Heart of the Hunter (6 page)

Nicole laughed. “Is that what I am? An excuse?”

“No, Nicky, you're not an excuse.” His gaze moved over her in lazy appreciation of the view just visible beneath her open shirt. Her skin was smooth and lustrous, the vibrant color of sun-warmed peaches. Her breasts were full, her body slender, and barely contained by an abbreviated shirt and twists of faded batik.

He'd seen more daring costumes on the beach. Bikinis and maillots cut down to the hips or up to the armpits. Almost.

And thongs! Lord, yes, thongs.

All of them in every fabric. Lycra and lamé, fishnet and sheers, practical or not, leaving little to the imagination. But none as tantalizing nor as intriguing as a suit that was modest in comparison. Stylish colors and sleek lines were no match for tattered scraps held together by tempting and tarnished U-rings.

No match at all, he discovered as he struggled to find the discipline to play the game he'd begun.

Forcing his attention from a body that would tempt a saint as well as the devil incarnate, his gaze wandered deliberately to safer ground. Touching first on hair that blazed like black fire in the sun as it tumbled over blacker brows, then lingering on sooty lashed eyes as green as a cool mountain lake. For a moment as he lost himself in them, he almost forgot to breathe, barely remembered to think.

Not safer ground. Not safe at all.

A mental shake reminded him where he was, and why. Nicole had to trust him, and more, if this was to work.

Lifting a hand to her face, he let his fingertips trail over the smooth slope of her cheek, skirted the corner of her mouth, toyed with the soft flesh of her lip.

“You're a beautiful woman.” His voice was intimate, as smoky as his eyes. “An old friend I'd like to get to know again.”

Her faltering smile vanished. Color flooded her face along with a flicker of something he couldn't quite interpret before she looked away.

“Hey!” He caught her chin in his fingers, lifting her face toward his as he bent nearer. “What's this?” His hand slipped to her cheek, cupping it, feeling the rush of heat, while the other stroked the line of her jaw. “I don't believe it, a blush! I didn't know women did that anymore.”

“Don't.” In a desperate move Nicole grasped his wrists and flung his hands from her. Her voice was grim, her words clipped. “Please don't touch me.”

Her blush blanched to pallor. One as unexpected as the other, as extreme. Startled, he stepped back, hands raised, palms turned out in a pacific stance. “All right, I won't. But what's wrong, Nicky? What did I say? What did I do?”

“Don't pretend, and don't make fun. You never used to.” She turned away, staring at the horizon where the sea blended into the sky. She couldn't look at him. She couldn't bear the mockery. Not from Jeb. Especially not from Jeb. “When everyone else considered it their favorite pastime, you never did.”

“Make fun... Is that what you thought I was doing?” When she didn't answer, forgetting he'd said he wouldn't touch her, he caught her arm, turning her to him. “
Is
that what you thought I was doing?”

When she looked at him her gaze was steady and her eyes so intensely green from the effort they were nearly black. “Wasn't it?”

He saw the hurt and recalled the taunts, the cruel laughter aimed at a girl who was far too unsophisticated to realize they were prompted by envy. She was too young then, and too smart, and anyone with half a brain could see that one day she would be stunning. A pill too bitter for the intolerant, the less fortunate, and the covetous.

“No,” he said in a gruff rumble. “Dear God, I wouldn't.”

She was strong. She'd needed to be to withstand the taunts and to accomplish what she had. But buried deeply beneath that strength was an unexpected fragility. A surprising lack of conceit. He might be damned for a lying bastard before this was done. But he wouldn't pull the wings off a magnificent butterfly.

He moved a step closer, inordinately pleased that she hadn't pulled away from him again. His voice was low, soothing. “I was teasing, sweetheart. There is a difference.”

She stared at him, searching his face, as if she were trying to decide if she should believe him. Jeb stood patiently, waiting for her decision, and wondered if no man had ever told her she was beautiful.

Nicole knew she was a fool for reacting as she had. Of course he was teasing. Her mind knew, but her heart wanted to believe every pretty word.

To silence the ache his bold stare and caressing touch had ignited in her she'd taken thoughtless refuge in bitterness. Accusing Jeb of cruelty she didn't believe.

“I'm sorry.” She ran an agitated hand through her hair, the disarray only making her seem more vulnerable. “No one should know better than I that you wouldn't...”

“Laugh at you?” Jeb supplied the hateful words.

“Yes.”

“I might laugh with you, sweetheart.” He tapped her upturned nose and grinned again, relieved by the easy resolution of a difficult turn of events. “But I promise, never at you.”

As he looked down at her, at the sweet, wobbly smile, Jeb wondered what might have been if he'd met her again in a different circumstance. If Tony Callison weren't her brother and Jeb Tanner could truly be the man he pretended.

It served no purpose to wonder, for circumstances could never be different, and what might have been was only a dream. There was no future for him here.

Not with this woman.

Nor with any woman.

With an unconscious regret for what he thought he never wanted, his hand skipped down her arm, fitting palm to palm, he laced his fingers through hers. When she left her hand in his, he drew a deep breath and held her tighter.

“Shall we start again, Nicky?” he asked. “Maybe this time we'll get it right.”

Nicole nodded. She dared not trust her voice in the quicksilver shifting of his moods and hers, but with her hand in his, she was suddenly willing to try anything.

“Then would you do me the honor of a stroll through the sand, Ms. Callison?”

His grave and graceful bow should have been absurd for a man half dressed and on a sandy, sunlit beach. But it wasn't.

In the gallery, with casual clothing cloaking a body muscled and honed by his early years on the surf, he was virile and elegantly attractive. An accomplished, knowledgeable man of cold, utter calm. Once past the first delighted rush of recognition and friendship, the marvelous eyes that should have been the reflection of that man, had been shuttered, guarded, with little expression, offering no betrayal of his mood or thoughts.

She'd sensed, rather than seen, danger shimmering beneath the icy calm. Danger she hadn't understood. As he stood before her, holding her hand in his, bowing gallantly, she understood too well.

He was not cold here in the sun. He was not elegant, not merely attractive. As the light played over him, turning his sun-streaked hair to a tousled halo, and his skin to burnished gold, he was too vivid, too alive to be merely anything.

Running shorts, wet from the sweat of exertion and clinging, left little doubt he was undeniably, powerfully masculine. A rogue's grin tugging at his mouth, and a glint in his eyes, he was pure animal magnetism. And in his gray gaze keeping hers, locked deeply within dark-rimmed irises, she discovered the primal man.

A man of fire and ice. A man of raw passions and ruthless anger, of fear and love and secret hurt. The man she'd loved all her life. Untamed, intriguing and infinitely hazardous to her good sense. There lay the danger.

“Shall we walk, Nicky? Shall we pretend this is Eden, and ours are the only footsteps that have ever crossed the sand?”

As he spoke he bent nearer, his breath brushing her cheek. The heated scent of him rose to her, filling her lungs with the fragrance of soap and sweat and man.

Danger.
Her mind cried it, her heart didn't listen.

Nicole knew she should back away. Perhaps run away. She wasn't ready for the tenderness, nor the warmth. There was too much she had to resolve, to put into perspective. Too much she had to understand about herself, and what she might still feel for Jeb.

She should have backed away. Should have run. Instead she heard herself saying, “There's nothing I'd like better than to walk with you and pretend there's no one here but us.”

* * *

An hour later, after they'd chased scrabbling crabs to their high-water lairs, stalked drowsing gulls and raced with the sandpipers like mischievous children, Nicole's misgivings were forgotten.

Until Jeb stopped scuffing sand dollars from their burrows at the water's edge, to watch her.

Feeling his stare, Nicole looked up from the array of shells she'd collected in her shirt. Thinking he was amused by the fine layer of sand covering her nose, with a quirk of her lips and a huffing breath she blew it away.

And still he stared and smiled.

Just for a while, she tried to stare him down, but he was impervious. His eyes were on her, but his mind seemed to see into her. She tried to ignore him, going about the business of lining sand dollars to dry in the sand. And still his riveting stare followed her. Nettled by the scorching intensity, she bolted to her feet, spilling shirt and spiny disks helter-skelter on the sand.

“What?” she demanded, feet planted, hands on narrow hips. “What on earth fascinates you so much?”

“You do,” he said almost absently. “Only you, my love.”

“Of course I do. I'm an old friend, remember?” She made the saucy remark with a brash bravado, ignoring the sudden trip-hammer pace of her heart. Then in spite of every effort to the contrary, she asked, “Why, Jeb?”

“I'm damned if I know.” He spoke scarcely above the sound of the surf. “I suppose it could be that it's almost too easy to believe we're the only people who've ever walked this shore. One man, one woman in a sandy Eden.”

Nicole wanted to say something. Another bantering reply, a facetious observation, but her tongue wouldn't cooperate.

He didn't seem to notice. “It could be that wee bit of a swimsuit you're wearing. Little strips of cloth that are nothing more than color on skin do strange things to a man's blood pressure.”

“My suit?” Nicole looked down at the ancient bikini. When she'd taken her shirt off to gather up the sand dollars he'd found, she hadn't given it a thought. In fact, she'd forgotten the suit was faded and so thin...

“Oh no!” So thin every contour of her breasts and nipples showed as clearly as if she were naked.

“Oh, yes.” Jeb slanted her a grin.

“Oh, Lord, you must think...”

“I haven't been thinking anything, except how I could persuade you to take the rest of the day off from work.”

“Work? The rest of the day?”

“It is Monday, isn't it? You did plan to open the gallery.”

“Oh, no.” She raised her face skyward, finding the fully risen sun. “What time is it?”

“Ten minutes past the time you should have left the island.
If
you were going to open the gallery.”

“There's no ‘if' to it. I have an appointment with the old biddy today.”

“The old biddy?”

“Mrs. Atherton,”

“Of course, Mrs. Atherton.” He had no idea who Mrs. Atherton was.

“She's a pain in the tush and a snob, but she does spend a lot of money with us.” Nicole shaded her eyes and squinted at the sun again, judging her chances of making the appointment. “How late did you say it was?”

“A minute later than when you asked before.”

“Eleven minutes, I can do that.” Then she was running down the beach, like a dark-haired child racing with the wind.

“Nicole!” When she didn't answer, he called again. “Nicole! What are you going to do?”

She whirled about in the sand, her hair flying, her breasts nearly spilling from the suit as it threatened to slide into ignominy. “I'm going to make up eleven minutes.”

“You can't.”

“Yes I can. Just pray that Charlie's not on duty today.”

“Charlie? Who's Charlie?”

“The patrolman who loves to play coyote and roadrunner with me.” The last was tossed over her shoulder as she settled into a ground-eating jog.

“Wait,” Jeb called as he waded out of the water. Scooping up her shirt, he watched as she turned left and raced up a bank of stairs. She disappeared over a dune as he finished what he'd meant to say. “You forgot your shirt.”

* * *

“I should have known,” Nicole muttered as she tossed her jacket aside. Kicking off her shoes, she sank into a chaise, poured a glass of wine and propped her aching feet, one over the other. With her eyes closed, she raised the tulip-shaped goblet to her forehead, soothing lines of repressed anger with its delicate bowl.

Without opening her eyes, she listened to the surf wash over the shore as she sipped the wine. She'd poured a dark, velvety cabernet, not her usual Riesling or Grenache. For tonight she'd wanted something rich and bold with a kick. As she'd wanted to kick Mrs. Atherton, straight out of the gallery.

“Hypocrite,” she declared and sipped again. “There ought to be a law.”

Settling farther into the chaise lounge, she considered dinner, and dismissed it. It was too late, and she was far too comfortable to bother. After today she deserved a quiet, comfortable evening.

She'd just drained her second glass and was succumbing to a delicious little haze when the bell at the front door rang. The temptation to ignore it was strong, and she was still considering it when the bell rang twice more in quick succession.

“I should have known.” She struggled from the chaise. “A perfect ending to a perfect day.”

Not bothering to find her shoes, she padded to the door, the crinkled fabric of her skirt brushing over her bare feet. Normally she would have checked to see who was calling. Thanks to an empty stomach and two glasses of wine drunk faster than usual, she didn't trouble herself with the effort.