Silent Warrior: A Loveswept Classic Romance by Donna Kauffman Page A

flirt with Eudora had bothered her in ways it shouldn’t have. But now, with his newly revealed charm directed at her, she wondered if she’d been too hasty with her silent wishes.
    He was intimidating enough. A charming John McShane was the last thing she wanted. Correction, her mind intruded. A charming John McShane was the last thing she needed.
But be honest, Cali. You want it. You want him
.
    John McShane? She shoved the whole absurd idea out of her mind. “That would be a no.”
    He sighed in obvious exasperation. The McShane she knew—irascible, impatient, and never satisfied—returned. She relaxed a notch. This was familiar territory.
    “How did you expect to analyze whatever it is you found down here?” he demanded.
    “With ancient hieroglyphics,” she shot back. “Come on, I had no idea what, if anything, I would find. I more or less fled the country. I didn’t have a master plan here, McShane.”
    “That’s obvious.”
    His criticism stung more than it should have.“Come on, it’s not as if I went to super-spy school like some of us in this room. You have to admit I’ve done pretty well, all things considered.” She broke off. The last thing she would ever do was seek his approval. She’d lost that battle with him before, during the lowest time of her life. A time when one kind word from him would have meant everything.
    She lifted the binder. “Let’s start with this. Maybe it will tell us what is on the diskettes. Then we’ll worry about tracking down a PC.” She pulled out a chair and sat down.
    She flipped open the cover, but John was still standing on the other side of the table. She could feel his attention focused on her. It wasn’t unpleasant.
    She looked up, and her heart jumped. Maybe it was the heat. It most definitely could have been the stress. But for a split second, she could have sworn she’d seen— No. No, she was mistaken. There was no way John McShane would ever look at her with what might—in a man who had feelings—be mistaken for tenderness.
    The very idea that he could feel such an emotion at all shook her up more than she cared to admit. Because if she cared to admit it, which until an hour ago she’d have sworn she didn’t, the idea of an emotional John McShane, whether it be charm or tenderness, was fast becoming an all-too-appealing proposition.
    “John?” His name came out much too huskily. She cleared her throat.
    His expression was fathomless once again. Yet asthe silence grew and he continued to look at her, Cali felt a very specific heat begin to curl inside of her. It had been quite some time since she’d felt that particular warmth, but she knew exactly what it was—
want
.
    Want, which was not to be confused with need. There was no doubt she needed John McShane. Her very life probably depended on him.
    But want … That was another thing entirely.
    She’d lost too much. In the last ten years she’d allowed herself to want very few things, even less when it came to men. The risk of combining need with want was one she couldn’t take. Not yet. Maybe never again. Certainly not with John McShane.
    The scraping of chair legs broke her thoughts. Feeling her cheeks heat, somehow knowing he wouldn’t miss the telltale sign, she turned her attention back to the binder.
    She stilled for a split second when, instead of sitting in the chair, he dragged it around the table to a spot right next to her elbow. She’d never felt the heat of close proximity quite this way. She gathered the loose blank pages and fitted them back on the rings, then flipped quickly past the next few blank pages.
    He turned the chair and straddled it, then reached for the diskettes. There were four of them. She watched as he slid each one from its protective sleeve and examined both sides.
    “No labels?” she said.
    He shook his head and dropped the stack on the empty envelope. He turned to her. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
    His eyes were so clear. She didn’t remember