Someday Soon (11 page)

“I don’t think you’re the least bit amusing.”

“I wasn’t trying to be. I’m dead serious.”

“Tim, please, don’t.”

“Has anyone ever told you how expressive your face is?”

“I think you’re ready for the pool.”

“I’m ready all right.” He jiggled his eyebrows. “And after a few kisses you’d be ready, too.”

“Would you stop?” she demanded, sterner this time. She didn’t know how to react to his teasing. He seemed bent on making her blush, on seducing her with words.

“You know what I wish?” he said, rolling onto his good side and elevating his head with his elbow. “Just once I’d like for you to wear one of those swimsuits with a zipper up the front.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me, Tim Mallory.”

“Just once.”

“Exactly why would you care what style of suit I wear?”

“Because, my sexy Amazon, I’d take great delight in opening that zipper.”

Her face filled with raging color.

Tim laughed boisterously. “My guess is you’ve got a pair of the most beautiful breasts I’m ever going to find. Someday you’re going to show them to me, and then I’m going to show you how a man satisfies a woman.”

He was saying these things just to fluster her, just to disconcert her. “Unless you stop right this minute, I’m walking out and calling for a replacement.”

“No, you won’t,” he said confidently.

Francine seethed inwardly. “What makes you so certain?”

“Because,” he said, smiling with a grin that would rival that of the Cheshire cat, “you’re crazy about me. Only you don’t know it yet.”

It was one of those winter
evenings that Linette referred to as a Sherlock Holmes night, when San Francisco and the Bay Area were shrouded in a thick fog. Linette closed up the shop for the day, tired and lonely. Bonnie had left an hour earlier, leaving her to an endless stack of paperwork. Now she was ready to head home.

The lights along the pier glowed as through a lacy veil as she ambled along, mentally listing chores. The cashmere yarn a customer had ordered had arrived, and she’d forgotten to have Bonnie phone her. She needed to pick up stamps in the morning. Her dry cleaning was ready.

As she came to the end of the pier, Linette hesitated. There, silhouetted against the fog, against the glow of a fading lamp, stood Cain. He was waiting for her, his hands buried deep inside his pockets.

“Hello,” he said.

Linette’s throat closed up on her. She wasn’t prepared for this, hadn’t believed it would be necessary to prepare herself. Cain had assured her she wouldn’t see him again.

It had taken her far longer than necessary to accept the truth of this. Far longer to accept the reasons why.

“I figured I owed you an explanation.”

Still she didn’t move, didn’t speak.

“Can I buy you dinner?” He glanced down the waterfront to the restaurant they’d gone into when they’d first met.

“I have an appointment,” she said when she found her voice.

“A date?” His eyes narrowed with the question.

“No, an appointment.”

He looked as if he weren’t sure he should believe her.

“I do volunteer work at City Hospital two nights a week, counseling families of cancer patients.”

It took him a moment to digest this information. “How long before you need to be at the hospital?”

She checked her watch, hardly able to believe that they were having this civilized discussion. It was all she could do not to scream at him for deceiving her, for the cruel way in which he’d said good-bye.

By all that was right, she should ask him to get the hell out of her life. She’d been perfectly content until he’d come along. All right, not
perfectly content
, but close to it. By all that was right, she should tell him that. Unfortunately, it demanded every ounce of self-control she possessed not to hurl herself into his arms.

“I’m due at the hospital in forty minutes.”

“That’s time enough.” He motioned toward the restaurant. “Will you have a drink with me, Linette?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a mercenary?” she demanded.

“Would you have come to Montana with me if you’d known?”

“No.”

“That’s why.”

“Was having me with you that important?”

He waited a moment before answering. “Yes.”

Linette closed her eyes, fighting the urge to go to him. She didn’t know what had brought him back to San Francisco. Didn’t want to know, because she was afraid he’d returned for her.

“All right,” Cain admitted with a sigh. “It was selfish of me, I’ll admit that. If you’re looking for an excuse to hate me, then you’ve got one.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“That’s the problem,” he said roughly. “Maybe you should.”

He held out one arm to her, and without hesitation Linette walked into his embrace.

Cain’s eyes slowly drifted closed. He’d dreamed of this moment for weeks. Of holding her against him, of savoring her softness. He was tired of fighting a battle he couldn’t win. Tired of pretending he was strong when he wasn’t. Tired of waiting. He rubbed his jaw against the softness of her hair and breathed in the fresh scent of her.

Linette buried herself in his embrace and inadvertently moved against the tender flesh of his injury. Cain swallowed an involuntary moan.

“You’re hurt?” Linette abruptly moved away from
him, which produced an even greater pain for him. He’d waited too long for this moment to have it cut short.

“A flesh wound,” he said, making light of the pain. He held out his good arm to her once more, but she ignored the unspoken invitation.

“How’d it happen?” she pleaded, and then shook her head. “I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me. I don’t think I could bear it.”

Bright tears glistened in her eyes. She struggled to hide the emotion from him as if this weakness embarrassed her. Her tears had a curious effect upon Cain. A curious need reached deep inside him and tightened like a clenched fist.

“It’s nothing,” he said, longing to reassure her enough to bring her back into his arms. “Come on, let’s go have that drink.”

She hesitated but didn’t protest when he reached for her hand. He cupped her fingers around his elbow, which was an excuse to have her close. It felt right to have her there. Powerfully right.

Instead of going inside the restaurant the way they had previously, Cain stepped up to the fish and chips stand and ordered two beers. When he turned around, he found Linette had taken a seat at one of the brightly colored picnic tables situated next to the stand. Fog swirled around the area, muting the lights.

Cain handed her the Styrofoam cup and sat across the table from her. The simple pleasure of studying her, watching her expression, fed his need.

Keeping her head lowered, she asked in what appeared to be a casual tone, “So what brings you to San Francisco this time?”

He could have lied, could have made up a song-and-dance about some business venture. Mallory was a convenient excuse, and he could have told her about the two-hour meeting with his friend. He hadn’t openly lied to her yet, didn’t plan on sugar-coating the truth, even at the risk of her anger.

The stark truth was that he hadn’t taken the first available flight out of the Bahamas because of Tim Mallory. He’d returned to the Bay Area because he couldn’t stay away from Linette another minute.

“I came to see you.”

Her eyes drifted closed, and she whispered, “I wish you hadn’t.”

This woman wasn’t good for his ego, Cain could see that. He wasn’t keen to play the role of the fool.

“We don’t have to decide anything right now,” he said. “Let me take you to dinner tomorrow night and we can talk this out.”

“I can’t.”

She was making this damned difficult. “Another appointment?”

“No, a date.”

Cain felt as if he’d been sucker punched. Years of training enabled him to conceal his reaction.

“I can’t believe this,” Linette muttered, and her hand fussed nervously with her purse clasp. “You misled me. You eluded the truth, knowing how I’d feel about a man who kills for a living. You said I wouldn’t see you again, and then bingo, you pop back into my life just when I’ve accepted a blind date.”

A blind date. Cain felt better. Mildly better. But then she could date a hundred men at one time and it
wouldn’t be any of his damn business. He had no claim on her.

He’d been involved with other women over the years. Several of them had had an active social life when he was away. It had never troubled him. Why should it now? He wasn’t looking for someone to sit by a window and wait for his return. What came as an emotional blow was how possessive he felt toward Linette.

“Then of course you should go on your date.” She’d never know what it cost him to make that suggestion. The thought of another man holding her, another man kissing her, another man making love to her, was enough to set his teeth on edge. Yet he sat across from her as if he hadn’t a care in the world, when in reality he was damn near having a stroke.

The silence was tense. Linette was the one who broke it.

“How were you hurt?” The words came quickly, as if she regretted the need to know.

He could make up something to satisfy her curiosity but didn’t. “A rescue effort.”

“You were on a mission.”

Generally Cain didn’t relay the details of his assignments. He would make an exception with Linette, mainly because he felt he owed her that much. “Terrorists kidnapped a nineteen-year-old boy, the son of an important man. We found where they were keeping him.”

“The teenager? What happened to him?”

“He’s alive. He’s recuperating at home with his family.”

“Did anyone else get hurt?”

“Yes,” Cain said, unwilling to disguise the truth again. “Four men were killed.”

She took a moment to digest this information. “Any of your men?”

He shook his head. They’d been fortunate. He’d come away with the worst of it, two cracked ribs and a bullet that had grazed his side. A couple of inches in the other direction and he would have lost a kidney. And would not be sitting across from Linette now.

“How long will you be in town?”

“A few more days.”

“Then where will you go next?”

“Florida. I have a compound there for training purposes.”

“So you have another mission?”

“Not right away.” Clearly she didn’t understand that his assignments were never planned in advance. He was often called, as he had been early Christmas morning, without warning. Desperate voices in desperate situations. Lives depended on his quick response. It had been hell leaving her that day, but Linette didn’t know that.

She glanced at her watch.

Cain could take a hint. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

The four-block trek passed with lengthy lapses in their conversation. Neither seemed to know what to say. This meeting had gone badly. She’d already learned what he’d come to tell her.

When they arrived at her car, she turned to him, her keys in her hand. Cain held himself stiffly away from her, knowing she was about to ask him not to contact her again. He didn’t blame her.

Taking matters into his own hands, Cain reached for her. She came without resistance. Not even a token one.

They exchanged a slow, sweet kiss. Then, like the gathering turbulent winds of a storm, the kiss changed. Their need for each other grew more urgent, deep and desperate. If this was the last time she would see him, then Cain was determined she would remember him. If she was going to date someone else, he wanted the imprint of his kisses on her lips.

Linette broke away, her shoulders heaving. “Why did you have to come back?” she asked.

“I couldn’t stay away.”

She was the one who kissed him, being careful of his injury. She pulled aside his coat and flattened her hand against the bandage. Her touch was gentle and caring.

“You’re going to be killed someday,” she whispered, and bit into her lower lip.

He tried to make light of her fears. “We all have to die sooner or later.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t bear to bury another man I love.”

Cain realized he was asking a good deal of this woman. He couldn’t be anything less than fair. “If you want me to leave you, I will. I’ll never contact you again. All you need do is ask.”

Her silence encouraged him. He kissed the underside of her jaw, nibbled at her earlobe, and rubbed his hand down the small of her back. This was crazy, and they both knew it. Forbidden fruit was sweeter by far. No woman had ever been sweeter.

The words to send him out of her life never came.

“I’ll pick you up Saturday,” he said between deep, lingering kisses, his heart pounding with triumph. For the first time Cain could remember there was music in his
soul, and all because a beautiful young widow had agreed to have dinner with him.

Tim Mallory had never been more glad to see anyone than Cain McClellan. Cain had arrived the day before, and the two men had talked nonstop for hours. Then Cain had made some weak excuse Mallory didn’t understand and left. Frankly Mallory wondered what was so all-fired important.

If he didn’t know better, Mallory would think a woman was responsible. But in all the years he’d known Cain, he’d never seen his boss lose his head over a woman.

Although Mallory remained self-conscious about having to use the walker, it felt so damn good to be in an upright position that he didn’t care. He gladly accepted the imposition of a metal contraption since it meant he could stand.

Walking was another matter. Thus far all he’d managed to do was shuffle about awkwardly, but Mallory had never been prouder than the moment he’d first placed one foot in front of the other. An Olympic gold medal winner couldn’t have been more pleased with himself.

Naturally Mallory griped long and loud about the walker to Francine. But only because he derived a good deal of pleasure in complaining when she was around; also it kept both of them on their toes.

Thinking about his physical therapist produced a small smile. In the beginning, Mallory had viewed her as a hard-ass bully. Even now he couldn’t picture Francine as any angel in white.

He enjoyed baiting her, enjoyed watching the color
creep into her face. Other than the one time he’d kissed her, there’d been no sexual contact between them, but not because of any lack of effort on his part. The woman had a backbone of iron. He should know, since he’d suffered a head-on collision with that stubborn pride of hers on more than one occasion.

Mallory had never told her how furious he’d been Christmas Day when she’d dropped by uninvited. He had to hand it to her, though, she’d given as good as she’d taken. Not until later that day did he realize how alive he felt. After spending the majority of eighteen months on his backside, to have the blood pumping through his veins again felt damn good.

“I can’t believe the progress you’ve made since I last saw you,” Cain said. He’d arrived shortly after Mallory’s morning workout in the pool and was staying for lunch. Mallory was grateful to see his friend, but frankly he was going to miss having lunch with his feisty therapist.

“I have to tell you, it feels good to be standing,” Mallory said in response to Cain’s comment. “I won’t be needing the walker much longer.”

“You most certainly will be needing that walker,” Francine announced, leaning against the doorjamb, her arms folded. “Just because everything’s progressing quickly doesn’t mean you’re going to be walking all on your own by next week.”

She’d changed out of her swimsuit and back into the basic uniform she favored. Damp tendrils of hair framed her face. Tim drank in the sight of her, wondering how he could have ever thought of her as unattractive. It was true, she wasn’t a classic beauty, but then the Miss America types never had appealed to him.