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

“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 (#ulink_d8a476aa-c011-542e-8a0c-1d849080077b)

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?”

“Don’t make it harder for me,” she said.

“Is it hard, to walk out that door and never see me again?” he asked bluntly.

Her chin trembled just a little. “You’ve got nothing to give—you told me so. You’ve left me no choice but to leave.”

“Yes, that was what I said,” he agreed. “I went to impossible lengths to show you just how uncommitted I was, to make sure that you didn’t try to cling too closely.” He sighed heavily and his hands moved restlessly on the desk. “And now I can’t look myself in the mirror, thinking about the way you cringe every time I come near you.” He got up from the desk and stared out of the window, stretching as if he were stiff all over. “I’ve never needed anyone,” he said after a minute, without turning. “Not even when I was a boy. I was always looking out for Martina and Mama. There was never anyone who gave a damn about me except them. I’ve been alone all my life. I’ve wanted it that way.”

“I’ve told you until I’m blue in the face, I’m not trying to trap you!”

He lifted his head and looked at her. “Yes, I realize that now. I want you to try to understand something,” he said after a minute. “I spent a lot of my life in the military. I got used to a certain way of doing things, a certain way of life. I thought it had stopped being important to me. And then Martina was kidnapped.”

“And you got a taste of it again,” she said quietly, searching his face. “And now you’re not sure you can be just a lawyer for the rest of your life.”

“You read me very well.”

“We’ve worked together for a long time.” She stared down at the pad and pen in her hands, glad that he couldn’t see her heart breaking. “I’ll miss you from time to time, J.D. Whatever else this job was, it was never dull.”

“If you stay,” he said quietly, “I might be able to stay, too.”

“What do I have to do with it?” she asked with a nervous laugh. “My goodness, the world is full of competent paralegals. You might like your next one a lot better than you like me. I have a nasty temper and I talk back, remember?”

“I remember so much about you,” he said surprisingly. “When I started trying to tear you out of my life, I discovered just how deep the taproot went. You’ve become a habit with me, Gabby, like early-morning coffee and my newspaper. I can’t get up in the morning without thinking about coming to work and finding you here.”

“You’ll find new habits,” she said. Was that all she was, a habit?

“I’m trying to make you understand that I don’t want to acquire any new habits,” he growled. “I like things the way they are, I like the routine of them.”

“No, you don’t,” she told him, glaring. “You just said so. You want to go back to all the uncertainties of being a mercenary, and risking your life day after day. You want to go adventuring.”

“You make it sound like a disease,” he said shortly.

“Isn’t it? You’re afraid to feel anything. Shirt, Apollo, Semson, all of them are men who’ve lost something they can’t live without. So they’re looking for an end, not a beginning. They don’t have anything to lose, and nothing to go back to. I learned so much in those three days, J.D. I learned most of all that I have everything to live for. I don’t want that kind of freedom.”

“You’ve never had it,” he reminded her.

“That’s true,” she agreed. “But you’ve spent five years working to build a life for yourself, and you’ve made a huge success of it. Several people owe their lives, and their freedom, to you. Are you really crazy enough to throw all that away on a pipe dream?”

“Freedom isn’t always won in a court of law,” he growled.

“How then—with an Uzi and a few blocks of C-4?” she asked. “There are other ways to promote change than with bombs and bullets!”

He drew in a short breath. “You don’t understand.”

“That’s right, I don’t. And for your information, I’ve lost all my illusions about the exciting life of a soldier of fortune.” She stood up with her pad in hand. “I’ll go and transcribe this.”

He watched her walk to the door. “Wait a minute,” he said.

She paused with her hand on the doorknob and watched him come around the desk. She felt a twinge of fear as he came close to her. He towered over her, his blue pin-striped suit emphasizing the strength of his muscular body.

She opened the door and moved through it, trying not to show fear, but he saw right through her.