The Royal Hunter (10 page)

From above, Baleweg’s eyes lit up as he watched the scene below from the tower window. He let the curtain flicker shut.

T
alia wouldn’t call it a companionable silence—there was nothing truly companionable about Devin Archer—but he did remain mercifully quiet as they wandered down the path toward the pond. And while she was well aware of his big rangy body moving along beside her with that unlikely grace of his, her thoughts were a whirl that had little to do with him. At least directly.

Indirectly they had a hell of a lot to do with him.

She still felt the need to hyperventilate over what had happened back there. Baleweg had said she needed a strong emotion in order to connect. Her strong emotions for Archer were mostly along the lines of irritation. Mostly. She hadn’t even planned on trying it, but then he was touching her, looking at her so intently, confusing her with the riot of emotions he was causing inside her. When he’d leaned in to kiss her, it had seemed like the most natural thing in the world to reach out, to figure out what was going on, why he wanted her. She hadn’t even been aware of doing it really … until she’d connected. It had been like grabbing hold of a hot wire.

The second shock had been her reaction. A definite feeling of joy. It was as if she’d known she could do this all along, but had merely been waiting for
someone to come along and teach her how to use it … and what to use it for.

She still wasn’t too sure about that last part. Certainly she wasn’t meant to use it to … well, to intercept feelings like the kind he’d been feeling. She darted a look at him, then quickly looked back to the path in front of her. The last thing she wanted at that moment was to encourage interaction of any kind. She’d interacted quite enough, thanks. In fact, she should really be back in the house, in her room, thinking about all the ramifications of what had happened today. Not walking next to the man who had, just moments ago, been wanting … what he wanted. Namely her.

And there it was. That zing of awareness. A bang really. It happened every time she allowed herself to think about what he had wanted. What he made her want. And dear God, had he made her want.

It was all she could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other as her mind took the perfectly logical leap to what it would feel like to be connected that way while he made love to her. The very idea of him being inside her while—

No, no, no. She shut that mental track down immediately. Just how in the hell was she supposed to deal with the man now? The magnitude of what she’d done by intruding into his feelings, the potential future complications, started to settle in. Would she
feel
things every time she looked at him? Or only when she tried? And how could she do one and not the other? She hadn’t even been trying the first time, not really.

Baleweg
. Her step faltered as she wondered what he’d make of this new breakthrough. If she could call it that. As they walked on, she was finally able to move past the hot-wired sexual element she’d
initially tapped into and began to realize there had been something more there. It wasn’t merely the sexual current that had reached out to her, into her. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that while that had been the initial jolt—and one hell of a jolt it had been—what had sent her stumbling away was that instant, that fraction of a second, when she’d reached beyond that surface level.

A shiver of dark, of cold, raced over her. Followed by a quick sensation of … of hollowness. Of … separateness. This she identified with as closely as anyone could. She’d felt it so many times in her life.

She risked another glance at him. Had it been more than their explosive sexual awareness and her intensified awareness, having just come from exhaustive attempts with Baleweg? Was it something else? Was there something inside him that called to her? What had she been about to touch? To feel? To discover?

She pushed a wayward strand off her forehead, surreptitiously rubbing at her temple. What had she done by allowing them to stay? By allowing Baleweg to fool with her mind? By allowing Archer to fool with … well, everything else? It was all too much.

“You know, this isn’t a death march,” he said, amused.

She slowed, tried not to stiffen. Just hearing his voice right now was too much. “You said you wouldn’t talk.”

He sighed, stopping. “Yeah, I know, I just—would you just wait a minute?”

She kept walking. If she were smart, she’d make an about-face and keep walking until she was back in the house, in her room, possibly under her bed or locked in her closet. She needed to search her thoughts, analyze them, categorize them, till she
made some sense of what she’d allowed to happen to her … and what she was going to do about it now.

But turning around meant moving past him, possibly looking at him and—heaven forbid—touching him. Which was definitely not something she could deal with at the moment. So she kept walking.

She heard him jogging to catch up with her. “What, can’t take a hint?” she muttered.

“I heard that.” He fell into place beside her again.

She stopped suddenly and turned to him as the solution came to her. He managed to stop without slamming into her, but only barely.

“Why do you have to be here?”

He laughed in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“No, you don’t. I’m doing the begging. Why can’t you leave? Can you leave?”

“Not if you’re walking around out here alone.”

She sighed. “I don’t mean right now, I mean permanently. As in adios, see ya, good-bye.”

Understanding dawned on his too-damn-good-looking-for-his-own-damn-good face. He folded his arms across his chest. His too-damn-broad chest. And he had those too-damn-broad shoulders, too.

“And here I thought I was being a charming bloke.”

She snorted. She didn’t mean to, but it slipped out.

It got another surprised look from him; he even seemed a bit affronted, so she was glad she’d done it after all. In fact, she might do it again. Perhaps if people had done more snorting at Devin Archer earlier on, he wouldn’t be so insufferable.

“I’m merely suggesting that your … services, such as they are, are no longer required. Baleweg is handling things by himself just fine.” Boy, was he. She still didn’t want to think about what the next
step would be now that she’d made her first connection. If she were honest with herself, she’d admit that for the first time, she actually felt as if she were doing what she’d been put here to do. She’d felt it lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling but seeing her past.

Which was why Baleweg was still in the tower room in her house, and why she’d given her kennel hands more responsibilities so she could spend time with him in that tower room. Exploring the possibilities, and discovering the realities. About her mother, about herself.

But Archer seemed to serve no purpose at all, other than to complicate an already complicated situation.

“I believe I am handling … things, as you call them, well,” Archer said.

“Wandering around my property and ogling my kennel help? Who, by the way, is a bit too young for you, don’t you think?”

He laughed right in her face. “So that’s what this is? Female jealousy? I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I guess I’d thought you were above all that.” He held up a hand to stall her outraged response. And he was
so
off the mark. “Yes, even in my time, women still get their noses out of joint about men looking at and talking to other women.”

“In your dreams, future man.”

He was laughing again.

“Okay, fine,” she said. “We won’t talk about your penchant for teenagers. What I was saying was—”

Before she could see it coming, he clasped his hand around her wrist—and yanked her right in front of him. There was not a breath of air between them.

“Let me go.”

There was no amused little gleam in his eyes now.
“For the record, I don’t have a ‘penchant for teenagers,’ ” he ground out. “Generally, I have no trouble finding grown women to occupy my time when I wish them to occupy it. I prefer a partner who knows her way about. I’ve never been one to understand the allure of initiating the untried.”

The untried. Talia wondered if he had any clue how close to home that remark had hit. Not that she was a virgin, but her experiences had been discouraging enough she might as well have been untried. In fact, until a few moments ago, when she’d connected with Archer, she’d almost forgotten all about … trying.

“It might interest you to know,” he went on, mercifully disrupting her thoughts, “that we were talking about you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. You. Your employees think you’re the savior of all things fuzzy and homeless. The old people up on the hill probably think so, too, the way they all came to your rescue. I’m surprised they all don’t drop to the ground when you pass to genuflect at your feet.”

“Oh, please.”

“But if you’re worried about what I am attracted to, then let me set you straight.” He moved in closer.

Don’t think
, she cautioned herself.
Don’t think about him. Concentrate on something else, anything else
. She didn’t want to know what he was feeling. She didn’t even want to know what
she
was feeling.

“I like a woman with curves. Ample curves that fill a man’s hands. And long hair, golden bright, like sunshine spilled across my pillow. I like dark eyes that have a look to them that tells a man she knows what is what, and makes it clear she wants it, too.”

Wait a minute. Blond hair? Ample curves? Dark
eyes with that look? Talia had never known that look, much less delivered it. Not that it mattered. Archer had just described his ideal woman as being opposite in every way from her. Relief, she should be flooded with relief. But that wasn’t at all what she was feeling. She was feeling … empowered. Because no matter what he told her about his preference in women, women she wasn’t remotely like and could never hope to be, she had incontrovertible proof that he’d preferred her. At least momentarily. She’d
felt
it. Firsthand.

It was that knowledge that had her turning her gaze to his, a defiant smile on her face. And maybe, just maybe, the beginnings of that look he was describing. “Since I don’t come close to fitting that description, why are you standing so close? Why aren’t you letting me go?”

Archer’s eyes widened in very satisfactory surprise. Yes, she could definitely get to enjoy this look business.

Then his surprise faded. Unfortunately, it didn’t change to irritation or frustration. She knew how to deal with that. No, his surprise faded to a smile. A knowing smile, a smile that most certainly was part of that look, a smile that could only be described as, well … carnal.

She gulped. She wasn’t even close to mastering
that
look. Perhaps it was time to cut her losses and run. Really fast.

She pulled free, moved around him, and headed toward the house at a speedy walk. Okay, a trot. She didn’t even bother listening for his footsteps. She could well imagine the smirk on his handsome face. She wasn’t even embarrassed. She should have known better than to try and play games with him. But one little peek into his head had left her feeling drunk with power.

She made it to the steps of the house, then remembered
that Baleweg was still inside. No way could she deal with him right now. She spun around, thinking she’d go to her office in the kennel, but Stella was most likely still there, watering and feeding. She spun back around and spied her truck. A drive. That’s what she needed. A drive through the countryside as the sun set. She’d roll her windows down so she could feel the night air, smell the heat of the day lift off the flowers and grasses, hear the trill of the crickets and the croaking of the frogs. She’d let the sounds of nature soothe her and help her sort out her thoughts.

Who was she kidding? She was going to drive like a bat out of hell, trying to outrun the chaos that her life had become.

She jumped in her truck, never more thankful that out here in the country a person could leave her keys in the ignition, and gunned the engine. She had a very satisfying vision of burning rubber and spraying gravel over Archer as he ran behind her, helpless to catch her.

That vision was ruined when he opened the passenger door and hopped in, his demeanor calm, as if they went for evening drives all the time. She resisted smacking the steering wheel, just as she resisted dropping her head to her hands and sobbing in frustration. She had her hand on the door handle, figuring she’d rather face Baleweg or Stella, but Archer’s quiet words stopped her.

“I’m sorry.”

Now it was her turn to look at him in surprise. “What did you say?”

He scowled. She was feeling better by the second.

“I said, I’m sorry. About back there. What I said. About women.”

She leaned back and folded her arms on her chest. “Why?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Why what? Can’t you just accept a man’s apology, for Christ’s sake?”

“I’m just curious. You seem exactly the sort who’d make comments like that about women. So what is it, exactly, you’re apologizing for? I could care less what type of woman appeals to you. If anything, I suppose I should apologize to you for the crack about teenagers.”

He swore under his breath, making Talia smile despite herself.

“I don’t know why I bothered.” He closed the door. “Where are we off to?”

Talia’s smile fled with the clicking of the door. Suddenly the front seat of her truck felt immeasurably smaller and far more intimate. Which was silly, really, considering Archer was about as far from feeling intimate, judging from the look on his face, as a man could be. “I don’t recall inviting you on this trip.”

“And I don’t recall telling you it was safe to leave the premises unescorted.”

Safe
. There was that word again. She was getting mightily sick and tired of it, too. “I’m a grown woman and if I want to risk life and limb by driving around the pond tonight, well, then, it’s my risk to take.” She threw the truck into gear. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She waited for him to exit the truck.