by Cathie Linz
Biting her bottom lip to keep her unruly emotions at bay, Gaylynn quickly made her way back toward the cabin. Halfway there, a floodlight flickered on, illuminating her way. She remembered Michael telling her he’d installed a light-activated light.
She’d no sooner gotten inside the cabin when the sound of gravel crunching in the stillness of the night made her freeze in her tracks. Someone was outside!
Gaylynn couldn’t help it. Fear washed over her.
The twin beams of a car’s headlights pierced the shadowy darkness of the living room. The cabin was far enough off the beaten track to ensure that no one would just be passing by. That was one of the reasons Gaylynn liked it so much. Perched on the top of a hillside, it was just her, the kitties and the other wildlife, none of it human—other than the brief glimpse of that old moonshiner.
She was not expecting company. Only her family knew she was here. Yet a car was definitely making its way up the long and narrow gravel driveway—a driveway that was private and so secluded no one could stumble upon it by accident.
Silently thanking her brother’s foresight in installing the large floodlight on the outside corner of the cabin, Gaylynn tiptoed to the front door and peeked out the curtained window. The driveway was brightly lit. There was a car all right. A dark-colored sedan. She didn’t recognize it.
The car door opened and she saw a man step out. The floodlight shone down on his head. He had dark hair. As he turned toward the cabin she saw his face clearly for the first time.
An instant later, her fear was replaced by anger. Yanking the door open, Gaylynn confronted the man climbing the wooden steps leading up to the front porch.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Now is that any way to greet an old friend?” Hunter Davis returned with a slow smile.
Two
Gaylynn hadn’t seen Hunter Davis in ten years, but in many ways it was as if she’d only seen him yesterday. His dark hair was longer than she remembered and had a touch of silver at the temples. His deep-set eyes were exactly as she remembered, a vivid shade of green—the color of backlit spring leaves.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in, Red?” he drawled.
She’d hated the nickname as a kid, and she intensely disliked it now. Hunter had given her the nickname when, as an awestruck thirteen-year-old, Gaylynn had used henna on her hair to impress the “only man in the universe” for her. Hunter hadn’t known that he was that man. He’d been eighteen, five years older than her. In her idolizing eyes, he’d seemed like the perfect man.
Seeing Hunter now, she realized how wrong she’d been. Now he was a man. Not perfect perhaps, but definitely rather awesome. The years had honed him to a sharp edge, as was illustrated by the fine lines at the outer edge of his green eyes. His level brows intensified his elemental attractiveness. His face was too powerful to be handsome, yet it held a woman’s attention longer than any surface good looks would.
When, at age thirteen, Gaylynn’s plain brown hair had turned a vivid red as a result of her henna experiment, Hunter had started calling her Red. She’d tagged after him and her brother, anyway. She’d fallen in love—with capital letters and all the fervor of a teenager.
And when Hunter had gotten married at twenty-five, she’d shed a tear or two. It was the last time she’d cried. Until last month.
“What are you doing here, Hunter?” she asked.
Instead of answering, he eyed her with a frown. “What’s-wrong?” he said bluntly. “You look awful.”
Her cheeks burned. She knew her clothes were rumpled, and her jeans had dirt marks at the knees where she’d bent down to feed the stray cats. She’d planned on taking a shower after she’d eaten her late lunch, but had gotten distracted. Her hair hadn’t been brushed in hours and probably had a twig or two sticking out of it from her exploratory walk along the edge of the woods. “I wasn’t expecting company right now. Go away,” she muttered with self-conscious irritability, trying to move him toward the front door.” Come back later.”
She might as well have tried to move Mount McKinley. “I’m not going anyplace until you tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m on vacation, okay? This is the way I look when I’m on vacation. If you don’t like it you can leave!” Her famous Hungarian temper flared as she stomped off to the bathroom and slammed the door. Looking in the mirror, she saw that he was right. She did look awful. After washing her face and brushing her hair, she put on some lipstick before opening the door.
Of course, Hunter was waiting right outside, just as she’d known he would.
“There, is that better?” she asked, complete with a mocking pirouette.
“I wasn’t talking about your hair. I was talking about your eyes.”
“I didn’t get a lot of sleep…”
“That’s not it,” he interrupted her. Taking her chin between his fingers, he tilted her face up. “There’s something about the expression in your eyes.”
She closed them. Tight. But that only made the feel of his warm fingers on her skin all the more powerful. In an instant it was as if she were thirteen and in the throes of her ardent crush on him all over again. Her world became centered on the point of contact between them. Heat traveled from his fingertips to her skin, racing to her heart. Her senses were in a turmoil as he practiced his black magic on her with nothing more than the merest brush of his hand.
Disconcerted, she snapped her eyes open and stepped back from. him. “Did Michael send you over here to check up on me?”
“He told me you were coming.”
“I’ll shoot him.”
“Now hold on.”
She wanted to hold on, all right. She wanted to hold on to Hunter’s broad shoulders, wrap her arms around him and never let go. Great. This was not the time for her to remember the stupid crush she’d had on him. This was the time to get rid of him. Before she said or did something foolish.
“I’m fine. You don’t have to waste any more time checking up on your friend’s nuisance sister.”
“You’re not a nuisance.”
“That’s not what you used to say.”
“You were five years old then.”
“Nine,” she corrected him, remembering the very day his family had moved in next door. At first she’d hero-worshipped him.then she’d fallen for him. “What exactly did my brother say when he called you to come check up on me?”
“It wasn’t like that. He was just warning me that someone—you—would be using the cabin for a while. I’ve kind of been looking after the place.”
“You don’t mean you’ve been staying here, do you?” she asked, horrified by the image of sharing the compact cabin with him.
“No, of course not.”
“Good.”
“I’ve got my own place a stone’s throw away.”
“Stone’s throw?”
He nodded. “You can’t see it from here, but it’s just over the ridge there. About a two-minute walk from here.”
“Great.” A two-minute walk from temptation. Wonderful.
“Michael didn’t tell you that we went in together right after our academy days to buy this property and the two cabins on it?”
“No, he didn’t tell me.” The rat.
“So how about you? Are you going to tell me what’s happened?”
“Nothing has happened. Well, that’s not exactly true. Michael and Brett got married yesterday. Actually, it was the second time they got married, it’s kind of a complicated story,” she noted dryly. Made more so by a Gypsy love-charmed box, which was sitting in a cardboard container next to the couch at this very minute.
Too bad Hunter couldn’t have been the first man she’d seen when she’d opened that box. Unlike Michael, who’d been the practical one in the family, Gaylynn liked to think there was some magic in the world.
At least, she always had in the past. Now she wasn’t so sure. About anything.
“Yeah, I know about the wedding,”
Hunter was saying. “I was sorry I couldn’t make it, but I was working.”
Gaylynn nodded. She knew he worked as a police officer. In fact, Hunter and Michael had gone to the police academy together. Her brother hadn’t finished the program, preferring to work on his own in the world of corporate security. But Hunter had graduated near the top of his class and been hired as one of Chicago’s finest. He’d looked dashing in his uniform and had been considered the ultimate bachelor, dating a number of women over the next few years. Then he’d up and gotten married the month Gaylynn had started college.
“So how’s your wife doing?” she asked with forced cheerfulness.
“I haven’t got the faintest idea. We were divorced almost five years ago.”
The news took her by complete surprise. “Michael never told me you were divorced.”
Hunter shrugged. The action focused her attention on his broad shoulders. He wore a denim shirt with jeans that were a shade darker. Both had seen their share of washings, making them soft enough to conform to every line of his body—molding his shoulders and narrow hips.
“Down girl,” she muttered to herself under her breath.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. I was just talking to myself.”
“That comes from spending too much time alone.”
“No, you don’t understand. I came up here to do just that. To be alone. It’s what I need right now.”
Hunter watched the nervous slide of her fingers through her straight hair. Gaylynn had never been the fidgety type, even as a kid. She’d been the gutsy type. Fearless. Hell, he still remembered the time she’d invaded the tree house he and Michael had built in the only tree in the Janos’s postage-stamp backyard. Gaylynn had only been nine or so at the time, a mere baby compared to his advanced age of fourteen. But she’d climbed the dangling rope that supplied the only entry to their tree house, this despite the fact that she wasn’t wild about heights. She’d ended up with bloody hands from the rope burn she’d gotten. He knew she still had the scar between her thumb and index finger—her badge of courage, she liked to call it in the old days.
She’d changed from those days. Somehow he’d always pictured her in his mind as she’d been as a coltish teenager. Now he was confronted with a woman, a very attractive albeit untidy woman. He got the strangest feeling when he looked at her.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” Gaylynn demanded uneasily.
“I was just thinking about that time you invited yourself to our secret tree house. Do you remember?”
“Yes.” Gaylynn stared down at her hand, the one with the tiny scar, the one with her badge of courage. It was still there, mocking her fear. Now she had another scar, the tiny one at the base of her throat from the knife, as well as the jagged one on her soul.
She’d lost more than the thirteen dollars and twentyone cents she’d had in her wallet that day she’d been attacked. She’d lost her nerve.
It hadn’t happened instantly. At the time, one of her first concerns had been making sure that no one in the police department blabbed to her brother, who still had a few police connections from his academy days. Driving home that night after the attack, she’d resolutely blocked the entire thing out of her mind. At first, she thought she’d succeeded.
Then she’d seen the TV news. The horror had gripped her by the throat and the tears had started. She’d gritted her teeth and gone back to work the next morning only to have the terror creep up on her the moment she’d entered her classroom. She hadn’t been able to speak, hadn’t been able to move. For the first time in her life, Gaylynn had experienced the paralyzing effects of blinding fear.
Unaware of her thoughts, Hunter was saying, “You weren’t afraid of anything in those days.” The approval in his drawl was clear.
She knew he valued courage. She just wished she had some. But she did have her pride. She didn’t want him seeing how scared she was; she didn’t want his sympathy or pity. She had to get rid of him. “While I’d love to talk over old times with you, I was just getting ready to make dinner…”
“Great. I haven’t eaten yet.”
“I don’t have enough food for two.”
“Then we can go to my place. I’ve got plenty of food.”
She shook her head vehemently. “I don’t want to go out.”
“Fine. I’ll bring the food over here. I haven’t seen you in years. It’ll be fun to catch up on things.”
Kissing him would be fun. The rebel thought chased through her mind. She chased it out just as fast. What was wrong with her? She didn’t have enough problems already with all her nightmares and no backbone? Now she had to go and get sentimental about a man she had a crush on years ago? A man who had always treated her like a sister.
“I make a mean spaghetti sauce,” Hunter declared, his Southern drawl seductively sliding down her spine.
“I’ll bet you do. But-”
“I’ll be right back with all the fixings.”
Hunter was gone before she could voice a protest.
The good news was that he’d left before she’d made too big a fool of herself. The bad news was that he’d be back and shed better be ready for him. The problem was that Gaylynn had her doubts that there was any way for her to get ready for a man who represented even more danger to her already shattered peace of mind.
Hunter had only planned on doing a quick check on Gaylynn and then going on his way. He didn’t know what had made him insist on sharing his dinner with her. Maybe it had been the shadows in her big brown eyes—root-beer-colored eyes that he’d remembered as always sparkling with life. Of course, a lot of time had gone by since then.
She had to be what. nearing thirty by now. He’d just turned thirty-five himself. Hunter didn’t know where the time went. He’d meant to keep in better touch with Michael up in Chicago, but all he’d been able to manage was a Christmas card most years. He really regretted not being able to attend the wedding.
He also regretted blurting out his concern so awkwardly, telling Gaylynn she looked awful. That wasn’t like him. He didn’t blame her for almost biting his head off. But he’d seen the shuttered pain and had wanted to help.
What could have caused this change in Gaylynn? Why had she left her brother’s wedding reception last night to head for a remote cabin in the mountains? Michael, too wrapped up in his newfound happiness, hadn’t had any answers. But Hunter planned on getting answers, because he couldn’t help her until he did.
And I suppose the fact that she’s an attractive woman has nothing to do with your Good Samaritan routine, an inner voice mocked him.
“She wasn’t that attractive,” he muttered under his breath as he entered his own cabin.
Right, now you’re talking to yourself, just like Gaylynn was. And if she isn’t that attractive, then why did you feel such a zip of excitement when you looked at her?
“That was hunger,” he said as he grabbed the fixings for a great spaghetti sauce from his cupboards and fridge.
Gaylynn was just the sister of an old friend, and his reasons for wanting to make sure she was okay were strictly altruistic. That was his story and he was sticking to it, as he and Michael used to say.
Gaylynn spent the first ten minutes after Hunter had left getting cleaned up. A quick shower and change of clothing helped. There wasn’t time to wash her hair, but a vigorous brushing had improved things somewhat. Her baby-fine brown hair was straight as a board and had a definite mind of its own. The blunt-cut tips ended just past her shoulders. It was getting too long; she should have gotten it cut.
Hunter’s hair had been long, too. Like he’d been too busy to have it cut lately. She hadn’t been too busy, she’d been too freaked out.
Biting her bottom lip, she took a deep breath and reapplied her makeup. “You’re a good actress,” she told her reflection in the mirror. “So put on a good act tonight.”
Granted, she’d been able to sidestep Hunter’s questions so far, but he wasn’t liable
to let her off the hook so easily next time. Like a dog with a bone, Hunter would just nag at her until he found out what was wrong. He was like her brother that way.
Luckily for Gaylynn, Michael had been distracted by events in his own life at the time of the attack on her. He’d been fighting to keep custody of little Hope, who’d been abandoned and left with Brett before she and Michael had gotten married. Yes, her brother had had his hands full, which was the only reason he hadn’t given her his customary third degree about her wanting to use his cabin. Instead, he’d just let her do her thing.
That wouldn’t be the case with Hunter. So she’d better have her story down pat by the time he came back because he could sniff out a mystery a mile away.
“Okay, I admit it, you do make a mean spaghetti sauce,” Gaylynn admitted as she licked a stray bit of sauce from the corner of her mouth.
Hunter watched her with the eyes of a hawk. She’d noticed the way he’d been watching her all evening, but she was unable to discern the thoughts going through his head. For her part, she’d been deliberately cheerful, talking about some of the people from their old neighborhood.
“I can’t believe little Joey del Greco is a priest now,” Hunter said with a rueful shake of his head.
Gaylynn grinned. “I’ll tell him you said so.”
“Last time I saw him, he was what we call down here ‘knee-high to a grasshopper’ and was stealing apples from the Jablonskis’ apple tree.”
“The apple tree is gone, and so are the Jablonskis.”
“Funny how you picture things staying the way they were when you saw them last. Like you. I pictured you with that White Sox cap on your head.”
“I still wear it on bad hair days,” she declared dryly. “How about your folks? How are they doing?”
“Fine. They’ve retired down to Florida now. Have a nice condo in Sarasota.”
“Does your dad still claim the Cubs are gonna win the World Series before the year 2000?”