Paper Rose (2 page)

His eyebrows arched. “Why?”

“We had a science teacher just before I graduated. He was an archaeologist. He'd actually help excavate Mayan ruins down in the Yucatan.” Her green eyes almost glowed with excitement and enthusiasm. “I thought how wonderful it would be, to bring an ancient civilization out into the light and show it to the world like that…” Her voice trailed off as she realized how impossible that dream was. She shrugged. “There's no money for that, though. Mama had a little savings, but he spent it all. She said he had no business sense, and I guess it's true, because he's all but ruined daddy's business.”

“How long has your father been dead?”

“Six years,” she said. “Then Mama married
him
last year.” She closed her eyes and shivered. “She said she was lonely, and he paid her a lot of attention. I saw right through him. Why couldn't she?”

“Because some people lack perception.” His black eyes narrowed as they measured her. “What sort of grades did you make in school?”

“A's and B's,” she replied. “I was good in science.” She had a sudden unpleasant thought. “Are you going to try to have my stepfather locked up?” she asked worriedly. “Everybody would know,” she added, feeling ashamed.

He searched her eyes, feeling the fear she had of public recrimination, the trial, the eyes staring at her. “You don't think rape warrants it?”

“He didn't,” she said. “But you're right. He's probably been sitting at home thinking about it all day. By tonight, I won't stand a chance. Not even if I hide in the woods.”

He leaned forward, one elbow on the beautiful cherry wood of the table, and stared right into her eyes.

She felt nauseous. She folded her arms over her breasts and stared into space, shivering. It was the worst nightmare she'd faced in her young life.

“All right, don't go into mental convulsions over it,” he said quietly. He looked as if nothing ever ruffled him. In fact, very little did. “He won't touch you, I guarantee it. I have a solution.”

“A solution?” Her green eyes were wide and wet, and full of hope.

“I know of a scholarship you can get at George Washington University, outside Washington, D.C.,” he said, thinking how good it was that he'd learned to lie with such a straight face, and never thinking this lie might come back to haunt him. “Books and board included. It's for needy cases. You'd certainly qualify. Interested?”

She was hesitant. “Yes. But…well, how would I get there, and apply?”

“Forget the logistics for now. They aren't important. They have a good archaeology program and you'd be well out of reach of your stepfather. If you want it, say the word.”

“Yes, I want it!” she said. “But I'll have to go back home…”

“No, you won't,” he said shortly. “Not ever again.” He threw his legs off the chair and got up, reaching for the telephone. He punched in a number, waited, and then began to speak in a language that was positively not English.

She'd lived around Lakota people most of her young life, but she'd never heard the language spoken like this. It was full of rising and falling tones, and sang of ancient places and the sound of the wind. She loved the sound of it in his deep voice.

All too soon he ended the conversation. “Let's go.”

“The truck, the other orders,” she protested weakly.

“I'll have the truck taken back to your stepfather, along with a message.” He didn't mention that he planned to deliver both.

“But where am I going?”

“To my mother on the reservation,” he said. “My father died earlier this year, so she's alone. She'll enjoy your company.”

“I don't have clothes,” she protested.

“I'll get yours from your stepfather.”

“You make this sound so easy,” she said, amazed.

“Most things are easy if you can get past the red tape. I learned long ago to cut it close to the bone.” He opened the door. “Coming?”

She got up, feeling suddenly free and full of hope. It was like one of those everyday miracles people talked about. “Yes…”

Present day
Washington, D.C.

C
ameras were flashing all around Cecily Peterson. Microphones wielded by acrobatic television journalists were being thrust in her face as she walked quite calmly out of the fund-raising dinner that Senator Matt Holden was hosting.

Behind her, a furious tall man with a long braid of black hair was waiting for a tureen of expensive crab bisque to complete its trip down the once-spotless dress slacks of his tuxedo before he tried to move. The diamond-festooned blond socialite with him was glaring daggers at Cecily's back.

Cecily kept walking. “Film at eleven,” she murmured to no one in particular, and with a bright little smile.

She didn't really look like a woman whose entire life had crashed and burned in the space of a few minutes. Her life was like Tate Winthrop's tuxedo—in ruins. Everything was going to change now.

She went to the big black utility vehicle that her date had driven her here in, to wait for him to join her. Her high heels were damp from the grass. She could feel her medium blond hair coming down from its high, complicated coiffure. The street and traffic lights were blurs of color to her pale green eyes because she wasn't wearing her glasses and she couldn't use contacts. She had on a black dress with tiny little straps, and the black shawl she was wearing with it didn't provide much warmth. She couldn't get into the vehicle without the key, but that didn't matter. She was too numb to feel the chill of the night air anyway, or care about the busy Washington, D.C., street traffic behind her. She was furious that she'd had to learn the truth about her financial status and her supposed educational grant from that dyed blonde who Tate Winthrop was escorting around town these days. Her mind wandered back to a day two years ago, when everything had seemed so perfect, and her dreams had hovered on the cusp of fulfillment….

 

The airport in Tulsa was crowded. Cecily juggled her carry-on bag with a duffel bag full of equipment, scanning the milling rush around her for Tate Winthrop. She was wearing her usual field gear: boots, a khaki suit with a safari jacket and a bush hat hanging behind her head by a rawhide string. Her natural blond hair was in a neat braided bun atop her head, and through her big-lensed glasses, her green eyes twinkled with anticipation. It wasn't often that Tate Winthrop asked her to help him on a case. It was an occasion.

Suddenly there he was, towering over the people around him. He was Lakota Sioux, and looked it. He had high cheekbones and big black, deep-set eyes under a jutting brow. His mouth was wide and sexy, with a thin upper lip and a chiseled lower one and he had perfect teeth. His hair was straight and jet-black; it fell to his waist when he wasn't wearing it in a braid, as he was now. He was lean and striking, muscular without being obvious. And he'd once worked for a secret government agency. Of course, Cecily wasn't supposed to know that; or that he was consulting with them on the sly right now in a hush-hush murder case in Oklahoma.

“Where's your luggage?” Tate asked in his deep, crisp voice.

She gave him a pert look, taking in the elegance of his vested suit. “Where's your field gear?” she countered with the ease of long acquaintance.

Tate had saved her from the unsavory advances of a drunken stepfather when she was just seventeen. He'd taken her to his mother on the Wapiti Ridge Sioux Reservation near the Black Hills, and there she'd stayed until he got her a scholarship and a grant and enrolled her in George Washington University, down the street from his apartment in Washington, D.C. He'd been her guardian angel through four years of college and the master's program she was beginning now—doing forensic archaeology. She was already earning respect for her work. She was an honors student all the way, not surprising since she had no social life and could devote all her time to her studies. She didn't need to date; she had eyes for no man in the world except Tate.

“I'm security chief of the Hutton corporation,” he reminded her. “This is a freelance favor I'm doing for a couple of old friends. So this
is
my working gear.”

She made a face. “You'll get all dusty.”

He made a sound deep in his throat. “You can brush me off.”

She grinned wickedly. “Now that's what I call incentive!”

He chuckled. “Cut it out. We've got a serious and sensitive situation here.”

“So you intimated on the phone.” She glanced around the airport. “Where's baggage claim? I brought some tools and electronic equipment, too.”

“How about clothes?”

She stared at him blankly. “What do I need with a lot of clothes cluttering up my equipment case? These are wash-and-wear.”

He made another sound. “You can't expect to go to a restaurant in that!”

“Why not? And who's taking me to any restaurant?” she demanded. “
You
never do.”

He shrugged. “I'm going to do penance while we're out here.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Great! Your bed or mine?”

He laughed in spite of himself. She was the only person in his life who'd ever been able to make him feel carefree, even briefly. She lit fires inside him, although he was careful not to let them show too much. “You never give up, do you?”

“Someday you'll weaken,” she assured him. “And I'm prepared. I have a week's supply of Trojans in my fanny pack….”

He managed to look shocked. “Cecily!”

She shrugged. “Women have to think about these things. I'm twenty-three, you know.” She added, “You came into my life at a formative time and rescued me from something terrible. Can I help it if you make other potential lovers look like fried sea bass by comparison?”

“I didn't bring you out here to discuss your lack of lovers,” he pointed out.

“And here I hoped you were offering yourself up as an educational experience,” she sighed.

He glared down at her as they walked toward baggage claim.

“Okay,” she said glumly. “I'll give up, for now. What do you want me to do out here?” she added, and sounded like the professional she really was. “You mentioned something about skeletal remains.”

He looked around them before he spoke. “We had a tip,” he told her, “that a murder could be solved if we looked in a certain place. About twenty years ago, a foreign double agent went missing near Tulsa. He was carrying a piece of microfilm that identified a mole in the CIA. It would be embarrassing for everybody if this is him and the microfilm surfaced now.”

“I gather that your mole has moved up in the world?”

“Don't even ask,” he told her, then, with a smile he added, “I don't want to have to put you in the witness protection program. All you have to do is tell me if this DB is the one we're looking for.”

“Dead body,” she translated. Then she frowned. “I thought you had an expert out here.”

“You can't imagine what sort of damned expert these guys brought with them.”

Yes, she could, but she didn't say anything.

“Besides,” he added with a quick glance, “you're discreet. I know from experience that you don't tell everything you know.”

“What did your expert tell you about the body?”

“That it's very old,” he said with exaggerated awe. “Probably thousands of years old!”

“Why do you think it isn't?”

“For one thing, there's a .32 caliber bullet in the skull.”

“Well, that rather lets out a Paleo-Indian hunter,” she agreed.

“Sure it does. But I need an expert to say so, or the case will be summarily dropped. I don't know about you, but I don't want a former KGB mole making policy for me.”

“Me, neither,” she said inelegantly. “You do realize that somebody could have been out to the site and used the skull for target practice?”

He nodded. “Can you date the remains?”

“I don't know. Carbon dating is best, but it takes time. I'll do the best I can.”

“That's good enough for me. Experts in Paleo-Indian archaeology aren't thick on the ground in the ‘company' these days. You were the only person I could think of to call.”

“I'm flattered.”

“You're good,” he said. “That's not flattery.” Changing the subject, he asked, “What have you got in those cases if you didn't bring clothes?”

“A laptop computer with a modem and fax, a cellular phone, assorted digging tools, including a collapsible shovel, two reference works on human skeletal remains.”

She was struggling with the case. He reached out and took it from her, testing the weight. “Good God, you'll get a hernia dragging this thing around. Haven't you ever heard of luggage carriers?”

“Sure. I have three. They're all back in D.C. in my closet.”

He led the way to a sport utility vehicle. He put her bags in the back and opened the door for her.

Cecily wasn't beautiful, but she had a way about her. She was intelligent, lively, outrageous and she made him feel good inside. She could have become his world, if he'd allowed her to. But he was full-blooded Lakota, and she was not. If he ever married, something his profession made unlikely, he didn't like the idea of mixed blood.

He got in beside her and impatiently reached for her seat belt, snapping it in place. “You always forget,” he murmured, meeting her eyes.

Her breath came uneasily through her lips as she met that level stare and responded helplessly to it. He was handsome and sexy and she loved him more than her own life. She had for years. But it was a hopeless, unreturned adoration that left her unfulfilled. He'd never touched her, not even in the most innocent way. He only looked.

“I should close my door to you,” she said huskily. “Refuse to speak to you, refuse to see you, and get on with my life. You're a constant torment.”

Unexpectedly he reached out and touched her soft cheek with just his fingertips. They smoothed down to her full, soft mouth and teased the lower lip away from the upper one. “I'm Lakota,” he said quietly. “You're white.”

“There is,” she said unsteadily, “such a thing as birth control.”

His face was very solemn and his eyes were narrow and intent on hers. “And sex is all you want from me, Cecily?” he asked mockingly. “No kids, ever?”

It was the most serious conversation they'd ever had. She couldn't look away from his dark eyes. She wanted him. But she wanted children, too, eventually. Her expression told him so.

“No, Cecily,” he continued gently. “Sex isn't what you want at all. And what you really want, I can't give you. We have no future together. If I marry one day, it's important to me that I marry a woman with the same background as my own. And I don't want to live with a young, and all too innocent, white woman.”

“I wouldn't be innocent if you'd cooperate for an hour,” she muttered outrageously.

His dark eyes twinkled. “Under different circumstances, I would,” he said, and there was suddenly something hot and dangerous in the way he looked at her as the smile faded from his chiseled lips, something that made her heart race even faster. “I'd love to strip you and throw you onto a bed and bend you like a willow twig under my body.”

“Stop!” she whispered theatrically. “I'll swoon!” And it wasn't all acting.

His hand slid behind her nape and contracted, dragging her rapt face just under his, so close that she could smell the coffee that clung to his clean breath, so close that her breasts almost touched his jacket.

“You'll tempt me once too often,” he bit off. “This teasing is more dangerous than you realize.”

She didn't reply. She couldn't. She was throbbing, aroused, sick with desire. In all her life, there had been only this man who made her feel alive, who made her feel passion. Despite the traumatic experience of her teens, she had a fierce physical attraction to Tate that she was incapable of feeling with any other man.

She touched his lean cheek with cold fingertips, slid them back, around his neck into the thick mane of long hair that he kept tightly bound—like his own passions.

“You could kiss me,” she whispered unsteadily, “just to see how it feels.”

He tensed. His mouth poised just above her parted lips. The silence in the car was pregnant, tense, alive with possibilities and anticipation. He looked into her wide, pale, eager green eyes and saw the heat she couldn't disguise. His own body felt the pressure and warmth of hers and began to swell, against his will.

“Tate,” she breathed, pushing upward, toward his mouth, his chiseled, beautiful mouth that promised heaven, promised satisfaction, promised paradise.

His dark fingers corded in her hair. They hurt, and she didn't care. Her whole body ached.

“Cecily, you little fool,” he ground out.

Her lips parted even more. He was weak. This once, he was weak. She could tempt him. It could happen. She could feel his mouth, taste it, breathe it. She felt him waver. She felt the sharp explosion of his breath against her lips as he let his control slip. His mouth parted and his head bent. She wanted it. Oh, God, she wanted it, wanted it, wanted it….