Heart of the Hunter (9 page)

“Now!” His fingers curled around her shoulders, driving into them, lifting her to him. “Like this,” he muttered, and something ignited the cold ashes of his gaze as his mouth closed over hers.

His kiss was harsh, the fierceness of his grip an omen of bruises tomorrow. Ten of them, one for each punishing fingertip. Their ache was a memory unrelieved even as his hands slipped to her hair, cupping her head in his palms, drawing her closer still. The thrust of his body against hers was hard, as fierce as his touch.

His hands tugged back her head, his mouth scorched the flesh of her throat as it ranged over it. A sound, a sigh or cry, shuddered through him and he drew her closer, closer, his body a brand.

“Like this,” he breathed against her skin as he felt her yield. His kiss was punishment, his mouth still harsh, demanding she yield more and yet more.

Nicole's head was spinning, her heart racing. No man had held her as Jeb was holding her. None had provoked her or angered her as he, demanding what could very nearly destroy her. Allowing no refusal.

Then there would be none.

“No.” She muttered her anger against his lips. Her fingers tangled in his hair, her nails furrowing his scalp. “Like this.”

Her mouth opened beneath his, her teeth catching the tender curve of his bottom lip. Jeb groaned, but not in pain, and his tongue teased over hers. Anger vanished in the avalanche of more primal needs and Nicole was spinning, falling into a world she'd never known. He tasted of brandy and desperation, and she never wanted it to stop. Never wanted to let him go.

Yet even as she clung to him, he was stepping back, catching her wrists in a gentler grasp, dragging them down his body. She could feel the force of his heartbeat, and the ragged rise of his chest as he struggled for calm.

“Yes,” he said softly. “Like that.” Drawing her to his side, he draped an arm about her shoulders. “Put your arms around my waist. Now, lean your head on my shoulders. We're going to walk very carefully into the darkness. Two desperate lovers seeking a secret place to make the love they feel.”

Nicole tensed and would have pulled away, but he kept her close. “Easy. You've played your part, don't lose it now.” In a whispery singsong, he encouraged her, praised her, until the darkness of a gigantic magnolia swallowed them. “Great. You're doing great.”

Releasing her he stripped off the jacket he'd worn to satisfy whatever dress codes the Saracen might impose. Spreading it on the ground, he took her hand and drew her down with him.

Nicole had gone beyond objection, a part of her knew dimly he wouldn't listen. When he kissed her again, she responded. Playing her role, she insisted, even as he leant her back, pillowing her head on his jacket.

Rising over her, Jeb brushed a leaf from her hair with a tenderness belying the violence of his kiss. “Will you be afraid?”

She moistened her dry lips with her tongue and found she tasted of brandy. Jeb wouldn't let any harm come to her. “Not as long as you're near.”

He smiled and touched the bridge of her nose. He couldn't see the scar, but he knew it was there. He knew how she'd gotten it. She hadn't been afraid then, when he was with her. She was a brave lady, braver than she knew. Kissing her forehead, he whispered, “Hold that thought, sweetheart, and I'll be back before you know it.”

Then he was gone, fading into a wall of black.

Sweat beading her face, Nicole lay frozen, daring to make no sound. She knew where he was going and why. And she was afraid, but for Jeb, not herself. Beneath the canyon like darkness of the magnolia, silences were deeper, magnifying tiny sounds until the soft rustle of trampled grass returning to normal posture became the thundering tick of a monstrous clock keeping time at a tortoise's pace.

Every second was an eon, each minute immeasurable, as she listened and waited.

And waited.

“Nicole! Nicole! Please, Nicole!”

The scream she'd dreaded had her scrambling to her feet. Coming from everywhere, and nowhere, echoing in her mind, the terror of it clawed at her spine like a serrated blade. The voice that screamed for her was deep, but immature. A child whose voice had grown when he had not.

“No. No. No. Jeb, no.” She was running. Limbs grabbed at her hair and her clothes. Vines clawed at her, threatened to trip her. But she wouldn't allow it. Couldn't.

She stopped to orient herself. She had no sense of direction, no beacon to guide her.

A second scream filled the night, sliding down the scale to a plaintive whimper. A terrified child cried. One who wouldn't know his own strength, and Jeb wouldn't understand.

Precious seconds had been lost. She would be too late.

In anguish she whispered his name.

The name of a child.

“Ashley.”

T
he plaintive mewling of a frightened child finally stopped. But the hurt reflected in faded, watery eyes still haunted Jeb. No matter where he turned, their bewildered innocence followed him. Even in the dark, with the moon a glimmering golden globe, and night winds bearing the beguiling balm of the sea, they lay in wait to accuse.

Lifting his hands before his face, he stared at them. In the broken light falling from Nicole's bedroom door they were normal hands, of a normal man. Nothing about them appeared dangerous, certainly not lethal. But appearances deceived. As he deceived, and little more than an hour before, with only these damnable hands he had nearly throttled a child.

God help him, in any interpretation, a child.

The pad of Nicole's bare feet whispered over the deck. Another incongruity to be added to her dirtied and disheveled dinner finery. Her subtle fragrance drifted about him as she came to stand by his side.

The one constant in a bizarre evening.

Jeb's hands dropped to the deck rail, gripping. “How is he?”

“Asleep, finally.”

“No.” Jeb's head jerked. “I mean how is he, really?”

“Bruised. His throat will be sore for a while. And his ribs.” Nicole touched his arm, feeling the tension in muscles and nerve. “He'll heal.”

“Physically.”

“And emotionally.” Her fingers stroked his taut forearm. “Ashley won't remember. He never does.”

“I don't think this is quite the same.” Jeb knew the story of Ashley Blackmon. During the drive to the island, as she cradled the shuddering, hulking body with her own, Nicole told of a shy and gentle giant with the mind of a child. A wanderer of the streets of Charleston, considered a mild nuisance by some, a perfect target for malicious pranks by others.

“There was no way you could know, Jeb.”

No, there was no way he could have known. But that little salve for his conscience didn't silence the frantic squall of terror that echoed in his mind. As long as he lived, he would feel that powerful body beneath his hands, and hear the frenzied cry for the only person Ashley Blackmon trusted.

Nicole.

“If anyone is to blame, then I am,” she insisted gently.

“How do you figure that? You didn't burst through shrubs like Rambo, or garrote anyone.” Jeb flexed his fingers, and found hers lacing through them, risking their steely grip.

“You aren't Rambo,” she lifted their joined hands to the light. “And this is not a garrote. You did what any strong man would do. That it came down to that drastic measure is my fault and mine alone. I should have realized it might be Ashley.” But her mind had been too full of Jeb to think of anyone, or anything else. “I didn't, and for that I will always blame myself.”

“Why was he on the street at that hour? Why slinking from shadow to shadow?”

“Ashley is always on the street. He sleeps very little. When he saw us enter the park he was curious, even a little worried for me. He moved from hiding place to hiding place, watching us, meaning to protect me if I needed it.” Her voice quavered then steadied, her hand tightened over Jeb's. “As you did.”

“The man needs a keeper,” Jeb growled. “Someone to protect
him.
”

“There's no one.”

“Then he should be sent to an institution, some place for people like him.”

“He has been. When he was much younger a group of well-meaning citizens who felt just as you do, did what they thought was the kindest thing. Ashley very nearly didn't survive it. He's a wild creature that would rather die than live in a cage. Even a comfortable cage. He'd never been considered a threat to anyone, and no one wanted his death laid at their door. So, the order for mandatory confinement was reversed and he was allowed to return to the streets. He's been a fixture there since I came to Charleston.

“I met him here in the park. I know now that was unusual. Ashley runs away from strangers. I'd been in Charleston a month, and I was lonely. He sensed it. It was a common bond we shared.”

“How did you discover he could paint?”

“Quite by accident. He left a bouquet of flowers at the back door of the gallery. I wanted to give something in return. I don't know why I chose watercolors. I certainly had no inkling of his talent...until I saw the first seascape.”

A whimper from the bedroom sent Nicole rushing to Ashley. She'd given him her room because it opened to the deck, and the sea and he would feel less hemmed in. As she knelt by his side, soothing him as he slept, she was more aware of his enormous size than she'd ever been. He dwarfed the familiar room, making ordinary things seem small, and strange and close. For the first time, she understood his abnormal fear of houses. Walls closed him in. Roofs shut out the sky, the sun and the stars.

With a child's concept of his size, he understood only that rooms were tiny boxes that cramped and contained him. Yet someone somewhere had recognized the greatest danger of his size, and had taught him to be unfailingly gentle. Nicole had seen the taunts and blows of bullies suffered with the same stoic patience that coaxed wounded birds and wild creatures like himself to his wondering hand.

Jeb had not needed force to subdue Ashley, but he couldn't be faulted for what he didn't know.

As she rose from the floor to look at the sleeping man, Jeb turned away from the door. He'd watched and listened as she offered solace. Whatever her feelings, or her thoughts, her touch was assuring, her voice serene.

From the moment she'd burst through the underbrush, catching at his arm, dragging him from the cowering, crying man, her concern had been for Ashley. The stab of anger it provoked in Jeb was shocking. Until he understood about Ashley, and then himself.

As he backed away from the door, the essence of a deeper, more far reaching understanding took root. No matter his size, no matter the strength buried in the massive body, Ashley was a child. Nicole had dealt with his fear and his need with an uncanny composure, on a level he could comprehend. She knew by instinct what to say, how to reassure him and comfort him.

An instinct that could only be borne of compassion and caring.

Suddenly everything was falling into place. What Jeb hoped and wanted to believe were merging into a single truth.

He needed to see her. He needed to look into her face, into her eyes.

God! He needed to know.

With an angry gesture he raked his hair back from his forehead. His mouth was a grim slash in his face. A muscle rippled in his cheek from the force of his clenched teeth. Every nerve keened for the sound of her step on the wooden boards of the deck. Every sinew of his body coiled and knotted with his struggle to wait for her to come to him.

Patience was one of his strengths. In The Watch it had to be. Tonight the last shred of it deserted him. He was turning to seek her out when she stepped through the doorway. As before, her step was a whisper, her fragrance blended with the night. Coiled and knotted sinew coiled and knotted even tighter.

“It was just a dream. He never really woke up,” she explained.

“You like him, don't you?” Jeb looked down at her. She was small, but size hadn't mattered when she was needed.

“Of course.”

“And children.”

“Doesn't everyone?”

It was a rhetorical response, one of the meaningless, offhand comments people make. He knew it was far from an expression of what she believed, but it gave him the opening he needed.

“No, Nicole, not everyone.” With the tips of his fingers he lifted her chin. His gaze ranged over her face, the strong line of her jaw, the sensual curve of her lips, the battle scar at the bridge of her nose. Her eyes. Lovely, guileless eyes. “There are people who do unspeakable things to children. Some claim it's in the name of love, others don't even bother with the lie. Ashley was afraid of me tonight, and afraid for you because he'd been taught to be afraid. Would you say his teachers love children?”

A bleak look washed over her face. Bitterness normally alien to her wrenched her heart as she recalled the pack of teens who, for no reason than the sick, inhuman thrill of it, had thrown gasoline on Ashley and struck a match. If she hadn't been in the park... If the fountain had been dry...

The horror of what might have been, the cruelty made her shudder even now. These were Ashley's teachers. There had been others.

Jeb waited with a new lease on patience. When he thought she wouldn't answer, her gaze lifted to his. “I hate it,” she said in a tight voice.

Dark lashes half shielded eyes clouded with anguish and fierce anger. Yet her eyes were lovelier for the anguish and anger. Lovelier than anything Jeb Tanner had ever seen in his life.

“I hate what people do to each other, to their children and innocents like Ashley.” Slashing an impotent hand through the darkness, she sighed and shook her head. “I hate it each time another story of a lost child is blazoned over the papers.” Her voice dropped to a hoarse undertone. “But more than anything, I hate it when we're left to agonize over the last hours of a suffering child.

“Sometimes I wish...” She stopped and looked away. “I'm sorry.” Catching her lower lip momentarily between her teeth to stem the outburst, she shook her head again. “I didn't mean to go off on a tangent. You ask a simple question, expecting a simple answer, and get a tirade instead.”

“Don't be sorry, sweetheart.” He curled a hand about the nape of her neck, his thumb stroking the incredibly smooth skin beneath her jaw. He'd gotten more than a tirade, more than a simple answer. Drawing a deep breath he felt the worry and fear fall away like iron chains. “Don't ever be sorry for caring.”

He knew. Thank God, he knew.

Nicole would never hurt a child, or anyone. Nor forgive one who did. From this minute, and for always, he would stake his life on it.

Muttering unintelligibly—a groan, a curse, a prayer, not even he knew—he pulled her to him. And drew yet another long, ragged breath when she came willingly to his embrace.

With his arms wrapped tightly about her, his cheek resting against her hair, he savored the moonlit darkness, the constant rumble of the tide, wishing he could preserve their harmony for another time. For he was certain beyond any doubt the day would come when he must do exactly as he'd pledged, and risk his life for what he believed.

* * *

Jeb wiped sweat from his forehead and shaded his eyes as he looked to the top of the ruin. When he'd begun his run down the beach, Nicole was only a splash of color against gleaming marble, and Ashley was nowhere in sight. From his watchtower he recognized the familiar jeans, faded and worn nearly threadbare, but not the oversized T-shirt so outrageously orange it rivaled the sun. A stalking tiger appliquéd across the front was as lifelike as a photograph.

If she and Ashley hadn't been the only early risers on the beach, the flash of neon would have been his beacon as Nicole scampered about building sand castles and gathering shells to skim over the sand. They were two children reveling in an unaccustomed freedom, until a race to the ruin sent the lumbering Ashley stumbling into her.

Nicole had pulled up lame with a trickle of blood at her knee, then spent quite some time consoling Ashley. Finally she'd waved him away to play, while she climbed the ruin to keep her vigil over him.

Jeb laid his glasses aside then, deciding it was past time to make it a party of three.

“Good morning,” he called up to her now, remembering this was the elegant woman who had come to him willingly on a moonlit deck, drawing solace of her own from his arms. Sandy and tousled, her beachcomber's clothing spattered with saltwater, she was no less woman.

No less desirable.

“Got an early start, I see.” There was a soft edge in his voice, a huskiness he didn't expect.

“Ashley's an early riser.” She smiled down at him, then looked at the cloudless sky. “Nice day for jogging.”

“Yeah.” Jeb tilted his head toward a faraway pool of water trapped in a sandy basin when the tide receded. “Better yet for splashing through ponds.”

“He's been at it for nearly an hour now.” And she with him, but now she was content to sit however long Ashley found the sand and water amusing.

“How is he?”

“Better every minute.”

“Now that I'm not around, you mean.”

Nicole had no answer, no explanation for Ashley's unusual mood. “I don't know what's gotten into him. He's never behaved like this before.”

Jeb had sat with her, keeping vigil over the restless man-child through the first night. The next day Ashley had been agitated, given to spurts of sulking interspersed with fits of crying. He rarely ever spoke, but after racking her brain for reasons, Nicole finally sensed his silences were related to Jeb.

For Ashley's peace of mind, but only after her steadfast assurances that Ashley would die before he would hurt her, Jeb backed off.

He'd needed some time to touch base with Mitch and Matthew, and to report to Simon. For the first time in a long while, his report hadn't been as complete as it might have been. Simon was a brainstormer who believed in gut instinct. But only as a beginning. Then he expected concrete evidence to back it up.

Jeb had not discussed his certainty that Nicole knew nothing of Tony's life or his crimes. He wouldn't. Not yet. Not until her path crossed with Matthew Sky.

He would arrange it soon, perhaps in Charleston. Something casual, innocuous. As Matthew's not-by-chance gossipy and unproductive encounter with Mrs. Atherton at a rival gallery had been. “How long before you plan to return to the gallery?” Jeb asked. “Annabelle must be missing you.”

“We're going back today.” She looked from Jeb to Ashley who was coaxing a small sandpiper to his hand. “He likes the island, but he's beginning to miss his routine.”

“You think he'll be all right now?”