Diana Palmer Collected 1-6: Soldier of Fortune / Tender Stranger / Enamored / Mystery Man / Rawhide and Lace / Unlikely Lover

She tried to disguise her anguish and hoped that she succeeded. She said goodbye to Laremos and got into the van with First Shirt while J.D. said his own farewells.

Shirt gave her a brief but thorough scrutiny and laid one lean, wiry hand over the steering wheel. “What did he do to you?” he asked.

She lifted a startled face. “Why…nothing.”

“Don’t lie,” he said gently. “I’ve known him a long time. Are you okay?”

She shifted restlessly in the seat, refusing to let her eyes go past Shirt to J.D., who was standing apart with Laremos. “Yes, I’m okay,” she said. “Of course, I’ll be a lot better once I get out of his life.”

“Whew.” He whistled ruefully. “That bad?”

“That bad.” She gripped her purse tightly in her lap.

“Gabby,” he said gently, with a tiny smile, “have you ever known a fighting fish to lie down when he hit the bait? Don’t expect to draw him in without a little effort.”

She glared at him. “I’d like to put a hook in him, but not to land him.”

“Give it a little time,” he said. “He’s been alone most of his life. It’s new to him, needing someone.”

“He doesn’t need me,” she said shortly.

“I’m not convinced of that,” he replied. He studied her affectionately. “I think he’s met his match. You’re a pretty damned good shot for a lady who’s never used an automatic weapon before. Laremos said you learned fast.”

She pursed her lips, studying her purse. “It wasn’t a hard weapon to learn,” she told him. “And actually, I have shot a .22-caliber rifle before. Mama and I used to hunt rabbits. But it didn’t have a kick like that gun.”

He smiled as she rubbed her shoulder. “I don’t imagine so. Is your mother still alive?”

She nodded, smiling back. “She lives in Lytle, Texas. There’s a small ranch, and she has a few head of cattle. It’s not nearly as big as the one she and Daddy had, but when he died, she decided to retire. Sort of.”

“And she hunts?” he asked.

“Hunts, rides, ropes, and can outcuss most veteran cowboys,” she told him. “She’s quite a character.”

“You’re a character yourself,” he said. “When J.D. told me he took you along on secret meetings, I began to realize that he had an unusual relationship with you. J.D. doesn’t trust anybody except his sister and me.”

That wasn’t bragging, either, she realized. Just a statement of fact. “He doesn’t trust Laremos.”

“Neither do I,” he whispered, smiling.

She burst out laughing, but the amusement faded immediately as J.D. started toward the car, and she felt herself freezing up. But she needn’t have worried. J.D. climbed into the backseat and slammed the door, waving to Laremos.

“Be back in a few hours, boss,” Shirt called to him. Laremos grinned and waved, and they were under way.

It was a long trip to the airport, not because of distance but because of the tension between Gabby and J.D. Despite First Shirt’s efforts to keep things casual, Gabby drew into herself and didn’t say a word all the way.

It was like that during the flight back as well. Gabby was relieved to find that their seats were not together. She was sandwiched between a businessman and a young girl. J.D.’s seat was farther back. Not one word had passed between them when they landed at O’Hare airport in the wee hours of the morning.

It took her a long time to find a place in the swollen ranks of departing passengers. She didn’t look back to see where J.D. was, either. Her only thought was to get back to her apartment. After that she’d face the thought of leaving J.D. forever, of finding another job and getting on with her life.

At last she reached the front of the terminal and stepped out into the breezy night air that carried the sound of distant car horns and city smells that had become so familiar. There was no cab in sight, but Gabby wasn’t daunted. She’d just call one.

“Come on,” J.D. said tersely, appearing just behind her. “I’ll drive you.”

She glared at him. “I’d rather be mugged.”

“You might be, at this hour, alone,” he said matter-of-factly. “What’s the matter, afraid of me?” he taunted.

She was; he’d made her afraid. But she was too proud to let him see how much.

After a minute, she turned and followed him toward the parking lot. A little later, they were winding their way back into Chicago.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do?” he asked.

She knew instinctively what he meant. “Yes. I’m going to try to find a job in the IT field. I like working with computers.”

He glanced toward her. “I thought you enjoyed legal work. It’s too bad, to let that paralegal training go to waste.”

“I’m tired of legal work,” she said noncommittally. What she meant was that she couldn’t take the risk of running into J.D. accidentally after she’d quit. It would be too painful.

He shrugged, driving calmly. “It’s your life. You’d better call that agency Monday morning and have them send over some applicants. I’ll let Dick do the interviewing this time,” he added with a cold laugh.

Her fingers clenched on her purse. She stared out of the window at the river.

“No comment?” he prodded.

“About what?” she asked indifferently.

He sighed. One more turn and he pulled the car into a parking spot in front of her apartment building.

She got out and waited for him to get her carry-on bag. “Don’t bother walking me up,” she said.

He glared down at her. “I wasn’t aware that I’d offered.”

Her anger exploded. “I hate you,” she said in a venomous whisper.

“Yes, I know you do,” he said with a cold smile.

She whirled on her heel and started toward the door of the building.

“Gabby,” he called curtly.

She stopped with her hand on the door, but didn’t turn. “What?”

“You’ll work a two-week notice. Every day of it. Or I’ll make sure you don’t work again. Clear?”

She’d been thinking about not showing up at all on Monday. But when she turned and saw his eyes, she realized, not for the first time, what a formidable adversary he made. She hated to give in, but the necessity of finding a new job made her do so gracefully.

“Why, Mr. Brettman, I wouldn’t miss a minute of it,” she said with sweet mockery. “See you Monday.”

Chapter Seven

The last thing she felt like doing Monday morning was going into the office. To make things worse, her shoulder was aching like mad. But that didn’t stop Gabby. She put on a beige suit with a brightly colored blouse, pinned up her hair, and went to work. Might as well get it over with, she told herself. She’d go back to the office, work out her notice, and get another job. Sure. Simple.

Explaining that to her mother back home in Lytle, Texas, had not been quite so simple.

“But I thought you loved your job!” her mother had gasped. “Why are you quitting? Listen, Gabby, what’s happened?”

“Nothing, Mama,” she’d said quickly. “It’s just that Mr. Brettman may not be in Chicago much longer.” She lied on impulse. “You see, he has prospects in another area, and I don’t really want to relocate.”

“Where would he go?”

“Now, Mama,” she said, “you know I don’t like to pry into Mr. Brettman’s business.”

“That Mr. Dice, his partner, why couldn’t you still work for him?” her mother demanded gruffly. “Better yet, why don’t you come home and get married?”

Gabby chewed on her lip so that she wouldn’t say anything hasty. She had visions of her mother providing a groom, a minister and a loaded gun for motivation. It made her want to giggle, which would have infuriated her mother.

“Gabby, you aren’t in trouble?” her mother had added in a strange tone.

“No, Mama, I’m not in trouble. Now don’t get upset. It may all fall through anyway.”

“I like Mr. Brettman,” her mother said roughly. “That one time I met him when I visited you, he seemed like a nice man to me. Why does he want to move anyway? He isn’t getting married?”

“J.D.? Get married?” Gabby laughed mirthlessly. “That would make the world record books.”

“He’ll have to get married someday,” came the curt reply.

“Think so?” Already Gabby could picture him in fatigues rushing some stronghold with Shirt and Apollo. But she couldn’t tell her mother that!

“Of course. It happens to everybody. He’ll get tired of living alone someday. Your father did. That’s when I nabbed him.” Gabby could almost see her grin.

“Are you tired of living alone?” Gabby asked suddenly. It had been ten years since her father’s death. Yet her mother didn’t even date.

“I don’t live alone, baby. I live with my memories. I had the best man God ever made. I don’t want second best.”

“You’re just fussy,” Gabby said accusingly.

“Yes, I am. You’d be be fussy, too. Honey, think about coming home. That Chicago place is pretty big, and if Mr. Brettman isn’t going to be around, I’d worry about you.”

“I’ll think about it,” Gabby promised.

She hated thinking about it. It made her face the fact that she wouldn’t be seeing J.D. again. Whether or not he went back to the old life, he’d made it impossible for her to work for him anymore. He’d forced her into resigning, whether consciously or unconsciously. And now here she was losing her boss, her job, and her heart all in the space of three days. So little time to change so much of her future. It might have been better if she’d stayed behind and never known the truth about J.D.

When she got to the office, it was clear that J.D. had not yet come in. Richard Dice was sitting on her desk with his arms folded across his chest, looking murderous.

“Morning, Dick,” she said with a forced smile.

“Thank God you’re back.” He sighed. “That temporary girl didn’t work out, and the agency hasn’t called me about a replacement. Where’s J.D.?”

“Don’t ask me,” she replied, calmly shedding her jacket and putting her purse in the desk drawer. She tucked her glasses on top of her head while she searched through the calendar for appointments that had been made by both the temporary girl and herself.

“Didn’t he come back?” Dick persisted.

“Yes.” She stared at him. “You mean he hasn’t been in touch with you?”

“Not yet. Well?” he burst out. “What happened? How’s Martina? Did they pay the ransom?”

“You’re chock-full of questions.” She sighed in turn. “Yes, Martina’s safe. No, they didn’t have to pay the ransom. And anything else you want to know, ask J.D., because I don’t want to talk about it.”

Dick looked at the ceiling. “You disappear for days, and all I get is one long-winded sentence?”

“You should have come with us,” she said conversationally. “Then you wouldn’t have to take up my time asking questions. Did you take care of Mrs. Turnbull’s divorce yesterday?”

“Yes,” he murmured absently. “Judge Amherst called. He wants to discuss the Landers case with J.D. before he makes a decision about the trial date.”

Gabby made a note of it.

Dick was studying her closely. “You look bad.”

She smiled. “Thank you. What a lovely thing to be told.”

He flushed. “I mean, you look worn-out.”

“You try crawling through a jungle on your belly with a rifle and see how you look,” she replied.

“Jungle? On your belly? Why did you have a rifle?”

She got up from her desk and started filing some folders that Dick had left there. “Ask J.D.”

“But he isn’t here!”

She glowered at the file folders. “Maybe he’s out buying a new crossbow,” she muttered.

“A what?” But she didn’t hear him. He grumbled something and walked into his office, slamming the door behind him. She glanced over her shoulder. “Well, somebody’s in a snit,” she said to the filing cabinet.

It was a good two hours before J.D. came in, looking as neat as a pin in his vested gray suit.

“Any messages?” he asked Gabby, just as he used to.

“No, sir,” she replied, and she sounded the same, too, except that she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Dick took care of the Turnbull case for you, and Judge Amherst wants you to call him.”

He nodded. “What have I got on the calendar for this afternoon?”

“Mr. Parker is coming by at one to get you to draw up that incorporation for him, and you have three other appointments after him.”

He turned toward his office. “Get your pen and pad and let’s get the correspondence out of the way.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, there you are, J.D.,” Richard called from the doorway of his own office. “Welcome back. Would you tell me what happened? Gabby’s got a case of the clams.”

“So have I,” J.D. informed him. “Everything’s okay. Martina and Roberto are back in Palermo by now, and the kidnappers were taken care of. How about lunch?”

“Sorry,” Richard said, smiling. “I’ve got a luncheon appointment with a client. Rain check?”

“Sure.”

Gabby followed J.D. into the office and left the door open. If he noticed, or cared, he didn’t let on. He eased his formidable frame into the big swivel chair behind the desk.

He started dictating and she kept her eyes on her pad until he finished. Her fingers ached and so did her back from sitting so straight, but she didn’t move an inch until he dismissed her.

“Gabby,” he called as she started toward the door.

“Yes, sir?”

He fingered a pencil on his desk, and his dark eyes stared at it. “How’s your shoulder?” he asked.

She shrugged. “It’s still a little sore, but I can’t complain.” She clasped the pad tightly against her breasts. She studied his impassive face quietly. “By the way, do you need written notice, or is a verbal one satisfactory?”

His eyes came up. “Wait,” he said quietly.

“I have to get another job. I can’t do that if I’m obligated to you for more than two weeks,” she said with remarkable calm.

His jaw clenched. “You don’t have to quit.”

“Like hell I don’t!” she returned.

“Things will get back to normal!” he roared. “Is it too much to ask you to give it a chance? We got along well enough before!”

“Yes, we did, before you treated me like a streetwalker!” she burst out.

He saw the hatred in her eyes, in her rigid posture. His gaze fell to the pencil again. “You won’t be easy to replace,” he said in an odd tone.

“Sure I will,” she said venomously. “All you have to do is call the agency and ask for somebody stupid and naïve who won’t get too close and loves being shot at!”

His face paled. “Gabby…”

“What’s going on?” Richard asked from the open door. He looked aghast. He’d never heard Gabby raise her voice in the two years he’d known her, and here she stood yelling at J.D. at the top of her lungs.

“None of your business,” they chimed in together, glaring at him.

He hunched his thin shoulders and grinned sheepishly. “Excuse me, I feel a sudden urge to eat lunch. Goodbye!”

They didn’t even notice his leaving. J.D. glared at Gabby, and she glared back.

“I’m too set in my ways to break in somebody new,” he said finally. “And you’d be bored to death working for anybody else and you know it.”

“It’s my life,” she reminded him.

He got up from the desk and she backed away, her eyes wide and angry and afraid. The fear was what stopped him in his tracks.

“I wasn’t going to make a grab for you, Miss Darwin.”

“Shall I drop to my knees and give thanks?” she asked, glaring back. “You’ll never make the list of the ten top lovers, that’s for sure.”

“No, I don’t imagine so,” he said quietly. “But I didn’t realize how much I’d frightened you.” He studied her closely. “Gabby, I never meant to go that far.”

“I wasn’t going to try to drag you in front of a minister,” she said, lowering her voice. “I was curious about you, just as you were curious about me. It’s over now. I don’t want ties, either.”

“Don’t leave,” he said quietly. “I’ll never touch you again.”

“That isn’t the point,” she told him, shifting restlessly from one foot to the other. “I…I don’t want to work for you anymore.”

His dark eyes searched hers slowly, quietly. “Why?”

That was rich. Was she going to tell him that her heart would break if she had to work with him day in and day out, loving him hopelessly, eating her heart out for him? That was what would happen, too. She’d go on mooning over him and never be able to date anybody else. Worse, she’d sit cringing as the days went by, wondering when he would throw it all in and rush back to First Shirt and Apollo. Now that he’d gotten a taste of the old, free life again, she had to expect that it would happen.

“There’s no job security here,” she said finally, putting her nameless fears into mundane words that couldn’t possibly express her real feelings.

“You’re guessing that I’ll go back to the old life?” he asked coldly.

She shook her head. “No, J.D.—anticipating. Shirt said that you had the bug again,” she confided. “I want a dull, routine employer who won’t go rushing off to save the world at a minute’s notice.”

His jaw tightened. “It’s my life. How I live it is my business.”

“But of course,” she said with a sickeningly sweet smile. “That’s exactly what I meant. Out of sight, out of mind.”

That made him angry. His dark eyes glittered as he scowled at her. “After what we shared in that room at Laremos’s house?” he asked bluntly.

Her eyes narrowed. “Perhaps we’re thinking of different things,” she retorted. “I have a very vivid memory of being treated like the worst kind of Saturday-night pickup!”

He turned away and went to the window, his back rigid. “There were reasons.”

“Of course there were!” she shot back. “You wanted to make sure that I didn’t get any ideas about you just because you made a pass at me. Okay! I got the message and I’m going, just as fast as I can!” she said. “Do you really think I could forget what happened in Guatemala and go on working for you?”

He studied his fingers. “Maybe I’ll settle down,” he said after a minute.

“Maybe you will, but what concern is that of mine?” she asked. “You’re my employer, not my lover.”

He turned just as the phone on her desk rang. She rushed to answer it, grateful for the diversion. Fortunately, it was an angry, long-winded client. She smiled wickedly as she transferred the call to J.D.’s phone. While he was talking, she escaped to lunch, leaving him listening helplessly to the venomous divorcée on the other end of the line.

But once she was out of the office and eating a hamburger at a local fast-food restaurant, the smile vanished and gloom set in. She’d read about men who couldn’t marry, who were too freedom-loving for marriage. But until J.D. came along, she hadn’t known what anguish there could be in loving someone like that. Now she did, and her nights would be plagued with nightmares about hearing someday he’d died in combat. Or worse, that he was serving time in some filthy foreign jail for interfering in the internal politics of another nation.

If Martina had known the truth, maybe she could have helped talk some sense into him. But Gabby hadn’t dared to tell her. J.D. would never forgive Gabby if she did.

An hour later, she dragged herself back into the office, only to find J.D. gone. There was a terse note on her desk, informing her that he’d gone to meet a client and that she was to cancel his appointments; he wouldn’t be in until the next day.

She picked up the phone and started dialing. Was he really seeing a client? The thought tormented her, even after she left the office. Perhaps he’d already packed his bag and gone off in search of the sun. She cried herself to sleep, hating herself for worrying. If this was any indication of the future, she’d do well to hurry about finding another job.

The next day she forced herself to search the want ads for positions in between answering the phone, using the copier and running the computer. J.D. still hadn’t come in, and she was grateful for Dick’s dictation and the hectic rush of the office. It kept her from thinking about J.D.

When he walked in the door just before lunch, it was all she could do not to jump up and throw herself into his arms. But she remembered that he didn’t want ties so she forced herself to greet him calmly and hand him his messages.

“Worried about me?” he asked with apparent carelessness, but his eyes were watchful.

She looked up with hard-won composure, her eyebrows arched behind her reading glasses. “Worried? Why?”

He drew in a slow breath and turned on his heel to walk into his office. He slammed the door behind him.

She stuck out her tongue at it and picked up her purse. “Going to lunch,” she said into the intercom and started out the door.

“Gabby.”

She turned. He was standing in his office doorway, looking lonely and hesitant.

“Have lunch with me,” he said.

“Sorry. I have interviews.”

His face hardened, his eyes narrowed. “Don’t.”

Her soft heart almost melted under that half-pleading stare. But she couldn’t give in, not now. In the long run, it would be easier to eat her heart out from a safe distance. She’d die working with him, knowing that all he was capable of giving her was lust or a business relationship.

“I have to,” she said quietly. “It’s for the best.”

“For whom?” he demanded.

“For both of us!” she burst out. “I can’t bear to be in the same office with you!”

Something indescribable happened to his face. And because it hurt to see him that way, she turned and all but ran out the door. It didn’t occur to her until much later how he might have taken her remark. She’d meant she couldn’t bear to be with him because she loved him so, but he probably thought it was because of his harsh treatment of her at the finca. Well, he had been harsh. But he’d apologized, and some part of her understood why he’d acted that way. He was just trying to open her eyes to the futility of loving him. To spare her more hurt. Anyway, she told herself, her remark wouldn’t faze him. He didn’t care about her, so how in the world could she hurt him?

She applied for two jobs in offices a few blocks away, neither terribly exciting.

When she went back to the office, J.D. was gone again. Just as well, she thought. She had to get used to not seeing him. The thought was excruciatingly painful, but she was realistic enough to know that the pain would pass one day. After all, as J.D. himself had said, there was no future for her with him. He’d gone to elaborate lengths to make sure she knew that. And since she couldn’t spend the day crying, she forced herself to keep her mind strictly on the job.

Chapter Eight

J.D. was so reserved after that day that he barely spoke to Gabby at all, except when absolutely necessary for business. And all the time he scowled and snapped, like a wounded animal.

“Have you heard anything from your job interviews yet?” he asked Friday morning, glaring at her over a piece of correspondence to which he had just dictated an answer.

“I hope to hear Monday about one of them,” she said quietly. “The other one didn’t work out.”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “So it may not be all that easy to find something else,” he commented.

She met his level stare. “If nothing pans out in Chicago, I’m going home.”

He didn’t move. He studied her intently. “To Texas.”

She lowered her gaze to her steno pad. “That’s right.”

“What would you do in Texas?”

“I’d help Mama.”

He put down the letter. “‘Help Mama,’” he scoffed, glaring at her. “Your mother would drive you to drink in less than a week, and you know it.”

“How dare you…!” she began hotly.

“Gabby, your mother is a sweet lady,” he said, “but her lifestyle and yours are worlds apart. You’d fight all the time, or you’d find yourself being led around like a lamb.”

Her breasts rose and fell softly. “Yes, I know,” she said after a minute. “But it’s better than the unemployment line, isn’t it?”

“Stay with me,” he said. “I think, if you’ll just give it time, it will work out. Can’t you forget how I treated you that one time?”