Roomful of Roses

LINE OF FIRE

Only one thing stood in the way of Wynn Ascot’s marriage-her legal guardian, McCabe Foxe. The tough war correspondent returned from Central America with an injured leg-and with the force of a cannonball invaded her home, her life, and her heart.

A hard-headed journalist, Wynn was uncharacteristically devastated by the new, disturbing feelings McCabe aroused. But he was a man who made no commitments and asked for none. With Wynn it was all or nothing, and though her heart had already been captured, the surrender would have to be on her terms.

Roomful of Roses

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter One

It was the most wonderful kind of spring day—warm after the recent rain, with butterflies gliding around a puddle beside the porch of the weathered old country store in southern Creek County. Camellias were blooming profusely, their pink and red blossoms stark against the deep, shiny green of the leaves that framed their delicate faces. A dusty road led off beside the worn wood building, and a tractor could be heard breaking ground nearby.

Wynn Ascot left her camera and equipment on the back seat of her Volkswagen and slid out of her yellow sweater before she went up the cracked concrete steps onto the dusty porch and through the screen door. The store smelled of bananas and onions; overhead was a fan that whirred softly amid the homely clutter of groceries. Wynn shook back her long dark hair and lifted its weight as she walked into the store, feeling the heat abate. The swirling blue-patterned cotton skirt was cool enough, but she was wearing a long-sleeved white blouse with it—she hadn’t expected the day to heat up this much! The suede boots were just about as confining as the blouse, making her long legs hotter.

Mrs. Baker was leaning over the dark wood counter next to a cheese hoop, talking to old Mr. Sanders. But she looked up when she spotted Wynn.

“Loafing, huh?” the white-haired woman teased.

Wynn grinned at her, pausing to say hello to the stooped little man talking to Mrs. Baker. “Well, can I help it that it’s spring?” she laughed. “This is no day to be stuck inside slaving over a typewriter. You won’t tell on me, will you?” she added in a conspiratorial whisper.

The older woman pursed her lips. “You do a story about my boy Henry and I’ll keep your guilty secret,” she promised.

“What did Henry do?”

“He caught a fifteen-pound bass this morning over at James Lewis’ pond,” Mrs. Baker said proudly.

“You tell him to bring it by my office about two o’clock today and I’ll get a picture of it for the paper,” Wynn agreed. “Now, how about a soda? I’m parched!”

“What was it this time?” Mr. Sanders asked with a smile, leaning heavily on his cane. “A fire? A wreck?”

“Water,” Wynn corrected, pausing long enough to take the icy soft drink from Mrs. Baker and toss down a swallow before she continued. “John Darrow had the soil-conservation people help him design and build a pond on his farm to store water in case of drought.”

“Mr. Ed says the early rain means we probably will have a drought this summer,” Mr. Sanders agreed, quoting his next-door neighbor, a farmer of eighty-two whose claim to fame was that he was more accurate than any south Georgia weatherman.

Wynn took another long sip from the soft drink before she replied, “I hope he’s wrong.” She grinned at the wrinkled old man. “Now, there’s a story. I think I’ll go take his picture and get him to predict the rest of the summer.”

“He’d love that,” Mrs. Baker said, and her blue eyes looked young for a minute. “He’s got grandkids in Atlanta. He could send them all a copy.”

“I’ll put it down for first thing tomorrow.” With a sigh, Wynn sank down beside the wooden fruit bin into a comfortably swaybacked cane-bottom straight chair. “Just think. I could be sitting in a normal office working a lazy eight-hour day, and nobody would ever call me at night to ask how much a subscription was or how to get a picture in the paper.”

“And you’d hate it,” the older woman laughed. She lifted her face to the ceiling fan with a sigh. “Funny how these fans are just coming back into style. This one’s been here since I was a young woman.”

“I remember sitting here on lazy Fridays in the summer with Granddaddy, just after the fish truck came up from Pensacola,” Wynn recalled. “Granddaddy would buy oysters and cook them on a wood stove while my grandmother fussed and swore that I’d burn myself up trying to help him. Those were good days.”

Mrs. Baker leaned on the counter. “How’s Katy Maude?” she asked.

“Aunt Katy Maude is up in the north Georgia mountains visiting her sister Cattie.” The young woman grinned. “She lives near Helen, that little alpine village that looks like Bavaria, and the two of them have been threatening to ride an inner tube down the Chattahoochee this summer.”

Mrs. Baker burst out laughing. “Yes, and I’ll just bet Katy would do it on a dare! Say, when are you and Andy getting married? We heard Miss Robins say it might be this summer.”

Wynn sighed. “We think we’ll wait until September, and take a week off for a honeymoon.” She smiled, trying to picture being married to Andrew Slone. They had a comfortable, very serene relationship. He made no demands on her physically, and they spent most of their time watching television together or going out to eat. She could imagine their marriage being much the same. Andy wasn’t exciting, but at least he wouldn’t be rushing off to cover wars like McCabe....

“Will McCabe come back to give you away?” Mrs. Baker asked, as if she had looked into Wynn’s mind and picked out the thought.

Hearing his name was enough to cause volcanic sensations in Wynn. McCabe Foxe wasn’t her guardian in any real sense. He only held the administrative keys to her father’s legacy, doling out her allowance and taking care of her investments until she was either twenty-five or married. At her next birthday, she’d be twenty-four. But before then, she’d be married to Andy, and McCabe would fade away into the past where he belonged. Thank God, she added silently.

“I don’t think so,” she replied finally, smiling at Mrs. Baker. “He’s down in Central America right now, covering that last skirmish for the wire services. And getting fodder for his next adventure novel, no doubt,” she added with a trace of bitterness.

“Isn’t that something?” the elderly woman sighed, her eyes suddenly dreamy. “Imagine, a famous author whose father was born here,” she said. “And he lived just a couple of houses away from you for all those years. Right up until he went into wire-service reporting with your father.”

Thinking about that made Wynn uncomfortable. She didn’t like the memories of those days.

“Your dad was a good writer,” Mr. Sanders interrupted. “I remember those reports of his that Edward printed in your paper, with his byline.”

Wynn smiled. “I still miss him. I don’t know what I’d have done if Katy Maude hadn’t taken me in when he was killed. I’ve never felt so lost.”

“Good thing your father let McCabe handle the money,” Mrs. Sanders remarked. “Your mother left quite an estate, and you were still in your teens when your dad died. Only thing is, I do wonder why McCabe let you stay here.”

“He could hardly have taken me with him,” Wynn pointed out. She finished the rest of her soft drink and placed the empty bottle on the counter. “Well, I’d better get back to the salt mines, I reckon. It’s press day and if I know Edward, he’ll be calling all over the county any minute to find out where I’m hiding. Nobody escapes when we’re putting the paper to bed.”

“I’ve got to go, too,” Mr. Sanders sighed, standing up as Wynn did. “Mrs. Jones worries if I don’t march in and out on the hour. Amazing how I managed to crawl through trenches all over France by myself in the war without Mrs. Jones behind me to push,” he added with a twinkle in his eye.

“You just be grateful you’ve got a housekeeper to look after you who doesn’t charge an arm and a leg,” Mrs. Baker chided, pointing an accusing finger his way.

“Reckon you’re right, Verdie,” he sighed.

Wynn laughed at his hunted expression. “Aunt Katy Maude tends to worry about me, too,” she admitted. “That’s why I moved into the guest house when I got old enough. We get along just fine as long as we don’t live together.”

“It isn’t right for a young girl to live by herself,” Mrs. Baker began, “not with that huge house and only Katy Maude in it.”

Wynn glanced quickly at her watch. “Oops, got to run,” she interrupted with an apologetic smile before the older woman had time to get started on her pet subject. “See you later.” She tossed a quarter onto the counter and made a run for the door, laughing, her skirts flying and her pale green eyes shimmering with humor.

But the humor faded once Wynn had started the small car and was roaring away toward Redvale down country roads that seemed to go forever without a sign of another car or a house. This section of south Georgia was primarily agricultural, and it stretched out like Texas, the land flat or slightly rolling, with only a few farmhouses and country stores to break the rustic monotony.

Thinking about McCabe had upset her. It was ridiculous that it should, that she should let it. He was world-famous now, rich enough to retire and give up risking his life. But he kept on reporting, as if it was a habit he couldn’t break, and Wynn had stopped watching the newscasts because she couldn’t bear to see what was happening in Central America. She couldn’t bear the thought that McCabe might be badly hurt.

It shouldn’t have mattered, of course. They had never gotten along and their last confrontation had been sizzling. McCabe had hit the ceiling when Wynn announced that she was joining the staff of the Redvale Courier. It had been a telephone conversation, one of McCabe’s rare ones, and he’d threatened, among other things, to cut off her allowance. She’d told him to go ahead and do it, she’d support herself. The conversation had gone from bad to worse, and ended with Wynn slamming the phone down and refusing to answer when it rang again. A week later, there was a terse note from him, with a New York postmark, agreeing that a job with a weekly newspaper might not be too dangerous. But he warned her against covering hard news, and threatened to come back and jerk her out of the office if she tried it. “I have my spies, Wynn,” he’d written. “So don’t think you’ll put anything over on me.”

She leaned back hard against the seat, her foot easing down on the accelerator. Arrogant, hardheaded man—she still couldn’t believe that her father had legally had McCabe appointed executor of his will and Wynn’s estate. They were friends, they had been for years. But it seemed ridiculous somehow, when Katy Maude would have been the logical person to put in charge, since she’d had responsibility for Wynn since her childhood, while Jesse Ascot was off covering news.

Where was McCabe now? she wondered. There’d been a report a couple of days before about two reporters being killed in Central America. Wynn had sweated blood when she overheard a conversation about it. She’d butted in, asking if the men had heard who the reporters were. French, they’d replied. French. And she’d gone home and cried with relief. Ridiculous! She was engaged, her life was planned, and McCabe had never been anything to her but a big blond headache.

She drove by Katy Maude’s house on the way back to the office. Her eyes caught sight of a curtain fluttering in the guest house where she lived, and she wondered absently if she’d left a window open. Well, it wasn’t likely to rain again, so what did it matter?

When she got back to the Redvale Courier’s office, nestled between Patterson’s Mercantile and the Jericho Drug Company, Kelly Davis was rushing out the door.

“Hi,” Wynn greeted the tall, thin young man. “Remember me? My name is Wynn Ascot and I work here.”

“Really? You could have fooled me,” Kelly replied dryly. “I never see you, and neither does Edward, which means I get stuck with the really gruesome stories.”

“Like what?” she asked innocently.

“Like the wreck out on the federal highway,” he replied quietly. “One fatality, three injuries. The state patrol just got there.”

“Any names yet?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Hope it’s nobody we know,” he said with a faint smile, and she knew what he meant. This was the really bad part of working for a small-town paper. Two out of three times, you knew the victims, and many of them were friends or family.

“Let us know as soon as you find out, will you?” she asked.

“I’ll call before I come back,” he promised.

She watched him run for his old pickup truck, and prayed, not for the first time, that it would start. It did, with an ear-splitting roar, and she watched it jerk down the wide street that ran around the tree-lined square with its Confederation statue and old men in overalls sitting on park benches in the shade.

Edward Keene looked up when she came in. He was standing beside the young brunette typesetter at the computer, his heavy white brows drawn into a scowl over his weather-beaten face. His nose seemed to quiver as he clutched the galley proof in his hand. “I’ll wait to paste this up until you get that correction line, Judy,” he told the typesetter, aiming a glare at Wynn.

“Who are you?” he asked his girl reporter. “Do you work here? Do you know what day it is? Do you realize that I’m making this paper up alone and trying to help Judy proof copy and set ads...”

“I got photos,” she said, holding up the camera with a grin. “Big ones, they’ll fill up space.”

“Pix of what?” he grumbled. “A pond?”

“And a house fire and that new bypass bridge they just finished in Union City.”

He beamed. “Really?”

“Well,” she sighed, “at least that cheered you up for a minute. Kelly will get the wreck, so that gives you at least four pix for the front page, and we could blow them up to four columns each...?”

“That’s why I hired you.” He nodded with a grin. “You know how to spread news out. Okay, with what I’ve already got, that’ll fill ’er up.”

“I’ll take it back to Jess in the darkroom,” she said, and started into the other office.

“Uh, after you do that, come into my office for a minute, will you?” Edward hesitated.

Wynn glanced at him, puzzled. He looked strange for an instant. She shrugged and rushed to the back with the film. It was press day, she told herself. Everybody looked strange then.

She handed the film to Jess with a grin at the harassed look that immediately appeared on his thin, aging face. “Yesterday?” he muttered.

“Please,” she said, agreeing on the delivery date. “All you have to do is three halftones, though, four columns each—one of the fire and one of the new bridge and one of the pond.”

“I get to pick them out?” he asked with raised eyebrows.

“Sure! See how good I am to you?” she asked as she headed toward the door.

“Good! Here I am with three rush jobs, one to get out by two o’clock, I haven’t made the first negative...” He kept right on muttering, and she dashed back into the newspaper office and closed the door.

Edward was sitting behind the heavily loaded desk, which contained a much-used manual typewriter, half a dozen daily newspapers from which he pirated leads, and some scratch paper. He pulled off his glasses and whipped out a spotless white handkerchief to clean them with.

“Well, sit down,” he said impatiently, leaning back with his hands crossed over his ample stomach.

“What is it?” she asked, getting scared. He looked...really strange.

“Feel okay?” he asked.

“Sure.” She eyed him warily. “Why? Do I look like a potential stroke victim?”

He cleared his throat. “No.”

“It’s Katy Maude!” she burst out.

“No,” he said quickly. His shoulders lifted and fell. “Why don’t you keep up on what’s happening in Central America? Then you’d know and I wouldn’t have to stumble all over myself.”

Her blood actually ran cold. She gripped the arms of the chair hard enough to numb her fingers. “McCabe,” she gasped. “Something’s happened to McCabe!”

“He’s alive,” he said. “Not badly injured at all.”

She leaned back with a sigh, feeling herself grow weak. All these years, she’d expected it, until today, and she’d been knocked sideways. “What was it? A sniper?”

“Something like that.” He tossed an issue of the Atlanta morning daily over to her. “Notice the sidebar.”

She looked away from the banner headline to the accompanying story. “WAR CORRESPONDENT INJURED.” There was a small, very dark photo of McCabe and she strained her eyes to see if he’d changed much over the long years, but she couldn’t even make out his features. She read the copy. It stated that McCabe had been hurt while covering a story, and there was some speculation as to whether the incident was connected to the deaths of the two French correspondents that had been reported earlier that week. According to the story, McCabe had been roughed up and had a torn ligament in one leg and a trace of concussion, but he was alive.

“It doesn’t say where he is now,” she murmured.

“Uh, I was afraid you’d wonder about that. Be kind of hard to miss him, of course,” he mumbled.

She stared at him. Her mind was only beginning to work again after its shock. “Hard to miss him?”

“Yes. When you walk in your front door, that is,” Edward volunteered. “Big man...”

“He’s at my house?” she burst out. “What’s he doing at my house!”

“Recuperating,” he assured her. “Well, the motel’s closed down for remodeling. Where else could he stay?”

“With you!”

“Nope,” he replied calmly. “No spare room.”

“He could sleep on the couch!”

“In his condition? Couldn’t ask an injured man to do that,” he said.

“I could,” she replied coldly. “I can’t have McCabe in the house alone with me. Katy Maude’s not due home for several more weeks, she’s just getting over her heart attack, and she couldn’t take the excitement of constant arguing.”

“You and Katy don’t argue,” he observed.

“But McCabe and I do,” she reminded him. “Constantly. On every subject. And Andy will go through the ceiling!”

“Oh, him,” Edward said, dismissing the other man with a wave of his hand. “Andy’s one of those liberal city fellows. He won’t think a thing about it.”

“Are we talking about the same Andrew Slone?” she asked. “My fiancé, who went on local television to protest a theater advertisement in the Ashton Daily Bugle because it showed a woman’s bare bosom?”

Edward looked at her over his glasses. “Hmm. You might have a problem there, sure enough.”

“You set me up,” she accused. “You invited McCabe here.”

“Well, he suggested it,” he admitted. “Called to ask if we’d seen the story in the paper, mentioned what bad shape he was in...I knew you wouldn’t mind,” he added with a grin. “After all, he’s your guardian.”

“Guardian! My tormentor, my inquisitor, my worst enemy, and you’ve put him under my own roof!’ she wailed. “Why didn’t you send him to Katy Maude’s house?”

“Because there’s no one in it,” Edward said reasonably. “He can hardly walk at all, Wynn,” he reminded her. “How would he get along?”

“He’s a reporter,” she ground out. “He’s lived on pure nerve for so long that he’d probably survive without water on the desert! Doesn’t his mother live in New York now? Why didn’t he go stay with her?”

“She left the country when she found out he was coming back from Central America,” Edward laughed. “You know Marie, she’s scared to death to let him get a foothold in her house. He’d have the servants fired and the house remodeled in two days’ time.”

“Not my house, he wouldn’t,” she muttered. “Marie always did find excuses to hide out from his father and from him.”

“He’s hurt,” he reminded her. “Poor wounded soldier, and you’d turn him out in the cold!”

Her full lips pouted at him. “You don’t know McCabe like I do,” she argued.

“He wants to meet your fiancé,” he continued. “He’s concerned about your future.”

“He wants to dictate it, that’s why,” she growled, standing. “Well, he won’t get away with it. He’s not going to wrap me around his thumb!”

“Where are you going?” he called.

“Off to war,” she called back. “Where’s my elephant gun?”

“But the paper—”

“I’ll read it later,” she grumbled.

“Our paper,” he thundered. “The one we won’t get out if you don’t get in here and help me make it up!”

“I’m taking my lunch hour late,” she told him. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

Edward threw up his hands. “An hour. We’re already an hour behind schedule and she’ll only be gone an hour. Judy, I tell you...”

But Wynn wasn’t listening. She was running for her car, with sparks flying from her green eyes. If McCabe thought he’d been through a war, he hadn’t seen anything yet!

Chapter Two

Wynn could sense McCabe watching her even as she opened the unlocked door of the white frame cottage behind Katy Maude’s monstrous Victorian house on Patterson Street. She stormed in, her hair flying, her step sounding unusually loud on the bare wood floors and area rugs.

“McCabe!” she yelled, tossing her camera, purse and sweater onto the chair in the hall. But only an echo greeted her.

She turned to go into the living room, which she’d redecorated the year before with western furniture and Indian rugs. She stopped short just inside the doorway and caught her breath.

McCabe was sitting quietly in her big armchair by the fireplace, one big foot propped on the hassock, wearing leather boots and a safari suit that would have looked comical on any native of Redvale. But it suited his dark tan, his faintly tousled thick blond hair, which needed trimming badly.

All the years rolled away. He looked just as Wynn remembered him, big and bronzed and blond—larger than life. His craggy face looked battle-worn, and the light eyes that were neither gray nor blue but a mixture of the two narrowed as they roamed boldly over her slender body.

She stared helplessly, trying to reconcile her memories with the man before her. He seemed to find her equally fascinating, if the searching, stunned expression on his usually impassive face was anything to go by.

“You’re older,” she said in a tone that was unconsciously soft.

He nodded. “So are you, honey.”

Casual endearments were as much a part of him as his square-tipped fingers, but the word caused an odd sensation in Wynn. She didn’t understand why, and she didn’t like it.

“What are you doing here?” she asked reasonably.

He raised both eyebrows as he lifted the smoking cigarette in his hand to his chiseled mouth. “My plane was hijacked,” he said with a straight face.

She pursed her lips. “Try again.”