Hunter

by Melody Anne

  “I know you’re a professor and all but you don’t have to repeat every question or this could take a while,” he told her. “Not that I mind spending time with you in this cramped office.”

  Rebekah clenched her teeth together.

  “I don’t understand why my name would be on this … this map of yours,” she said. She felt foolish even saying it. The man was either certifiable or his family was. Either way, them having her name wasn’t a good thing, she determined. There was no way his father could have known what had taken place between the two of them so many years ago. But even if he had, there wasn’t a reason he would send Hunter back to her. None of this was making the least bit of sense.

  “Look, I don’t know what the old man was thinking, but I decided he gave me the map, and there might be something worth finding at the end of it. Your name was on there, so here I am. I would have come a whole lot sooner had I realized who you really were,” he said as he looked intently at her. He smiled again as he leaned in closer. “Are you going to help me or not?”

  She took in a few deep breaths before responding. She had to remind herself that she’d dealt with many difficult students before, and she needed to treat this situation just like that. It wasn’t a big deal.

  “No, I don’t think I will,” she said, using the same nonchalant voice he seemed fond of.

  “But you haven’t even looked at the map,” he told her as he patted his chest. She was assuming he was indicating that it was in a pocket within his jacket.

  “I don’t need to look at the map. I’m a professor, incredibly busy, and I don’t have time to play games,” she pointed out.

  “Isn’t the term just about up? It’s November. Don’t kids still get a break for the holidays?” he asked.

  “That’s not your concern,” she told him.

  “I know how to do my homework, Professor, and I looked you up before coming here. Strangely enough there wasn’t a picture of you online, but now I get it. You look more like a student than someone who should be teaching the kids.”

  “If you’ve come to insult me …” she began then stopped. She wasn’t exactly sure how she wanted to end that sentence.

  “It wasn’t an insult,” he told her, holding up his hands. His eyes caressed her face. “Time has been good to you.”

  His compliment heated her body in a way she absolutely didn’t want. She was losing her ability to think — something else that never happened to her. It had been the same way that magical summer she’d spent with him.

  “This isn’t going to work,” she said, her voice husky. He zeroed in on it.

  “There was a time you loved adventure,” he goaded her.

  “Times have changed,” she countered.

  “I don’t think so. We might age, but that doesn’t mean we have to grow up.” He looked so relaxed sitting there, as if he didn’t have a single care in the world. She wondered what he’d been up to for the past ten years. She wondered if he had ever thought of her. She’d certainly thought of him — a lot — not that she was about to admit that. She needed to get him out of her office, and fast, before she lost her sanity.

  She realized it might be her smartest move to just go ahead and look at the dang map. That way she could tell him she wasn’t able to help him and send him on his way. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to get rid of him otherwise.

  “I have class in one hour. Let me see the map,” she said, pushing aside the homework she’d been grading and holding out her hand.

  He stared at her for a few moments, making her want to squirm again, but then he reached inside his worn leather jacket and pulled out an envelope, placing it directly in her palm. Rebekah didn’t know what to expect when she opened it.

  Hunter laid the map in her hand and she carefully opened it, spreading it atop her cluttered desk as she looked at the symbols, the lines, and the key in the bottom right hand corner. This was an elaborate map. The room was silent for several moments as she tried to figure out the clues hidden within, but there were references that didn’t look familiar.

  “Can you help me?” Hunter asked.

  When Rebekah looked up she was startled to notice he was leaning over the desk, his face only inches from her own. She hadn’t even heard him rise. Their eyes connected and warmth spread through her entire body.

  The expression in his eyes changed to what she could only describe as shock, then he leaned closer. For a brief moment she found herself losing control — pushing closer to him — wanting the touch only he knew how to do with perfection. That’s when Rebekah regained some of her senses and slammed herself backward in her chair, the moment instantly lost.

  Had he been about to kiss her? Rebekah wasn’t exactly sure. That couldn’t be the case. They had shared some passionate kisses in the past, but that was a long time ago. In her new world, men like Hunter didn’t show up in her office and throw her across her desk.

  In Rebekah’s fantasies, those sorts of things happened, but she lived in reality ninety percent of the time. This entire scenario had her beginning to wonder if she’d taken a step out of it.

  “I can’t figure it out,” she told him, her voice quiet and breathy. She cleared her throat.

  “Neither can I, but maybe together we can,” he offered.

  Rebekah hated that she was intrigued by the idea of deciphering the map. But now that she was facing it, the thing was like a puzzle that she had to solve. She didn’t have time for it with her classes and students, but she wanted to solve the riddle — even if it meant spending time with the man who had broken her heart.

  “Can I keep it here and examine it?” she asked.

  His eyes narrowed the slightest bit as he studied her. Then he smiled again as he sat back down in his chair, his body relaxed.

  “I think this is definitely a group project,” he told her.

  Then the cretin picked the map back up and carefully folded it before putting it in his pocket. She wanted to reach over her desk and yank it away from him. She was far too civilized to do that though.

  “I’m staying at my old family home on the ranch. It belongs to my brother Gabe now, but you should remember it well. Meet me there tomorrow. We’ll have dinner and go over it,” he told her.

  “I didn’t say I would help you,” she said.

  “Not with your words you didn’t, but I can see you’re intrigued. You want to go on this adventure with me,” he assured her.

  Rebekah was seething at how well this man, now a stranger to her, was managing to read her. But he was right.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” she informed him.

  He was silent as he studied her again. Then he gave her that devastating smile. “This might be a pretty great idea actually,” he said.

  She inhaled. He was too close to her again and his scent filtered slowly through her, warming up her blood and infusing her. She hadn’t reacted like this to a man since — well, since him. It was unsettling.

  “Hunter …” His name fell away as awareness flowed between them.

  “Just come,” he said, his words almost a plea. That tinge of hope in his voice was nearly her undoing. She wanted to do what he was asking of her.

  She rose to her feet, still undecided. They were in a face-off and it seemed neither of them wanted to give.

  “I will …” She paused and took another breath to make her voice stronger. “I will think about it,” she finished.

  He tossed a piece of paper down on her desk and smiled. She left it there, not wanting to see whatever it was — especially if it would make her want to help him even more.

  “Here’s a little something to entice you,” he told her. “Besides that, I guess I will accept your answer for now. But I’m telling you, this will be fun.”

  Hunter gave her one more intense look then turned to leave. She wanted to tell him she wa
sn’t going to think about it, that she wasn’t going to meet him, but she kept her mouth shut as he left her office.

  She sat back down and thrummed her fingers on her desk for several moments before she finally sighed and hung her head. No matter how much she told herself she wasn’t going, she had a feeling she was too intrigued not to.

  It seemed that Rebekah might be going on a treasure hunt with her former lover.

  Chapter Three

  Hunter smiled as he kicked up the throttle of his dirt bike and flew through the hills. It had been a while since he’d felt this much speed, and with the sun on his face, the sky surprisingly clear, and the moist sea air keeping him from overheating, he laughed.

  His father’s passing had been a shock and though he’d taken his map and left again for nearly two months, he was back now. He’d thought it would be the last place he’d want to be, but he was finding himself enjoying it. From the time he’d been fifteen, Hunter had known he wouldn’t stay home. There had been something bubbling inside him — a need to travel, to seek adventure. When he’d turned eighteen he’d went out on his own and that’s where he’d found his passion for taking pictures.

  Of course to call them pictures wasn’t doing justice to his works of art. He was right in the middle of the biggest storms when the rest of the people were hiding in their basements. He was in the center of the gunfire when war was at its worst. And he loved every moment of it.

  He’d only spent one summer back at home — that summer ten years before. The summer he’d met Becka, had fallen for her, and then had left more scared than he’d ever been before. He hadn’t wanted anything to hold him down — to keep him in California. And she’d almost managed to do just that. So he’d left and hadn’t looked back. He’d continued his adventures, telling himself to do anything else would be an injustice in his pursuit of individualism. It wasn’t easy to be distinct with six siblings. Maybe that was why they’d all gone their own ways.

  And now, after traveling for the past fifteen years, he was expected to stay home for another extended period of time? Hunter wasn’t sure he could do it. But he was going to give it a try for the sake of his father’s last wishes — and because he missed his family, even if he wouldn’t admit it out loud.

  Getting back to the property, he hosed down his bike, then made his way to his brother’s house. Walking through the halls like he owned the place was sure to irritate his stick-in-the-mud brother, but that only made him smile more. His boots were dirty and his hair covered in dust. At least he’d managed to let off a bit of steam. And with Gabe’s quick marriage, his brother had loosened up a bit — a very little bit. Hunter liked Gabe’s wife, Josie. She was a spitfire and totally the opposite of the kind of woman Hunter had thought his brother would marry. And she was absolutely perfect for Gabe.

  Thinking of Gabe and Josie automatically made his thoughts turn back to Becka. His meeting with the uptight professor, who didn’t even remotely resemble the happy girl he’d known before, hadn’t gone at all the way he’d planned, and Hunter was confused as to why he’d had her on his mind since walking from her office.

  The girl he’d once known had laughed freely, had run with him on the beaches, had inspired passion in him, and had made him want to stick around. The woman he’d met the day before was nothing like Becka. Yet he could see his former lover deep within her beautiful brown eyes.

  The professor, though, wasn’t remotely the kind of girl he’d normally date. She was the type he’d have expected to see with Gabe, or even James. So why was his brain filled with erotic images of stripping off her unflattering clothes to find what changes had come to her body in the past ten years? Hunter concluded it had to be because he’d been on assignment for so long over in the Middle East. The sooner he found a one-night-stand, the better off he’d be. Then there wouldn’t be naughty images of dowdy professors filling his brain.

  “I see you’ve made yourself at home.”

  The wry comment came from his left, and Hunter turned to find his brother stepping out of the den as he walked up to him. Gabe looked down at his attire with more disapproval.

  “I grew up here, of course I’ll make myself at home,” Hunter told him.

  “My cleaning staff is going to charge me triple with you here,” Gabe said. “And it’s not the family home anymore.”

  “You didn’t want it,” Hunter reminded him. “Maybe I’ll buy it from you when you wake up and change your mind about being here.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Hunter wondered where in the hell they’d come from. He certainly wasn’t interested in purchasing the family ranch. Owning a home was putting down far more roots than he’d ever wanted to put down. Gabe looked at him in surprise and Hunter wasn’t exactly sure what to say.

  “You know the past few months have changed me, Hunter,” Gabe pointed out. He was right. Hunter could see the changes in his brother. There was nothing like a woman entering a man’s life and throwing his world into chaos. Gabe continued after an uncomfortable moment. “I didn’t know you were looking at property.”

  “I’m not,” Hunter told him as he began to move forward again. He obviously needed a drink since he seemed to be losing his mind.

  “Okay,” Gabe said, drawing out the word.

  “I’m just a bit flustered. I can’t figure out the damn map our father left me, and the woman I went and saw seemed just as clueless.” Hunter wasn’t ready to tell his brother he had once known the professor. He wasn’t sure why it mattered. It wasn’t as if Gabe would be shocked by Hunter’s affair with her so many years before. Maybe it was just that Hunter wanted to keep things to himself.

  They reached the den and Hunter headed straight to the liquor cabinet. He pulled out the most expensive label, which happened to be a bottle of Scotch, poured himself a double, and drank it down before turning toward Gabe with a raised brow.

  “Sure,” Gabe said with sarcasm. “I would love a glass of my liquor.”

  “Oh, don’t act so put out. It’s not like you can’t afford to replace the bottle,” Hunter grumbled. “Did I just see an eye roll from you?” Hunter asked with a laugh.

  “Quit acting like a little kid, Hunter,” Gabe told him.

  “Something about being in this house makes me feel at least ten years younger,” Hunter told his brother as he poured them each a glass of the delicious Scotch.

  “That would still put you at twenty-three. Hardly a child,” Gabe pointed out.

  “Don’t you ever just want to let loose, Brother? Don’t take everything so seriously,” Hunter advised him.

  “I’m a responsible adult, Hunter. That’s what we do,” Gabe told him. It appeared a woman was only able to change his brother so much. Hunter and Gabe had been talking on the phone a lot more over the past couple months, though. That was a positive change.

  Hunter moved over to the couch in the center of the room and sat back, lifting his feet and placing his dirty boots on the pristine coffee table. Gabe didn’t say anything to him this time. Maybe his brother was loosening up, after-all.

  “That’s why I like having zero responsibilities. I live on the road, go where the pictures take me, and I have a hell of a lot of memories because of it. Can you say the same?” Hunter challenged.

  “I have no regrets about my life,” Gabe said.

  “Seriously, Brother, loosen the hell up,” Hunter practically yelled.

  “Or you could settle down and learn responsibility,” Gabe replied.

  “Maybe we can meet in the middle somewhere,” Hunter said. He hadn’t come home to fight with his favorite brother. It was so easy to ruffle Gabe’s feathers that he often forgot how much he actually loved him.

  “Compromise has never been my strongest suit — yours either,” Gabe said, but he relaxed as he looked at Hunter and smiled.

  “True. We’re a bit stubborn. But not nearly as uptight
as the professor I met with,” he said, instantly scowling as Becka flashed before his eyes.

  “Seems like she got to you,” Gabe said with a twinkle in his eyes.

  Hunter still didn’t want to share that he’d known her from before. Why he was so closely guarding that secret, he didn’t understand. He grinned at his brother.

  “Don’t begin to think it’s anything,” Hunter warned. “The woman was so damn stiff she didn’t even need a chair to sit on. All she had to do was bend her knees and there was an instant bench.”

  “Interesting,” Gabe said.

  “Don’t say it like that,” Hunter snapped. “It wasn’t interesting. She’s not my type. I don’t do the uptight brainiacs. I like a much wilder woman, one who isn’t afraid of a little dirt and fast times.”

  “How long did you speak to the professor?” Gabe asked.

  “Not long, about thirty minutes. But trust me, she’s not my type,” Hunter insisted. At least she wasn’t his type anymore. At one point, she’d been exactly what he’d never even known he wanted.

  Her tight updo and fascinating eyes flashed before his vision. He really wanted to undo that hair, remove those glasses, and slowly unbutton her shirt … Whoa! That was not a place his thoughts needed to be going.

  “You seem awfully flustered given the woman isn’t your type,” Gabe pointed out.

  “Just because I’m a bit curious about who she really is doesn’t mean I’m interested,” Hunter said with a scowl.

  “Okay then, find someone else to help you,” Gabe told him.

  “She’s smart and when she looked at the map, her eyes sparkled in the most amazing way. She wants to solve this puzzle.” That was a good enough excuse to spend some time with the woman.

  That sparkle in her eyes had made his groin tighten. Before he’d known what he was doing, Hunter had been leaning across the professor’s desk intent on kissing those light pink lips. If she hadn’t pulled back when she had, he’d have fisted his fingers into her hair and pulled her to him. He could almost taste her on his lips. Even though there had been a lot of women after Becka, none had come even remotely as close to his heart as she’d gotten.