Hard to Handle (14 page)

“For what?”

“You had nothing.”

His body was taut but he tried to ignore it. “I’ll live,” he murmured, trying to keep his voice light.

But she heard the stress in it. Hesitantly she slid her hand down his body and felt him tense. She waited for him to stop her, but he didn’t. She heard his breathing change and felt his body arch in a slow, delicate rhythm. Her fingers moved down and he arched into them.

“Yes,” he whispered, his eyes closed.

She stroked him, feeling him throb, feeling him tauten, hearing the anguished groan that broke from his lips as her hand explored him.

“Do it,” he bit off.

He taught her, kicking the covers off, his eyes glittering in the darkness. She heard his breathing become tortured, watched his body react to her shy, loving touch. He watched her until it became
impossible and then he arched up, crying out, and she learned things about men that all her reading hadn’t prepared her for.

Eventually they slept. She supposed that she should regret what had happened. If she ever did marry, even if she hadn’t been totally seduced, she was no longer completely chaste. But it was Hunter she’d given that privilege to, and she had no regrets. She loved him so deeply that she could live on tonight, forever if she had to.

She got up the next morning and went into the living room with shy reluctance. She never quite knew what to expect from Hunter, because he was so unpredictable.

He was putting food on the table. He glanced up. “I was about to call you,” he said politely. “Sit down.”

It was as if nothing had ever happened between them. She stared at him curiously as she sat in the chair.

He poured coffee with a straight face. “How’s the arm?”

“It’s sore, but I think it will be all right.”

“We’ll get you to a doctor before we leave for the airport. We’re going home today.”

“So soon?”

“It’s past time,” he returned tersely, and the eyes that met hers were angry. “Last night should never have happened. You have a very disturbing effect on my willpower, and I’m tired of it. I’m taking you back to Tulsa. If there’s another assignment like this, I’ll send one of my operatives with you instead. There aren’t going to be any repeats.”

She lowered her eyes to the table. “You can’t bear to lose control in any way, can you?”

“No,” he replied honestly. “You’re becoming a liability, and I can’t afford one. My job requires total concentration. What I feel when I’m around you could get us both killed. I made a mistake last night that could have been fatal. I left you alone. If we hadn’t
been at each other’s throats out of simple physical frustration, I’d have had the presence of mind to take you with me. But I didn’t.”

“I’m all right,” she said quietly.

“You could have died. Or I could have. I’ve had enough emotional stress to last me a lifetime, Jennifer,” he said, his voice final. “From now on, I’ll stick to women who can give out and get out. No more lovesick virgins.”

She went scarlet. She couldn’t even deny it. “I’ll do my best to stay out of your way,” she said.

“That would be appreciated,” he replied. He couldn’t look at her. It was hurting him to cut her up like this, but he had to make her angry enough to keep away from him. Wanting her was becoming an obsession that could cost him his job or his life under the right circumstances.

She dragged her eyes up for one brief instant. “Are you sorry we made love?” she asked huskily.

“Yes, I’m sorry,” he said without a flicker of emotion. “I told you I’d been without a woman for a long time. You were handy, and you must know how beautiful you are.” He forced a mocking smile. “It would have been a unique experience. I’ve never had a willing virgin before. But the newness would have worn off before morning, I’m afraid. I prefer an experienced woman in bed. Someone who knows how to play the game without expecting declarations of love and proposals of marriage.”

Her face was very pale, but she smiled. “Well, no harm done,” she said gamely. “Thanks for the instruction.” She lowered her eyes to her coffee cup. “What time do you want to leave?”

He couldn’t repress admiration for her bravery. No tears, no accusations, just acceptance despite her pain. That made it worse somehow. But he had to be strong.

He got up. “In half an hour,” he said. “Leave the dishes. I’ll be coming back here when I’ve put you on the plane.”

“You aren’t coming?” she exclaimed.

“No. I’ve got some leave due. I’m taking it now. I’ll phone Eugene from the airport. Get your things together, please.”

It was so hurried—the trip to the doctor’s office, the antibiotic and tetanus shots, the rush to get to the airport in time to board a plane for Tulsa. She was en route before she realized how shocked and hurt she really was. It was a good thing that he hadn’t let her say goodbye, so that she didn’t break down. He’d given her the ticket, said something about having someone meet her at the airport, and then he’d left her at the right concourse gate without a goodbye or a backward glance.

She got off the plane in Tulsa and there was a car waiting. It whisked her back to her apartment. Once she got into it, she threw herself on her bed and cried until her eyes were red. But it didn’t take away the sting of knowing that Hunter had only desired her. She’d given him everything she had to give, and he’d still walked away without a backward glance. She loved him more than her own life. How was she going to live without him?

J
ennifer couldn’t decide what to do. She was so miserable that she only went through the motions of doing a job that she’d once loved. Her coworkers noticed the quiet pain in her face, but they were too kind to mention it.

Eugene got his molybdenum mine. The deal went through with flying colors, and the enemy agents went home in disgrace, having pursued the wrong site and gotten themselves in eternal hot water with their furious superiors.

Hunter stayed on vacation for a couple of weeks. When he came back into the office, he pointedly ignored Jennifer, refusing to even look her way when he passed her in the hall.

His attitude cut her to the bone. She lost weight and began to give in to nerves. She jumped when people approached unexpectedly. She made mistakes on her charts—the kind that she never would have made before. Eugene called her on the carpet for her latest error, which had cost the company a good deal of money drilling in what turned out to be a dry hole.

“Everybody hits a dry hole once or twice,” he raged at her in
the privacy of his office. “And under normal circumstances, it’s excusable. But, damn it, this isn’t! This was carelessness, Jennifer, plain and simple.”

“Yes, it was. And I’m going to turn in my resignation,” she said, amazed to hear the words coming from her lips.

Apparently Eugene was, too, because he stopped in midtirade to scowl at her. His blue eyes narrowed and he studied her. After a minute, he leaned back in his chair with a long sigh.

“It’s Hunter, of course,” he said out loud, nodding at her shocked expression. “He tried to quit a couple of weeks ago, too. I refused his resignation and I’m refusing yours. You don’t have to see each other. I’ve already made arrangements to transfer him to our Phoenix office for a few months. He leaves at the end of the week.”

She didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t going to do any good to deny it. But it puzzled her that Hunter had offered to resign. She knew how much he loved his job.

“Surprises you that he tried to quit, doesn’t it?” he asked her. “He wouldn’t give a reason, but he keeps trying to get assignments out of the country. You, on the other hand, keep refusing any assignment that would require him to look after you. Interesting, isn’t it?” He leaned forward abruptly. “What happened out on the desert? Did he make a pass?”

She lowered her eyes to the floor so they wouldn’t give her away. “We had some differences of opinion,” she replied. “And we agreed that it would be better if we kept out of each other’s way in the future.”

“Is that why you’re losing weight and making one mistake on top of another?” he asked pleasantly.

She lifted her face proudly and stared him down. “I cost you a lot of money, so I guess you’re entitled to know. I’m in love with him.”

“How does he feel?”

“Mr. Hunter doesn’t tell anyone how he feels,” she replied. “He said point-blank that he doesn’t want to get mixed up with a white woman in any emotional or physical way, and he told me to get lost.”

Eugene whistled through his teeth. “Well!”

“I’m trying to get lost, except that I keep bumping into him and he stares right through me.” Her voice revealed the pain of the experience all too well. She averted her face. “If you’ll send him to Phoenix, I think I can get over him.”

“Do you? I wouldn’t make any bets on it. And if his temper is any indication, he’s having some problems of his own. He was livid about letting you get shot. I gather that he feels responsible.”

“It was my fault as much as his,” she replied. “I don’t blame him. My arm is as good as new.”

“Too bad we can’t say the same of your brain,” Eugene mused. “It’s a very good brain, too. I’ll send him off. We’ll see how you both feel in a few months. If this blows over, he can come back.”

“Fair enough.” She got to her feet. “Thank you.”

“Have you tried talking to him?” he asked as she started to leave.

“He won’t,” she replied. “Once he makes up his mind, nobody gets a chance to change it.”

“Just a thought,” Eugene said with a smile. “It would be one way of finding out if he shares your feelings.”

Jennifer tormented herself with that thought for the rest of the day. But it would do no good to throw herself at him again, she mused bitterly. He’d already shown her that he wanted her physically. It was every other way that he was rejecting her.

Still, she couldn’t resist one last try. So when he came down the hall the morning before he was to leave for Phoenix, she deliberately stepped into his path.

“Eugene says you’re being transferred,” she said, clutching a stack of topo maps to her breasts to still the trembling of her hands.

Hunter looked down at her. She was wearing gray slacks with a white pullover knit blouse, her blond hair long and soft around her shoulders. He drank in the sight of her without letting her see that it was killing him to leave her.

“I’m going home for a few months, yes,” he replied, staring down at her with no particular emotion in his dark face. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had the opportunity to see my grandfather and my cousins and visit old friends.”

She wondered if any of the old friends were female, but she didn’t dare ask. She looked up into his eyes with her heart in her own, with no idea of how powerfully she was affecting him.

“I’ll miss you,” she said softly.

He lifted an eyebrow and smiled mockingly. “Will you? Why?”

She bit her lower lip without answering.

He stuck his hands into his pockets and the smile left his face as he looked down at her. “Sex is a bad basis for a relationship,” he said bluntly. “I wanted you. Any man would. But common ground is something we never had, and never could. I don’t want a white lover, any more than I want a white wife. When I marry, if I marry, it will be to one of my own people. Is that clear enough?”

Her face went very pale, so that her blue eyes were the only color in it. “Yes,” she said. “You told me that before.”

“I want to make sure you get the message,” he replied, forcing the words out. “It was a game. I play it with white women all the time. A little flirting, a little lovemaking, no harm done. But you’re one of those throwbacks who equate sex with forever after. Sorry, honey, one night isn’t worth my freedom, no matter how fascinating it was to have a virgin.”

She dropped her wounded eyes to his sports jacket. “I see,” she said, her voice haunted.

His fists clenched inside his pockets. It was killing him to do this! But he had to. He was so damned vulnerable that he wouldn’t have the strength to resist her if she kept pursuing him. It had to end quickly. “Now go back to your office and stop trying to fan old flames. I’ve had all of you that I want….”

She whirled and ran before he finished, tears staining her cheeks. Nothing had ever hurt so much. She went into her office and slammed the door, grateful that her coworkers were still at lunch. She dried her tears after a while and forced herself to work. But she knew she’d never forget the horrible things Hunter had said to her. So much for finding out how he really felt. He’d told her.

Hunter was on his way to the airport, feeling like an animal. Tears on that sweet, loving face had hurt him. It had taken every ounce of willpower he had not to chase her into the office and dry them. But he’d accomplished what he set out to do, he’d driven her away. Now all he had to do was live with it, and he’d never have to worry about the threat of Jennifer again.

Simple words. But as the weeks turned into months, he grew morose. Not seeing Jennifer was far worse than having her around. He missed her. His grandfather noticed his preoccupation and mentioned it to him one evening as they watched the horses prance in the corral.

“It is the white woman, is it not?” Grandfather Sanchez Owl asked in Apache.

“Yes,” Hunter replied, too sad to prevaricate.

“Go to her,” he was advised.

Hunter’s hands tightened on the corral. “I cannot. She could never live here.”

“If she loved you, she could.” He touched the younger man’s shoulder. “Your mother never loved your father. She found him unique and she collected him, as a man collects fine horses. When his uniqueness began to pale, she left him. It is the way of things. There was no love to begin with.”

“You never told me this.”

Grandfather’s broad shoulders rose and fell. “It was not necessary. Now it is. This woman…she loves you?”

Hunter stared out over the corral. “She did. But I have done my best to make her hate me.”

“Love is a gift. One should not throw it away.”

Hunter glanced at him. “I thought that I could not give up my freedom. I thought that she, like my mother, would betray me.”

“A man should think with his heart, not his head, when he loves,” the old man said quietly. “You do love, do you not?”

Hunter looked away, wounded inside, aching as he thought of Jennifer’s soft eyes promising heaven, remembered the feel of her chaste body in his arms, loving him. He closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said huskily, fiercely. “Yes, I love!”

“Then go back before it is too late.”

“She is white!” Hunter ground out.

The old man smiled. “So are you, in your thinking. It is something you do not want to face, but you are as comfortable in the white man’s world as you are here. Probably more so, because your achievements are there and not here. A man can live with a foot in two worlds. You have proven it.”

“It wouldn’t be fair to a child,” he said slowly.

The old man chuckled. “A man should have a son,” he said. “Many sons. Many daughters. If they are loved, they will find a place in life. This white woman…is she handsome?”

Hunter saw her face as clearly as if she were standing beside him. “She is sunset on the desert,” he said quietly. “The first bloom on the cactus. She is the silence of night and the beauty of dawn.”

The old man’s eyes grew misty with memory. “If she is all those things,” he replied, “then you are a fool.”

Hunter looked over at him. “Yes, I am.” He moved away from the fence. “I am, indeed!”

He caught a plane that very afternoon. All the way to Tulsa, he prayed silently that he wasn’t going to be too late. There was every chance that Jennifer had taken him seriously and found someone else. If she had, he didn’t know how he was going to cope. He should have listened to his heart in the first place. If he’d lost her, he’d never forgive himself.

To say that Eugene was shocked to see him was an understatement. The old man sat at his desk and gaped when Hunter came into the office.

“I sent you to Phoenix,” he said.

“I came back,” Hunter returned curtly. “Jennifer isn’t here. Where is she?”

Eugene’s eyebrows arched. “Don’t tell me you care, one way or the other?”

The dark face hardened visibly. “Where is she?”

“At her apartment, taking a well-earned vacation.”

“I see.”

Eugene narrowed one eye. “Before you get any ideas, she’s been seeing one of the other geologists.”

Hunter felt his breath stop in his throat. His dark eyes cut into Eugene’s. “Has she?”

“Don’t hurt her any more than you already have,” the old man said, suddenly stern and as icy as his security chief had ever been.
“She’s just beginning to get over you. Leave her alone. Let her heal.”

Something in Hunter wavered. He stared down at the carpeted floor, feeling uncertain for the first time in memory. “This geologist…is it serious?”

“I don’t know. They’ve been dating for a couple of weeks. She’s a little brighter than she has been, a little less brittle.”

Hunter’s hands clenched in his pockets. He looked up. “Is she well?” he asked huskily.

“She’s better than she was just after you left,” Eugene said noncommittally. He eyed the younger man quietly. “You’ve said often enough that you hated white woman. You finally convinced her. What do you want now—to torment her some more?”

Hunter averted his face and stared out the window. “My mother was white,” he said after a minute, and felt rather than saw Eugene’s surprise. “She walked out on my father when I was five. I thought she didn’t love him enough to stay, but my grandfather said that she never loved him at all. It…made a difference in the way I looked at things. To ask a woman to marry a different culture, to accept a foreign way of life, is no small thing. But where love exists, perhaps hope does, too.”

Eugene softened. “You love her.”

Hunter turned back to him. “Yes,” he said simply. “Life without her is no life at all. Whatever the risk, it can’t be as bad as the past few months have been.”

The older man smiled. He picked up a sheaf of papers and tossed them across the desk. “There’s your excuse. Tell her I sent those for her to look over.”

Hunter took them, staring at the old man. “Have I killed what she felt?” he asked quietly. “Does she speak of me at all?”

Eugene sighed. “To be honest, no, she doesn’t. Whatever her feelings, she keeps them to herself. I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything. You’ll have to go and find out for yourself.”

He nodded. After a minute, he went out and closed the door quietly behind him. He wondered if Jennifer would even speak to him. Whether she’d be furiously angry or cold and unapproachable, remembering the brutal things he’d said to her when they parted.

All the way to her apartment, he refused to allow himself to think about it. But when he pressed the doorbell, he found that he was holding his breath.