Heart of the Hunter (19 page)

“My, my, my, you do have the magic touch. Old Jeb must've purred. Let's get him over here, I'd like to ask him what it was like. Call him.”

She settled back on her heels, one hand touching Ashley. Eyes so similar collided, one pair dead, cold, the other just as cold, but alive and unyielding. “No!”

“That's your favorite word, isn't it? Except with Mr. Golden Boy. You had a crush on him way back, it's a little more now, huh?” He prodded her with the gun. She looked away rigidly. He turned her back with the barrel at her cheek. “Call him.”

“Don't be a fool, you don't need Jeb here. I'm all you need.” The same old verse, but this time he didn't listen.

With the metallic sight he traced a cruel line along the path of the scratch, opening the newly healed flesh. Blood trickled on her robe. “Call him.”

She jerked away from the cold, oily feel of the gun. Her look lashed out with all that seethed inside her. “No.”

A blow spun her around. If it had been with the gun, her face would have split open, his open hand only bruised. “Call.”

“There's no need to call. I'm here.” Jeb stepped through the door left open when Tony dragged Ashley from the deck. His hands were empty, raised. “If you touch her again, I'll kill you with my bare hands.”

A promise, not a threat, made in a flat voice. A matter of fact, as inevitable as the rising sun. Only a fool wouldn't have believed.

Blood dripped from Nicole's cheek, falling over Ashley's grubby shirt. In the shaded light of the lamp it glittered like black oil. Every drop hurting Jeb.

Stay down, Nicky.

He didn't look at her as he eased his arms down. He couldn't take the risk. “You wanted me here, Tony, now I am. So?”

The laugh. Something not quite human from a husk that had been a human being. The sound filled Jeb with loathing, and with dread. His last, slim hope to end this without disaster or tragedy fled. The tragedy was already here. It stood before him in the guise of a man who had been his friend.

Tony sobered, the gun pointed steadily at Jeb. “Since this is my little sister, I wanted a look at the man who'd been—”

“Don't say it.” Jeb's deadly command cut him off before the vulgarity spilled out.

“Ahh, you want flowery phrases for it do you? To make it all nice and proper. Maybe you should ask Nicole's fool here just how nice and proper both of you are.”

Tony was goading him, wanting him to make a move. It made about as much sense as floating a cork in a hurricane. Jeb looked into the familiar face, reading what experience had taught him was there. The confidence, the arrogance. In Tony's convoluted thoughts, he'd gotten to Nicole clean. No one had seen him. Jeb's coming was coincidence, and he'd come alone. Just dropping by at the late hour, hoping to catch her in bed so he might join her.

The lust a brother imagined, turned to blood lust. So he goaded Jeb to make a fatal move.

Tony was offtrack, irrational, spoiling his chances of escape to feed an unholy craving. And that much more unpredictable.

They weren't likely to leave this room without bloodshed. Blood Tony craved. But Jeb had to try. “You want to leave the country? I'll take you, if you leave Nicole and Ashley.”

“Do I look like a fool? I might take you up on the boat ride, but if I do, my leverage goes with me.” Without taking his eyes from Jeb, he leaned down enough to grab a handful of Nicole's hair. With a vicious twist he dragged her to her feet.

The scream she bit off was for Jeb as he lunged forward, a small weapon, drawn from the back of his belt, in his hand. It wasn't her aborted scream that stopped him, but Tony, for now the muzzle of his gun was pressed with bruising force to her throat.

Jeb backed away, hands up and open, the pistol hooked over his thumb. “Put it away, Tony. You're hurting her.”

“No, you put it away.” With his head, Tony motioned Jeb to toss the gun. “You can't shoot your lover's brother, anyway. Wouldn't make for family harmony. But then, there wouldn't be a family. If you take me down, in that split-second hesitation you worry about her...” The muzzle stabbed deeper into her throat. “Bang!”

Jeb hesitated, looking into Nicole's eyes drawn to slits by the pressure of Tony's grasp.

Be still, Nicky. Don't fight him.

“Do it!” Tony screamed and dragged her back a step, jerking her harder when she tripped over Ashley.

“You win.” Slowly, Jeb bent to lay the gun at his feet.

“Never thought I wouldn't. Now, kick it away.” The gun slid away. Tony laughed. “Get down on your knees.”

Nicole knew what was coming. She knew what Tony meant to do. “No, please.”

“Shh, Nicky. Everything's all right,” Jeb assured as he dropped to the floor.

The gun swung toward him, the hammer was back.

Jeb saw Nicole tense.

Be still, love. Please be still.

“Say goodbye, sugar.” He jerked her hair brutally, twisting her neck at an impossible angle. Blood from the opened scratch flew in spattering dots over the floor and Jeb. And Ashley. The groan she couldn't stifle ripped from her throat. Tony shook her again, and more blood fell.

Jeb saw him move. Muscles bunched, fingers like saplings clutched the knife, and the big body rose from the floor noiselessly, a three-hundred-pound zephyr. There was nothing Jeb could do as Ashley plowed into Tony, but go with him. Launching himself from the floor, he hooked an arm around Nicole's waist. In the deafening roar of gunshots he rolled with her across the floor as a dreadful drama played itself out in brutal vignettes.

A bullet shattered glass.

Jeb shielded Nicole with his body.

Shots.

A scream.

Mitch shouted, he was answered by Matthew.

Ashley fell heavily, brought down too late by Matthew's low tackle.

The blood of a man-child mingled with Jeb's.

A shot.

Tony laughed, then he cried.

Silence.

Footsteps crushed broken glass into the floor. In the acrid smoke, a figure knelt by Tony Callison. He pushed a sun-face medallion aside to search for a pulse at his throat. After a minute his hand lifted to his knee, but he did not rise.

“You thought Jeb couldn't do this, child killer?” Mitch Ryan's whisper barely rippled the silence. “I just beat him to it.”

R
ed light strafed the night, painting leaf and limb and face the color of blood. The tinny voice of a radio babbled from the open door of an ambulance as white-coated figures raced a stretcher down a walk.

A life was slipping away.

Kiawah's gray-shirted security held back the scattering of onlookers as Nicole hurried to the street. At the ambulance door she paused, only a second, but long enough to see the solitary figure, the bloodred shadow that watched from the landing.

“Ma'am.” A chivalrous hand took her arm. A face too young for the skills the mind and hand possessed looked solemnly down at her. “We're ready.”

Nicole turned away from the watchful figure, not sure what she felt, or what she believed. A haze of grief and shock clouded her thoughts as she climbed obediently into the back of the vehicle. Huddling on a jump seat she stared down at her hands as the young man leapt in beside her.

She looked up as he cried, “Go!”

The last face she saw, as the light changed and the ambulance door slammed, was Jeb's.

Sirens moaned. Growled. Built to a banshee howl.

The race against time had begun.

* * *

An unearthly hush lay over the shore. The darkness was lifting, but Jeb didn't notice. He'd stood for more than an hour at the edge of the sea, shoulders slumped, hands deep in his pockets, staring down at the water lapping at his feet. A freshening breeze warned of a storm. Spray flew in a fine mist, plastering his shirt to his chest. Stains ran pink, then red, but he didn't care.

He wondered if he would ever care again.

“Jeb.” As Matthew would with a friend, he warned before he touched. A dark, coppery hand rested on a damp shoulder, gently but urgently. “It's time to go.”

“To the hospital.”

“Dr. Gordon will be waiting.”

“To treat a flesh wound.” Even a stabbing laceration didn't hurt as badly as the look Nicole had given him when she realized how seriously Ashley was injured.

“More than that, and better attended to now than later.”

“How is Ashley?”

“He's in surgery. It looks bad, but he's a strong kid.” Kid. He was a man of fifty years, at least, but Matthew saw only the heart and mind of a child.

“Nicole?”

“Bruised and battered. Grieving for the man her brother was, but not the man who died on Kiawah. Her throat will be sore for some time, her cheek will heal and the scar will fade. Eventually, along with scars of a different sort. Physically, other than that, she's fine. Thanks to you.”

“Sure,” Jeb snarled. “She's lucky to have me in her life.”

“I think so,” Matthew answered mildly.

“Ask her. See if she agrees.”

“Why don't you ask her, Jeb? The answer might surprise you.”

“I don't think either of us believes that.” And brave, tough Jeb Tanner hadn't the guts to risk her answer.

Matthew didn't argue. He saw it was a waste of breath. “Mitch will be finished with the coroner. He'll meet us at the hospital.”

“What arrangements will be made for Tony?”

“What happens after the official investigation will be up to Nicole.”

“Yeah, I suppose it will. Whatever he was when he died, once upon a time, he was her brother.” Jeb shoved his hands deeper in his pockets. “And my friend.”

“No,” Matthew refuted quietly. “The part of him who was her brother and your friend died a long time ago.”

“What remained became a killer.” Jeb faltered, his voice roughened. “He would have killed Nicole.”

“When he didn't need her anymore.”

Jeb nodded. Perhaps neither The Black Watch nor he could be absolved for hurting Nicole, but she never wore the sun-face medallion. She was alive, and one day she would be happy again. He had that to take with him.

“Ready?” Matthew's hand moved from his shoulder.

Jeb looked up at the sky. It would be dawn soon. “Yeah,” he said as he turned his back to the sea. “I'm ready.”

* * *

The hospital was white. The walls were white, the floors, the ceiling, the linens. The stretcher where Jeb lay while a surgeon stitched his forearm had been white.

“That should do it. You lost a lot of blood, would've lost more if Ryan hadn't applied the pressure bandage. But you're a lucky man, Mr. Tanner. Without that bracelet deflecting the blade, this would have severed a couple of tendons, and cost you the use of your fingers. I don't know what sort of work you do, but not many of us can afford the virtual loss of a hand. So there's fortune in your misfortune.” Dr. Gordon, a middle-aged physician who'd seen more misfortune than he ever wanted to, took a prescription pad from his pocket, scratched something on it, scribbled his name at the bottom and ripped it from the pad.

“Knife wounds can be tricky, have this filled at the hospital pharmacy.” He handed the folded paper to Jeb. “Take it easy for a while, until the blood you lost is regenerated, and take this religiously. Even good fortune sometimes needs help.”

“Right.” Jeb sat up, sliding into what was left of his shirt. He hadn't thought to change, now it was too late. He was a walking reminder of the everything Nicole needed to forget. But no help for it now. “Thanks, doc.”

Dr. Gordon peered at him over his glasses. “You won't mind if I don't say ‘any time'?”

Jeb laughed. He hadn't thought he could so soon. “I won't mind.”

Saying he'd walked in, and he would walk out, Jeb refused the offer of a wheelchair and went in search of Nicole. He found her huddled in the corner of a waiting room. Mitch and Matthew were there. A small silent circle, together, but apart. When he appeared at the door, torn and bloodstained, a collective gasp rose from others who waited in their own anxious misery.

Only Nicole didn't look up. Only she didn't react.

Matthew's dark gaze found his, flicked over the bulky bandage at his arm and moved back to Nicole. A touch, a soft word, and he rose, with Mitch following.

Her lips moved in response to their kindness, but Jeb couldn't hear. As Matthew and Mitch passed him, he didn't look away from her bowed head, and only nodded at their parting wish of luck. His luck had run out. One look at her anguish was proof of it.

One by one, others found some urgent need to be somewhere. A bite to eat, a cup of coffee, a cigarette, the need to stretch cramped legs. One by one they drifted away, until there was only the sad, beautiful woman and the wounded, gray-eyed warrior.

“Nicky.” He knelt at her feet, lifting her face with a touch at her chin. Her eyes were dark, as dark as a secret forest, heartache burned in them with a hot, green fire.

“I did this. He trusted me and...” Her voice drifted away, her sins too numerous and too terrible to recount.

“You're wrong.”

“Don't.” She held up a hand warding off his denial and stared blankly at the flickering screen of a television. “Let it be.”

But he couldn't. “If you must condemn someone, why not everyone?” Then one after another he ticked off a multitude of transgressions. Real and imaginary, some intended, others sheer happenstance. “Why not Tony for firing the gun? Mitch for not risking a chancy shot and failing to taken Tony down quicker? Matthew for not finding Ashley's trail? Harry for not checking out the guys he saw near the Ashley river bridge? Maybe he saw Tony and Ashley. Then there's Mrs. Atherton and her vicious gossip. Ashley for believing her. Annabelle for scolding him for believing. And you and I for daring to take a moment for ourselves.”

Jeb paused, drew a rasping breath, and spoke a damning truth. “Most of all, it comes down to me. If it makes it easier to assign guilt, Nicky, consider where it really belongs.”

Nicole turned a stony face to him. Her gaze moved to the bulky bandage at his arm, trailed over the torn shirt marked by his blood and Ashley's. At last her gaze climbed to his face, registering somewhere in her subconscious the fine lines about his eyes, his fatigue and pallor. He'd lost enough blood that he shouldn't be on his feet, but she didn't understand that. Not yet.

“All right,” she said, more to appease him than in belief. “We did this to Ashley. Tony, you and I.” Damning words, words he wanted. But words that weren't true, for she knew who was at fault.

She, only she, had drawn a killer to the island. Only she had disappointed a friend. Only she had fallen in love with Jeb Tanner.

Her tired, shocked mind lost the thread of coherence, skittering away to an impossible dream. “You and I,” she whispered. “Jeb and Nicole.”

He didn't understand, he couldn't. “Nicky...”

“Go away, Jeb,” she interrupted hoarsely. “Don't make this any harder than it is.”

His shoulders tensed as if she'd struck him. He lifted a hand to touch her, then knew he mustn't. “All right, Nicky, if that's what you want.”

Rising, he backed away. He'd come to help, to undo what harm he could. Even that was hopeless. The sooner he was gone from her life, the better. But he couldn't go, yet. She might need him one more time.

He didn't speak to her, or go near her again. A subdued Annabelle arrived, with the laconic Harry in tow. Mitch waited by the door. Matthew was never too far from Jeb's distant seat. An eternity later, a surgeon stepped into the waiting room, searching the expectant faces. When he found Nicole's bleak gaze, he smiled.

Ashley would recover.

Amid the quiet celebration, Jeb slipped away unnoticed. As he left the hospital, the dawn had come and the day had begun.

His work was done. Simon would finish up here, with the aid of the
Gambler
‘s crew.

Time to go.

* * *

There were children playing. He heard their laughter long before he climbed the stairs to the top of the dune. For what seemed the ten-thousand-and-second time, he asked himself why he was here.

He knew why.

Beneath the small shelter that covered the landing, he scanned the shore. It seemed it had been forever since he'd looked out at this sandy beach. Forever since he'd kissed a hurting woman, and held her at the crest of the ruin.

A gull wheeled by, riding a breeze. To the sound of squeals and giggles, a mischievous wave washed away an intricate maze of castles and moats built of sand. A child, a little girl, with hair like a raven's wings, dashed into the surf and was dragged back, laughing and squirming, by an older man.

No, an older kid.

“Ashley.” Jeb discovered he was smiling. Stepping over a wooden railing, and breaking every rule of shoreline conservation, he tramped across the ridge of the dune. In a thicket of sea oats he found a place where he could watch unnoticed. Hunkering down in the sand, he resumed his vigil.

He lost track of time, a rare happening for Jeb. For once, he didn't care. It was hard to care when the self-appointed guardian of the little ones was having the time of his life.

Finally, in the capricious custom of early April, mild midday heat gave way to a threat of rain. Sunbathing mothers, who had been only too comfortable leaving their toddlers in Ashley's care, collected beach sheets, lounge chairs and reluctant children, and scurried away.

It was time Jeb left, as well. He'd seen what he'd come to see, heard what he wanted to hear. For months he'd kept informed from a distance, but he wanted, no, he'd needed to see first hand.

He'd needed to see that Ashley was well and happy. He'd needed to hear the laughter of the woman who sat at the base of the ruin.

He hadn't let himself think of her. After first glance, he hadn't risked a second look. But the image of the familiar, faded swimsuit with its matching shirt was etched indelibly in his memory.

Jeb climbed to his feet, time to go again.

Sand shifted and slid beneath his feet, fine granules stung his face. He looked to the horizon, storm clouds seethed at its edge. A squall was building over the sea.

“Jeb.”

He looked down, surprised that Ashley stood at the base of the dune, but stunned that he remembered. “Hello, Ashley.”

“My beach.” He thumped his bare chest, oblivious of the scar that curved over it. His grin was warm, amiable.

Jeb looked at the ruin. Nicole had left her post. “Sure,” he said softly, “I suppose it should be.”

Ashley launched into a rambling monologue, complete with expansive gestures. Jeb had never heard him so vocal, nor so animated. And he didn't understand a word.

“He's saying thank you, Jeb.”

Nicole had climbed the steps, she stood not an arm's length from him. She'd worn no hat today and her hair was tousled, her skin flushed from the sun, her level gaze was at peace. Her fragrance, blended with the scent of the sea, drifted on the breeze. An intoxicating mix that stirred an old need, one that never really left him.

She was so beautiful, and so close, all he needed to do to draw her into his arms was reach out. His fists clenched on an impulse so strong he barely recalled he'd thrown away the right to hold her.

He'd been fool enough without making a greater one of himself. Pretending that it hadn't been months of agony since he'd seen her, and that Jeb Tanner, master spy, hadn't been caught spying, he asked, “Why would he thank me, Nicky?”

“For the same things I could thank you for. That I
should
have thanked you for months ago. My life and Ashley's. A sense of belonging, at last.” Her gaze swept over him. He looked brawny and healthy, but the fire had gone from him. He seemed jaded and world weary. She missed the zeal, the passion, the smile that turned his harsh features magnificently handsome.

The months since August had been a healing time for her. A time of coming to terms with who she was, and what she was not. She'd learned then to accept what she couldn't change, and to assume only the guilt that was hers.

Her life was better than it had been before, but none of it had been easy. None of it would have been possible without Jeb.