Lover in the Rough (7 page)

“The next time we have lobster,” he said, “we’re going to be alone.”

“Are my table manners that bad?” she asked, only half joking.

“No”—softly—“it’s just that I’d like to lick your fingers for you.”

Reba felt the new yet increasingly familiar sensation of heat and wires tightening inside her body. “Chance Walker,” she breathed, “you are the most incredibly
unbridled
male.”

His laugh did nothing to deny her words. “Finish your lobster. I enjoy watching an unbridled female eat.”

“I’m not unbridled,” she muttered, “and you haven’t answered all of my first question.”

“Peru, Venezuela, Alaska, Madagascar, Chile, Australia, Brazil, Northwest Territories, Sri Lanka, Burma, Colorado, California, Africa, Montana, Japan, Afghanistan, Nevada, St. John’s Island, Columbia, Finland and the Veil of Kashmir. Some of them more than once and not necessarily in that order.”

She gave him a narrow-eyed cinnamon glare. He smiled and took a sip of the pale gold wine.

“You asked where I’ve lived since I was born,” he said reasonably, setting down his wine glass. “I admit I might have left out a place or two.” He shrugged. “A few weeks here and there hardly count.”

“What did you do after you left Lightning Ridge?”

“Which time? Seems like I’ve been leaving Lightning Ridge as long as I can remember.”

“The time your sister took you out of the jungle.”

“I gouged opals for a while. Glory worked and tried to teach me that there was more to life than fighting and drinking and whores.”

“You weren’t even fifteen!” said Reba, appalled.

“I’d been doing a man’s work since I was ten. I’d been man-sized since I was thirteen. But I grew up long before then,” Chance said, his voice quiet and hard. “There’s no such thing as a child in the jungle. Only survivors.”

“Where is your family now?”

“Glory is married.” He smiled slightly. “A prospector came to Lightning Ridge, took one look at her, and swore he’d found the only woman he’d spend his life with. She laughed the first time he said it. Then she walked out with him into the desert. When they came back she was his woman. It was that fast”—he snapped his fingers—“and as permanent as the mountains. I never understood what came over either one of them, until ten days ago.”

Reba looked up from her lobster suddenly, but Chance’s face was turned so that shadows from the tabletop light concealed his eyes.

“My father,” continued Chance, his eyes still hooded by shadows, “is somewhere in Africa, I think, looking for blue garnets.”

“There’s no such thing,” said Reba, wiping her fingers on a napkin and pushing aside her plate. Not a scrap of lobster remained.

“You know that and I know that, but Dad? No way. He’s got a map.” Chance laughed harshly.

“Is your mother with him?”

Chance signaled the waiter to remove their plates. Reba waited for Chance to answer, then realized that he wasn’t going to. “Is that one of the things you don’t talk about?” she asked quietly.

Chance paid the check in silence. When they reached her car all he said was, “Do you have to go back right away?”

Reba thought of what waited for her at the Objet d’Art—phone calls from museums and collectors and reporters hungry for a new lead on an old scandal—Jeremy and a woman fifty years younger. The thought made her mouth flatten and turn down. She had worked relentlessly in the weeks since Jeremy’s death, weeks when Tim and Gina had urged her to take time off. Now, all Reba cared about was doing Jeremy’s book and learning more about the baffling, fascinating man who stood very close to her, not quite touching her, waiting for her answer.

At the moment, there was nothing more she could do with the book. The man, however . . .

“Do you like the beach?” Reba asked.

“Is that one of your twenty questions?” Chance countered, smiling. Then, “I’ve spent so much time in the deserts of the world that water fascinates me. Even when I can’t drink it,” he added whimsically.

“There’s a private beach nearby. Well, not really private,” she admitted. “No beach in southern California is private enough to satisfy me. But you can sit there and listen to the waves without being surrounded by people.”

“Sounds good,” said Chance, opening the door to her red BMW for her. “I’m not used to being in the middle of two million people.”

He tucked her into the car, settled himself in the passenger seat, and turned to watch as she threaded the BMW skillfully through the heavy traffic headed toward the freeway.

“Nice,” he said softly as she downshifted going into a curve and the car responded with a well-mannered growl of power. “I’d forgotten how much fun a smooth road and a good car can be. Where I’ve been, a twenty-year-old Land Rover is the local equivalent of a limousine.”

“Want to drive?”

“Maybe on the way back. Right now, I’m having too much fun watching you.”

Reba glanced over at Chance quickly and saw that he meant what he said. She smiled at him, glad that he wasn’t one of those men who had to be in the driver’s seat no matter whose car it was. She had bought the BMW because it was a machine for people who enjoyed driving. There were flashier cars on the road, more expensive cars, more powerful cars, but there were few that could equal her car in sheer driving pleasure.

A few minutes later, having been ushered by a guard through an iron gate, she cruised the lot looking for the right place to park. Finally she pulled in between a Mercedes 450 SL and a glittering black Ferrari. Chance, who had said nothing when she passed up parking slots closer to the beach, looked at her inquiringly.

“First rule of southern California driving,” said Reba. “Never park next to a car that’s in worse shape than yours.” She gestured to the expensive cars on either side of her. “This is one time I’m sure the people parked next to me will be as careful of their paint jobs as I am of mine.”

“City survival skills,” he said admiringly. “I’d never have thought of it.”

Reba got out, unlocked the trunk and pulled out a faded beige comforter. Chance raised a dark eyebrow.

“Another city survival skill?” he asked. “Do you do this often?”

The cool distance in his tone made her turn and stare at him. “Do what?”

“Bring a man and a blanket to a
private
beach.”

For an instant Reba was too surprised to react. Anger flushed her cheeks. She threw the comforter back in the trunk, slammed down the lid and spun around, obviously intending to get back in her car. Chance moved with startling speed, cutting her off by caging her against the side of the BMW. She faced him with narrow eyes. He ignored her efforts to push past him, keeping her prisoner with an ease that infuriated her.

“Let me go,” she said curtly.

“After you answer my question.”

“What in hell was your question?”

“If not Tim, then who?”

“Who what?”

“Who is your man?”

Reba stared at Chance, too surprised to speak.

“A woman like you just doesn’t run around loose,” he said, the words clipped, all trace of a drawl gone.

“This one does.”

“Why?” he asked bluntly.

It was the question she hadn’t wanted to answer. Anger helped, though. And she was angry. “No man has ever wanted me,
just me
. They always wanted other things. A perpetual wide-eyed student-virgin in my former husband’s case. After him, most of the men I met just wanted a bedwarmer and ego builder. Nothing special about it. Any woman would do. Then later, after I had worked hard and Jeremy had taught me so much, there was a new wrinkle. Men wanted my connections or my money. Not just me, though. Never just
me
.”

It wasn’t an easy thing to admit. The anger and humiliation in Reba transmitted itself to Chance. His hands gentled, moving slowly over her arms, savoring her warmth beneath the black silk sleeves.

“I’m not like your ex-husband,
chaton
,” he murmured. “I’ve never been interested in virgins.”

Reba stared through Chance, refusing to see him, waiting only to be released.

“Look at me,” Chance demanded in a rough voice. “Do you think I’m like the other men you’ve known?”

Her eyes focused on him, clear and hard. “No,” she said coolly, “I don’t. You don’t seem to want any of the usual things from me. I doubt that your bed is ever cold unless you want it that way. You’re too self-confident to need me to build your ego, and I suspect that there’s damn little I could teach you about the gem trail that you don’t already know. As for money—”

He stood very still, searching her eyes, his face tense. “As for money,” he said harshly, “I have enough. Or don’t you believe me?”

“I don’t care,” she said simply. “You didn’t know who I was in Death Valley, and you wanted me then. That’s why I trusted you so much, so quickly. You didn’t know me but you helped me, held me . . . and then you kissed me. You wanted
me
. That never had happened to me before.” She looked at his face, hard and very male, black hair like a sleek, softly curling pelt, his eyes a silvergreen unlike any gem she could name, his mouth firm and yet so sensual it was all she could do not to stand on tiptoe until she could feel his lips moving across hers. She looked away. “I’ve answered your question. Now let me go.”

“I can’t,” he said, bending down until his mouth was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath. “What happened in Death Valley was like walking down a dry streambed and finding a hundred-carat diamond blazing in the sun. The thought of you sharing that incredible fire with someone else made me angry.” Chance laughed abruptly. “Let me rephrase that. Now that I know you, the thought of any man but me touching you makes me killing mad. It’s not rational or polite or pretty. It simply
is
.”

Reba looked up at Chance again. There wasn’t anything in his eyes that comforted her now. Tiger God, burning bright. As she sensed the wildness seething beneath his control, something deeply buried in her stirred and stretched, awakening. When she spoke her voice was soft and very certain. “I don’t want any man but you to touch me.”

Slowly the tension left Chance’s body. Muscles that had stood out against his soft shirt became supple again rather than rigid. Without holding her, he kissed her gently, brushing his lips over hers until her mouth softened and her breath sighed out. When his tongue touched hers, he made a sound deep in his throat. He pulled her close, holding her as though she were water slipping through his fingers and he must drink now or be forever thirsty.

When he finally lifted his mouth, both of them were breathing raggedly. “If you’ll share your beach with me,” he said in a husky drawl, “I’ll promise to behave.”

“You won’t have any choice. The beach really isn’t
that
private.”

As he turned to get the comforter out of the trunk again, her voice stopped him.

“Chance . . .”

He looked over his shoulder.

“This is the first time I’ve come here with anyone.”

“I know.” He smiled crookedly. “I used to think that the old saying about green eyes and jealousy wasn’t true. I was wrong. I just hadn’t found anything worth being jealous of.”

Chance opened the trunk, draped the comforter over his shoulder and took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. The subtle roughness of his palm, like his total alertness to movement around him, was a reminder of what his life had been like. He was a man who had lived and worked in harsh places. It showed in everything about him, even the texture of his skin. Yet for all that, there was nothing coarse about him. She had met men who had offended her with their crudeness, men who had never set foot on anything more uncivilized than a sandtrap at the local country club. Chance was not like that. Beneath his harsh surface he had the clean, brilliant strength of a diamond.

They walked a few steps before Reba remembered. “Shoes,” she said quickly, heading back to the car, pulling him along behind.

Chance watched in silent amusement while she kicked off her high-heeled black shoes. “I was going to say something about them but you seemed to know what you were doing.”

“You have a distracting effect on me,” she said lightly, tossing her shoes in the trunk.

Smiling, he took off his own shoes and socks. Then he held out his hand. She laced her fingers through his again, amazed at how natural it seemed to be standing barefoot in a parking lot with him, holding his hand.

She led him past the rumpled main beach where women lay in scented oils and designer swimsuits, carefully made-up eyes closed against southern California’s potent early spring sun. Children too young to be in school swooped and screamed with laughter, chasing waves and seagulls with equal abandon. The water was cold and unusually calm. Long, low waves curled over lazily, as though unwilling to make the effort to break with their usual thunder and flashing spray.

The tide was out, leaving behind a damp ribbon of packed sand. Chance followed Reba along the margin of the land and the sea, watching her gracefully find a way among the rocks scattered at the base of the headland that defined the north end of the beach. The headland had eroded into a series of fingerlike projections. Between the fingers nestled tiny, protected patches of sand no bigger than an apartment patio. Reba kept going until she found the miniature beach that was farthest away from other people.

“We’ll have to keep an eye on the tide,” she said as Chance spread out the comforter for them to sit on, “but we should get an hour of peace.”

“That’s why you come here, isn’t it? Peace.”

She looked past him to the immense sapphire sea shimmering beneath the sun. “I spend so much time with people,” she said quietly. “When that and the noise and the telephone get to me, I sneak down here to be alone.”

“Except today.”

She turned to him, surprised.

“You’re not alone,” he said.

She smiled. “I don’t mind. I have lots of questions to ask. Nineteen, to be precise.”

“Sixteen,” corrected Chance.

“Who’s counting?” asked Reba innocently.

Chance groaned and sank down onto the comforter. He sat cross-legged, looking up at her. His thick moustache didn’t disguise the essential hardness of his tanned face or the sensual sculpting of his mouth. Behind the startling silver-green of his eyes was a mind that weighed everything on a scale as old as life. Survival. Despite his expensive clothes and indulgent smile, he looked as though he had been born out of the restless movements of the earth. There was an intensity to Chance Walker that was compelling, a dynamic balance of opposites—distance and intimacy, danger and safety, excitement and release—that shifted with each moment.