The Winter Man (11 page)

For all his adventures, he would never know the joy of holding a baby in his arms and reading to his child at bedtime; watching him grow and learn and laugh. Millie wanted children so badly that it was almost painful to see them with their parents in stores and know that she would never experience that singular delight. She thought back often to the night in Tony's hotel room when she'd chosen virtue over experience, and she wondered what might have been if she hadn't stopped him. Perhaps there would have been a child, and she could have had it in secret and he'd never have known. It made her sad to think about that. She could have loved the child, even if Tony wouldn't let her love him.

She did enjoy her job. She got to read to children there. In fact, on Christmas Eve the library opened up for an orphan's home. Volunteers gathered to give presents to the children. The volunteers also read stories to the children. It was a new program that the library had only just instituted, and they were hoping that it would be a success. Millie was looking forward to it. She'd wear her red Santa Claus hat and a red dress, and for one night she could pretend that she was a mother. It was the only way, she thought wistfully, that she'd ever be one.

* * *

A newspaper reporter had shown up with a camera and a notebook computer to cover the event. Several other
people were snapping photos with their cell phone cameras and movie cameras, probably to post on the Web. Millie was having the time of her life with two little girls in her lap. She was reading the story of
The Littlest Angel
to them. It had been her favorite as a child. Judging by the expressions on their faces of these small children, it was becoming a favorite of theirs as well.

She wasn't aware of a movement in the entrance of the library. A big man in a tan cashmere coat and a suit was standing there, watching the activity. The sight of Millie with those little girls only reinforced a thought he'd been harboring for some time now—that she would be a wonderful mother.

“Is it okay for me to be here?” he asked a woman wearing a name tag who was standing next to him.

She looked way up into large black eyes in a darkly tanned face, surrounded by wavy black hair in a ponytail. She smiled. “Of course,” she said. “Do you know one of the children?”

He shook his head. “I know the lady who's reading to them,” he corrected. “We've been friends for a long time.”

“Miss Evans, you mean.” She nodded. She smiled sadly. “She's had a very bad time in recent years, you know, especially when that man tried to kill her. She's much better now, though.”

“Yes.”

“You can go in, if you like,” she added. “We've invited
the public to participate. Actually,” she added, “we're hoping that the children may form some attachments here that will benefit them. Donors are always welcomed. And there might be an opportunity for adoptions as well.”

He frowned. “I hope you've screened the men.”

She grimaced. “I know what you mean,” she said softly. “No, that wouldn't have been possible, I'm afraid. But there are two undercover police officers in there,” she added with a chuckle. “So if anybody has uncomfortable intentions, they'll be in for a big surprise.”

He smiled broadly. “Nice thinking!”

She laughed. He was a very pleasant man. “Why don't you go and speak to Miss Evans? She's been very sad the past few weeks. I found her crying in the ladies' room, just after she came back to work. After the shooting, you know. She said she'd been so wrapped up in herself that she'd failed someone who was very close to her.” She looked up at his expression. “That wouldn't be you, would it?”

His broad chest rose and fell. “I failed her,” he said quietly.

She patted his big arm. “Life is all about redemption,” she said softly. “Go make up.”

He grinned at her. “You wouldn't be in the market for a husband, I guess?” he teased.

She laughed merrily. She was seventy if she was a day. Her white hair sparkled in the overhead light. “Get out of here, you varmint.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

He reached Millie just as she ended the story and kissed little cheeks.

“Go get some cake and punch now,” she told them, easing them back on their feet.

They laughed and kissed her back. They were pretty little girls. One had jet-black hair and eyes, the other was a redhead. They held hands on the way to the treat table.

Millie was smiling after them when a shadow fell over her. She looked up into Tony's face and caught her breath.

He knelt in front of her chair. “Yeah,” he said deeply, searching her green eyes through the lenses of her glasses. She wasn't wearing contacts tonight. “That's how I feel when I see you, too. It takes my breath away.”

She didn't have enough time to guard her response. She was so happy to see him that she began to glow. “I didn't expect to see you,” she said.

“Didn't you?” His dark eyes smiled. “I stayed away until I thought I'd given you enough time to get over what I did.”

“You saved my life,” she protested. “I barely thanked you for it.”

“You look good with little kids in your lap,” he said quietly. “Natural.”

“I like children.”

“Me, too.”

She searched for something to say. “Why are you here?”

“Because you're here, and it's Christmas Eve,” he said.

She didn't understand. “But how did you find me?”

“I work for the government,” he pointed out. “I know how to find anybody.”

That reminded her of the shooting, which brought back disturbing images.

“I'm mostly administrative these days,” he said quickly. “I don't have to use a gun. That night…” He looked tormented. “I didn't have a choice,” he began.

She put her hand over his mouth. “I'm sorry!” she said huskily. “I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel guilty over what you did. If you'd hesitated, we wouldn't even be having this conversation!”

He caught her wrist and kissed the palm hungrily.

Her breath caught again at the hunger his touch ignited in her.

He saw it. His dark eyes began to glow.

For long seconds, they just stared at each other, blind to amused looks and muffled conversation.

“Can you come outside and sit in the car with me for a minute?” he asked, clearing his throat.

“I guess so.”

He got up and pulled her up with him. He waited while she got into her coat and spoke to the white-haired lady Tony had been flirting with. The elderly woman gave Tony a thumbs-up sign behind Millie's back and he laughed.

“What was that all about?” Millie asked as they went out the front door.

“I'm thinking of having an affair with that lady you were just talking to,” he said with a blatant grin. “She's a hoot.”

“Mrs. Mims, you mean?” She laughed. “Isn't she, just! She's president of our ‘friends of the library.' Before she retired, she was an investigative reporter.”

“Well!” He saw something in Millie's face that made him curious. “What does she do now?”

“She writes mystery novels,” she told him. “Very successful ones.”

“I should talk to her. I know a lot of mysteries.” He frowned. “Well, most of them are classified. But I could give her a few hints.”

“She'd love that.”

He unlocked the door of his rental car, a luxury one, and helped Millie into the passenger seat. She was smoothing the wooden dash when he got in on the other side.

“You do travel in style,” she mused.

“I can afford to.” He turned on the dome light and pulled something out of his pocket. “I've been doing a lot of thinking, about my life,” he said as he faced her, with one arm over the back of her bucket seat. “I've been alone and I've enjoyed it. I've had brief liaisons, and I've enjoyed those, too. But I'm getting older. I'm tired of living alone.”

She was hardly breathing as she sat, entranced, staring into his black eyes with breathless hope.

He reached out and touched her soft mouth with his
fingertips, loving the way her eyes closed and her breath jerked out when he did it.

“Oh, hell, the rest can wait a minute. Come here!”

He dragged her over the console into his big arms and kissed her so hungrily that she actually whimpered with smoldering desire.

His breath caught at the sound. His arms contracted. His mouth opened on her lips, his tongue penetrating, his own moan overwhelming hers in the hot, urgent silence that followed.

After a minute, he shuddered and caught her arms. He put her back into her own seat with visible reluctance. He was almost shaking with the force of his need. She was so unsteady that she fell back against the door, her mouth swollen, her eyes wild and soft, all at once.

“My foster mother was like you,” he managed. “Oldfashioned and bristling with principles that seem to be a joke in the modern world. But I happen to like it.” He fumbled in his pocket for a gray jeweler's box. He put it into Millie's hands and closed them around it. “Open it.”

She fumbled trying to get the spring lid to work. Finally he had to help her—not that his hands were much steadier.

There, in the box, was a set of rings. There was a yellow-gold emerald solitaire with diamond accents, and a gold wedding band with alternating diamonds and emeralds.

“They're beautiful,” she whispered. Maybe she was dreaming. Yes. That was probably it. She pinched her own arm and jumped.

“You're not dreaming,” he said, amused. “But I've done my share of that, since I messed up things in my hotel room.” He made a whistling sound. “That was a closer call than you'll ever know, girl. If you hadn't started protesting, I couldn't have stopped. I'd never lost control like that in my whole life, even when I was in my teens.”

Everything went over her head except the last sentence. “Really?”

“Really. You are one hot experience.”

“Me?” she asked, surprised. “But I don't know anything.”

He grinned slowly. “Yeah. That's the exciting thing.”

She blushed. He laughed when he saw the color in her cheeks. He was thinking how rare a thing that was. He couldn't stop thinking about how it had been with her, on that hotel bed. Even in memory, it made his blood run hot. “I've done bad things in my life,” he said then, very solemnly. “I like to think I did them in the service of my country, to protect our way of life. It was exciting work, and profitable. But I've put a lot of money away, and I've gotten the wild streak in me tamed somewhat.” He hesitated. It was hard work, putting this into words. “What I'm trying to say…I mean, what I'm trying to ask…”

“I'd marry you if we had to live in a mud hut in a swamp with ten million mosquitos!” she interrupted.

He caught his breath. “Millie!”

He scooped her up again and kissed her so long, and so hard, that the windows all fogged up. Which was
probably a good thing. Because when the tap at the window came, they weren't in any condition to be seen.

They scrambled apart, rearranging clothing, trying to look normal.

Tony buzzed the window down, with a carefully calm expression that didn't go well at all with the smear of lipstick across his mouth and face, and his hopelessly stained white shirt and half-undone tie and unbuttoned shirt. “Yes?” he said politely.

The white-haired woman doubled up laughing.

He scowled, trying to neaten himself up. In future years, the story would be told and retold by both partners.

“I just wanted to say…” she choked, trying to stop laughing long enough to be coherent, “that we're opening the presents, and the little girls…would like Millie to help them open theirs.”

“We'll be right in. We were just getting rings out of boxes and stuff,” he said, ruffled.

She murmured that it looked to her that it was a good idea to get the rings on and the words said in some legal fashion, and pretty quickly. Then she laughed some more and left.

Tony slid the engagement ring onto Millie's finger and kissed her. “So much for surprising your colleagues,” he mused. “I imagine Ms. Perry Mason there will have tipped off the whole bunch by the time we get back inside.”

“I don't mind,” she said shyly.

He was lost in her smile. “Me, neither,” he said.

Then he had to kiss her again. But they managed to get back into the library before all the presents were opened, to an unconcealed round of laughter that only the adults in the group truly understood.

* * *

They spent Christmas Day together talking about the future in between kisses. Tony offered her a church wedding, but they both decided that it could probably wait until they had more than one friend to ask to attend it. Meanwhile the local probate judge's office did nicely, with an attorney who was looking for a birth certificate and a judge's clerk for witnesses.

It had been Tony who refused to go past some energetic petting before the wedding. He wanted Millie to have things just the way she wanted them, he explained. So they'd wait.

However, the minute they reached Millie's apartment, which was closer than his hotel room, they were undressing even as Tony locked her door. They didn't even make it to the bedroom. Millie had her first intensely intimate experience on the carpeted floor of her apartment, and she never felt the carpet burns until she and Tony were lying in a tangled, sweaty heap under the soft hall-ceiling light.

“Wow,” he managed.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered while her heartbeat threatened to pound her into the floor.

He stretched his tired muscles, laughing when they cramped. “Hell!” he muttered. “I really tried to make it to the bedroom…”

“I don't care,” she said in a tone that almost purred with satisfaction. “On a floor, standing up, in the bathroom…I never dreamed it would feel like that!”