“What were you thinking to be going out with Michaud tonight?” he demanded more fiercely.
Lou found herself on the defensive and wondered what happened to put her there. “I told you at work yesterday. He could be a good source of information about what’s happening on Sonora. It could make a great story.”
“And I agreed with you. I also explained that we’re putting a more seasoned reporter on any story about Sonora that might come up.”
“But I’m the one who established the contact,” she objected.
“And I appreciate that. But you’re not ready to tackle a story like this. We’ll put Addison on it.”
“Charlie Addison?” Lou sputtered. “That bore couldn’t write an interesting story about the secret to immortality.”
“He was covering world events before you were wiping your own nose,” Mason reminded her. “Maybe his reporting is a little dry, but he gets the job done.”
“Dammit, Mason, this is my story.”
“Watch your language,” he chided her with one of those grins that signaled the end of their discussion because she was just so cute when she was angry.
Lou made two angry fists and rose from the couch to pace around the small room. “Mason,” she said evenly, doing her best to keep her temper from flaring. “You can’t keep telling me what to do. I will not stop seeing Albert. Besides being a potential news source, he’s a perfectly nice man and very interesting to talk to.”
“But—”
“Look,” she continued before he could object. “I don’t know what you were trying to insinuate when you referred to General Papitou’s ‘private terrorist army,’ but I can assure you that whatever it is, if it even exists, Albert has no part in it.”
Mason stood, too, towering over Lou by nearly a foot. He strode toward her, stopping only when scant inches separated them. She was forced to tip her head back to gaze into his eyes—eyes so pale a blue they sometimes seemed almost transparent. Her pulse ran wild at the tumult of emotions swirling within them.
“Lou, you have no idea what you’re up against here,” he warned her. “What’s going on in Sonora isn’t like anything you’ve encountered for ‘Helpful Hints’ or ‘The Social Scene.’ There’s a war going on down there for the most part, with daily bursts of gunfire from either Senegal’s loyalists or Papitou’s forces. And there are a handful of independent factions that have yet to identify their demands.”
Lou’s heart rate skittered erratically as Mason lifted a hand to curl his fingers softly around her nape. It was a gesture of affection he’d completed a million times before, whenever he wanted to make a point. Somehow, though, this time, it seemed to go beyond simple affection.
“This isn’t a story for you, Halouise,” he said softly. “Men like Michaud and Papitou eat girls like you for breakfast.”
Her gaze still fixed on his, she pointed out in an unsteady whisper, “Mason, I’m not a girl anymore.”
For long moments, he didn’t speak, only studied her face as if seeing it for the first time. The fingers at her nape shifted a little, then she felt the gentle brush of his thumb along the line of her jaw. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and she realized with little surprise that what she wanted more than anything in the world was for Mason to kiss her. She even parted her lips slightly, as if he might actually do it.
Mason wasn’t sure what kind of madness made him touch Lou the way he was now, but feeling how soft and warm her skin was, it was like someone struck a match to his heart, and he didn’t want to let her go just yet. Something about her tonight was just…different. Somewhere along the way, she’d just…changed. He wasn’t sure what or how or when, but there it was all the same. Suddenly, Lou wasn’t the Lou he’d come to know and lo…
Uh…suddenly, Lou wasn’t Lou. He just wished he knew exactly who this new stranger was. And why he wanted so badly to make her acquaintance.…
He brushed his thumb over a high cheek bone and let his gaze roam over her face and neck and shoulders. But it settled on the small cleft between her breasts, which was barely visible above the scooped neckline of her dress. His heart skipped a couple of beats, but it wasn’t the little red dress that caused the irregular rhythm. It was something else, some weird, indefinable something that just made him want to move even close to Lou. For the life of him, though, he had no idea what it was.
“No, I don’t suppose you are a girl anymore, Lou,” he finally muttered, returning his gaze to her face again. To the eyes closed in expectation and the lips parted in invitation and… Whoa. Mason would have had to be a dead man not to see the signals Lou was sending his way. Good God, she wanted him to kiss her!
He leapt away from her with the speed and grace of a retreating elephant, tumbling over a chair and toppling a floor lamp, causing Roscoe the cat to jump from the bed and make a mad dash for protection, just as Mason was righting himself. Both man and cat went careening forward, the latter avoiding the former’s big feet only in the nick of time before escaping to the kitchen. Mason, unfortunately, didn’t fare so well and wound up face first in the throw pillows that were indeed now haphazardly scattered on the couch.
“Mason!” Lou shouted at the sudden chaos. After realizing the cat was involved in the mishap, too, she cried out Roscoe’s name, as well, and then scurried to the kitchen after him, crooning calming reassurances.
When Mason was finally able to lever himself back to sitting on the sofa like a normal human being, he shook his head soundly and wondered what the hell had just happened. He glanced toward the kitchen and saw Lou’s lovely, red-clad bottom sticking out from beneath the table where she was trying to soothe Roscoe, an image that helped Mason calm down not at all. He stood resolutely, confident it was time for him to leave. Then he sat down just as resolutely, confident he should stay and hash this out with Lou. When his gaze wandered involuntarily toward the table again, only to observe her tempting backside wiggling out from beneath it, he glanced away and stood once more.
“I gotta get out of here,” he muttered.
Finally, Lou stood cradling Roscoe and faced Mason, clearly puzzled. “What?” she asked. Huskily. Breathlessly. Sexily.
Don’t look at her, Mason told himself. Look at your shoes, your hands, Roscoe’s smug expression, anything. But not her. Unfortunately, he was helpless to stop himself. When he looked at her again, her little red dress had become even smaller, thanks to the way the clingy skirt had ridden up over her thighs after her struggle with Roscoe. Mason had never noticed before how long Lou’s legs were. Long and lean and supple and—
“I gotta go,” he repeated. “Right now. I’ll see you at work in the morning.” With that, he turned and marched to the front door, opening it, exiting, and closing it behind himself without looking back once.
****
Hours later, Lou sat wide awake in bed, still annoyed, still irritated, and still confused as hell. She looked out the window, down at the dark, deserted street, and wondered what had happened between herself and Mason tonight. Although she’d had a surprisingly nice time with Albert, she knew she would never feel for him even a fraction of what she felt for Mason. What was it about him that kept her so enthralled? Why couldn’t she just face the fact that he would never love her the way she loved him? She had to get on with her life. That meant seeing other guys. Guys who weren’t Mason.
Then again, she had tried to do that. Once. With a guy in college. But he’d been as shy and reserved as she’d been then, and after fumbling through the most basic sexual experimentation and exploration, they’d both decided it wasn’t working. Of course, it probably hadn’t helped that she kept comparing him to Mason…
Roscoe awoke beside her with a muffled Prrrt, then stretched and curled up closer. Absently, Lou stroked his black fur and rubbed under his chin, smiling at the regular thrumming of his purr box that always soothed her. Tonight, however, even Roscoe’s familiar warmth couldn’t ease her tension. Because tonight, something between her and Mason had changed. She wa
sn’t sure what or whether it was good or bad, but by the time he made his abrupt departure, there was just something arcing through the air between them that was…well…different.
Just don’t think about it, she told herself. It’s late, you’re tired and everything seems blown out of proportion. Tonight Mason had just been worried about her the same way he always worried about her—like she was a kid who couldn’t take care of herself. It was he who was having trouble accepting her as an adult. It was his problem if he couldn’t see her as a woman who would be fine on her own. His problem, she repeated firmly. Not hers.
But the pep talk helped little. Lou felt the void within her widen, and she wondered if she would ever find someone to fill it. Someone other than Mason. She had to stop thinking about him romantically. It was pointless and ridiculous to go on longing for a man who couldn’t even see the obvious. If Mason was going to be so obtuse, why did she want anything to do with him anyway? Tomorrow was a new day, a new chance, a new beginning. It was the perfect opportunity to stop behaving like a lovesick teenager.
Decision made, Lou switched off the light and settled back into bed. Yep, tomorrow was a new day. So starting tomorrow, things between her and Mason were going to change. A lot.
****
“What do you mean, ‘Pack your bags’?” Mason asked his editor the following afternoon as they sat on opposite sides of the latter’s desk, eating lunch.
“You’re going on a trip,” Paula Kelly told him as she licked the last bit of cream from inside her Twinkie. Only fitting, since she’d been covering news practically since the snack had been invented. “To the Caribbean. For a story.”
“I don’t want to go to the Caribbean,” Mason said.
Which was a sentence that had probably never been spoken by anyone anywhere in the history of forever. But he’d received a hot tip from a reliable source about some unethical goings-on between a highly visible South American Someone who might or might not be playing illegal footsie with an equally visible Capitol Hill Someone, and he was itching to get started on his investigation. This Caribbean trip was coming at a time that wasn’t exactly convenient for him.
“Too bad,” Paula told him. “Some interesting stuff is going on down in Sonora what with the change of command and upcoming elections and all. I need my best writer on it. You’re leaving Monday.”
“I don’t want to go to Sonora, Paula. I’ve got a great lead for another story.”
“It’ll have to wait. This takes precedence.”
Sonora again, Mason thought. Gah. The dinky little island nation was becoming the bane of his existence. And, hell, it hadn’t been of concern to anyone until a few months ago. Now it had every western nation worried about the possibility of communists moving into the neighborhood, and it was every politician’s pet project. Not to mention Lou’s.
Aw, dammit. He’d almost made it through lunch without thinking about her. And he couldn’t afford to think about Lou. Because thoughts of Lou inevitably led to thoughts of Lou’s legs, and thoughts of Lou’s red-clad rump, and thoughts of Lou’s soft nape, and all those thoughts got Mason’s blood stirred up to the point where he couldn’t think about anything else. He’d spent his entire morning avoiding her, a difficult maneuver considering the fact that they worked on the same floor. He couldn’t believe he was running scared from a five-foot-three-inch, one-hundred-and-fifteen-pound female. Where had his testosterone got off to?
“Listen, Paula.” He tried again. “There must be someone else who can—”
“There is,” his editor agreed with a quick nod. “You two will be covering the story as a team.”
“Well, if you’ve got someone else, then why do you need me?”
“Because you’re the best newsman I have, and the other reporter isn’t as seasoned.”
Mason was afraid to ask his next question. “Who’s the other reporter?”
“Lou Lofton,” Paula replied absently, dabbing at a cola stain on her shirt. “She’s made a good contact. A member of Papitou’s entourage who’s returning to the island on Monday, too. She’s got chops. She’s being wasted on the social stuff. You two know each other well, and you could teach her a lot about—”
“Did she put you up to this?” Mason interrupted.
Paula glanced up at the question, clearly puzzled by his reaction. “No. I mean, yeah, she approached me this morning and told me about her relationship with Albert Michaud—”
“Lou does not have a relationship with Michaud,” Mason insisted.
The editor’s snowy eyebrows shot up in confusion. “Okay. Lou told me about, uh, about meeting Michaud, and asked if she could pursue a story along the lines of what the general mood might be down in Sonora with the election coming up.” Paula shrugged, clearly unconcerned, before she listed the reasons for her selection. “She’s a smart kid, Mason. Her reporting skills are up to par, and she’s already got a good rela— Er, that is, she’s already established a contact. I don’t see what the problem is with sending the two of you down to Sonora to cover the events on the island until after the election.”
Mason shoved the remainder of his lunch across the desk and scraped his chair away impatiently. “You don’t see what the problem is? Fine. I’ll tell you what the problem is.” He rose from the chair and began to pace the length of the office and back again. “The problem is the political climate on Sonora right now is pretty shaky. The problem is Lou’s already risked her life once, trying to rescue my sorry butt and put a bunch of hoods behind bars. She’s just now starting to live a normal, safe life, and I’m not about to see that screwed up.”
“Mason—” Paula tried to interject.
But Mason would have none of it. “The problem is, he went on, not sure now if he was trying to convince himself or his editor,“she’s little more than a kid. She doesn’t have the experience or the grit to cover a story like this.”
“Mason—”
“The risks and dangers of this venture could be enormous, Paula. Lou’s too young, too naive, too—”
“Mason!” Paula thundered to get the other man’s attention.
Mason stopped pacing and spun around to glare at her. “What?”
“Lou is a twenty-five-year-old woman who was instrumental, if not solely responsible, for the FBI busting up one of the biggest drug rings in North America,” Paula pointed out. “She saw more trouble before her twentieth birthday than most people see in their entire lifetimes. And she can be tough as nails when she puts her mind to it.”
“That’s just an act, Paula. She’s a kid, she’s—”
“Get it through that thick skull of yours, Mason. That kid isn’t a kid anymore. Lou wants to be a newswoman, and she has everything it takes to make a great one. Why is that so hard for you to see?”
Why indeed? Mason asked himself with some difficulty, turning his back on Paula again so she couldn’t see the turmoil boiling inside him. When had Lou become such a creature to be reckoned with? Why was he the only one who could see beyond the walls she erected to glimpse the vulnerable kid beneath? How come everyone was suddenly pointing out to him that Lou was all grown up? Hell, he knew how old she was. He knew she was a college grad and a working woman. But that didn’t change the fact she still needed looking after. Did it?
Without turning around, Mason muttered, “Look, Paula, I just don’t think she’s ready for an assignment like this.”
“Well, that’s not your decision to make.”
Easy for Paula to say. She hadn’t known Lou as long as he had. In that moment, Mason remembered everything about Lou, from the moment he met her, when she stumbled into the newsroom, looking poor, uneducated, and fearful. The uneducated part had been nothing but a prejudicial judgment on his part. The poverty and fear, however, had been all too real—not for Lou, but for the whole community, as he’d seen for himself when he was held captive in Hack’s Crossing. Still, there had always been a certain dignity about Lou, despite her meager beginnings. And there had been a few
weeks there when she’d been the only thing in the world that kept him alive.
On the heels of that image came another, the vision of Lou addressing her graduating class at the university. Her speech had been eloquent, forthright and sincere, and her topic had been chances. Chances offered by life, chances offered by people. Mason smiled now to remember it. She’d been presented with few of either in her lifetime. But the one or two that had come her way she had grabbed with both fists. And boy, the changes she’d made with them. Who did Mason think he was to deny her another chance now?
“Okay, Paula, you win,” he said, facing her again. “I guess you’ve already discussed the arrangements with Lou.”
Paula nodded, grinning like a proud mama. “She’s very excited.”
Mason emitted a single humorless chuckle. “Yeah, I don’t doubt it for a minute.”
“Remember your first international assignment?”
Now Mason grinned, too. “How could I forget? Seven nights holed up in the hills of El Salvador with nothing but rain, dysentery and bunch of ticked-off guerrillas to keep me company. I was only twenty-four years old. Jeez, that was twelve years ago.”
“With me, it was Dien Bien Phu,” Paula rejoined dreamily, settling her elbow on the desk and cupping her chin in her hand. “I was only twenty. And female. Not a good combination in a time and place like that. But I filed a story before the rest of them even unpacked their kits.”
For a moment, the pair sat in thoughtful silence, each caught up in memories neither would understand. Finally, Paula asked, “Ever wonder when we’ll be too old for this stuff?”
“It will never happen,” Mason assured her. “Never.”
Paula nodded her agreement. “Yeah, Lou Lofton has some pretty exciting times ahead of her.”
Unbidden, the sight of Lou standing with her little red dress hiked up her thighs blazed to the front of Mason’s brain. At the same time, something warm and dangerous stirred in his midsection. He closed his eyes in an effort to chase away both, but they just grew more insistent. Exciting times, for sure, he thought. But at the moment, he wasn’t sure he could convince himself those times would be entirely journalistic in nature.
Unforgettable Heroes II Boxed Set Page 4