Mac's Angels: The Last Dance: A Loveswept Classic Romance by Sandra Chastain Page A

wheelchair next to the chair she was sitting on. He held out his hand.
    She took it and moved stiffly to her wheelchair.“I think you’ve done fine so far, 007. What do you think you haven’t done well?”
    “Well, it has been a long day.” He pushed her wheelchair into the corridor and back toward the wing where she was staying, adding, “I expect Bond would have thought about that. He would have taken you to bed an hour ago.”
    Sterling gasped.
    “Damn! That didn’t come out quite right. Maybe you’d better go back to calling me Barney instead of Bond.”
    “Not a chance. Barney could never have worn that tux.”
    Sterling’s chair wheels made a whistling sound as they rolled down the silent corridor. She had said she was very tired. That was untrue. Her senses were awake and heavily charged by the closeness of Lincoln McAllister. Beginning with her dramatic airport rescue, they’d left Barney Rubble behind. Now they were playing out events that
could
have come straight from a Bond movie.
    Shangri-la had to be big-screen imagination and action at its best, a secret hideaway designed to repair and protect. Then came a romantic dinner with a handsome man who’d worn a white dinner jacket and created a fantasy meant to distract and entice. Bond at his best. But that was where the comparison ended.
    Mac was no ultrasophisticated ladies’ man. The crook in his once broken nose and a scar on his cheek made Mac more real than any screen actor.There was a sense of pain about him, pain buried so deep that he wouldn’t share it easily.
    Except maybe with Jessie. She had to remember Jessie.
    To add to the swirling currents of danger and emotion, she’d been plopped down right in the middle of Christmas, a sentimental holiday.
    Christmas was the one season Sterling avoided. Christmas was for children, for the mystery of promises made and kept. If there really were angels, they wouldn’t tease her with the illusion of love and family and all that the season promised.
    But they—Mac had done just that.
    Low strains of Christmas music wafted down the corridor as if someone had just opened a door. “Hark the Herald Angels Sing …” Then it stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
    “Did you hear that?” she asked.
    “What?”
    “Music?”
    “No, but if you want music, or anything else, all you have to do is ask Elizabeth.”
    “Mac, I want to talk to you about Mrs. Everett. I appreciate your concern, but I insist that you release her from her duties as my companion. I can manage alone.”
    He reached her door and stopped, looking down at her. “She isn’t assigned to you, Sterling. As a matter of fact, tonight she’s attending a social function away from the family quarters.”
    “Good,” Sterling replied, lacking the energy toargue. “I wouldn’t want to take up all her time. Except for mastering all your electronic gadgets, I can look after myself.”
    Even Sterling knew how slurred her speech sounded.
    He studied her. She couldn’t hide her exhaustion even though she tried. Mentally gritting her teeth, she stood and took a step forward, intent on proving that she could manage.
    Under other conditions she might have, but tonight she stumbled, a groan escaping her lips. She’d sat for too long without moving. Now her legs were asleep and out of control and the pain sliced right through her.
    Mac was beside her instantly, sliding his arm around her waist and supporting her faltering steps as she made her way to her bedroom.
    “You may be right,” she managed to say as she reached her bed. “Just let me sit down and I’ll be fine.”
    “And you intend to sleep in your clothes? I don’t think so. That dress, it’s so clingy. It’s bound to be uncomfortable, not to mention those—stockings.”
    “I can take care of myself,” she repeated, and reached for the back zipper in her dress, thinking he would be forced to leave. The zipper caught in the fabric and refused to budge. Her hand dropped weakly