Unlikely Lover by Diana Palmer Page B

here any minute,” Lillian began.
    “I’ll go find him,” Ward returned, walking quickly out into the hall, moving lightly for a man his size.
    “How’s it going?” Lillian asked, all eyes.
    “How’s what going?” Mari asked with assumed innocence.
    “You were alone all last night!” she hissed. “Did he try anything?”
    Mari lifted her eyebrows and pursed her lips. “Well, he did try to call somebody on the phone, but he couldn’t get them.”
    Lillian looked pained. “I mean, did he make a pass at you?”
    “No,” Mari lied. It was only a white lie, just enough to throw the bloodhound off the scent.
    The older woman looked miserable. It didn’t bode well that Ward was so irritable, either. Maybe her matched pair had been arguing. Lillian had to get out of here and do a little stage-managing before it was too late and her whole plan went down the tube!
    Ward was back minutes later, looking as unapproachable as he had since he’d driven up to the house at three-thirty with a face like a thunderhead.
    “I found him. He says you’re okay, no stroke,” he told Lillian. “You can leave. I’ve signed you out. Let’s go.”
    “But we need a wheelchair…” Mari began.
    He handed her Lillian’s purse, lifted the elderly woman easily in his arms and carried her out the door, his set features daring anyone to question or stop him.
    Back at Three Forks Lillian’s room was on the ground floor, and despite all the protests she immediately returned to the kitchen and started supper.
    “Do you want to go back to the hospital?” Ward demanded, hands on hips, glaring. “Get into bed!”
    “I can cook with a broken leg,” she returned hotly. “It isn’t my hands that don’t work, and I’ve never yet used my toes!”
    He sighed angrily. “Mari can do that.”
    “Mari’s answering your letters,” he was pointedly reminded. “She can’t do everything. And with David gone…”
    “Damn David,” he muttered darkly. “What a hell of a time to get married!”
    Lillian glared at him until he muttered something rough under his breath and strode off toward his den.
    Mari was inside the paneled room, working away at the computer. She was trying to erase a mistake and was going crazy deciphering the language of the computer he’d shown her. The word processing program was one of the most expensive and the most complicated. She couldn’t even get it to backspace.
    “I can’t do anything with your aunt,” he grumbled, slamming the door. “She’s sitting on a stool making a pie.”
    “No wonder you can’t do anything with her,” she commented innocently. “Your stomach won’t let you.”
    He glared at her. “How’s it going?”
    She sighed. “Don’t you have a typewriter?”
    “What year do you think this is?” he demanded. “What kind of equipment have you got at that garage where you work?”
    “A manual typewriter,” she said.
    His head bent forward. “A what?”
    “A manual type—”
    “That’s what I thought you said. My God!”
    “Well, until they hired me, one of the men was doing all the office work. They thought the manual typewriter was the latest thing. It did beat handwriting all the work orders,” she added sweetly.
    “I work with modern equipment,” he told her, gesturing toward the computer. “That’s faster than even an electronic typewriter, and you can save what you do. I thought you knew how to use it.”
    “I know how to turn it on,” she agreed brightly.
    He moved behind her and peered over her shoulder. “Is that all you’ve done so far?”
    “I’ve only been in here an hour,” she reminded him. “It took me that long to discover what to stuff into the big slots.”
    “Diskettes,” he said. “Program diskettes.”
    “Whatever. Anyway, this manual explains how to build a nuclear device, not how to use the word processing program,” she said, pushing the booklet away. “Or it might as well. I don’t understand a word of it. Could you show me