"You could come home with me."
"You don't have the room."
"In that big house?"
"There's only one bed."
"So? We've shared a bed before." The reminder was quietly and huskily spoken. She didn't comment on it. After several seconds he sighed and said, "I'm checking you into a motel."
It was no sooner said than he pulled his car under the porte cochere of a chain motel. "Wait here."
Jenny watched him enter the well-lighted lobby. Through the plate-glass front she saw the night clerk swing his legs down from his desk and set his spy thriller novel aside. That he recognized Cage was obvious by the wide grin and hearty handshake he gave him.
He didn't even require Cage to sign the register, but immediately reached for a room key and slid it across the counter. Leaning forward in a conspiratorial, lets-have-a-man-to-man-chat posture, he said something that caused Cage to wave his hand in negligent dismissal.
The clerk squinted through the window toward the car. Jenny saw his surprised expression when he recognized her. Grinning up at Cage, he made another comment that drew Cage's brows into a deep scowl. It was still there when he returned to the car after bidding the clerk a brusque good night.
"What did he say?"
"Nothing," Cage ground through his teeth.
"He said something. I saw him."
Cage didn't respond, but drove straight to the room without even having to check the numbers on the doors. He brought the car to a jarring halt and angrily cut the engine.
"You've been here before," Jenny said intuitively.
"Jenny—"
"Haven't you?"
"—drop it."
"Haven't you?"
"Maybe."
"Often?"
"Yes!"
"With women?"
"Yes!"
Her chest was in danger of caving in around her heart. She could barely speak, it hurt so much to draw sufficient air. "You've brought women here to affairs and that's what the clerk thinks I'm doing with you. What did he say about me?"
"It doesn't matter what he—"
"It matters to me," she shouted. "Tell me."
"No."
He got out of the car and jerked her bags from behind the seat. Without waiting to see if she followed him, he strode toward the door of the motel room and unlocked it. He flung the luggage on the rack in the closet and flipped on the lamp.
"What did he say?" Jenny demanded from the doorway.
Cage spun around and saw her resolved expression. She looked tired and distraught, angry and vulnerable. Her hair was disheveled and her cheeks were pale. Her eyes were ringed with violet shadows of fatigue. Her mouth was trembling slightly. She looked like a lost child and an unvanquished soldier.