Sweet Caroline's Keeper (17 page)

"No, it's not Christmas," Caroline said. "But it is my birthday. And I'm pretty sure I know who sent this gift."

"Damn, why didn't you remind me it was your birthday?" Roz whined, and gave Caroline an apologetic look. "What kind of friend am I to forget your birthday."

"It's okay, really." As Caroline reached for the gift, she caught a conspiratorial glance exchanged between Roz and Jack and wondered what it was all about. Knowing Roz, she was simply flirting with the Dundee agent. "When this whole mess about Preston's hidden key is resolved and I can resume my normal life, we'll celebrate. You and Lyle, Brooke and Fletch and I. We'll go out somewhere really nice and make a night of it."

"Excuse me, Miss Caroline," Jack said.

"Yes?"

"Wolfe just called about five minutes ago and said he's only a few miles from here. So I just wanted to say goodbye and good luck, since Matt and I'll be heading to the motel as soon as Wolfe gets here."

"Thank you, Jack." She had been waiting all day for word from Wolfe, but he hadn't bothered speaking to her personally either time he'd called his co-agent. He'd simply informed Jack Parker that business was keeping him in D.C. longer than expected.

"I'll be right outside, if you need me," Jack said. "Mart's locking up out there now that Kirsten and Sandy have left for the day." Jack closed the door behind him.

"Texas Jack there is going to make some woman mighty happy one of these days." Roz sighed dramatically. "Actually, he's probably already made quite a few women mighty happy." She giggled. "I was just thinking about the lucky girl who gets him for keeps." Roz plopped down on the edge of the desk and eyed the poorly rewrapped gift. "So, are you going to open it or not?"

Caroline knew before opening the gift or reading the card, which would be lying inside, that the birthday present was from David. Her David. Not once since her thirteenth birthday had he forgotten. With nervous fingers she removed the bow, untied the ribbon and pulled apart the white wrapping paper to reveal a black velvet jeweler's box. Since her twenty-first birthday, he had sent jewelry as a gift. She eased back the lid to reveal a stunning pearl-and-diamond bracelet. Roz let out a long, low whistle. There sitting atop the present was the familiar white card. She lifted it and read the brief message.
Happy birthday, my sweet Caroline.
And below in the bold, flowing script was his signature.
David.

"I'll say one thing for this guy, he's no cheapskate."

Caroline lifted the bracelet from its velvet bed, draped it around her wrist and fastened the catch. "It matches the other diamond and pearl jewelry he's already given me."

"You've never worn all of them, have you? I'm sure I would have remembered seeing them if you had."

"I've considered selling them and giving the money to charity," Caroline said. "You know, except for an occasional event that Fletch or Brooke invite me to attend, I'm not much of a social butterfly. And I have so many lovely pieces of jewelry, most of them gifts from David, that I hardly need them all."

Roz hopped up, came around the side of the desk and gave Caroline a hug. "Happy birthday, hon. I'll remind Lyle when I get over to the church that today's your birthday. I'm sure he's just so busy with getting things together for this weekend's church yard sale that he let it slip his mind."

"I'm sure that's it. And Roz, thanks again for taking my place and meeting my obligations at the church until—"

"Don't think another thing about it," Roz assured her. "You may find this hard to believe, but I'm actually enjoying myself. And the rev and I haven't had one single knockdown-drag-out. At least not yet."

"I'm glad to hear it. Lyle is a great guy. But I have a feeling you already know that."

Roz grinned. "Hmm-
mmm
. Maybe."

Caroline waved goodbye. Heading out, Roz almost collided with Wolfe when she opened the office door.

"Sorry," Wolfe said. "Are you leaving for the day?"

"I'm on my way over to the church to do Caroline's good deeds for her." Roz winked at Wolfe.

"That's an interesting idea," he said. "Good deeds by proxy."

He entered the office as soon as Roz left. Caroline immediately noticed that he had changed clothes, that he wasn't wearing the charcoal pin-striped suit he'd left her house in this morning. Instead he was now dressed more casually in navy-blue slacks and a white cotton shirt, the top two buttons undone. But the ever present hip holster remained. Caroline rose to her feet slowly and confronted him.

"Did you find anything in Preston's Peacekeepers files?" she asked.

"Yes and no."

"Can't you be more specific?"

' 'No information that will help us find the object the key opens," he said. "But some information about why your stepfather was executed."

She tensed. Nausea stirred in her stomach. "He
was
executed, wasn't he?"

"Yes. It seems that he definitely had come into possession of some critical information about a group known as the Loyalists Coalition, comprised of unidentified powerful men who posed a threat to our government. These men were probably responsible for Preston Shaw's murder."

"And these men who had Preston executed don't want me to find the evidence against them and that's why they've been trying to kill me."

"Ellison Penn is as interested as we are in finding that evidence," Wolfe said. "He's pledged to do whatever he can to assist me, including contacting your benefactor's lawyer and asking for his help."

"Mr. Penn knows my David, doesn't he?" She had suspected for years that her David was somehow connected to Peacekeepers International, and that her stepfather's boss had always known the identity of her benefactor. And she was just as certain that had she ever asked him about David, Mr. Penn would have denied knowing him.

"We could end this nightmare for you right now, Caroline. Give me the key and then we'll let it be known that you no longer have the key and have given up the search, but that the Peacekeepers are continuing the investigation."

Caroline stroked the chain at her neck and considered her options. "You said you'd give us another week working on this together. I want that week."

"
What difference do you think another week will make?"

"If that's true, then you shouldn't have a problem keeping your promise to me, should you?"

Shaking his head, he huffed loudly. "All right. One week."

There, that was settled. One week wasn't long, but if her prayers were answered, a week would be long enough. Enough time to find what the key unlocked. Enough time to come to terms with her feelings about David Wolfe. "Okay, I'm ready to go home and be locked in for the night." What a way for a woman to spend her twenty-seventh birthday, Caroline thought. No dinner with friends. No birthday cake. No presents. No cards. Nothing special. Just another day.

She lifted her wrist and stroked the pearl-and-diamond bracelet. David hadn't forgotten. He never forgot. But what good was an expensive gift when all she truly wanted was to be with her David, to share just one of her birthdays with him?

"New bracelet?" Wolfe asked.

"Yes. A present from my benefactor."

"A birthday gift."

"Yes, but how did you—"

"Your birth date is listed in the file I have on you." "Of course."

"If you're ready. . ." He motioned to the door.

She rose from behind the desk, followed him and turned the light off in the office before closing the door. When he led her toward studio one, which she used for all her adult photography, she tugged on his arm.

"I thought we were going home," she said.

"Later."

"What do you mean, 'later'?"

"I have something I want to show you in the studio," he said. "It's something I think you'll like. So just humor me, okay?"

"Would you mind telling me what's going on?"

He took her hand, led her down the hall and straight to studio one. He placed her in front of him, reached around her to open the door, then gave her a gentle shove over the threshold. The moment she entered the studio, she gasped.

Chapter 14

Caroline
could not believe her eyes. The studio had been transformed into a magical, romantic scene, complete with soft lighting, mellow jazz and
a
table set for two. The tune— "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word"—coming from some unknown source was from a CD
of
hers. The mournful wail of the saxophone wrapped around her, a musical lover's caress. Hundreds of white balloons filled the room. Some floated across the ceiling like bubbly clouds. Others danced around over the floor, covering every inch of space like an airy, undulating carpet. Huge white candles had been strategically placed on two food-laden tables behind the small center table that had been set with china and crystal for two. Cream-white roses in spiraling vases graced all three tables.

"What is all of this?" Caroline asked.

"Do you like your surprise?"

She whipped around and stared at him. The look on his face sent shivers along her nerves. This was a man intent upon pleasing her. She saw it in his eyes, sensed it as surely as if he had spoken the words aloud. . ./
want everything to be perfect for you.
But why? Why this man and why this moment? He had to know that he was the wrong David to fulfill her fantasies.

"It's incredible," she replied. "How. . .when. . .? Is this the reason you've been gone all afternoon?"

He nodded. "I had some help," he confessed. "From Roz and Kirsten and Sandy, as well as Matt and Jack. The girls helped me set things up in here while Roz kept you in your office. And Matt and Jack haven't actually left. They're outside, keeping an eye on the place. This is why I asked them to stay over until morning."

"Was this your idea or—"

"Totally my idea," he said. "I knew it was your birthday, and since you're confined to quarters, so to speak, I decided you deserved something more than a birthday cake."

"I can't believe this." She glided through the balloons, which separated and floated around in every direction. "I would never have dreamed that you could come up with something this sentimental and romantic." She whirled around and around, letting the balloons dance at her feet as she moved to the sensuous rhythm of the music.

"Then you like it?" he asked.

"
Like it?'' She stopped twirling and smiled at him.
"
I love it."

Wolfe closed the door behind him, then stood in place, his arms crossed over his chest, and watched Caroline McGuire savor the fantasy world he had created for her. How many times had he longed to do something special for her? How often had he envisioned a moment like this? If it was wrong of him to want this particular birthday to be memorable, then God forgive him. But this would be the one and only birthday he would ever spend with her. He intended to do everything in his power to make the night unforgettable for both of them. Soon the Fates would condemn him to hell, into a world without Caroline. Damned for past sins.
Unforgiven
.

She reached up and pulled the scarf holding her ponytail in place and let the small square of lavender silk sail down to disappear in the ocean of balloons at her bare feet. Her hair fell around her shoulders, strands of shimmery onyx that beckoned him to run his fingers through them, to grasp her head and hold her face to his. He had long ago memorized the features of her beautiful face from having spent hours gazing at photographs of her. But no picture could capture the vibrant loveliness of this woman. She swayed to the music, her green-and-lavender floral skirt whirling around her calves.

Caroline held out her hand. He walked across the room, removed his hip holster and
laid
it on a side table, then went to her. Without a word being exchanged, he took her into his arms. Their bodies came together, touching tenderly, undemanding and totally at ease, as if they had danced together countless times. In tune. Perfectly matched. A man and a woman. A night filled with promise. Unhurried. As if each moment had no beginning and no end.

Wolfe knew he had no right to expect anything beyond giving Caroline pleasure. And that would be enough. It had to be enough! A part of birr! longed to tell her that he was her David, the man she had turned into a larger-than-life hero that no mortal man could possibly live up to. But with that sort of revelation would come questions that he could never answer, inquiries into a past he must keep secret from her. He had one more week with her and then he would disappear from her life and her David would also cease to exist. It was the only way—for him and for her. She could never have a normal life as long as she clung to the impossible hope that someday her David would become a part of her world.

Caroline's body heat invaded his skin, seeped beneath the surface to warm his muscles and bones and set afire the desire he had been keeping under control. She tilted her head and gazed up at him. A dreamy smile opened her mouth and curved her soft lips. How could he resist the temptation to sample such sweetness? He brushed his lips over hers. She shivered ever so slightly, an almost indiscernible quiver that shook him as much as if a volcano had exploded inside her. He was so in tune to her body, so in sync with every little nuance, every varying shade of Caroline McGuire. Wolfe cursed himself for the doomed fool that he was. She had not been the only one with a fantasy—an unrealistic dream—as equally impossible and with as little hope of existing in reality as his was.

Like her, he had been alone for most of his life, having lost his entire family by the age of thirteen. Although he had pretended to be strong and fearless, to be self-contained, needing no one, there had been a hunger inside him, a deep, human longing to have something—someone—of his own. For the past fourteen and a half years, he had allowed Caroline to become that someone—the center of his universe. From a safe distance he had watched her grow from a child into a woman and his feelings for her had changed just as gradually. In the beginning he had cared for her as a big brother, a generous friend and a man eaten alive by guilt. And then one day he realized that his thoughts about Caroline were the thoughts a man entertained about a desirable woman. Somewhere along the way she had, in his mind and heart, ceased to be his ward and had become his woman.

Always separated. A safe distance between them. It was easy being infatuated with a phantom lover, one who could never reject you, never disappoint you, never leave you. His sexual appetite had been appeased by numerous women, but not a one of them had taken anything from him because he'd given them nothing beyond the moment, nothing except sex. He had risked nothing. Expected nothing. But Caroline was different. She meant more to him than he dared to admit, even to himself.

"This evening isn't real, is it?" she asked as she lifted her hand to the nape of his neck.

Her question brought him to the present, to this moment in time, with Caroline secure and happy in the safety of his arms. "No, this evening isn't real. It's a birthday present that ends at midnight."

She slowed her movements but stayed in his arms. Looking straight at him, a melancholy wistfulness in her eyes, she whispered, "I care about you. I care too much. But you must know that I don't dare love you. And without loving you,
I
can't—"

He pressed his hand over her mouth, ending her pronouncement, then when she quieted and simply stared at him, he caressed her face.
"
My sweet Caroline, you're very wise not to throw away your love on me. Save it for a man worthy of you. But don't wait for your David."

She sighed and her fragile smile vanished. "Did you know that's what he calls me, what he's always called me? My sweet Caroline."

Wolfe hadn't realized how easily those words rolled off his tongue. How many times had he referred to her as sweet Caroline? "Then he and I are in agreement. I think that any man who truly knew you couldn't think of you in any other way. You are so very sweet."

"And just what does that mean?" she asked.

He released her, then cradled her face with his hands. "You possess a loveliness that goes beyond the physical. You have a kind heart and a generous spirit. And although you've experienced tragedies and traumas that would have destroyed a lesser person, you came through it all still possessing a goodness I can't even begin to understand."

''Wolfe. . .David. . .why can't you be—"

Her words were like a knife stabbed into his heart. How odd that he should be competing against himself, that he was his only rival for Caroline's affection.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "You've gone to so much trouble to make everything wonderful for me, and instead of being grateful, I tell you that I wish you were another man."

She tried to turn from him, but he grabbed her wrist and jerked her up against him. Their gazes locked. Their heated breaths mingled.

"It's all right," he told her, his voice thick with passion and deceptively soft. He wanted to tell her that all
Davids
were the same in the dark, but wisely didn't make a joke of the matter. In his case, it was true. He
was
her David. "You may think you love him, but you want me, don't you, Caroline? Even if you feel that you're being unfaithful, you can't help wanting me. Loving a phantom is so much safer than caring about a flesh-and-blood man, isn't it?" He could tell her that he knew only too well the truth of his words. Hadn't he spent years, just as she had, investing all his deepest emotions into a relationship that was nothing more than smoke and mirrors? An illusion of love.

"You're the one who told me that you and I are all wrong for each other," she said.

"We are."
For many reasons, most of which you can never know.

"Sometimes we want what is bad for us, don't we?" She shut her eyes, breaking the visual link that bound them. "I've never understood that before, not until I met you. I thought desire was a part of love and that love was a simple thing. I believed that you love and are loved in return and the two of you make a lifelong commitment and then. . ."

"In the best of all possible worlds, that's true."

"But not in our world. Not for you and me. We're both afraid of love, aren't we?"

He didn't respond verbally. There was no need. He saw the acceptance and the disillusionment in her eyes. God help him, he was destroying her dreams. When she eased out of his arms and walked away from him, he did not try to stop her. Had he made a mistake in trying to give them both a moment out of time, one evening that could belong to them alone, that nothing and no one could ever take from them? Had he prepared this surprise more for himself than for her, knowing that he was the one who would need the memory to cling to, not Caroline? She would have a future, free from him and from her David. Eventually she would fall in love and marry and have children. But what would he have? A lifetime alone.

Caroline had to put some distance between them, had to escape from the seduction of his strong arms and hypnotic gaze. It would be so easy to love this man and so very difficult to get over him once he left her. And he would leave her, return to the life he'd had before he had taken the job as her bodyguard. She knew that he wanted her. . . sexually. . .just as she wanted him. She couldn't even begin to explain the strange fascination he held for her. Why, after all these years and all the men who had come in and out of her life, was she drawn to this one man? David. But not
her
David. If she hadn't been attracted to him when she'd known him only as Wolfe, she would have suspected that his name alone had seduced her, that she had allowed herself to confuse the two men in her mind. But she had experienced that inexplicable pull, that irrefutable chemistry the moment she met him.

If Wolfe was right—that she would never meet her David, would never be allowed to see him, touch him, love him— then would it be so wrong to experience passion with another? With this David, whom she could see and touch and. . . love.

How could she show him the way she felt? How did she tell him that she wanted him, but was afraid that if she gave herself to him physically, she would fall in love with him?
You're already halfway in love with him as it is,
an inner voice whispered. But once they became lovers, there would be no going back, no return to the safety of loving her David. Was she prepared to relinquish her dream for reality? Would a few days in David Wolfe's arms, becoming his woman on a temporary basis be worth what she would have to give up?

Yes. Yes. Yes!