by Nora Roberts
Adrenaline born of panic gave her the strength to send the three of them rolling to the edge of the bank. As she struck out blindly, Lee heard Hunter issue a sharp command. A whimper followed it.
“Lenore.” Her shoulders were gripped before she could spring to her feet. In her mind, the only thought was to find a weapon to defend them. “It’s all right.” Without giving her a choice, Hunter held her close. “It’s all right, I promise. He won’t hurt you.”
“My God, Hunter, it’s a wolf!” Every nightmare she’d ever read or heard about fangs and claws spun in her mind. With her arms wrapped around him to protect, as much as for protection, Lee turned her head. Silver eyes stared back at her from a silver coat.
“No.” He felt the fresh fear jump through her and continued to soothe. “He’s only half wolf.”
“We’ve got to do something.” Should they run? Should they sit perfectly still? “He attacked—”
“Greeted,” Hunter corrected. “Trust me, Lenore. He’s not vicious.” Annoyed and resigned, Hunter held out a hand. “Here, Santanas.”
A bit embarrassed at having lost control of himself, the dog crawled forward, head down. Speechless, Lee watched Hunter stroke the thick silver-gray fur.
“He’s usually better behaved,” Hunter said mildly. “But he hasn’t seen me for nearly two weeks.”
“Seen you?” She pressed herself closer to Hunter. “But…” Logic began to seep through her panic as she saw the dog lick Hunter’s extended hand. “You called him by name,” she said shakily. “What did you call him?”
Before Hunter could answer, there was a rustling in the trees behind them. Lee had nearly mustered the breath to scream again when another voice, young and high, shouted out. “Santanas! You come back here. I’m going to get in trouble.”
“Damn right,” Hunter mumbled under his breath.
Lee drew back far enough to look into Hunter’s face. “Just what the hell’s going on?”
“A reunion,” he said simply.
Puzzled, with her heart still pounding in her ears, Lee watched the girl break through the trees. The dog’s tail began to thump the ground.
“Santanas!” She stopped, her dark braids whipping back and forth. Smiling, she uninhibitedly showed her braces. “Whoops.” The quick exclamation trailed off as Lee was treated to a long intense stare that was hauntingly familiar. The girl stuck her hands in the pockets of cutoff jeans, scuffing the ground with battered sneakers. “Well, hi.” Her gaze shifted to Hunter briefly before it focused on Lee again. “I guess you wonder what I’m doing here.”
“We’ll get into that later,” Hunter said in a tone both females recognized as basic male annoyance.
“Hunter—” Lee drew farther away, traces of anger and anxiety working their way through the confusion. She couldn’t bring herself to look away from the dark, dark eyes of the girl who stared at her. “What’s going on here?”
“Apparently a lesson in manners should be,” he returned easily. “Lenore, the creature currently sniffing at your hand is Santanas, my dog.” At the gesture of his hand, the large, lean animal sat and lifted a friendly paw. Dazed, Lee found herself taking it while she turned to watch the dog’s master. She saw Hunter’s gaze travel beyond her with a smile that held both irony and pride. “The girl rudely staring at you is Sarah. My daughter.”
Chapter 10
Daughter… Sarah…
Lee turned her head to meet the dark, direct eyes that were a duplicate of Hunter’s. Yes, they were a duplicate. It struck her like a blast of air. He had a child? This lovely, slender girl with a tender mouth and braids secured by mismatched rubber bands was Hunter’s daughter? So many opposing emotions moved through her that she said nothing. Nothing at all.
“Sarah.” Hunter spoke into the drumming silence. “This is Ms. Radcliffe.”
“Sure, I know, the reporter. Hi.”
Still sitting on the ground, with the dog now sniffing around her shoulder, Lee felt like a complete fool. “Hello.” She hoped the word wasn’t as ridiculously formal as it sounded to her.
“Dad said I shouldn’t call you pretty because pretty was like a bowl of fruit.” Sarah didn’t tilt her head as one might to study from a new angle, but Lee had the impression she was being weighed and dissected like a still life. “I like your hair,” Sarah declared. “Is it a real color?”
“A definite lesson in manners,” Hunter put in, more amused than annoyed. “I’m afraid Sarah’s a bit of a brat.”
“He always says that.” Sarah moved thin, expressive shoulders. “He doesn’t mean it though.”
“Until today.” He ruffled the dog’s fur, wondering just how he would handle the situation. Lee was still silent and Sarah’s eyes were all curiosity. “Take Santanas back to the house. I assume Bennie’s there.”
“Yeah. We came back yesterday because I remembered I had a soccer game and she had an inspiration and couldn’t do anything with it in Phoenix with all the kids running around like monkeys.”
“I see.” And though he did, perfectly, Lee was left floundering in the dark. “Go ahead then, we’ll be right along.”
“Okay. Come on, Santanas.” Then she shot Lee a quick grin. “He looks pretty ferocious, but he doesn’t bite.” As the girl darted away, Lee wondered if she’d been speaking of the dog or her father. When she was once again alone with Hunter, Lee remained still and silent.
“I’ll apologize for the rudeness of my family if you’d like.”
Family. The word struck her, a dose of reality that flung her out of the dream. Rising, Lee meticulously dusted off her jeans. “There’s no need.” Her voice was cool, almost chill. Her muscles were wire-taut. “Since the game’s over, I’d like you to drive me into Sedona so I can arrange for transportation back to L.A.”
“Game?” In one long easy motion, he came to his feet, then took her hand, stopping its nervous movement. It was a gesture that had become so much of a habit, neither of them noticed. “There’s no game, Lenore.”
“Oh, you played it very well.” The hurt she wouldn’t permit in her voice showed clearly in her eyes. Her hand remained cold and rigid in his. “So well, in fact, I completely forgot we were playing.”
Patience deserted him abruptly and without warning. Anger he could handle, with more anger or with amusement. But hurt left him with no defense, no attack. “Don’t be an idiot. Whatever game there was ended a few nights ago in the tent.”
“Ended.” Tears sprang to her eyes, stunning her. Furiously she blinked them back, filled with self-disgust, but not before he’d seen them. “No, it never ended. You’re an excellent strategist, Hunter. You seemed to be so open with me that I didn’t think you were holding anything back.” She jerked her hand from his, longing for the luxury of dissolving into those hot, cleansing tears. “How could you?” she demanded. “How could you touch me that way and lie?”
“I never lied to you.” His voice was as calm as hers, his eyes as full of passion.
“You have a child.” Something snapped inside her, so that she had to grip her hands together to prevent herself from wringing them. “You have a half-grown daughter you never mentioned to me. You told me you’d never been married.”
“I haven’t been,” he said simply and waited for the inevitable questions.
They leaped into her mind, but Lee found she couldn’t ask them. She didn’t want to know. If she were to put him out of her life immediately and completely, she couldn’t ask. “You said her name once, and when I asked, you avoided answering.”
“Who asked?” he countered. “You or the reporter?”
She paled, and her step away from him said more than a dozen words.
“If that was an unfair question,” he said, feeling his way carefully, “I’m sorry.”
Lee stifled a bitter answer. He’d just said it all. “I want to go back to Sedona. Will you drive me, or do I have to arrange for a car?”
“Stop this.” He gripped her shoulders before she could back farther away. “You
’ve been a part of my life for a few days; Sarah’s been my life for ten years. I take no risks with her.” She saw the fury come and go in his eyes as he fought against it. “She’s off-the-record, do you understand? She stays off-the-record. I won’t have her childhood disturbed by photographers dogging her at soccer games or hanging from trees at school picnics. Sarah’s not an item for the glossy pages of any magazine.”
“Is that what you think of me?” she whispered. “We’ve come no further than that?” She swallowed a mixture of pain and betrayal. “Your daughter won’t be mentioned in any article I write. You have my word. Now let me go.”
She wasn’t speaking only of the hands that held her there and they both knew it. He felt a bubble of panic he’d never expected, a twist of guilt that left him baffled. Frustrated, he stared down at her. He’d never realized she could be a complication. “I can’t.” It was said with such simplicity her skin iced. “I want you to understand, and I need time for that.”
“You’ve had nearly two weeks to make me understand, Hunter.”
“Damn it, you came here as a reporter.” He paused, as if waiting for her to confirm or deny, but she said nothing. “What happened between us wasn’t planned or expected by either one of us. I want you to come back with me to my home.”
Somehow she met his eyes levelly. “I’m still a reporter.”
“We have two days left in our agreement.” His voice softened, his hands gentled. “Lenore, spend those two days with me at home, with my daughter.”
“You have no problem asking for everything, do you?”
“No.” She was still holding herself away from him. No matter how badly he wanted to, Hunter knew better than to try to draw her closer. Not yet. “It’s important to me that you understand. Give me two days.”
She wanted to say no. She wanted to believe she could deny him even that and turn away, go away, without regrets. But there’d be regrets, Lee realized, if she went back to L.A. without taking whatever was left. “I can’t promise to understand, but I’ll stay two more days.”
Though she was reluctant, he held her hand to his lips. “Thank you. It’s important to me.”
“Don’t thank me,” she murmured. The anger had slipped away so quietly, she couldn’t recall it. “Things have changed.”
“Things changed days ago.” Still holding her hand, he drew her in the direction Sarah had gone. “I’ll come back for the gear.”
Now that the first shock had passed, the second occurred to her. “But you live here in the canyon.”
“That’s right.”
“You mean to tell me you have a house, with hot and cold running water and a normal bed, but you chose to spend two weeks in a tent?”
“It relaxes me.”
“That’s just dandy,” she muttered. “You’ve had me showering with luke-warm water and waking up with aching muscles, when you knew I’d’ve given a week’s pay for one tub-bath.”
“Builds character,” he claimed, more comfortable with her annoyance.
“The hell it does. You did it deliberately.” She stopped, turning to him as the sun dappled light through the trees. “You did it all deliberately to see just how much I could tolerate.”
“You were very impressive.” He smiled infuriatingly. “I admit I never expected you to last out a week, much less two.”
“You sonofa—”
“Don’t get cranky now,” he said easily. “You can take as many baths as you like over the next couple of days.” He swung a friendly arm over her shoulder before she could prevent it. And he’d have time, he thought, to explain to her about Sarah. Time, he hoped, to make her understand. “I’ll even see to it that you have that red meat you’ve been craving.”
Fury threatened. Control strained. “Don’t you dare patronize me.”
“I’m not; you’re not a woman a man could patronize.” Though she mistrusted his answer, his voice was bland with sincerity and he wasn’t smiling. “I’m enjoying you and, I suppose, the foul-up of my own plans. Believe me, I hadn’t intended for you to find out I lived a couple miles from the campsite in quite this way.”
“Just how did you intend for me to find out?”
“By offering you a quiet candlelight dinner on our last night. I’d hoped you’d see the—ah—humor in the situation.”
“You’d’ve been wrong,” she said precisely, then caught sight of the house cocooned in the trees.
It was smaller than she’d expected, but with the large areas of glass in the wood, it seemed to extend into the land. It made her think of dolls’ houses and fairy tales, though she didn’t know why. Dolls’ houses were tidy and formal and laced with gingerbread. Hunter’s house was made up of odd angles and unexpected peaks. A porch ran across the front, where the roof arched to a high pitch. Plants spilled over the banister—blood-red geraniums in jade-green pots. The roof sloped down again, then ran flat over a parallelogram with floor-to-ceiling windows. On the patio that jutted from out from it, a white wicker chair lay overturned next to a battered soccer ball.
The trees closed in around it. Closed it in, Lee thought. Protected, sheltered, hid. It was like a house out of a play, or… Stopping, she narrowed her eyes and studied it again. “This is Jonas Thorpe’s house in Silent Scream.”
Hunter smiled, rather pleased she’d seen it so quickly. “More or less. I wanted to put him in isolation, miles away from what would normally be considered civilized, but in reality, the only safe place left.”
“Is that how you look at it?” she wondered aloud. “As the only safe place left?”
“Often.” Then a shriek, which after a heart-stopping moment Lee identified as laughter, ripped through the silence. It was followed by an excited bout of barking and a woman’s frazzled voice. “Then there’re other times,” Hunter murmured as he led Lee toward the front door.
Even as he opened it, Sarah came bounding out. Unsure of her own feelings, Lee watched the girl throw her arms around her father’s waist. She saw Hunter stroke a hand over the dark hair at the crown of Sarah’s head.
“Oh, Dad, it’s so funny! Aunt Bonnie was making a bracelet out of glazed dough and Santanas ate it—or he chewed on it until he found out it tasted awful.”
“I’m sure Bonnie thinks it’s a riot.”
Her eyes, so like her father’s, lit with a wicked amusement that would’ve made a veteran fifth-grade teacher nervous. “She said she had to take that sort of thing from art critics, but not from half-breed wolves. She said she’d make some tea for Lenore, but there aren’t any cookies because we ate them yesterday. And she said—”
“Never mind, we’ll find out for ourselves.” He stepped back so that Lee could walk into the house ahead of him. She hesitated for a moment, wondering just what she was walking into, and his eyes lit with the same wicked amusement as Sarah’s. They were quite a pair, Lee decided, and stepped forward.
She hadn’t expected anything so, well, normal in Hunter Brown’s home. The living room was airy, sunny in the afternoon light. Cheerful. Yes, Lee realized, that was precisely the word that came to mind. No shadowy corners or locked doors. There were wildflowers in an enameled vase and plump pillows on the sofa.
“Were you expecting witches’ brooms and a satin-lined coffin?” he murmured in her ear.
Annoyed, she stepped away from him. “Of course not. I suppose I didn’t expect you to have something quite so… domesticated.”
He arched a brow at the word. “I am domesticated.”
Lee looked at him, at the face that was half rugged, half aristocratic. On one level perhaps, she mused. But only on one.
“I guess Aunt Bonnie’s got the mess in the kitchen pretty well cleaned up.” Sarah kept one arm around her father as she gave Lee another thorough going-over. “She’d like to meet you because Dad doesn’t see nearly enough women and never talks to reporters. So maybe you’re special because he decided to talk to you.”
While she spoke, she watched Lee steadily. She was only ten,
but already she’d sensed there was something between her father and this woman with the dark-blue eyes and nifty hair. What she didn’t know was exactly how she felt about it yet. In the manner of her father, Sarah decided to wait and see.
Equally unsure of her own feelings, Lee went with them into the kitchen. She had an impression of sunny walls, white trim and confusion.
“Hunter, if you’re going to keep a wolf in the house, you should at least teach him to appreciate art. Hi, I’m Bonnie.”
Lee saw a tall, thin woman with dark-brown shoulder-length hair streaked liberally with blond. She wore a purple T-shirt with faded pink printing over cutoffs as ragged as her niece’s. Her bare feet were tipped at the toes with hot-pink polish. Studying her thin model’s face, Lee couldn’t be sure if she were years older than Hunter or years younger. Automatically she held out her hand in response to Bonnie’s outstretched one.
“How do you do?”
“I’d be doing a lot better if Santanas hadn’t tried to make a snack of my latest creation.” She held up a golden-brown half circle with ragged ends. “Just lucky for him it was a dreadful idea. Anyway, sit.” She gestured to a table piled with bowls and canisters and dusted the flour. “I’m making tea.”
“You didn’t turn the kettle on,” Sarah pointed out and did so herself.
“Hunter, the child’s always picking on details. I worry about her.”
With a shrug of acceptance, he picked up what looked like a small doughnut and might, with imagination, have been an earring. “You’re finding gold and silver too traditional to work with these days?”
“I thought I might start a trend.” When Bonnie smiled, she became abruptly and briefly stunning. “In any case it was a small failure. Probably cost you less than three dollars in flour. Sit,” she repeated as she began to transfer the mess from the table to the counter behind her. “So, how was the camping trip?”
“Enlightening. Wouldn’t you say, Lenore?”
“Educational,” she corrected, but thought the last half hour had been the most educational of all.
“So, you work for Celebrity.” Bonnie’s long, twisted gold earrings swung when she walked, much like Sarah’s braids. “I’m a faithful reader.”