Lover in the Rough

by Lowell, Elizabeth

  “No,” she said, feeling his warmth and hard strength surrounding her hand. “Since Death Valley, it’s been … better. I can look at his picture. I can remember things we did together and not cry every time. I think I’ve accepted the fact that Jeremy is dead.” She looked at Chance. “Thank you. I was running blind before you found me in the dunes. It was only a matter of time until I tripped and broke my neck.”

  Chance lifted her hand to his mouth. His moustache stroked her palm like a silk brush. “You would have survived. You’re stronger than you know.”

  Reba smiled slightly. Tears magnified her eyes. “Sure,” she said huskily, “I’m a regular cat, born to land on my feet. You just happened to find me when I’d lost my balance.”

  A waiter appeared to show Chance and Reba to their table. Chance sat next to Reba, waved away the menus and ordered lobster for both of them. He looked at the wine list and then at Reba.

  “No Australian wines,” he said wryly. “Unless you have a better suggestion, I’ll just close my eyes, point my finger at the white wines and pray.”

  “I have a weakness for Chardonnay,” she admitted, reading the list quickly. She looked up at him from beneath thick, dark brown lashes. “Unless you’d prefer something sweeter?”

  His slow smile made heat tingle through her. “What I want isn’t on any wine list,” he drawled softly, looking at her lips with hungry silvergreen eyes.

  “The Balverne Chardonnay,” she told the waiter quickly, watching as the man tried not to smile, and failed.

  Chance laughed, a sound as soft and fundamentally untamed as his chamois shirt.

  “Question number one,” said Reba in a determined voice. “Where were you born and where have you lived since then?”

  “That’s two questions,” he pointed out.

  “Where have you lived since you were born?” asked Reba, smiling triumphantly at having squeezed two questions into one.

  Chance saluted her silently, admiring her quick intelligence. “I was born on the New Mexico-Texas-Mexico border. No one knows for sure where we were when mother couldn’t walk any further and lay down to have me beside the trail. Dad, as usual, was dragging her from one place to another on some damned fool treasure hunt and, as usual, his map was a smudged twentieth-century copy of a seventeenth-century liar’s tale.” Chance shrugged, but his eyes were the pale, transparent green of glacier ice. “New Mexico is listed as my birthplace on my passport.”

  Reba listened intently, watching the subtle shift of expressions across Chance’s face.

  “Eventually we went to Lightning Ridge. I don’t remember much from that time. I was too young. But if I had a home, I suppose it was Australia. Whenever Dad failed in one part of the world, we’d go back to Lightning Ridge until we’d found enough opals to buy another bloody treasure map.” He smiled grimly to himself. “There’s nothing crazier than a Texan with a treasure map, hellbent on wealth. Unless it’s that Texan’s son, hellbent on proving himself a man.”

  “You?” she asked softly.

  Chance shrugged. “I was thinking of Luck, but I suppose the description would have fitted me when I was fourteen.”

  “How old is Luck?”

  He said nothing. Then, “Luck is dead.”

  Reba put her hand over Chance’s. His fingers curled around hers, accepting her wordless sympathy.

  “I was almost fifteen when he died,” Chance continued in a voice that no longer drawled. “Luck was twenty-four, older but not smarter. He broke the first and only law of the South American jungle: Never drink with a diamond miner. When Luck didn’t come back to camp one night, I went looking for him. I didn’t find him, but I found the miner who had cut Luck’s throat.”

  Reba waited, but Chance said no more.

  “Afterwards, Glory—my older sister—sold the diamonds miners had given her and took me to Australia. Dad didn’t want to leave Venezuela. He’d heard that there was an even bigger diamond strike in Guaniamo, a few miles over on a tributary of the Orinoco River. Glory didn’t argue with Dad. She just bought our way out of the jungle and never looked back. We went to Lightning Ridge because that was the only place we’d been to more than once in our lives. She started up a small business hauling drinking water to the opal gougers.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Gouged opals with the best of them,” Chance said sardonically. “It gets in your blood worse than malaria.” He put his hand under Reba’s chin and tipped her head so that light flowed across the earrings she wore. “I could have been the one to tear these opals out of the earth,” he said softly, “sweating and bleeding in a tight black hole so that you could wear gems to equal your beauty. But they don’t equal it,” he murmured, brushing her ear with his soft moustache, smiling as she shivered beneath his touch.

  The waiter appeared with two platters. A scarlet lobster crouched on each large plate, surrounded by crisp vegetables and pots of butter as clear as amber. While the mouth-watering scent of lobster rose up to Reba’s nostrils, the waiter poured a bit of wine in Chance’s glass. He tasted the wine, nodded, then handed the glass to Reba.

  “It was your choice, after all,” he said, smiling. “You should have a chance to approve it.”

  She tasted the wine and turned to the waiter. “Yes, we’ll take this one.”

  For a time there was only silence and the sounds of lobster shells cracking as both Reba and Chance pried out succulent bites of pearly flesh. Reba had discovered long ago that there was no prim, civilized way to eat whole lobster. For the duration of the meal, fingers were considered nothing more than especially useful utensils. She didn’t actually smack her lips, but she did lick her fingertips discreetly from time to time. Once, she looked up and found Chance watching her.

  “The next time we have lobster,” he said, “we’re going to be alone.”

  “Are my table manners that bad?” she asked, only half joking.

  “No”—softly—“it’s just that I’d like to lick your fingers for you.”

  Reba felt the new yet increasingly familiar sensation of heat and wires tightening inside her body. “Chance Walker,” she breathed, “you are the most incredibly unbridled male.”

  His laugh did nothing to deny her words. “Finish your lobster. I enjoy watching an unbridled female eat.”

  “I’m not unbridled,” she muttered, “and you haven’t answered all of my first question.”

  “Peru, Venezuela, Alaska, Madagascar, Chile, Australia, Brazil, Northwest Territories, Sri Lanka, Burma, Colorado, California, Africa, Montana, Japan, Afghanistan, Nevada, St. John’s Island, Columbia, Finland and the Veil of Kashmir. Some of them more than once and not necessarily in that order.”

  She gave him a narrow-eyed cinnamon glare. He smiled and took a sip of the pale gold wine.

  “You asked where I’ve lived since I was born,” he said reasonably, setting down his wine glass. “I admit I might have left out a place or two.” He shrugged. “A few weeks here and there hardly count.”

  “What did you do after you left Lightning Ridge?”

  “Which time? Seems like I’ve been leaving Lightning Ridge as long as I can remember.”

  “The time your sister took you out of the jungle.”

  “I gouged opals for a while. Glory worked and tried to teach me that there was more to life than fighting and drinking and whores.”

  “You weren’t even fifteen!” said Reba, appalled.

  “I’d been doing a man’s work since I was ten. I’d been man-sized since I was thirteen. But I grew up long before then,” Chance said, his voice quiet and hard. “There’s no such thing as a child in the jungle. Only survivors.”

  “Where is your family now?”

  “Glory is married.” He smiled slightly. “A prospector came to Lightning Ridge, took one look at her, and swore he’d found the only woman he’d spend his life with. She laughed the first time he said it. Then she walked out with him into the desert. When they came back she was his woman. It was
that fast”—he snapped his fingers—“and as permanent as the mountains. I never understood what came over either one of them, until ten days ago.”

  Reba looked up from her lobster suddenly, but Chance’s face was turned so that shadows from the tabletop light concealed his eyes.

  “My father,” continued Chance, his eyes still hooded by shadows, “is somewhere in Africa, I think, looking for blue garnets.”

  “There’s no such thing,” said Reba, wiping her fingers on a napkin and pushing aside her plate. Not a scrap of lobster remained.

  “You know that and I know that, but Dad? No way. He’s got a map.” Chance laughed harshly.

  “Is your mother with him?”

  Chance signaled the waiter to remove their plates. Reba waited for Chance to answer, then realized that he wasn’t going to. “Is that one of the things you don’t talk about?” she asked quietly.

  Chance paid the check in silence. When they reached her car all he said was, “Do you have to go back right away?”

  Reba thought of what waited for her at the Objet d’Art—phone calls from museums and collectors and reporters hungry for a new lead on an old scandal—Jeremy and a woman fifty years younger. The thought made her mouth flatten and turn down. She had worked relentlessly in the weeks since Jeremy’s death, weeks when Tim and Gina had urged her to take time off. Now, all Reba cared about was doing Jeremy’s book and learning more about the baffling, fascinating man who stood very close to her, not quite touching her, waiting for her answer.

  At the moment, there was nothing more she could do with the book. The man, however …

  “Do you like the beach?” Reba asked.

  “Is that one of your twenty questions?” Chance countered, smiling. Then, “I’ve spent so much time in the deserts of the world that water fascinates me. Even when I can’t drink it,” he added whimsically.

  “There’s a private beach nearby. Well, not really private,” she admitted. “No beach in southern California is private enough to satisfy me. But you can sit there and listen to the waves without being surrounded by people.”

  “Sounds good,” said Chance, opening the door to her red BMW for her. “I’m not used to being in the middle of two million people.”

  He tucked her into the car, settled himself in the passenger seat, and turned to watch as she threaded the BMW skillfully through the heavy traffic headed toward the freeway.

  “Nice,” he said softly as she downshifted going into a curve and the car responded with a well-mannered growl of power. “I’d forgotten how much fun a smooth road and a good car can be. Where I’ve been, a twenty-year-old Land Rover is the local equivalent of a limousine.”

  “Want to drive?”

  “Maybe on the way back. Right now, I’m having too much fun watching you.”

  Reba glanced over at Chance quickly and saw that he meant what he said. She smiled at him, glad that he wasn’t one of those men who had to be in the driver’s seat no matter whose car it was. She had bought the BMW because it was a machine for people who enjoyed driving. There were flashier cars on the road, more expensive cars, more powerful cars, but there were few that could equal her car in sheer driving pleasure.

  A few minutes later, having been ushered by a guard through an iron gate, she cruised the lot looking for the right place to park. Finally she pulled in between a Mercedes 450 SL and a glittering black Ferrari. Chance, who had said nothing when she passed up parking slots closer to the beach, looked at her inquiringly.

  “First rule of southern California driving,” said Reba. “Never park next to a car that’s in worse shape than yours.” She gestured to the expensive cars on either side of her. “This is one time I’m sure the people parked next to me will be as careful of their paint jobs as I am of mine.”

  “City survival skills,” he said admiringly. “I’d never have thought of it.”

  Reba got out, unlocked the trunk and pulled out a faded beige comforter. Chance raised a dark eyebrow.

  “Another city survival skill?” he asked. “Do you do this often?”

  The cool distance in his tone made her turn and stare at him. “Do what?”

  “Bring a man and a blanket to a private beach.”

  For an instant Reba was too surprised to react. Anger flushed her cheeks. She threw the comforter back in the trunk, slammed down the lid and spun around, obviously intending to get back in her car. Chance moved with startling speed, cutting her off by caging her against the side of the BMW. She faced him with narrow eyes. He ignored her efforts to push past him, keeping her prisoner with an ease that infuriated her.

  “Let me go,” she said curtly.

  “After you answer my question.”

  “What in hell was your question?”

  “If not Tim, then who?”

  “Who what?”

  “Who is your man?”

  Reba stared at Chance, too surprised to speak.

  “A woman like you just doesn’t run around loose,” he said, the words clipped, all trace of a drawl gone.

  “This one does.”

  “Why?” he asked bluntly.

  It was the question she hadn’t wanted to answer. Anger helped, though. And she was angry. “No man has ever wanted me, just me. They always wanted other things. A perpetual wide-eyed student-virgin in my former husband’s case. After him, most of the men I met just wanted a bedwarmer and ego builder. Nothing special about it. Any woman would do. Then later, after I had worked hard and Jeremy had taught me so much, there was a new wrinkle. Men wanted my connections or my money. Not just me, though. Never just me.”

  It wasn’t an easy thing to admit. The anger and humiliation in Reba transmitted itself to Chance. His hands gentled, moving slowly over her arms, savoring her warmth beneath the black silk sleeves.

  “I’m not like your ex-husband, chaton,” he murmured. “I’ve never been interested in virgins.”

  Reba stared through Chance, refusing to see him, waiting only to be released.

  “Look at me,” Chance demanded in a rough voice. “Do you think I’m like the other men you’ve known?”

  Her eyes focused on him, clear and hard. “No,” she said coolly, “I don’t. You don’t seem to want any of the usual things from me. I doubt that your bed is ever cold unless you want it that way. You’re too self-confident to need me to build your ego, and I suspect that there’s damn little I could teach you about the gem trail that you don’t already know. As for money—”

  He stood very still, searching her eyes, his face tense. “As for money,” he said harshly, “I have enough. Or don’t you believe me?”

  “I don’t care,” she said simply. “You didn’t know who I was in Death Valley, and you wanted me then. That’s why I trusted you so much, so quickly. You didn’t know me but you helped me, held me … and then you kissed me. You wanted me. That never had happened to me before.” She looked at his face, hard and very male, black hair like a sleek, softly curling pelt, his eyes a silvergreen unlike any gem she could name, his mouth firm and yet so sensual it was all she could do not to stand on tiptoe until she could feel his lips moving across hers. She looked away. “I’ve answered your question. Now let me go.”

  “I can’t,” he said, bending down until his mouth was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath. “What happened in Death Valley was like walking down a dry streambed and finding a hundred-carat diamond blazing in the sun. The thought of you sharing that incredible fire with someone else made me angry.” Chance laughed abruptly. “Let me rephrase that. Now that I know you, the thought of any man but me touching you makes me killing mad. It’s not rational or polite or pretty. It simply is.”

  Reba looked up at Chance again. There wasn’t anything in his eyes that comforted her now. Tiger God, burning bright. As she sensed the wildness seething beneath his control, something deeply buried in her stirred and stretched, awakening. When she spoke her voice was soft and very certain. “I don’t want any man but you to touch me.”
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br />   Slowly the tension left Chance’s body. Muscles that had stood out against his soft shirt became supple again rather than rigid. Without holding her, he kissed her gently, brushing his lips over hers until her mouth softened and her breath sighed out. When his tongue touched hers, he made a sound deep in his throat. He pulled her close, holding her as though she were water slipping through his fingers and he must drink now or be forever thirsty.

  When he finally lifted his mouth, both of them were breathing raggedly. “If you’ll share your beach with me,” he said in a husky drawl, “I’ll promise to behave.”

  “You won’t have any choice. The beach really isn’t that private.”

  As he turned to get the comforter out of the trunk again, her voice stopped him.

  “Chance …”

  He looked over his shoulder.

  “This is the first time I’ve come here with anyone.”

  “I know.” He smiled crookedly. “I used to think that the old saying about green eyes and jealousy wasn’t true. I was wrong. I just hadn’t found anything worth being jealous of.”

  Chance opened the trunk, draped the comforter over his shoulder and took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. The subtle roughness of his palm, like his total alertness to movement around him, was a reminder of what his life had been like. He was a man who had lived and worked in harsh places. It showed in everything about him, even the texture of his skin. Yet for all that, there was nothing coarse about him. She had met men who had offended her with their crudeness, men who had never set foot on anything more uncivilized than a sandtrap at the local country club. Chance was not like that. Beneath his harsh surface he had the clean, brilliant strength of a diamond.

  They walked a few steps before Reba remembered. “Shoes,” she said quickly, heading back to the car, pulling him along behind.

  Chance watched in silent amusement while she kicked off her high-heeled black shoes. “I was going to say something about them but you seemed to know what you were doing.”

  “You have a distracting effect on me,” she said lightly, tossing her shoes in the trunk.

  Smiling, he took off his own shoes and socks. Then he held out his hand. She laced her fingers through his again, amazed at how natural it seemed to be standing barefoot in a parking lot with him, holding his hand.