Heart Of The Hunter

If she got in his way, it wouldn’t matter who she was, or what she’d been to him. “He would kill her,” Jeb muttered, the horror of it, the waste, turning him sick.

Tony would kill her like all the rest.

The image that scorched Jeb’s mind sent a shudder down his back. He’d studied the forensic reports and seen the snapshots of what Tony did to his growing list of victims. Each a signature killing, and each worse than the last, until a gruesome pattern of a serial killer began emerging.

“But no more.” Jeb’s voice was the guttural voice of a stranger, as cold as his eyes. It was the threat of a serial killer with the honed skills of murder for hire that had brought Simon McKinzie and The Black Watch into the pursuit. The same threat had tipped the scales, destroying Jeb’s resistance to Simon’s plan to trade on his past—renewing one acquaintance to catch another.

With the gruesome facts laid before him, Jeb saw, not the man who had been his rival and his best friend in college, but a monster, potentially more destructive than any the world had ever known. If he were not stopped.

But he would be. And Jeb Tanner would do it.

“Before Nicole’s name is on any damn bloody list.” If he wasn’t already too late.

Dread like cold lead in his belly, Jeb took the stairs in a deliberate pace that ate up the distance more surely than frantic rushing. In the bedroom that occupied the top floor, he slid into jeans, a light shirt and moccasins. A holster was strapped to his ankle and a compact, but powerful, pistol was snapped in it before he gathered up the keys to the roadster. Then he was running down the stairs again, taking them two at a time.

The door slammed behind him on the echo of a single word.

“Please.”

* * *

The air was humid and fragrant. Shrubs crowded the walled garden walk and the courtyard, their heavy blooms and waxen leaves shimmering like old velvet. In the murky half-light the narrow corridor that bordered Nicole Callison’s Charleston home was a magical place of drifting mists and deepening shade, of muted bird song and quiet footsteps.

As she walked through the mist, Nicole reveled in these last minutes before a summer squall. When the wind lay still, city streets outside her gate were wrapped in a waiting hush, and this little part of her world was softer, sweeter. When there truly was peace before the storm.

Soon the wind would rise again, bringing with it the rain, the thunder and the lightning. But when it was done, the city would go on as before, and her garden would be rife with the promise of new life.

Nicole believed with all her being that in Charleston and Kiawah, she’d found the best of both worlds. One offered serenity embodied in a rain-swept garden. The other, the wild exhilaration and the furor of the sea. She loved them both.

She was content with her life. As she wandered this tiny space that was hers alone, she knew she was more content than she had ever hoped. But the way had been long and hard, leading, at last, to a place far away from who she was and where she’d begun. Only then had she put the past behind her.

Three days ago a part of that past had stepped back into her life, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about him. She wasn’t sure she wanted to feel anything.

Catching a drooping blossom in her palm, she watched as moisture gathering on a creamy petal trembled like tears. The tears she’d shed over Jeb.

Jeb. She’d loved him. With every beat of her fifteen-year-old heart she’d loved him. As she’d trailed behind her brother and his best friend, she’d known his smiles were only kindness, and his kindnesses only pity. But the knowledge didn’t keep her from worshiping him.

In the days, weeks and months when classes were a grim, cliquish ordeal, when well-meaning professors singled her out and older students who perceived her as a freak shut her out, there was always Tony. But most of all there was Jeb.

When she was near him, she was even clumsier than usual. All bony knees and jutting elbows. Hair a shaggy disaster. Teeth a mass of silver wires and bands, and her tongue eternally tied to the roof of her mouth. But he never seemed to notice.

“He was just...Jeb,” Nicole murmured. He’d been kind and gentle when little else of her life was kind and gentle. Then she loved him even more. For one school year, though he never knew, he was the center of her universe. Then the end of the term came. He and Tony graduated, she became a sophomore. One more rung on the ladder of escape. She’d thought her heart would break without him, and maybe it did, but she’d survived and even flourished in a new life. And she never saw him again.

Until now.

Suddenly she was restless, petals drifted from her hand like falling snow. He had promised he would call after the sale. She wondered if it wouldn’t be better if he didn’t. She couldn’t say why, except that she was afraid. But afraid of what?

The wind stirred, nudged her gently at first, then whipped the full skirt of her dress about her knees, and tangled in her hair. She was glad of the diversion as she hurried to the piazza. She was almost at the first step when a melodic gong summoned her to the garden gate.

“Now who?” she questioned as she retraced her steps over the patterned brick walk. Not a delivery, certainly. Bouquets and gifts wishing her well with the sale would’ve arrived days ago and at the gallery, not here. Friends and customers had already called in droves, afterward, celebrating her success, until even the most obtuse realized she needed rest and time to herself. Graciously they’d given her exactly that. Time and rest.

So one had decided it was time her self-imposed exile be ended.

Annabelle, of course. Only she would risk a drenching on such a Quixotic mission. Nicole smiled as she imagined the shapely little woman struggling with her voluminous skirt in the wind and weather. But not too hard. Annabelle believed with all her heart that a glimpse of a well-turned ankle, or thigh and maybe a bit of sexy lace was good for the soul. Hers, and what ever kindred souls were nearby. Masculine souls, naturally.

Nicole’s amusement lingered as she hurried down the walk that narrowed to a single lane as it neared the street. She hadn’t realized before, but, given the turn of her thoughts, Annabelle was exactly what she needed. It was impossible to be moody, or sad or even afraid when she was near.

Lightning flickered overhead. One small flash across a darkened sky, and then another. But long enough to burn the image of her caller into her mind and send it reeling again into the past.

Stopping abruptly a pace away from the gate, Nicole grasped an iron spire as she stared through it to the sidewalk. With graceful spirals and swirls imbued with the strength created by a master ironworker a century before, the gate offered physical protection, but no visual restraint. The man who waited beyond it was clearly visible and unmistakably as handsome as she remembered.

When he smiled at her she was fifteen all over again. With a pounding heart and a tongue that struggled for words.

“Jeb,” she managed to say at last. “I didn’t expect you.” Then, foolishly, “You didn’t call.”

“No.” He shook his head. There were creases across his forehead, from the sun. They weren’t there before.

“What are you doing here?” She hated sounding for all the world as if she were still a gawky kid.

“A spur-of-the-moment impulse.” Jeb’s gaze swept over her windblown hair, the uncertain smile, the simple dress that left her shoulders bare and hid the cleft of her breasts with lace. His gaze moved on, past her to the garden and the shadowed piazza. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Interrupting?” Nicole frowned and brushed a tangle of bangs from her eyes. “No. Of course not. I’m alone. I, uh...would you like to come in?” She was babbling.

Grimly stepping to the gate, with a twist of the wrist she disarmed the lock and drew it back. “Please.” She gestured as a sharp gust sent a crape myrtle swaying and scattered scarlet petals over the grass. “Come in before you’re soaked.”

Jeb hadn’t missed the frown, nor the hesitance in her voice. “A little rain won’t hurt me, so maybe another time would be better.”

If she agreed, taking the excuse he offered, he would have to find another way in. A secret way.

But she didn’t take the excuse. Instead, she caught up his hand, tugged him inside. “Don’t be silly. I was distracted, that’s all. I’m glad you’ve come. I think it’s good that you have.”

Jeb’s eyes narrowed, suspicion skittered like a serrated knife over raw nerves. But when he spoke his tone was a teasing drawl at odds with the truth. “Do you now?”

“Yes, I do.”

A thumb and forefinger at her chin lifted her face to his. He’d looked into this face countless times in the past weeks. He’d seen her smile and laugh. He’d seen her frown. Once, when she’d found a kitten washed on shore from God knew where, he could’ve sworn he saw her cry. He thought he knew every mood, but he’d never seen her as she was now. Solemn, restive, her eyes fathomless.

Was it fear he saw? Excitement? Danger?

Did Tony Callison wait beyond the gate for him? For both of them?

“Why, Nicky?” he asked, using the name only he had used in the days when they were friends. When he hadn’t watched her for any nuance of guilt or warning. When, as now, he’d seen only innocence.

Absently he stroked her chin, a knuckle gliding over skin like pearls. “Tell me,” he insisted in a voice as low as a whisper. “Tell me why you’re glad I’ve come.”

“Because...” Nicole clenched her teeth, holding back words he mustn’t hear. She needed to think, needed to be rational. But she couldn’t. Not when he looked at her with such burning intensity that she felt he was trying to see into her soul. Not when he touched her, and his touch was madness.

With a shiver she barely hid, she moved away, and a semblance of reason returned. She couldn’t tell him that after spending a weekend hiding from herself and from him, she’d discovered with one glance that hiding was futile. She couldn’t tell him that he’d been the love of her young life, and when he left, he’d taken her heart with him. She couldn’t in a lifetime tell him how much she’d hurt, and how long.