Heart of the Hunter (10 page)

“I'm sure of it. Ashley has remarkable recuperative powers. His biggest problem now is that he's feeling caged in and homesick. He slept on the deck last night, and nothing I could say could dissuade him. He argues brilliantly, by simply refusing to hear what he doesn't want to hear, or turning it around.”

“Have you ever wondered how much he understands?”

“I'm convinced it varies with the subject and the situation. Whether he's calm or disturbed, or even tired.”

“You know him pretty well, don't you?”

“We've been friends for years.”

Only days ago she'd confessed there were no men in her life. She'd been too busy for romance, yet she'd taken time to befriend a mentally and emotionally handicapped man. Once Jeb would have sneered and wondered if she were a candidate for plaster sainthood or the worst sort of liar. Now he accepted her words, and what he saw, as unpretentious truth.

“You're going this morning?”

Nicole shifted on hard stone, pointing a narrow, sneaker-clad foot to ease a cramping calf. “As soon as Ashley is ready. He loathes cars, so I thought it would be best to let him enjoy the morning first. Annabelle has been pinch-hitting for me at the gallery. She says coping with Mrs. Atherton part of one more day won't kill her.”

“But what about the reverse?”

Nicole laughed and bent to rub her bare leg below the raveling bottom of cutoff jeans. “They're frauds, both of them. All bark, no bite.”

“I wish I were as sure of that as I am that you're not going to be able to climb down from there with that leg like it is.”

“No problem.” She dismissed his concern. “It's just a cramp.”

“So I see.” What he saw was the muscles of her calf knotted and drawn, her toes curling back to the arch of her foot. “You could walk it off.”

“Not yet.” Dark hair flew in ebony strands about her face as she bent to flex her foot. “Ashley feels safer if he can see me here.”

“All right. If you're not coming down...” Jeb scaled toppled walls and nearly vertical remains of roof and floor as if he'd been doing it all his life. At the top of the ten-foot heap of stone, he stood looking out over the shore, then dropped down beside her. “Now, let's see to that leg.”

“Thanks, but it isn't necessary.” Nicole wasn't really sure she wanted him touching her. Not now, not here. Not when the sun glinted on his bare arms, reminding her how good it felt to let him hold her. Not when the sense of peace she'd found in his embrace was only a small part of what she wanted and needed.

What she needed now was to keep her wits about her, to deal sensibly with Ashley, and Jeb had a way of making her forget to be sensible. Tucking the offending leg beneath the other, she fought for a reassuring smile as the convulsing muscle closed into a tighter knot of agony.

“I'm fine.” She didn't hear the raggedness of her voice, nor see the lines between her brows. “Really.”

“Sure you are,” Jeb agreed, taking a page from Ashley's book of passive argument. “As fine as you were the day Tony's surfboard smacked you across the nose and left you with a couple of temporary shiners and a permanent scar.”

“That was a long time ago. A lot has changed.”

“Yes, it has. So don't be stubborn, one child on the beach is enough for now.” Before she could demur again, he lifted her leg to his lap and stripped away her sneaker. “Relax,” he urged. “It's no wonder this happened, you're tense as a brick.”

She wanted to tell him a brick wasn't tense and neither was she, but his fingers were sliding the length of her calf, working magic that was half torment, half pleasure. For one fleeting moment she fell beneath their ambivalent spell. Then he found the muscle in spasm, and with his hand fisted, kneaded it with his knuckles.

Nicole gasped and tried to twist away from the shock of excruciating pain lancing from toe to knee. She heard his low curse and an apology muttered under his breath, but he didn't release her.

“No!” Her hand closed over his shoulder, her nails scoring the hard, taut skin beneath his damp shirt. She meant to demand that he stop, but the demand died in her throat, as she realized the pain stopped instead.

The long muscle, that had been like a stone for what seemed an eternity, relaxed. Jeb's touch gentled. His dancing fingers ranged from her knee to her toes, following the path of her pain, discovering tiny aches she didn't know existed.

Nicole couldn't fight anymore. She didn't try. Bracing against her forearms, she leaned back and raised her face to an endless azure sky. As she moaned softly in relief, as tension and misgiving eased, her eyes closed shuttering away all the world but Jeb.

His exploring hands were more than gentle, more than magic. They were comfort and healing. And bewitching.

The surf whispered at low tide. An early morning sun warmed but didn't burn. The first hint of a breeze teased over her skin with the sensuality of a lover's kiss. Nicole drifted. Content, and yet...not.

Slowly, so slowly she was barely sentient of it, an awareness crept into her reverie. A subtle move, a breath not drawn. Restraint in a heated touch. The boding of longings unrealized.

Words left unsaid.

Words of passion and need.

A dream. She was only dreaming.

And in a beautiful, waking dream, in his silence, Jeb Tanner wanted Nicole Callison as much as she wanted him.

A dream. Only a dream.

A gull swooped low, his strident beggar's cry and the rush of his wings shattering their little inlet of quiet. Nicole stirred restlessly under Jeb's ministrations, her mind reaching for a lost illusion. When she knew it was gone, she smiled a wistful smile for what couldn't be.

“Better?” Jeb didn't take his hand from the smooth arch of her foot. He'd watched as the easing of pain had drawn her down, centered her thoughts, calming her until the weariness she denied was gone.

“Better?” she murmured. “Yes. Infinitely.” Dark lashes fluttered against her cheeks with the effort to drag her eyes open. She felt as if she'd slept, long and deeply, for hours. When she looked at him her gaze was serene, but far, far beyond it, so far she thought no one would ever see, lay a shadow of regret.

He wanted to take her in his arms and soothe her until there was only sunlight in her eyes. But he dared not, for it would only be a beginning. A public beach that would be far from deserted in only a few minutes was not the place for beginnings.

But there was a place for beginnings, with a house built, as Folly's ruin had been, as a gift of love. Where walks were carefully tended and flowers planted more for texture and scent than color. Where lost children, a girl and a boy, shared forever a treasure from the sea. And deserted beaches were truly deserted.

“I don't remember the last time I felt so rested.”

Eden.

“I would ask where you learned your skill, Mr. Tanner, but I'm not sure I really want to know.”

If the time was ever right, he would take her there.

“I think you've worked a miracle.”

For now he would bide his time and play the game.

And hope.

“No miracle, sweetheart.” He tousled her hair as he had when she was fifteen, and laughed as he bent to get her shoe. “I don't have the right credentials for that.”

“I would argue that point, but it would take too much effort.”

“And I would argue that you need a lot more sleep and a tall glass of orange juice.”

Orange juice, for potassium. The surfers' way of avoiding cramps by putting back one of the elements the sun sucked from their bodies. “I'll see to both,” she promised. “As soon as Ashley is...Ashley!”

She bounded to her feet, one shod, one bare. “Where is he?”

“Exactly where he was five minutes ago,” Jeb assured her calmly.

“Five minutes?” She couldn't believe such a short interval had passed.

“He almost had the sandpiper, at the last second it shied away. But it's only a matter of time.”

Scanning the shore, she found Ashley crouched in the sand, patiently waiting for the tiny bird to return.

“He's going to be covered with sand. Maybe I should help him bathe before you go into the city.”

Nicole made a dismissive gesture. “That won't be necessary. He does that scrupulously himself. Someone taught him very well. Clothing has been a problem, of course, but I can brush most of the sand off.”

“He seems to know so much. Who taught him, Nicole? And when?”

“His mother, I assume, but she's as much a mystery as everything else about him. He calls himself Blackmon, but no one knows if it's really true. In fact, no one can find any family connections at all.”

“How old is he? Where did he come from?”

“He could be fifty, or a bit more. The woman simply appeared on the streets fifty years or so ago. The last forty he's been alone.”

“He was just a kid!”

Nicole agreed. “Ten. Maybe a little younger. Maybe a little older.”

“Why didn't someone do something then?”

“I don't think anyone realized he was alone at first. He was more reclusive then, and not so big. The pattern of his life was set before his situation became apparent. Then it was too late. Trying to place him in an institution proved that.”

“You've tried to find someone for him, haven't you?”

She didn't bother denying or admitting what had been apparent. “Maybe I was a fool to try when no one else had succeeded, and after so many years, but I felt he needed someone to belong to. A place, a family. Roots.” A defeated shrug of her shoulders eloquently described the futility of her search. “As I said, I was a fool, on a fool's errand.”

Jeb caught her wrist, his fingers circling the small, delicate bones as he drew her back to his side. “Not a fool's errand.” His fingers skimmed over her bare arm to her shoulder and the collar of her shirt. Gathering the bright fabric in his fists, he drew her close. “Not a fool.”

“Jeb...”

“A lady,” he murmured, ignoring her feeble protest, “searching for the gift of happiness for someone she cared about.”

“Jeb...”

He stopped her with a kiss. Chaste, simple, the kiss of a friend. It would have to do for now. Backing away he nodded to Ashley who stood at the base of the ruin glaring at them. “I think you'd better put on your shoe, Ashley is ready to go back to Charleston.”

“It's just as well. The first of the thundering herd just arrived.” Gaudy umbrellas were springing up on the beach like toadstools after a rain. Sliding her foot into her shoe she made quick work of the laces and climbed down to shore.

Ashley seemed nervous. Worry carved the lines of his face deeper, and pale eyes darted from Nicole, to Jeb and back again. Nicole patted his shoulder. “Don't be afraid. No one will tease you here.”

Massive shoulders shrugged, shaggy hair flew as he shook his head violently.

“What's wrong, Ashley? What's bothering you?”

“Hurt.” His voice was rusty but the word was clear.

“Where?” Nicole was instantly concerned. “Is it your throat? Your ribs?”

The violent shake again. “You.”

“Me? Ashley, there's nothing— My knee!” She'd wiped away the blood, but the small scratch was raw and angry. “It's fine, Ashley, truly. When we crashed into each other you didn't hurt me.”

“Good.” His acceptance of her assurance didn't seem to ease his concern. A hand the size of a ham lifted to her face. Sand-covered fingers touched her lips tentatively, carefully. “Hurt?”

As a rule Nicole needed only a word or a gesture to be on the same wavelength with Ashley. Then communication became a jumble of single words, intuition and mind reading. But this time her assumption was so far from the mark, she was a minute reassimilating it.

Jeb was there before her, interpreting mildly, “He's asking if I hurt you when I kissed you. I think he suspects that I did.”

Or that he would.

“Of course it didn't hurt.” Nicole caught both huge hands in hers, ignoring the sand. “No more than it does when I kissed your cheek. You do remember when I kissed you, don't you?”

Ashley stared at their hands and shook his head.

“You brought flowers to the gallery and I kissed you.”

“Why?”

“It's something people do when they like someone.”

“Me.” Ashley slipped a hand free to thump himself on the chest. His colorless gaze wandered from Nicole to Jeb. His fist thudded again. “Me.”

This time Nicole's perceptions were on target. Anyone would have understood. “I like you, Ashley. We're friends. We always will be, but Jeb's a friend, too. I've known him for a long time.”

“No!” The big man turned away, his scowl a perfect replica of a pouting three-year-old.

“Yes!” Nicole went to stand in front of him, lifting his bowed head, forcing him to look at her. “That doesn't mean I like you any less than I always have. We all like more than one thing, or one person.”

“No.”

“Of course we do. Even you.”

“No.” A pouting lip trembled.

“You like chickadees. Does that mean you can't like herons, too?”

“Like herons.”

“I know you do. You like Annabelle, too, don't you?”

“Funny lady.”

“Annabelle is funny and you like that. But you don't stop liking me because you like Annabelle, do you?”

“No.” There was a quaver in the unpracticed voice, and tears on quivering unshaven cheeks.

Nicole brushed away a tear, as if he were truly three. “Would it make you feel better if I kissed you?”

“Yes.”

Solemnly, Nicole rose on tiptoe and, grasping his face in her palms she drew him down to her. As lovingly as a mother, she kissed one eye then the other and moved away. “There, is that better?”