Invincible

by Diana Palmer

  “You’re going to wear a ring?” she asked.

  “It seems to go with the position.” He grinned.

  She hesitated, just for a second.

  “You’re thinking of my reputation with women. I took them home, kissed them at the door and said good-night,” he said, reading her apprehension. “It was a nice fiction, to keep homebodies like you from getting too interested in me.” He shrugged. “I haven’t had anybody since I was widowed.”

  She pressed close into his arms, held on for dear life. “I would have married you anyway.”

  “I know that.”

  “But it’s nice that you don’t know a lot more than I do...”

  “And that’s where you’re wrong,” he whispered into her ear. “I’m a doctor. I know where ALL the nerve endings are.”

  “Gosh!”

  “And the minute your father pronounces us man and wife, I’ll prove it to you. When we’re alone, of course. We wouldn’t want to embarrass your father.”

  “No. We wouldn’t want to do that.” She pressed close into his arms, felt them fold around her, comforting and loving and safe. She closed her eyes. “You didn’t say goodbye.”

  His arms contracted. “You went to the Bahamas with another man.”

  She jerked back, lifting horrified eyes. “No! I went to be a witness at his wedding to Lucy Tims!” she exclaimed.

  He grimaced. “I know that, now. I didn’t at the time. I tried to call you, but I never got an answer.”

  “I lost my phone. Some kind person turned it in at a soup kitchen in San Antonio.”

  He sighed, tracing her mouth with a long forefinger. “A comedy of errors. I felt guilty, too. I’d sent you packing without realizing that you’d saved my life. I was still confused from the blow on the head and the drugs. I was worried that you’d be on the road alone in the dark.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “Lanette was still on the loose. I was afraid for you. I should never have let you leave the hospital in the first place—”

  “I was okay,” she interrupted. “Cash Grier had people watching me all the time. Dad, too. Just in case.”

  “I hurt you. I never meant to.” He closed his eyes as he rocked her in his arms. “I wasn’t sure, Carlie. I had to be sure that I could settle down, that I could give up the wild ways. Until I was sure, I wasn’t going to make promises.”

  She drew away. “And are you? Sure, I mean?”

  He nodded. “That’s why I went home.” He smiled. “Cousin Bob Tail says we’re going to have three sons. We have to name one for him.”

  “Okay,” she said, without hesitation and with a big grin.

  He laughed. “He wants us to name him Bob. Just Bob.”

  “I wouldn’t mind.” She searched his black eyes. “Our sons. Wow.”

  “Just what I was thinking. Wow.” He chuckled.

  “I haven’t been playing online for a while.”

  “Neither have I,” he confessed. “I missed you so much that I really wanted to. But I had to be sure, first.” He sighed. “I guess if push comes to shove I can make an Alliance toon and we can run battlegrounds on the same side.”

  “Funny, I was just thinking I could make a Horde toon for the same reason.”

  He smiled. “We’re on the same side in real life. That’s enough.”

  “So,” she asked, her green eyes twinkling, “when are we getting married?”

  “Let’s go and ask your father when he’s free,” he said.

  She slid her hand into his and walked back into the house with him. Her father didn’t even have to ask. He just grinned.

  * * *

  THEY WENT TO Tangier for their honeymoon. Carlie was horrified at the expense, but Carson just laughed.

  “Honey, I’ve got enough in foreign banks to keep us going into our nineties,” he said complacently. “I work because I enjoy working. I could retire tomorrow if I felt like it. But I think practicing medicine will occupy me for many years to come. That, and our children.”

  “You told Rourke you wanted to be an attorney,” she recalled.

  “Yes, well, if you tell somebody you gave up law they don’t care. If you tell them you gave up medicine, that’s a whole other set of explanations I didn’t want to make. As it happens, I did a double major in undergraduate school in biology and chemistry, but I minored in history and anatomy. History and law do go together.”

  “I wouldn’t know. Will it matter to you that I haven’t been to college?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” he teased. “You can speak Lakota and you know who Crazy Horse’s mother was. That’s higher education enough to suit me.”

  “Okay. Just so you’re sure,” she laughed. “And you don’t mind if I go on working for the chief?”

  “He’d skin me if I tried to take you away,” he said with a sigh. “He’d never find a stamp or a potato chip, and some new girl would surely find out about the alien files he’s got locked up in his office and call the Air Force. So, no, you can go on working. I intend to.”

  She smiled. “Dr. Farwalker. Sounds very nice.”

  “I thought so myself.”

  * * *

  TANGIER WAS AN amazing blend of old and new. There were high-rise apartment buildings near the centuries-old walled marketplace. Carlie found it fascinating as they drove through the city at night in the back of a taxicab.

  It had been a very long flight, from San Antonio to Atlanta, Atlanta to Brussels, Brussels to Casablanca, Casablanca to Tangier. They’d arrived in the dead of night and Carlie was worried sick about being able to find a way to get into the city as they waited endlessly to get through passport control and customs. But there were cabs sitting outside the main building.

  “Told you so,” he chuckled.

  “Is there any foreign city you haven’t been to?” she wondered.

  “Not many,” he confessed. “You’ll love this one. I’ll take you around town tomorrow and show you where the pirates used to hang out.”

  “That’s a deal.”

  * * *

  CARLIE WAS SO tired by the time they got into the hotel, registered and were shown to their room that she almost wept.

  “Now, now,” he said softly. “We have our whole lives for what you’re upset about missing. Sleep first. Then, we explore.”

  She smiled shyly. “Okay.”

  He watched her undress, with black eyes that appreciated every stitch that came off. But when she was down to her underwear, he moved close, pulled out a gown and handed it to her.

  “First times are hard,” he said gently. “Go put on your gown. I’ll get into my pajamas while you’re gone. Then we’ll get some sleep before we do anything else. Deal?”

  She smiled with relief. “Deal. I’m sorry,” she started to add.

  He put his fingers across her lips. “I like you just the way you are,” he told her.

  “Hang-ups and all?”

  He smiled. “Hang-ups and all.”

  She let out the breath she’d been holding and darted into the bathroom, chiding herself for her wedding night nerves. It was natural, she supposed, despite the fact that most people had the wedding night long before the wedding. She and Carson must be throwbacks, she decided, because he’d wanted to wait as much as she had.

  The lights were out when she came back into the room. The shutters were open, and moonlight filtered across the bed, where Carson was sprawled under the sheet. He held out his arm. She darted into bed and went close, pillowing her cheek on his hard, warm chest.

  “Oh, that feels good,” she whispered.

  “I was about to say the same thing. Happy?”

  “I could die of it.”

  “I know exactly what you mean.” He closed his eyes, tucked her close and fell asleep almo
st at once. So did she. It had been a very long trip.

  * * *

  SHE WOKE THE next morning to the smell of coffee. She opened her eyes. Carson was sitting on the side of the bed in his pajama bottoms holding the cup just over her head.

  “What a wonderful smell,” she moaned.

  “Sit up and have a sip. They serve a nice buffet breakfast downstairs, but I thought you might like coffee first.”

  “I would.” She sat up, noticing at once how much of her small breasts were visible under the thin gown. He was looking at them with real interest, his eyes soft and hungry.

  The way he looked at her made her feel beautiful. Exciting. Exotic.

  “Tangier,” she murmured, putting the cup down on the side table. “It makes me feel like I should be wearing a trenchcoat or something.” Breathlessly, she slid the straps of the gown down her arm and let them fall.

  Carson’s expression was eloquent. He didn’t even hesitate. He moved across the bed, putting her down on it, while his mouth opened and fed on her firm, soft breasts.

  She arched up, shyness vanishing in the heat of sudden passion. She felt his hands go down her back, sliding fabric out of the way. She felt him move and then his body was moving on hers, bare and exciting.

  He eased between her legs, his mouth poised over hers. He teased her lips while his body teased hers. He was smiling, but there was heat and passion in the smile. “Lift up,” he whispered. “Seduce me.”

  “Gosh, I don’t have...the slightest idea...I’m sorry...I...!” A tiny, helpless moan escaped her as his hand moved between them. “Carson, oh, gosh!”

  “Yes, right there,” he murmured at her lips. He chuckled softly. “It feels good, doesn’t it? And this is just the beginning.”

  “Just the...?” She cried out again. Her body arched, shivering. What he was doing was shocking, invasive, she should be protesting or something, she should be... “Carson,” she sobbed against his mouth. “Please...don’t stop!”

  “Never,” he breathed against her lips. “Move this leg. Yes. Here. And that one. Now lift. Lift up, baby. Lift up...that’s it...yes!”

  There was a rhythm. She’d never known. In all her reading and covert watching of shocking movies, she’d never experienced anything like this.

  It was one thing to read about it, quite another to do it. He knew more about her body than she did, apparently, and used that knowledge to take her to places she’d never dreamed about. The sensations piled upon themselves, growing and multiplying, until she felt as if she had the sun inside her and it was going to explode any second. The tension was so high that it was like being pulled apart in the sweetest sort of way.

  She dug her nails into his hips as he strained down toward her, his powerful body arched above her as he drove down one last time.

  She heard herself sobbing as she fell and fell, into layers of sweet heat that burned and burned and burned. It was like tides, rippling and falling, overwhelming and falling, crushing and falling, until finally she burst like fireworks and shuddered endlessly under the heavy, hard thrust of his body.

  She heard him cry out at her ear, a husky sound that was so erotic, she shivered again when she felt his body cord and ripple and then, quite suddenly, relax.

  He was heavy. His skin was hot, damp. She held him, smoothed the long, thick hair at his back, loving him.

  “Everybody says it hurts the first time,” she murmured.

  “Oh? Did it?”

  She laughed secretly. “I don’t know.”

  He chuckled, the sound rippling against her hard-tipped breasts. He moved on her, feeling her instant response. He lifted his head and looked into her wide, soft eyes. “You will never get away,” he promised her. “No matter how far, how fast you run, I will find you.”

  “I will never run,” she said with a sigh. “Everything I want or love in all the world is right here, in my arms.”

  He bent and kissed her eyes shut as he began to move. She shivered gently.

  “How long do you want to wait?” he whispered at her mouth.

  “How...long? For...what?” she gasped, moving with him.

  “To make a baby,” he whispered back.

  Her eyes opened. She shivered again. The look on her face was all the answer he needed. He held her gaze as he moved, tenderly, enclosing her in his legs, bending them beside her, so that they were locked together in the most intimate position she’d ever experienced.

  “Oh...my...goodness,” she said, looking straight into his eyes.

  His hands framed her face. His was strained, taut, as he moved expertly on her body.

  “I can’t bear it,” she managed to say.

  “Yes, you can,” he whispered. His eyes held hers. “I love you. This is how much...”

  He shifted, and she cried out. The pleasure was beyond words, beyond description. She held on and sobbed with each slow, deep, torturous movement of his hips as he built the tension and built it and built it until she exploded into a million tiny hot pieces of sheer joy.

  He groaned, almost convulsing, as the pleasure bit into him. “Never,” he whispered hoarsely. “Never, never like this!”

  She couldn’t even manage a word. She just clung to him, enjoying the sight of the pleasure in his face, in the corded muscles of his body, in the sweet agony that echoed in the helpless movements of his hips.

  Long after they felt the last ripple of pleasure, they clung to each other in the bright stillness of the morning, unable to let go.

  “I think I dreamed you,” he whispered finally.

  “I know I dreamed you,” she replied at his ear, still holding tight.

  He rolled over so that she was beside him, but still joined to his body.

  “I didn’t know it felt like this,” she confessed shyly. “I feel hungry now in a way I didn’t before.”

  He smiled, brushing his mouth over hers. “You can’t miss what you’ve never had.”

  “I guess so.” She drew in a breath and looked down.

  He smiled to himself and pulled away, letting her look. Her eyes were as wide as saucers when he moved away.

  “Show-and-tell,” he teased.

  She blushed. “Men in racy magazines don’t look like that,” she whispered. “I only saw one and he was, well, he was...” She cleared her throat. “He wasn’t that impressive.”

  He chuckled. He pulled her to her feet, enjoying her nudity. “I have an idea.”

  “You do? What?” she asked, looking up at him with a smile.

  “Let’s have a shower, and then breakfast and go look for pirates.”

  “I would like that very much.”

  He led her toward the bathroom.

  She hesitated at the door.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “What you said.” She indicated the bed. “Was it just, I mean, did you really mean it?”

  He pulled her close. “I want children very much, Carlie,” he said softly. “They’ll come when it’s time for them to come.” He smiled. “If it’s this year, I don’t mind at all. Do you?”

  She laughed and hugged him close. “Oh, no, I don’t mind!”

  “Then let’s have a shower and go eat. I’m starving!”

  * * *

  LIFE WITH CARSON was fascinating. They found more in common every day. They moved into a house of their own and Carson went to work at Jacobsville General as an intern. It was long hours and hard work. He never complained and when he got home, he told Carlie all the interesting things he’d learned that day. She never tired of listening.

  Fred Baldwin had coffee with her when he started out on his patrols. He’d turned into a very good cop, and he’d have done anything for Cash Grier. He’d have done anything for Carlie, too. He told her that her father was going to have to share
her with him because he didn’t have a daughter of his own. She’d almost cried at the tenderness in his big brown eyes.

  Lanette had been found, but not in a condition that would lead to trial. She took a flight to a small South American country that had no extradition treaty with the United States, but had the misfortune to run into the brother of a man she’d killed for money. Since she had no living family, they buried her in an unmarked grave in South America.

  Matthew Helm was arrested, prosecuted and convicted on so many felony counts that he’d only get out of prison when he was around 185 years old. Or so the jury decided.

  His cohorts went with him. The wife of the murdered assistant district attorney was in the courtroom when the sentence was pronounced.

  Calhoun Ballenger won the special election and went to Washington, D.C., with his wife, Abby, as the junior United States senator from the grand state of Texas. Terry, having just graduated from high school, was off to college with his two brothers, Ed and Matt.

  Calhoun had given Fred Baldwin a musical watch that played an Italian folk song when he learned about Fred’s role in preventing the potential criminalization of his son Terry. Fred wore the watch to work every day.

  Charro Mendez was still on the run. But people across the border were watching and waiting for his return.

  Two months after Carlie and Carson were married, she was waiting for him at the front door when he came home from a long day at the hospital. She was holding a small plastic device in her hands. She handed it to him with an impish grin.

  He looked at it, read it, picked her up and swung her around in his arms, kissing her the whole while and looking as if he’d won the lottery.

  Seven months later, a little boy was born at Jacobsville General Hospital. They named him Jacob Allen Cassius Fred Farwalker, for his father, his grandfather and his two godfathers. Officer Fred Baldwin held him while he was baptized. He cried.

  * * * * *

  Don’t miss Diana Palmer’s next book in October—TEXAS BORN! Coming to you from Harlequin Special Edition, TEXAS BORN is the romance between Gabriel Brandon and Michelle Godfrey!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from PROTECTOR by Diana Palmer.