“Were you the kid’s mistress?”
“I keep having to remind everyone that the kid was twenty-six years old!”
“Were you his mistress?”
“No, damn it, I was not his mistress. We dated occasionally, had some things in common, and that was the extent of the relationship. That’s also the extent of my explanations on the subject. How did I let you push me into talking about it, anyway?” She couldn’t tell if he believed her or not and she told herself it didn’t matter. “I think I’m the one who asked the original question about mysterious backgrounds. You owe me some answers now that I’ve let you pull my life story out of me.”
“I didn’t get your life story. All I got were a few bare facts. I still don’t understand why you left California.”
“Let’s just say the situation became distinctly uncomfortable. Have you ever had your name plastered across the newspapers? Had people look at you as if you were some form of lowlife that had had the nerve to crawl out from under a rock? Have you walked into a room and known that you were the subject of conversation before you arrived? Been the subject of rumors and speculation? Had unpleasant names attached to you? Been blamed for a tragedy? Had a career ruined?”
“Sure.”
Sabrina nearly fell off her seat. Recovering rapidly, she gulped at her Margarita and shot her companion a fiercely accusing glance. “It’s not funny, Matt.”
“Do I look like I’m laughing?”
It was her turn to study him intently. The hazel gaze never wavered from hers as she did so. “No,” Sabrina finally said slowly, “you don’t look as though you’re laughing. The ‘ex’ part of the ex-major wasn’t voluntary?”
He lifted one shoulder. “If I hadn’t resigned I probably would have been court-martialed.”
“Why?” she demanded in a low, tight voice.
“A covert mission that didn’t stay covert. When the media learned of it, someone had to take the fall. I was the officer in charge.”
“Where?”
“Central America.”
“I see.”
“What’s the matter, Sabrina? Isn’t the background of a cashiered Army officer romantic enough for you?”
She contemplated the bitterness beneath his grim flippancy. It sounded familiar, and she realized it was because she’d heard it in her own voice often during the past year. “You said you resigned.”
“In my case there wasn’t much difference.”
“If you want my opinion, you’re better off out of the military,” she declared abruptly. “Selling this week’s bestsellers to tourists is a much more honest way to make a living. Not to mention a much more honorable way.”
The whiskey glass in his hand came down on the table with a controlled crash. “Don’t lay your prim little liberal concepts of right and wrong on me, lady. I’m not interested in them. You know nothing about my career or what it meant to me.”
“I know about that knife you carry, and I can guess about things like covert missions in Central America,” she snapped, suppressing a twinge of alarm at his display of temper. “I’m not a big fan of the military mentality.”
“It’s probably not all that much different from the corporate mentality!”
“Exactly!” Sabrina sat back in her chair, crossing her legs with an aloof nonchalance she was far from feeling. “Just between you and me, I’m no fan of corporate life, either. The hierarchy is based on military protocol, and it shows. The men in command give orders as if they did so by divine right. I can just imagine how much worse it would be in the military, where there aren’t such things as unions and boards of directors and stockholders to intervene.”
“I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and justify my career in the Army,” Matt gritted savagely.
“Especially since you no longer have one to justify? Like I said, I think you’re better off out of it. If you want my opinion, the kind of skills you perfect running commando missions in Central America have nothing to recommend them.”
“I’ve already tried to indicate I don’t want your opinion. I think you’d better shut up, Sabrina, before we find ourselves at each other’s throats.”
“Good idea, especially given the fact that tonight you have the knife,” she agreed with saccharine charm. She could feel the adrenaline racing through her in much the same way it had last night when she hurled the knife into the wall beside Matt’s head. It didn’t take much intuition to know that Matt was equally alive with tension. She saw him draw a slow, steadying breath, and then a mask of control fell into place.
For just a few minutes there, Sabrina acknowledged, she had been able to read the raw expression in his eyes. Anger, bitterness, a distant pain, and an overall grimness had glittered in the hazel depths. All of that was gone, concealed now by the familiar hooded gaze. Only the grimness remained.
“I didn’t intend to spend the evening arguing with you,” he said quietly.
“I believe you.” Her voice was equally quiet.
For a moment they regarded each other in a manner that reminded Sabrina of two circling cats looking for an opening or a way to back down without losing face.
“Viewed very objectively,” Sabrina finally offered, “I suppose an outside observer might say we had something in common. Neither one of us appears to have gotten very far in the careers we originally chose for ourselves. In a way both of us managed to get cashiered.”
“With that understanding between us, do you think we can get through the rest of the evening in peace?” he wondered.
“I think so,” she agreed softly. “Tell me about the bookstore. I freely admit that my family is violently opposed to my new career.”
“Why?”
“They’re all bankers. I got a degree in accounting because I was more or less bullied into it. It was a barely acceptable alternative for someone from a banking family who had made it clear she definitely was not going to become a banker. Or a banker’s wife.”
“I can’t imagine anyone bullying you.”
“My family consists of my father and two brothers. All of whom are large, brilliant, and eminently respectable. I am neither large, brilliant, nor particularly respectable. Especially not after that fiasco in California. But I have finally put my foot down when it comes to living my own life. It took me long enough, and it’s been a constant battle. Dad and the Brothers Grim are all very concerned for me.”
“Brothers Grim?”
“Nolan and Jeffrey. I love them both dearly, of course, but they are the spitting image of my father. They’re all convinced that things started going wrong because I moved to California. You know how California is. At first they were all relieved when I moved out of state, but now they’ve decided I’m going from bad to worse in Dallas.” She gave a short laugh. “Maybe they’re right. What about your family?” she continued. “I don’t imagine they approve of your Acapulco lifestyle,” Sabrina went on thoughtfully.
“My father is career military. A retired colonel. Saw action in World War Two and Korea. My mother is the perfect colonel’s wife. I try not to inflict myself on them any more than is strictly necessary. The mess I made out of my last mission was hard on them.”
“Was there anyone else for whom it was difficult? A wife?” Sabrina couldn’t stop the question, although she regretted it as soon as the words left her mouth.
Matt drained the last of his whiskey and contemplated that query. “Being an officer’s wife can be very difficult,” he said neutrally. “I was gone a great deal of the time. My career had to come first. That’s the way it works in the military. Ginny began to feel very frustrated in more ways than one, I guess. She decided to put a little fun back into her life. And that brings me to the explanations I wanted to make tonight,” Matt concluded roughly.
Sabrina stilled. “Last night is somehow tied up with your ex-wife? I’m not sure I want to hear this.”
“You said you’d listen.”
“I’m listening.”
Matt paused, clearly searching for the words. “Ginny’s vision of being an officer’s wife consisted of dinners at the officers’ club, glittering receptions and afternoons at the golf course. But my job kept me away a lot of the time, and when I was home I did a very minimal amount of socializing. I always considered that side of my career a real chore. Eventually Ginny went looking for the kind of fun and excitement I wasn’t giving her. She spent a lot of time doing what you were planning to do last night. When you came over to me in that bar, all I could think about was how I’d feel if you were my woman and I was home in Dallas.” He broke off. “Hell, I told you this was complicated.”
“Groveling usually is.”
He shot her a lethal glance. “I guess I’d had one too many whiskeys before you approached me, and then we had a few more drinks. I kept thinking of Ginny, of all the times I was gone and she was out playing around with anything in pants that caught her eye. Then I imagined her first attempt at deliberately picking up a man.”
Sabrina shivered. “You confused me with your ex-wife, didn’t you?”
“No. The two of you are as different as night and day. On one level I could see that. Which is why I felt I had to, uh, show you that you weren’t cut out for that kind of life.”
“Oh, my God.” She groaned. “You’re going to claim that assault was your way of teaching me a lesson?”
Matt shifted uneasily. “I had some notion of showing you that there’s nothing romantic or exciting or special about that kind of encounter.”
“Did it occur to you at any point that I was old enough to decide that for myself?” she asked tightly.
“I wasn’t thinking about your age. I was thinking about you. The way you are. Something in me didn’t want to see you being changed into someone hard and cold like Ginny.”
“Amazing how brilliant a man’s perception becomes at the bottom of a glass of booze! You realize, of course, that what you were really doing was punishing me for what your ex-wife did?”
“That’s not true!” He shook his head. “Well, hell, maybe it was in some way. But I was thinking of you, not her. I honestly thought you were married, or at the least seriously involved. I wanted to show you that you’re not cut out for that kind of life. Frankly, she was.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” she breathed.
He stretched out a hand, closing it firmly over hers. The hazel eyes were dark and insistent. “Honey, I’m sorry. That’s all I can say. I never meant it to get out of hand.”
She lifted her brows in mocking inquiry. “Oh? You didn’t mean to actually carry the little lesson through to the end? You would have stopped before the actual act of rape?”
She could have sworn a hint of red stained his cheeks. Matt withdrew his hand from hers. “I thought we agreed on a truce this evening. You’re definitely on the attack.”
“
Ummm
. So I am. Can’t imagine what provoked me. Well, think of it as an armed truce. What finally happened to Ginny?”
“I’ll skip over the gory details of my failed marriage. To summarize briefly, Ginny decided eventually that she had to find herself and she couldn’t do it as my wife. She left me officially shortly before I screwed things up on that job in Central America. Ginny always did have a great sense of timing. She’s remarried now. A successful executive type. And she’s got Brad.”
“Brad?”
“My son. He’s thirteen,” Matt said shortly.
Sensing depressing vibrations around that topic, Sabrina found herself going on to another. “And the bookstore? How did you get into that?”
“I started that when I realized I needed money to keep on eating as well as a job to keep me from spending too much time in these expensive tourist bars. Another drink?”
“Please.” Sabrina waited while he gave the order. “Do you ever think of going back to the States?”
“Maybe. Someday. But I like Mexico, and to tell you the truth, you were right about my former career not teaching me a lot of useful skills. Me being out of the country makes things easier on my family, too. Easier for them to pretend the blot on the family escutcheon doesn’t exist.”
“Families have a way of making one aware of one’s failings, even when they’re trying to be supportive.” Sabrina lifted her fresh Margarita in salute. “Here’s to escutcheon blots and those of us who make them. Think how bored all of our relatives would be without us!”
Matt grinned suddenly, the first full-fledged wickedly male smile she had yet witnessed from him, and Sabrina found herself downing an oversize swallow of the Margarita. There was something very intriguing about that grin. It was unexpectedly charming, full of unabashedly virile promise and a hint of sheer male challenge. It made her realize just why she had taken the risk of approaching him in the bar last night. He drank to her irreverent toast and then he took her in to dinner.
The armed truce survived the elegantly prepared seafood dinner. It survived the Mexican-made, coffee-based liqueur Matt insisted Sabrina try. It even survived the drive back to Sabrina’s hotel. Things didn’t get shaky, in fact, until Matt led Sabrina to her door and she have him her hand in a pointedly formal gesture of farewell.
“Thank you, Matt. All things considered, it was a very pleasant evening.”
“Sabrina?” He stood unmoving, staring down at her outstretched hand.
“Were there any further explanations you wanted to make?” she asked politely.
“No, but I thought we could talk a little more.” He looked down into her eyes, his own gaze clearly reflecting the controlled desire he was feeling.
“Good night, Matt.”
“Sabrina … ?” His rough fingertips moved delicately across her wrist.
“No,” she said gently. “Absolutely, unequivocally, no.”
“You don’t trust me?” he whispered softly.
“With my life, perhaps,” she smiled whimsically, “but not in bed. Chalk it up to the lesson you taught me last night. Good night.” Very firmly she stepped inside the room and shut the door in his face.
Matt stood there a moment longer and then turned to leave. As he did so his glance fell on the gash his knife had left in the corridor wall on the previous occasion when he had said good-night to Sabrina Chase.
“You’re improving, August. Things are definitely looking up.” Or were they? It was almost simpler dodging knives than cool, elegant little farewells at the front door. But he had the rest of the week ahead of him, didn’t he? A man had to think positive.