Roomful of Roses

by Diana Palmer

  "I care a great deal about it," he said.

  "Too much."

  "Well, don't lose sleep over it," she grumbled. "I'll survive."

  She put aside the antiseptic and sat up straight. She didn't want to look concerned, but she couldn't help it. "Will you sleep now?"

  "It's just a bad dream, honey," he said.

  "Not if you keep having it." She folded her hands in her lap. "You asked me who I talked to about the job. Who do you talk to, McCabe?"

  "I'm a man," he said.

  "You're not invulnerable," she replied. "There's no shame in fear, is there? It's a human thing."

  "I suppose that most people with a pistol against their temples would feel fear," he agreed. He settled himself more comfortably into the pillows. His fingers rubbed at his eyes for a minute, as if to clear them. "I've been in tough situations before, but I think that's the closest to death I've ever come. I dream about it all the time, except that when I dream, there's no friendly soldier there to save me."

  She caught one of his big hands in hers and held it on the bed, savoring its callused warmth, its strength. "Tell me about it."

  "Are you sure, Wynn? It's not a pretty story."

  "I'm sure."

  So he told her about where he'd been. About the fighting and the slaughter and the hopelessness of the people. About the children lying dead in the streets and the native journalists who were put to death if they dared to print anything unfavorable to the regime. About the danger foreign journalists placed themselves in when they went there, and the ones who'd been killed already. About the poor peasants murdered and left on the sides of the roads without even the dignity of burial. And then, slowly, reluctantly, about the death of his friends and how it had been when the soldiers took him out of the small, stifling rock building with the dirt floor, and one of their number had put a pistol to his head.

  His hand tightened on hers. "You always think you're ready to die," he said. "Then it comes down to it, and all you can get in your mind is how many things you've left undone. You were one of my loose ends, Wynn. That's why I came back."

  "Loose ends?" she murmured.

  "I've played the heavy authority figure with you since your father died. By long distance, anyway. I wrote, and I talked to you on the phone and remembered to send cards on special occasions. But," he sighed, "I never really thought about how alone you were, even with Katy Maude for company. I knew I had to come back, spend some time with you, really get to know you. Then when I spoke to Ed and heard you were about to marry Andy ... I got on the first plane."

  "Why did it bother you?"

  "I don't know," he said honestly. He looked up into her eyes and frowned. "It shouldn't have. Andy wasn't any worse than any other man, on reflection. Until he slapped you," he added menacingly, and his eyes flashed. "But I didn't like the thought of your being married. You're so young, Wynn."

  "I feel pretty ancient, if you want to know," she told him.

  "Do you? I feel that way myself sometimes. Mostly when I'm with you," he added with a faint smile.

  "I'm back in the nursery again, I gather," she said resignedly.

  "Is that how I sounded?" His fingers curled into hers, nudging them apart sensuously to lock between them. "I'm all too aware that you're a woman, Wynn." H e looked up into her eyes. "And you're very much aware of the effect you have on me, aren't you?"

  "Yes," she admitted, avoiding his eyes. "If you were a few years older and more sophisticated, I'd take you to bed, and get you out of my system," he said flatly. "But that isn't possible. So I think it might be a wise idea if you got out of my room, darling, before I throw off this sheet and drag you in here with me."

  She stood up, disengaging her hand. "I appreciate your efforts on my behalf," she murmured.

  "What do you want me to do, Wynn, marry you?" he burst out furiously. He sat straight up, and his eyes glittered. "Wouldn't that be a colossal mistake, with you in one country and me in another? Because I won't give it up. It's my life."

  "I know that," she agreed. "Where would you get the raw material for those sleazy books you write without it?" she added sarcastically.

  "They aren't sleazy," he said coolly. "They're adventure novels. And I don't need to poke my nose into military coups to write them."

  "Then why do it at all?" she demanded.

  "Because someone has to! Someone has to get the word out, so that truth and freedom aren't totally suppressed!" he shot at her.

  "And you're the only reporter who can do that, of course," she said calmly.

  "I love my work, Wynn. I always have. And I told you, I don't need ties."

  "So you did. But I do. And since I'm not likely to find anybody I like better than Andy," she said defiantly, lying through her teeth, "I'm going to make it up with him. You just go back to your jungles and get yourself killed. I'll marry Andy and sleep with him and have his babies."

  "I'll kill him first!" he said passionately.

  She jumped at the soft violence in his voice, at the fervor, and stood with her back to the door gaping at him.

  He threw off the sheet and got to his feet, devastatingly male, without a stitch of clothing on his big body. Mindless of her embarrassed shock, he walked toward her, pausing when he was close enough to back her up against the door.

  "I'm too old," he began hotly, "to be remodeled or renovated. I am not changing professions and I am not marrying you."

  "I haven't asked you to," she said reasonably. "Will you please put on your pants?"

  "No, you can get used to seeing me naked. Think of it as sex education. Now, listen to me, Wynn," he said hotly. "There's no reason for you to jump into marriage with a man who's physically violent."

  "That's exactly right," she agreed. "That's why I wouldn't marry you on a bet."

  He drew in an angry breath. "Not me, Andy!"

  "Andy was only violent because I told him you were a wonderful lover," she explained.

  He stopped ranting and stared down at her. His chin lifted slightly and he frowned. "Did you?"

  She nodded. "Umhmmm." Her eyes searched his. "What kind of lover are you, McCabe?" she asked in a husky, strange voice as his nearness and disreputable appearance began to work on her bloodstream.

  His nostrils flared. "Want me to show you, Wynn?"

  Her eyes dropped to his broad chest and she wanted to say yes with all her heart. But thinking about the consequences was enough to make her shake her head. She couldn't risk it. Losing him was going to be traumatic enough without the complication of intimacy.

  "No," she said on a weary breath. "No, it's better if I never know. Good night, McCabe."

  "Wynn?"

  His voice sounded odd, but she refused to meet his eyes. "Yes?"

  "You'll find someone a man who'll be able to give you what you want."

  Did he know, she thought with terror, did he realize that she loved him? She finally met his gaze, uncertainty and apprehension in her eyes, and he searched them slowly.

  "I'm not domesticated," he said in a husky voice.

  "I haven't said a word," she reminded him. "You do what you like, McCabe. If you want to get killed, go ahead."

  "The way I die is up to God," he reminded her hotly. "It could happen here just as easily as it could happen overseas, and you know it!"

  That was true, but knowing it didn't help. "Yes, that's probably true. And now that you mention it," she added, wanting to goad him, "I've always wondered what it would be like to work for the wire services.

  His face actually paled. "Oh, no, you don't," he began.

  "I'm over twenty-one," she reminded him, though she had no real intention ol making good on her threat. "I can do what

  I like. Yes, I think I might like being a foreign correspondent. But the Middle East would be more interesting to me. I could see the pyramids. What a wonderful idea!"

  He exploded at the smile on her face, the perverse light in her eyes. "No way, Wynn. I'll stop you!"

  "How?" she
asked calmly.

  He blinked, as if the question caught him off guard, and just stared at her.

  "You'd better get some rest, and so had I," she told him. "Tomorrow is press day. Good night, McCabe, sleep well."

  And she turned, careful not to look down, and shut the door behind her. She could hear him cursing roundly as she started down the hall to her own room, and she smiled. Let him chew on that possibility for a while and see how he liked it!

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning McCabe looked like a volcano about to erupt. Under the closefitting tan slacks and beige patterned shirt he was wearing, hard muscles rippled as he moved around the kitchen. Wynn watched him helplessly, remembering the one quick glimpse she'd had of him last night, all man, all muscle and grace.

  "You are not going to join the wire service staff," he told her without any attempt at civility, glaring at her across the table while she nibbled toast and sipped coffee.

  Her eyebrows rose. "I'm not?"

  "Don't give me that big dumb look of yours," he said curtly. "It won't work." He checked his watch. "We don't have time to sort things out today, but tomorrow, lady, you and I are going to have a talk."

  She finished her toast. "No, we're not. You have a planning-commission meeting tomorrow morning and an industrial authority meeting tomorrow afternoon," she said sweetly. "You promised Ed."

  Irritation claimed every line of his face. "Just what I need," he muttered. "Smalltown progress."

  Her green eyes glittered at him. "You used to be part of this town," she reminded him. "And the way we're beginning to grow is no joke to those of us who love our community. We were on the way to extinction before our city fathers decided to band together and go out after industry. This town matters to me, McCabe. My children are going to grow up here."

  He lifted his head and stared at her for a long moment, and an odd expression touched his gray eyes as they wandered over her face.

  She pushed her chair away from the table. "But, as you say, there's no time for discussion. It's press day." She groaned. "Maybe I'll just quit right now and save myself the bother of doing it around two o'clock like I usually do."

  "It's interesting, making up a paper again," he said, rising. "It's been a long time."

  " `Interesting' is not the best word for it," she told him.

  And by two o'clock he was agreeing with her, as he helped answer phones between efforts to cut and paste copy onto the front page. He was trying to write headlines at the same time, and write out correction lines for Judy to set at the typesetting computer, and make up last-minute ads. And his leg was giving him trouble; Wynn could see it in the drawn lines of his face. Everybody stood to make up the paper; it was almost impossible to do it sitting down, even in the high chairs that were used at the light table to make up printing jobs and mask negatives.

  She got one of those chairs and eased it in front of the makeup board where the front page was lying. He glowered at her as he turned from the waxer with another strip of copy in his hand.

  "It will be easier," she said quietly. "And if you'll dictate the headlines to me and tell me what point type you want them in, I'll do them on the headline machine while Judy sets correction lines."

  He sighed wearily. "All right, you win."

  She picked up a scratch pad and a pen.

  "Okay. Shoot."

  Time sped by, and there wasn't enough of it. There never was. But somehow they finished up and put the pages into the flatbox, and Kelly rushed out the door with them on his way to the printer.

  "I quit!" McCabe said shortly, rubbing his thigh with a big weary hand while Judy and Jess went through the jobwork to see what was pressing.

  "Too late," Wynn told him. "You have to quit by two, or nobody listens to you."

  He looked down at her, his eyes warm and quiet and searching. "You're pretty, he said all of a sudden, studying her disheveled black hair, flashing emerald eyes and flushed complexion.

  She caught her breath, because the compliment sounded genuine. "Am I?"

  He nodded. One big hand moved to brush the hair away from her mouth, and he stared at it pointedly. "If you'll close the door," he whispered, "I'll make love to you."

  She blushed and felt her cheeks go hot.

  "Oh, hush," she said sharply.

  He smiled, the action making him seem younger. "Don't you want to be kissed, Wynn?" he asked, bending. "We do it so well together."

  That was true, but he made her much too vulnerable to risk interludes like this.

  "We'd better get home," she said. "I have to cover a city-council meeting tonight."

  "Tonight?" he burst out.

  "The city council meets the first Tuesday of every month. This is the first Tuesday."

  He glared at her. "I was looking forward to spending some time with you. When do you get home?"

  "They're going to discuss the water system tonight. Probably I'll be lucky if they break up by midnight."

  He looked furious, and she thought that it was probably a good thing the meeting would occupy her. He was too devastating at close range, and she was too vulnerable to him.

  Her eyes went over his hard face.

  "McCabe, would you like to come with me?" she asked suddenly.

  He almost laughed. "Do you think I'd find it entertaining?"

  She turned away. "No, actually I thought you might find it interesting that we're achieving what was considered an impossible goal only a few months ago."

  "Sorry," he said. "I deserved that. Yes, Wynn, I think I'd like to come with you."

  Surprised and pleased, she walked out the door without letting him see her face.

  They had a quick supper and went straight to city hall, and Wynn was frankly amused at the stares they got. Everyone

  knew McCabe was her house guest, but most of the people she dealt with hadn't seen him in years. The impact he had on the townspeople was fascinating. Harry Lawson shook hands with him before the meeting was called to order.

  "I hope you gave me front page on my water-system-expansion project," he told McCabe without preamble.

  "As a matter of fact," McCabe told him, "I gave you a banner headline."

  Harry grinned. "If you've already put the paper to bed, you may have to tear up your front page after this meeting," he confided. "I got a terrific piece of news late this afternoon. Tell you about it later."

  Wynn's eyes widened. "He got the money he was counting on from the governor," she said with insight. "I'd bet half a week's pay." McCabe glanced down at her as they eased into chairs near the front of the crowded room.

  "You really are interested in this expansion, aren't you?"

  "Yes, I am. Water is a serious issue these days, whether you've been in this country long enough to realize it or not." She looked up. "Everybody thinks we can't ever run out of it. But we can, McCabe. The water table is already dropping in many areas of the country, and the increased demand from municipalities and industry and agriculture is beginning to catch up with supply. What's going to happen when it exceeds it?"

  He stared at her. "It can't happen here," he said hesitantly. "We've got two major rivers feeding our water supply."

  "I think you ought to read that water study in my files," she told him. "It might surprise you to know that every drop of water in them both will have been allocated within ten years."

  "My God!"

  "You see the implications already, don't you?" she asked. "Towns will stop growing because industry needs water to operate. Subdivisions and housing complexes and apartment buildings will be curtailed for the same reason. Agriculture will be in trouble in times of drought."

  McCabe turned back toward the podium, where the mayor was calling the meeting to order. His eyes were interested for the first time, and he took in every word that was spoken, from the mayor's explanation to questions by the city council and visitors.

  Wynn noticed that McCabe began taking notes, and he asked questions, too. She felt such a surge of prid
e in him that she could hardly contain it. He looked and sounded what he was - a formidable journalist with years of experience behind him.

  The mayor's news was that the governor had allowed Redvale not the five thousand dollars it had asked for, but ten thousand. The governor had taken into consideration the town's desperate plight the year before, when drought had forced it to restrict water usage and ban watering gardens and washing cars and filling pools for the duration.