A HOME FOR THE HUNTER

by Christine Rimmer

  "Um?"

  "I think we just broke last night's agreement."

  He looked puzzled for a minute, and then he understood. "You mean because I mentioned my father?"

  "Yes. You came very close to revealing something about yourself, about who you really are." She laid a hand on his arm. His skin was warm, the muscles beneath hard under her palm. "I'm glad."

  "Right." The word was gruff.

  "You'll tell me more."

  "It looks likely."

  "But not right now, is that it?"

  He chuckled. And then, with a stunning economy of movement, he was on his feet and reaching for her hand. "Come on."

  "What?" But even as she asked the question, she was pushing herself up and swinging her legs to the concrete.

  "Time for a swim," he announced, spinning her around and scooping her up against his chest.

  She understood what he planned too late. By the time she shouted, "No, Jack!" he had already strode to the edge of the pool and was tossing her in.

  They tried some of the other casinos that night.

  They crossed an actual moat, complete with drawbridge, to enter the Excalibur. Then they stood on the street gawking with all the other tourists in front of the Mirage, where an imitation volcano spewed real fire into the night sky every fifteen minutes. Inside, they watched Siegfried & Roy perform fantastic illusions.

  When the hour grew late, they found their special place again, backlit their own hotel, in the wing chairs by the potted palm.

  There, as she'd been building her courage all day to do, Olivia ventured, "Jack, I, um…"

  He leaned near her chair. "What?"

  She swallowed. Sweet heaven, this was difficult.

  She didn't even know she was twisting her hands together until he captured them and held them still in his. "Just say it." With his thumbs he idly stroked the hands he held captive. "Come on, I'm listening."

  She dragged in a big breath and came out with it. "I'm not who you think I am."

  He frowned. "What?"

  "I said, I'm not who you think I am."

  Suddenly his expression was very strange, very distant. He'd stopped his subtle stroking of her hands.

  She forced herself to go on. "I lied, Jack. My name isn't Loveless. My name is Larrabee."

  He tipped his head to the side. "You lied?"

  She bobbed her head up and down. "Yes, I did. When I told you my name last night, I just wanted to be someone else at that moment."

  "Someone else?" He was still looking strange and distant.

  She hastened to make him see. "Yes. Someone other than me. Oh, I'm sure it doesn't make any sense to you—"

  "I didn't say that."

  "You didn't have to."

  "Olivia, I—"

  "No. Let me finish. Let me explain." Her words came fast, then. They tumbled over each other getting out of her mouth. "You see, I'm rich, Jack. Very rich. My father is Lawrence Larrabee, of Larrabee Brewing Company. And Jack, I hate being rich. I'm just no good at it. And all my life being Lawrence Larrabee's daughter has overshadowed everything. It cuts me off from people, it makes me different. And most of the time I never know if a person likes me for myself or for my money or what. It's very confusing to me. But with you it was different. You didn't have any idea who I was, and still you were … interested in me."

  Jack had let go of her hand. She looked at him, begging him with her eyes to understand.

  But he didn't seem to understand at all. Instead he was withdrawing from her, just as she had feared he might when he learned that she had pretended to be someone she wasn't.

  She blundered on, willing him to forgive her deception, to understand how she'd felt. "It meant so much to me, Jack. That you didn't have a clue who I was and yet still you were following me. I couldn't stand to watch your eyes change, Jack. Because that's what always happens with people. They learn who I am and their eyes change. I'm not me anymore. I hate that. I…" Her voice trailed off as Jack actually stood and turned away from her. It was obvious he couldn't bear to hear another word.

  She pleaded, "Jack? Oh, Jack. Please. I'm sorry. Forgive me."

  He turned then. "Stop," he said quietly. He looked completely composed. "There's nothing to forgive."

  She stared up at him, bewildered. What in the world could be going through his mind?

  "But I lied to you."

  He put up a hand. "Hey." His voice was so tender. Slowly he sank to his chair again.

  And then he did the most wonderful thing. He reached out, hesitantly, as if he were doing something she might not allow, and he touched the side of her face. One feather-light caress, from her temple to her chin. To Olivia it was the most consuming touch she'd ever known. It burned her right down to her soul.

  He whispered, "It's okay. It's not a big deal."

  "It's not?"

  "No."

  She blinked at him, bewildered. He was behaving very strangely, first seeming unable to bear what she was telling him and then suddenly turning around and saying there was nothing to forgive.

  But then it came to her. Of course, he must have been hurt at first that she hadn't trusted him. And now he wanted to let it go, since he realized that there had been no malice in what she had done.

  Like her, Jack only wanted the two of them to go on from here. The important thing was that he wouldn't hold it against her for pretending to be someone else.

  He was smiling at her. "It's late."

  She bit her lip, since it was trembling a little. "So late it's practically early."

  He made a low sound in his throat, and she knew he remembered how they'd shared the same exchange the night before. Then, once more, he was on his feet, holding out his hand.

  "Come on. I'll take you to your room."

  She pushed away the vague uneasiness that kept trying to sweep over her and went with him.

  Like the night before, they rode the elevator hand in hand.

  However, unlike the night before, this time she was certain that he would kiss her when they reached her door.

  But he didn't.

  And for a moment she even thought he was going to leave without a word about seeing her again. She couldn't let that happen.

  She collected all her courage and suggested, "It's my turn to treat for breakfast. There's a café downstairs by the other pool, the indoor one? Meet me there. At noon."

  He said nothing. His look was rueful.

  She refused to believe that he was trying to think of a way to bow out. "Okay, okay. I know, it's hardly Randy Jim's. But what do you expect? I'm new in town."

  "Olivia…"

  "I promise to set my alarm. I won't stand you up." She held up her hand. "Scout's honor."

  Oh, Lord. What if he said no? She didn't even have his room number.

  "All right." His voice was grim. "I'll be there."

  Before she could drum up the nerve to ask him what in the world was going on with him, he turned and was gone.

  She stared after him for a moment, her heart so heavy it seemed to weight her feet to the floor. What had happened? She wasn't really sure.

  She was only sure about one thing.

  She'd seen the look in his eyes just before he turned away from her. And she knew what that look meant.

  He never intended to see her again.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  « ^ »

  In Jack's room the message light was blinking.

  He knew who it would be. But he buzzed the switchboard anyway, just in case it might be someone else.

  It wasn't.

  "Lawrence Larrabee called," the switchboard operator said. "He wants you to call him back as soon as you get in."

  Jack punched up the home number Larrabee had given him. It was answered on the third ring. "Hello?"

  It was the aged housekeeper, Zelda, whom Jack had met on the interview two days before, when Larrabee had hired him. Zelda was a tank of a woman, a true family retainer. Zelda did not approve
of private investigators; that had been clear to Jack from the moment she'd opened the door of Larrabee's huge Bel Air mansion to him. She'd looked at him as if he were something she'd found stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

  "Let me speak to Lawrence Larrabee," Jack said.

  "Who is calling?"

  "Jack Roper."

  There was a disapproving pause, then "One moment, please."

  Larrabee was on the line in seconds flat. "Roper. What the hell's going on? It's the middle of the night."

  "Fine. I'll call in the morning." Jack started to hang up.

  "Roper!" Lawrence Larrabee's shout came through even though the phone was nowhere near Jack's ear.

  With a sigh Jack put the phone to his ear again. "Mr. Larrabee, you called me."

  "You're damn right I did. I want to know what's going on."

  "I'm doing my job. Keeping an eye on your daughter."

  "And?"

  "And what? She's fine. Having a ball."

  "What do you mean a ball?"

  "I mean, she seems to be having a great time."

  "Doing what?"

  "Seeing the sights. Taking in some shows. Gambling a little."

  "Gambling?"

  "Mr. Larrabee, she hasn't been throwing her money around, I promise you."

  "I don't care about the money. It's my daughter I'm worried about. She's a very sensitive girl. And if she's developing a gambling problem I—"

  "She's not. Forget that."

  "All right. But does she seem okay? Emotionally, I mean? And mentally?"

  "Look. I'm no mind reader, but she seems fine to me."

  "She's recently been put through hell. I don't think I have to tell you—"

  "You're right. You don't."

  Larrabee had explained all about the two-timing fiancé at the interview. Jack was in no mood to hear it all again. Tonight he'd had to listen to Olivia beg him to forgive her for deceiving him about her last name. He felt like a worm. Jack didn't think he could take it if Larrabee started in again about what some other guy had done to her.

  Larrabee was still running his inquisition. "She hasn't hooked up with any suspicious characters, has she?"

  Nobody but me, Jack thought but didn't say. He'd yet to explain to Larrabee that he was the one Olivia was having a ball with, though he'd had three conversations with the man since he and Olivia had begun spending every waking moment together.

  "Well, has she?" Larrabee prodded, since Jack had yet to answer him.

  "Hooked up with any suspicious characters?" Jack repeated, begging the question with an obvious stall.

  "That's what I asked. Come on, Roper. What do you think I'm paying you for? Give it to me straight."

  Jack thought about Olivia. About how all he really wanted was to go on meeting her at noon, wandering this gaudy gambling mecca through the day and into the night together. And not parting until "it was so late, it was practically early."

  Or, better yet, not parting at all.

  But he knew that what he wanted was impossible.

  Unlike Olivia, Jack was a realist. He knew very well that they were on a collision course with emotional disaster.

  There was just nowhere this relationship could go. She was a poor little rich girl, who wore her heart on her red velvet sleeve. And he was nobody from nowhere, who'd been duping her from the moment she'd cried out "Wait! Don't go" on the street outside the casino.

  And the only way to end it was to cut it clean.

  "Roper?" Larrabee's voice was getting agitated.

  It was the moment. Time to end this charade.

  He made himself do it. "Yeah, she's been seeing a suspicious character, all right. Me."

  Larrabee made a sort of wheezing, choking sound. "What?"

  "I said she's been with me. Since last night—or is it night before last by now?"

  The pause before Lawrence Larrabee spoke was a gruesome one.

  But at last the older man asked in a voice of equal parts velvet and steel, "What exactly are you telling me, Roper?"

  Grimly, Jack explained. "She caught me watching her."

  "She what?"

  "I think you heard me, Mr. Larrabee."

  "How could she have caught you? You never get caught. You came highly recommended. You won medals as a cop. You've been in a forced recon team in the jungles of Southeast Asia. You've tracked down men no one else could find and stayed with them for days without them realizing you were watching them. You're the best in the business. I have it in writing from several different sources."

  Jack rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'm just giving you the facts here. She caught me. Twice."

  Larrabee repeated the word with frank disbelief. "Twice?"

  "Yeah, twice."

  The truth was that the beer baron's daughter had been the cutest thing Jack had ever seen, sitting there at the blackjack table in that strange red dress, peeking at her cards and biting the edge of her tongue. Jack had forgotten the basic rule of the job: stay invisible.

  She'd looked up and caught him gawking like some rank amateur. He'd known then that if she spotted him again, she'd have to put two and two together and realize he was following her. He would be dead meat.

  But he'd been sure she would never catch him a second time. No one else ever had.

  Wrong again.

  Outside, she'd headed off down the street like she knew right where she was going, picking up the hem of that odd dress to keep it from trailing on the sidewalk. Her baby-fine hair, which was an intriguing color, halfway between gold and bronze, had hung in slightly bedraggled ringlets down her back.

  He'd thought, Unreal. Scarlett O'Hara in Las Vegas.

  He'd been amused by her … and he hadn't been on his toes.

  She'd chosen that moment to whirl around. She was looking right at him again before he even realized he was had. He explained to Larrabee, "The second time she spotted me, I figured it was over. So I was going to walk away and call you right then, tell you I'd been seen and you'd better find someone else."

  "Okay." Larrabee seemed to be speaking through clenched teeth. "And why didn't you do that?"

  "Because she'd jumped to a conclusion."

  "What conclusion?"

  "She assumed I was following her around because I was interested."

  "What do you mean, interested?"

  "I mean interested. Attracted. She thought I found her—"

  "Never mind. I get the idea. Go on."

  "Fine. She thought I was attracted to her, and she was flattered. When I started to walk away, she asked me not to go. We struck up a conversation. I played along. We had dinner together Tuesday. And then from noon Wednesday, we've been mostly together. I just left her at her room twenty minutes ago."

  Lawrence Larrabee allowed another gruesome pause to elapse. Then he softly said, "I don't like this, Roper."

  Jack said nothing. What was there to say?

  "Have you taken advantage of her?"

  Jack groaned. "Oh, come on, Larrabee. I feel enough like a jerk already."

  "You've kept hands off?"

  "Yeah. I haven't even kissed her. Now, look. I've told you what's happening. And now I'm out of it. I'll send you a bill for the first day, and you can consider Wednesday on me. It was a damn great day as far as I was concerned, anyway. Fair enough?"

  "No."

  Now Jack was the one speaking softly. "Excuse me?"

  "I said, no. It isn't fair enough, not by a long shot. I've explained to you that Olivia is in a very shaky emotional state right now. And if what you've described to me, this little friendship you two seem to have developed, is really happening—"

  "Oh, come off it, Larrabee. Do you actually believe this is something I'd make up?"

  Larrabee was silent again. Then he admitted, "No, I do not think you've made it up. Olivia has just had her confidence in her appeal as a woman shattered. Right now, any reasonably attractive man could—"

  "Look. Let's not go on and on about this. I'm just a h
ired hand here, and I want out."

  "Well, Mr. Roper, I'm not letting you out."

  Jack said something very crude under his breath. Then he carefully inquired, "Was there some specific way you planned to stop me from getting out?"

  "As a matter of fact, yes. I'll pay you—"

  "Please. There are some things even a P.I. won't do for money."

  "What are you saying?"

  "Let me draw you a picture. Keep your money."

  "Fine. Then think of Olivia."

  "Damn it, I am thinking of Olivia."

  "Roper, you are not. If you were thinking of Olivia, you would know that if you really are her friend now, then the last thing you should do is vanish from her life without explanation."

  "Friend is your word, not mine."

  "You're going to have to break this off more gradually, Roper. You know it. And I know it."

  "If you're so worried about her, maybe you'd better come here yourself."

  "I can't."

  "Right. You're so damned concerned about her, but you can't spare the time for her."

  "That's not it. She doesn't want me there. She's threatened to disappear if I don't leave her alone. Unfortunately I believe her."

  Now Jack was the one muttering. "I don't like this."

  "Neither do I. But it's happened. And we have to deal with it. You stay with my daughter, Roper. Understand? Keep your hands off and start figuring out a way to tell her goodbye gently. Are we clear?"

  Jack swore some more.

  "I'll be in touch. Call me here or at Larrabee Enterprises if anything new comes up."

  Though Olivia was right on time for breakfast at the poolside café, Jack was there ahead of her.

  She saw him before he spotted her, because he already had his nose buried in the morning edition of the Las Vegas Sun.

  She stood for a moment by the little sign that said Please Wait To Be Seated and let the gladness and gratitude wash over her.

  He was here! He hadn't gone away!

  All night, or what had remained of it after they'd parted, she'd tossed and turned. She'd been distressingly certain that the strange way he'd behaved before he'd left her at her door had meant the worst: she would never see him again.

  Though she'd only spent two evenings and a day with him, and he'd told her nothing about who he really was, Olivia felt that she knew Jack Roper right down to his soul.