Hunter's Woman

“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” She watched as he nodded and carefully picked his way past the boxes stacked on the deck of the tug. The humid air felt somewhat cooler, but not much. Catt had the desire to leap into the cool waters of the muddy Amazon. She squelched that idea because among the denizens that lived in these fabled waters were schools of flesh-eating piranhas. No, she had no desire to be stripped to her skeleton by those hungry little monsters.

Rubbing her neck once more, Catt sighed heavily. Being around Ty was like holding her hand over an open flame and letting herself be burned. What recourse did she have? None. Her migraine was intensifying. It was because of the shock of seeing him once again, she knew. If only her stupid heart would let him go! Why did she feel hope? Joy when he was nearby?

“I feel like a damned thunderstorm—up one second, down the next,” she muttered under her breath. She saw Ty sitting down on the deck, a book in hand and another at his side, deep in concentration. Turning, Catt looked out across the bow of the tug. The Amazon River was nearly half a mile wide at this point, a yellow-gray color against the jungle along the banks. Trees of varying types, including palms, were so thick that light rarely reached the jungle floor, and she could see the darkness within. A flight of red-and-yellow macaws flew overhead in a V pattern. Their color stood out against the clouds that seemed to perpetually hang overhead. Would she ever see direct sunlight again?

“I think I got your remedy.”

Catt jumped. She didn’t mean to, but Ty’s voice was so close, she couldn’t help it. Jerking to look upward, she saw he was standing in front of her, a couple of white pellets in the hand extended in her direction. Eyeing them and then him, she growled, “What is it?”

Ty saw that strain was deepening around Catt’s eyes—pain from the oncoming migraine encroaching. “It’s a remedy called Gelsemium. In layperson’s language, it’s yellow jasmine.” He crouched down in front of her and kept his hand extended. Catt was eyeing the pellets jadedly. “In its natural state, the herb is poisonous and could kill you. But—” he pointed to the pellets “—these are made so that there’s no longer any of the crude substance left in it to hurt you.”

“Then what’s left?” Catt demanded. “Air?”

He grinned. “Energy. I know we don’t have time to talk much about this kind of medicine, but trust me that the energy signature of Gelsemium is in these pellets.”

“And these things will stop my migraine?”

He heard the disbelief in her voice. He saw the distrust in her eyes. “Yes, it will.”

She stared at him. “Give me one reason to trust what you say, Hunter.”

His heart ached in that moment. He knew her question grew from the way he’d made her suffer in the past; he could hear her pain in her low, hoarse tone. As gently as possible, he rasped, “This isn’t about me. This is about you and trying to help you be pain free. You don’t need a migraine going into an outbreak situation. You don’t have to trust me in order to take this remedy. If it works, you’ll know it in twenty minutes. Your migraine symptoms will start to go away.” Holding her challenging blue gaze, he moved his hand a little closer to her.

Disgruntled, Catt held out her palm. “Give them to me.”

He tipped his hand. Their fingers met and touched briefly. Catt instantly jerked hers away. The white pellets fell to the deck of the tug. Ty heard her mutter a curse of desperation mixed with anger.

“Just stay put,” he told her, unwinding and straightening to his full height. “I’ve got more. I’ll bring you another dose.”

Feeling foolish, Catt refused to look at him. Ty was being incredibly tolerant and gentle with her despite the sarcasm, the anger she continually aimed at him. Her fingers tingled where they’d briefly touched his. A wild flurry of heat had jolted up through her body from that contact. It had shocked her. Scared her. Feeling very stupid at jerking her hand away as if it had been scalded, Catt watched him pick up a black plastic case that looked like a small fishing tackle box. He wound his way back to her and sat down on the trunk opposite her.

Opening the case, Ty showed her some two-dramsize amber bottles with black caps on them. “I carry fifty homeopathic remedies with me all the time.” Maybe if he showed her some of what he knew, she’d settle down and not be so jumpy. But Ty knew why she’d jerked her hand away. She hated him so much she didn’t want to be touched by him. The hurt moving through him was as wide as the Amazon they floated on. There was nothing he could do; he felt the wound in his heart expanding. He felt his need for Catt all over again, along with the pain of knowing they could never be together again.

Taking out one bottle, he handed it to Catt, making sure he didn’t touch her hand in the process. “Here’s the Gelsemium. Open it and put a few pellets on the palm of your hand. And then put them under your tongue. They’ll melt away real quick. They’re sweet-tasting, so you’ll like them.”

Doing as she was instructed, Catt hurriedly recapped the bottle and handed it back to Ty. Because she was distracted, her fingers brushed his again. This time she forced herself not to jerk away and drop the bottle.

“Look,” she rasped, “I’ve got more work to do….”

Ty understood. He put the bottle back in the case and closed it. “No problem. Let me know if your migraine goes away?”

“Yes, sure….” Catt didn’t believe for a moment it would go away because of this “energy” medicine of his. From her point of view as a medical doctor, it was snake oil or hocus-pocus at best. As he rose and left, she dragged in a sigh of relief.

Being around Ty was like being around a raging fire that was out of control. Catt was both attracted to and afraid of him. What was she going to do? How would she handle his nearness at the village? Someway, Catt realized, she had to get Ty away from her. A plan began to form in her aching head. Yes, if she could just keep him away from her and her silly, pining heart, maybe, just maybe, she could survive this time with him.

Chapter Four

“My headache’s gone,” Catt said grumpily. It had taken every bit of her courage to walk down the length of the tug as it chugged into the hazy sunset, and admit that to Ty. He was sitting on the rough wooden deck of the ill-kept tug, notebook in hand, writing. She stood over him, her hands on her hips, feeling tense and full of turmoil. Ty was here, with her. That fact still overwhelmed her. What sick twist of the cosmos had occurred? In all these years, Catt had never envisioned meeting with her first love again—nor had she wanted to.