The Winter Man by Diana Palmer Page A

“They come and get it.”
    She flushed. He made her feel like an idiot.
    He noticed that and grimaced. “Millie, I wasn’t always rich,” he said gently. “I had to learn about things like proper table settings and etiquette, too.”
    She shrugged. “I’m just a country hick, you know,” she said with a faint smile. “I live frugally. This—” she waved her hand around “—is like another planet to me.”
    â€œLearning new things doesn’t hurt,” he said. He chuckled. “The first time Jared and I ate in a five-star restaurant, we had to ask the waiter about the utensils andall the courses. Fortunately he was a nice person. He could have made us feel small, but he didn’t. Jared tipped him a hundred dollars.”
    She gasped. That was almost a week’s salary for her.
    â€œI know. It was a lot of money to me, at the time,” he said. “I’d been a soldier, and before that, a common laborer, working in a construction crew.”
    â€œHow did you make so much money?” she asked, genuinely curious.
    â€œHiring out to governments as an independent contractor,” he said simply. “Including our own. Jared and I learned counterterrorism skills and for a while, he ran a security company that I worked for. Counterterrorism skills are a valuable commodity in some circles. It’s a specialized job and it pays very well.”
    â€œDo you go into combat?” she asked.
    â€œIf the job calls for it,” he replied. “You can’t teach in a classroom in a combat zone,” he added with a smile. “We teach small forces about incursions and stealth tactics, about IEDs and organizing local militia—stuff like that.”
    â€œWhat’s an—” she felt for the word “—IED?”
    â€œYou could answer that now.” He chuckled. “It’s an improvised explosive device. You had one sent to you.” The smile faded as he remembered how dangerous her introduction to the world of terror had been. The device, as clumsily built as it was, could have killed her in a heartbeat.
    â€œYou said it wasn’t well made,” she recalled.
    â€œIt wasn’t. The good ones would pass for a small manuscript,” he said. “It’s a cowardly way to kill somebody.”
    She sighed, staring at the carpet. “I can’t believe John was this desperate,” she said, shaking her head. “To kill somebody, just because they couldn’t love you. It’s…” She searched for a word.
    â€œInsane,” he said through his teeth. “John had mental problems. I’m still shocked that Frank and I didn’t see it and you did.” It made him uncomfortable for another reason, too, but he wasn’t telling her any secrets about his past. Not yet.
    She laughed hollowly as she looked up at him. “That’s because he wasn’t trying to force you to marry him.”
    He drew in a long breath and looked at his watch. “I’ve got to meet a man in the lobby about a job,” he said. “You stay put, okay?”
    She nodded. “Thanks for lunch.”
    â€œMy pleasure.”
    He left her sitting on the sofa and went downstairs to see a government agent from his department. There had been a string of kidnappings of rich persons along the Texas border, and Tony’s skills might come in handy, they thought. He put Millie out of his mind before he exited the elevator.
    She wandered around the suite while he was gone, straying into his bedroom out of curiosity. His suitcase was open on the bed. She picked up a shirt on the carpet that had been hastily discarded, probably when he changedearly this morning. She held it to her nostrils and drew in the smell. She smiled, with her eyes closed. People had a personal fragrance, she thought, every one different. She’d know Tony’s in a dark room. He smelled of the outdoors, of