Paper Rose. Diana Palmer

flicked ashes into a big glass ashtray and didn’t say anything for a minute or two.

      She sipped coffee, feeling uncomfortable. He was still almost a stranger to her and he’d seen her in her underwear. It was a new, odd uneasiness she couldn’t remember feeling with anyone else, especially with another man.

      “What do you want to do with your life, Cecily?” he asked unexpectedly.

      “Be an archaeologist,” she blurted out.

      His eyebrows arched. “Why?”

      “We had a science teacher just before I graduated. He was an archaeologist. He’d actually help excavate Mayan ruins down in the Yucatan.” Her green eyes almost glowed with excitement and enthusiasm. “I thought how wonderful it would be, to bring an ancient civilization out into the light and show it to the world like that…” Her voice trailed off as she realized how impossible that dream was. She shrugged. “There’s no money for that, though. Mama had a little savings, but he spent it all. She said he had no business sense, and I guess it’s true, because he’s all but ruined daddy’s business.”

      “How long has your father been dead?”

      “Six years,” she said. “Then Mama married him last year.” She closed her eyes and shivered. “She said she was lonely, and he paid her a lot of attention. I saw right through him. Why couldn’t she?”

      “Because some people lack perception.” His black eyes narrowed as they measured her. “What sort of grades did you make in school?”

      “A’s and B’s,” she replied. “I was good in science.” She had a sudden unpleasant thought. “Are you going to try to have my stepfather locked up?” she asked worriedly. “Everybody would know,” she added, feeling ashamed.

      He searched her eyes, feeling the fear she had of public recrimination, the trial, the eyes staring at her. “You don’t think rape warrants it?”

      “He didn’t,” she said. “But you’re right. He’s probably been sitting at home thinking about it all day. By tonight, I won’t stand a chance. Not even if I hide in the woods.”

      He leaned forward, one elbow on the beautiful cherry wood of the table, and stared right into her eyes.

      She felt nauseous. She folded her arms over her breasts and stared into space, shivering. It was the worst nightmare she’d faced in her young life.

      “All right, don’t go into mental convulsions over it,” he said quietly. He looked as if nothing ever ruffled him. In fact, very little did. “He won’t touch you, I guarantee it. I have a solution.”

      “A solution?” Her green eyes were wide and wet, and full of hope.

      “I know of a scholarship you can get at George Washington University, outside Washington, D.C.,” he said, thinking how good it was that he’d learned to lie with such a straight face, and never thinking this lie might come back to haunt him. “Books and board included. It’s for needy cases. You’d certainly qualify. Interested?”

      She was hesitant. “Yes. But…well, how would I get there, and apply?”

      “Forget the logistics for now. They aren’t important. They have a good archaeology program and you’d be well out of reach of your stepfather. If you want it, say the word.”

      “Yes, I want it!” she said. “But I’ll have to go back home…”

      “No, you won’t,” he said shortly. “Not ever again.” He threw his legs off the chair and got up, reaching for the telephone. He punched in a number, waited, and then began to speak in a language that was positively not English.

      She’d lived around Lakota people most of her young life, but she’d never heard the language spoken like this. It was full of rising and falling tones, and sang of ancient places and the sound of the wind. She loved the sound of it in his deep voice.

      All too soon he ended the conversation. “Let’s go.”

      “The truck, the other orders,” she protested weakly.

      “I’ll have the truck taken back to your stepfather, along with a message.” He didn’t mention that he planned to deliver both.

      “But where am I going?”

      “To my mother on the reservation,” he said. “My father died earlier this year, so she’s alone. She’ll enjoy your company.”

      “I don’t have clothes,” she protested.

      “I’ll get yours from your stepfather.”

      “You make this sound so easy,” she said, amazed.

      “Most things are easy if you can get past the red tape. I learned long ago to cut it close to the bone.” He opened the door. “Coming?”

      She got up, feeling suddenly free and full of hope. It was like one of those everyday miracles people talked about. “Yes…”

      Chapter One

      Present day

      Washington, D.C.

      Cameras were flashing all around Cecily Peterson. Microphones wielded by acrobatic television journalists were being thrust in her face as she walked quite calmly out of the fund-raising dinner that Senator Matt Holden was hosting.

      Behind her, a furious tall man with a long braid of black hair was waiting for a tureen of expensive crab bisque to complete its trip down the once-spotless dress slacks of his tuxedo before he tried to move. The diamond-festooned blond socialite with him was glaring daggers at Cecily’s back.

      Cecily kept walking. “Film at eleven,” she murmured to no one in particular, and with a bright little smile.

      She didn’t really look like a woman whose entire life had crashed and burned in the space of a few minutes. Her life was like Tate Winthrop’s tuxedo—in ruins. Everything was going to change now.

      She went to the big black utility vehicle that her date had driven her here in, to wait for him to join her. Her high heels were damp from the grass. She could feel her medium blond hair coming down from its high, complicated coiffure. The street and traffic lights were blurs of color to her pale green eyes because she wasn’t wearing her glasses and she couldn’t use contacts. She had on a black dress with tiny little straps, and the black shawl she was wearing with it didn’t provide much warmth. She couldn’t get into the vehicle without the key, but that didn’t matter. She was too numb to feel the chill of the night air anyway, or care about the busy Washington, D.C., street traffic behind her. She was furious that she’d had to learn the truth about her financial status and her supposed educational grant from that dyed blonde who Tate Winthrop was escorting around town these days. Her mind wandered back to a day two years ago, when everything had seemed so perfect, and her dreams had hovered on the cusp of fulfillment….

      The airport in Tulsa was crowded. Cecily juggled her carry-on bag with a duffel bag full of equipment, scanning the milling rush around her for Tate Winthrop. She was wearing her usual field gear: boots, a khaki suit with a safari jacket and a bush hat hanging behind her head by a rawhide string. Her natural blond hair was in a neat braided bun atop her head, and through her big-lensed glasses, her green eyes twinkled with anticipation. It wasn’t often that Tate Winthrop asked her to help him on a case. It was an occasion.

      Suddenly there he was, towering over the people around him. He was Lakota Sioux, and looked it. He had high cheekbones and big black, deep-set eyes under a jutting brow. His mouth was wide and sexy, with a thin upper lip and a chiseled lower one and he had perfect teeth. His hair was straight and jet-black; it fell to his waist when he wasn’t wearing it in a braid, as he was now. He was lean and striking, muscular without being obvious. And he’d once worked for a secret government agency. Of course, Cecily wasn’t supposed to know that; or that he was consulting with them on the sly right now in a hush-hush murder case in Oklahoma.

      “Where’s