Heart of the Hunter (11 page)

“Better.” Rising from her grasp, over her head, Ashley's gaze blazed into Jeb's. “Two.”

The word was harsh, fierce, its meaning unmistakable. Jeb bowed his head and conceded. “Two.”

Ashley was satisfied, Jeb and his one kiss didn't matter, and were forgotten for the moment. “Like kitty.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” Nicole glanced down at the tiger on her shirt. “You could paint one even prettier.”

“Nope.” The pout was back.

“Oh, yes.” Nicole took Ashley's hand again, leading him down the beach toward her house as she spoke. “I know what we'll do. Since you like kitties, one day soon we'll plan a trip to the zoo.”

“Zoo?”

“It's a place where animals are kept. Unusual animals like kitty here. You'll like it.”

“Like Nicole. Like Annabelle. Like chickadee. Like heron. Like kitty.”

“I know.” This, for Ashley, was veritable chattering. Nicole had rarely heard him say so much. “I know something else.”

“What?”

“One day you might like Mr. Tanner.”

“Tanner?” Ashley stopped, dragging at her hand. “Tanner?”

“Jeb,” she explained.

“No.” His response was instant, unequivocal and sparing no glance for Jeb.

Nicole sighed and scuffed her feet in the sand, temporarily defeated by the childlike doggedness.

Ashley sighed and scuffed his feet in a perfect imitation, immediately intrigued by this new game.

Laughing in her defeat, Nicole tugged him down the beach, swinging their clasped hands between them. Ashley's good mood was restored. Not daring the risk of another mercurial change, without turning she wagged the fingers of her free hand over her shoulder.

A goodbye salute for Jeb.

Jeb grinned at the jaunty wave. Nicole was as much diplomat as she was compassionate friend.

Ashley didn't look back. Jeb didn't expect he would. The poor man was mildly retarded, but the erratic swing of his interest and his moods didn't mean he didn't think and feel, and hurt deeply.

“Poor fella.” He mused, speaking his thoughts as Nicole led the troubled giant to a staircase leading over the dune. Jeb's mouth turned down in an wry smile. Ashley had just learned another painful lesson, and Jeb understood, for he'd learned the same lesson himself in Waterfront Park, when Nicole called another man's name.

There was a lot he hadn't understood then. A lot that made it easy to forgive. But he wouldn't forget.

Jealousy hurt. It hurt like hell.

* * *

“I can't believe Jeb did that.” Annabelle's eyebrows threatened to disappear into her hairline all over again.

Nicole had gone over this before and she was weary of it. With faltering patience she explained one more time. “He didn't understand about Ashley.”

“Why didn't you tell him?”

“Annabelle!” Nicole lost her battle with frustration. She'd dropped Ashley off at the park and come directly to the gallery. Since then her assistant had asked thousands of questions. At least it seemed like thousands. Struggling to regain her patience she said, “I didn't know it was Ashley.”

“Why didn't you?” Annabelle asked, choosing to ignore the edge in Nicole's voice. “He's always in the park, and if you're around, he's always following you.”

“I was distracted. It just didn't occur to me.”

“It didn't occur! The man's your shadow, and it didn't occur to you?”

“Please.” Nicole rubbed an aching temple with her fingertips. “Can we just drop it? Forget it ever happened?”

“All right. Fine.” Short arms folded over a massive bosom. “I can, if you can.” Bright, birdlike eyes watched her. “Can you?”

“Of course I can.”

“Good, then we both will.”

“Good.”

“I said that.” Annabelle still studied her closely. She'd known Nicole far too long not to realize there was more to this than simple mistaken identity and a scuffle in the park. More to Nicole's reaction. More to Jeb Tanner, who laughed at the suggested mystery in his past and his present.

“So you did.” With a dismissive bearing Nicole walked away from the probing scrutiny. There was much to be done to catch up for her days away from the gallery. She tried to concentrate. Tried to judge artists and their work as it deserved to be judged. But at the oddest moments her thoughts drifted to Jeb in the moonlight.

“You left out that Ashley doesn't like Jeb, didn't you?”

Nicole didn't know why she'd left out the last part at the beach. Perhaps she should have known better. Annabelle was too astute not to surmise correctly, filling in the gaps left unexplained. Even now she was tempted to lie, but it would be futile. “You're right, Ashley doesn't like Jeb.”

“Because you like him.”

“Yes.”

“More than as an old friend.”

Nicole raked a hand through her hair and looked away. But even then she could feel the dark eyes pinioning her like a butterfly and a hat pin. She couldn't lie to Annabelle.

She couldn't lie to herself. Not anymore. “Yes, I like Jeb Tanner.”

As she turned away she didn't see Annabelle's dark piercing gaze turn to concern. “I like him as more than an old friend.” Then in a voice nearly too low to be heard, “Far more.”

“W
e've hardly discussed her brother except in a passing remark.”

Jeb paced the floor, dragging the telephone cord behind him, explaining to Simon that beyond their first intense meetings, his contact with Nicole had been regular for the most part, but brief and casual. An unprompted opportunity to broach the subject hadn't occurred.

In the interim he'd discovered Nicole was singularly the least curious person he'd ever known. A rare listener, not one to question and as reticent about her personal life as if she'd spent her adulthood in deep cover. A condition and trait common to The Black Watch. Men like himself.

“Timing is critical, certainly. Tony's already taken longer to make contact than expected. That means he'll come soon. I understand what I have to do.”

With each blunt answer Jeb's irritation was mounting. Simon McKinzie wouldn't fail to take note, but it wouldn't change anything.

Tony Callison was still at large. Still a conscienceless killer, and Jeb Tanner was still the one man who might stop him.

By whatever means necessary.

“No, sir, I haven't taken the
Gambler
out. I'm aware that's inconsistent with the image I've cultivated here on the island. And yes, sir, I suppose it would be safe to assume Nicole would go for a sail.”

He waited, with little forbearance, through Simon's reminder of how critical Nicole and her unwitting cooperation were to the operation. He'd heard it endlessly before he came to the island. He heard it now in every thought and every nightmare.

“Yes, I said assume.” Barely controlled anger bristled beneath his even tone. “I can only assume, Simon, because I haven't asked.”

He didn't bother to admit that he couldn't predict how an invitation to spend a day sailing would be received because he hadn't made direct contact with Nicole since the morning after the incident on the beach with Ashley.

Four days since then. Seven since he'd kissed her in the park. Seven since he'd held her in the moonlight.

Simon was pressing a valid point. There was no escaping the urgency.

“Yes, sir. I'll see to it, sir,” Jeb responded curtly.

Moving to the window he looked out at the shore. There were dozens of sunbathers and beach walkers braving the morning heat, but for Jeb the shore was deserted.

“Say again.” He turned his back on the window, forgetting to tack the pointed respect to his blunt command. “Eden?”

The receiver was a rock in his hand, heavy, cold. He'd thought of taking Nicole to Eden one day. In a moment of delusion when he'd hoped some remnant of respect for him would survive, he'd thought of Eden. He'd never stopped to consider why, only that he had.

Tamped anger flared at the synchronous direction of thoughts not uncommon among The Black Watch. At Simon for suggesting Patrick McCallum's island paradise be sullied once more by The Black Watch. At himself for thinking the impossible.

Nothing could survive betrayal.

“Yes, sir,” Jeb snapped in his distraction. “I'm listening. A sail to the island should be conducive to discussion. I understand. The island is unoccupied, Patrick knows we will be there.” In a redundant, word-for-word repetition of all his grizzled commander said, he made clear he knew he'd been given a direct command. A tired flex of his shoulders marked his reluctant compliance to this isolated and uncustomary interference. “This weekend should work. Yes,” he said grimly, “today. But first, I have a favor to ask. One you owe me.”

A half hour later the receiver was back in its cradle. The last part of their conversation on the secured line had nothing to do with Eden, and only indirectly with Nicole. The details he'd given Simon were sketchy, the favor nearly impossible, but if he were going to draw her deeper into the betrayal of her brother, Jeb meant her to have something left that mattered.

He paced again, unaware of the pristine luxury that fit the affluent life-style he'd assumed. Splashes of subtle color intended to please the eye, didn't please his. He had no sense of spaciousness. The stylistic mood of harmony sought by hue and design seemed more than contrived.

The house was too close, too sterile. The room was a box, its walls and lofty ceilings a cage. The sky and the sea were far more enticing.

Something more he and Ashley shared, in part.

Simon, the canny Scot, was right as always. It was past time he took the
Gambler
out.

If his destination must be Eden, then Eden it would be.

* * *

“Perfect.” Annabelle backed to her desk and her chair, to gain a better perspective of the miniatures she'd been arranging, and to rest her feet. As her shoes hit the floor she groaned and wiggled her bare toes. After a critical study she still agreed with her first assessment. Matted, framed and placed against an especially prepared wall, the paintings were startling.

“Yes!” She crowed with a triumphant pump of her hand. A gesture worthy of the most volatile tennis pro. “It was a stroke of genius for you to take Ashley to the zoo,” she said, sharing with largesse the credit for the display. “He must have painted like a demon this week to do four. He does animals as well as birds and ships. A little water, a little color, a squiggle or two on canvas, and
voilà!
A masterpiece.”

Nicole didn't agree or disagree, she was too engrossed in draping a length of rough woven cloth over a table, weaving it around small bronze sculptures.

“It was a stroke of genius, as well, to group Hunter Slade's newest work with Ashley's paintings.” Another stroke was Beth Slade persuading her husband to allow the animals he carved for their son to be cast.

Nicole positioned a small tiger beneath Ashley's painting of the same animal, a majesty captured as flawlessly on canvas as bronze. Absently she dragged her attention from her chore. “I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.”

“Ha!” Annabelle jangled a bank of silver bangles stretching from her wrist to the middle of her arm. “You haven't listened to a fraction of what I've said for the past week.”

“I'm listening now.”

“You haven't listened since the escapade with Ashley and your fella.” Nicole's interruption went unnoticed, now that the smaller woman had an opening to make known her observations. Again. “He hasn't been around lately, has he?”

“You know he hasn't.”

“Hmm, I wonder why.”

“It could be because he's busy.” Nicole would never in this lifetime let Annabelle suspect that she'd spent more hours than she wanted to admit asking the same question.

“He's retired, remember.” An innocent lift of eyebrows fooled no one, still Annabelle played the part.

“Only from a nine-to-five position.” Nicole moved a length of cloth, gathering it about a moss-covered stone she'd fetched from a creek near the island. “Considering his life-style, and because he has retired, I imagine he has financial matters to attend to. And he isn't my fella, as you call him.” The rebuke was given mildly and without a prayer of halting the discussion that was inevitable.

“But you like him,” Annabelle persisted.

“Liking Jeb doesn't make him more than a friend.”

“But you'd like him even more as more than a friend.” This gibberish was delivered with a sage and knowing look.

“We've been through this before, almost word for word, Annabelle.” There was a somber disquiet in Nicole's expression conflicting with her reserved manner. “It doesn't matter what I feel, or don't feel. Jeb's a friend. Period. End of story, and it's for the best exactly that way.”

She moved the cloth again, sighed and shook her head. “He's restless already. One day he'll sail away and that will be that. Who knows how many years might pass before I would see him again. If ever. So—” she glanced back, her own brow lifted over a cool stare “—let's drop it, shall we?”

“He's restless, all right, but not because he plans to leave.” Annabelle drummed her fingers thoughtfully on her desk, ignoring the subtle warning. “There's something about him. Something that doesn't quite fit. As if he isn't who he says he is, or what he pretends to be.”

Nicole laughed, a humorless sound. “Jeb is Jeb. Not a wolf in sheep's clothing.”

“You've got that much right. He's a wolf in wolf's clothing.”

“Ahh, but you like wolves, remember?”

“Of course, I do. But I like this one, especially.” It bothered the chatty woman not one whit that her declaration should have been at odds with her suspicions. Such mundane sensibility never occurred to Annabelle. “In fact, I like him almost as much as you do.”

“Annabelle!” The rebuke was softly given, despite the edge that crept into it. And, as before, it was of absolutely no consequence.

“What is it about mysterious bad boys that make us forget every caution as we tumble for them?” the woman prattled on.

Nicole picked up a winsome figure of a giraffe, knelt by the table, scowled, then set it back in precisely the same spot. The display was a jumble, her mind was a world away from aesthetic order. “For the last time,” she snapped as she stared blindly at Hunter Slade's clever menagerie. “Jeb isn't a boy, he isn't bad and, if he's mysterious it's because he just doesn't talk about himself.”

“That's an understatement. He arrives here, sailing from out of China for all we know. He has a beautiful boat, a gorgeous crew straight out of
GQ,
or whatever that ritzy male fashion magazine is called. Wow! Talk about wolves!” Annabelle rolled her eyes heavenward. “A whole pack of them. All untamed, all gorgeous.

“So money is obviously no object.” After the lusty digression, she was back on track. “Not with his boat, not with his crew and certainly not when he buys the most fabulous house on the beach. Then he settles into becoming one of the boys, but only at first. Now he doesn't bar hop, he doesn't golf, he doesn't play tennis. Most peculiar of all, he doesn't sail.

“He listens well, though,” Annabelle added thoughtfully. “So well, he never talks. Everyone seems to know
of
him, but no one really knows
him.
”

“You've been gossiping again.” Nicole managed to insert her own observation into the monologue.

“No, I've been listening, like he does.” An adamant finger was leveled at Nicole. “Can you look me in the eye and deny what I've said? Can you tell me who knows anything about him? The fact is, no one does.” Her dark eyes narrowed. “Not even you, I'm afraid.”

The uncomfortable truth of Annabelle's commentary couldn't be denied. Nicole didn't try. Cradling her head in her hand she massaged her temples, but the tension didn't ease. “What would you have me do, Annabelle?” she asked wearily. “Stop seeing him?”

A rhetorical question, for, evidently, he'd stopped seeing her.

“And miss all the fun?” Annabelle hooted. “Mercy, no! The man's a seething inferno of sensuality. He reeks of sex appeal without intending it. It's part of him—in the way he walks, and moves and looks at a woman.

“At least, if that woman is you.” She delivered this in a droll aside, then hurried on before Nicole could protest. “And the hell of it is, it's as natural to him as breathing and blond hair. If he could bottle it and sell it, he would be a millionaire.”

“He is already,” Nicole muttered with no hope of throttling the discourse.

“Maybe he knows what he has, maybe he doesn't, but that's neither here nor there. The bottom line is he has it, in spades. It smolders in him, like a banked fire waiting for that small spark. Then pow!” Bangles flew from wrist to elbow with another theatrical gesture. “Inferno!”

“So?” Nicole found there was some small satisfaction to be garnered from being deliberately obtuse.

“So!” Eyebrows lifted higher, threatening to disappear into a heart-shaped hairline. “My sweet innocent! Half the enjoyment in life is dancing too near the fire.” The handsome face, with its perfect makeup, sobered. The drama was ended, she'd been serious before, now it was time to be deadly serious. “Flirt with the fire, darling. Feel the delicious heat. Savor it. Let it singe you, and scorch you. And please, look at yourself for once. See that you have the same sensuality. Recognize your sex appeal. Use it. Kindle fires of your own.

“But—”
a beringed finger wagged, long hair flew with the vigor of emphasis “—never, never
ever
get burned.”

Nicole's throat was dry. Annabelle had just suggested what she'd always dreamed of, but never dared. If she dared, if just this once she let go of the iron control she'd been a lifetime learning, if she risked heart and soul, and mind and body, for Jeb, what would she be when he left her?

Dear God! How would she survive?

“Annabelle, I can't.” There was a desperateness in her, a need that frightened. “It's impossible.”

“Yes, you can. Playing twinkle toes on a tightrope over an inferno is scary as hell and twice as exciting. But it can be done, I'm proof of it.” A long breath lifted large breasts, threatening the décolletage of her Gypsy blouse. “And when it is...” A wistful look flitted over classic features. “Ahh, when it is the rewards are incomparable.”

“I don't think I can dance as well as you,” Nicole murmured wryly. “I don't know how.”

The bangles were silent, one stubby but graceful hand folded over the other in a long-suffering attitude of a loving mother encouraging her diffident child. “You begin by believing nothing is impossible. Then you learn, my dear. You learn every delicious step of the dance. And, unless I've lost my judgment completely, you could have no better teacher than the wolf waiting by the door.”

“The wolf by the...” Nicole bit back her retort. The air was suddenly charged. A heavy weight descended on her chest, but did nothing to still the erratic beat of her heart. She didn't need to turn to know who stood at the door. Vaguely, she remembered the single chiming of the bell. One note, not the whole repertoire, as if he'd silenced it, preferring no announcement of his arrival.