The Untamed Hunter

by Lindsay McKenna

  Should he tell her? Shep wondered. He wanted to. No, he didn’t dare. “I have a tendency to remember the good things we shared, Maggie. Not the bad.”

  “I don’t consider being opinionated bad,” she pointed out smartly.

  Groaning, he perused the traffic and then used the rearview mirror to once again check the cars around them. “Bullheaded was more like it.”

  “Are you telling me that in all these years you still haven’t changed your feelings one iota about women who are smart, savvy and confident? Do you still think we’re all stubborn and refuse to bow to your greater intelligence, oh great one?”

  “Here we go again!” he growled, giving her a frosty look. “You talk about not changing. Neither have you. In fact, you’re worse than I recall.”

  Maggie’s mouth blossomed into a full smile. “Oh, Hunter, you are so archaic. You’re worse than that Neanderthal younger brother of yours, Reid. It’s a good thing he married Casey. She’ll straighten him out.”

  Shep nearly groaned again as he stole a glance at her. She looked delicious. With her dark glasses on, that red-and-gold hair highlighted by the sun behind her, she looked more like a Hollywood starlet than a virologist in that moment. Maggie was not stick thin like those television actresses who looked positively on the brink of starvation. No, she was firm, filled out and supple looking. Although she was short in comparison to him, she had a strong body. Remembering how that body had felt beneath him, he decided to move to a safer subject.

  “Tell me, are you still riding hell-bent-for-leather on those eventing horses of yours? Or did you give up the desire to die on one of those jumps, like your dad gave up sprint car racing?”

  Laughing delightedly, Maggie wagged a finger at him. “You’re good, Hunter. I’ll give you that. This is called let’s change topics in midstream so Maggie is thrown off the scent. You never did play fair.”

  “And neither did you.”

  “You’re gloating, Hunter. I can see it even if you don’t change the expression on that iceberg face of yours.”

  He warmed to her teasing. Their repartee had always been like this. He knew she wasn’t being mean or nasty, just teasing him to get him to respond. Granted, he wasn’t the most spontaneous person in the world, but life had taught him not to be. In his job, spontaneity could get one killed, and Sarah had died because of just such a spur-of-the-moment decision on his part. Some of the warmth cascading through his chest was doused with sadness over Sarah’s untimely death.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Lifting his head, he stared over at Maggie. “What?”

  “You’re sad.”

  “I am?” How the hell could she know that? Unsettled, he shifted in the seat.

  “Oh, Hunter!” she griped, “You never gave me credit for sensing what you’re feeling. Not eighteen years ago. Not now! Do you know how frustrating that is?” She made a strangled sound in the back of her throat.

  “No,” he said primly, and began to look around. The traffic was thinning. Along the freeway, roughly a couple of hundred feet on either side of it, grew kudzu, a weed from Japan that had been brought to the States as an ornamental bush and, due to the humid conditions in the South, had spread like a plague. He studied it now, trying to gather his thoughts after her attack.

  Maggie gave him a dirty look. Shep seemed impervious to her emotional response. Well, that was just like him. But something was different. Before, he would open up a little bit, show some of his vulnerability to her. Now he had snapped shut, like a proverbial clam. “So, why are you so closed now?” she wondered softly, and sent him a direct glance he couldn’t dodge.

  Caught. Yep, Maggie had zeroed in on him. Moving uncomfortably and tugging at his flak jacket beneath his shirt, Shep muttered, “Life does it to you, Maggie. You know that.”

  “Tell me when you started to work for Perseus. I always thought you loved to fly more than breathe. What took you out of the Air Force and into a merc job?”

  Sighing internally, Shep was relieved her questions weren’t of a more personal nature. Maggie was too often personal. Feeling edgy, he replied, “I flew Falcons around in the sky until seven years ago. Morgan made a pitch to me that I couldn’t resist. I liked the idea of helping people more directly. He used my flying skills for a number of years. I flew one of the Perseus jets for him. I also flew small, single engine planes like the Cessna, too. I was usually involved in missions that required a getaway aircraft on a very short dirt runway. I did a lot of work like that in Africa.”

  “Interesting we never ran into one another,” Maggie said, “because I’ve spent almost a third of my professional life over in Africa. Many times, with Casey, on outbreak situations. There, or in South America, in the Amazon region.”

  Shep almost said, “I wished we had,” but he snapped his mouth shut before the words could blurt out. Traffic was lessening now as they left the sparkling buildings of downtown Atlanta behind them. Ahead of them, he could see both the wide-open grassy flatland and gently rolling hills welcoming them into rural Georgia. Groves of tall, spindly pine trees began to line the freeway like a green wall. Georgia was a pine tree state, there was no doubt, and the lumber industry was going strong, a result of perfect soil and weather conditions for trees to grow fast and tall.

  The sky was a bright blue. He could see a few cumulus clouds beginning to form. With the high humidity, cloud formation was inevitable as the sun rose higher in the sky. And then, later in the day, thunderstorms would pop up unexpectedly here and there across the state, but especially along the coast where the mix of warm, humid air created constant instability.

  “So…” Maggie said in a low voice, “how has life treated you in the personal department? Did you ever marry? Do you have kids?” She held her breath. Shep hated these kinds of questions and she knew it. But she had nothing to lose and she really did want to know his status. Maggie didn’t look too closely at why, however.

  Frowning, Shep felt a sharp pain in his chest region. “You haven’t lost your touch, have you?”

  “What?” she demanded impertinently.

  “Oh, come on, Maggie. You always went for the jugular.”

  “If asking a personal question is the jugular vein for you, Hunter, then something is wrong!”

  He saw a pink flush spread across her freckled cheeks, but there was laughter sparkling in her eyes. If anyone but Maggie had asked him those questions, he’d have told them to go to hell in a hurry. “My private life is private. You know that.”

  “Oh, right. As if mine isn’t. You’ve asked me personal questions and I’ve answered them, haven’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s tit for tat, Hunter. Now you get to answer mine.”

  “Where’s the logic in that?”

  She knew he was baiting her. She could sense it. Besides, one corner of his mouth flexed. “Logic dictates that if you ask personal questions of a person, you’re basically saying it’s okay to have them asked of yourself. It’s one of those nonverbal understandings. You know?”

  “My questions to you were not that personal. Yours are.”

  Rolling her eyes in frustration, she nailed him with a dark look. “Being evasive, are we?”

  “My stock and trade, brat.” Oh, damn! Where had that come from? Groaning, Shep held up his hand. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to call you by that name.”

  Shaken by the warm intimacy of his endearment for her, Maggie’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. Brat had been his intimate name for her, a term used with love. Licking her lips, she carefully felt her way through what he’d just said.

  “Are you really sorry you used it, Shep?” Again, she briefly met his gaze. She saw such sadness in his eyes. And longing. For her? For what they’d had, even if it had been rocky, argumentative and imperfect at times? Maggie was unsure of what to make of his slip.

  “Well, yes…no…Hell, it just slipped out, Maggie. I’m sorry. That’s the past. I guess some things just don’t die.
”

  “They live or die because you want them to.”

  It was his turn to feel deeply uncomfortable. Now the car felt claustrophobic. “Don’t make too much out of it, okay? I have a long memory. Some things I just don’t forget.”

  “Why did you remember my nickname?” Maggie asked more gently. “Because you hated me? You’re still angry because we broke up instead of getting married? What, Hunter? Is this multiple choice? Do I get to pick?”

  “Maggie,” he pleaded, holding up his hands, “stop running circles around me. You can outtalk me, I agree. But shooting three or four questions at me isn’t going to get any more of a response out of me than one will and you know it.”

  She grinned a little. “Just like old times, ain’t it, Hunter?” And in many ways, she enjoyed their verbal sparring. Sensing the feelings around him, Maggie saw that on one hand, Shep was uncomfortable, but on the other, she was a known entity to him and he knew she would never ever deliberately wound him with her words. That was part of the dance, the cement of their relationship. Their sparring was teasing, but never hurtful.

  “Yes,” he sighed. “You haven’t changed that much, Maggie. You know that?”

  Her grin widened. “Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment. As I told you before, neither have you, Hunter.”

  “So, did you ever get married?”

  She stared at him, her mouth opening. She quickly snapped it shut. “What is this?” she demanded. “You can ask me highly personal questions, but you don’t have to answer mine? Oh, no, Hunter. That’s not how this relationship of ours is going, this time. You might have gotten away with these little tactics then, but not now. No way.”

  “Relationship?”

  Groaning, Maggie said, “Wrong word. I didn’t mean that. Just because we have to pretend we’re married and stay in the same room at night does not a relationship make, okay?”

  He grinned. Maggie rarely used the wrong words to describe herself or how she saw the world. The flush across her cheeks had deepened to a delicious strawberry color. It made her hazel eyes look like dancing emeralds set in gold, with a bit of cinnamon brown in the background. She was so alive to him. More alive than any other woman he’d ever met. She was so much like Sarah, and yet Sarah had been a pale shadow to Maggie’s ebullient, sunny personality. Shep found himself starving for Maggie’s quick wit and the playfulness that she automatically extended to him. In some ways, Maggie was the same as before. In others, she was better, more polished and poised. That made him desire her even more.

  “For a dyed-in-the-wool wordsmith, Dr. Harper, I don’t think you’re in the habit of using wrong words. So—” he looked at her “—you see what we have here as a relationship?”

  “Hunter, you’re not getting one more word out of me until you answer my questions first. You’re not in control of this situation like you think. I’m your equal this time around. I’m not some starry-eyed eighteen-year-old you can intimidate. Does that compute? Once it does, then I think we can talk and share more. Yes? No? Tell me how you feel about it.”

  With a shake of his head, he muttered, “Maggie, you can run circles around people with that beautiful mouth of yours. You always could. Maybe you missed your calling. Instead of a doctor you should have been a lawyer. Right now, I feel trapped, as if my arms and legs were tied to steel spikes so I can’t move.”

  Chuckling and rather pleased with herself, she said drolly, “Oh, suffer eloquently, Hunter. It’s what you do best, as I recall. You always gave me that puppy-dog look of hurt in your eyes so I’d ease off. Not this time. Uh-uh. I’m older and wiser. Nope, the stakes stay in and you’re trapped. So you have a choice to make—put up or shut up.”

  Checking the traffic one more time, Shep picked up one of the radios and made the obligatory call. Every hour on the hour they were to check in with the FBI and give their location by mile marker, and a status report. He watched Maggie drive as he spoke to the agent at the other end. She was smiling broadly, as if she’d just won a chess game with him. Well, hadn’t she? Hanging up the microphone, he slid his arm across the back of her seat. His arm barely touched her proudly thrown back shoulders.

  “Because I don’t like icy silence for the next hours we have to drive,” he began in an amused tone, “I’ll answer your questions. No, I’m not married. No, I don’t have any children.”

  “That’s all?”

  “What do you mean, ‘that’s all’? Didn’t I answer your questions?”

  “Geez Louise, Hunter, you’re just so wordy with your answers. You’d think you were in the DA’s office being grilled by detectives before your attorney arrived!”

  He couldn’t help but laugh. “You know what?” he said, meeting her gaze, “I’ve really missed being around you. You’re the only one that can pry anything out of me whether I want you to or not.”

  Gloating, and warmed by his too rare laughter, Maggie said, “So, are you in a relationship now?” A huge part of her hoped not. She saw him hesitate, open his mouth and then close it. He looked away for a long minute before turning his head and meeting her glance once again.

  “I was…. But I’m not now.” He removed his arm from behind her seat, his hand resting in a closed fist on his thick thigh.

  There was pain in his voice, as much as he tried to disguise it, Maggie realized. There was no mistaking the anguish that he tried to hide in his eyes, either. She lost her smile. In that moment, she reached out, her hand covering his. The gesture shocked her as much as it did him. Maggie found his hand felt just as strong as she remembered from decades ago.

  “What happened, Shep? I can see it really hurt you.”

  Glancing at him again, she saw his stony expression and knew he had closed her out once more.

  Four

  They reached Savannah in the early afternoon. Maggie was glad she knew how stubborn Shep could get because he was closed up so tightly ever since she’d asked about his past that patience was the only answer in dealing with him. He would never give up personal information easily. Maggie knew, as Shep drove them alertly down Interstate 16 towards what she considered the most beautiful city in the South, that Shep was still chewing on the question she’d asked hours earlier.

  For just a moment, she allowed her gaze to sweep the antebellum architecture that Savannah was so famous for. From the freeway, she could see the gold dome of city hall. Nearby was the riverfront district, lined with old cotton warehouses now turned into restaurants and gift shops.

  The Savannah River, wide and slow moving, had been a main traffic route in the nineteenth century for ships taking cotton grown in Georgia overseas to English textile mills. Yes, Savannah had a very rich history. The city was semitropical, as it sat seventeen miles from the Atlantic. Hurricanes were the only threat to it. Offshore, as the river opened into the ocean, lay many islands, such as Tybee, Wilmington and Skidaway. The Low Country, as it was referred to, was a busy tourist destination for visitors from around the world.

  Off to her left, Maggie could see the world-famous architectural wonder, the Talmadge Memorial Bridge, which spanned the Savannah River and linked Georgia with South Carolina. In her mind, Maggie had always called it Harp Bridge because its structure reminded her of harp strings, strung as it was with thick, strong, white steel cables from a central girder. Sighing softly, she realized she felt at peace, as she always did when she came to Savannah.

  Their itinerary called for them to eat at the Olde Pink House Restaurant and Planter’s Tavern. A Georgian-style mansion that had been turned into a restaurant, it had a rich and varied history, having been built in the late 1700s for James Habersham, Jr., a wealthy merchant. In the 1800s it had been turned into the Planter’s Bank.

  As they turned down Abercorn Street, Maggie sighed again. “I can’t help it. I think Savannah is the crown jewel of America. Look at the pastel colors of all these beautiful old mansions. It reminds me of driving down the street and looking at prettily colored Easter eggs.”

  “
I like the way you see the world, Maggie,” Shep replied casually, though he remained on guard, his gaze sweeping the area as they pulled into a parking lot. Shep knew the reason for this location. It was in the open, not cramped or crowded. He knew FBI agents would be inside and outside, watching them and making sure they were safe. “Easter eggs…” He shook his head, gave her a quick glance and turned off the engine. As he removed his seat belt, he smiled a little. “Only you would see three-to five-story mansions as colored Easter eggs.”

  The softness of his gaze touched her deeply. Profoundly. Maggie lowered her lashes as she nervously fiddled with her safety belt. “I’m the idealist, Shep. You were always the hard-core realist. All you probably see in these incredibly well-kept mansions is their architecture, not necessarily their outer beauty.” She tried to keep her eyes off him. He looked lean, professional in the dark blue sport coat, the white, open-collared shirt and khaki-colored slacks. He was comfortable, but sharp looking, in her opinion. And she knew why he was wearing the sport coat: to hide the weapon he carried. Otherwise, she was sure he’d have shed it long ago in this heat and humidity.

  Getting out of the car, he rearranged his sport coat so that the pistol he carried beneath his arm in a holster was hidden from the public as well as the prying eyes of their enemy. Moving around the car, he opened the door for Maggie. She gave him a surprised look.

  “I’ve always been a gentleman,” he reminded her archly, holding out his hand to her.

  “I’m so used to opening my own doors that I forgot,” Maggie said with a sudden laugh. She slid her hand into his. Shep’s grip was warm, strong and welcoming. Her fingers were still cool from the nervousness of being around him all these hours.

  “Hmm,” he said as he pulled her gently upward, “you’re not icy feeling anymore.”

  Without meaning to get so close, Maggie found herself pressed against his tall, powerful frame momentarily. It was shocking. Wonderful. Only their clasped hands remained a barrier between them. But just as quickly, she stepped away. Not before seeing the amusement and longing burn in his eyes as he looked down at her, however. His lips had parted, and suddenly, Maggie knew Shep wanted to kiss her. She stood trapped between the car door and him.