Heart of the Hunter Page 4

  She couldn’t tell him she was glad when she saw him at her gate, because hiding was truly not her way. She was a fighter. No matter how fierce or how frightening, she’d learned to face her problems. Those she couldn’t conquer, she lived with in peace.

  She couldn’t tell him that when he smiled at her, she wondered if there would ever be peace in her life again.

  No, she couldn’t tell him.

  Drawing a long breath, with a wobbly smile, she took his hand. “I’m glad you’re here, because you were the best friend I ever had, and I’ve missed you.”

  She didn’t wait for a reply as she led him down the walk.

  With his hand in hers, Jeb went warily with her to her home. Hoping she was as innocent as she seemed, but brutally conscious it could mean his life, if she weren’t.

  There was caution in every guarded step he took, his darting gaze probing, seeking, finding nothing. The courtyard was small and open and, even filled with plants, it offered no place to hide. Like the courtyard, the piazza was capable of no surprises. The house, a Charleston single, so called because its rooms were arranged in a single row with one opening into the next, was a different matter.

  Guardedly, hand itching for the pistol holstered at his ankle, he stepped into the welcoming cool of the first room. The door, another creation of wood and leaded glass, and as striking as that of the gallery, closed at his back with a muted thud. At that moment, as if minding its manners and waiting for a cue, the storm broke with the pent-up fury of a rabid animal.

  Ready to move if he must, however he must, Jeb stood barely inside, eyes searching corners of the room and peering through an open door to the next. Watching for shadows that were more than shadow. Listening for sounds of treachery masked by the clatter of rain on the copper clad roof.

  Body taut, shoulders rigid, he waited for an attack that never came.

  At her look of askance at his stillness, his strange silence, he shrugged and tried to ignore the sweat on his palm, the burning spot in the center of his chest. “Sorry.” His lips quirked in a lazy grin, his eyes were flat, watchful. “I was admiring the room. I don’t know what I expected, but I like it. It’s pleasing, comfortable. You must enjoy it.”

  That much was true. Nicole had blended antique furnishings with modern, light woods with dark. Another time, under different circumstances, the effect would’ve, indeed, been pleasing, a comfort when one needed it. Only someone who loved it could have made it so perfect.

  “I’ve read about the Charleston single, its history, the practicality of its architecture, but I’ve never seen one.” He lifted an apologetic brow, as if he were hesitant to ask. But one way or another, he would see the rest of the house. He had to be certain Tony Callison did not lie in wait for either of them. “May I?”

  Nicole was bewildered by the request. Jeb’s field in college had been history, but he’d been an indifferent student, far more interested in the height of the surf than his studies. But that was a long time ago, a lot had changed, and she knew very little about him now. What he’d done with his life. What profession he’d finally chosen, and what circumstances brought him to the Carolina coast and Charleston.

  “Of course.” She heard the hint of surprise in her voice, and chided herself that, indifferent or not, history had been his interest, and what place was more deeply steeped in it than Charleston? “This is a typical single, though a bit small if one considers the number of rooms, rather than their size. At the moment there are only three in use. This one, the bedroom, beyond it a study with bath and dressing room incorporated. The upstairs is storage for the gallery.”

  As she spoke, she led him through the house, explaining the lack of closets, the towering ceiling. One room after another, upstairs and down, never more than a pace behind, Jeb rifled her home with his searing gaze.

  When the tour was ended, he knew she hadn’t lied. She was alone. Tony Callison had not hidden in a murky corner, beneath stacks of stored paintings, nor in the crowded antique chifforobe. Only a mouse could have hidden in the uncomplicated house, and from the gleaming orderliness, he doubted a sensible mouse would be tempted.

  “As you’ve probably discovered, the Charleston single was primarily situated so the doors could be opened to the ocean, to let its breezes pass directly through. In our era of air-conditioning, position wouldn’t matter so much.” Nicole faltered in her stilted, impromptu lecture. Throughout the tour she suspected he wasn’t listening. That his mind was on something else, not the house in which he’d professed such interest. “Jeb, are you sure you really wanted to see and hear all this?”

  He smiled down at her, aware that she’d led him back to her bedroom, and that it smelled of jasmine. “I really wanted to see and hear all of it.”

  Nicole shook her head. This grew more and more curious. He wanted to see, yet he’d been distracted, less intent on historical characteristic than personal. She could almost think he wanted to see the house simply because it was hers. And that made even less sense.

  “Why?” She asked the question she hadn’t intended. “I mean, I don’t understand your interest.”

  “Don’t you, Nicole?” He took her hand in his. Her fingers were slender and smooth. When he had expected nails like rapiers, hers were short and practical. Nails that belonged on busy, useful hands. Hands that toiled.

  He wondered if the plants that bloomed in summer’s profusion about the house were as much the fruition of her labor as this room. Her bedroom. A woman’s room, yet one that would welcome a man and give him comfort.

  He wondered, and when he looked into her clear, lovely gaze, he wondered more.

  “Does it surprise you that I would want to discover all there is to know about an old friend? What you’ve done with your life, and why. What you want for the future.” His voice sank to a murmur. “When I came to Kiawah, I didn’t expect to find such a beautiful woman there. Now that I have, I want to know everything.”

  “Kiawah?” Her hand convulsed in his. “How did you know I live on Kiawah? In fact, how did you know that I was here?” By here she meant the single tucked so perfectly and unobtrusively in its quiet little alley. He’d walked only by chance into her gallery, yet he knew so much about her.

  A slip, Jeb realized grimly. The sort he rarely made, but not as bad as it could have been. Next time he might not be so lucky. Next time he might lose himself completely in that exquisite gaze.

  But there wouldn’t be a next time. There couldn’t.

  “I know because I asked,” he answered with a casualness he didn’t feel. A deceptively straightforward answer that left out who and why. “How better to find you?”

  Nicole laughed then. A lot was still unexplained, but for the first time, he sounded almost like the old Jeb. Direct, to the point, never taking refuge in social convention. Truthful to a fault.

  She still wasn’t sure how she should deal with this handsome fantasy from her past. But, for the moment, she wouldn’t deal, she would simply enjoy.

  A shutter caught by the wind ripped free and banged against a window. In a whirl of skirts Nicole rushed to the great room in time to see it tumble across the lawn. “Oh, dear. Annabelle will never let me forget this. She’d been reminding me for weeks that I needed to repair that shutter. But with the sale and all it entailed, I never seemed to get to it.”

  Jeb moved to stand behind her, her subtle perfume filling his lungs as he looked over her shoulder to the courtyard. “Any damage?”

  Nicole smoothed her hair behind her ear. “None that really matters. The window didn’t break. That’s a stroke of luck I don’t deserve. It was and, no thanks to me, still is an original set in when the house was constructed during the Antebellum Age. So you see, it survived a great deal. Even my carelessness.”

  “I don’t imagine you were the first in a hundred years to forget.”

  Nicole chuckled. “No, I don’t imagine so.”

  Turning, she found herself close to him. Too close. His very nearness took h
er breath away. He was larger now. Broader, harder. The tensile strength of youth had become the rugged, overwhelming power of maturity.

  Strength, power, memories—a heady combination. Dangerous. So dangerous.

  Instinctively she lifted a hand to his chest. To hold him away? To brace herself? She didn’t know which. She couldn’t think. There was only his heart beating beneath her palm.

  An unconscious need made her look up, into the face that had changed so much, and yet so little. There were strands of silver in his golden hair, and crinkles around his eyes. But their color was still so like the sea he loved, the dark, rich gray, when the surf would fly.

  His skin was weathered, with the look of a sailor’s tan. His mouth was...

  She wouldn’t let herself be fascinated by his mouth.

  Taking a step back, she gained the space she needed desperately. To breathe. To gather her scattered wits. To calm her jangled nerves. A shaking hand clenched at her side as she struggled for the dignity to play the gracious hostess. Slowly, one long breath at a time, she found the grace. “I believe I would like a glass of wine, to celebrate an unbroken window.” Her smile was genial, a little mischievous, and only she knew it was complete bravado. “Would you join me?”

  He wanted to reach for her, to clasp her wrists and bring her back to him, but he dared not. It was too soon, and something had disturbed her. Just when she’d begun to relax, a strange look flickered in her eyes, her wonderful changeable eyes, and she had drawn away.

  She wasn’t going to be easy. But nothing about Nicole had ever been.

  Jeb flexed a tired shoulder, and only then realized how tense he was. Tony Callison was nowhere around, and still he was as taut and grim as death. Was it any wonder she was disturbed? “I’d like very much to join you, Nicole.” He returned her smile ruefully. “Maybe a glass of wine is what we both need.”

  She showed him to a small table that looked out at the courtyard, before folding back the screen that concealed a minuscule kitchen alcove. With nervous moves she collected a decanter and slender goblets, setting them on a tray with a plate of benne seed wafers. The day had been a roller coaster, with one sensation after another tearing at her. When she sat across from him, sipping wine the taste and color of peaches, she was still skittish. Vulnerable.

  Vulnerable enough to make thoughtless mistakes, to tell the truth when she meant to lie.

  “So tell me, why were you so surprised to see me today?” Jeb turned his glass on the table, his fingers spinning the delicate stem as he watched the undulations of the rosy liquid against crystal. Lifting his head, he met her gaze. “Didn’t you know I would come?”

  Rain drummed on the roof and dripped from the eaves. Blooms flanking the garden wall bowed drenched heads to the ground. Lightning flashed, turning the courtyard neon bright, and the low lament of thunder faded before she answered. “I wasn’t sure you would want to, not when you had time for second thoughts.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Jeb took her glass from her, folding her hand into his.

  “Have you forgotten what an awful pest I was? You could hardly turn around without tripping over me.”

  “Was that you?” Jeb grimaced in mock surprise. “I thought it was my shadow.”

  “Sure, with wild, shaggy hair, and glasses perched eternally on the end of her nose. Its nose.”

  Jeb reached across the table to slide a finger beneath a lock of her hair, tucking it behind her ear as he’d seen her do. He remembered when he used to ruffle it to a tousled mass. Now it was sleek, smooth, silky to his touch. “Nothing this beautiful could ever have been ugly.”

  “I refuse to show you the photographs that would prove you wrong.”

  Ignoring her disclaimer, he tapped her nose. “I have to admit I never knew what a shame it was to hide this under those heavy glasses. And your eyes? You can’t expect me to believe I’m the first man to tell you how wonderful they are.”

  “Contacts.”

  “No, Nicky, not the contacts. Your eyes. You.”

  Nicole muttered a derisive non sequitur and tried to take back her hand. He refused, holding her fast as he leaned back in his chair, looking at her as a man would look at a beautiful woman. As she’d always wanted him to look at her.

  His thumb stroked the rushing pulse at her wrist. There was tenderness in his eyes, and in his smile.

  “Friends?” he asked softly.

  The rain slowed, then stopped. It was so quiet she could almost believe there was only this. A quiet little world, no fears, no demons. One woman. One man.

  Jeb.

  Over their linked fingers she smiled back at him, her eyes never leaving his. As softly as he, she murmured, “Yes.”

  Then she laughed, a happy sound. Perhaps it was because he called her Nicky. Or the outrageous compliments. Or that he’d been kind.

  Or even that for no reason at all, she simply wanted to laugh.

  Three

  Live oaks whispered in the wind. Somewhere across the bay a halyard rapped against an aluminum mast. Ships creaked with the tide, straining against their mooring. The marina had bedded down, the most dedicated reveler long in his bunk. Beneath the familiar clatter a profound stillness gathered in the hours that belonged to the night.

  Jeb sat in the darkness, head back, eyes closed, listening to the distant crash of the surf. Below deck Mitch Ryan groused softly to himself as he finished an unexpected chore.

  He would have helped with the chore, even welcomed mind-numbing labor. But Mitch had cast an appraising look over him, then said no. And Jeb was left to his thoughts.

  Damnable thoughts he couldn’t escape.

  “Done!” Mitch stepped onto the deck, scrubbing his hands with a cloth reeking of oil. “Good as new.” Dragging a match over a brad on his jeans, he stared at its flaring, charring head then dropped it down the globe of a hurricane lamp. In a second he was sprawled in a chair with a groan that welcomed the easing of cramped muscles.

  Neither of them spoke as fire hissed and coughed, flickered, then caught the wick in a spurt of yellow flame. The light was a feeble pinpoint beneath a lightless canopy, yet enough that Jeb saw fatigue etched on the younger man’s haggard features. The utter weariness his nonchalance couldn’t mask.

  This little difficulty with the engine hadn’t taken long. Not for Mitch. Never for Mitch, who knew engines—cars, boats, any sort—as well as he knew people. The problem was timing, that it had come at the close of a twenty hour day. Jeb suspected there had been and would be more such days.

  “Have you slept?” he asked almost to himself, more thoughtful observation than question. “Do you ever sleep, Mitchell Ryan?”

  Mitch looked up, his auburn hair stained by sweat. Eyes like sherry, strained and irritated by engine fumes, locked with gray. “Do you, Cap?” His question, as Jeb’s, was little more than a thought spoken aloud. “Have you?”

  Jeb settled deeper into his chair. After a while he sighed and shrugged. He hadn’t slept. He wondered when he would again.

  He’d returned from Charleston, then spent the evening searching through Nicole’s dossier looking for something he might have missed. Anything that would explain her.

  An hour past midnight Simon had called, and his last hope for sleep was gone. Tony Callison had killed again.

  A little girl. Thirteen, pretty, quiet. A dedicated student, a long-distance runner training for varsity track. A child much loved, with a lot to live for. Julie, who was never late. Julie, the paradigm of dependability. Julie, too kindhearted to worry her disabled father. He reported her missing at eight o’clock in the evening, two hours after she should have returned from her daily run.

  An hour later a local deputy found her.

  Julie Brown was dead.

  Word spread. Telephones rang. Julie Brown was news.

  Before the avid eyes of the world, tragedy visited the rural midwestern community. Needless tragedy, savage, cruel, the likes of which it had never known. And, if God were kind, would nev
er know again.

  Thirteen! The number echoed in Jeb’s mind. A knell of sadness for a life hardly begun, ended on a hot summer evening in a shriveling cornfield. A sweet child, tossed aside like a cast-off rag doll, with a cheap, gaudy sun-face medallion draped over a naked, pubescent breast.

  The face of the sun. A celestial icon, once the cachet embraced by a close-knit band of surfers. Spoiled and arrogant college kids fancying themselves unique, the self-appointed sons of Apollo, wearing the medallion to prove it.

  A symbol of self-centered indulgence and childish narcissism.

  Jeb’s lay tarnishing in some forgotten box in a dusty attic.

  ...when I became a man, I put away childish things.

  But one had not. For Tony Callison this symbol of foolish young men had become a signature for murder.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

  “What?” Jeb jerked back from the black maw of memory.

  Mitch glanced at Jeb’s clenched hands. “To lose a friend.”

  “I lost him a long time ago.”

  “I know.” Mitch ignored the bitterness. “But for a while, he was more than just a friend. He was a good friend.”

  Jeb hesitated, then agreed. “The best.” The admission rose out of regret.

  “What was he like?”

  The sloop rocked with the lazy undulations of the water, a rope scrubbed against a cleat, and Jeb pondered. How did he explain Tony? Could he?

  He began with the truth, as he knew it. “Tony could have been any of us, yet, at the same time he was different, one of a kind. He was wild, funny, nearly as intelligent as his sister, and a charming rogue in the bargain. Whatever he did was always on a grander scale. He was the ‘baddest’ boy, flirting with danger. Skirting the edge, closer than any of the rest of us dared, yet he was never beyond redemption. At least not until the last.

  “He had the charisma bad boys do. Women and men were drawn to him. Young, old and in between, they loved him.” Jeb flexed his fingers, then closed them again into a fist. “I loved him. We were rivals and friends, and brothers. The sons of Apollo.”