If Winter Comes by Diana Palmer Page A

have
everything.
     
    Her mouth was still
bruised from the pressure of his, her ribs still ached from the embrace that
had seemed to crush her. A man couldn’t pretend that kind of emotion, she
thought dazedly. And to realize that a man she loved could feel that way in
return amazed her.
     
    Brown’s words came back
to haunt her, tearing the delicate fabric of her dreams. Tomorrow, she’d go to
meet him, and maybe all his accusations would vanish like nightmares in the
daylight. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—believe what he’d told her. Bryan Moreland
wasn’t a crook; she was sure of that. She fell asleep finally, with a picture
of Moreland’s leonine face in her soft eyes.
     
     
     
    Daniel Brown was
waiting for her in the small coffee shop where she’d arranged to meet him, his
long pale fingers nervously clutching the fragile stem of the half-empty
wineglass that held what remained of a cup of coffee and a smear of whippped
cream. He looked up as she entered, and a relieved expression crossed his face.
     
    She forced a smile she
didn’t feel and sat down in the chair he pulled out for her.
     
    “Nippy out today, isn’t
it?” she asked, slipping out of her heavy black coat.
     
    “A little.” He took a
quick sip of his coffee. “Can I order something for you?”
     
    “Espresso,” she said.
     
    He gave the waitress
her order and sat back down with a heavy sigh.
     
    “Have you got it?” she
asked suddenly. Better to have the truth all at once, if it was the truth, than
to dig it out a sentence at a time.
     
    But even as she hoped
he might not be able to produce that damning evidence, he reached in his pocket
and pushed a folded sheaf of photostat copies across the spotless white linen
tablecloth at her.
     
    With a hard swallow,
she opened the papers with trembling fingers and looked at the first of the
copies. Her heart felt suddenly like an anchor in her chest. Her green eyes
closed momentarily. It was a check for one hundred thousand dollars, made out
to Bryan Moreland, signed by James White. Her gaze flashed to Daniel Brown’s
curious, wary face.
     
    “I know what you’re
thinking,” he said unexpectedly. “Look at the second photostat before you say
it.”
     
    Puzzled, she turned to
the second sheet, and saw what he meant. This photostat was the endorsed back
of the check, with Moreland’s unmistakable signature.
     
    Dully, she thumbed
through the rest of the material. There was a photostat of a page of financial
records with the disbursement of five hundred thousand dollars to James White
Realty for a tract of land marked airport land purchase. Another sheet was from
the tax assessors office, showing the fair market value of the property at one
hundred thousand dollars. It was enough, more than enough, to give to the
paper’s legal staff. In fact, the very obvious overpayment might be enough to
make an accusation and prosecute.
     
    “This will destroy
Bryan Moreland politically,” she murmured.
     
    “Probably,” came the
cool reply. “But the evidence speaks for itself. They were trying to cover up
an overpayment of four hundred thousand dollars—of which your aging boyfriend
received one-fourth. Explain that, if you can.”
     
    She stared at him,
pausing while the waitress put the cup of espresso in front of her. “Now tell
me the real reason why you’re doing this,” she asked quietly.
     
    He looked taken aback.
“I told you already, I…”
     
    Her eyes narrowed. “I
know what you told me. I want the truth.”
     
    He shrugged, averting
his gaze. “All right, maybe I felt like a little revenge. We were in love, you
know.”
     
    “You and who?” she
persisted.
     
    “Mrs. Moreland, of
course,” he said bitterly. “She was much younger than he was, and he treated
her like dirt. She was nuts about me.”
     
    Those words haunted her
all the way back to the office. Something wasn’t quite right, although revenge
might be a good motive for helping to nab a