Seducing Hunter

by Cathie Linz

  From the front of the building housing both Hazel’s Hash House and the Lonesome Cafe, Gaylynn could see across the road where two churches rested along the lowest hill, as did a small schoolhouse. It seemed as if even more foliage was blooming down here than up on the ridge where her brother’s cabin was located. The azalea bushes in front of several houses were loaded with fiery red or pale purple blossoms.

  In between buildings were green sections of open land. The sheriff’s office was at the far end of town. Gaylynn could see it through the cafe window at the table she’d chosen before a gum-chewing waitress with big hair in a bold red color greeted her with a smile. The cafe was busy but not overly so.

  “Howdy, I’m Darlene, your waitress.” She handed Gaylynn a plastic-coated menu. “Would you like some coffee? No? Well, then I’ll be with you in a jiffy.”

  Gaylynn ended up ordering the catfish and a glass of iced tea. As she waited for her food tQ arrive, she found herself absently sketching on one of the cafd’s paper napkins. Her subject was the abandoned barn located just beyond the sheriff’s office. The building was leaning at a forty-five-degree angle and the afternoon sunlight shone on the weathered wood, turning it a silvery gray.

  “Hey, you’re mighty good at that,” Darlene noted as she plunked down a plate filled with food in front of her, careful not to hit the napkin sketch. “Are you an artist or something?”

  “Not really. The way the sunlight was hitting the barn, it just inspired me, I guess.”

  “That barn has done plenty of inspiring. Used to be a lovers’ meeting place, or so I’m told. That was before my time. Then the walls started leaning too bad.”

  “That place has been leaning like that since Eisenhower was president,” a second, older waitress noted as she passed by.

  “And the pool has been going almost that long, too,” a man at the next table said.

  “You gotta learn to develop patience if you live in Lonesome Gap,” his tablemate declared. Both men looked as old as the hills.

  “You down here on vacation?” the talkative Darlene asked Gaylynn.

  “Something like that.”

  “Where are you headed to?”

  “Actually, I’m staying right here in Lonesome Gap. My brother has a cabin not too far from Hunter’s.”

  “You a friend of Hunter?” the man at the other table asked.

  “Oh, Hunter and I go way back,” Gaylynn replied. “We practically grew up together.”

  “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. Don’t that beat all,” the man said. “You’re not from these parts, though.”

  “I’m from Chicago.”

  “I remember now. Hunter’s folks up and moved north for some period of time. Then the cold got too much and they ended up retiring to Florida.”

  “Say, has anyone invited you to join us inthe town pool?” his lunchmate asked her.

  “I didn’t know Lonesome Gap had a pool,” Gaylynn said.

  “Sure we do.”

  “It’s still a little chilly for swimming, though,” she noted.

  “Who said anything about swimming? The town is taking bets as to when that doggone barn will actually fall down, which is why no one wants to knock it down.”

  “I thought you were talking about a swimming pool.”

  “What would we be needing with a swimming pool when we got inner tubes and the Bitty River? The two were made for each other. There’s nothing sweeter than lazing a hot summer day away lying in an inner tube in the river, just letting the world pass you by.”

  “The world always passes by this town,” one of the few younger residents complained from the lunch counter.

  “Now don’t you go bellyaching, Boone Twitty,” Darlene teasingly reprimanded him.

  Gaylynn looked for, and sure enough found, the family resemblance between Boone and his grandparents. The young man had the same piercing light blue eyes but not the wrinkles.

  “This town is so small it says Welcome To Lonesome Gap on both sides of the sign,” Boone stated.

  “At least we’ve got a welcome sign,” Darlene retorted.

  “Only because the Ladies Auxiliary League painted it on an old board one day,” Boone said.

  “That’s not all the Ladies Auxiliary does,” a woman with bluish silver hair said from the corner table. She had an accent thicker than molasses. “Why, we have quilting bees, too. Made that bear-paw design quilt you see hanging on the wall over yonder. And we do some dabbling in other things, as well. My name is Gladys Battle but everyone ‘round here calls me Ma Battle,” she told Gaylynn with a wide smile.

  “She’s gonna win one of those million-dollar sweepstakes one of these days, right, Ma Battle?” Boone teased her.

  “Darn right. Now stop your interrupting so the poor girl can introduce herself.”

  “I’m Gaylynn Janos.”

  “Say, you aren’t the teacher, are you?” one of the older men at the table across from her suddenly asked.

  “I was a teacher up in Chicago, yes. Why do you ask?”

  Before the man could answer, the door opened and Hunter strolled into the cafe. Sizing up the situation, he said, “Now what are you folks telling Gaylynn here?”

  “We didn’t tell her about the library being closed for five years now and our kids not having anyplace to go what with the cutbacks at school and their library there being so small, not to mention miles away,” Darlene stated with several snaps of her gum.

  “You just told her,” Hunter declared with a frown.

  “Did not,” the waitress denied.

  “Sure you did.”

  “I told you, Hunter,” Darlene maintained. “Ain’t my fault if’n she heard.”

  “Why has the library been closed for five years?” Gaylynn inserted.

  “Because our last librarian ran off with a no-account lounge lizard,” one of the men at the table next to her replied.

  “That’s not true,” Darlene protested. “You’re just jealous ‘cause she wouldn’t go out with you, Orville. Truth is Miz Russell retired. The woman was seventy if she was a day.”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that she ran off with that karaoke singer from the VFW Hall over in Summerville,” Orville declared.

  “You couldn’t hire anyone else to replace her?” Gaylynn asked.

  “Actually, we never did hire her,” Darlene said.

  “She worked for free,” Boone inserted.

  “Only because her aunt was once-removed from the former mayor’s first cousin. So she felt it was her duty, after she retired from working up in Chattanooga, to come back home and hold up the family tradition of serving the public.”

  “None of this is your problem, Gaylynn,” Hunter told her as he joined her and tried to distract her by waving a dessert menu. “They have the best apple cobbler here. Want some?”

  But Gaylynn was having none of it. “Tell me more about this library,” she told Darlene.

  “We could show it to you—it’s not more than a stone’s throw from here,” Darlene said.

  “Now, Darlene, Gaylynn has better things to do than go exploring some old ramshackle building. You go on now, and let her eat in peace.”

  “Ignore him,” Gaylynn told the waitress.

  “Can’t do that, hon. He’s the law hereabouts.” With a saucy grin and another snap of her gum, Darlene added, “I’ll just go see if there’s any apple cobbler left.”

  “Be sure you save me a piece,” Hunter called after her.

  “You think you’re so cute,” Gaylynn began when Hunter cut her off by stealing a handful of French fries from her plate.

  “As I recall, you’re the one who thought I was cute,” Hunter drawled before biting a fry in half.

  She watched the movement of his square jaw as he chewed, noting that it was just as stubbornly gorgeous as ever.

  “You’re staring, Red.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she said with an irritable glare in his direction. “And get your hands off my fries!”


  Hunter was tempted to touch more than her fries. She was wearing a red T-shirt with lace around a scooped neckline. It was dainty looking and gave him just enough of a peek at her cleavage that he wanted to see more.

  He paused with a fry in midair as his gaze became fixed on the curve of her breasts. She was breathing fast, judging from their rapid rise and fall. He’d always thought of her as a little bitty thing, but there was nothing little or bitty about her breasts. His hands itched to hold her, to run his thumbs over the rosy crests, to cradle their lushness in his palms.

  That kiss they’d shared in the woods the other day had kept him up nights, literally. Cold showers at 2:00 am. were no laughing matter. So what was it about Gaylynn that had him so hot and bothered? Was it the sexy fullness of her lower lip or the fire in her brown eyes? What was happening to him?

  Hunter had no idea how long he would have stayed in that sudden trance had it not been for Gaylynn suddenly leaning forward and biting into the fry he still held suspended in midair.

  The brush of her lips against his fingertips sent a coil of hunger through him. Her look of triumph left him speechless. Or had his capacity to speak been stolen by the siren pitch of her laughter? Either way, the fierceness of his attraction to her struck him dumb.

  As if aware that something was going on, Gaylynn gave Hunter a questioning look.

  Their eyes caught hold and remained locked. The noise in the cafe faded into insignificance. The look in his eyes was a potent visual caress and had a disturbing effect on her metabolism. Time stopped; she didn’t know if two seconds or two minutes went by. She only knew that she’d never seen anything as fascinating-the subtle change of Hunter’s expression, the way the sunlight coming in through the cafe window glanced off his eyelashes, the laugh lines at the outer edge of his eyes, the responsiveness.

  “Here you go, two apple cobblers, fresh as they come,” Darlene appeared out of nowhere to announce.

  Startled out of their reverie, Hunter and Gaylynn both started in surprise, nearly upsetting the two bowls that Darlene was in the process of setting on the table for them.

  “Lordy, you two are as jumpy as a pair of grasshoppers on a hot sidewalk,” the waitress noted with a laugh and a snap of her gum before hurrying off to give an impatient Boone his check.

  Gaylynn longed for something brilliant to say, but her mind was mush. So instead, she grabbed a spoon and started eating. The apple cobbler was indeed delicious. The combination of the tartness of the apple, the flakiness of the crust and the chill of the vanilla ice cream on top created a tantalizing treat.

  Also tantalizing was the memory of the look Hunter had just given her. She’d never seen him looking at her quite that way before. As if he were feeling some of the things she was, as if the magnetic pull was affecting him as it was her.

  Or was it just wishful thinking?

  “So which of these two wreaths do you like better? The one with the lilac ribbon and the teddy bear or the rose ribbon and the flowers?” Gaylynn asked Hunter. He’d insisted on accompanying her around Lonesome Gap for the remainder of his lunch hour. With him at her side, she wasn’t able to get any more information about the library.

  She thought the fastest way to send him on his way was to take him shopping at the Gallery of Gifts, the only gift store in town. It hadn’t worked. Actually, the store was more a gallery of individual booths from a dozen or so crafts people in the area. On display and for sale was everything from wooden bowls and floral wreaths to matted photographs of the mountains and exquisite handmade quilts.

  Gaylynn hadn’t been “shopping” in weeks. She used to enjoy it, before the attack. The place was empty aside from herself, Hunter and the proprietress who turned out to be none other than Ma Battle herself.

  “I like to keep busy,” she said. “Hunter, I haven’t seen you in here in a month of Sundays.”

  “I’m just giving Gaylynn the grand tour.”

  “So you’ll be taking her over to the library building, too, then?”

  “No, ma’am,” he replied.

  “I just love it when he gets all respectful,” Ma Battle told Gaylynn with a grin. “Reminds me of the days when I was his Sunday school teacher and I used to catch him putting chewing gum in the girls’ hair.”

  “He hadn’t grown out of that when he moved up to Chicago,” Gaylynn told the older woman. “He put chewing gum in my hair once. Only once, though.”

  “Her father told me he’d put a nasty Gypsy curse on me if I ever tried something like that again,” Hunter said. “I never did.”

  “I guess I was just too soft on him,” Ma Battle said. “Despite my name, I really am—”

  “A marshmallow,” Hunter completed for her. “I’ve been accused of the same thing myself.”

  “My, no, you’re not a marshmallow. You’re much more like a wolf with a gleam in your eye and a heart of gold,” Ma Battle declared.

  “I’ll second that appraisal,” Gaylynn agreed.

  “You’re the one who said I was a marshmallow,” he reminded her.

  “I was wrong. Ma Battle’s description is much more accurate. Now to get back to this wreath, which one do you think is cuter?”

  “What makes you think I’m an expert on cute?”

  “You’re absolutely right. Ma Battle, which one do you like better?”

  “What is the color scheme of the room where you want to put the wreath?” she asked with feminine practicality.

  “Good point. It’s for the living room, which has no color scheme at the moment. The couch is a leftover relic in gold and avocado green. But I plan on recovering it in a blue-and-white gingham.”

  “Rose goes very nicely with blue,” Ma Battle suggested.

  “You’re right. But I like the purple one, too. I guess I’ll just get both,” she decided. “With a white chenille bedspread, I could make the color scheme in the bedroom white and purple.”

  “Michael will just love that,” Hunter muttered.

  “What he doesn’t see won’t hurt him,” Gaylynn countered. “And I’ll take that large blue-and-white ceramic bowl with Popcorn painted on the bottom of it, too. It’ll look great on the dining room table.”

  “It’s almost as big as the dining room table,” Hunter stated mockingly. To Ma Battle he said, “So how’s ol’ Tom doing today? Has he recovered from his treeclimbing expedition yesterday?”

  “I don’t rightly believe that ol’ Tom actually knows he’s a cat,” the older woman answered. “He chases flies instead of playing with his cat toys. And he’s afraid of heights, which is why poor Hunter here had to come rescue him from that tree. He is a dear boy, though.”

  “Hunter or Tom?” Gaylynn asked with a grin.

  “Both of them,” Ma Battle replied in kind. “I must admit that I’m particularly partial to cats. How about yourself?”

  “She’s already taken in a family of three cats,” Hunter answered on Gaylynn’s behalf.

  “A mama cat and her two kittens,” Gaylynn went on to elaborate. “She’s a Siamese, and her one kitten, Blue, is a cream-colored Siamese. The second kitten, Spook, is a calico.”

  “Really? How unusual,” Ma Battle said. “I can’t imagine what the daddy must have been like.”

  “You sure it wasn’t Tom?” Hunter asked her. “In his rowdier days?”

  Ma Battle slapped his arm. “Now don’t you go saying things like that about my ol’ Tom. Where did you find those kittens, up by your cabin?”

  Gaylynn nodded.

  “That’s clear on the other side of the river, too far for Tom to wander,” the older woman stated.

  “I don’t know,” Hunter murmured with a wicked grin. “When a man feels the urge he’s likely to travel as far as it takes.”

  “You’re speaking from personal experience, of course,” Gaylynn inquired tartly, wondering how many women Hunter had “traveled” for while knowing damn well there hadn’t been any men she’d “traveled” for.

  “A gentleman never discusses s
uch matters,” he drawled.

  “Yeah, right,” Gaylynn muttered.

  “You done shopping now?” Ma Battle asked her.

  “Yeah, I guess I am,” Gaylynn replied.

  Gaylynn and Hunter walked out of the store with an armload of purchases, his arms filled even more than hers as he insisted on carrying her things back to her car for her. She’d left her trusty American-made subcompact back at the Pit Stop with the Twittys’ approval. The car’s red color was no longer showroom bright, and the doors showed nicks and dings that came from having to park it on the streets of Chicago for the past five years, but it was still her baby, having given her many seasons of dependable service.

  So why was it that the car looked so much smaller when Hunter stood beside it? And it felt so much smaller when she and Hunter kept bumping shoulders as they loaded the back seat and trunk with her purchases.

  “Thanks for the help,” she muttered, almost catching his hand in the trunk in her hurry to close it and get on her way. She wasn’t having a panic attack like she’d gotten when she’d been back in Chicago. No, this case of nerves was completely hormone-driven and Huntercaused. Gaylynn likened it to staring at a box of imported Belgian chocolates for too long without being able to bite into one. She’d been in close proximity with Hunter for the past hour—long enough to want to take a long leisurely nibble.

  She had to leave before she said or did something stupid! “Thanks for your help. See you—”

  “I could use a lift back to the sheriff’s office,” he interrupted her.

  “It’s not that far,” she replied. “You can’t walk it?”

  “Carrying all those packages of yours plumb wore me out.”

  “Right. And if I believe that, you’ve got some great swampland to sell me, right?”

  “Well, if it’s that inconvenient for you.” he began with such a hangdog expression that she had to smile, albeit reluctantly.