The Winter Man by Diana Palmer

it.”
    â€œShe didn’t know,” he said simply. “He didn’t want her to know what his job actually involved. He told her he worked for the government, and she figured that meant he was a desk jockey.”
    â€œHe protected her,” she said.
    â€œExactly.”
    She went back into the living room silently, her eyes on the sofa where Tony had placed her so gently after theshooting. He’d been supportive, nurturing, and she’d backed away from him. That must have hurt, especially when he’d shot a man to save her life.
    â€œHe said to tell you he was sorry,” Frank told her.
    She glanced at him. “He didn’t need to be.”
    â€œAbout Angel,” he emphasized.
    She flushed. “Oh. The glittery woman.”
    He scowled. “Excuse me?”
    She drew in a long, resigned breath. “You were always introducing him to girls who worked at the club,” she recalled with a sad smile. “Those were his sort of women. He told me so. He didn’t want ties, ever.”
    â€œHe may want them someday.”
    â€œNot my business,” she said quietly. “He brought her to his room to show me how little I meant to him. It wasn’t necessary. I already knew that.” She turned to Frank and laughed shortly. “I’m a librarian. Doesn’t that just say it all?”
    He scowled. “If you’ll recall, that girl in the mummy movie was a librarian. She was a two-fisted heroine as well.”
    â€œNot me,” Millie sighed. “Thanks for everything, Frank,” she added, tiptoeing to kiss his tanned cheek. “I’ll miss you.”
    He looked at her with anguished longing that he quickly concealed. He grinned. “I’ll miss you, too, kid.”

W eeks passed. Thanksgiving went by in a flash, and suddenly it was almost Christmas. Millie stopped by the window of a department store when she got off the city bus at her stop. It was beautifully decorated in an old-fashioned sort of way, with artificial snow and trees and mountains, and a classic Lionel train set running through the scenery. Millie loved electric trains. One day, if she could ever afford a bigger apartment, she promised herself she was going to buy one and run it every Christmas.
    It was cold, even in San Antonio. She tugged her coat closer. It was a new coat, an extravagance, but she couldn’t bear to wear the old one ever again, even with the blood spatters removed. She’d given the coat to a charity drive.
    She wondered how Frank was doing. He’d already moved up to Dallas. He phoned her and said he liked his new colleagues, and thought he was going to enjoy the job. He did miss San Antonio, though, he added. Dallas was brassy and cosmopolitan, a sprawling city with odd, futuristic architecture. San Antonio still retained its historic charm. It was also smaller. But what he really meant was that he missed Millie. She was sorry she couldn’t care for him as he cared for her. Despite everything, even after his cruel behavior, it was still Tony who lived in her heart.
    Tony. She pulled the coat closer as she walked down the sidewalk toward her apartment building. She imagined he was off in some exotic place with some new glittery woman, having a ball. It was a modern sort of life for most women these days, rushing around from one sex partner to the next with no feeling of obligation or permanence. The movies reflected it. So did television and books. But Millie was a romantic. She lived in a past where men and women both abstained before marriage, where family mattered, where two people got to know each other as individual human beings long before they got to know each other physically. In that world, Millie lived. She devoured romance novels with characters who shared her old-fashioned views on life and society. So what if it was only make-believe. The carnal quality of relationships in real life was as empty as an office trash can on Sunday.