The Royal Hunter

by Donna Kauffman

  “Did Jimmy tell you anything else about what Chamberlain’s plans are?”

  “I didn’t get that information from him.”

  Her composure slipped, just a little. “So is he …? Did you …?”

  “He isn’t dead, if that’s what you’re asking.” She shot him a look of disbelief and he sighed. “What exactly is it I’ve done to give you the impression that I’m a murdering bastard? I’m not saying my chosen profession is an easy one with no risks, or that unfortunate things don’t happen. But if it will soothe your sensibilities, I interrogated Dideon at length. He was under a form of mind control. Baleweg helped me with that. If he got any more out of him, he wasn’t forthcoming to me.”

  “Where is Jimmy now?”

  “Back in his own time. Whoever sent him will deal with his failure. But that doesn’t mean they won’t send another. And another.”

  “Why didn’t you follow him back into your own time, see who he went to, or who came to claim him? Stop the threat directly at the source?”

  Archer gave her a look. “Trust me, that was my plan.”

  The smallest of smiles quirked the corner of her mouth. “You were overruled by Baleweg. So he’s in charge, then. I thought so.”

  He faced her squarely. “Baleweg is in no position to keep you safe. I’m needed here more.” He smiled. “I don’t suppose you feel the same way.”

  He’d expected another frown, a rolling of the eyes at best. What he hadn’t expected was a smile. A real one. And it was a powerful thing.

  Archer knew he’d enjoy the challenge of coaxing more smiles from her. Not those dry smiles when she was being sarcastic, either. He had the odd thought that earning an honest smile from her just now was even more rewarding than the seduction he’d almost begun earlier.

  And that very notion stopped his musing cold. Since when had something as small, as easy, as a smile seemed a worthwhile victory? He really had been in the country too long.

  He did realize that she’d relaxed some, her shoulders dropping, her posture far less defensive. He sensed that she was finally willing to believe in him, in what they were to do.

  “Do you want to ask me questions about what it’s like in my time Talia? It might ease some of your concerns.”

  The flare of awareness that lit her eyes when he’d spoken her name surprised him. Had he never said it before? Possibly not. Because he found he rather liked the sound of it.

  She surprised him by yanking on the door handle and getting out of the truck. “Maybe some other time. I think I’ve had all the mind-expanding I can handle for one day. Perhaps for an entire week. Maybe more.”

  He jumped from the truck, unwilling to let their encounter end so abruptly. He told himself it was because he wanted to further her trust in him, but some part of him was forced to admit he simply didn’t want her to leave yet.

  He caught up to her at the base of the steps. “If I promise to resume my silent bodyguard routine, will you consider the drive? It might be good to take that break.”

  She stopped, but didn’t turn to look at him. That stung him in a way he didn’t fully comprehend. Oh, he was used to being shut out by people who were uncomfortable around him, which could be most anybody on any given day. And that was fine, as it suited his line of work more often than not. When he wanted attention, for whatever reason, he was fairly adept at using his charm to get it. And he did it without thinking twice about it. But he’d earned an honest smile from her … and suddenly playing the calculating charmer no longer suited him.

  “I don’t feel up to a drive anymore,” she said simply, no censure or self-pity in the comment. “I have kennel rounds later and some paperwork that needs to get done. Despite everything, I still have important work to do here. I’m already doing my part to ease the suffering in the world.” She gestured widely. “Here. Where I know I can make a difference.”

  “Talia—”

  But it was too late. She was up the stairs and in the door. It wasn’t until she shut him out, literally, that he realized he’d never found out what had really happened between them back by the pond earlier.

  He turned, and surprisingly there was a smile on his face. He was still stuck here and he couldn’t say he’d made much progress in convincing her to go back with him.

  But he felt good. Pretty damn good, actually. Because something had happened down there by the pond, and in her truck, too. And he intended to figure out exactly what had happened and what it meant. And he was going to accompany Talia on her nightly kennel check, rather than watch her from a distance as he had the night before.

  He didn’t imagine she was going to be pleased with his revised schedule. All the more reason to enjoy himself, he thought, whistling as he made his way around the house for another perimeter check.

  Chapter 7

  Talia watched the two mixed breeds romp around the outdoor play area. The sun was so low she could barely make them out, but she could hear their playful growls as they chased each other. She was fortunate they had proved compatible. It was great for them, not to mention their future owners, to get this kind of workout. Both physically and emotionally.

  She only had twelve dogs kenneled at the moment, the fewest she’d had in months. Four were puppies from an abandoned litter she’d found on the roadside a few weeks ago, barely old enough to have been weaned from the mother. She could only surmise that the mother had been killed in a road accident, or that the owners hadn’t wanted to deal with the unwanted offspring. They weren’t purebred. Part beagle, part terrier was her guess. She didn’t think she’d have too much trouble placing them. They were adorable and had a good temperament for family dogs.

  She looked back at the play yard. The older ones were always harder, but these two were openly loving and playful. One had been half-starved, full of worms, ticks, and fleas when he’d found his way onto her property. The other was a perfectly healthy death-row inmate the pound hadn’t been able to find a home for. Everyone wanted a puppy, or at best a breed that was somewhat determinate. But these two would both make good family dogs. It just took time and time was the one commodity she afforded them.

  She made a mental note to contact the Park Service about the upcoming family fair event they were sponsoring. She’d already put in a request to bring these two, and the puppies, who’d be old enough to adopt at that point. If she was lucky, she’d find suitable candidates for them all and perhaps a few more that day.

  She made another note to contact Mr. Green about the kittens that Stella had brought in from the pound. They were feral and the county would have simply put them down. However, they would make wonderful barn cats, and she had a standing deal with the local agency to alert her to any tough cases they came across. Mr. Green ran a huge dairy farm and was always looking for barn cats to help him keep the mice and rat population down. These little hellions would be perfect.

  There was another cat, a small, shy little tabby, who might be healthy enough to make the trip to the fair, as well. She mentally calculated how many crates she’d need. Stella would have to drive her pickup.

  She took a deep breath and tried to keep from worrying. If she didn’t place them this go-around, she would the next. She wouldn’t think about Archer and his demands on her time … or her future. She’d made a pact with herself that for tonight she’d simply pretend all was normal. At least for a few, blessed hours.

  Right now all she was looking forward to was heading into the house, stealing some of Baleweg’s herb muffins—one high point of having him around was he’d turned out to be a marvelous cook—and sinking into bed with a book. A biography maybe, or something on animal behavior. Definitely not fiction. She was getting enough of that in real life, thank you.

  She whistled for the two dogs, who were wrestling over a stick. She shook the box of dog bones and whistled again, laughing as they immediately dropped the stick and trotted over to her. “Always suckers for a treat, you two.” She tossed them each a small milk bone, then slapped he
r thigh and opened the gate that led to the inside runs. “Come on.” She’d put them next to each other, which seemed to be working out well.

  Once they were safely in for the night, she made the rest of her rounds, checking for tipped-over water and any other possible problems. Satisfied that all was well, if not entirely peaceful, she let herself out the end door.

  “Do the rowdy blodgers ever all sleep at the same time? A fella has a harder time sleeping out here in the middle of nowhere than in the city.”

  Talia let out a little squeal, then swung around to find Archer leaning against the fence.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “How long have you been there?”

  He effortlessly vaulted his rangy body over the top. “Long enough,” he said.

  She didn’t want to know long enough for what. She did know she wasn’t ready to be alone with him again. She had no experience dealing with men like him, not that she could imagine there were other men like him. “Why are you out here?”

  “You didn’t think I was going to let you wander out here in the dark unprotected, did you?”

  He’d made his case for staying and she’d grudgingly admitted to herself, especially after their talk about Dideon and Emrys, that he might be right. But just because she needed his protection, didn’t mean she had to like it. “Well, I’m done now,” she said shortly, “so you can punch the clock.”

  “I beg your pardon? Punch what?”

  She looked to see if he was teasing her, but he appeared serious. “It’s an expression. Means ‘to clock out, punch your time card, stop working for the day.’ ”

  He shrugged. “I don’t punch a clock, as you say. I work as long as there is work to be done.”

  Lovely. A workaholic mercenary. Just what she needed. “Well, you can do what you want. I’m heading in for the night.”

  She glanced up to the house. The left tower-room window glowed. Baleweg was still up. And Archer had taken over the hammock on the porch. She’d offered him one of the other upstairs rooms that first night, when it became clear he was intending to stay along with Baleweg. But he’d told her that the hammock was the best place for him strategically. She’d shrugged and left him to it. Actually, she’d been relieved.

  The idea of Archer under the same roof as herself, even though the house was enormous, was a little too unsettling. Not that knowing he was directly beneath her window had left her feeling all that settled.

  “Don’t you name the little battlers?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  He nodded to the kennel, where the dogs were not so quietly settling in for the night. “The mongrels you so willingly give shelter to. You never call them by name.”

  She definitely didn’t want to get into this discussion. Damn him for being so observant anyway. “I use general terms, like boy, girl, buddy, whatever.”

  “Don’t they tell you their names, then?”

  She looked sharply at him. “They don’t ‘tell’ me anything.”

  He shrugged, not remotely abashed by her reaction. “I don’t claim to understand your gift. Not really.”

  “Gift?” She wanted to laugh at that one. “It’s an ability, nothing more. I thought empaths were commonplace in your time.”

  “Empaths exist, sure. But that doesn’t mean I know all about them or how it works. I don’t happen to know any personally. Until now.”

  Was he asking? She didn’t know how she felt about explaining it to him. It was such a new experience, being treated so naturally. It made her feel oddly vulnerable, probably because he knew more about her, the real her, than anyone, and yet he was a total stranger to her.

  He cocked his head to the side, a grin making his dimple wink at her. “A real battle going on in there.”

  “What?”

  “You really want to believe we’re making all this up.” He took another step closer. “Only maybe, just maybe, the idea that it might be true thrills you a little. Doesn’t it?” He took another step closer, and the air seemed to thicken, even though it was cooler now. “I think you want to believe there is a place where you fit in.” He stopped a mere foot away. “You aren’t all that well understood in this time, are you, Talia?”

  Dear God, did he have to go and use her name like that? There was something about the way he said it, and it didn’t have everything to do with that flat Aussie accent, either.

  “I can understand that, you know,” he went on. “I know what it is to be a misfit.”

  She had a sudden fleeting sensation of that dark hollowness she’d almost touched. No, they weren’t remotely the same, no matter that they were both essentially loners in their respective worlds. She worked to put a sardonic edge to her tone. “I guess your line of work doesn’t exactly come rife with pals and coworkers, huh?”

  He smiled, that cockeyed half-smile that deepened the little cleft in his chin. “Not so you would notice, no. But I was a misfit long before I found my walk in life. I imagine the same could be said of you. In fact, we probably both found our callings because we didn’t fit in, wouldn’t you say?”

  She wanted to tell him to stop comparing himself to her, stop saying they were anything alike. But he’d moved even closer, somehow robbing her of what little rational thought she had left. She could only nod in response.

  “And what about you? What about those pals and coworkers? Is there no one you trust with your secret?”

  “Secret?” she managed. He was far too close.

  “You don’t tell anyone, do you?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer. “Is it because you fear they’ll abandon you? Or simply think you’re odd in the head?”

  She smiled without thinking about it, then swallowed hard as she saw his eyes leap to life in response to it. She did try to move away, but he lifted his hand and gently brushed back a loose strand of hair that was dancing about in the night breeze.

  “I do understand, Talia Trahaern. Everyone knows who we are as defined by our careers. We share that part of ourselves because it benefits us to do so. But we both have secrets, you and I, the things we keep locked in here.” He let the tendril drop and grazed the back of his fingertips across her heart. “And I think your heart is more tender than you are willing to admit.”

  He moved his hand away, and she had to catch herself from leaning forward.

  He turned her hands palm up, cupped in his own. He was looking down at them as he spoke. “You don’t give them names because you’ll lose part of your heart to them if you do.” He glanced up into her eyes, then dropped her hands. “And you can’t risk your heart again, can you? Not ever.”

  The hollow look she’d seen in his eyes during that brief glance brought her directly back to that instant she’d connected with him. Some part of her heart tightened before she pulled loose, both physically and emotionally. So they both kept their hearts safely tucked away. That was certainly a good thing.

  She put some space between them, but had to clear her throat to speak. “I don’t give them names for the logical reason that naming a pet should be the right of the owner, a bond made between them. No point in confusing the poor thing by giving it something to recognize only to have someone come along and change it.” He wasn’t looking at her, which should have made her little speech easier, but it didn’t. “You better than anyone understand I have a special attachment to every animal here, whether I wish to or not. So naming them is of little consequence when it comes to risking my emotions.” Which was true, to a point.

  That half-smile, the knowing one that made her feel naked and exposed, returned. But mercifully, he kept his hands to himself. “So defensive.”

  She had to stop herself from crossing her arms over her chest. “You were the one poking and prodding. I was merely trying to answer you.”

  “Why don’t you keep more of them for your own?”

  The question caught her off guard. “What?”

  He waved a hand to the land surrounding the house and the house itself.
“Since you have all this space and feel as you do about rescuing the unwanted, I figured you’d have adopted a gaggle of them yourself.”

  “Why all this concern about my life habits?”

  He shrugged, but the intensity had returned. “I have to be alert to anything out of the ordinary. To understand that, I have to understand what ordinary is.” He said it matter-of-factly, but his eyes told a different story. He wasn’t merely making conversation. “Studying you and your setup here has left me with questions.”

  She took a different tack. Let him answer some questions. “Speaking of animals, what happened to your dog?”

  He looked totally blank for a second. “My dog?” Then his expression cleared. “You mean Ringer.”

  “Yes, I believe that is what you called him once before. What was he? Some sort of convenient prop you used to meet me? And now that you’ve accomplished your invasion into my life, he is of no further use to you? What did you do to him, send him back to the future to fend for himself?”

  “Send Ringer back to fend for himself?” He said it as though he couldn’t believe he’d heard her right. “I wouldn’t do that.” His shock was so sincere she had to believe him.

  Her soft heart swelled. Just a little. “What did you expect me to think? I haven’t seen him since that day at the Lodge.” Why was she on the defensive again?

  “I didn’t think it was your concern. You have enough mongrels to deal with, don’t you, now?”

  Rather than being stung by his brush-off, she was intrigued. He seemed a bit … disconcerted. Evasive even. Interesting. “You had no problem sticking your nose in my affairs. Where is he?”

  Archer actually shifted his weight ever so slightly. He waved a hand, striving for a casualness she now knew he didn’t entirely feel. “Round and about. Likes to go on walkabout that one does.”

  “He’s running loose?”

  Archer propped his hands on his hips. “Well, he’s not exactly a threat to the wildlife or the population in general. And it’s not like you don’t have room for him to roam a bit. He doesn’t get much chance to run like this at home. I thought it would do him good.”