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

“No,” he said softly, shaking his head. “No, don’t run. I won’t hurt you.”

“You used to say that a lot, and I listened one time too many,” she said with a nervous laugh. She backed up until she got the width of her desk between them. “I have to get these typed,” she added, lifting the pad.

His dark eyes had an oddly bleak look in them. “It’s real, isn’t it, that fear?” he asked.

She sat down in her chair, avoiding his piercing gaze. “I have work to do, J.D.”

He propped himself on the corner of the desk with a graceful, fluid movement.

“Don’t panic,” he said quietly. “I’m not coming any closer than this.”

She stiffened. She couldn’t help it.

“I should never have hurt you that way,” he said, staring down at her clenched fingers. “I overreacted. Someday I’ll try to explain it to you.”

“There won’t be any ‘someday,’” she said tersely. “You’ll be off blowing things up and I’ll be programming computers.”

“Will you stop that?” he growled. He fumbled for a cigarette.

“There’s no smoking in the office,” she said coldly.

He glared at her and draped an arm over her monitor.

“I can’t transcribe your letters until I can use the computer,” she said matter-of-factly.

“So the letters can wait,” he said. “Gabby, I swear to God I didn’t mean to frighten you that much. I was shaken by what we’d been through, I was half-crazy…” He ran a hand through his hair. “I forgot how innocent you were, too. I want you to know that under ordinary circumstances it wouldn’t be like that for you with a man.”

“With another man, perhaps not.” She bit off the words.

“Gabby, what happened the morning before the mission didn’t frighten you.”

She felt herself go hot all over at the reminder, at the memories that flooded her mind. She remembered the touch of his hard mouth, the feel of his body, the tenderness of the fingers that searched over her soft, aching flesh….

“You were a different man then,” she shot back. “You wouldn’t even speak to me when we got back to the finca, you wouldn’t look at me. You acted like a stranger, and then you attacked me!”

He removed his arm from the monitor and stared down at his hands. “Yes, I know. I’ve hardly slept since.”

His chest rose and fell slowly. He was so close, she could see the harsh shadows under his eyes.

“Would you consider having supper with me?” he asked.

Her heart jumped, but she didn’t take time to decide whether it was from anticipation or fear. “No,” she said bluntly, before she had time to change her mind.

He sighed. “No.” His broad, hard mouth twisted into a rueful smile. He let his eyes wander slowly over her face. “Somehow, storming that terrorist camp seems like kid stuff compared to getting past your defenses, Gabby.”

“Why bother?” she asked quietly. “I’ll be here only another week.”

The light went out of his eyes. He got to his feet and turned back toward his office. He paused at the doorway with his broad back to her. He seemed about to say something, about to turn. Then he straightened, went on into his office, and closed the door quietly behind him. Gabby hesitated just for a minute; then she turned to the computer again and concentrated on typing the business letters he’d dictated.

Saturday morning arrived sunny and with the promise of budding flowers. Gabby hated the city on such delightfully springlike days. She was brooding in her apartment, in the midst of doing her laundry, when a knock sounded at the door.

She couldn’t imagine who might be visiting, unless her mother had gotten worried and had come all the way from Lytle to see her. That thought bothered her, and she went rushing to open the door.

J.D. lifted a heavy eyebrow. “Were you expecting me?” he asked with a faint grin.

She faltered, trying to think of a graceful way to ask him to leave. While she was debating, he walked into the apartment and sat down on her sofa.

“I thought you might like to have lunch with me,” he said out of the blue, studying her slender figure in faded jeans and a striped pullover shirt.

She realized as she stared down at him that he looked different, and then she noticed what he was wearing. She’d never seen J.D. in anything but neat suits or jungle fatigues. But now he was wearing blue jeans as worn and faded as her own, with a Western-style blue chambray shirt and boots. She stood there staring at him because she couldn’t help it. He was so devastatingly handsome and masculine that he made her feel weak-kneed—from a distance, at least. She was still a little uneasy being alone with him.

“I won’t pounce,” he said softly. “I won’t make a single move that you don’t want. I won’t even touch you, if that’s what it takes. Spend the day with me, though, Gabby.”

“Why should I?” she asked curtly.

He smiled wistfully. “Because I’m lonely.”

Something in the region of her heart gave way. It must have been her soft brain, she told herself, because there was no logic in giving in to him. It would only make it harder to leave. And she had to leave. She couldn’t bear staying around him, feeling the way she felt.

“You’ve got friends,” she said evasively.

“Sure,” he said, standing. He stuck his hands into his pockets, stretching the jeans flat across his muscular stomach and powerful thighs. “Sure, I’ve got friends. There’s Shirt, and Apollo…”

“I mean…friends here in the city,” she said hesitantly.

He was silent for a moment. “I’ve got you. No one else.”

She gave in. Without another argument. How did you fight a flat statement like that, especially when you knew it was true? He’d said himself that he trusted no one except her. Friendship naturally involved trust.

“Okay,” she said after a minute. “But just lunch.”

“Just lunch,” he agreed. And he didn’t come close to her, or pressure her, or do anything to make her wary of him. He waited patiently while she closed the apartment door and locked it, and he walked beside her like a graceful giant as they left the building and got into his car.

Chapter Nine (#ulink_fbf4738f-c19e-58c6-85a7-c9af8cda8192)

It was an odd kind of day for Gabby. She thought she knew every one of J.D.’s moods, but that day he was different, in a way that she couldn’t quite define.

He strolled beside her through the trees in the nearby park, then along the beach that edged the lake, watching birds rise and soar, watching boats sail and putter by. The wind tossed his dark hair and the sun made it glint blue-black. And Gabby thought she’d never felt like this in her life, free and yet protected and wildly excited, all at the same time. It was hard to remember that this was more of an end than a beginning. J.D. had a guilty conscience about the way he’d treated her and was trying to make amends before she left. That was all. She had to stop trying to make more out of it.

His fingers brushed hers as they walked, and he glanced down, watching her carefully.

“Looking for warts?” she asked, attempting to lessen the tension between them.

“Not really,” he murmured. “I’m trying to decide what you’d do if I made a grab for your hand.”

That irrepressible honesty again. She smiled and gave him her slender fingers, feeling trembly as he slowly locked them into his own. She was remembering that flight to Mexico and how he’d caressed her fingers with his own, and the remark he’d made about bodies fitting together that way. Her face burned.

He chuckled softly. “I wonder if you could possibly be thinking about the same thing I am, Gabby?” he murmured.