Second Nature: the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down

“No,” Lee said definitely.

“Then why do you read him?”

“I’ve asked myself that when I’m up at 3:00 A.M. finishing one of his books.” Lee shrugged as the Jeep slowed for the turn-off. “It’s irresistible. I think he must be a very odd man,” she murmured, half to herself. “Not quite, well, not quite like the rest of us.”

“Do you?” After a quick, sharp turn, he pulled up in front of the hotel, more interested in her than he’d planned to be. “But isn’t writing just words and imagination?”

“And sweat and blood,” she added, moving her shoulders again. “I just don’t see how it could be very comfortable to live with an imagination like Brown’s. I’d like to know how he feels about it.”

Amused, Hunter jumped out of the Jeep to retrieve her bags. “You’re going to ask him.”

“Yes.” Lee stepped down. “I am.”

For a moment, they stood on the sidewalk, silently. He looked at her with what might have been mild interest, but she sensed something more—something she shouldn’t have felt from a hotel driver after a ten-minute acquaintance. For the second time she wanted to shift and made herself stand still. Wasting no more words, Hunter turned toward the hotel, her bags in hand.

It didn’t occur to Lee until she was following him inside that she’d had a nonstop conversation with a hotel driver, a conversation that hadn’t dwelt on the usual pleasantries or tourist plugs. As she watched him walk to the desk, she felt an aura of cool confidence from him and traces, very subtle traces, of arrogance. Why was a man like this driving back and forth and getting nowhere? she wondered. Stepping up to the desk, she told herself it wasn’t her concern. She had bigger fish to fry.

“Lenore Radcliffe,” she told the clerk.

“Yes, Ms. Radcliffe.” He handed her a form and imprinted her credit card before he passed her a key. Before she could take it, Hunter slipped it into his own hand. It was then she noticed the odd ring on his pinky, four thin bands of gold and silver twisted into one.

“I’ll take you around,” he said simply, then crossed through the lobby with her again in his wake. He wound through a corridor, turned left, then stopped. Lee waited while he unlocked the door and gestured her inside.

The room was on the garden level with its own patio, she was pleased to note. As she scanned the room, Hunter carelessly switched on the TV and flipped through the channels before he checked the air conditioner. “Just call the desk if you need anything else,” he advised, stowing her garment bag in the closet.

“Yes, I will.” Lee hunted through her purse and came up with a five. “Thank you,” she said, holding it out.

His eyes met hers again, giving her that same frozen jolt they had in the airport. She felt something stir deep within but wasn’t sure if it was trying to reach out to him or struggling to hide. The fingers holding the bill nearly trembled. Then he smiled, so quickly, so charmingly, she was speechless.

“Thank you, Ms. Radcliffe.” Without a blink, Hunter pocketed the five dollars and strolled out.

Chapter Two

If writers were often considered odd, writers’ conferences, Lee was to discover, were oddities in themselves. They certainly couldn’t be considered quiet or organized or stuffy.

Like nearly every other of the two hundred or so participants, she stood in one of the dozen lines at 8:00 A.M. for registration. From the laughing and calling and embracing, it was obvious that many of the writers and would-be writers knew one another. There was an air of congeniality, shared knowledge and camaraderie. Overlaying it all was excitement.

Still, more than one member stood in the noisy lobby like a child lost in a shipwreck, clinging to a folder or briefcase as though it were a life preserver and staring about with awe or simple confusion. Lee could appreciate the feeling, though she looked calm and poised as she accepted her packet and pinned her badge to the mint-green lapel of her blazer.

Concentrating on the business at hand, she found a chair in a corner and skimmed the schedule for Hunter Brown’s workshop. With a dawning smile, she took out a pen and underlined.

CREATING HORROR THROUGH

ATMOSPHERE AND EMOTION

Speaker to be announced.

Bingo, Lee thought, capping her pen. She’d make certain she had a front-row seat. A glance at her watch showed her that she had three hours before Brown began to speak. Never one to take chances, she took out her notebook to skim over the questions she’d listed, while people filed by her or merely loitered, chatting.

“If I get rejected again, I’m going to put my head in the oven.”

“Your oven’s electric, Judy.”

“It’s the thought that counts.”

Amused, Lee began to listen to the passing comments with half an ear while she added a few more questions.

“And when they brought in my breakfast this morning, there was a five-hundred-page manuscript under my plate. I completely lost my appetite.”

“That’s nothing. I got one in my office last week written in calligraphy. One hundred and fifty thousand words of flowing script.”

Editors, she mused. She could tell them a few stories about some of the submissions that found their way to Celebrity.

“He said his editor hacked his first chapter to pieces so he’s going into mourning before the rewrites.”

“I always go into mourning before rewrites. It’s after a rejection that I seriously consider taking up basket weaving as a profession.”

“Did you hear Jeffries is here again trying to peddle that manuscript about the virgin with acrophobia and telekinesis? I can’t believe he won’t let it die a quiet death. When’s your next murder coming out?”

“In August. It’s poison.”

“Darling, that’s no way to talk about your work.”

As they passed by her, Lee caught the variety of tones, some muted, some sophisticated, some flamboyant. Gestures and conversations followed the same wide range. Amazed, she watched one man swoop by in a long, dramatic black cape.

Definitely an odd group, Lee thought, but she warmed to them. It was true she confined her skill to articles and profiles, but at heart she was a storyteller. Her position on the magazine had been hard-earned, and she’d built her world around it. For all her ambition, she had a firm fear of rejection that kept her own manuscript unfinished, buried in a drawer for weeks and sometimes months at a time. At the magazine, she had prestige, security and room for advancement. The weekly paycheck put the roof over her head, the clothes on her back and the food on her table.

If it hadn’t been so important that she prove she could do all this for herself, she might have taken the chance of sending those first hundred pages to a publishing house. But then… Shaking her head, Lee watched the people mill through the registration area, all types, all sizes, all ages. Clothes varied from trim professional suits to jeans to flamboyant caftans and smocks. Apparently style was a matter of taste and taste a matter of individuality. She wondered if she’d see quite the same variety anywhere else. Absently, she glanced at the partial manuscript she’d tucked into her briefcase. Just for cover, she reminded herself. That was all.

No, she didn’t believe she had it in her to be a great writer, but she knew she had the skill for great reporting. She’d never, never settle for being second-rate at anything.

Still, while she was here, it wouldn’t hurt to sit in on one or two of the seminars. She might pick up some pointers. More important, she told herself as she rose, she might be able to stretch this trip into another story on the ins and outs of a writers’ conference. Who attended, why, what they did, what they hoped for. Yes, it could make quite an interesting little piece. The job, after all, came first.

An hour later, a bit more enthusiastic than she wanted to be after her first workshop, she wandered into the coffee shop. She’d take a short break, assimilate the notes she’d written, then go back and make certain she had the best seat in the house for Hunter Brown’s lecture.

Hunter glanced up from his paper and watched her enter the coffee shop. Lee Radcliffe, he mused, finding her of more interest than the local news he’d been scanning. He’d enjoyed his conversation with her the day before, and as often as not, he found conversations tedious. She had a quality about her—an innate frankness glossed with sophistication—that he found intriguing enough to hold his interest. An obsessive writer who believed that the characters themselves were the plot of any book, Hunter always looked for the unique and the individual. Instinct told him Lee Radcliffe was quite an individual.

Unobserved, he watched her. From the way she looked absently around the room it was obvious she was preoccupied. The suit she wore was very simple but showed both style and taste in the color and cut. She was a woman who could wear the simple, he decided, because she was a woman who’d been born with style. If he wasn’t very much mistaken, she’d been born into wealth as well. There was always a subtle difference between those who were accustomed to money and those who’d spent years earning it.

So where did the nerves come from? he wondered. Curious, he decided it would be worth an hour of his time to try to find out.

Setting his paper aside, Hunter lit a cigarette and continued to stare at her, knowing there was no quicker way to catch someone’s eye.

Lee, thinking more about the story she was going to write than the coffee she’d come for, felt an odd tingle run up her spine. It was real enough to give her an urge to turn around and walk out again when she glanced over and found herself staring back at the man she’d met at the airport.

It was his eyes, she decided, at first not thinking of him as a man or the hotel driver from the previous day. It was his eyes. Dark, almost the color of jet, they’d draw you in and draw you in until you were caught, and every secret you’d ever had would be secret no longer. It was frightening. It was…irresistible.

Amazed that such a fanciful thought had crept into her own practical, organized mind, Lee approached him. He was just a man, she told herself, a man who worked for his living like any other man. There was certainly nothing to be frightened of.