The Winter Man by Diana Palmer Read Free Book Online

move in with me,” he said simply. “We let the word get around. Then we wait for developments.”
    â€œWait.” She tugged at a lock of loose hair. “I can’t wait a long time,” she worried. “I have to work. I have to support myself.”
    â€œYou have to be alive in order to do those things,” hereminded her. “I’ll call Frank. He can get his contact in the police department to help us out.”
    â€œThat might be wise,” she agreed. She was still debating her options, but she didn’t seem to have any left. She wished she could go back in time, to a period in her life when she hadn’t known Tony Danzetta. She’d eaten her heart out over him for so many years that it had become a habit. Now here he was, protecting her from danger, for reasons he still hadn’t disclosed. He was honest to the point of brutality about his lack of interest in her as a woman. Was it guilt, she wondered, that drove him to help her? Perhaps she’d have the opportunity in the days ahead to learn the answer to that question.
    * * *
    His hotel suite was huge. Millie was fascinated by the glimpse of how the other half lived. She knew what a suite cost in this luxury hotel, and she wondered how Tony’s government job made it affordable to him. Maybe, she considered, his father, the contractor, had left him a lot of money. He was obviously used to having the very best of everything.
    â€œHungry?” he asked when he’d put her suitcase inside what was to be her bedroom.
    â€œActually, I am,” she said. “Could we go somewhere and get a salad?”
    He pursed his lips, smiling. “What sort of salad?”
    â€œA Caesar salad would be nice,” she said.
    â€œHow about a steak to go with it, and a baked potato with real butter and chives and sour cream?”
    Her eyes widened. “That sounds wonderful. Coffee, too.”
    He nodded. He picked up the phone, punched in a number, waited a minute and then proceeded to give an order to someone on the other end of the line. It must be room service, she thought. It fascinated her that he could just pick up the phone and order food. The only time she’d ever done that was when she ordered pizza, and small ones, at that.
    â€œThirty minutes,” he said when he hung up.
    â€œI’ve never stayed in a hotel and had room service,” she confided. “I went on a trip for the library one time, to a conference up in Dallas and stayed in a hotel. It was small, though, and I ate at a McDonald’s nearby.”
    He chuckled. “I couldn’t live without room service. I flew in from Iraq late one night, starving to death. I ordered a steak and salad and this huge ice cream split at two o’clock in the morning.”
    â€œThere’s room service then?” she exclaimed.
    He didn’t mention that he paid a big price for having those items sent up, because room service didn’t operate in the wee hours of the morning. He was also friends with the general manager of that particular hotel. “There is in New York City,” he told her.
    She sat down in one of the big armchairs and he took off his jacket and sprawled over the sofa.
    â€œI guess you’ve been a lot of places,” she said.
    He closed his eyes, put his hands under his head and smiled. “A lot.”
    â€œI’d like to go to Japan,” she said dreamily. “We have this nice old couple who came from Osaka. I love to hear them talk about their home country.”
    â€œJapan is beautiful.” He rolled over, facing her, tugging a pillow under his head. “I spent a few days in Osaka on a case, and made time to take the bullet train over to Kyoto. There’s a samurai fortress there with huge wooden gates. It was built in 1600 and something. They had nightingale floors…”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œNightingale floors. They put nails under the flooring and pieces of metal