Heart of the Hunter (13 page)

“Not on your life,” Jeb declared. “I just didn't want to waste any time once I won the skirmish I knew I'd get.”

He was arrogant, and too pleased with himself. If it were any other time, and any other man, Nicole would have taken great pleasure in popping that prideful bubble of masculine assurance. But not today. Not when she was feeling as giddy and happy as a child.

Spinning to Annabelle, she couldn't keep the smile from her face. “You're sure you don't mind?”

“I'm sure.” Silver sounded, as if a thousand tiny bells, as Annabelle waved Nicole away. “Go! Have a perfect day. Rest, enjoy yourself. Dance by the fire.”

Nicole caught her breath, exhaling in a long sigh. “Who knows?” she said with a thoughtful nod. “Maybe I will.”

Jeb watched her go to the lounge. When the door closed behind her he turned back to Annabelle. He looked down at his fellow conspirator, who had kept silent through the entire encounter, until the last. “What's this about fire?”

“An enlightened suggestion.”

Jeb waited, giving her ample opportunity to explain, but, judging by the set look on her face, he gathered he would wait forever. He'd been given all the explanation he was going to get. He knew when to cut his losses. “I should thank you.”

“For what?” The question came quickly, bluntly.

“This is twice you've helped.”

Annabelle leaned back in her chair. She was the rare person who was not intimidated to sit while another stood over her. Lacing her fingers, she leaned her chin on the steeple made of two. Through narrowed eyes she looked him up and down. He was a wolf, all right, and not a tame one. All the trappings of wealth and civilization couldn't change that. But untamed didn't mean unprincipled. She suspected Jeb Tanner was many things. Fierce? Without a doubt. Ruthless? Perhaps. Dangerous? Certainly. Deliberately cruel or malicious? Never.

She would stake all she held dear on it.

She
had
staked something very dear on it.

Her piercing stare finally settled on his face. Eyes as black as sin blazed up at him, searching, probing, seeking reason to believe or not to believe her gut instinct.

One long moment slipped into the next, and the next. Jeb held still for the brutal study. He knew what Annabelle was thinking. He knew why. He would do the same for a friend. But this was of far more import than mere friendship. Her decision would be critical, could mean success or failure for The Black Watch.

“All right,” she said, as if the two of them had reached some unspoken covenant.

Jeb didn't respond. No response was needed. Her initial judgment would stand, but her guard was not down.

“Don't make this a mistake I'll regret.” The rasp of steel rang in the muttered command. Annabelle Devereaux bore no resemblance to the comical femme fatale she played at.

With one more look filled with warning she turned her back on him, picked up her pen and began to write.

* * *

The cut off jeans were a bit long, and more than an inch or so too roomy at the waist. Nothing an extra cuff and an extra tug at the rope that served as a belt hadn't conquered. The matter of the faded T-shirt that reached nearly to her knees had been resolved by bunching it beneath her breasts and tying a bulky knot at her midriff.

With her legs stretched out before her, and a baseball cap pulled low over her forehead, she bore an uncanny resemblance to a castaway. But Jeb was certain there was never a castaway as striking as Nicole.

From his place at the wheel he kept her in his sight as she laughed and talked with Mitch and Matthew. With no effort at all, she'd captivated the men she thought were simply his crew. Even Matthew, who habitually held himself aloof, seemed at ease with her. There were no indications that troubling intuitions set him apart from her.

When she grew quiet, Matthew was last to leave her to drowse, replete and contented, in the sun as he joined Mitch below.

For the past hour the sloop had glided silently through channels and past small cays. The muted rustle and shuffle of men going about their chores was broken only by the sigh of the wind in the sails. Jeb reveled in the sound, in the surge of the sea beneath his feet, the buck of the wheel in his hand, the pleasant burn of the sun and wind at his back.

He was home. No matter what he did, no matter where, it would always be.

“Tired?” Matthew asked. As he touched Jeb's shoulder briefly, there was compassion in his eyes. Of two cultures, Apache and French, wild and urbane, with no common ground, he understood the toll of conflicting loyalties. He knew the need of choice, his own had been made. He was Apache now, his mother's heritage no longer existed for him. But he never forgot the agony of choosing, the shredded heart and soul. “Would you like me to take the wheel?”

Jeb shrugged aside his offer, but not ungraciously. He knew Matthew would understand. Matthew always understood.

The mast creaked, a sail snapped as the wind shifted. Matthew swayed easily with the plunge of the bow, a man of the desert at ease with his chosen loyalty. Keen eyes, as black as pitch, looked out over the sea then at Nicole. “She's sleeping.”

Jeb nodded.

“You're wondering what I sense about her.”

There was no need to answer or ask. Matthew was gifted with the virtually prescient power of his chosen people. He would explain in his own good time. Jeb listened to the wind, and waited.

“She's a gentle woman.”

“Yes.” Jeb's voice was gruff with disuse.

“Too gentle to be any part of what her brother has done.”

“I know.”

“I thought, perhaps, you did.”

“What will she do when he comes?”

Matthew shook his head, the leather binding his long dark hair brushed his bare nape. A feather tangled with strands of turquoise beads. “I read people, my friend, and probabilities, not the future.”

“Sorry.”

Black eyes looked intently at Jeb. Bronze skin stretched tautly over expressionless features. “The critical question is what will you do?”

Jeb spun the wheel, adjusting course. The contentment of the sea was lost to him as Matthew called down the real world. “I'll do what I have to do, when the time comes.”

No flicker of change showed on the Apache's face, but he knew what the words cost Jeb now. He feared what they would cost in the end. Just for a moment, he was tempted to tell him that the woman he loved, loved him as fiercely. But only for a moment.

Some things were better left for lovers to discover. And what better place than Eden?

“It's time you woke your lady for the first sighting of the island.”

This time Jeb didn't shrug aside the offer. Stepping back he relinquished control on the sloop to Matthew. Treading from mid ship to the bow he bent over Nicole.

“Wake up, sweetheart,” he said as he tipped the baseball cap from her eyes. “We've come to Eden.”

H
er first impression of the island, glimpsed as she roused from a restful sleep, was that it was unremarkable in that it was like so many other islands that dotted the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia—low, lush, verdant and spectacularly beautiful. As the
Gambler
moved closer to shore, she saw her mistake. Eden was everything the barrier islands were, and more.

“How strange,” she murmured as she tugged the brim of her cap lower to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun.

“The bluff?”

Nicole turned to Jeb. “I've never seen such an unusual elevation in the area.”

“The rise is peculiar to Eden. And a good thing, too.”

“How so?”

Jeb sidestepped her question. “It's a long story, too long for now. I'll tell you later, after we dock.”

“Which we should be doing in about ten minutes,” Mitch added to Jeb's comment as he stepped on deck. “Sit tight, Nick.” He tossed a grin over his shoulder as he went to trim a sail. “Before you know it, you'll be in paradise.”

“Paradise.” It was easy to believe Eden lived up to its name. White sands, blue sky, bluer water and palmettos taller and thicker than any she'd ever seen. In its own way, the
Gambler
was paradise, as well. Maybe because she'd eaten with better appetite than she'd had in a while, and slept deeper than ever before. Or maybe it was the company of three courtly men, who seemed to have nothing better to do than see to her comfort.

“I missed my opportunity.” Mitch lounged against the coaming, his task done for the time being.

“What opportunity?” she asked.

“To play pirate and shout ‘land ho!' from the rigging.”

“But I'm sure you have.” Nicole laughed.

“Just once before.” He grinned and waved expansively. “Here in this very corner of the sea, with the medicine man and Mitch, and a woman very much like you.”

A woman very much like her.

Brett?

Had she sailed to Eden this same way? Felt as comfortable, as cared for. As safe?

Safe. That word again. A relative term. Arguable, when one looked, really looked, beyond the visage of her traveling companions. They were gallant to a fault, and courteous, but watchful and guarded. No move was unnecessary, no comment thoughtless. Even when they appeared totally relaxed, she sensed they were not. Nor would they ever be.

They spoke little to each other, yet communicated. A look spoke volumes, a subtle move even more.

At first she was sure she had imagined it, that it was simply the bond of excellent friends who'd worked and traveled together in close quarters for long intervals. By the time she recognized it as far more, she was too comfortable and too drowsy to care.

Wide awake, with the trill of excitement dancing through her, she sensed the same rapport, the watchfulness and guarded air that should have been illogical in an exercise as benign as approaching a deserted barrier island.

Yet it was there, no matter that they teased or played the gallant. The ambience of danger was strong, and with it the insinuation of potential violence balanced by unshakable calm and poise. And all of it as natural to them as Mitch's bent for teasing, or Matthew's reserved thoughtfulness and Jeb's deep love of the sea.

Mitch Ryan, Matthew Sky, Jeb Tanner—quiet, considerate men, who would be neither when the need came.

She didn't know how or why she knew these things. Only that they were qualities so fierce, so exquisitely evolved, she found herself questioning who these men were and what they'd been before they became crew and captain of the
Gambler.

Perhaps, someday, she would know.

Jeb touched her arm, drawing her attention to starboard as Matthew steered parallel with the island. “Watch,” he said with the throb of something she couldn't define in his voice. “You'll only have a second.”

Matthew slowed the engine to near idle, the sloop drifted closer to shore. A sandbar visible in the pale, clear water loomed at starboard, another at port. Neither Jeb nor Mitch showed concern as Matthew threaded through as cleanly as if they didn't exist.

“There.” Jeb's hand tightened at her elbow, as he pointed to thick undergrowth that crowded the edge of the sandy beach. “Just past the palmetto bending to the sand.”

They were moving slowly, the engine nearly soundless. At first she saw only green. Thick, impenetrable green. Then it seemed to fall away, a small clearing took shape, a flash of space and openness beyond the occasional outcropping of palmetto and sparse shrubs. As quickly, despite their slow pace, it was gone.

Perplexed, she looked up at Jeb, not sure at all what she was supposed to see, or had seen.

“You aren't dreaming or hallucinating. You saw a garden, and children. A girl and boy, part of a shrine.”

“I assumed the island was deserted, most of the uncharted isles are.”

“Eden isn't inhabited at the moment, but it isn't deserted.”

“A private retreat?”

Jeb nodded, as Matthew maneuvered the sloop toward a dock tucked in a natural bay that notched the curving shoreline. “Patrick McCallum bought it years ago for his wife, Jordana. There are other gardens now, but the one you saw was here before them. Beyond clearing away the worst of the underbrush, it was left as they found it, as it had been for nearly a century.”

“I had no idea there was a place like this only an hour's sail from Kiawah. It's quite a pleasant surprise.” The sloop scraped the padded dock, rocking in its own wake. Jeb's arms were there to hold her, before she could reach out for support.

“There are more surprises in store.” His voice was deep, bass from the depths of his chest, vibrating against her back. “Eden is a sensualist's nirvana, as close as Patrick can come to the gift he most wants to give Jordana.”

“Why not give her what he truly wants her to have?”

“Only a miracle can give her that.” As Nicole leaned into him, her body swaying against his as the sloop bucked with the ebbing swells, there was a miracle of his own he would wish for.

“What miracle would that be?”

He drew her back against him, her body yielded to the pressure, fitting closely, perfectly, as if she were meant for him and him alone. His voice was rough, the effort to keep it even beyond him. “Her sight, Nicky.”

“She's blind?”

“Yes,” he said gently as he heard distress in her voice. “Jordana is blind.”

“Dear heaven.” Nicole closed her eyes, physically shutting out the bright shore, the brush, the water. But nothing could erase the mental image of Eden, of Patrick McCallum's gift, a silver edged emerald in an azure sea. “How long?”

Jeb sensed what she was feeling, understood what she asked. “Jordana's never seen the island. She's been blind almost from birth.”

“Then Patrick McCallum must be a very cruel man.” To have this, to be a part of it and not share in it, not see it, would be a constant, painful reminder of Jordana's loss.

Jeb released her as Mitch leapt to the dock, securing the sloop with a coil of rope. “You're wrong. Patrick's a lot of things. Arrogant, stubborn, willful. No one could accuse him of being Mr. Congeniality, but he isn't cruel.”

“I can't agree.”

“You will.” He took her hand. Eden waited. “Before the day is through, you'll understand.”

* * *

The
Gambler
was a minute dot of rippling white. Watching it grow smaller and smaller, until it disappeared beyond the horizon, Nicole wondered all over again at the men who sailed it.

Matthew had come on shore but never strayed far from the sloop. Mitch, on the other hand, threw her a jaunty wave and disappeared into the interior of the island and didn't reappear for some time. Jeb played host leading her over carefully tended paths to a house of such natural and practical grandeur it left her speechless.

It wasn't until now, when the
Gambler
sailed from view, that she realized their arrival had been accomplished with all the carefulness of a friendly takeover. As if they expected nothing out of the ordinary, but wouldn't be caught unaware if there were.

Leaning on a balustrade, she looked out over gardens and shore and sea, and wondered again what manner of men were these.

“Surprised?” Jeb appeared at her side, a glass of ruby liquid in each hand.

Turning, she took the glass he offered. “A bit.”

“Feeling stranded, cut off from the world?”

“Have you been reading my mind?”

He tucked her hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering at the fine line of her throat. “Just stating the obvious. It's a helpless feeling when your one connection with the outside world is beyond your reach.”

He leaned on the balustrade beside her and, in spite of his observation, was more at ease than he'd been since they'd made shore. The island was clean. Mitch combed every inch of it with the aid of glasses from the single vantage on the bluff that offered a clear view of most of the terrain. Two stretches of shoreline were beyond his view. The north point and a small stretch of beach beyond the dock. The first had been visually searched as the
Gambler
moved close to the garden. The second, Matthew patrolled as he kept watch for any incoming vessels.

The house had been Jeb's assignment. He hadn't liked having Nicole with him as he went from room to room, under the guise of a tour. Still it was safest.

All was well. The
Gambler
sailed off the edge of the world, and for a few hours he had nothing to think of but Nicole.

For no reason but that he wanted to touch her, he let his fingers dance down her arm, bare beneath the pale green sleeve of the borrowed T-shirt. When she looked up at him, a question in eyes that reflected the color in deep, darkest jade, he smiled. “If it makes you feel any better, there's radio equipment in a shed at the back.” Powerful, and in perfect working order, as reported by Mitch. “And a boat or two in dry dock on the channel.”

“Doesn't surprise me,” she observed dryly. “Considering the island, the house and everything in it and around it, a fleet wouldn't surprise me.”

Jeb laughed. “That's something he hasn't thought of. Yet.”

“Yet being the operative word, I think.” Falling silent, she sipped her drink. Her arm tingled from shoulder to elbow long after his fingers moved away, but she didn't want to think of it, or why the slightest contact excited her. Drawing a long breath, she cast about for ways to put the thought from her. “This friend,” she began, “the one that Mitch and Matthew had a sudden, burning need to visit, who is she?”

“Hattie Boone.” He chuckled. “The experience of a lifetime. A unique woman who claims to be one-third white, one-third black, one-third bird and one-third fish.”

“She must be unique if there are four thirds to the whole,” Nicole observed drolly.

“She is, and she'd be first to tell you every inch of it is all woman.”

“Maybe she should meet Annabelle, they have a lot in common.”

“More than you know.” He was thinking of a shared penchant for matchmaking, but before Nicole could ask what he meant he lifted his glass to the light. Ice and liquid sparkled like rubies. “If ever there was ambrosia, this is it. Hattie made it. It's never the same twice, never anything but delicious, and can never be found anywhere but here, on Eden. She's Patrick's itinerant caretaker and woman of all trades. Thanks to Hattie, and with her compliments, there's food in the cooler or the freezer when you're hungry.”

“And fresh flowers on the table here on the deck,” Nicole said, finishing for him. “She knew we were coming.”

“Patrick called her to say we might.”

“Now that we have, your crew has sailed away to visit with her.”

“To know Hattie is to love her.” Touching the rim of his glass to hers, he said, “Drink up, there's a lot I want to show you.”

* * *

The day was too short, and Eden too beautiful. They'd begun, again, with the house, slower this time. Spacious, open, uncluttered, it brooked nothing that would trip a woman with eyes that could not see. Yet it was a house of textures. Smooth and rough, delicate and sturdy, wicker and bamboo, mahogany and teak. Coarse silks, sculpted brocades, burlap, gossamer and homespun. The list was luxuriant and endless.

A feast to the touch.

For Jordana.

Nicole had begun to understand Patrick's gift, to appreciate it, when Jeb led her through gardens rich with the scent of roses, lilies, oleander and lowly beach daisies. At their borders the path turned rugged and difficult. Vines coiled over it as it deteriorated into a meandering trail. Twisted limbs and fallen trees threatened to block their way, low hanging Spanish moss brushed faces and shoulders. After fifteen minutes of rough going, what seemed an impenetrable wall loomed before them, then moved beneath Jeb's hand like magic.

The gate swung open, dragging cloistering vine and ivy with it, into a garden nearly as unkempt as the path. The clearing was small, and crowded with ferns, and more ivy and banks of wild roses. In the center stood the figures she'd glimpsed from the sloop. A young girl shared booty from the sea with a wide-eyed lad. But it was carved of stone, green with age, not cast in bronze as she had thought.

“Of all the island, of all Patrick has created for her, this is Jordana's favorite,” Jeb told her as she stared in bewilderment.

Nicole thought of the paths she'd trod, the house, the gardens. Each of them carefully planned, so that a woman attuned to her senses could wander them independently.

It would be precious independence. And the greatest gift of all.

But not offered here in a cherished place. Only an hour ago she would've been quick to judge, and judge harshly, what seemed a cruelly thoughtless act heaped upon a cruel condition. But she'd learned that nothing was as it seemed on Eden.