Double Entendre

by Heather Graham

  “Go on.”

  She stared at him a little bitterly. “You would have known who he was right away, wouldn’t you?”

  He didn’t look condescending; he just shrugged lightly. “I was always big on reading about the war. That particular story intrigued me from the first. Something seems to be missing besides the diamonds. But believe me, Colleen, I’d be willing to bet that the majority of the world has forgotten all about the scandal and Rutger Miller.” He paused for a second, and his voice changed slightly. “Go on.”

  She took a long sip of her wine. It was a German white, one that he had introduced her to.

  “He said that he liked my style, that he believed I cared about people.” Bret made an unflattering sound. She cast him a sizzling stare.

  “Sorry,” he said dryly. “Do go on.”

  “The first time I met him was about two weeks later. No notes, no recorders. He asked to just meet me and have lunch. I agreed. I was too fascinated by the opportunity to press my luck.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  Colleen forgot for a moment that she hated Bret and loved him. She took another sip of her wine, reflecting on the day she had first seen Rutger Miller. He’d reached the restaurant before her, but when she had approached the table, he had stood. He’d been very tall and very slim, and as straight and dignified as a statue. His hair had been white, his eyes crystal blue. His face had been worn, lined and weathered. His handshake had been firm and warm. And as they had begun to talk, she had come to realize that the crystal glaze in his eyes was one of acute pain.

  “We, ah, talked about normal things at first,” Colleen said at last. “He mentioned his grandchildren in Germany and asked if I had any kids. He—”

  “Did you tell him you were too busy?” Bret interrupted dryly.

  Startled, she stared at him. He had been the one….

  “Sorry, never mind. Go on.”

  Hurt and suddenly very nervous, Colleen stared down at her glass.

  “Colleen, I said I’m sorry.”

  Be flippant, she warned herself. It was the only way to handle him. “For what?” she asked airily and didn’t wait for a reply. “Then we started talking about the war. But only in general that day. And that—that was when I started to like him. He—oh, never mind. You’ll think I’m silly. Or unprofessional.”

  Bret shook his head impatiently. “You can’t accuse me of ever thinking anything like that, Colleen. Tell me what you were thinking.”

  In that moment she felt an acute sense of nostalgia so strong it was painful. No, there were some things of which he could not be accused. How many times had they sat, just as they were, discussing their assignments with one another? Seeking approval, giving support.

  Or maybe not, she thought dryly. She had needed the approval; he had given the support. She wasn’t terribly sure that Bret McAllistair had ever needed anything or anyone.

  When he wanted things, he took them. Wasn’t he giving her further proof of that right now?

  It didn’t matter. Suddenly she wanted to tell him her impression of the man because it was just possible he might understand.

  “Bret, he was just like what I always thought a man like Lincoln or Robert E. Lee might have been like. I mean, involved in terrible things, watching war, watching battle. Watching death and dying a little all the time along with his men. When he talked about certain things—Normandy, for one—he almost flinched. He could still see the pictures in his mind, Bret. Of all the fallen men, the Allies as well as the Germans. He thought it was all such a waste! And he managed to explain to me how the German people had felt, how they had believed the Third Reich would give them new self-respect when they had been so horribly humbled at the end of the First World War.”

  He smiled. For a second she thought he wanted to reach across the couch and touch her cheek, not in passion or anger, but in tenderness. “I don’t think you’re silly, Colleen. I understand.” He frowned, leaning his head back and rubbing his temple. “It’s making the picture clearer, too.”

  “What picture?” Colleen asked.

  “His murder,” Bret murmured. “What else did he talk about?”

  “Just the war—that day.”

  “When did he start talking about the Helmond diamonds?” Bret demanded.

  She hesitated only briefly, then realized that she could talk and still preserve the information she wanted to preserve. After all, several of the discussions she’d had with Rutger about the diamond heist were on tape, public property or at least that of the magazine. Bret had access to them.

  “The first time we talked about the diamonds was at the first taping. I guess he had decided that he trusted me by then, or else he was simply ready to confess all he knew.”

  “Which was…?” He waited, but she took her time, and finally he spoke again. “Colleen, in the Braine-vrault battle, hundreds of soldiers were massacred. Allies and Germans. History proved that it was unnecessary. Two commanders were supposed to have called a halt to it, but they were too busy stealing hidden French diamonds to care what was going on.”

  “That’s the part that isn’t true!” Colleen cried out. “Rutger wasn’t involved—not that way. He was only the second in command, and he had been ordered to stand still at the entrance to the tunnel. Just the same as Captain Sam Tyrell.”

  “Oh, yeah, right!” Bret protested. “That’s why Sam Tyrell was court-martialed and shot for treason!”

  “He took the rap, Bret. That’s what Rutger was trying to tell the world. The real culprits were the generals, MacHowell and the German, Rudy Holfer.”

  Bret watched her, taking a casual sip of his beer. “So where are the diamonds?” he finally asked her.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You never were a good liar, Colleen.”

  “Damn you!” she charged, her temper soaring. “I’m not lying, Bret! Use some sense! If Rutger had given me the diamonds, the world would have known it! So why murder Rutger Miller, then?”

  “Why, indeed?” Bret asked, smiling. Then he uncoiled himself with the silent grace and beauty of a panther and plucked her wineglass from her hands. “It’s empty.”

  “Leave it that way,” she said sourly. He grinned, returned to the kitchen and came back with more wine. She took the glass from him, smiled sweetly and consumed the wine in one long sip that left her stomach—and every other organ—burning like a brushfire. Then she laughed because his expression was so disapproving.

  “Your idea, McAllistair. Aren’t I falling right in line with the grand design? Souse her up and strip her mind?”

  “Cute, Colleen.”

  “And true,” she said demurely.

  “It isn’t going to get you out of anything.”

  She smiled and yawned. “Of course not. Who does survive an evening with the grand inquisitor of all time?”

  “I’m not an inquisitor,” he growled gruffly. “I’m trying to help you.”

  “Ummm,” she murmured noncommittally. Oh, God! What had she thought she would prove? Her head was suddenly spinning like a tornado straight out of The Wizard of Oz.

  “Dummy!” he muttered irritably, and she was vaguely aware that he was still standing in front of her. Her lips curled slightly because she wanted to believe that the insult had been voiced with the slightest inflection of affection. Then he was leaning over her, very close, and she thought again that, as well as having one of the greatest sets of shoulders a woman could ever hope to see, his scent was arresting, so muted and fresh and yet entirely sensual.

  She winced, closing her eyes tightly. The better to crush you with, my dear, the Big Bad Wolf had said. And that, too, was Bret McAllistair. Perhaps she had been the only woman he had ever called his wife, but what had that been in the end? Nothing to hold on to in the night. Nothing to love. Nothing that could hold him to her.

  Fight him, always fight him, she warned herself. Don’t get hurt again….

  “Colleen!” He was talking to her again. She op
ened her eyes and longed to laugh; he looked so fuzzy.

  “Colleen, what have you got in there to eat besides yogurt? You’ve got to get something into you.”

  “Why don’t you just try sodium pentothal?” she suggested bitterly, then laughed.

  “Don’t push me,” he warned her dryly. “I’m trying to save that for my last resort.”

  She lifted a hand vaguely. “There’s all sorts of stuff. Crackers. Cheese. Sandwich meat. Help yourself. You’re going to anyway.”

  “So are you!” he asserted impatiently.

  She knew he had gone because she didn’t feel warm anymore, because his unique aroma was gone from the air, because she felt absurdly empty.

  Very absurd. He hadn’t been hers since he had chosen to walk out the door, and she had accepted that. When she’d cried her eyes out and lost twenty pounds, she had convinced herself she hated him.

  A shaky little sob escaped her, and she stiffened. He was only here now because of her story. Nothing more. She couldn’t relax her guard for a single second, and she had to stop remembering all that had been good and wonderful about him, about them together….

  She opened her eyes, then closed them. The room kept spinning whether her lids were up or down. She leaned her head back against the sofa, and her body started to slide of its own accord. It felt so comfortable to stretch out, so very good to put her pounding head down on the soft cushion. When she did that, a gray darkness came to blot out the spinning tornado in her mind. She was so tired. She’d been tired before she’d gone out to eat with Jerry and exhausted when she’d gotten ready for bed, only to find that her almost ex-husband was in it and determined to make her insane.

  Oh, bless that gray darkness! Silver gray, but sometimes black like a storm cloud, just like his eyes…

  Five minutes later Bret walked back out of the kitchen with a plate full of crackers, and chunks of ham and sharp cheddar cheese. “Colleen…” he began, ready to explode when he didn’t see her sleek black hair rising above the back of the sofa. Then he frowned and walked around to the front.

  She was on her stomach, one hand beneath her head, the other beneath her chin. She was breathing with deep regularity; her hair was a fan of wild and provocative disorder all about her face and shoulders. Her feet, slim and small for her height, were hanging off the end of the sofa.

  As he watched her, she made a soft sighing sound and curled a little more tightly into herself.

  For a minute he was angry, knowing damned well she had downed the wine in one gulp on purpose. Then he smiled because nothing was going to get her out of this one.

  He put the tray down on the coffee table and knelt beside her. “Colleen?” he touched her cheek and got no response.

  He stood, then bent down to lift her. She was light, no more than a hundred and five pounds that were just all in the right places. Her head lolled back when he lifted her, and he knew that she was really and truly out.

  He carried her into the bedroom, paused to nudge the mussed spread out of the way and set her down. He stood, ready to cover her, then paused again. Her jeans were going to be miserable to sleep in.

  “Colleen.” He leaned next to her again, speaking into her ear. “I’m not attacking you. I just think the jeans should go.”

  She mumbled something.

  He reached for the snap and undid it, pulled at her zipper and then wished that he’d decided to leave her sleeping in misery. After all, she probably deserved it, and he didn’t deserve what touching her this way was doing to him. It was all too easy to recall the times he had performed a similar task with her awake, very aware and watching him with her green eyes full of sultry tenderness.

  And love?

  Had she ever loved him?

  He compressed his lips and tugged at her jeans. They surrendered to him at last. He stood back, tossing the jeans on the floor. But he couldn’t quite turn away. She had beautiful legs. Very long, and with just enough muscle to make her look…perfect. He really didn’t know what he was going to do until he reached out to gently stroke her thigh. She gave another soft little sigh, and he pulled back, laughing though there was a definite edge to the sound.

  “Rat!” he accused her.

  Of course she didn’t respond, but he smiled slightly. And he kept watching her, his brow furrowing a little with remembrance. He moved a lock of her hair, and his lip twisted a bit; he couldn’t seem to leave her, couldn’t seem to command himself to really draw away.

  He knelt at her side, safe for the moment. It was safe to watch her and not care about the ravages that might be betrayed by the naked emotion on his face.

  “God, I loved you, babe,” he whispered. And then he admitted the truth aloud. “Love you. Miss you….”

  He smiled again ruefully as he lightly grazed her cheek with his knuckles. He could remember so many good times. If they were still married in the ways that mattered, the emotional ways, he could have awakened her. Crawled in beside her, tickled her toes, stroked the curving line of her spine slowly, patiently, until she began to stir and then turned to him, wakening slowly at first, then suddenly aware, wide-eyed, breathless and filled with laughter that she could be halfway seduced before she knew it. She’d always been so beautiful. And yet it wasn’t really her beauty that had enthralled him. Beauty did not make a marriage. It had been the laughter, the life, the warmth, the vibrancy, the interaction….

  He gripped his hands together, closing his eyes.

  No. It must have been an illusion.

  Because they weren’t still married. Not really. All that was left was a piece of paper, and even that would be void soon. He had to keep remembering that. She had to keep on believing that he was made of stone. He couldn’t let himself get too close, couldn’t let her know that there was no stone in him where she was concerned; she could crush him in her delicate, little hand like an eggshell any time she chose.

  But it would be so easy just to lie beside her, he thought wistfully.

  He clenched his teeth.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” he told himself out loud. But she was mumbling something, and he went down on his knees again, close to her mouth, trying to hear her.

  “What?”

  “Hot,” she muttered. “Sweater’s…hot.”

  “So am I!” he groaned as his whole body shuddered with the ideas that her comment brought to mind. He reached for the hem of her sweater with both hands, then tugged it upward and over her shoulders and head. Her eyes opened blurrily, and she smiled at him. But then her eyes closed, and she turned her head against the pillow.

  He stood again, and again he paused, unconsciously clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides. He swallowed fiercely. She was so vulnerable, so erotic, so sensual. Her breasts were bathed in light and heaving slightly with each breath, the nipples as inviting as twin roses. Below them, her ribs, the lines of each barely visible. Her waist, very trim. Then the lace panties that still seemed more invitation than cover… He forced his eyes upward again. Her hair, deep dark velvet, in disarray over the pillow, was curling, waving, haunting him so that his fingers ached to reach out….

  “I should curl up beside you!” he snapped out harshly. “Damn you, Colleen, I really should. It would be just as much your fault as mine!”

  She gave no response at all.

  “Would you snore or something!” he whispered a little desperately. “Could you do some damned thing to be just a little less appealing?”

  She moaned some small sound and curled onto her side. With a sharp expletive he grabbed the spread and tossed it over her.

  His hands were so tense and shaking when he turned off the lamp that he almost knocked it off the table.

  Then, muttering something beneath his breath, he turned sharply on his bare heels and slammed his way into the bathroom.

  It was, he reasoned, still his shower, too.

  And his cold water.

  CHAPTER 3

  The phone was ringing. It sounded as if a mil
lion sirens were shrieking.

  Colleen tugged her pillow over her head and tried to still the sound. In a second the answering machine should pick up. But she didn’t know who would be so merciless as to call her so early on a Saturday morning.

  Go away, go away, she willed the sound.

  Then she stiffened as memory sent chills racing along her spine. Bret! He had been here, and it was likely that he was still here somewhere. And if the machine answered the phone, he would hear whatever message came over.

  She bolted up, marveling at how quickly panic could wake her from such a stupor. But when she blinked the sleep from her eyes and groped for the phone, she encountered flesh instead. His hand was already reaching for the receiver. He had apparently just sat down on the side of the bed. His hair was wet; he was wearing only jeans again, and a towel was slung around his shoulders.

  “Will you let me answer my own phone?” Colleen snapped.

  He shook off her hand and raised the phone to his ear.

  “Bret, it’s for me!”

  He smiled pleasantly, his silver eyes alight with amusement. “Your sheet is slipping.”

  “What? Oh!”

  Color suffused her breasts, throat and cheeks as she realized that she was sitting half naked in bed with the man who had walked out on her. She grasped the sheet and spread furiously, then made another lunge for the phone.

  Too late. He was already issuing a low-toned, “Hello?”

  And then a frown furrowed his brow. “Who is this? Wait a minute, please. Wait a minute. This is Bret McAllistair, her husband. If you’ll just—”

  He broke off, stared at the receiver, then turned slowly to Colleen as he pensively hung up the phone.

  “Who was it?” Colleen demanded.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What do you mean you’re not sure? Damn it, Bret, I told you not to answer my phone.”

  He stood up, too distracted to pay much attention to her harangue. “Colleen, the phone is still listed in my name. I checked on that,” he added dryly.

  “But—”

  “Stop the nagging, Colleen! She’ll call back.”