burst out. "You can't tell me what to do, I'm not sixteen anymore!"

  "I never told you what to do," he reminded her. His hand brushed down her throat and across her collarbone while he held her eyes and studied them. His fingers brushed lower, across the top row of letters on the T-shirt, over the soft tops of her breasts, and she gasped, and knocked them away.

  "You'll let me do that one day," he said quietly. "In fact, Wynn, you'll lift the blouse out of my way yourself."

  She ducked under his arm and moved away from him on shaking legs. "You should live so long," she shot at him.

  But he only smiled.

  They got to the office at eight-thirty, and McCabe went immediately into Ed's office and sat down behind the big desk.

  "Get the staff in here," he said without preamble.

  "Kelly's still in school," Wynn reminded him.

  "Then get Judy and Jess in here."

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Editor," she said smartly, and went to fetch them.

  When they piled into the office, McCabe was frowning over a copy of the last week's edition. He looked up and waited patiently for Wynn to introduce him. He acknowledged the other staff and grinned.

  "Don't believe a word Wynn tells you about me, it's all lies," he told them. "I'm laid up for a while, so Ed thought this would be a great time to go on vacation and dump the paper in my lap."

  Wynn glared at him, but he ignored her.

  "I don't plan to start any exposes or turn this into the world's greatest crusading weekly over the next month, in case the thought crossed anyone's mind," he added. "You do your jobs and I'll try to do Ed's and we'll all lie when he gets back and say it was impossible without him. Okay?"

  Jess and Judy laughed and went back to work. McCabe grinned at Wynn. "Well, don't you have anything to do? Or -" he motioned her closer and whispered in her ear "- would you like to close the door and we'll make love on the desk?"

  She glared at him. "Please stop mistaking me for one of the vulgar heroines in your vulgar books," she said coldly, and moved toward the door.

  "I didn't know you read my books," he murmured, watching her blush. He grinned. "Remember which page that pariicular scene was on, do you, Wynn?"

  She felt herself go hot all over. She did remember it, vividly, because when she'd read it she could almost see McCabe bending over the Latin girl in the book.

  "Oh!" she burst out.

  He lifted his shaggy head and smiled wickedly. "It's a very interesting way to do it, on a desk."

  She went out and slammed the door behind her.

  "Something wrong?" Judy asked, lifting her brows.

  "I quit," Wynn said shortly.

  Judy shook her head. "Wrong day. This is Wednesday. You threaten to quit every Tuesday, remember?"

  Jess went after the papers just before noon, and by the time Kelly got to the office, Wynn was knee-deep in them. Jess stamped the papers that went out to local post offices, while Wynn put the singlewraps that went outside the local area into pre-stamped lightweight brown bags. McCabe handled the phone and the front office while the rest of them sacked and lilted and tied bundles and loaded the trick that carried the papers the five miles to the post office. By the end of the day Wynn was black down the front from newsprint and her face was smeared with it. She was more than ready to go home and have a nice hot bath.

  She was about to leave the office when Judy motioned her to the telephone.

  "Hello," she said dully.

  "Wynn?" Andy asked, his tone conciliatory. "Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?"

  She brightened. "I'd love to. And despite what McCabe might have told you, I sleep alone," she added curtly.

  "He just rattled me, that's all," came the embarrassed reply. "I can't keep my wits around him."

  You're not the only one, she thought, but didn't say it. "What time are you coming by?" she asked instead.

  "Around six. We'll drive up to Columbus and take in a play, too."

  "Sounds great. I'd better rush home and dress," she added, glancing at her watch. "How wonderful that the presses didn't break down. That's what usually happens when I've got someplace I have to lie on Wednesday afternoon." She grinned. "See you later."

  She hung up and went back into the office to get her purse. "If you're riding home with me," she told McCabe without looking at him, "I've got to go. Andy's taking me to Columbus."

  He didn't reply, and she turned, purse in hand, to find him sitting stiffly in the chair with a face like chalk. One big hand was resting on his thigh and he was as taut as a drawn rope.

  "McCabe!" she cried softly. She put the purse down and went closer. There were beads of sweat on his brow. He looked terrible.

  "Could you find me an aspirin, honey?" he asked curtly. "Or, failing that, a saw?" he added dryly.

  "Here." She dug out a powerful over-thecounter painkiller that she kept for Katy Maude's arthritis attacks. "Two of these will work better than aspirin - if the publicity on them is reliable."

  She got him a soft drink from the machine in back and opened it for him, watching him swallow down the pills.

  "I keep forgetting what condition you're in," she sighed, sitting back down at her own desk. Her worried eyes scanned the drawn lines in his face. "Can I do anything?"

  "Get me the saw," he ground out. He rested his shaggy head against the high backed swivel chair and closed his eyes.

  " God i hurt, Wynn."

  " You might have stayed home today, where you belong " she chided.

  " I can't run a newspaper from the bed room," he returned. "I couldn't let Ed down."

  "He'd have understood. He could have waited."

  "I couldn't," he said oddly, glancing toward her. "It's worse when I can't move around."

  "Suppose I run you by Dr. Taylor's office," she suggested softly. "And just let him prescribe something?"

  His eyes darkened. "I don't like drugs."

  "Will you be reasonable?" She glared at him irritably. "McCabe, this isn't an everyday thing, and it isn't permanent, but how are you going to get well if you're drawn up with pain all the time?"

  "I'll compromise. Get me a bottle of Scotch and I'll numb it with that."

  She pursed her lips. "Soaking it in alcohol is supposed to help?" she asked with a wry smile.

  He scowled. "I meant I'd drink it."

  "Alcohol," she reminded him, "is a drug."

  "Dammit!" he burst out.

  "Don't jerk around like that, you'll make it worse." She studied his leg. "McCabe, have you changed that bandage since you left New York?"

  He looked uncomfortable. "It doesn't need changing every day."

  "When was the last time?"

  "Well..."

  "When?"

  He glared at her. "Oh, three or four days, what difference does it make?"

  "It could get infected, you crazy man," she almost yelled at him.

  "Well, it's awkward and hard to get to," he grumbled.

  "I'll do it for you," she said.

  He lifted an eyebrow and studied her. "You do realize that you can't do it through my trousers?"

  The blush started at her cheeks and worked its way up. "While you're at Dr. Taylor's -"

  "I'm not going to Dr. Taylor's."

  She drew in a very deep breath. "Then you'll have to take care of it yourself, you stubborn man," she added.

  She wore neat white slacks with a thin white lacy top for her date with Andy and she piled her hair coolly on top of her head. McCabe had settled downstairs with a legal pad, making notes, and he looked comfortable propped up on the sofa in his slacks and shirt. The sleeves were rolled up, the neck was open, and he looked faintly dangerous.

  Wynn was glad she wasn't going to be subjected to all that masculinity tonight. She felt drunk on him already, and he'd only been back two days.

  It was explosive to have him under her roof, especially with the innuendos and approaches he'd been making.


  She checked her handbag to make sure she had her key, and glanced at McCabe.

  "Will you be all right alone?" she asked.

  He laughed softly. "If you could see how I've lived for the past six years, you wouldn't ask."

  "I guess you've gotten pretty good at taking care of yourself," she admitted.

  "I've had to." He studied her for a long moment. "How did you wind up with Andy?"

  She turned her small purse idly in her hands. "We'd always known each other, of course. His sister Marilee is my best friend. Then I did a story on their father's textile company, and we started dating. One day he handed me a ring and I put it on." She shrugged. "I suppose it sort of just happened. We get along well, we have common interests ..."

  "But you don't want him," he said quietly. His eyes searched hers. "If you marry him, feeling that way, you'll be cheating him, Wynn."

  "There are more important things," she began.

  He shook his head. "Equally important things," he corrected, holding her gaze.

  "Come here."

  She hesitated, but when he held out a big hand she went forward like a puppet to give him her own.

  His fingers inched between hers and tugged gently until she sat down on the sofa beside him, so that his broad chest was pressing warmly against her thigh. His free hand let go of the legal pad, letting it fall to the floor, and he slowly unbuttoned his shirt while his darkening eyes held hers. He drew her fingers down and brushed them against the feathery hair on his broad chest.

  "McCabe ." she began uneasily, and tried to draw her hand back.

  He pressed it, palm down, against him.

  "Do you ever touch Andy like this?" he asked quietly.

  "No," she admitted. "If it's any of your business, I don't. May I have my hand back?"

  "Why don't you?"

  she stared at him. "Well, because ."

  She sighed with exasperation. "Because I've never wanted to, that's why!"

  "Has he touched you that way?"

  She felt her cheeks burn as she met that knowing gaze. "Look, it's getting late, and Andy will be here any minute and I'm not ready!"

  "You are, except for your shoes." He studied her upswept hair critically. "If you were going out with me, I'd make you take down your hair. I don't like it screwed up like that."

  "You don't have to like it." The feel of his body under her hands was wildly disturbing, and keeping him from knowing that was becoming impossible.

  His eyes wandered down to her thin blouse and began to darken. "You aren't wearing a bra under that. Why?" he asked coldly.

  She felt her cheeks blaze. "McCabe Foxe!" she burst out, dragging her hand from his.

  "Does Andy like it that way?" he demanded, watching her jerk to her feet and glare at him. "Does it make it easier for him to stroke your -"

  "Stop it!" she burst out, horrified. She folded her arms across her breasts.

  "Put something on under that top before you leave here, or, by God, I'll do it for you," he threatened, sitting up. "You're not going out with him, looking like that."

  "I'm a grown woman, I can wear what I like," she began hotly.

  He swung his legs gingerly off the sofa and started to get up. She ran wildly for the bedroom, locking the door behind her with a slam. She cursed and paced and mumbled for ten minutes. But she put on a bra. McCabe was lying back on the sofa again when she reentered the room, still scribbling on his legal pad. He glanced up, giving her breasts a brief but thorough scrutiny.

  "That's better," he said curtly. "There's no sense in tempting a man beyond his limits."

  "Andy and I are engaged, for heaven's sake!" she reminded him.

  He looked up into her eyes with a quiet, intent gaze. "An engagement doesn't make a marriage. I want to be the first, Wynn."

  It took a minute for that to sink in, but when it did she blushed all the way to her toes. His words robbed her of speech as she stood there with incredulity in every line of her face.

  "I will be, too," he continued softly. "So I think you'd better give Andy back the ring."

  "Of all the horribly conceited men," she began, glaring down at him, "to think you can come walking back into my life out of the clear blue and start taking it over."

  He smiled slowly, mockingly. "But that's exactly what I'm going to do, honey. And you're going to let me. Before I leave Redvale again, you're going to belong to me from your green eyes down to your toes. All of you. In ways you've never dreamed of belonging to a man."

  "You just keep right on hoping, McCabe," she said icily. "I love Andy."

  "Sure you do. Like a brother." His head lifted and he smiled slowly. "But you want me, Wynn."

  Chapter Five

  "You're quiet tonight," Andy commented as they sat in a Columbus restaurant eating prime ribs and a green salad.

  Wynn looked up guiltily. "Am I? Sorry, it's been a long day."

  "It's McCabe, isn't it?" he muttered, glaring at her. "He looked like black thunder and you were barely speaking to him when I came to get you."

  "If you must know, we had a disagreement," she lied.

  Andy sighed. "Well, why don't you just ask him to leave?" he burst out, falling for it. "He won't go."

  "I'll see about that," Andy told her, and straightened proudly.

  Even with a bum leg, McCabe would have made mincemeat of him, and she knew it. She laid a hand over his.

  " He wont be here long, Andy"

  " One day is long enough for him to make trouble. He's after you," he said, his eyes concerned.

  She knew that, but she wasn't admitting it. "He's my guardian. My legal guardian, just that."

  "You're so innocent, Wynn," he groaned. "You don't know the arsenal a man like McCabe would have, you'd be no match at all."

  She looked away before he could see the expression in her eyes or the blush that threatened to tell him everything that had happened earlier.

  "I don't know what to do," he sighed, watching her. "I feel like an outsider since McCabe came back."

  "He's wounded, Andy," she reminded him.

  "Yes, that's true enough." He brightened slightly. "But you must know how it looks, having him in the same house with you all the time. People are going to start talking eventually."

  "People who know me won't think anything at all," she said shortly.

  "Won't they?" he replied. "I'm thinking things, Wynn."

  She glared at him. "How could you? You know perfectly well -"

  "He said he'd hand you the phone!" he accused hotly.

  She flushed wildly. "He was lying! Andy, can't you see that he's trying to break us up? And you're helping him by jumping to wild conclusions!"

  He still looked ruffled, but he seemed to calm a little as he sipped his coffee. "I don't like him. He's too cocky."

  She almost laughed. Arrogant, yes, but cocky? It didn't fit McCabe at all. She finished her dessert and sipped her black coffee. "Anyway," she said, "he'll be gone as soon as his leg heals."

  "It won't be soon enough to suit me," he grumbled.

  That was exactly how Wynn felt about it, but she kept her thoughts to herself. She didn't want Andy to know just how vulnerable she felt with McCabe. She changed the subject, and they went to see a comedy at a local theater before they drove back to Redvale, apparently in perfect accord for the time being.

  It lasted to her front door. Andy walked her to the porch, and was just giving her his usual gentle good-night kiss when the door opened and McCabe appeared, staring at them with icy disapproval.

  "What do you mean, bringing Wynn back home at this hour?" McCabe asked curtly, checking his watch. "Do you realize it's almost one in the morning? What will people think?"

  Andy was flabbergasted. He stared and stumbled. "We're ... we're engaged .. ." He managed.

  "What has that got to do with anything?"

  McCabe demanded. "You keep her out this late again, Andy, and you'll regret it."

  And before Andy could decide what to say, McCabe h
ad jerked Wynn into the room and slammed the door.

  "Where were you?" he asked curtly.

  She stared at him with her mouth open.

  "Eating supper," she stammered. "And seeing a play."