Heart of the Hunter (12 page)

She climbed to her feet, not sure if she should be glad or sorry the morning had been slow and the gallery had no browsers. Turning her back on the exhibit that had troubled her all morning, she faced him. In a glance, days of worry and hurt vanished. All that mattered was that he was here.

“Hello, Jeb.” There was a tremor in her voice and she fought to calm it.

“Good morning, Nicky.” Beyond his greeting he said no more. He looked at her in silence, admiring the carefully groomed veneer. Beneath the perfect exterior there was no glimmer of the windblown hoyden who walked and played on the beach like a tomboy in a faded and artlessly alluring swimsuit. No hint of the deep well of passion and compassion underlying the calm.

No hint unless one looked deeply into eyes that could range the spectrum of blue and green and gray in accordance with what she wore. Or with her mood. Today her eyes caught the blue fire of her dress and smoldered with countless questions he couldn't answer.

He moved from the door farther into the gallery, stopping in unintentional irony by the massive figure of the wolf. His counterpart, leader of the pack, proud, handsome. A canny creature, perhaps more familiar with danger than security.

Nicole suppressed a shiver as she sensed their kinship. Disturbed that she'd fallen prey to Annabelle's fantasy, she lifted her chin, challenging her own weakness. But dealing with the cause was not so simple. When she'd seen him last he'd been dressed in running shorts and a light T-shirt. Sweat had gleamed on his body, soaking the nylon, catching it close, as if he'd just come from the sea. All that was missing was a surfboard tucked under his arm.

On that familiar territory, with Ashley as their common interest, she'd let herself believe the years hadn't passed and Jeb was the carefree friend and confidant she'd needed so desperately. He was what had been missing in her life for so long. The illusion was so credible she'd begun to feel comfortable with him and with his touch.

She'd felt safe.

Now she knew it was only an illusion. She'd known before she'd risen to face him. She'd known all along.

She would never be safe from Jeb. Never so long as she lived. Yet she had only herself to fear, for the danger lay within her. Deep in a heart that had loved him. A heart that loved him still.

She didn't need to be reminded that he'd changed, and become the man who stood before her. One glance etched his true image forever in her mind, dressed, as she'd rarely seen him, in elegantly tailored trousers and a casual shirt open at the neck. His perfectly groomed hair, grown shaggy in the week, had been slicked back but refused to stay, falling over his forehead in an unruly wave that cried out to be brushed into order.

Jeb's hair had always been thick and rich and unruly. Memory wouldn't be still as she recalled when he'd worn it to his shoulders for that reason, tying it at his nape long before the male ponytail was stylishly correct.

The child in her remembered the times she'd run her fingers through it, combing it back to secure it after a rogue wave had torn it from its cruel binding. Time and distance and maturity had long ago let her realize he hadn't needed her help, but suffered her delighted ministrations out of kindness.

Kindness had been as natural to him then as sensuality was today. As Annabelle presumed, as natural as breathing.

Nicole's mind shied away from that. She didn't want to think of kindness or sensuality. She didn't want to think about how attractive he'd been and was, nor about the long lazy look that swept over her now, leaving very little of her unexplored.

Her gaze didn't falter beneath the intriguing exploration. She wouldn't let anything betray her struggle to convince herself it was the power of a memory coupled with Annabelle's prattle of men of mystery and wolves that set her pulse tripping. Yes, she assured herself, only prattle. Her chin lifted a fraction higher as she realized it was left to her to break the silence stretching to an uncomfortable degree.

“What brings you to town?” She was inordinately pleased with the mundane query. Pleased that her voice was normal, not awkwardly cheerful. The voice of a woman who had made her place in the world, not the child who had first loved him.

“You, Nicole,” he said softly, drawing his ranging gaze to her face. “You bring me to town.”

Her hand drifted to her throat, then to a button at the fold of her dress. The lace of the customary chemise, only a sliver of blue peeking out in the intention of complementing rather than distracting, made total mockery of its purpose, and of the demure professional demeanor she'd adopted for her workday.

“I beg your pardon?” The button turned between her fingers, lace moved like a secret veil over the first delicate slope of her breasts.

“You, Nicole.” He was moving toward her, stepping past the wolf, past the table and its array of tiny animals, wondering why he had waited so long. “I came for you.”

Whatever she expected, it wasn't this—the heated look, the intensity in his voice.

“It's a splendid day,” he continued as if he neither needed nor wanted a reply. “The sea is calm and the wind is perfect for sailing.”

“You came to take me sailing?” Purposely or not, he was a master at keeping her off balance.

“That's exactly why I came.”

“At eleven o'clock on a business day? Surely you're joking!”

“I never joke about sailing.” He touched her cheek with the tip of a finger, allowing himself that little contact with the satin of her skin. “Surely you haven't forgotten.”

“I haven't forgotten.” She was wooden beneath the caress. She mustn't let herself fall to temptation. Oh yes, she was tempted, she wanted the wind in her hair and the spray of the sea on her face. She wanted to dance close to the fire and give herself up to its heat.

An old fear careened through her as she shook her head vehemently. “I can't.”

The finger that trailed over her cheek slipped to her throat, dipping into the tiny well at its base. A roughened pad stroked the throbbing pulse, lazily, gently, then moved down, down, pausing only a heartbeat from the lace that intrigued and fascinated.

“Nicole,” he murmured and waited. “Nicole.” The marauding touch retraced its path, from pulse, to throat, to her chin to lift her face to his. His gaze reached into her, holding her. His hand slipped from her face to her hair, his fingers tangling tightly in it, as if he thought she would tear free of his grasp. “Why are you afraid, Nicole?”

“I'm not afraid. Not of you.” A lie only by omission. Only in that it was half truth.

He frowned, truly perplexed. “Of sailing?”

“No.”

“Then tell me.”

Tell him what? The whole lie? The whole truth? Nicole chose neither as she took refuge in biting sarcasm. “I can't go with you, but it isn't because I'm afraid. You forget, not all of us are rich or retired. Some of us still need to work before we can play.”

He refused to take offense, refused to back off. No matter what she said, he'd seen excitement in her eyes, then something else. If not fear, then something he must understand. But that would come later. “When do you play, Nicky?”

“I have a shop to run, I play when the work is done.”

“When is that?” Before she could reply, he answered for her. “You give yourself one day—once in a while.”

“It's enough.”

Her face was so small and his hand so large, he could stroke the tender flesh beneath her eyes with his thumb and never release his hold on her hair. “If it's enough, why do I see fatigue here? Why does an encounter with Mrs. Atherton take more out of you than it should?”

Nicole wanted to move away. Far away from his touch, farther still from the soft, caressing voice. Yet neither would let her. Caring words and a feather-light touch held her as strongly as iron bands. “I do what I must. When I must. For as long as I must. There's no one else.”

“There's Annabelle,” he suggested. “And Ravenel. He helps most gladly when you need him, doesn't he? Either or both of them would be delighted for you to take some time away from the gallery.”

“I've taken time off. Two days within the week.”

“For Ashley, not for yourself.” His hand tightened in her hair, with a need to shake her lofty composure, to kindle the leap of excitement he'd seen. “How long has it been since you've put the shackles of the world behind you?”

“That's impossible,” she said unsteadily, a wistful note in her tone.

He hadn't looked away from her, he didn't now. His voice was low, intimate. “Nothing is impossible, and what better place to prove it than under sail with only the sea and the sky to hold you?”

“Don't, Jeb.” Her hand closed over his wrist, a balance for the dizzy rush of desire that set her head spinning. He was seducing her, making her ache for things she couldn't have. For peace, for quiet, for space. For him.

His only answer was a smile, and Nicole realized he knew what he was doing. It was all part of a calculated plan. A swift, angry flush swept over her. She didn't like to be teased or manipulated.

Abruptly, she stepped away from him, taking his hand from her hair as she did. Her fingers caught for an instant in the bracelet at his wrist, twisting as she released him. At eye level the name engraved on the underside of the gold band leapt out at her.

Brett. A name that could belong to a man or a woman. But Nicole knew it could only be a woman.

A lover?

She was surprised at how much it hurt that there had been other women in his life. It was absurd to be so vulnerable and so naive. Jeb was a virile man, certainly far from ascetic. Two lives had changed since he'd been kind to a shy misfit. As she had assured Annabelle, he was her friend, no more. She'd had no claims on him then, and none now. Yet jealousy usurped anger.

Stepping briskly away, she turned her back on him. “We've wasted enough time with this. I have work to do.”

She'd hoped he would take that as her final word, but Jeb had other ideas. He leaned against Annabelle's desk, propped one foot over the other and crossed his arms over his chest with the air of a man who'd settled in for the duration. Or until he got what he wanted.

“What do you have to do that's so pressing, Nicole?”

“This!” She waved a hand that encompassed the gallery. “This is what is so pressing. It's my livelihood. What I do.”

“You can do it just as well Monday. Better, even, after you've taken some time off.”

“Jeb...”

“It's a beautiful day.”

“Beautiful days aren't unusual in Charleston.”

“The water's calm, the wind is perfect.”

“You said that.”

Jeb ignored the caustic rejoinder. “Is there anything on the agenda for the rest of the day that Annabelle or your temporary help can't handle?”

“It isn't their gallery, they shouldn't have to handle the agenda.”

“There's nothing,” Annabelle chimed in for the first time. She had seen a masterful charmer at work, but Nicole wasn't cooperating. One look at the stiff, straight back told a story of a hardfought battle. At the risk of having her head handed to her, and perhaps her severance pay, the chief assistant of the gallery decided to give one tiny nudge in the proper direction. “There's not much on tap for today, since this has been our slowest week on record.”

“I know that, Annabelle.” Nicole didn't spare her a glance.

“Then you know there's absolutely no reason you shouldn't accept Jeb's gracious invitation. A run down the coast may be exactly what you need.”

“It isn't fair to ask you to cover for me again,” Nicole said through her teeth.

“You aren't asking. I'm volunteering.”

“There's Hunter's display to be done.” Nicole was casting about for excuses.

“Which has you confounded, and which Ravenel can do with his eyes closed.” Annabelle was reminding her, in not so subtle fashion, that in her current preoccupied state, she was less than useless. “Who knows, we might get something done around here if you weren't underfoot for a while.”

“Underfoot!”

Jeb chuckled softly. “Sweetheart, I think you've just been thrown out of your own shop.”

“But...”

“Hey.” He straightened to his full height, and with a quick move he curled a hand about her arm. “You've been given a day off. A day you need, accept it gracefully.”

“I don't need a day off.” She sounded petulant even to herself, and she wondered who she was fighting, herself or Jeb. She wondered why.

“Yes, you do.” There was laughter in his voice as he caught the scent of victory. “What better way to spend it than sailing with me?”

“What better way, indeed,” Nicole murmured startling herself with abrupt capitulation. From the beginning she'd known there was nothing she'd wanted more than to go sailing with him. To feel the lazy rocking of the sea beneath her, and the sun on her skin. She wanted to learn more about Jeb, and a woman called Brett.

“Good girl.” He tousled her hair as he had long ago, and grinned. “Say thank-you kindly to the nice lady, and go get your things. The
Gambler
‘s in the harbor, ready and waiting.”

“I don't have anything to wear sailing.” Her look swept over the classic shantung. “This isn't quite the proper dress if I'm going to play at being an old salty.”

“Not to worry.” He tapped her on the nose, letting the pad of a finger trace the path of the scar. “I have some things on board that should fit.”

Nicole wondered if these things so casually mentioned belonged to Brett.

“I hope you're hungry. There's a basket of food on board as well.”

“The
Gambler
‘s at harbor in Charleston, with clothing and food at the ready?” Nicole wrinkled her nose at him and the scar nearly disappeared. “You were pretty sure of me, weren't you?”