Hard to Handle (5 page)

She shook with mingled fury and humiliation and indignation, her fists clenched at her sides. No man had ever enraged her so much, so easily. She could have laid a chair across his skull with pleasure. Except that he was right. She
had
been competing for his attention. She just hadn’t wanted him to realize it.

She grabbed up the same white knit shirt she’d worn the day before and pulled it on over her blouse, tugging her shirt collar through the rounded neckline. She didn’t say another word to
him. She sat down at the table and ate her breakfast. She was getting used to not tasting what she ate when she was with him. One way or another, he always managed to kill her appetite.

He finished his bacon and eggs and leaned back to sip his coffee, his gaze level and speculative. “Pouting?” he taunted. He wanted her and he couldn’t have her. It was making him irritable. “You should know better than to throw yourself at men.”

Her dark blue eyes flashed fire. She put down her coffee cup. “I don’t pout,” she said coldly, getting to her feet. “And I don’t need to throw myself at men! Especially you!”

He got up, too, towering over her, his eyes dark with mingled frustration and anger. It got worse when she tried to step back and her cheeks flushed.

“To hell with it,” he murmured roughly. He caught her waist and jerked her against his lean, powerful body, holding her there while his mouth bent to hers.

He didn’t look in the least loverlike. He looked furious. “Hunter, no…!” she whispered frantically, pushing at his chest.

His lips poised just above hers, his dark eyes holding hers, his breath on her face. “You’re going to push until you find out, aren’t you?” he asked roughly. “Well, for the book, Apaches don’t kiss their women on the mouth. But I’m no novice with your race or your sex. So do let me satisfy your curiosity.”

The tone was smooth and deep, pure honey. She watched his hard lips part and then they were on her mouth, fierce and rough but totally without feeling. His breath filled her mouth with its minty warmth, his mouth moved with expert demand. But his body showed no sign of arousal, and he might have been holding a statue for all the warmth he projected.

She’d wanted this. She’d waited forever to be close to him like
this, to feel his arms closing around her, enfolding her, to feel his hard mouth on hers. She breathed him, anguished pleasure racking her body at the taste of him, so intimate on her mouth.

But he was feeling nothing, and she realized it quite suddenly, with bitter disappointment. Almost at once he lifted his head. She opened her eyes and saw nothing in his face. No desire, nor need, nor love. There was nothing there except a cold curiosity. She was hungry, but he wasn’t. Not a hair out of place, she thought with faint hysteria, Mr. Cool.

He let her go with a smooth, abrupt movement of his hands, putting distance between them effortlessly. “If you know as much about men as I think you do,” he said quietly, “that should tell you exactly what I feel.” He smiled, but it was a mocking, cold smile. “Bells didn’t ring. Horns didn’t blow. The earth didn’t move. You have a pretty mouth, but I wouldn’t kill for it. So now that we’ve breached that hurdle, can we go to work?”

She swallowed her pride and hurt. “By all means,” she said. “I’ll get my gear.”

It was dark and they were camped on the peak of a small hill, under a palo verde tree. No jungle hammock, just a tent with two sleeping bags inside it. The bags were positioned as far apart as Jennifer could get them. Equipment was set up to monitor any movement for miles around. The computer was busy. There was no conversation. Jenny hadn’t said one single word to Hunter since they left the motel, and if she had her way, she never would again. She didn’t care about him, she told herself. She couldn’t love a man who could be that cruel.

He was aware of her hostility, but he preferred it to those melting glances she’d been giving him. He’d deliberately been ice-
cold with her when he’d kissed her. It had been imperative to show her that he felt nothing. Now he’d convinced her, and he wasn’t pleased with his handiwork.

Jenny had withdrawn from him, into her work. Now it was she who was ignoring him, and it disturbed him to feel the distance he’d created. Not that it wasn’t desirable. He couldn’t afford the luxury of involvement with Ritter’s top field geologist. It would complicate his own job, especially when the affair ended. And it would end. He and Jennifer were as different as night and day. He wanted her. She wanted him. But desire would never be enough to keep them together. He was old enough to know that, and she should be.

She was so different like this. They’d never been alone together on assignment, there had always been other people around. He saw a Jennifer that he hadn’t known existed. A shy, uncertain woman with a keen analytical mind who actually downplayed her extraordinary looks. Or she had, he amended, until Teresa had tried her hand at upstaging Jennifer. Jennifer had tried to compete, to draw his attention. He should be flattered, he supposed, but it had made him angry to be the object of a female tug-of-war.

“Do you want anything to eat?” he asked when the silence became too tense.

“I had a candy bar, thanks,” she replied. She was putting away the computer, her attention elsewhere.

“I brought provisions. You can have anything you like, including a steak.”

“I don’t want anything.”

“Starve yourself if you like,” he said, turning his back to fix himself a steak on the Coleman stove. “Pride doesn’t digest well.”

“You’ll never know,” she said under her breath.

He glared at her. “Do you have to have every man you meet on your string?” he asked. “Does your ego demand blind adoration?”

She closed her eyes. The pain was unbearable. “Please stop,” she said huskily. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

He felt a strange empathy with her at times. He seemed to sense her feelings, her emotions. He was doing it now. She was wounded, emotionally.

He got to his feet and knelt beside her, his dark eyes enigmatic. “Won’t do what again?” he asked.

“I won’t…how did you put it?…try to get your attention.” She stared at the darkening ground. “I don’t know why I tried.”

He studied the shadows on the ground. Night was coming down around them. Crickets sounded in the grass. A coyote howled. The wind caught her hair and blew it toward his face, and he felt its softness against his cheek.

“How old are you?” he asked suddenly.

“Twenty-seven,” she replied, her voice terse because she didn’t like admitting her age.

He hadn’t realized she was that old. He frowned, wondering why on earth a woman so lovely should be so alone. “You don’t date,” he persisted.

“Checked the file, did you?” She pushed back her hair and glanced up at him and away as she closed the laptop and put it aside. “No, I don’t date. What’s the use? I was almost engaged twice, until they realized that I had a brain and wanted to use it. I wasn’t content to be a room decoration and a hostess to the exclusion of my career. I’ve gotten used to being alone. I rather like it.”

“Except sometimes on dark nights, when you go hungry for a man’s arms,” he added with faint insolence.

She stared at him with equal insolence. “I suppose you’re in a
position to know that,” she agreed, nodding. “I’ve been alone too long, I suppose. Even you started to look good to me!”

He didn’t answer her. He had to admit that he’d deserved that. He shouldn’t have taunted her, especially about something that she probably couldn’t even help.

She got up and moved away from him, tense and unnerved by his continued scrutiny.

“Come and eat something,” he said.

She shook her head. “I meant it. I’m not hungry.” She laughed bitterly. “I haven’t tasted food since Eugene forced us on this ridiculous assignment. The only thing I want is to get it over with and get away from you!”

His dark eyes caught hers. “Do you, Jennifer?” he asked softly, his voice deep and almost gentle in the stillness.

She felt that tone to the soles of her feet and she turned away from him. It wasn’t fair that he could do this to her. “I’d better get my equipment put away.”

He watched her go. She seemed to bring out the very worst in him. “There’s no need to run,” he said mockingly, glaring at her through the growing darkness. “I’m not going to touch you again. I don’t want you. Couldn’t you tell?”

“Yes.” She almost choked on the word. She turned toward the tent. “Yes, I could tell.”

Her voice disturbed him. It seemed to hurt her that he didn’t find her desirable. He drew in a slow breath, wondering what to do. It had seemed the best idea at the time, to put her at ease about his intentions. But he’d done something to her emotions with that cold, angry kiss. It hadn’t been anything like the kiss he’d wanted to give her, either. Nothing like it.

He cooked his steak and ate it, feeling vaguely disturbed that
he couldn’t make her share it. He put out the fire, set his surveillance equipment, and went into the tent.

She was already in her sleeping bag, zipped up tight in her clothes, her eyes closed. But she wasn’t asleep. He could hear her ragged breathing and there were bright streaks on her cheeks in the faint light of the flashlight he used to get to his own sleeping bag.

He put out the light angrily and took off his boots, climbing in fully clothed. He lay back on the ground, his eyes on the top of the tent, his mind full of thoughts, mostly unpleasant.

Jenny was crying. He could hear her. But to go to her, to offer comfort, would be the biggest mistake of all. He might offer more than comfort. Not wanting her was a lie. He did. He always had. But she’d want something more than desire, he thought. And desire was all he had to give.

She wiped at her tears, trying not to sniff audibly. She never cried, but she’d set new records tonight. Why did he have the power to hurt her so badly? She pushed the damp hair out of her eyes and stared at the wall of the tent, thinking back to camping trips with her parents and her cousin Danetta when they were girls. How uncomplicated and sweet life had been then. No career, no worries, just long, lazy summer days and hope.

A coyote howled and she stiffened under the sleeping bag. Was it a coyote, or a wolf?

“It’s a coyote,” he said, giving it the Spanish pronunciation. “We call them songdogs. They loom large in our legends, in our history. We don’t consider them as lowly as whites do.”

“If you dislike white people so much, why do you work with us?” she asked angrily, her voice hoarse from the tears.

“It’s a white world.”

“Don’t blame me. None of my ancestors ever served in the U.S. Cavalry out west. They were much too busy shooting Union soldiers.”

“Was Missouri a southern state?”

“I’m not from Missouri originally. My parents moved there when I was seven. I was born in Alabama,” she continued. “And that
is
a southern state.”

“You don’t have an accent.”

“Neither do you.”

He felt his lips tug into a smile. “Should I?”

“I wouldn’t touch that with a pole, Mr. Hunter,” she replied. “I’ve had enough of that big chip on your shoulder. I’m not aiming any more punches at it.”

“Poles and chips and punches, at this hour of the night,” he murmured gently.

“You don’t have to talk to me, you know,” she said wearily. “We can manage this assignment in sign language.”

“Do you know any?” he asked in a dry tone as he crossed his arms over his head, stretching.

“A few phrases,” she admitted, reluctant to confess it. “Eugene sent me up to Montana once and I had to parley with two Dakota Sioux. They spoke no English and I spoke no Sioux, so I learned to talk with my hands. It was very educational.”

She was full of surprises. His head turned and he stared at her through the half darkness. “I could teach you to speak Apache.”

She closed her eyes. “I don’t want you to teach me anything, Mr. Hunter,” she said huskily.

“Too bad,” he replied, trying not to take offense. After all, he’d given her a hard time. “You could use a little tutoring. For an experienced women, you don’t know much about kissing.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She sat up on the sleeping bag. “This from a man who already admitted that Apaches don’t do it…!”

“That was back in the nineteenth century,” he mused. He propped himself on one elbow and stared at her, his blood beginning to burn at the sight of her, so beautiful with her long hair around her shoulders. “How can you be twenty-seven and not know something so elementary as how to kiss a man properly?”

“You only did it to humiliate me…!”

“You didn’t know that,” he replied. He remembered her shy response, and it made him feel worse. Apparently the men in her life had been more interested in their own pleasure than hers, because no one had ever taught her about loveplay. He wanted to. His body went rigid as he realized how much he wanted to.

“I told you,” she said, trying to salvage some of her pride. “I’ve been alone for a long time…”

“Have you? Why?” he asked.

She didn’t want to go into why. He’d managed to cut her to the bone already with his cold manner, without the insult about the way she kissed. It hurt even more that he’d noticed, despite his lack of interest in her.

“Never mind,” she said wearily. She lay back down and closed her eyes. “I just want to go to sleep. It’s been a long day.”

“So it has. We’ll move camp tomorrow.”

“Could we move it to Mars?” she asked. “It wouldn’t make much difference, considering the lack of vegetation.”

“You aren’t seeing. The desert is alive and beautiful, if you know what to look for.”

“You do, I suppose.”

“I’m an Indian, remember?” he asked with rough insolence.

“How could I forget?” she muttered. “You never let anyone forget…”

“Go to sleep,” he said shortly. He closed his own eyes, out of patience and totally out of humor. She was really getting to him. He turned his head on the sleeping bag and his eyes wandered slowly over the curve of her body under the quilted fabric. Damn Eugene, he thought furiously, closing his eyes against the sight of her. He’d never forgive him for this assignment.