Raven on the Wing (2 page)

“Just like a leprechaun,” she murmured.

“That’s pots of
gold,”
he corrected her. “I have cold hard cash. And businesses and things. Hotels. Property. Marry me.”

Clearly, she was intrigued; he could tell from the way she looked at him.

“Listen, do the authorities know you’ve escaped? I mean, normally I’d be too polite to ask, but if there’s a reward or something, I wouldn’t mind collecting it.”

“I’m not crazy,” he assured her, but silently amended the thought. He didn’t
think
he was crazy.

“Of course not,” she agreed sympathetically. She looked at his glass. “Maybe brandy wasn’t such a good idea.”

“Marry me,” he said.

She sighed and spoke in the soothing tone of one humoring a rather sweet lunatic. “Gee, I’d really like to, but I have to get my hair done.”

“Waste of money,” he said. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.” She was polite, clearly not flattered.
“Should I call someone for you? Someone who might worry that you’re loo—uh, missing?”

“Don’t you believe in love at first sight?” he asked anxiously.

She gazed at him, the merry violet eyes rueful. “It sounds just lovely,” she said. “So do fairy tales. Look, mister—”

“Josh.”

“Josh, if you’re looking for a teeth-rattling night, cruise the bars. I’m not interested in a fling.”

“I’m not interested in a fling either,” he told her patiently. “I want to marry you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I,” he said, “believe in love at first sight. Now.” He studied her elegant, polite face, then sighed as Jake returned with a basket of chips. “She won’t marry me,” he told the other man.

Jake looked fiercely at Raven. “Why won’t you marry him, Raven?”

“Go back to the bar, Jake.”

He grinned and winked at her. “Just thought I’d ask.” Then he turned and walked back toward the crowded bar.

Josh yelled after him to bring two more brandies. He had a vague idea of getting her drunk just so he could propose, she could—would? maybe—say yes, and he could hold her to her word tomorrow.

After finishing her third brandy, matching him easily, she leaned toward him conspiratorially over the hand he was still holding, and said, “It won’t work, you know.”

“What?” he asked.

“Trying to get me drunk. I could put you under this table. I could put you, everyone in this bar, and the Russian
Army
under the table. Drinking straight vodka. On an empty stomach.”

Josh possessed a hard head and a cast-iron stomach. Most of the time, anyway. He wasn’t so sure about now. However … He had never in his life been falling-down drunk. So he was confident. Overly confident.

He yelled for more brandy.

Even before he opened his eyes, Josh remembered the night before. Sort of. He remembered
very clearly asking Raven if he could drink champagne from her shoe, and he remembered her reply that open-toed sandals weren’t too good for such a thing. He remembered challenging another patron of the bar to an arm-wrestling contest; in retrospect, he decided that had been dumb. His arm felt dead except for the pain in his fingernails.

He remembered telling a long and somewhat involved story to anyone and everyone who would listen, including a wooden Indian standing in a corner. He remembered chasing Raven around a table. Or three. He remembered solemnly offering her four homes, six Learjets, the Hope diamond, southern Montana, a mink coat, a Porsche, and the rest of his drink if she’d only marry him. He remembered she’d laughed.

She’d laughed a lot.

After that, things got
really
hazy.

He tried to open his eyes. Some idiot, he discovered, had sandpapered the lids. And another idiot had hung the sun right in front of him; it was hellishly bright. He closed his eyes and tried to groan, discovering that sound had a disastrous
effect on his head; little men with sledgehammers were building a skyscraper in there. He bit back a second groan, fearing the skyscraper would collapse and squash his brain.

A pleasing herbal scent wafted to him.

“Can you sit up?”

His lids snapped up, and raw eyes moved to locate her, finally, standing by the bed. In spite of his body’s abused condition, the throb of desire was instant and sent a shaft of exquisite agony all the way to the top of his head. He didn’t mind the pain. She was wearing jeans and a bulky knit sweater, and he fell in love all over again. Being in love, he wanted to please her. Except—

“My left arm’s dead,” he managed to croak.

“I’m not surprised.” Her voice was very soft; clearly, she knew the condition of his head. “You arm-wrestled a man who looked like the starting lineup of a pro football team. All by himself.”

With a tremendous effort and more than a little help from her, Josh managed to sit up. He told himself fiercely he was hardly in any condition to ravish brunettes, and so was able—barely—to control urges leaping through him at
the first touch of her helping hand. Pillows were banked behind him while he discovered he was wearing only his trousers. He indulged briefly in a rush of heated images in which Raven undressed him, then pushed the thoughts away; in that direction, he decided, lay madness.

He was in a soft bed in a bright, cheerful bedroom, and it was sometime the next day.

She handed him a cup of herbal-smelling brew and sat gingerly on the side of the bed. “Drink that. It’ll help.”

Somewhat to his surprise, the hot, strong herbal tea did help. His head even began to clear. Suddenly puzzled, he looked down at his numb left arm. “I’m right-handed,” he said. “Why on earth did I use my left to wrestle?”

The smile in her merry eyes spread to twitching lips. “Well,” she murmured, “you were handicapping yourself. To be fair.”

Laughing hurt his head, but Josh didn’t mind very much. “Hell,” he finally gasped, “I’ve disgraced myself and embarrassed you to death, I’m sure.” He was both relieved and disappointed to realize that he probably hadn’t disgraced himself
by attacking her; relief won, mainly because that would have been something he would certainly choose to remember.

She was still laughing softly. “Not at all. Lots of my friends have tried to drink me under the table through the years; I’ve learned to cope. And you weren’t that bad. You stayed on your feet through the whole thing.”

He thought hard. “I distinctly remember offering you my kingdom if you’d marry me. You laughed.”

“Forgive me,” she said solemnly. “But before that, you’d offered your kingdom for a horse; you told everyone you wanted to slay dragons for me. You also bet the kingdom in the arm-wrestling contest.”

“I didn’t sign anything, did I?” he asked warily.

“No, but you bought everybody drinks. I finally took control of your money clip before you could buy the tavern.” She nodded to the nightstand. “There’s quite a bit left, mainly because Jake was horrified at the way you were throwing money around and helped me get you into a cab before you could bankrupt yourself.”

He gazed at her elegant face in which warm violet eyes shone cheerfully, and felt his heart lurch in the almost-painful manner it had so lately learned. “If you won’t marry me,” he said urgently, “then live with me! I’ll convince you to marry me later.”

She blinked. “You know, you slept more than ten hours, so I have to assume it isn’t liquor talking. And even if that knock on the head gave you a concussion—”

“I didn’t hit my head,” he protested.

“—you should be better by now. So either you
aren’t
better, or you’re mad as a hatter. I don’t know whether to call an ambulance or a padded truck.”

Josh balanced his cup and saucer on his lap long enough to run a hand through his hair. It struck him somewhat belatedly that he probably looked just dandy for marriage proposals; hung-over, bare-chested, morning stubble, and hair flying every which way. Not to mention having clearly convinced her last night that he was either concussed or suffering from lunatic delusions.
He tried to think of some way to combat all these deficiencies.

“Raven,” he said finally, keeping his voice as level as possible and meeting her eyes steadily, “I am cold sober, not concussed, and perfectly sane. I’m thirty-five years old, which means I generally know my own mind. The moment I saw you, I knew I wanted to marry you. I am not joking about that. I’m not handing you a line.

“I am also aware that you barely know me. My mind tells me that I should, therefore, not expect you to marry me immediately.”

She started giggling.

Pained, he stared at her. “All right, I know it sounds arrogant. After knowing me better, you could well decide you’d rather join the Peace Corps or the Foreign Legion.”

“Or go into a nunnery,” she said, entering into the spirit of things.

He frowned at her.
“Anyway
, what I’m saying is that I would appreciate it very much if you’d take me seriously.”

Raven took his empty cup and rose to her feet. “This tea usually helps a hangover. Why
don’t you have a hot shower, and I’ll fix a late breakfast.”

Josh considered food, and found that his stomach didn’t reject the idea outright. “Well, but—”

“The bathroom’s through there,” she said, gesturing toward a doorway. “There’s a razor in the top left-hand vanity drawer, and your clothes are on that chair. If you don’t want to parade around in a dinner jacket at ten in the morning, check the closet; you might find something to fit. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

She left.

Moving carefully, Josh took a shower and shaved, then returned to the bedroom to check the closet. What he found sent him immediately to the kitchen of the small apartment wearing nothing but a towel and holding black murder in his heart. Not for her, of course. For the owner of the clothing.

“I hope you have a brother,” he announced with what he vaguely realized was inordinate ferocity, waving a handful of clothing at her.

She turned from the stove and stared at him.
After a moment, she said dryly, “No, I don’t have a brother. I also don’t have a lover. This isn’t my apartment; it belongs to a friend. The clothes belong to her husband.”

“Oh,” he said. Black murder gave way to sudden curiosity. He recalled a thought that had occurred to him in the shower. “Where did you sleep?”

“On the couch. Go get dressed.”

Josh retreated.

Turning back to the stove, Raven automatically continued preparing breakfast. Looney Tunes, she decided, smiling. The man was obviously Looney Tunes. But he was, at least, an amiable lunatic; other than a fierce glare at his opponent in the infamous arm-wrestling match, he hadn’t once lost his temper during the previous evening.

And he’d been flatteringly attentive—except when he’d gotten some story into his head and insisted on telling it to everyone. He’d been indignant when the wooden Indian hadn’t laughed.

Raven swallowed a giggle.

No, she decided, all in all the evening had been fun. She didn’t even regret missing the party, in spite of whatever consequences might develop. She should, of course, have regretted missing it, and reminded herself of that. There would be questions. A distant, shrewd part of her mind began formulating answers, examining each for flaws.

The rest of her mind concentrated on him. And she wondered what she was going to do with her lunatic. He’d seemed reasonably rational this morning—but then, he’d
sounded
rational last night. Sort of. His voice had been oddly husky whenever he spoke to her, but his tone had been perfectly reasonable, his enunciation clear, no confusion or forgetfulness; it was just that he’d kept proposing and laying his kingdom at her feet.

His imaginary kingdom … or so she supposed. Granted, the man had certainly thrown money around with abandon. And he was well dressed. But when a stranger started offering a woman Learjets and Hope diamonds, it was,
thought Raven, time to be wary. Amused, but wary.

Raven knew very well she was no victim of the Cinderella complex. She neither expected nor desired some handsome prince to sweep her off her feet and into a life of leisure. In the first place, twenty-eight years of life had convinced her that princes, handsome or otherwise, were in short supply in the circles in which she often found herself. In the second place, a life of leisure would drive her mad within a week.

Reluctantly, then, she remembered Josh Long clad only in a slipping towel. Tall and lean, his broad-shouldered and muscled frame spoke convincingly of a busy, physically active life. And his strikingly handsome face, with its sensual mouth and warm, vivid blue eyes, had been designed for women to stare at.

There was about him an aura of confidence and power that had not been lessened in the least by inebriated proposals, comical one-sided discussions with wooden Indians, and a fiercely competitive arm-wrestling match. Drunk or sober, he moved like a cat … or a king—gracefully, proudly,
powerfully, deceptively unhurried. He was the kind of man whom others would instinctively make way for.

Raven shook her head bemusedly. Impossible to ignore the man. If he wasn’t a prince, he was certainly every woman’s image of tall, dark, and handsome. And she had to admit to being flattered that even in his concussed and/or demented state he’d focused the power of those warm blue eyes on her.

The bacon was burning. Swearing, Raven turned the strips.

However
, she simply hadn’t the time or energy to cope with a lunatic suitor with delusions of grandeur, no matter how handsome and charming he was.

His straightforward charm, though, was what she would most regret losing. Granted, she favored blue eyes and dark men, and she was woman enough to fully appreciate handsome men, but it was his charm she found so intriguing. The men who peopled her own world tended to have little charm, and the games they played were dangerous ones.

Games. Deadly serious games.

Raven sighed and put visions of intensely blue eyes out of her mind. There was no
time
, just no time for personal wishes.

Sighing, Raven arranged the bacon on paper towels to drain.

And, having decided to put unproductive thoughts out of her mind, she promptly began musing once again on his behavior of the night before.