The Untamed Hunter

by Lindsay McKenna

  “Easter eggs,” Shep murmured as he lowered his head, keeping his hand around hers so she could not escape him. “You know, you’re one of a kind, Maggie Harper. Even if you’re the most headstrong woman I know, I can’t help myself….” And he couldn’t. Throughout the drive to Savannah, Shep had been aching to kiss her. To feel Maggie’s soft, wide, smiling mouth once more captured by his. Well, they were married, weren’t they? And if Black Dawn was watching, wouldn’t they expect a newly married couple to do things like steal a kiss in a parking lot? Of course. Shep wasn’t going to disappoint them. He needed Maggie too much. He’d accepted this assignment because she had been thrown tantalizingly in his path once again. Shep had forever regretted their breakup. Oh, he’d had women and affairs after her, but none of them ever matched Maggie, with her fire and verve.

  Maggie’s breath caught as she saw the predatory look come to Shep’s narrowing eyes. She felt his hand hold hers a little more firmly. Without thinking, she let him gently pull her toward him once again as his head descended toward hers. He was going to kiss her! Stunned, she felt her mind blank out momentarily. It was the last thing she’d expected from him. But then, as she leaned bonelessly against him and felt the hardening of his muscles as he took her weight, her heart burst open with a longing that left her literally breathless in the wake of it.

  All the sounds of downtown Savannah—the cars, the horse-drawn buggy clip-clopping nearby—were drowned out beneath the heat in his eyes, the intent clearly written in his face. Yes, this felt right. So very right…Maggie didn’t struggle. As she lifted her head to meet his mouth, something old and wonderful broke loose in her wildly beating heart. How much she had missed Shep! Maggie hadn’t been aware of it until this precious, unexpected moment. Closing her eyes, she stretched upward as she leaned against him. She felt the moisture of his breath against her cheek. She sensed his nearness. It was a good feeling. So fertile…so desperately needed by her.

  When his mouth grazed her parting lips, she quivered. She felt him remove her hand from between them. In moments, her arm was wrapping around his narrow waist as his slid across her shoulders. He brought her gently and fully against him. A sigh rippled from her lips as he grazed them tenderly again. It was that dichotomy about Shep that always threw her. To look at him was to realize this man was a throwback to warriors from the past. In Maggie’s heart, she’d always seen him as a crusader from the twelfth century: big, bruising, hard-looking and so very, very powerful. Yet she was privileged to know the other side of him, too, so it was easy to yield to him completely. With him, she was safe. She knew he would care for her as if she were a priceless and fragile treasure.

  Moaning, she whispered his name and slid her arm up across his broad, tense shoulders. Maggie wanted him. She didn’t care who was watching. In this moment, she realized how much she had ached to touch Shep once again. What they’d shared so long ago was alive and vivid now. That surprised her, but she wasn’t going to apologize for it, either. As her fingers slid through the short, sleek hair at the nape of his neck, she felt his mouth settle powerfully against hers.

  His lips moved in a claiming gesture. His breath was hot against her skin. She opened to him, yielded to his superior strength because he was tenderly sliding against her, exploring her and reveling in the renewal of something that had begun so long ago. Another quiver coursed through her as she felt his arm move more commandingly down her arched spine, his large hand settling comfortably against her hips. Yes, this was the old Shep she knew so well! And she couldn’t get enough of him and that teasing, heated mouth of his. The roughness of his beard caused a delicious, prickling sensation against her skin. The male odor of him entered her flaring nostrils as she responded strongly to his pressure upon her mouth. Fingers sliding provocatively through his hair, she felt him shudder. As she drowned in the sunlit offering of his mouth, she felt him opening to her on all levels. Maggie felt the controlled power of him as he ravished her lips. This was heaven. He was her heaven. Oh, why had they broken up so long ago? It seemed so silly now.

  Maggie didn’t want the exploratory kiss to end…and she moaned a little in frustration as his mouth lifted reluctantly from her wet, slick lips. Slowly looking up, she drowned in the dark, stormy color of his eyes as he studied her in the intense moments after their kiss. Her mouth curved recklessly. “You’ve gotten better with age, Shep.”

  His returning smile was filled with mirth. “Why did I ever leave you, Maggie?” And with a shake of his head, he eased her from the safety of his embrace. She was soft and curvy in all the right places. He liked a woman with some meat on her bones. Stick women never turned him on. Maggie was well built, firm and in tremendous athletic condition. It made him burn with desire for her, with the urge to consummate what he knew was theirs to take with one another.

  “I don’t know….” She said softly, captured in his burning gaze, which scorched her like a delicious, sweeping fire. But she did know. The passion had always been strong between them. That hadn’t changed. But she also knew there were things about this man that drove her crazy. How he hadn’t always trusted her abilities. Or seen her as an equal. And yet, she’d seen the respect in his gaze for her today during his unguarded moments and that made her feel good about herself.

  Running her fingers up the sleeve of his jacket, she whispered, “Maybe being eighteen-year-olds with no maturity or experience behind us made us act a little too rashly?” She was still thunderstruck by the power of his kiss—and the feelings in her it had aroused.

  Capturing her hand, Shep forced himself to step back. The late sun beat down on them, and sweat trickled down his rib cage. He hungered for Maggie, who had the sweetest look on her upraised face. In her hazel eyes, he saw desire for him alone. It made him feel strong and good about himself. “Maybe so, brat….” He hesitated, then took another step back, with a slight smile of apology. “Damn, I can’t seem to kick the habit of calling you by my favorite nickname. Sorry.” And he was. Moving to the rear of the car, he opened the trunk and lifted out the aluminum suitcase containing the fake anthrax. He handed it to Maggie, because she was the official courier.

  “Why?” Maggie moved aside and allowed him to shut and lock the door. “I liked my nickname. I earned it, remember?” She felt the weight of the suitcase in her left hand and remembered why they were together. And the danger they were in. It washed away some of her euphoria. If Black Dawn were here, she and Shep could be taken out in two shots. Both of them could be dead. Suddenly, she rebelled at the danger. She’d just found Shep again! Why couldn’t they have met some other way? Somewhere safer? Less intense? All at once every touch of his hand on hers she absorbed fully, feeling the importance of every second, every minute spent with him.

  Chuckling, Shep held her hand as they walked toward the front door of the restaurant. “So, if I slip again, you’re not going to throw a book at me or something?” On guard once again, he was checking out pedestrians on either side of the street, which was clogged with traffic and cars at this time of day. He was looking for anything unusual or out of place. Shep knew that from rooftops around this restaurant, FBI agents in battle gear, with sniper’s rifles, were discreetly watching them through their scopes.

  “Of course not,” Maggie said with a laugh. “Granted, I was a hothead back then, but I’ve mellowed a little since.”

  “Really? You could have fooled me.” He grinned sheepishly and added in a confidential tone, “That’s good to know.” He opened the door for her and allowed her entrance into the restaurant. He smiled a little as he remembered how, when they were younger, Maggie had more than once sent a book sailing across the room at him when she got really angry. Of course, Shep acknowledged as they were led up to the second floor of the restaurant, he’d probably had it coming, because he would mercilessly provoke her sometimes just to see that redheaded anger of hers explode. Making up was always such a delicious reward, and that’s why he usually did it. Shep gazed around the remarkable, historic resta
urant. There were oil paintings of the residents of old Savannah. Even one of George Washington, and of course, the owner of the mansion, Habersham, in gaudy-looking shoe and knee buckles.

  As Maggie sat down and accepted a menu, she glowed. “This is the best window in the place, Shep.” After giving their drink orders of iced tea, they were left alone. “Look,” Maggie said excitedly as she pointed out the window. “There’s Reynolds Square. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “What I’m looking at is beautiful,” Shep murmured as he closed his menu. Maggie flushed. Beautifully. He ached to reach over and undo that chignon at the base of her long, lovely neck. Though he told himself that it was bad timing, he enjoyed seeing how his flattery made her glow even more.

  “Shep…”

  “Well, it’s the truth, Maggie.” He glanced out the window. The tree-covered square was one of many in the heart of downtown Savannah. Each square was unique and beautiful in its own right. Around each were the antebellum mansions—the Easter eggs, as Maggie referred to them—that brought such rainbow colors to this incredible city. “I think the maître d’ brought us to the most romantic table in the restaurant.”

  “He did,” she said. Maggie looked around. At this hour, after the lunch-hour crowd, there were not many diners, which was good as far as she was concerned. It meant less people to keep tabs on while they ate. “This is one of my favorite places to dine. It’s so rich in history.”

  “And you always loved history.”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I still love it.”

  “We have a lot of ancient history between us, you know. Dinosaurs, maybe?”

  She chuckled. “So, we’re two ancient people.”

  “I’d never say you looked like a dinosaur, Maggie. You look beautiful and fresh to me. History helps us understand the past. What we did right…or wrong. The good or bad decisions we made.”

  She arched inwardly at his gruffly spoken words, allowing his compliments to touch her opening heart, wanting desperately for him to kiss her once again. She struggled to maintain some decorum in the restaurant. He looked sad after he spoke the words. But she didn’t get a chance to ask him about them, as the waitress brought iced tea with fresh sprigs of mint in it and bright yellow crescents of lemon on a doily-covered plate. Maggie sighed. “I’m going to enjoy my meal, Hunter.” She looked up at the waitress and said, “I’ve got to have your wonderful she-crab soup laced with sherry, and that to-die-for Caesar salad with cornbread oysters as my main course.”

  Shep absorbed Maggie’s gusto for living. Everything she did she did with passion, with excitement and intensity. Her eyes were sparkling like jewels as she gave the order to the blond waitress attired in a white cotton blouse and black slacks.

  “And you, sir?” the waitress inquired.

  Shep looked at Maggie. “You know this place. What would I like to eat?”

  Thrilled, because they had done this long ago with one another, Maggie laughed and looked up at the waitress. “This guy will eat half a steer in one sitting if you don’t watch him. Give him a ‘welcome to the South’ meal of sautéed shrimp with country ham and grits. He’ll take the she-crab soup, too, and a small dinner salad with blue cheese dressing on the side.”

  Shep leaned back, feeling pleased. Maggie hadn’t forgotten one thing about him…even his favorite salad dressing. Amazed and still a little dazed over their kiss, their rekindling of what he’d thought had died long ago, he felt a new determination sweep through him. He’d lost Sarah. He wasn’t about to lose Maggie. No…he just couldn’t. Remembering that terrible day doused much of Shep’s current happiness. If only he’d kept a better eye on Sarah. If only he hadn’t let the situation get out of hand, Sarah might be alive today. Well, that wasn’t going to happen now. Maggie was here and she was alive. And his heart shrank in terror at the thought of having a terrorist’s bullet rip through her vital, beautiful body and steal her away from him.

  As he gazed around the room out of habit, he wondered why he was being given a second chance with Maggie. Her kiss had been wonderfully revealing—soft, feminine, strong and sweet. Wherever she had touched his body with her own, he could still feel the tingles, the yearning.

  “Why are you looking so sad?” Maggie asked as she sipped her iced tea.

  Startled, he stared at her momentarily. And then he remembered just how well Maggie could read him, no matter how he tried to maintain a poker-faced expression. “Can’t hide much from you, can I?” He played with the silverware absently. “Yeah,” he finally responded, “I’m a little sad.”

  Tilting her head, Maggie asked, “Why?” She saw grief in his eyes, combined with a hard determination.

  “After we broke up,” he began in a low tone, “I swore off women for a long time.” He moved the fork around in his fingers and stared down at it for some moments. “And then, gradually, over time, I got back into socializing more. I never met anyone like you, so I never got married…until…later, when things changed.” His brows drew together. “When I went to work with Perseus, Morgan teamed me up with a partner. That was his mandate—everyone had to have a partner. Well, I rebelled on that one, but if I wanted to work for him, I had to go along with company policy. So I did.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “My partner was a woman named Sarah Collier. She was an ex-marine sniper and damn good at what she did. We were partners for three years, until I did something very stupid that I’ll pay for forever.”

  Maggie placed her elbows on the table and cradled her chin on her clasped hands. Raw anguish burned in Shep’s eyes. She felt a terrible sense of grief and guilt surround him as he restlessly rolled the fork back and forth across the white linen tablecloth in front of him. “What happened, Shep?”

  “I got her killed in the line of duty,” he answered flatly. He stopped rolling the fork around. Forcing himself, he looked across the table at Maggie. “We were in Macedonia on an undercover assignment to find this little girl who had been kidnapped by the Serbs. There were thousands of mines all over that area. Maybe a million. I don’t know.” He shrugged his shoulders painfully in remembrance. “We’d found the girl. She was alive. Unharmed, thank God. We were being pursued by her captors and we came upon this open farm field. Sarah said we should go around it. She warned me about the mines. I made a command decision to cross it. I had the six-year-old in my arms and we started running because we could hear the enemy in hot pursuit. All we had to do was make it across that field, to the trees, and we’d be safe.” His mouth hardened and he looked away, the memory fresh and hurting.

  “In my hurry to cut off a minute of time because I didn’t feel we had it, I risked all our lives. I knew there were mines all over the damned place. I knew it….” He gripped the fork so hard that his fingers whitened around the utensil. “Sarah was leading the way. I was running and bringing up the rear. She was two hundred feet ahead of me, being the point person, paving the way for us. She was the one taking the risks….”

  Maggie closed her eyes when she saw tears gleam momentarily in Shep’s slitted gaze, his mouth forced into a suffering line. “Oh, no…. Don’t tell me she stepped on a mine?”

  He nodded, the words choked in his throat. The look on Maggie’s face made him want to cry. How easily touched she was! How wonderfully sensitive she was to the human condition…and to him. “Don’t feel sorry for me in this,” he growled. “I was the stupid bastard who was in a hurry, remember? If I hadn’t been so damned much in a hurry that morning, she’d be alive today….”

  “And were you or the child hurt?”

  “No…”

  Gently, Maggie said, “Shep, I think Sarah knew what she was doing. She understood the risks. And who is to say that the minute you cut off by going through the field instead of around it didn’t save your lives? Can you be really sure that your decision wasn’t sound, under the circumstances?”

  Painfully, he lifted his shoulders. “It was more than that, Maggie. Over the years, I had fallen in love with Sarah. I finally figured what
life was about. I had finally found a woman somewhat like you….” He gazed at Maggie fiercely. “But she wasn’t you. She had some of your attributes….”

  “I’m sure you loved her for all the right reasons,” Maggie whispered. Without thinking, she reached over and captured Shep’s left hand. “I’m so sorry, Shep. For both of you. Sarah sounded like a very, very brave, competent woman.”

  Gripping Maggie’s warm fingers, he gave her a measured look. “I’ll tell you one thing, brat, I’m never going to allow that to happen again. After Sarah died, I came off that mission and told Morgan that I was either going solo on missions from that time onward or he could fire me. At that time, I didn’t care, I was so full of grief and guilt. As it was, I hit the bottle. I drank the pain away. It took me more than a year to pull myself out of it, and to be honest, if Morgan hadn’t been there to kick my butt all over the place, I’d probably still be in a dark bar somewhere drinking away my guilt.”

  Her heart twinged with grief. Maggie saw that the guilt was still there. “Listen to me, Shep—you saved that little girl’s life. Two people walked away from something that might have killed all of you. Have you looked at it from that angle?”

  He release her fingers reluctantly. “Sure I have. But SOP—standard operating procedure—said to avoid open fields. They were well known to have mines planted throughout them. I disobeyed. I was arrogant. I thought I knew what was best for all of us….”

  Tenderly, she moved her fingers across his outstretched hand. “You are a little arrogant. But many times, you know a lot, Shep. That doesn’t mean you don’t listen to good people who know things, too.”

  “As you pointed out long ago,” he muttered, “that was one of my failings, one of the things that broke us up.”