Lover in the Rough

by Lowell, Elizabeth

  Loving him was bad enough. Hating him would destroy her.

  “Where the hell are you?” demanded Tim.

  Reba held the phone away from her ear and looked out over the parking lot of a small shopping mall in Oregon. “Out of state,” she said succinctly.

  There was a long silence. “I thought you were getting married today,” said Tim finally.

  “Easy come, easy go.”

  “Reba—”

  “No.” The word was flat, cold and hard, an accurate reflection of Reba’s state of mind. “This is a courtesy call, Tim. No courtesy, no call.”

  Tim sighed explosively. “Sorry, boss. Chance has been all over me like a cat in a sandbox.”

  “That’s why I didn’t tell you where I am. And I won’t.”

  He hesitated. “Are you all right?”

  She laughed abruptly, a sound without warmth or humor. “Is there anything at the Objet d’Art that requires my immediate attention?”

  “Some shipments and insurance forms need your signature.”

  “Forge it.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you coming back?”

  “Who’s asking—you or Chance?”

  “Both of us,” admitted Tim. “He’s been my shadow since I got here this morning. Will you talk to him?”

  “Does he still own the China Queen?”

  There was a brief pause, then a deep voice said, “Chaton—”

  “Do you still own the China Queen?” she interrupted coolly, ignoring the weakness that made her hands tremble so badly that she nearly dropped the phone. Just hearing his voice made her want to crawl into his arms as she had in Death Valley, crying until the ice and agony were gone. But this time he was the one who had hurt her. “No lies, no evasions. Just one word, yes or no. Do you still own the Queen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good-bye, Chance.”

  Very gently, Reba replaced the receiver in its cradle.

  Eleven

  It was a few minutes before Reba’s fingers stopped shaking enough for her to look up a number in the small leather notebook she had taken from the Objet d’Art. She punched in the number with unusual care, not trusting her own reflexes.

  “Jim Nichols? This is Reba Farrall. I know this is short notice, but I happen to be in Oregon unexpectedly and wondered if you would have time to show me the Eskimo kikituks you mentioned in your last letter?”

  Reba wrote down directions to the house, hung up and went back to her rental car. She drove quickly, trying not to think that the last time she had visited West Coast collectors Jeremy had been with her. If she thought about that she would come undone. If she thought about Chance she would shatter like a carelessly struck stone. So she thought about her work, matching collectors with rare objets d’art from all over the world. Jim Nichols’ kikituks might be just what a wealthy New Zealand collector of primitive ivories was looking for.

  As Reba knocked on the front door, she felt the tingle of excitement that always came when she was going to see another collector’s treasures. It wasn’t simply Nichols’ ivories that were intriguing. Like many collectors, he had spent a lifetime swapping with people all over the world. Trade, not cash, was the rule. As a result, collectors always had an assortment of rare and beautiful and sometimes bizarre pieces that had been taken on trade. Quite literally, Reba knew that she might find anything on earth in Jim Nichols’ house.

  “Mr. Nichols?” asked Reba, holding out her hand.

  “Jim,” corrected the man, taking her hand in a dry, large-knuckled grip. A lifetime of trapping and prospecting in the far north had left its mark on the French Canadian. The arthritis that had driven him south showed in swollen knuckles and stiff knees. “You called me Jim when Jeremy was alive.”

  “Jim,” she agreed, trying not to show the pain of hearing Jeremy’s death mentioned so casually. Even so, tears stood in her eyes for a moment.

  “Don’t look so down in the mouth, gal,” said Jim in a voice that had known too many cigarettes, too much whiskey. “When you get as old as me and Jeremy, death looks kinda friendly.”

  Jim offered Reba coffee, settled her at a scarred plastic table and sat beside her with a cracked mug held in one fist. She noticed that the mug held Scotch rather than coffee.

  “Best arthritis medicine in the world,” he said in his scratchy voice. “Pretty slick on memories, too. Just leaves the good ones.”

  Reba looked at the Scotch with new interest. “Really?” she murmured. “I think I’ll develop a taste for it.”

  “Wait a few years,” he advised dryly. His wrinkled hand patted hers. “Sit tight.”

  Jim left the room and came back carrying a cardboard carton filled with kikituks. With the casual skill of a man who has handled precious things all his life, Jim took out the carvings and lined them up on the scarred table. As he did, he pointed out the flaws and virtues of each one.

  Reba watched, hardly able to repress a shudder. Though different sizes, none of the kikituks was bigger than her palm. All of the carvings had a malevolence about them that was as much a part of them as their ivory sheen. Like long-bodied, fanged hippos, the kikituks watched her with their mouths agape.

  “You know the legend behind these, don’t you?” asked Jim, taking the last kikituk out of the box.

  “Yes. You give a kikituk to an enemy and it eats their soul.”

  An image of the Queen’s black mouth rose in Reba’s mind, a kikituk carved out of a mountain, swallowing a man’s soul.

  “Don’t like them much, do you?” asked Jim.

  “I know a collector who will,” she said tightly. “He has some African demons carved out of elephant tusk that make my blood run cold. The kikituks will be right at home.”

  Jim chuckled dryly. “Don’t much like the little devils myself. But the carving is good and the ivory is first rate. Men are real careful about their vengeance.”

  Numbly, Reba bargained for the kikituks, trying to banish the horrifying picture of the China Queen from her mind. Would Chance go into the Queen alone? Would the earth shift again, sealing him forever in darkness?

  With hands that shook, Reba wrote out a check and gave it to Jim, sealing the bargain for the kikituks.

  “I heard you’re keeping the Green Suite.”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice raw.

  “Sit tight.”

  Jim left, then returned with a brown paper bag in his hand. “Took this in trade a few months ago,” he said, digging into the bag. “Was going to call Jeremy about it.”

  He held out a mineral specimen for Reba to look at. Embedded in a nondescript chunk of rock was a clear, silvergreen crystal the precise color of Chance’s eyes. Reba’s breath came out in a rush. She looked at the incredibly colored octahedron for a long time, then closed her eyes and shook her head. It was impossible. A diamond still in its matrix was one of the rarest finds for a collector. Add to that a unique color, and you had a specimen that was literally priceless.

  “Fellow told me it was a diamond in the rough,” said Jim. “I can tell fake ivory at fifty feet, but diamonds?” He shrugged. “Figured Jeremy would know.”

  “May I?” said Reba carefully, holding out her hand.

  “Sure.” He dropped the specimen in her hand with heart-stopping casualness.

  Reba pulled a jeweler’s loupe out of her purse and went to stand in the strongest light she could find. She examined the specimen carefully. There was no trace of glue holding the crystal to the stone. The crystal’s natural facets were unpolished, unmarked by man’s tools. There were no visible fractures or flaws. At a guess, the diamond was just under three carats.

  She returned to the table. “I’d have to perform a few tests to be positive,” she said, “but it looks good to me. How much do you want for the specimen?”

  “Is it for one of your collectors?”

  Reba’s fingers tightened possessively around the crystal that was the ex
act color of Chance Walker’s eyes. “No. This one is for me.”

  Jim patted her hand gently. “Then it’s a gift.”

  “Mr. Nichols … Jim … I can’t—this is priceless!”

  “That makes it a fair trade,” he said simply.

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  “Jeremy and me used to get together and drink a bit, back when we still had enough vinegar to tear up a town. We’d been at it for a few days once when he turned to me and started talking about dying. Told me he’d give anything he owned if somebody cried for him when he died. I never forgot it.”

  Jim’s faded eyes peered down into Reba’s face. “You cried for Jeremy when his own flesh and blood was lined up waiting to dance on his grave. That kind of love is priceless. Glass, quartz or diamond, the rock is yours.”

  Reba stretched out on the too-soft motel bed and rubbed her eyes wearily. She knew she should go on to another city, another collector, get on with her life. But she couldn’t. The days were weeks long. The nights had no end. Her mind and emotions were a shambles. She wheeled between loneliness and rage, fury and despair. The China Queen haunted her dreams, a black kikituk leering at her, black fangs devouring Chance’s soul.

  She hadn’t phoned Tim for five days. She knew he would be worried about her, but didn’t trust herself to call. If Chance were still there, if she heard his voice again, she didn’t think she’d have the strength not to go running back to see his untamed smile, to warm herself in his sun-browned arms.

  Someone knocked lightly on the motel door. Reba’s heart leaped in the instant before she realized that it couldn’t be Chance. He had no way of knowing where she was.

  “Who is it?” asked Reba, abruptly wary. She had objets d’art packed in boxes around the room and locked in the trunk of her rental car. She was beginning to wish she’d followed Jeremy’s example and traveled with bodyguards.

  “It’s Glory, Reba.”

  Reba was off the bed and at the door before she had time to think. “Is Chance with you?” she demanded breathlessly, throwing open the door, hope making her eyes brilliant.

  Glory’s face changed, older, clearly showing her fatigue. “I was going to ask you the same question.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Chance is gone,” said Glory flatly. “Can I come in? I’m dead on my feet.”

  Reba pulled Glory inside and shut the door. Automatically, Reba poured what was left of a thermos of coffee into a plastic cup and silently handed it to Glory. The older woman finished the lukewarm liquid in a few swallows and handed back the cup.

  “Thanks,” sighed Glory, sinking into an ugly plastic chair. “I may live.” Her eyes opened clear and green. “What the hell happened with you and Chance?” she demanded bluntly.

  “He wanted the China Queen,” said Reba tonelessly, appalled by the depths of disappointment washing through her. She had hoped for a few wild instants that Chance had missed her as much as she missed him. But he hadn’t. He wasn’t even looking for her. “I gave it to him.”

  “Why do I have the feeling you left out something?” asked Glory. Her eyes narrowed. “Well, honey, I’m not going to leave out anything. I woke up six days ago feeling all warm and squishy because my brother finally got lucky in love. The next thing I know Chance is in my room. He’s killing mad. I’ve never seen him like that,” she said flatly. “Never. Not even when Luck died.” She closed her eyes. “Sweet God, Reba, what did you do to him?”

  “Why don’t you ask what he did to me?” Reba’s voice was clipped, harsh, her eyes brilliant with anger and shame.

  “I’m asking.”

  “He wanted the China Queen more than he wanted me. So I gave him what he wanted. The China Queen.”

  “I’m still asking.”

  “I gave him a choice,” said Reba, “me or the Queen. Guess which he chose?”

  Glory closed her eyes again. “My God … what did Chance do to make you hate him so?”

  “I don’t hate him,” said Reba in a strained voice.

  Glory laughed oddly. “Couldn’t prove it by me.” She looked narrowly at the woman standing in front of her. “The China Queen represents everything Chance thought he ever wanted out of life. And you”—Glory shrugged—“you’re the woman he’s been looking for all his life. So you stand there like a queen and tell him he can have one or the other but not both. You’re acting like the mine is another woman. Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Nobody,” Reba whispered, her voice shaking. “That’s just the problem. I’m nobody. But you wouldn’t understand that, would you? You have a man who wants you for what you are, not what you own. I thought that was the way Chance wanted me until you came and told me that he owned the other half of that goddamned mine!”

  “Oh, no,” breathed Glory, finally understanding. “It’s a wonder Chance didn’t kill me.” She stood and put her arms around Reba. “You still love him, don’t you?”

  Reba nodded, unable to speak.

  “Then help me find him before he does something he can’t undo. I’ve called everyone I could think of, but no one’s seen him. He hasn’t called any friends, he’s not in his hotel, and he hasn’t left any kind of trail out of Los Angeles.”

  “You found me,” pointed out Reba. “You’ll find him.”

  “Honey, you left a trail of checks and motel chits a blind man could follow. Chance went to ground.”

  A chill moved over Reba. “The China Queen.” Then, quickly, “No, he wouldn’t. It’s too dangerous. It nearly killed us the last time.”

  Even as Reba denied her fears, she reached for the phone. A moment later she was talking to Tim.

  “Where are you?” said Tim. “Is Chance with you?”

  “No. Has he called?”

  “Are you kidding? You should have seen him after you hung up on him. I’ve never seen anyone that … that … wild. Gina still gets the shakes when she thinks about it. And frankly, so do I.”

  “He didn’t do anything, hurt anyone?” asked Reba, remembering the violence that Chance could unleash, the strength and the fierceness of the man. Yet it was fear for Chance rather than for anyone else that made her voice shake.

  “It wasn’t like that. He was so calm it scared hell out of me. He didn’t say anything except to Gina. She was wearing that cross you gave her at Christmas. Chance stopped in front of her, touched the cross and said, ‘Do you mind? I’m going to need that where I’m going.’ He snapped the chain like it was cheap thread, took the cross and left.”

  “He’s gone to the China Queen,” Reba said dully.

  Chance had chosen but he had not chosen her. She had given him the Queen and he had taken it without a backward look. All choices made.

  Numbly she told Tim where she was and hung up.

  “Well?” said Glory.

  “Your brother is doubtless in his mine,” said Reba.

  “Is it safe?”

  “No,” whispered Reba, “it’s not safe at all.”

  “Then go get him out!”

  Reba laughed despite the tears clinging to her dark lashes. “Just how should I manage that, Glory?” She turned on the older woman with sudden rage. “Don’t you understand? He doesn’t want me. He’s keeping the China Queen! ”

  There was nothing Glory could say to penetrate the shell Reba pulled around herself. She and Reba flew back to Los Angeles together. Reba spoke only once, to give directions to the China Queen. She refused to consider going to the Queen with Glory. Chance had chosen and there was no more to say. Eyes closed, body rigid, Reba sat on the plane and thought about the man who wanted the unyielding earth more than he wanted her.

  After a few days Reba’s rage faded but the icy shell remained. Arranging for Jeremy’s collection to be shown at the del Coronado had kept her mind occupied during the days. During the nights she had sorted through photos of Jeremy’s collection, remembering Death Valley and the two men she loved in such different ways—and had lost just the same. Re
membering was painful, but it was better than waking up screaming Chance’s name, trying to warn him about a voracious black kikituk with shattered pink crystal eyes.

  She hadn’t seen Glory since they’d left the airplane together two weeks ago. She’d heard from Glory once, confirmation of what Reba had already guessed: Chance was in the China Queen, digging through darkness in search of Pala’s incomparable pink tourmaline. The thought of Chance alone in the endless subterranean night, vulnerable to the least twitch of the restless earth, made Reba’s skin move and tighten with fear for his life.

  She had hoped coming to the Hotel del Coronado would provide relief from the emotions that seethed just beneath her calm exterior. Seeing Jeremy’s collection auctioned off would put finis to that part of her life, finis to grief and longing and wondering why only one kind old man had found her worthy of love. But nothing had touched her except fear for Chance, and fury. For long moments she sat without moving, nails gouging her palms as she thought of Death Valley and the China Queen and a man called Chance.

  A knock on the door startled her. She blinked and looked around the room, disoriented for a moment. When she saw the spacious suite with its gold brocade wallpaper and old-fashioned furniture, she remembered where she was. Hotel del Coronado, San Diego. Jeremy’s collection. The auction. It had all been a huge success. The bids had been spectacular. Everything had been sold. Disappointed bidders had come to her with their want lists, assuring her enough work to make the Objet d’Art as profitable as Jeremy’s collection had been.

  The knock came again. “Reba?” said Tim, “are you ready?”

  No. But she couldn’t say that. She had to stand up and be calm and professional and controlled. She had to go downstairs and dance with strangers when the thought of being touched by any man but Chance made her want to cringe. He didn’t want to touch her, though. All he wanted was the China Queen. What could he hope to find in the Queen’s cold, unloving darkness to equal the living warmth of a woman’s love? Maybe he would be downstairs, waiting for her. Maybe the time he had spent in the Queen’s cold embrace would make him understand that Reba loved him.