Friends and Lovers by Diana Palmer Page B

don’t have any clothes with me.”
    “Stay here. I’ll rummage around inside and get you a few things. Looks like the tree only got the living room. Everything else should be fairly safe.”
    “Should you go in there?” she asked uncertainly. “I don’t want you to get hurt for a few clothes. I could buy something.”
    “I’ll be okay.”
    “Miss Rose…” she said, suddenly worried, her eyes going to the house next door.
    “Is fine,” he told her. “I ran over there like a wild man a few minutes ago when I finally decided to drive over here and see if you were okay.” He sighed with heartfelt relief. “I’d been calling you all night and getting no answer. Miss Rose said you’d been picked up yesterday by a man in a Ferrari and hadn’t come back.” He studied her suddenly flushed face. “An observant lady, Miss Rose. And an incurable romantic. She’s convinced that you and John ran away and got married.”
    She felt hot all over at just the thought of it. “Uh, not exactly,” she hedged, averting her eyes.
    “Well, it’s not any of
my
business, after all,” he returned, but his eyes were curious. “I’ll see what I can salvage.”
    She stood there in the cold rain and watched him go, her mind whirling. The shock had been tremendous, and she still felt numb. To come from John’s warm bed to this….
    Her eyes closed and she tried not to remember how it had been last night. She could still feel John’s hands under her back, gently lifting; and his mouth against her soft, bare skin with the mustache like a velvet brush over every inch of it. The feel of his taut, powerful body against hers, the man scent of him, the husky sound of his voice as he whispered urgently, ardently, at her throat….
    Everything had changed between them by morning: everything, including the easy camaraderie of the past. This morning he’d been strangely reticent, and she’d been wary of him, frankly shy of his penetrating gaze as she’d huddled under the brown sheets and the chocolate and cream striped bedspread.
    “We’ll talk when I get back from Denver,” he’d said.
    “Yes,” she’d replied quietly, and he’d put her in a cab and gone back inside the apartment house without glancing back at her….
    “I said, are you ready to go?” Donald asked, indicating the suitcase in his hand. “I closed off the rooms that weren’t damaged, so the rain wouldn’t get in. It’s only the living room, and it shouldn’t be all that difficult to repair. The biggest job will be getting the tree removed.”
    “I’ll, uh, I’ll call someone about it later,” she said. Her dress was dripping wet and clinging unpleasantly to her body. “I’d like to get into something dry.”
    “Let’s go, then. I parked over at Miss Rose’s.”
    She followed him blindly, pausing just long enough to smile and talk briefly with Miss Rose, who was delighted to find her alive and overtly curious about where she’d been. Madeline sidestepped the question diplomatically and eased away before Miss Rose realized that she hadn’t been answered.
    “Where were you, really?” Donald probed, his eyes speculative as they drove back to his house. “Not with John all night—I know you too well to believe that.”
    If only you knew the truth, she thought, laughing inside. But she shrugged and gave him a slightly forced smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she murmured. “Maybe I was out committing a murder—doing research for my next book.”
    He sighed dramatically. “And now you’ve just made me an accomplice after the fact.”
    “I know a good attorney who’ll defend us both,” she said.
    He chuckled. “I’ll just bet you do.”
    She leaned back in the seat. “Thanks for offering me the use of your apartment. Are you sure you don’t need it for visiting…friends?” she teased.
    “What do you think you are?”
    “I know what I’m going to be when John Durango finds out where I am,” she moaned, closing her eyes. He