Palmer Diana Desperado Soldiers Of Fortune 07

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on the floor in Health and Beauty Aids!"
The elderly woman scoffed. "It was a baby, not a life-threatening event! Don't you let him coddle
you too much, dear," she told Maggie gently. "Exercise is the best thing!"
Maggie wanted to say something, but she didn't get the chance. They were heading through the lobby as
he called goodbye to their companions. A minute later, bare feet and all, she was sitting in the passenger
seat of Cord's truck.
"I'll go back for your clothes and your laptop," he told her smugly.
"You don't have the key!" she muttered.
He looked amused, despite the gravity of the situation. "How do you think I got into your room the
morning after you came by the ranch?"
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"You lock-picker!"
"Count on it," he mused. "I'm a professional mercenary. I have all sorts of skills you don't know about.
Sit tight. I won't be a minute."
She threw up her hands. Arguing got her nowhere. Now she was going to arrive at the ranch in shorts
and no shoes, and everybody would stare. Well, let him explain her state of dishevel, she thought
furiously! She hoped everybody stared!
Minutes later, with her suitcase and other carryalls packed and thrown into the back seat, they were
back at the ranch. Maggie, still self-conscious about her appearance, walked into a pretty bedroom
behind Cord, who was carrying her luggage and her
136 Diana Palmer
laptop. Fortunately, neither June nor anyone else was in sight.
The room was done in pinks and blues, and had a canopied bed. "Wow," she murmured. "Whoever
decorated this cornered the lace market, huh?"
He turned. "I decorated it," he said.
She was wondering for whom, because he'd bought the ranch after Patricia died.
"Who likes French Provencal furniture and Priscilla curtains?" he asked with long-suffering patience.
Her heart jumped. "I do," she blurted out. "But ... why would you decorate a room for me?"
"Temporary insanity," he muttered. "I'm having myself psychoanalyzed Friday."
She couldn't stop looking at him. "You really did this-for me?" she stammered in helpless disbelief.
He moved closer, taking her gently by the shoulders. "Why are you so surprised? I told you before,
you're an integral part of my life. I always assumed that you'd come here and spend the night eventually,
even if it was only for the occasional weekend."
"You never said that," she replied sadly. "You never even hinted at it."
His fingers tightened and released on her shoulders. "It's hard for me to let people close," he confessed
reluctantly, and he wouldn't meet her eyes. "I lost both parents, my wife, Amy ...I don't have a good
track record with ... affection."
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He was going to say love, but he couldn't get the word past his lips. She could understand. She'd been
betrayed herself, by the people who should have put her welfare first. Trust didn't come easily to either of
them.
She searched his eyes slowly, seeing the deep lines between his elegant eyebrows, the lines of stress
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between his nose and his mouth, the hard set of his lean face with its olive complexion.
"I know how that feels," she said slowly. "Except that people have left you because of circumstances
they couldn't control, even Patricia. In my life, the people who were closest to me have betrayed me."
"Who betrayed you?" he asked softly, discerning that she wanted to talk.
"Just about everybody," she said after a long moment. She winced, remembering Bart's horrible act and
its ultimate cost. Her eyes closed and opened. "I'll never trust a man again."
"Can't you tell me what happened?" he persisted, tilting her face up.
She searched his eyes slowly. "It would be cruel," she said absently, and then regretted the slip of the
tongue when she saw his intelligent eyes flicker.
The unexpected answer made him curious. "Cruel to me? Why? How?"
She pulled away and moved to her suitcase. "I'm going to put on something else."
138 Diana Palmer
"What's wrong with shorts?" he asked, diverted. "You're home."
She shrugged. "I don't ever wear shorts except when I'm alone."
He was watching her, alert, assessing. "Who molested you, Maggie?"
She dropped the pair of jeans she was holding. He went to the door, closed it, and came back to
her, turning her to face him. He forced her eyes up
to his. "It was your stepfather, wasn't it?" She winced.
"Did you have therapy?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I could never talk about it, to a total stranger."
His thumbs rubbed gently against her cheeks as he framed her face. "I know a woman. She's amerc . but
she has a degree in psychology. She's tough and honest. I think you'd like her. She's the sort of person
you could talk to, and she could help you."
"Do you think so?"
He bent so that she had to meet his eyes. "Do you want to go through life alone, without a family or
children?"
"I don't know if I can have children anymore," she said huskily and in pain.
His hands stilled on her face. "Why?"
"The beating I took when Bart hit me ...was...devastating," she confessed hesitantly. "I fell into a
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Desperado 139
marble coffee table and it shattered. I damaged one of my ovaries. The other one works ... but the
doctors told me that it might be difficult to get pregnant."
He immediately thought of ways and means to get her that way, and it shocked him. Children, family life,
had never been a priority. He was in a line of work that predisposed him to bachelor status.
But she looked torn, wounded, helpless. Inadequate. He thought about the long, lonely years ahead
when she would substitute work for love and companionship and the family she could have had. It was a
terrible waste.
He scowled as he looked down into her wan face. "Difficult, but not impossible," he said huskily, and his
whole body went taut. He laughed at the unexpected arousal.
"What's so funny?"
He pursed his lips. "I thought about kids and got aroused. That's a first."
She flushed, pulling away from him.
With a long sigh, he pushed his itching hands into his slacks pockets to keep from grabbing her. "Well,
it's a challenge, isn't it? I love a challenge."
Her hands were shaking. She folded them at her
waist. "I really should change."
"I really would love to watch," he said softly, and
he didn't smile. "Your skin has a delicate sheen,
like that on a pearl. You feel like the most delicate
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rose petal, silky and delicious, and the smell of roses clings to you like an aura." He searched over her
hair, her face, her body, hungrily. "I've had women all my adult life, not in droves, but in sufficient
numbers to appreciate them. You surpass every one of them, in every way. If I had an ideal of
womanhood, you'd be it."
She didn't know how to take such sweeping comments. They embarrassed her, even as they flattered
her. But this was Cord passing them out, Cord, who had been her most persistent enemy for years.
"Are you ... feeling sorry for me," she queried, "and that's why you say those things?"
He scowled. "Why would I pity you?"
Because she knew pity. She had an intimate knowledge of it. People were sorry for you, they tried to
spoil you to make up for the trauma. They wanted to help, and when words were all they had to use,
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they flattered. But the words meant nothing.
"So many secrets, Maggie," he murmured as he watched her ponder his remarks. "You don't trust me,
either, do you?"
"It's not personal," she said in a stark whisper while her eyes mirrored troubling memories.
"If I'm slow, and careful, and I don't pressure you," he said gently, "can I win your trust?"
"What would you expect in return?" she asked with helpless suspicion. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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