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Heart of the Hunter

Page 19

by BJ James


  “Good morning.” Jeb slid a hand beneath her robe and drew her back against him.

  Nicole smiled and let him hold her. “Hi, sleepyhead.”

  “Guilty.” He kissed her neck. “What were you thinking?”

  “About Ashley and you.”

  “What about us?”

  “How did you know he had family nearby?”

  “I played a hunch, and with a lot of help from researchers and genealogists it paid off. The best was a stroke of luck.”

  “The portrait of his mother at the Blakemond mansion.”

  “Proof positive. Only fingerprints or a battery of tests would be better.”

  “Patrice wouldn’t hear of subjecting Ashley to them. As far as she’s concerned there’s no mistaking the resemblance, and his age is right. Who would ever dream the woman Folly’s Castle was built for would be Ashley’s mother. How could she possibly survive the hurricane that destroyed it?”

  “We’ll never know that part. Records tell us only that some poor, half-demented creature washed on shore miles from the island. No one knows how she eventually made her way to Charleston. Not even she remembered how or why, or even who she was. Yet she spent the rest of her life as a recluse, taking care of her baby and wandering the shore looking for something or someone.”

  “The castle,” Nicole ventured. “And her forbidden lover.”

  “Maybe she had a glimmering of memory. It would explain the similarity of her real name and the surname she gave Ashley.”

  “She loved him, you know. He was well cared for and he’d been taught a lot. She left him the shack past the wharves and schooled him in the trade that was his livelihood after her death. He doesn’t remember her and the castle can’t ever really be his, but seeing it and hearing the story gives him a sense of belonging. Best of all, he has a home and a family now, for as long as he lives. Patrice is only nine years older than he. She never married and she’s lonely, and Ashley can be amazingly good company.” Nicole chuckled. “He’s teaching her to paint.”

  “That’s terrific.” He moved the collar of her robe aside to kiss the curve of her shoulder. “You’re terrific.”

  She turned in his arms, discovering he was delightfully naked. Rising on tiptoe she gave him a teasing kiss. “Of course I’m terrific, but not as terrific as you.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “Wouldn’t be fair.”

  “How so?” With his help, her robe slipped off her shoulders.

  “Because I have proof. Something you seem to have forgotten.”

  “When I look at you, I forget everything.”

  “Then you’re glad you saved my life.”

  The robe drifted to the floor. “Very glad.”

  “That’s it. If I’d taken your bet I would’ve won. You’re a hero, and heroes are more terrific than anybody.”

  “Sweetheart.” Her breast was a perfect fit for his hand.

  She drew a long shuddering breath. “Hmm?”

  “Hush.”

  * * *

  “Why so quiet?” Jeb asked.

  Nicole lay in his arms in the tall four-poster bed with only a sheet crumpled at her waist. She didn’t answer for a long while, instead she took his hand from her breast. Linking her fingers through his, she drew their joined hands to her mouth, tracing lazy patterns over his knuckles with her lips.

  Jeb didn’t push, he’d begun to learn she would face any trouble. But in her own time.

  When she spoke, at last, it was of Tony. “I’ve tried to understand what happened, and when it began. I can’t believe he never loved me.”

  There was no answer for what happened. Part of it was that something was missing in him from the beginning. An absence of conscience that set the stage for the rest. Jeb didn’t know how it happened, nor the exact moment it began. But he’d seen evidence of his detachment the day a surfboard battered his sister’s face.

  “He loved you. Why else did he take himself out of your life? Why did he protect you from the horror of his?” Someday, when she was ready, Jeb knew he would tell her how Tony systematically removed every trace of her connection to him. As far as the world was concerned, his sister ceased to exist shortly after she graduated from the university. When she’d turned her back on the ugliness of the academic world and relocated in the east.

  There were accounts of her death, even a grave and a stone with her name on it in a cemetery in a tiny California town. A tenuous subterfuge that wouldn’t have fooled the few who were close to her. But it was never intended for them. It was meant to protect her from people like the Merino family.

  And it had.

  “He loved you, Nicky.” Jeb had seen the love, and he’d seen the beginning of its death. “He loved you very much, but through the years the demented man he became forgot.”

  She was quiet, thoughtful. He knew she was pondering the explanation he proposed, dissecting it, accepting it bit by bit. “I’d like to believe you.” After a minute, she nodded decisively. “I choose to believe you.”

  It wouldn’t be quite as simple as making a choice, but it was a beginning. And enough for now. Jeb kissed the top of her head, and held her tighter.

  In the garden a robin sang of spring and new beginnings. Jeb was grateful for both, and pleased that Nicole was composed, and finally at ease. He let his mind drift to the past as she snuggled against him. He thought she would sleep, recouping the rest he had denied her. He was wrong.

  “Now you’re the quiet one.”

  “Am I?” he asked.

  “Aren’t you?” His hand was still in hers, she brought his fingers back to her kiss. “Want to tell me?”

  “Nothing much to tell. I was thinking about memories. How strange they can be.” He spoke as much to himself as to Nicole.

  “Sometimes they are.”

  “Some are gone in a flash, while others are branded on our hearts and minds forever. Take you, for instance—”

  She laughed. “You have.”

  “You asked.” He kissed the top of her head. “So don’t distract me by playing the wicked wanton.”

  “I think that’s a redundant characterization, but who’s playing?” she asked dryly. “And do you really want me to stop?”

  His free hand drifted over her midriff, down her hip, lingering low over her stomach before inching slowly to her breast. As his caress took her breath away, he chuckled. “What would you say?”

  She considered every new ache, and that he looked tired again. “I say you should continue your discourse on memory.”

  “Ahh, but where was I?”

  “Memories are strange, and you were going to take me.”

  “Right.” He grinned, resisted the obvious and returned to the subject virtually in midsentence. “You were a kid I knew for less than a year, but I never forgot. I remember the braces and the shy smile that tried to hide them. And the phenomenal mind.

  “I had trouble with this assignment from the first. Something that hadn’t happened before. Most are cut and dried, there’s a problem, we solve it. That’s it. But it wasn’t so simple this time. I kept remembering how hard it was to be the youngest and brightest kid on campus, and how you looked when you discovered someone you trusted was only using your mind. I knew that before this was done, I would see that look again. This time, I would be the one who put it there.

  “I wasn’t wrong, Nicky. I saw it in the hospital, while we waited to hear if Ashley would live or die.”

  “So you went away, because of a look.”

  “Sounds crazy now, but yes.”

  “But you’re back.”

  “And all is well, even with Ashley. I didn’t think he would remember after so long. But he did and I could swear he was glad to see me.”

  “Memory is strange. Haven’t you questioned why he didn’t forget you?”

  “It occurred to me it was unusual.”

  “Not so unusual when he has a photograph of you.”

  “Oh?” Photographs of the men of The Black
Watch, of Simon’s Ladies from Hell, were rare. But Nicole knew nothing of the clandestine organization. She assumed he and the men who came with him to the island were part of a unique police force. The first part, at least, was true. With Simon’s permission, he would tell her what he could, when the time was right.

  “Mitch brought the photograph. A snapshot, actually.”

  “He did?” There was surprise in Jeb’s voice. “When?”

  “He attended the services for Tony.” Links of Jeb’s bracelet pressed against the curve of her jaw as she held his hand tighter. It was ironic that Brett’s gift of thanks for saving her husband’s life, and hands, had saved Jeb’s. Someday she would find Brett McLachlan and tell her. And thank her.

  “Nicky.” Jeb prodded her from her wandering thoughts. “Why the photograph?”

  “Sorry, I just had a thought, something I need to do, but it can wait.”

  “The photograph, Nicky.”

  “Yes, of course, the photograph. You’ve seen that Ashley’s memory is selective.”

  “I have.”

  “I’m afraid his clearest memory of the evening he was shot is that he hurt you with the knife when he fell. It was an accident. We understand, but he can’t. For a time he was convinced you died, too. Like Tony. He couldn’t deal with being responsible. Matthew suggested the photograph, to prove you were all right. Ashley knows what you’ve done for him, Patrice reminds him regularly. Now he won’t part with your picture.”

  “I didn’t know.” An understatement. Mitch had never mentioned the services. Neither he nor Matthew ever hinted at continued contact with Nicole. But not even the fearless men of The Black Watch prodded a wolf with a sore heart.

  “Matthew said you didn’t want to know, that you weren’t ready to deal with...everything.” She turned in his arms, her body lying over his. “Most of all, he says you couldn’t deal with falling in love with me.”

  “Matthew talks too damn much.”

  “Matthew says very little, and only what I need to hear.”

  He tugged his hand from hers, to frame the face that looked solemnly down at him. “Maybe it’s time I said what you need to hear. Maybe I need to hear it myself.”

  Nicole waited, but he didn’t continue. After an endless minute, he sighed heavily. “It isn’t quite as simple as I thought. First there’s something I have to explain.”

  She waited again, silently.

  “I didn’t want this assignment and I didn’t want to see you again. For a lot of reasons. Added to them was the possibility you were an accessory.”

  “Accessory!” The word burst from her in its inherent horror.

  “Shh, love. Hear me out. I said possibility. I’m alive today because I look at all the possibilities. Even the long shots.”

  “You thought I could...” Her voice failed. As she pulled away from him, tears she’d denied when she’d lost a brother, and nearly a friend and finally a lover, sparkled in her eyes. “What if...”

  “If you were part of it? God, sweetheart, that’s what was tearing me apart.”

  “Why? Whatever was needed would have been part of your assignment, wouldn’t it? So why would you care?”

  “Because I knew even before I came, that if I saw you again I would fall in love with you.” He wanted to touch her, to draw her back to him and comfort her. But he knew she wouldn’t accept his comfort, not yet. “I would have loved you years ago, but we were at different stages of our lives, and the timing wasn’t right.” A sound rumbled deep in his throat, a mix of concession and bittersweet laughter. “I didn’t stand a chance the second time around.”

  She spun away from him, taking the sheet with her as she left the bed. Swathed in its bright color, with thumb and index finger kneading her temples, she muttered in shocked tones. “You say it was preordained that you were going to fall in love with me. Yet, if it was necessary, you were going to...”

  “No.”

  She took her hand from her eyes, her gaze challenging his. “Then what?”

  “I didn’t know then. I don’t now.”

  “Who are you?” She was shivering. “What are you?”

  He left the bed and crossed the room to her. “I’m not like Tony. I’m Jeb Tanner, time hasn’t changed that. What am I? A hunter, and more. Someday I’ll explain. But can’t it be enough, for now, that I’m a man who loves you?”

  Nicole looked mutely out at the garden.

  “I walked away from you before, Nicky, not because of what I am, but because I thought it was what you wanted. I will again, but this time you have to tell me to go.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “There are things I can’t tell you, not ever. I’m sorry for that, but I won’t lie to you, and I won’t hurt you. You trusted me on Eden, and you said you loved me.” Curving his palm around her cheek, he turned her unresisting face back to his. “Do you trust me now? Will you trust me enough to love me again?”

  Could she? Her mind was whirling, but the answer wasn’t in her mind. She searched her heart. The answer was there. “Yes.” The tears she’d fought for so long spilled down her cheeks. “I will.”

  “There was a child on the beach today. A little girl with hair as black as the night. She could have been our child, Nicky. I knew then where I belonged, and how much I wanted a little girl who looks like you.”

  “You would spoil her.”

  “Shamelessly,” he agreed as he traced the path of a tear to the corner of her mouth. “But most of all I would love her.”

  Nicole laid her palms on his chest, savoring the feel of him. Did his reason for coming to the island matter? Did anything matter when the man who had risked his life for hers looked at her as he did now? Sliding her hands up his body she rose to tease his lips with hers. “And her mother?”

  “I will love you.”

  No frills, no window dressing, but then, heroes didn’t need them.

  “How long?” she whispered as he swept her into his arms where she belonged.

  The hunter didn’t give his heart easily. But when he did, it was...

  “Forever.”

  * * * * *

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-8678-8

  Heart of the Hunter

  Copyright © 1995 by BJ James

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

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  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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