White Lies by Linda Howard Page A

Funny.
                  She laughed. "I didn't know anyone could
be silent and sarcastic at the same time."
                  Throat.
                  "You have a trach tube because you
weren't breathing well." Face
broken?
                  She sighed. He wanted to know, not be
protected. "Yes, some bones in your face were broken. You aren't
disfigured, but the swelling made it hard for you to breathe. As soon as the
swelling goes down, they'll take the trach tube out." Lift the sheet and check my—
                  "I will not!" she said indignantly,
halting her spelling when she realized where his words were heading. Then she
had to laugh because he actually managed to look impatient. "Everything is
still there, believe me." Functional?
                  "You'll have to find that out on your
own!"
                  Prissy.
                  "I'm not prissy, and you behave or I'll
have a nurse change your tube. Then you'll find out the hard way what you want
to know." As soon as she said the words she felt herself blushing, and it
didn't help that he was smiling again. She hadn't meant to sound the way she
had.
                  The effort of concentrating for so long had
tired him, and after a minute he spelled Sleep.
                  "I didn't mean to tire you out," she
murmured. "Go to sleep." Stay?
                  "Yes, I'm staying. I won't go back to my
apartment without telling you." Her throat felt thick at his need for
reassurance, and she stood by the bed with her hand on his arm until his
breathing changed into the deep, steady rhythm of sleep. Even then she was
reluctant to take her hand away, and she stood beside him for a long time. A
smile kept curving her lips. His personality was so strong that it came through
despite his limited means of communication. He wanted the truth about his
condition, not vague promises or medical double-talk. He might not know his
name, but that hadn't changed the man he was. He was strong, much stronger than
he had been before. Whatever had happened to him in the past five years had
tempered him, like steel subjected to the hottest fires. He was harder,
stronger, tougher, his willpower so fierce it was like an energy field
emanating from him. Oh, he had been a charming rascal before, devilishly
reckless and daring, with a glint in his eye that had turned many feminine heads.
But now he was... dangerous.
                  The word startled her, but when she examined
it, she realized that it described exactly the man he had become. He was a
dangerous man. She didn't feel threatened by him, but danger didn't necessarily
constitute a threat. He was dangerous because of his steely, implacable will;
when this man decided to do something, it wasn't safe to get in his way. At
some time in the past five years, something had drastically changed him and she
wasn't sure she wanted to know what it was. It must have been something
cataclysmic, something awful, to have so focused his character and
determination. It was as if he had been stripped down to the bare essentials of
human existence, forced to discard all his personality traits that weren't
necessary to survival and adopt new ones that were. What was left was hard and
pure, unbreakable and curiously resilient. This was a man who wouldn't admit
defeat; he didn't know what it was.
                  Her heart was beating heavily as she stood
looking down at him, her attention so focused on him that they might have been
the only two people in the world. He awed her, and he attracted her so strongly
that she jerked her hand away from his arm as soon as the thought formed. Dear
God! She would be a fool to let herself get caught in that trap again. Even
more now than before, Steve was essentially alone, his personality so honed
that he was complete unto himself. She had walked away relatively unscathed
before, but what