Heart Of The Hunter. Bj James
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ones more than cursory attention. Now.” She was hopscotching again. “Are you going to be fair?”
“How so?”
“Running to type, I see.” She clicked her tongue and sighed. “Playing the rogue to the hilt.”
Jeb grinned. “Comes with the territory.”
“I’m sure it does, but are you going to tell me who you are? Or is it that you’re a man of mystery on a dark, secret mission?”
The woman was uncanny. He wondered if she weren’t the dangerous one. “Sorry to disappoint you, but there’s no mystery. As you guessed, I’m a Californian. My name is...”
“Jeb?” Nicole had risen from her seat. Her palm rested on the top of her desk to steady herself. “Jeb Tanner?”
His heart skipped a beat and Annabelle was forgotten as he lifted his head and his gaze met the recognition in hers. She took a step, then stopped. He saw the need to believe warring with the disbelief written on her face. Gently, surprising himself at how gently, he said, “Hello, Nicky.”
“Jeb! It’s really you!” Then she was in his arms. Neither would remember later how she got there, only that she had, and that he’d held her close without speaking.
When she drew away at last, her face held a look of wonder. “I thought I’d lost my mind, or that I was dreaming. Then Annabelle said you spoke like a Californian, and everything began falling into place.”
She touched his face, brushing his hair with her fingertips. “Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me when you came in?”
“Maybe I wanted to see if you remembered,” he murmured.
“How could I forget? I had a horrendous crush on you when I was fifteen.”
“But that was also as many years ago.”
“Time doesn’t matter, a girl never forgets her first crush. Not even a girl who was a nerd.”
Jeb caught her hands in his and lifted her fingers to his lips, brushing a kiss over their tips. “You were a smart kid, ahead of herself in time and place. But never, ever a nerd.”
“That would’ve been open to debate.” Keeping her hand in his, she looked up at him in unconcealed delight. “Tell me, what on earth brought you here?”
The bell by the door jangled, a trio of chattering women paused only long enough to locate them. “Nicole, my dear, there you are.” The eldest of the trio spoke, a haughty summons in her tone. “And Annabelle, how are you, dear?”
“Never fails,” Annabelle grumbled under her breath. “The gargoyle always shows up the day before a sale, with her cronies in tow, hoping to get the scoop on everyone else. You two continue as you are, I’ll handle her.” She patted Nicole’s shoulder leaning so close their noses nearly touched. “Don’t think I’m not going to hear about this. Every little detail of it. You just don’t have a rogue like this tucked in your past and keep him hidden. Not without an explanation.
“I’ll be back,” she promised, and with a swish of her skirt, went to do battle. “Mrs. Atherton” they heard her say, as she waded into the fray. “What secrets have you come to pry out of us today?”
Nicole grimaced at her pointed jab, then smiled a half smile and stepped out of Jeb’s arms. “I’m afraid Annabelle misinterpreted this.”
“Did she?”
“You know she did.”
“So, let her enjoy herself while it lasts.” He kissed her hand again, his lips lingering longer than one kiss needed. “We’ll set her straight later. In the meantime, I’ll let you get back to work.”
The bell chimed in another customer.
Jeb lingered, her hand still in his. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Yes.” Nicole agreed and could think of nothing else to say.
“I could call after the sale.”
“I’d like that.”
Releasing her, he tugged at a lock of hair that fell over her forehead. “Luck,” he whispered as he had when she was fifteen and facing a crucial exam. Leaving her, he went to the door, catching it as a patron entered, sparing them another tinny symphony.
“Nicole?”
“Yes?”
She looked at him with the same unquestioning trust of the coltish fifteen-year-old, and the weight of betrayal crashed down. He could walk away from her and from his mission before that trust was destroyed, but he knew he wouldn’t.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said softly.
As he returned to the street he knew that, no matter what lies he might tell, that much was true.
Two
Jeb stood at the window. Where he’d stood for hours. The shirt he’d pulled over running shorts as he crawled out of bed had been tossed aside. The field glasses, normally a virtual part of his hand, lay on a table halfway across the room. Beside them sat a carafe of coffee, untouched and forgotten.
Beyond the window, his shadowy canvas to the world, the turbulent sea was a caldron of colors, shifting and changing as the rising sun raced to challenge the brewing storm. When he first took up his cold-eyed vigil in the moonless predawn hours, black waves tipped with silver washed over an even blacker shore. Now shades of gold rose out of magenta.
He’d watched each change. From total darkness, to this moment when night met day, he’d noted every nuance with a troubled restlessness.
For the second night he’d tossed and tumbled until, finally counting his quest for sleep lost, he’d abandoned his bed. For the third morning the sands of the shore would be undisturbed by human footsteps.
Nicole’s absence, immediately following the sale, came as no surprise. He expected it. From her dossier he knew she kept living quarters in Charleston. A small pied-à-terre, for convenience after tiring late-night sessions in the gallery. For safety, when the drive to Kiawah would be long and desolate. The postsale uproar with its countless details to be addressed would have been such a time.
Two days more had passed. The packing and shipping and additional inventory would be long done, for Nicole worked hard, sparing herself little. Ever. The only indulgence she allowed were solitary morning walks; the only respite, lazy Sundays on the island.
“Sunday.” Jeb rapped the window with an impatient fist. “Where is she?”
His growled question was rhetorical. He knew where she was. Hank Bishop, Simon’s man in Charleston, had reported where she’d been, what she’d done and with whom, in precise detail. His last report had been that Nicole Callison was tucked safely, and alone, behind her garden wall. That was two days ago. Since then, Bishop had been as silent as the grave.
A second fist rattled the pane as lightning split the distant sky and thunder rumbled. As morning blossomed in new radiance, the darkness churning over the sea had issued its first challenge. But Jeb had stopped thinking of light and darkness and colors.
“Two days.” Hands still fisted, he fought a rising impatience. “Two damnable days and nothing!”
Maybe it was the silence that made him too edgy to sleep. Maybe it was that he wasn’t accustomed to having a part of his investigations under the jurisdiction of another.
“Maybe it’s a lot of things.” Bracing against the broad expanse of glass, head bowed, tired eyes closed, his bare chest heaved in a deep shuddering breath. He needed to see her. If she was avoiding him, he needed to know why.
He needed to know now!
Wheeling about without a backward glance