by Adrianne Lee
“I promise my questions won’t hurt.”
He tugged on his beer, feeling the tightness in his forehead that meant he was scowling. He planned to mingle with the locals tonight, try to get a lead on which of them was the man he sought, and he couldn’t do it until he got rid of this distracting author. “What do you want to know?”
Andy wanted to know why his voice sent shivers down her spine, why his cool, sage green eyes stirred something warm and disturbing deep inside her, why men who exuded his raw sexuality always inspired in her a desire to run as far and fast as she could. “I have a list here somewhere.”
Pushing down her bothersome feelings, she fished in her purse and laid hold of the pen and tablet she sought. Why was it she had no problem fantasizing love scenes that made the pulse beat faster and the pleasure worth the risk? It wasn’t as if she’d ever felt anything close. In her experience, sex was…disappointing. Somehow…unfulfilling.
But it sold books.
And every once in a while, like now, with this man, she had the sensation there might be something more to it than she’d ever known. Was ever likely to know. She stared into his seductive eyes and the yearning to know, to be taught by Jack, welled inside her. With her cheeks burning at the brazen thought, she flipped the tablet cover open to a clean page, set her list of questions to one side and readied the pen to write.
“I want to know everything you can tell me about horses and guns, all the smells, the sounds, the tastes, the touches, the slang. I’ve ridden horses, even shot a pistol, but I want a man’s perspective.”
“Sounds like a mighty tall order.”
“We can go one question at a time.”
Jack decided if he kept his responses short, the interview could be terminated in good speed.
Andy began, taking notes as he spoke, her nervousness forgotten as she wondered at the clipped, almost guarded edge to his intriguing voice. But before long she sensed his reticence waning.
Jack, impressed with her no-nonsense attitude, began to relax and slipped into answering the questions with an ease born of lifelong experience with the subject. But his mind was never far from his real concern and as he talked his gaze skipped about the room locating residents he now shared nodding acquaintance with—like Cliff’s uncle, Gene Mott, a big-deal author in the horror genre. He was a cripple in a wheelchair with a meek demeanor who seemed to watch everyone and listen carefully to all that was said to him, sort of the way this Hart woman was doing with him. Authorese, he supposed.
Jack ordered them each another beer, then returned his concentration to Andrea. He was surprised how much he liked the way her mouth quirked as she asked questions; in fact, he liked her mouth a little too much. The urge to kiss her lips until they were swollen with passion swept through him.
He fought it down, concentrating instead on her other attributes, like her quick smile, her sudden laugh, the pride and confidence she exuded. She had a self-assuredness that the lucky had bred into them in childhood by loving encouragement and the solid foundation of family and roots.
He doubted Andrea Hart had a concern about who she was, where she’d been or where she was going. In other circumstances, they might have been friends. Desire teased him. Or more.
Again he shoved the thought away, stifled the urges. He wasn’t in Alder Gulch looking for love. The beer seemed to sour in his stomach, leaving a bitter aftertaste on his tongue for all that his obsession had cost him. For her sake, he hoped nothing ever ripped away the roots of Andrea Hart’s foundation as it had done to him.
“Do you spell Black the usual way?” she asked.
“Yes.” Jack’s slipping guard shot back into place like a spring-bolt lock. “Why does that matter? You don’t need my name.”
“Oh, but I do. I always include a section in my books for thanking the people who contribute to the research, and your contribution—”
“I don’t want my name in your book.”
Andy frowned. This was a first; she’d had several people insist their names be included in her books, but never before had anyone insisted they be excluded. Gee, Gram, the man acts like he has something to hide. “Are you sure—”
“Dead certain.”
She dropped the subject. “Could you tell me something about roping and branding cattle?”
Listening with half an ear, Andy wrote “Sta” next to Black on her tablet, adding a question mark beside it, then studied Jack with new interest. What hadn’t she noticed about him before that should have registered as matter out of place?
It took a minute, but then she realized, for starters, there was his seemingly intimate knowledge of everyday ranch life. For another, his age. He was much older than most of the college students working in town. So probably he wasn’t doing this for the fun of it. Yet if he were a professional actor it was more likely he’d spend these months doing legitimate summer stock.
Andy took notes, but her mind was on Jack. Throughout the interview—even now—his gaze wandered the room as if he were watching for someone or something.
Curiosity built to a force inside her, and as his attention swung back to her, she blurted out, “Why is a man of your age and obvious good health wasting his time in a summer job that can’t pay well and has no apparent benefits?”
Jack felt the warmth drain from his face. He gazed at her beneath lowered lids. Who the hell was this woman? It served him right for thinking nice thoughts about her. For wanting to kiss her. He couldn’t trust anyone and he’d better not forget it. “Now, how could knowing my personal business possibly help you with that book you’re writing?”
What do you think, Gram? Did I strike a nerve? Andy shrugged, but her pulse was racing, and she feared her expression might be smug. “You’re very good at playing Black Jack, but I have a couple of friends who are actors and somehow I can’t picture you doing that for a living.”
Jack looked like a thundercloud about to spew lightning bolts.
Andy wasn’t put off. She’d remembered something else. He stuttered over his name. Yes, he did. And turned bright red over the fact. She arched a brow and asked mockingly, “Who are you really, Jack, Sta-ah-Black?”
With a murmured curse, Jack scraped back his chair, rocking the table. Then, as quickly as a switched-off light, his expression softened. Andy watched the metamorphosis with suspicion. It was as if he’d become suddenly aware of where he was, of who might be watching. She curbed the urge to glance behind her.
He scooted the chair forward until his flat stomach grazed the table, then he plunked both elbows down and leaned toward her. Casual. Relaxed. Not a care in the world. A low chuckle slid from his sensuous mouth, and his eyes danced with mirth. “I’ll bet you’re one hell of a writer.”
It was a good recovery, one that sent little shards of awareness through her and again aroused in her a de-sire to be kissed by this man. But it also convinced Andy she was right about him. Jack Black was not on the up-and-up. She raised one eyebrow and addressed his compliment. “And why is that?”
“‘Cause you’ve a mighty large imagination, Ms. Hart.”
There was no denying that—and Andy doubted he’d like the “what ifs” it was conjuring about him at the moment. “I guess you don’t want to satisfy my curiosity?”
A low heat of desire danced in his sage green eyes. “Satisfying you would be my pleasure.”
Andy’s pulse wobbled.
A lazy grin tugged at Jack’s sensuous mouth. “But there’s no need for curiosity. The state of the national economy is no secret. I’m just a down-and-out cowboy, grateful as all get-out to the Alder Gulch city council for giving me a roof over my head, food for my belly and beer to wash it down. Now…” He stood abruptly, his sexy gaze still studying her face. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to mingle.”
Feeling as though she’d just been mentally rav ished, Andy lurched to her feet. There was about Jack the sense of a wild stallion in a corralled pen, and it tugged at her curiosity, yanked at everything fem
inine in her. “Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. If you change your mind about being included in the appreciation section of the book, you can find me at the Motherlode Motel.”
“I won’t change my mind.” Jack didn’t tell her that he, too, was staying at the Motherlode, or that he’d try not to run into her again before she left town. He didn’t want any further contact with this woman. She was too nosy, too good a judge of character, too easy to talk to, too easy on the eyes, too hard on the libido.
As she turned to gather her notebook and purse, she caught the edge of her bracelet on the chair. It flipped off her arm, flew against Jack’s chest and clattered to the floor.
Reflexively, Jack retrieved it. She thanked him, her smile warming him as no other had in a very long time. Smiling back, he started to drop the bracelet into her outstretched palm, but the hunk of silver clung to his suddenly damp fingers when he noticed the scar on her wrist.
So help him, it looked like…The thought broke off. No way. It couldn’t be.
He lifted his gaze to Andrea Hart’s face. The star tling blue of her eyes suddenly struck him as unnatural. Artificial. Could she be wearing colored contacts?
Could she have one brown eye and one blue eye? Despite the illogic, the million-to-one chance, hope sprouted. Could this be Leandra Woodworth? The bracelet bit into his palm. No. He was thinking crazy. Mad. And yet, he couldn’t convince himself that it was impossible.
He grasped her hand, fought to keep his grip gentle, and somehow managed to keep the emotion tearing through him out of his voice. “Looks like something mean tried taking a bite out of you. How’d it happen?”
Chapter Three
How had it happened? How had she gotten the scars on her wrist? Gram had said it happened the night her parents died, probably a piece of twisted car metal. That was all Andy ever needed or wanted to know about the scar. Pain centered behind her eyes, and she noted Jack’s tanned face seemed rather ashen. Nonetheless, his touch was reassuring. “I was very young at the time. I can’t—ah—don’t remember.”
Didn’t or couldn’t remember? Lee Lee Woodworth hadn’t been able to remember anything but Nightmare Man. Jack cautioned himself against the excitement he felt stirring in his gut. “How young?”
Andy frowned. Why should he care how old she’d been? “Five or so.”
Jack’s pulse skipped, but he feared he was grasping at straws. So what if she’d received a scar on her left wrist the same as Lee Lee Woodworth, at about the same age? It proved nothing. Leandra’s grandmother would never have allowed her to return to Alder Gulch without certain knowledge of who she was and what this town had meant to her. No, he was an idiot even to consider the notion, too damned anxious for an easy resolution to his own problem, a neat wrapping up of his years of searching.
“May I have my bracelet?”
“Oh…sure.” Jack let go of her arm and handed over the bracelet, which she promptly put back on, completely hiding the scar. The warmth of her hand in his lingered and with it a persistent, indefinable anxiety. Like worry. For her.
What was he concerned about? She looked nothing like Marcy Woodworth. And if Wally’s theory held, that was the only thing that would put her in jeopardy. Unless…The urge to ask her if she was wearing colored contacts persisted, but Jack suspected that was the obsession working its head games, and suppressed the urge.
Hadn’t he just been thinking how confident and self-assured she was? Would someone with Lee Lee’s past be this self-possessed? No. She was not Leandra Woodworth. She was just a woman of about the right age, with a similar scar. A damned similar scar. His gaze landed on her mouth, and the instantaneous urge to kiss her jarred him again. Damn it. He’d already given her all the time he had to spare. “It’s been…interesting, Ms. Hart. Take care.”
Bemused at his abrupt departure, Andy watched him walk toward the table where Cliff had retreated. She’d have sworn he was dying to ask her something and, in truth, she had a few unanswered questions of her own—like why his curiosity about her scar seemed personal, like why she, an engaged woman, wanted to be kissed by him.
Jack Black was definitely a puzzle, and she loved a good puzzle. She settled her purse strap over her shoulder, glancing at him again, debating the propriety of following him.
JACK APPROACHED THE TABLE Cliff had gone to, not surprised to find that several of the locals had joined Cliff and his uncle. It was, he’d learned, a Saturdaynight ritual. They made room for him, and Jack sank down next to Duke Plummer, curator of the local museum.
Plummer, a lodgepole pine of a man, claimed he was descended from the notorious outlaw, Henry Plummer, who’d once terrorized this area. He looked more like an old Harley-Davidson man than a collector of town memorabilia, with his long, silvery black hair in a ponytail at his nape and his square jaw peppered with whiskers. His indigo eyes sparkled with devilry. He was the right age to be Nightmare Man.
In fact, with the exception of Cliff and himself, so were all the men at this table, including Gene Mott. Gene was seated on his left in an electric wheelchair, puffing smoke from a Havana cigar toward the open rafters overhead. After some discreet inquiries, Jack had learned Gene’s spinal injury was the result of a fall from a horse twenty or so years back. “Evening, Gene.”
“Jack.” Mott’s voice was frail, belying his physical strength, his upper body was as well muscled as Jack’s own.
“That babe a reporter?” Cliff asked.
“I’m an author,” Andy answered from behind him.
Jack started, displeased at seeing her here. She gave him an innocent smile, but before he could respond, the man next to Gene Mott sprang to his feet, a show of manners, Jack noted, that was not extended by any of the other men at the table, himself included.
“Red Yager, owner of this humble establishment, ma’am.” Red’s shaggy head of hair and barbershopquartet mustache were the color of rusted barbed wire, and his constant squint made Jack wonder if he needed glasses. Red pulled up a chair for Andrea. “Please join us.”
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“Nonsense,” Red gushed. “This table could use a little sugar. Sit, sit.”
Andy took the seat opposite Jack, who handled introductions.
Red said, “Well, Gene. Another author in our midst. At least this one is easy on the eyes.”
“Don’t tell me.” Cliff eyed her with a lustful glint. “Romance, right?”
“Historical romance, to be accurate.” Andrea’s tone told Jack she took her occupation seriously, and he liked the way it silenced Cliff.
Red said, “Well, if history’s your game, you should see Gene’s personal library. Contains an incredible collection of diaries written during the cowboy and gold-mining eras of this town—including the time of Duke’s infamous ancestor.”
“Actual diaries written by former Alder Gulch residents?” Andy’s heart beat faster, and she couldn’t help looking expectantly at Gene Mott, hoping for an invitation to peruse the books.
Gene Mott ignored her, puffed his cigar and sipped his whiskey. Like the white female of the moth he’d taken his pseudonym from, he was as pale as an albino, with white-white hair, eyes the faded blue of a winter moon and skin as bloodless as a corpse. Indeed, he looked as gruesome as a character from one of his novels; probably the real reason he didn’t like his photograph on his book jackets.
Determined not to be put off by his rudeness, Andy tried another tactic. “I greatly respect your work, Mr. Mott. Although I was disconcerted when Mrs. Kroft told me this afternoon that you were not a woman. I assumed—”
He turned his icy eyes on her then. “It is my intention that all should assume.”
Duke Plummer coughed behind his hand. “I can help you with whatever history you need to know. Come see me at the museum—if you’re going to be in town long enough.”
“Oh, I’ll be here long enough.” Grateful for the curator’s graciousness, Andy sat straighter in the wooden chair and smiled at hi
m. “I intend to stay at least all summer.”
Jack clamped his teeth together so hard he bit the inside of his cheek and winced. The dining room crowd was thinning, and the noise level was lower, but the hurdy-gurdy beat of the player piano seemed to drum a tattoo of the unnamed anxiety he felt for this woman. Hell, he’d known her less than an hour and already she’d gotten under his skin, as though they’d connected on some intangible, yet concrete, level.
Okay. It was part sexual, but that didn’t explain the anxiety tremoring his gut. Damn. She could not, would not be his concern. But every protective instinct he had said otherwise. As long as she was in Alder Gulch, he knew he would feel the need to keep a close eye on her.
A waitress arrived at the table and as she took orders, Red asked, “What will you have, Ms. Hart?”
“Nothing, thanks.” Andy didn’t know whether it was the two beers or Jack Black’s scrutiny causing the flutters in her stomach. “I haven’t had dinner yet.”
Red squinted at her, his mustache twitching. “Well, that settles it, then. Bring Ms. Hart tonight’s special.”
Andy protested to no avail, and when the country fried steak and mashed potatoes arrived, she was glad Red had prevailed. For the next half hour, while she ate and after, over a cup of black coffee, she answered the men’s questions about her new book and her writing.
Gene Mott showed utter indifference, asking her nothing, offering neither opinion nor assistance. He looked as if the whole conversation bored him, which Andy realized it probably did. After all, he’s “been there, done that.” She sighed inwardly. He was going to be a tough nut to crack, but somehow, she would find the right hammer—anything to see those diaries.
Jack Black also abstained from comment, but although she’d felt his heady gaze on her morethan once, mostly he seemed intent on studying one or another of the men at the table.
What is he looking for? He chose that moment to glance her way and as their eyes met, she felt some thing like an electrical charge pass between them, something she hadn’t experienced before, something that bred goose bumps across every inch of her. Sexual awareness? Was this that wonderful sensation she wrote about like a well-schooled expert, but had never felt?
