Second Nature

by Nora Roberts

  As she nodded, it occurred to her that she might fit into the first group, and he into the second.

  The road he took narrowed and twisted down. He didn’t drive sedately, but with the air of a man who knew he could negotiate whatever curve was thrown at him. Lee gripped the door handle, determined not to comment on his speed. It was like taking the downhill rush of a roller coaster without having had the preparatory uphill climb. They whooshed down, a rock wall on one side, a spiraling drop on the other.

  “Do you camp often?” Her knuckles were whitening on the handle, but though she had to shout to be heard she was satisfied that her voice was calm enough.

  “Now and again.”

  “I’m curious…” She stopped and cleared her throat as Hunter whipped around a snaking turn. “Why camping?” Did the rocks in the sheer wall beside them ever loosen and tumble onto the road? She decided it was best not to think about it. “A man in your position could go anywhere and do anything he chose.”

  “This is what I chose,” he pointed out.

  “All right. Why?”

  “There are times when everyone needs simplicity.”

  Her foot pressed down on the floorboard as if it were a brake pedal. “Isn’t this just one more way you have of avoiding people?”

  “Yes.” His easy agreement had her turning her head to stare at him. He was amused to note that her hand loosened on the handle and that her concentration was on him now rather than the road. “It’s also a way of getting away from my work. You never get away from writing, but there are times you need to get away from the trappings of writing.”

  Her gaze sharpened. Though her fingers itched for her notebook, Lee had faith in her own powers of retention. “You don’t like trappings.”

  “We don’t always like what’s necessary.”

  Oblivious to the speed and the curves now, Lee tucked one leg under her and turned toward him. That attracted him, Hunter reflected. The way she’d unconsciously drop that careful shield whenever something challenged her mind. That attracted him every bit as much as her cool, nineteenth-century beauty.

  “What do you consider trappings as regards your profession?”

  “The confinement of an office, the hum of a machine, the paperwork that’s unavoidable but interferes with the story flow.”

  Odd, but that was precisely what she needed in order to maintain discipline. “If you could change it, what would you do?”

  He smiled again. Hunter had never known anyone who thought in more basic terms or straighter lines. “I’d go back a few centuries to when I could simply travel and tell the story.”

  She believed him. Though he had wealth and fame and critical acclaim, Lee believed him. “None of the rest means anything to you, does it? The glory, the admiration?”

  “Whose admiration?”

  “Your readers and the critics.”

  He pulled off the road next to a small wooden building that served as a trading post. “I’m not indifferent to my readership, Lenore.”

  “But to the critics.”

  “I admire the orderliness of your mind,” he said and stepped from the Jeep.

  It was a good beginning, Lee thought, pleased, as she climbed out the passenger side. He’d already told her more than anyone else knew, and the two weeks had barely begun. If she could just keep him talking, learn enough generalities, then she could pin him down on specifics. But she’d have to pace herself. When you were dealing with a master of evasion, you had to tread carefully. She couldn’t afford to relax.

  “Do we have to check in?”

  From behind her back Hunter grinned, while Lee struggled to pull out her knapsack. “I’ve already taken care of the paperwork.”

  “I see.” Her pack was heavy, but she told herself she’d refuse any offer of assistance and carry it herself. A moment later, she saw it wouldn’t be an issue. Hunter merely stood aside, watching as she wriggled into the shoulder straps. So much for chivalry, she thought, annoyed that he hadn’t given her the opportunity to assert her independence. She caught the gleam in his eye. He read her mind much too easily.

  “Want me to carry the fudge?”

  She closed her fingers firmly over the bag. “I’ll manage.”

  With his own gear on his back, Hunter started down a path, leaving her no choice but to follow. He moved as though he’d been walking dirt paths all his life—as if perhaps he’d cut a few of his own. Though she felt out of place in her hiking boots, Lee was determined to keep up and to make it look easy.

  “You’ve camped here before?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Why?”

  He stopped, turning to fix her with that dark, intense stare that always took her breath away. “You only have to look.”

  She did and saw that the walls and peaks of the canyon rose up as if they’d never stop. They were a color and texture unique to themselves, enhanced by the snatches of green from rough, hardy trees and shrubs that seemed to grow out of the rock. As she had from the air, Lee thought of castles and fortresses, but without the distance the plane had given her, she couldn’t be sure whether she was storming the walls or being enveloped by them.

  She was warm. The sun was strong, even with the shade of trees that grew thickly at this elevation. Though she saw other people—children, adults, babies carried papoose-style—she felt no sense of crowding.

  It’s like a painting, she realized all at once. It’s as though we’re walking into a canvas. The feeling it gave her was both eerie and irresistible. She shifted the pack on her back as she kept pace with Hunter.

  “I noticed some houses,” she began. “I didn’t realize people actually lived in the canyon.”

  “Apparently.”

  Sensing his mind was elsewhere, Lee lapsed into silence. She’d done too well to start pushing. For now, she’d follow Hunter, since he obviously knew where he was going.

  It surprised her that she found the walk pleasant. For years her life had been directed by deadlines, rush and self-imposed demands. If someone had asked her where she’d choose to spend two weeks relaxing, her mind would have gone blank. But when ideas had begun to come, roughing it in a canyon in Arizona wouldn’t have made the top ten. She’d never have considered that the purity of air and the unimpeded arch of sky would be so appealing to her.

  She heard a quiet, musical tinkle that took her several moments to identify. The creek, Lee realized. She could smell the water. The new sensation gave her a quick thrill. Her guide, and her project, continued to move at a steady pace in front of her. Lee banked down the urge to share her discovery with him. He’d only think her foolish.

  Did she realize how totally out of her element she looked? Hunter wondered. It had taken him only one glance to see that the jeans and the boots she wore were straight out of the box. Even the T-shirt that fit softly over her torso was obviously boutiqueware rather than a department-store purchase. She looked like a model posing as a camper. She smelled expensive, exclusive. Wonderful. What kind of woman carried a worn knapsack and wore sapphire studs in her ears?

  As her scent wafted toward him again, carried on the breeze, Hunter reminded himself that he had two weeks to find out. Whatever notes she would make on him, he’d be making an equal number on her. Perhaps both of them would have what they wanted before the time was up. Perhaps both of them would have cause to regret it.

  He wanted her. It had been a long time since he’d wanted anything, anyone, that he didn’t already have. Over the past days he’d thought often of her response to that long, lingering kiss. He’d thought of his own response. They’d learn about each other over the next two weeks, though they each had their own purposes. But nothing was free. They’d both pay for it.

  The quiet soothed him. The towering walls of the canyon soothed him. Lee saw their ferocity, he their tranquillity. Perhaps they both saw what they needed to see.

  “For a woman, and a reporter, you have an amazing capacity for silence.”

  The weight
of her pack was beginning to take precedence over the novelty of the scenery. Not once had he asked if she wanted to stop and rest, not once had he even bothered to look back to see if she was still behind him. She wondered why he didn’t feel the hole her eyes were boring into his back.

  “You have an amazing capacity for the insulting compliment.”

  Hunter turned to look at her for the first time since they’d started out. There was a thin sheen of perspiration on her brow and her breath came quickly. It didn’t detract an iota from her cool, innate beauty. “Sorry,” he said, but didn’t appear to be. “Have I been walking too fast? You don’t look out of shape.”

  Despite the ache that ran down the length of her back, Lee straightened. “I’m not out of shape.” Her feet were killing her.

  “The site’s not much farther.” Reaching down to his hip, he lifted the canteen and unscrewed the top. “It’s perfect weather for hiking,” he said mildly. “Mid-seventies, and there’s a breeze.”

  Lee managed to suppress a scowl as she eyed the canteen. “Don’t you have a cup?”

  It took Hunter a moment to realize she was perfectly serious. Wisely, he decided to swallow the chuckle. “Packed away with the china,” he told her soberly enough.

  “I’ll wait.” She hooked her hands in the front straps of her knapsack to ease some of the weight.

  “Suit yourself.” While Lee looked on, Hunter drank deeply. If he sensed her resentment, he gave no sign as he capped the canteen again and resumed the walk.

  Her throat was all the drier at the thought of water. He’d done it on purpose, she thought while she gritted her teeth. Did he think she’d missed that quick flash of humor in his eyes? It was just one more thing to pay him back for when the time came. Oh, she couldn’t wait to write the article and expose Hunter Brown for the arrogant, coldhearted demigod he’d set himself up to be.

  She wouldn’t be surprised if he was walking her in circles, just to make her suffer. Bryan had been all too right about the boots. Lee had lost count of the number of campsites they’d passed, some occupied and some empty. If this was his way of punishing her for not revealing from the start that she worked for Celebrity, he was certainly doing an elaborate job.

  Disgusted, exhausted, with her legs feeling less like flesh and more like rubber, she reached out and grabbed his arm. “Just why, when you obviously have a dislike for women and for reporters, did you agree to spend two weeks with me?”

  “Dislike women?” His brows arched. “My likes and dislikes aren’t as generalized as that, Lenore.” Her skin was warm and slightly damp when he curled his fingers around the back of her neck. “Have I given you the impression I dislike you?”

  She had to fight the urge to stretch like a cat under his hand. “I don’t care what your personal feelings are toward me. This is business.”

  “For you.” His fingers squeezed gently, bringing her an inch closer. “I’m on vacation. Do you know, your mouth’s every bit as appealing now as it was the first time I saw it.”

  “I don’t want to appeal to you.” But her voice was breathy. “I want you to think of me only as a reporter.”

  The smile hovered at the edges of his mouth, around the corners of his eyes. “All right,” he agreed. “In a minute.”

  Then he touched his lips to hers, as gently as he had the first time, and as devastatingly. She stood still, amazed to feel as intense a swirl of sensation as she had before. When he touched her, hardly touching her, it was as if she’d never been kissed before. A new discovery, a fresh beginning—how could it be?

  The weight on her back seemed to vanish. The ache in her muscles turned into a deeper, richer ache that penetrated to the bone. Her lips parted, though she knew what she invited. Then his tongue joined with hers, slipping into the moistness, drinking up her flavor.

  Lee felt the urgency scream through her body, but he was patient. So patient, she couldn’t know what the patience cost him. He hadn’t expected pain. No woman had ever brought him pain with desire. He hadn’t expected the need to flame through him like brushfire, fast and out of control. Hunter had a vision, with perfect clarity, of what it would be like to take her there, on the ground, under the blazing sun with the canyon circling like castle walls around them and the sky like a cathedral dome.

  But there was too much fear in her. He could sense it. Perhaps there was too much fear in him. When they came together, it might have the power to topple both their worlds.

  “Your lips melt against mine, Lenore,” he whispered. “It’s all but impossible to resist.”

  She drew back, aroused, alarmed and all too aware of how helpless she’d been. “I don’t want to repeat myself, Hunter,” she managed. “And I don’t want to amuse you with clichés, but this is business. I’m a reporter on assignment. If we’re to make it through the next two weeks peacefully, it’d be wise to remember that.”

  “I don’t know about the peace,” he countered, “but we’ll try your rules first.”

  Suspicious, but finding no room to argue, Lee followed him again. They walked out of the sunlight into the dim coolness of a stand of trees. The creek was distant but still audible. From somewhere to the left came the tinny sound of music from a portable radio. Closer at hand was the rustling of small animals. With a nervous look around, Lee convinced herself they were nothing more than squirrels and rabbits.

  With the trees closing around them, they might have been anywhere. The sun filtered through, but softly, on the rough, uneven ground. There was a clearing, small and snug, with a circle of stones surrounding a long-dead campfire. Lee glanced around, fighting off the uneasiness. Somehow, she hadn’t thought it would be this remote, this quiet, this…alone.

  “There’re shower and bathroom facilities a few hundred yards east,” Hunter began as he slipped off his pack. “Primitive but adequate. The metal can’s for trash. Be sure the lid’s tightly closed or it’ll attract animals. How’s your sense of direction?”

  Gratefully, she slipped out of her own pack and let it drop. “It’s fine.” Now, if she could just take off the boots and rest her feet.

  “Good. Then you can gather some firewood while I set up the tent.”

  Annoyed with the order, she opened her mouth, then firmly shut it again with only a slight hiss. He wouldn’t have any cause to complain about her. But as she started to stalk off, the rest of his sentence hit home.

  “What do you mean the tent?”

  He was already unfastening the straps of his pack. “I prefer sleeping in something in case it rains.”

  “The tent,” Lee repeated, closing in on him. “As in singular?”

  He didn’t even spare her a look. “One tent, two sleeping bags.”

  She wasn’t going to explode; she wasn’t going to make a scene. After taking a deep breath, she spoke precisely. “I don’t consider those adequate arrangements.”

  He didn’t speak for a minute, not because he was choosing his words but because the unpacking occupied him more than the conversation. “If you want to sleep in the open, it’s up to you.” Hunter drew out a slim, folded piece of material that looked more like a bedsheet than a tent. “But when we decide to become lovers, the arrangements won’t make any difference.”

  “We didn’t come here to be lovers,” Lee snapped back furiously.

  “A reporter and an assignment,” Hunter replied mildly. “Two sexless terms. They shouldn’t have any problem sharing a tent.”

  Caught in her own logic, Lee turned and stalked away. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her behave like a woman.

  Hunter lifted his head and watched her storm off through the trees. She’d make the first move, he promised himself, suddenly angry. By God, he wouldn’t touch her until she came to him.

  While he set up camp, he tried to convince himself it was as easy as it sounded.

  Chapter Six

  Two sexless terms, Lee repeated silently as she scooped up some twigs. Bastard, she thought with grim satisfaction,
was also a sexless term. It suited Hunter Brown to perfection. He had no business treating her like a fool just because she’d made a fool of herself already.

  She wasn’t going to give an inch. She’d sleep in the damn sleeping bag in the damn tent for the next thirteen nights without saying another word about it.

  Thirteen, she thought, sending a malicious look over her shoulder. He’d probably planned that, too. If he thought she was going to make a scene, or curl up outside the tent to sleep in the open to spite him, he’d be disappointed. She’d be scrupulously professional, unspeakably cooperative and utterly sexless. Before it was over, he’d think he’d been sharing his tent with a robot.

  But she’d know better. Lee let out one long, frustrated breath as she scouted for more sticks. She’d know there was a man beside her in the night. A powerfully sexy, impossibly attractive man who could make her blood swim with no more than a look.

  It wouldn’t be easy to forget she was a woman over the next two weeks, when she’d be spending every night with a man who already had her nerves jumping.

  Her job wasn’t to make herself forget, Lee reminded herself, but to make certain he forgot. A challenge. That was the best way to look at it. It was a challenge she promised herself she’d succeed at.

  With her arms full of sticks and twigs, Lee lifted her chin. She felt hot, dirty and tired. It wasn’t an auspicious way to begin a war. Ignoring the ache, she squared her shoulders. She might have to sacrifice a round or two, but she’d win the battle. With a dangerous light in her eyes, she headed toward camp.

  She had to be grateful his back was to her when she walked into the clearing. The tent was smaller, much, much smaller, than she’d imagined. It was fashioned from tough, lightweight material that looked nearly transparent. It arched, rounded rather than pointed at the peak, and low to the ground. So low, Lee noted, that she’d have to crawl to get inside. Once in, they’d be forced to sleep nearly elbow to elbow. Then and there, she determined to sleep like a rock. Unmoving.