Roomful of Roses

She gasped. “I love him!”

“Elephants fly,” he scoffed. He ground out the cigarette in the ashtray on the table beside his chair. “You’d stagnate married to a man with his hang-ups.”

“What do you know about his hang-ups?” she challenged.

He met her eyes squarely and a wild little tremor went through her stomach. “Enough to know I’m going to stop you from making the mistake of your young life. I grew up with Andrew, for God’s sake, he’s a year older than I am!”

“I like older men,” she shot back. “And he’s just thirty-six, hardly a candidate for a nursing home!”

She stopped herself abruptly. Why should she justify her feelings for Andy to McCabe, for heaven’s sake? “What do you think you are, McCabe, the Spanish Inquisition? You don’t have any right to burst in here and start grilling me...and what are you doing here, anyway?”

“Don’t get hysterical,” he said soothingly. “I’m here to help you sort yourself out, that’s all. Just until I recuperate.”

“I don’t need help, and why do you have to recuperate here?”

“Because my mother left the country, servants and all, when she realized I was on my way back,” he said nonchalantly. “I let the lease on my apartment expire and the only quarters I have at the moment are in Central America.” His eyebrows arched. “You wouldn’t want me to go back there to heal?”

She averted her eyes before he could read the very real fear in them. “Don’t be absurd,” she said.

“Then ‘here’ was the only place left.”

“You could stay at Katy Maude’s,” she offered. “She has plenty of bedrooms—”

“All upstairs,” he reminded Wynn. “And before you think of it, the love seat she had the last time I came home was two feet shorter than I am. You do remember that I’m six-foot-three?”

How could she forget, when he towered over everybody? “Ed’s sofa is plenty long,” she grumbled.

“His brother-in-law is visiting him next week.”

She moved closer to the chair, her arms folded across her chest, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Odd that he didn’t mention that when he told me you were here.”

“It’s press day,” he observed. “He’s out of his mind. Probably cursing you already. Surely you can’t be spared right now?”

“I’m on my lunch hour,” she began.

“Great. I’m starved. How about a sandwich or two?”

“Now, just a minute, McCabe,” she said forcibly. “We haven’t decided where you’re staying yet, much less—”

“I didn’t have any breakfast,” he sighed, laying a big hand on his flat stomach. “Hardly any supper last night. The press hounded me to death at the airport—” he peeked up to see how she was reacting “—and I was too tired to go out.”

She felt herself weakening and cursed her own soft heart. “Well, there’s some ham in the fridge, and I bought potato chips yesterday.”

“Ham’s fine,” he agreed quickly. “Thick, mind, and with lots of mustard. Got some coffee?”

She threw up her hands. “I can’t argue with you!”

“You never could, and win,” he reminded her. He moved and winced, and his face went oddly pale.

She looked at the big leg resting on the hassock. Ed had said something about a torn ligament, but the shape of a thick bandage was outlined against one powerful thigh under the khaki fabric. A bandage.

Her eyes went slowly back up to his. “That’s no torn ligament,” she said hesitantly.

His shaggy head leaned back. “Hard to fool another journalist, isn’t it, Wynn? You’re right. I didn’t pull a ligament. You know how the press can make mistakes.”

Her own face paled. “You’ve been shot.”

He nodded. “Bingo.”

She could feel her heart going wild, her knees threatening to buckle. It was an odd way to react. She drew in a slow breath.

“You were with those journalists who were killed, weren’t you, McCabe?” she asked with quiet certainty.

His darkening eyes fell to his leg. “I’d just left them, in fact,” he said. “We were going to follow an informer to a meeting with a high-level government official. Very hush-hush. It blew up in our faces. I got away by the skin of my teeth and spent the night in a chicken house. I nearly bled to death before I was able to get back to town.”

Her heart was hurting now. No one had known what a close call he’d had. It was just dawning on her that he could have died. She felt oddly sick.

“How far did you walk?”

“A few miles. The bullets did some heavy damage, but I was flown to New York and treated by a very apt orthopedic surgeon. I’ll have a limp, but at least I didn’t lose the leg.”

She stared at him, memorizing every hard line of his face. It had been a compulsion, even years ago, to look at him. She enjoyed that even when she imagined she hated him. It was a effort to drag her eyes away.

“I’d better get lunch,” she said numbly.

“I’m all right, Wynn,” he said quietly, watching her, “if you’re concerned with the state of my health. There were times when I imagined you might not mind if I caught a bullet,” he added calculatingly.

She avoided his eyes. “I don’t want you to die. I never did.”

She walked into the kitchen and made the sandwiches automatically, wondering at her own horrified reaction to his wounds. He was in a dangerous business, she’d always known that, and why should it matter? But it did! Her eyes closed and she leaned heavily against the counter. Life without McCabe would be colorless. She had to know that he was somewhere in the world, alive.

With an effort, she loaded a tray with coffee and chips and the sandwiches and carried it back into the living room. McCabe was still sitting where she’d let him; his face was drawn, a little paler than before.

“You’re in pain,” she said suddenly.

He laughed mirthlessly. “Honey, I’ve hardly been out of it for the past week, and that’s God’s own truth.”

“Do you have anything to take?”

“Aspirin,” he said with a grin. “You know I don’t like drugs, Wynn.”

“You might make an exception in cases like this,” she burst out, sitting across from him on the sofa.

“I’m a tough old bird. My hide’s just about bullet-proof.”

She handed him the plate with his sandwiches and chips. “How long will it take for it to heal?”

“Another month or so,” he said with obvious distaste. “The bone has to knit back properly.”

She stared at his leg again. “Are you wearing a cast?”

“No. The bone’s not broken clean through. But it aches all the time, and I don’t walk well. There’s a lot of me for that bone to support.”

Her eyes ran up and down him quickly. “Yes, there is,” she agreed.

“I really do need a place to stay,” he said over his coffee. “It’s not easy for me to get around in this condition. Surely even in this little town, people will be able to understand that. I don’t care about gossip, but I imagine you do.”

“Yes,” she agreed, glancing at him warily. “Andy’s going to go right through the ceiling, regardless.”

“Let me handle Andy,” he said generously. “Man to man, you know.”

That didn’t quite ring true, but perhaps she’d misjudged McCabe. She hoped so.

“Won’t you be bored to death staying in Redvale for a whole month?” she asked as she finished her sandwich and washed it down with coffee.

“If I didn’t have anything to do, I might,” he agreed. “I don’t have another book due for six months, and I was between assignments, so I took a job here in town.”

She stared at him with dawning horror. “What job?”

“Didn’t Ed tell you?” he asked pleasantly. “I’m going to edit the paper for the next month while he goes on vacation.”

Chapter Three

Wynn felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. She simply stared at him.

“Edit the paper?” she echoed. “Ed’s paper? My paper? You’ll be my boss?”

“You got it,” he said pleasantly.

“I quit.”

“Now, Wynn...”

“Don’t you ‘now Wynn’ me!” she said, setting down her coffee cup with a loud crack. “I can’t live with you and work with you for a solid month and stay sane!”

He lit a cigarette and watched her with an odd, quiet smile. “What’s the matter, honey, afraid you won’t be able to resist seducing me?”

She went scarlet and started to jump to her feet. Unfortunately, in the process, her knee hit the tray and knocked it off onto the floor. Bits of ham and bread floated in a puddle of coffee at McCabe’s feet while he threw back his head and laughed uproariously.

Her slender hands clenched at her hips and she counted to ten twice.

Before she could think up something bad enough, insulting enough, to say to him, the phone rang. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed up the receiver.

“Hello!” she said shortly.

There was a hesitation and a cough. “Uh, Wynona?”

“Andy!” she gasped, glaring at McCabe. Her hand twisted the cord nervously. “Oh, hi, Andy, how are you?”

“Ed said you’d gone home for lunch,” her fiancé said suspiciously. “He said you had a visitor. A guest,” he emphasized. “Wynona, have you gone crazy? McCabe may be your guardian, and an older man, but he’s a bachelor and we’re not married and you simply can’t let him stay there!”

His thin voice had gotten higher and wilder by the second, until he was all but shouting.

“Now, Andy,” she said soothingly, trying to ignore McCabe’s smug grin, “you know how it is. McCabe’s been injured and he’s not even able to walk!”

“Then how is he going to get to bed? Are you going to carry him back and forth!”

She started laughing. She couldn’t help it. First McCabe appeared out of the blue with bullet wounds, and now Andy was hysterical....

“Wynona?” Andy murmured.

“Have you got a wheelbarrow I could borrow?” she asked through tears.

“A what? Oh, I see.” He chuckled politely, and then sighed. “I’m jumping to conclusions, of course. But I remember McCabe. Can I help feeling threatened?”

“I’m engaged to you,” she reminded him, furious at McCabe’s open eavesdropping.

“Yes, I know,” Andy said, softening audibly. “It just hit me sideways, that’s all.”

“McCabe is my guardian,” she said, glaring at McCabe, who was watching her with a wicked smile. She looked away quickly. “Anyway, he’s old.”

“He’s a year younger than I am,” Andy murmured.

“I didn’t mean that!” Wynn twisted the telephone cord viciously. “It’s press day, Andy, I’m just not thinking straight.”

“It’s just another Tuesday,” her fiancé said shortly. “I don’t know why you make such a big thing about Tuesdays.”

“You’d have to be a reporter to understand, I guess,” she said generously. “Look...”

“Invite him to supper,” McCabe said sotto voce.

She gaped at him. “It’s Tuesday!” she burst out.

“I heard you the first time!” Andy shouted.

“I’ll cook,” McCabe said simultaneously.

“Don’t be absurd, you can’t even stand up!” she threw back at him.

“Are you implying that I’m drunk?” Andy asked, aghast.

“Not you—McCabe, McCabe!” Wynn ground out.

“McCabe’s drinking, and you’re there alone with him?” Andy gasped.

Wynn held out the receiver and cocked her head at it threateningly.

“Don’t do it,” McCabe advised. “I can manage to get something together before you come home. I’ll sit down and cook.”

She eyed him warily. The old McCabe was arrogant and commanding, not pleasant and cooperative, and she was immediately suspicious. “You wouldn’t mind?”

“No,” he said. “I’d love to see Andy again. Invite him over. About six.”

She felt as if she were walking obligingly into a shark’s mouth, but it had been years since she and McCabe had spent any time together. Perhaps his experiences had changed him. Mellowed him. She was even in a forgiving mood. Didn’t he seem different?

“Andy, come to supper at six,” she said, holding the receiver to her ear.

“Supper?” Andy brightened. “Just the two of us?”

“McCabe’s here, too,” she observed.

“We’ll just ignore him,” Andy said. There was a pause. “He isn’t going to stay for the wedding, to give you away?”

“If he does, we’ll let him be bridesmaid,” Wynn said darkly.

Andy giggled. “That’s cute, McCabe in ruffled satin...”

She started laughing and had to say a quick good-bye and hang up before she really got hysterical.

“Bridesmaid?” McCabe murmured with pursed lips. “Remember that old saying, Wynn—I don’t get mad, I get even?”

“I can outrun you,” she reminded him.

“Yes. But I’m patient,” he returned. His eyes narrowed and ran over her slender body in a way that made her frankly nervous. “I can wait.”

“I’ve got to get back to work. After supper,” she continued, moving toward the kitchen to get a towel to mop up the spill, “we’ll discuss your new lodgings.”

“Suits me,” he said obligingly.

That really worried her. McCabe never obliged anybody.

She went back to work with a frown between her wide-spaced green eyes. It deepened when she saw Ed.

“You didn’t mention that you were taking a vacation,” she said with grinning ferocity. “Or that your brother-in-law was coming to stay in your house. Or that—”

“Have a heart, could you say no to McCabe?” he groaned.

“Yes! I’ve spent the past seven years doing just that!”

“He’s like a son to me,” he said, looking hunted as he paused in the act of pasting up the last page of the paper, the front page, with a strip of waxed copy in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. “He’s been shot to pieces, Wynn.”

She straightened wearily and the fight left her. “Yes, he told me.”

“I just hope he’ll give himself time enough to heal completely before he goes back down there.”

She felt the blood leaving her face. “You can’t mean he’s talking about going back?”

He shrugged. “You know McCabe. He loves it, danger and all. It’s been his life for too many years.”

“He could stay home and write books!” she threw back. “He’s a best-selling author, why does he need to risk his life for stories someone else could get?”

“Ask him.” He cut off another column of copy and pasted it around another story in neat pieces, just right for a two-column headline. “I think it’s the lack of an anchor, Wynn. He doesn’t have anyplace that he feels wanted or needed, except at work.”

“His mother loves him.”

“Of course she does, but she’s spent her life avoiding his father...and now, McCabe. She’s independent, she doesn’t need him. And who else is there?” he added.

She stared blankly at the half-made-up page. “At his age, there must be a woman or two.”

“No.”

She looked up. “How do you know so much about him?”

“I helped raise him, remember? He used to hang around my house as much as he stayed at his own. We’ve kept in touch all this time.” He glanced at her over his glasses and smiled. “I always wanted to be a war correspondent, you know. But I had a family, and I didn’t feel I had the right to take the risk. McCabe’s shied away from permanent relationships for much the same reason, I imagine. Rough thing for a woman to take, having her man on the firing line most of their married lives.”

Wynn had thought of that, but she wasn’t admitting it. Neither was she admitting how many newscasts she’d chewed her fingernails over before she stopped watching them altogether, or the kind of worrying she’d done about McCabe over the years. He shouldn’t matter, of course, he was only her guardian.

“Wynn, are you listening?” Ed asked shortly. “I said, I’ve still got a hole on the front page. Go call the fire chief and see if they’ve had any fires overnight, okay?”

“Sure thing, Ed.”

The hectic pace kept her from thinking about McCabe any more until quitting time. The phones rang off the hook, people walked in and out, there were additions and deletions and changes in ads and copy until Wynn swore she’d walk out the door and never come back. She threatened that every Tuesday. So did Ed. So did Judy. So did Kelly and Jess. It was a standing joke, but nobody laughed at it on Tuesday.

At five o’clock, the pages were pasted up and Kelly was driving them the thirty miles to the printer. The wreck Kelly had covered earlier took up a fourth of the front page. It had been a tragic one involving people from out of town, two carloads of them. Wynn was sad but involuntarily relieved that no one from Redvale had fallen victim. It was harder to do obituaries when you knew the victims.

She dragged herself in the door at a few minutes past five, weary and disheveled and feeling as if her feet were about to fall off from all the standing she’d done. She already missed the air-conditioning at the office. She didn’t have it at home, and it was unseasonably hot.

“Is that you, Wynn?” McCabe called from the kitchen.

“It’s me.” She’d forgotten for an instant that he was here, and her heart jumped at the sound of his deep voice. She tossed aside her purse and paused to take off her suede boots before she padded in her hose onto the tiled kitchen floor.

He glanced up from the counter where he was perched on a stool, making a chef’s salad.

“Long day?” he asked, glancing down at her feet.

“You ought to know,” she returned. “Can I help?”

“Make a dressing, if you don’t have a prepared one.”

“What’s the main course?” she asked, digging out mayonnaise and catsup and pickles.

“Beef bourguignon. Do you like it?”

She stared at him. “You didn’t mention that you did gourmet dishes.”

“You didn’t ask.” He turned on the stool to study her. His shirt was open down the front, and she kept her eyes carefully averted. McCabe, stripped, was a devastating sight. She’d seen him that way at the pool, of course, wearing brief trunks that left his massive body all but bare. He was exquisitely male. All bronzed flesh and hard muscle with curling thick hair over most of it. Wynn didn’t like seeing him without a shirt. It disturbed her. Seeing Andy the same way didn’t, and that disturbed her, too.

“You look bothered, honey,” McCabe commented, flicking open another button, almost as if he knew!

She cleared her throat. “I need to change first, before I start this,” she said, leaving everything sitting on the counter while she escaped to her bedroom.

She closed the door and slumped back against it heavily. What was wrong with her, anyway? McCabe was the enemy. Unbuttoning his shirt wasn’t going to change that, for heaven’s sake! Was she an impressionable girl or a woman? She shouldered away from the door. A woman, of course!

Ten minutes later, she went back into the kitchen and McCabe stopped with a spoon in midair above the stew and just stared.

The dress was emerald-green jersey. It had spaghetti straps that tied around her neck and across her back, leaving it bare to the waist behind. It outlined her high breasts, her small waistline and the deep curve of her hips with loving detail, and clung softly to her long legs when she walked. With her long hair piled atop her head and little curls of it hanging around her neck and temples, she was a sight to draw men’s eyes.

“Do you wear dresses like that often?” McCabe asked, scowling.

“Of course I do,” she said softly, and turned away. “Are you through with supper? I’ll finish making the dressing.”

“Not in that dress you won’t,” he said curtly. He moved, leaning heavily on his stick, and was behind her before she knew it. One big warm hand caught her waist firmly and held her away from the counter. “It would be a crime to ruin it.”

Her body tingled wildly under his hard fingers, as if she’d waited all her life for him to touch it and bring it to life. She felt herself tremble and hoped he wouldn’t feel it.

“You...shouldn’t be standing,” she reminded him.

“You sound breathless,” he murmured, and she felt his warm breath in her hair, like a heavy sigh. His fingers moved experimentally to her hip and back up again, as if they were savoring the feel of her. She wanted to lean back against him and let them inch up, slowly....

She gasped and moved jerkily away from him. “I...I’ll get an apron,” she faltered. “Andy will probably be here any minute, he’s almost always early!”

McCabe didn’t say a word. He stood quietly by the counter, leaning against it and the cane, and watched her with darkening eyes that didn’t leave her for a second.

She glanced at him nervously as she fumbled with jars and bowls and spoons. “Say something, will you?” she laughed.

“What is there to say?” he asked softly.

She tried to speak, tried to find words to diffuse the tension between them, but instead she looked into his eyes and ached all the way down to her toes.

Before she could move, or run, the doorbell rang sharply and saved her the effort.

She turned and walked like a zombie to the front door and opened it.

Andy’s brown hair was rumpled, as if he’d been running his hands through it angrily, and his dark eyes were troubled. He stared down at Wynn, but didn’t really seem to see her at all.

“Hi,” he murmured. “Supper ready? I’m starved.”

She sighed and led him back toward the dining room. “Come and say hello to McCabe first,” she said.

Andy made an irritated sound. “Does he really cook?”

“Of course I do, Andy,” McCabe said from the kitchen doorway, leaning heavily on his cane. He’d done up his shirt and looked presentable again, the picture of the courteous host. Like a lion bleating, Wynn thought wickedly.

“Good to see you again, Andy,” he said. He extended his left hand, the right one being busy with the cane.

Andy automatically put his own hand out, but reluctantly. “Hi, McCabe,” he said coolly. His eyes ran up and down the bigger man. “Got shot, I hear.”

McCabe’s eyebrows went up. “Did you? I thought it was a torn ligament in the paper.”

Andy flushed and glared at Wynn. “You said...”

“No, I didn’t,” she said curtly. “Did you call Ed? You did, didn’t you? You couldn’t take my word—?”

“Now, children,” McCabe said smoothly, “suppose we dispense with the squabbling until after supper? Heated-over beef bourguignon is so tacky, don’t you think?”

Andy gaped at him. “Beef bourguignon?”

“In my humble way, I enjoy gourmet cooking,” the bigger man said with disgusting modesty, almost blushing. Wynn was ready to choke him. McCabe, sounding like a society leech...

But Andy was falling for it headfirst. He laughed easily and grinned at Wynn. She could read the thoughts in his mind, the sarcasm. Big-time war correspondent. Adventure novelist. He-man. And he makes beef bourguignon and uses words like “tacky.”

“Sit down and I’ll bring it in,” McCabe told them.

But Wynn was horrified at the thought. “You sit down,” she said coolly, glaring at him. “I don’t want stew all over my floors. How in the world do you expect to manage a tureen of that plus your cane?” She went into the kitchen, still muttering.

By the time she had everything organized and started carrying in the filled coffeepot and service, the heated rolls and beef bourguignon and salad, there was an odd silence in the dining room. McCabe was leaning back, smoking a cigarette, and Andy was looking...

“What’s wrong, Andy?” Wynn asked quickly.

He glanced at her and blushed. “Uh, nothing. Can I help?”

“No, I’ve only to bring the dressing.” She shot a glare at McCabe as she went to fetch it.

Supper was a quiet affair. She nibbled at her beef bourguignon—which was truly excellent, wine red and thick and full of melty bits of beef and vegetables and salad—and wondered why Andy was so quiet.

“We had a bad wreck today,” she mentioned, trying to break the cold silence. “Some out-of-state people—”

“For heaven’s sake, not while I’m eating!” Andy burst out, making a face at her.

McCabe’s eyebrows went up sharply. “Are you still squeamish, Andy?” he asked politely. “Yes, I seem to remember that you never enjoyed our biology class coming just before lunch.” He leaned back with his coffee in hand and pursed his lips. “The formaldehyde was nauseating, wasn’t it? And those dissections...”