by Nora Roberts
“I slept fine,” she lied, and gratefully washed down her breakfast with strong, hot coffee. “You?”
“Very well,” he lied, and lit a cigarette. She was getting on nerves he hadn’t known he had.
“Have you been up long?”
Since dawn, Hunter thought. “Long enough.” He glanced down at her barely scuffed hiking boots and wondered how long it would take before her feet just gave out. “I plan to do some hiking today.”
She wanted to groan but put on a bright smile. “Fine, I’d like to see some of the canyon while I’m here.” Preferably in a Jeep, she thought, swallowing the last crumb of bacon. If there was one cliché she could now attest to, it was that the open air increased the appetite.
It took Lee perhaps half again as long to wash up the breakfast dishes with the plastic water container as it would’ve taken Hunter, but she already understood the unstated rule. One cooks, the other cleans.
By the time she was finished, he was standing impatiently, binocular and canteen straps crisscrossed over his chest and a light pack in one hand. This he shoved at her. Lee resisted the urge to shove it back at him.
“I want my camera.” Without giving him a chance to complain, she dug it out of her own gear and slipped the small rectangle into the back pocket of her jeans. “What’s in here?” she asked, adjusting the strap of the pack over her shoulder.
“Lunch.”
Lee lengthened her stride to keep up with Hunter as he headed out of the clearing. If he’d packed a lunch, she’d have to resign herself to a very long day on her feet. “How do you know where you’re going and how to get back?”
For the first time since she’d returned to camp smelling like fragility and flowers, Hunter smiled. “Landmarks, the sun.”
“Do you mean moss growing on one side of a tree?” She looked around, hoping to find some point of reference for herself. “I’ve never trusted that sort of thing.”
She wouldn’t know east from west, either, he mused, unless they were discussing L.A. and New York. “I’ve got a compass, if that makes you feel better.”
It did—a little. When you hadn’t the faintest idea how something worked, you had to take it on faith. Lee was far from comfortable putting her faith in Hunter.
But as they walked, she forgot to worry about losing her way. The sun was a white flash of light, and though it was still shy of 9:00 A.M., the air was warm. She liked the way the light hit the red walls of the canyon and deepened the colors. The path inclined upward, narrow, pebbled with loose stones. She heard people laugh, and the sound carried so cleanly over the air, they might have been standing beside her.
Green became sparser as they climbed. What she saw now was scrubby bushes, dusty and faded, that forced their way out of thin ribbons of dirt in the rock. Curious, she broke off a spray of leaves. Their scent was strong, tangy and fresh. Then she found she had to dash to catch up with Hunter. It had been his idea to hike, but he didn’t appear to be enjoying it. More, he looked like a man who had some urgent, unpleasant appointment to keep.
It might be a good time, Lee considered, to start a casual conversation that could lead to the kind of personal information she was shooting for. As the path became steadily steeper, she decided she’d better talk while she had the breath to do it. The sweatshirt had been a mistake, too. Her back was damp again, this time from sweat.
“Have you always preferred the outdoors?”
“For hiking.”
Undaunted, she scowled at his back. “I suppose you were a Boy Scout.”
“No.”
“Your interest in camping and hiking is fairly new, then.”
“No.”
She had to grit her teeth to hold back a groan. “Did you go off and pitch a tent in the woods with your father when you were a boy?”
She’d have been interested in the amused expression on his face if she could have seen it. “No.”
“You lived in the city, then.”
She was clever, Hunter reflected. And persistent. He shrugged. “Yes.”
At last, Lee thought. “What city?”
“L.A.”
She tripped over a rock and nearly stumbled headlong into his back. Hunter never slackened his pace. “L.A.?” she repeated. “You live in Los Angeles and still manage to bury yourself so that no one knows you’re there?”
“I grew up in L.A.,” he said mildly. “In a part of the city you’d have little occasion for visiting. Socially, Lenore Radcliffe, formerly of Palm Springs, wouldn’t even know such neighborhoods existed.”
That pulled her up short. Again, she had to dash to catch him, but this time she grabbed his arm and made him stop. “How do you know I came from Palm Springs?”
He watched her with the tolerant amusement she found both infuriating and irresistible. “I did my research. You graduated from U.C.L.A. with honors, after three years in a very classy Swiss boarding school. Your engagement to Jonathan Willoby, up-and-coming plastic surgeon, was broken when you accepted a position in Celebrity’s Los Angeles office.”
“I was never engaged to Jonathan,” she began furiously, then decisively bit her tongue. “You have no business probing into my life, Hunter. I’m doing the article, not you.”
“I make it a habit to find out everything I can about anyone I do business with. We do have a business arrangement, don’t we, Lenore?”
He was clever with words, she thought grimly. But so was she. “Yes, and it consists of my interviewing you, not the other way around.”
“On my terms,” Hunter reminded her. “I don’t talk to anyone unless I know who they are.” He reached out, touching the ends of her hair as he’d done once before. “I think I know who you are.”
“You don’t,” she corrected, struggling against the need to back away from a touch that was barely a touch. “And you don’t have to. But the more honest and open you are with me, the more honest the article I write will be.”
He uncapped the canteen. When she refused his offer with a shake of her head, Hunter drank. “I am being honest with you.” He secured the cap. “If I made it easier for you, you wouldn’t get a true picture of who I am.” His eyes were suddenly dark, intense and piercing. Without warning, he reached out. The power in his eyes made her believe he could quite easily sweep her off the path. Yet his hand skimmed down her cheek, light as rain. “You wouldn’t understand what I am,” he said quietly. “Perhaps, for my own reasons, I want you to.”
She’d have been less frightened if he’d shouted at her, raged at her, grabbed at her. The sound of her own heartbeat vibrated in her head. Instinctively, she stepped back, escape her first and only thought. Her foot met empty space.
In an instant, she was caught against him, pressed body to body, so that the warmth from his seeped right into hers. The fear tripled so that she arched back, raising both hands to his chest.
“Idiot,” he said, with an edge to his voice that made her head snap up. “Take a look behind you before you tell me to let you go.”
Automatically, she turned her head to look over her shoulder. Her stomach rose up to her throat, then plummeted. The hands that had been poised to push him away grabbed his shoulders until the fingers dug into his flesh. The view behind her was magnificent, sweeping and straight down.
“We—we walked farther up than I’d thought,” she managed. And if she didn’t sit down, very, very soon, she was going to disgrace herself.
“The trick is to watch where you’re going.” Hunter didn’t move her away from the edge, but took her chin in his hand until their eyes met and held. “Always watch exactly where you’re going, then you’ll know how to fall.”
He kissed her, just as unexpectedly as before, but not so gently. Not nearly so gently. This time, she felt the full force of the strength that had been only an undercurrent each other time his mouth had touched hers. If she’d pitched back and taken that dizzying fall, she’d have been no more helpless than she was at this moment, molded to him, supported by him,
wrapped around him. The edge was close—inside her, behind her. Lee couldn’t tell which would be more fatal. But she knew, helplessly, that either could break her.
He hadn’t meant to touch her just then, but the demanding climb up the path hadn’t deadened the need he’d woken with. He’d take this much, her taste, her softness, and make it last until she willingly turned to him. He wanted the sweetness she tried to gloss over, the fragility she tried to deny. And he wanted the strength that kept her pushing for more. Yes, he thought he knew her and was very close to understanding her. He knew he wanted her.
Slowly, very slowly, for lingering mouth-to-mouth both soothed and excited him, Hunter drew her away. Her eyes were as clouded as his thoughts, her pulse as rapid as his. He shifted her until she was close to the cliff wall and away from the drop.
“Never step back unless you’ve looked over your shoulder first,” he said quietly. “And don’t step forward until you’ve tested the ground.”
Turning, he continued up the path, leaving her to wonder if he’d been speaking of hiking or something entirely different.
Chapter Seven
Lee wrote in her journal:
On the eighth day of this odd on-again off-again interview, I know more about Hunter and understand less. By turns, he’s friendly, then distant. There’s an aloof streak in him, bound so tightly around his private life that I’ve found no way through it. When I ask about his preference in books, he can go on indefinitely—apparently he has no real preference except for the written word itself. When I ask about his family, he just smiles and changes the subject or gives me one of those intense stares and says nothing. In either case, he keeps a cloak of mystery around his privacy.
He’s possibly the most efficient man I’ve ever met. There’s no waste of time, no extra movements and, infuriating to me, never a mistake, when it comes to starting a campfire or cooking a meal—such as they are. Yet, he’s content to do absolutely nothing for hours at a time.
He’s fastidious—the camp looks as if we’ve been here no more than a half hour rather than a week—yet he hasn’t shaved in that amount of time. The beard should look scruffy, but somehow it looks so natural I find myself wondering if he didn’t always have one.
Always, I’ve been able to find a category to slip an assignment into. An acquaintance into. Not with Hunter. In all this time, I’ve found no easy file for him.
Last night we had a heated discussion on Sylvia Plath, and this morning I found him paging through a comic book over coffee. When I questioned him on it, his answer was that he respected all forms of literature. I believed him. One of the problems I’m having on this assignment is that I find myself believing everything he says, no matter how contradictory the statement might be to another he makes. Can a total lack of consistency make someone consistent?
He’s the most complex, frustrating, fascinating man I’ve ever known. I’ve yet to find a way of controlling the attraction he holds for me, or even the proper label for it. Is it physical? Hunter’s very compelling physically. Is it intellectual? His mind has such odd twists and turns, it takes all my effort to follow them.
Either of these I believe I could handle successfully enough. Over the years, I’ve had to deal professionally with attractive, intelligent, charismatic men. It’s a challenge, certainly, but here I have the uncomfortable feeling that I’m caught in the middle of a silent chess game and have already lost my queen.
My greatest fear at this moment is that I’m going to find myself emotionally involved.
Since the first day we walked up the canyon, he hasn’t touched me. I can still remember exactly how I felt, exactly what the air smelled like at that moment. It’s foolish, overly romantic and absolutely true.
Each night we sleep together in the same tent, so close I can feel his breath. Each morning I wake alone. I should be grateful that he isn’t making this assignment any more difficult than it already is, and yet I find myself waiting to be held by him.
For over a week I’ve thought of little else but him. The more I learn, the more I want to know—for myself. Too much for myself.
Twice, I’ve woken in the middle of the night, aching, and nearly turned to him. Now, I wonder what would happen if I did. If I believed in the spells and forces Hunter writes of, I’d think one was on me. No one’s ever made me want so much, feel so much. Fear so much. Every night, I wonder.
Sometimes Lee wrote of the scenery and her feelings about it. Sometimes, she wrote a play-by-play description of the day. But most of the time, more of the time, she wrote of Hunter. What she put down in her journal had nothing to do with her organized, precisely written notes for the article. She wouldn’t permit it. What she didn’t understand, and what she wouldn’t write down in either space, was that she was losing sleep. And she was having fun.
Though he was cannily evasive on personal details, she was gathering information. Even now, barely halfway through the allotted time, Lee had enough for a solid, successful article—more, she knew, than she’d expected to gather. But she wanted even more, for her readers and, undeniably, for herself.
“I don’t see how any self-respecting fish could be fooled by something like this.” Lee fiddled with the small rubbery fly Hunter attached to her line.
“Myopic,” Hunter countered, bending to choose his own lure. “Fish are notoriously nearsighted.”
“I don’t believe you.” Clumsily, she cast off. “But this time I’m going to catch one.”
“You’ll need to get your fly in the water first.” He glanced down at the line tangled on the bank of the creek before expertly casting his own.
He wouldn’t even offer to help. After a week in his company, Lee had learned not to expect it. She’d also learned that if she wanted to compete with him in this, or in a discussion of eighteenth-century English literature, she had to get into the spirit of things.
It wasn’t simple and it wasn’t quick, but kneeling, Lee worked on the tangles until she was back to square one. She shot a look at Hunter, who appeared much too engrossed with the surface of the creek to notice her progress. By now, Lee knew better. He saw everything that went on around him, whether he looked or not.
Standing a few feet away, Lee tried again. This time, her lure landed with a quiet plop.
Hunter saw the rare, quick grin break out, but said nothing. She was, he’d learned, a woman who generally took herself too seriously. Yet he saw the sweetness beneath, and the warmth Lee tried to be so frugal with.
She had a low, smoky laugh she didn’t use often enough. It only made him want to urge it out of her.
The past week hadn’t been easy for her. Hunter hadn’t intended it to be. You learned more about people by observing them in difficult situations than at a catered cocktail party. He was adding to the layers of the first impression he’d had, at the airport in Flagstaff. But he had layers still to go.
She could, unlike most people he knew, be comfortable with long spells of silence. It appealed to him. The more careless he became in his attire and appearance, the more meticulous she became in hers. It amused him to see her go off every morning and return with her makeup perfected and her hair carefully groomed. Hunter made sure they’d been mussed a bit by the end of the day.
Hiking, fishing. Hunter had seen to it that her jeans and boots were thoroughly broken in. Often, in the evening, he’d caught her rubbing her tired feet. When she was back in Los Angeles, sitting in her cozy office, she wouldn’t forget the two weeks she’d spent in Oak Creek Canyon.
Now, Lee stood near the edge of the creek, a fishing rod held in both hands, a look of smug concentration on her face. He liked her for it—for her innate need to compete and for the vulnerability beneath the confidence. She’d stand there, holding the rod, until he called a halt to the venture. Back in camp, he knew she’d rub her hands with cream and they would smell lightly of jasmine and stay temptingly soft.
Since it was her turn to cook, she’d do it, though she still fumbled a bit with th
e utensils and managed to singe almost anything she put on the fire. He liked her for that, too—for the fact that she never gave up on anything.
Her curiosity remained unflagging. She’d question him, and he’d evade or answer as he chose. Then she’d grant him silence to read, while she wrote. Comfortable. Hunter found that she was an unusually comfortable woman in the quiet light of a campfire. Whether she knew it or not, she relaxed then, writing in the journal, which intrigued him, or going over her daily notes for the article, which didn’t.
He’d expected to learn about her during the two weeks together, knowing he’d have to give some information on himself in return. That, he considered, was an even enough exchange. But he hadn’t expected to enjoy her companionship.
The sun was strong, the air almost still, with an early-morning taste to it. But the sky wasn’t clear. Hunter wondered if she’d noticed the bank of clouds to the east and if she realized there’d be a storm by nightfall. The clouds held lightning. He simply sat cross-legged on the ground. It’d be more interesting if Lee found out for herself.
The morning passed in silence, but for the occasional voice from around them or the rustle of leaves. Twice Hunter pulled a trout out of the creek, throwing the second back because of size. He said nothing. Lee said nothing, but barely prevented herself from grinding her teeth. On every jaunt, he’d gone back to camp with fish. She’d gone back with a sore neck.
“I begin to wonder,” she said, at length, “if you’ve put something on that lure that chases fish away.”
He’d been smoking lazily and now he stirred himself to crush out the cigarette. “Want to change rods?”
She slanted him a look, taking in the slight amusement in his arresting face. When her muscles quivered, Lee stiffened them. Would she never become completely accustomed to the way her body reacted when they looked at each other? “No,” she said coolly. “I’ll keep this one. You’re rather good at this sort of thing, for a boy who didn’t go fishing.”
“I’ve always been a quick study.”