#408 Once Upon a Time …
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS by Kay Hooper
#409 PRIVATE EYES by Charlotte Hughes
#410 RUN WILD WITH ME by Sandra Chastain
#411 HONEY AND SMOKE by Deborah Smith
#412 OFF LIMITS by Doris Parmett
#413 BLUE DALTON by Glenna McReynolds
“Come with me, Betty, just a moment. We have some business to discuss,” Max said, propelling her into the hallway.
He pulled her so quickly her flowing silk skirt threatened to become trapped between her legs. They stopped in a softly lit corner, and he faced her, the intensity in his eyes filling her with a mixture of dread and excitement.
“A moment,” she whispered with a note of warning. She felt herself swaying toward him. “What did you want to discuss?”
“Just this—if you want to be kissed in public, come to me.” He put his arms around her waist and pulled her up so that she had to grasp his shoulders for support.
“Max. Max …” she said desperately, shaking her head.
“I love your voice. Say my name again.”
“Maximilian, don’t—”
He kissed her, backing her against a soft quilt hanging on the wall. Betty struggled with her emotions for the length of time his hot, deliciously insistent mouth took to turn her into a conspirator. About two seconds.
She forgave herself for surrendering. He had a way of curling the tip of his tongue along the edge of her upper lip that no woman could resist. He brought a rough power to her that she’d never felt before. He didn’t treat her roughly in the least, but she wanted to struggle within his arms and provoke the same struggle from him. He had trapped her, but he wasn’t forcing her.…
HONEY AND SMOKE
A Bantam Book / July 1990
LOVESWEPT® and the wave device are registered trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and elsewhere.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1990 by Deborah Smith.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.
If you would be interested in receiving protective vinyl covers for your Loveswept books, please write to this address for information:
Loveswept
Bantam Books
P.O. Box 985
Hicksville, NY 11802
eISBN: 978-0-307-79667-7
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue. New York, New York 10103.
v3.1_r1
For my cousin, Rita, who knows her barbecue. For my pal, Laura, who knows her marines and for my husband, Hank, who knows the secret recipe.
Contents
Cover
Other Books in the Loveswept Series
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
One
As a way to recapture his youth it was lousy. As a belated homecoming ritual it stank. It couldn’t erase the twenty years spent away from these north Georgia mountains, twenty years served with great pride in a marine uniform. It couldn’t bring the old spirit of excitement to his blood again or make the autumn air smell like an invitation to adventure, as it had when he was a kid.
All it could do was stand there majestically in a grove of sourwood trees, silhouetted against the burnished red leaves, its large dark eyes peaceful and unsuspecting. All it could do was make Max Templeton realize in the space of a few seconds just how much he had changed in twenty years. And that he had killed enough in his life. He wasn’t interested in killing again, not even a deer.
He felt foolish and perplexed, not unusual emotions for him in the six months since his retirement from the Marine Corps, but painful nonetheless. He had retired to see if there was something new to be learned about himself, but he wasn’t sure that he liked what he’d discovered.
So now he convinced himself that he was going to do what he would have done twenty years ago, or even five years ago. And would have done without a qualm. He was going to shoot the deer. He remained crouched in the gully, the powerful hunting rifle butted expertly against his shoulder, his large hands holding it without effort, his thick, callused forefinger posed lightly on the trigger. Seconds ticked by. He didn’t shoot. He began to curse silently.
He muttered to himself. “Did you hear about Major Templeton? Big, tough son of a gun. A twenty-year man, and not even forty yet. Real career grunt. He thought he could retire and live like a civilian again. Yeah, it broke him. Now he’s in a home, drooling in his oatmeal. Keeps saying, ‘Bambi, Bambi.’ ”
Max squinted down the rifle’s sight. Leave, dammit, he told the buck silently. And I’ll just pretend I’m posing for a picture in Field and Stream.
The buck didn’t depart, but something else arrived. Something that bounced out of the underbrush and vaulted over the gully. Something furry that thumped Max in the back of the head as it sailed past.
Max jerked the rifle and blasted a shot into the woods. The buck leapt out of sight. Max twisted and jumped to the lip of the gully in one smooth move, slamming the rifle’s bolt back and then forward, to load another shell.
The strangest-looking cat he’d ever seen jumped straight up, eyeballed him absurdly, then whirled around and scrambled into a grove of laurel bushes.
Max stood with his mouth open in disbelief. Then his old training kicked in, and he noted details. The cat was too big to be domestic, and it had only a stub of a tail. But it didn’t look like any bobcat he’d ever seen in these woods. For one thing, it was a brindled color, as if someone had dabbed gray paint on an orange background.
For another, it wore a wide rhinestone collar, and it was missing the paw on its left hind leg.
Details didn’t always make sense.
They found Major Templeton in the woods, calling, “Here, kitty, kitty,” and muttering about rhinestones.
His jaw set in rigid lines, Max charged after the strange, bumbling, three-footed cat that was trying to run silently through the laurel. He might be going soft, but he wasn’t going crazy.
And with his dignity at stake he wasn’t going to give up the chase.
Betty Quint crawled from her cave and squinted in the bright afternoon light. She sat back on the heels of her lace-up boots and brushed dirt from her overalls, then adjusted her sock cap. Shielding her eyes with a hand covered in a work glove, she looked up at the sun beaming through golden poplar trees. Good. It couldn’t be more than five o’clock. She’d lost track of time and had worried that she’d be walking home in the dusk.
“Relax, city gal, you’re safe,” she told herself drolly.
A gun blast split the silence. In the nanosecond when her heart hid behind her windpipe, Betty heard a ziiiiip and then the forceful slap of meted hitting rock. Fragments of granite showered her from a spot high on the cave’s face.
Thinking was such a bore sometimes, as her mother might have said over Brie and champagne at the country club. Betty put her
crawl mechanism into full reverse and scooted backward into the cave. Shaking, she scrambled a dozen feet down the passageway, then crouched in the inky darkness and peered toward the opening.
She heard something running through the woods. It sounded as if it were coming her way fast. Either a hunter had flushed out a deer, or someone was arming the squirrels and they were attacking.
This was her land, she thought in sudden anger. The first thing she’d done after moving here was post no-hunting signs. This was civilized territory. This was home.
Was someone shooting at Faux Paw? Betty gasped and started scrambling toward the cave opening. “Faux, Faux …”
But the running feet were Faux Paw’s. She bolted into the cave and all twenty pounds of her collided with Betty. “Good cat, good cat,” Betty said with relief, trying to stroke her. Faux Paw burst away from her and galloped deeper into the cave. “Faux!” Betty twisted in dismay and listened to Faux Paw’s distinctive, three-legged patter fade. The narrow cave entrance opened into a small cavern, and a circuit of man-made tunnels radiated from the back of it.
Betty whipped around to face the opening again when she heard footsteps again—heavier, slower, two legged, deliberate. Her blood froze. Maybe Faux had the right idea. Don’t ask questions. Head for the tunnels.
As she began hurriedly backing on hands and knees, a shadow crossed the cave opening. Betty ducked behind a rock outcropping and gazed up the slope in dread. If it was just a hunter, one of the local men, he’d probably apologize profusely for trespassing and scaring her. But she didn’t relish the idea of being discovered in the woods alone by an armed man who apparently took potshots at anything that moved.
You don’t see the cave opening, she mentally—and firmly—told the shadow. You want to keep walking. You’re leaving. Leave.
He crouched down in front of the opening. He filled the opening. Betty stared at an unnerving silhouette of large, muscular proportions. He was turned half into the sunlight, and she could make out the green-and-khaki camouflage paint on a brawny forearm he rested on one knee. He wore boots, camouflage pants, and a khaki shirt that hugged his large shoulders and lean middle.
When a glimmer of sunshine caught his face, she saw that it was coated in camouflage paint too. She couldn’t define his features or read his expression, but from the fierce way he gripped the huge rifle that was cradled in one arm, she presumed that he was unhappy.
“I saw you go in there,” he called in a deep, cultured drawl that reverberated through the cave. “And if you think I’m going to let your feisty little tail get away, you’re wrong.”
Betty clutched the wall. Was he talking to Faux Paw, or to her?
Her breath frozen in her throat, she backed into the cavern and edged across the floor. The man stretched out on his belly and crawled down the passageway, the rifle held in front of him. She watched him merge with the darkness, fade into it, become it. She heard her ragged little attempts to breathe and wondered if he heard them too.
Feeling her way along the cavern wall, she tiptoed to the main tunnel. Her invader made soft scuffing sounds, and she decided that he had risen to his feet. He struck something that made a metallic ring. Betty ducked into the main tunnel and plastered herself against the cold earthen wall. Don’t let him find the lantern, she prayed.
He found it. The edge of its light flared into the tunnel; Betty nearly tripped over her brogans as she eased down the passage. She stepped through a black rectangle outlined in wood beams. Inside the smaller tunnel she huddled.
She hated this side tunnel. She had decided to take a live-and-let-live attitude with the bats who nestled there, but they, ungrateful creatures, now began to squeak loudly at her intrusion. She could hear their wings fluttering as they fretted from their upside-down perches on the ceiling. The floor was slippery with their bad manners.
Betty forgot the bats as measured, slow bootsteps started down the main tunnel toward her. Lantern light danced on the walls. She planted her hands and knees on the nasty floor and crept deeper into the black, cool shaft. She had explored here; she knew that there was nothing to fear in front of her. She had never been fainthearted.
But she’d never been trapped in a cave by Rambo either. She chewed her lower lip and fought to keep her breath from making ragged sounds. Light flared on the wall beside her. He was just outside the entrance to this tunnel. The bats fluttered and squeaked.
Betty forgot decorum and scrambled into the next opening, a larger tunnel, bat free. She glanced over her shoulder and saw light flood the area she’d just left.
The bats left in a rush of wings, and from the muffled curses that accompanied them, at least a few must have taken kamikaze dives at the man blocking their exit.
Betty leapt to her feet and bolted, waving her hands frantically as she tried to find the next opening. She was running out of tunnels, but the next one led back to the cavern, and maybe, just maybe, she could circle back and escape.
Then she heard long, hurried steps behind her. The hair rose on the back of her neck. She tried to think what to do, and realized how unprepared she was.
There hadn’t been many courses in hand-to-hand combat at the prestigious women’s college she’d attended. And in the eight years since then she’d only had to resort to Kung Fu when someone tried to take her seat at the ballet.
Still, the Quint family was made of hardy pioneer material, and suddenly Betty was sick of scurrying through the darkness like a terrified rat. The firecrackers. Use the firecrackers.
She halted, jammed a hand into one voluminous pocket of her overalls, and pulled out a string of delicately misnamed Lady Fingers. She carried them every time she came to work in the cave, just in case something more troublesome than bats had tried to take up residence.
Her teeth chattering with fear, she jerked a lighter from another pocket and lit the fuse.
The bootsteps entered her tunnel. Light streaked toward her. Betty turned around and threw the firecrackers between Rambo’s legs.
A small war couldn’t have made as much fury and noise. He jumped and made a heavy thud when his head hit a ceiling beam. He dropped the lantern, and the light curved away from her. She pivoted and ran, bumping into the walls, slipping on the damp stone floor.
To her horror he ran after her. She reached the central cavern and saw the dim light of the exit passage on the other side. Freedom.
But Faux Paw decided to head from the tunnels at the same moment. She dashed between Betty’s legs and kept going as Betty sprawled sideways. The fall wasn’t painful because she landed atop dozens of her carefully nurtured Oriental mushrooms, which grew in a soft bed of dirt and dried horse manure.
The discomfort came a moment later, when a thick masculine knee settled on her fanny and a strong hand grabbed the back of her neck. With her cheek pressed into the odiferous humus and flattened mushrooms, she gasped for breath and exploded with fury.
“Off me! Off me! Dammit.”
“Kid, you play dangerous games,” he said. “When I tell your daddy what you’re up to, he’ll probably chew your ass.”
“My cave. My land.”
“Cut the crap. What have you got stashed in here?”
“Have you … arrested. Off me!”
He didn’t hurt her, but his fingers curled tighter around her neck. “I came in here after an animal. I didn’t expect to find—what? What are you growing in here, kid? Don’t lie. It won’t do you any good.”
Betty ignored her terror enough to consider her options. She suspected that he wouldn’t listen to pleas of innocence. He thought she was a juvenile delinquent, and whether he thought she was male or female wasn’t clear. She wasn’t going to enlighten him. At least he was taking a paternal attitude, she was a little reassured, but not much.
Her stubborn silence seemed the best offense. She ground her teeth and refused to talk to him.
After a minute he sighed in exasperation. “All right, here’s the way we’re going to do this. You won’
t like it, but it will make my life easier.” She heard unidentifiable sounds, then discerned the slap of a belt being removed from its belt loops. A second later he deftly grabbed her right hand with his free hand and looped the belt around it.
“No!” she yelled. “No way!”
Flapping arms when pinned facedown didn’t offer much defense. But still he quickly scooped her hands together and bound them behind her back. “Okay, kid, let’s take a trip to the sunshine.”
He stood, wrapped his hand in the back of her overalls, and dragged her gracefully out of the mushroom bed and onto the granite floor.
She was so mad now that she didn’t care what happened. As he pulled her along beside him like a large piece of luggage, Betty craned her head sideways and tried to bite his knee.
He shook her a little and moved out of range. “I’ll remember that, kid,” he assured her.
When they reached the narrow passageway to the opening, he halted. “On your belly,” he ordered, as if she had a choice. But he lowered her gently. “Crawl. I’ll be right behind you.”
Humiliated, her fanny poking into the air every time she drew a leg forward to push herself, she wiggled up the smooth stone slope. Her tormentor crawled so close behind her that his hands brushed her hips and legs.
Betty pushed herself out of the cave onto the matted grass and leaves of the forest floor. Frightened, angry, sputtering for breath, she twisted on her side and glared at him. He seemed huge. The rifle hung by a webbed strap from one of his thick shoulders. A sick realization of just how small and helpless she was in comparison made her burst into self-defense.
With a hoarse cry of rage she raised a booted foot and kicked him in the shoulder. He made no sound but moved with lethal speed. Rearing on his knees, he grabbed her feet with his hands and flipped her onto her back. Then he put one hand on her stomach and one on her throat.
Slowly he bent over her until his camouflage-painted nose was only inches from her dirt-smeared one. The look in his eyes, startling in their intensity and surrounded by the dark camouflage colors, was vivid with controlled fury. “I could rip your tonsils out with my fingernails,” he whispered between gritted teeth. And then his threats became really colorful.
Honey and Smoke Page 1
