Читать книгу: «Hunter»

2

Jennifer Marist shared an office with several other geologists, a roomful of high-tech equipment, maps and charts and assorted furniture. On good days, she and the other geologists who worked for the Ritter Oil Corporation could maneuver around one another as they proceeded with their individual and collective projects. Unfortunately this wasn’t a good day. Chaos reigned, and when the big boss himself, Eugene Ritter, asked Jenny to come into his office, it was a relief.

She took her time going down the long hall enjoying the glass windows that gave such a beautiful view of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the lush vegetation that accented the walkway. Jenny was twenty-seven, but she looked much younger. Her long blond hair was soft and wavy, her deep blue eyes full of life and quiet pleasure. She wore a white knit sweater with simply designed gray slacks, but she still looked like a cover girl. It was the curse of her life, she thought, that men saw the face and not the personality and intelligence beneath it. Fortunately the men in her group were used to her by now, and none of them made sexist remarks or gave wolf whistles when she came into a room. They were all married except Jack, anyway, and Jack was fifty-six; just a bit old for Jenny’s taste.

All told, though, Jenny had given up on the idea of marriage. It would have been lovely, but despite the modern world she lived in, the only two men she’d ever come close to marrying refused to share her with her globe-trotting career. They wanted a nice little woman who’d stay at home and cook and clean and raise kids. Jenny wouldn’t have minded so much with the right man, but she’d spent years training as a geologist. She was highly paid and tops in her field. It seemed wasteful to sacrifice that for a dirty apron. But, then, perhaps she’d just never met the man she’d want to compromise for.

She glanced around as she entered the waiting room of Eugene’s plush carpeted office, looking for Hunter. Thank God he was nowhere close by. She let out a tense sigh. Ridiculous to let a man get to her that way, especially a cold-blooded statue like Mr. Hunter. He was the company’s troubleshooter and there had been a little trouble just lately. He and Jenny had partnered up for an evening to catch enemy agents who were after Jenny’s top-secret maps of a potential new strike in strategic metals. It had been an evening to remember, and Jenny was doing her best to forget it all. Especially the part that contained him. They’d caught two men, but not the ringleader himself. Hunter had blamed her. He usually did, for anything that went wrong. Maybe he hated blondes.

She lifted her eyebrows at Betty, Eugene’s secretary, who grinned and nodded.

“Go right in. He’s waiting,” she told Jenny.

“Is Hunter in there?” she asked, hesitating.

“Not yet.”

That sounded ominous. Jenny tapped at the door and opened it, peeking around to find Eugene precariously balanced in his swivel chair, looking thoughtful.

“Come in, come in. Have a chair. Close the door first.” He smiled. “How’s the world treating you?”

“Fair to middling,” she replied, laughing as she sat down in the chair across the desk.

He leaned forward, his silver hair gleaming in the light from the window behind him, his pale blue eyes curious. “Getting lonely since Danetta married my son and moved out?”

“I do miss my cousin,” Jenny replied, smiling. “She was a great roommate.” She leaned forward. “But I don’t miss the lounge lizard!”

He chuckled. “I guess she misses him. Danetta’s iguana is living with us, now, and my youngest son Nicky and he are best friends already. Cabe has promised Danetta a nice stuffed one for a pet anytime she wants it.”

Jenny smothered a grin. Her employer’s older son Cabe was well-known for his aversion to anything with scales; especially iguanas named Norman. Jenny had gotten used to the big lizard, after a fashion, but it was a lot more comfortable living without him.

“I’ve got a proposition for you,” Ritter said without further preamble. “There’s a piece of land down in Arizona that I want you to run a field survey on. I’ll send down your equipment and you can camp out for a few days until you can get me a preliminary map of the area and study the outcroppings.”

She knew she was going white. “The Arizona desert?”

“That’s right. Quiet place. Pretty country. Peace.”

“Rattlesnakes! Men with guns in four-wheel drives! Indians!”

“Shhhhh! Hunter might hear you!” he said, putting his finger to his lips.

She glared at him. “I am not afraid of tall Apaches named Hunter. I meant the other ones, the ones who don’t work for us.”

“Listen, honey, the Apaches don’t raid the settlements anymore, and it’s been years since anybody was shot with an arrow.”

She glared harder. “Send Hunter.”

“Oh, I’m going to,” he said. “I’m glad you agree that he’s the man for the job. The two of you can keep each other company. He’ll be your protection while you sound out this find for me.”

“Me? Alone in the desert with Hunter for several days and nights?” She almost choked. “You can’t do it! We’ll kill each other!”

“Not right away,” he said. “Besides, you’re the best geologist I have and we can’t afford to take chances, not with the goings-on of the past month. And our adversary is still loose somewhere. That’s why I want you to camp in a different section each night, to throw him off the track. You’ll go to the target area on the second night. I’ll show you on the map where it is. You aren’t to tell anyone.”

“Not even Hunter?” she asked.

“You can try not to, but Hunter knows everything.”

“He thinks he does,” she agrees. “I’ll bet he invented bread…”

“Cut it out. This is an assignment, you’re an employee, I’m the boss. Quit or pack.”

She threw up her hands. “What a choice. You pay me a duke’s ransom for what I do already and then you threaten me with poverty. That’s no choice.”

He grinned at her. “Good. Hunter doesn’t bite.”

“Want to see the teeth marks?” she countered. “He snapped my head off the night we lost that other agent. He said it was my fault!”

“How could it have been?”

“I don’t know, but that’s what he said. Does it have to be Hunter? Why can’t you send that nice Mallory boy with me? I like him.”

“That’s why I won’t send him. Hunter isn’t nice, but he’ll keep you alive and protect my investment. There isn’t a better man for this kind of work.”

She had to agree, but she didn’t like having to. “Can I have combat pay?”

“Listen or get out.”

“Yes, sir.” She sat with resignation written all over her. “What are we looking for? Oil? Molybdenum? Uranium?”

“Best place to look for oil right now is western Wyoming,” he reminded her. “Best place to look for moly is Colorado or southern Arizona. And that’s why I’m sending you to Arizona—molybdenum. And maybe gold.”

She whistled softly. “What an expedition.”

“Now you know why I want secrecy,” he agreed. “Hunter and you will make a good team. You’re both clams. No possibility of security leaks. Get your gear together and be ready to leave at six in the morning. I’ll have Hunter pick you up at your apartment.”

“I could get to the airport by myself,” she volunteered quickly.

“Scared of him?” Ritter taunted, his pale eyes twinkling at her discomfort.

She lifted her chin and glared at him. “No. Of course not.” “Good. He’ll look after you. Have fun.”

Fun, she thought as she left the room, wasn’t exactly her definition of several days in the desert with Hunter. In fact, she couldn’t think of anything she was dreading more.

Back in the office she shared with her colleagues, two of her coworkers were waiting. “What is it?” they chorused. “Moly? Uranium? A new oil strike?”

“Well, we haven’t found another Spindletop,” she said with a grin, “so don’t worry about losing out on all that fame. Maybe he just thinks I need a vacation.” She blew on her fingernails and buffed them on her knit blouse. “After all,” she said with a mock haughty glance at the two men, “he knows I do all the work around here.”

One of her coworkers threw a rolled-up map at her and she retreated to her own drafting board, saved from having to give them a direct answer. They all knew the score, though, and wouldn’t have pressed her. A lot of their work was confidential.

She’d just finished her meager lunch and was on her way back into the building when she encountered a cold, angry Hunter in the hallway that led to her own office.

The sight of him was enough to give her goose bumps. Hunter was over six feet tall, every inch of him pure muscle and power. He moved with singular grace and elegance, and it wasn’t just his magnificent physique that drew women’s eyes to him. He had an arrogance of carriage that was peculiarly his, a way of looking at people that made them feel smaller and less significant. Master of all he surveys, Jenny thought insignificantly, watching his black eyes cut toward her under his heavy dark eyebrows. His eyes were deep-set in that lean, dark face with its high cheekbones and straight nose and thin, cruel-looking mouth. It wouldn’t be at all difficult to picture Hunter in full Apache war regalia, complete with long feathered bonnet. She got chills just thinking about having to face him over a gun, and thanked God that this was the twentieth century and they’d made peace with the Apache. Well, with most of them. This one looked and sometimes acted as if he’d never signed any peace treaties.

In her early days with the company, she’d made the unforgivable mistake of raising her hand and saying “how.” She got nervous now just remembering the faux pas, remembering the feverish embarrassment she’d felt, the shame, at how he’d fended off the insult. She’d learned the hard way that it wasn’t politic to ridicule him.

“Mr. Hunter,” she said politely, inclining her head as she started past him.

He took a step sideways and blocked her path. “Was it Eugene’s idea, or yours?”

“If you mean the desert survival mission, I can assure you that I don’t find the prospect all that thrilling.” She didn’t back down an inch, but those cold dark eyes were making her feel giddy inside. “If I got to choose my own companion, I’d really prefer Norman the Iguana. He’s better tempered than you are, he doesn’t swear, and he’s never insulted me.”

Hunter didn’t smile. That wasn’t unusual; Jenny had never seen him smile. Maybe he couldn’t, she thought, watching him. Maybe his face was covered in hard plastic and it would crack if he tried to raise the corners of his mouth. That set her off and she had to stifle a giggle.

“Something amuses you?” he asked.

The tone was enough, without the look that accompanied it. “Nothing at all, Mr. Hunter,” she assured him. “I have to get back to work. If you don’t mind…?”

“I mind having to set aside projects to play guardian angel to a misplaced cover girl,” he said.

Her dark blue eyes gleamed with sudden anger. “I could give you back that insult in spades if I wanted to,” she said coldly. “I have a master’s degree in geology. My looks have nothing whatsoever to do with my intelligence or my professional capabilities.”

He lifted a careless eyebrow. “Interesting that you chose a profession that caters to men.”

There was no arguing with such a closed mind. “I won’t defend myself to you. This assignment wasn’t my doing, or my choice. If you can talk Eugene into sending someone else, go to it.”

“He says you’re the best he has.”

“I’m flattered, but that isn’t quite so. He can’t turn anyone else loose right now.”

“Too bad.”

She pulled herself up to her full height. It still wasn’t enough to bring the top of her head any higher than Hunter’s square chin. “Thank you for your vote of confidence. What a pity you don’t know quartz from diamond, or you could do the whole job yourself!”

He let his gaze slide down her body and back up again, but if he found any pleasure in looking at her, it didn’t show in those rigid features. “I’ll pick you up at six in the morning at your apartment. Don’t keep me waiting, cover girl.”

He moved and was gone before she recovered enough to tell him what she thought of him. She walked back to her own office with blazing eyes and a red face, thinking up dozens of snappy replies that never came to mind when she actually needed them.

She pulled her maps of southern Arizona and looked at the area Eugene had pinpointed for her field survey. The terrain was very familiar; mountains and desert. She had topographical maps, but she was going to need something far more detailed before Eugene and his board of directors decided on a site. And her work was only the first step. After she finished her preliminary survey, the rest of the team would have to decide on one small area for further study. That would involve sending a team of geologic technicians in to do seismic studies and more detailed investigation, including air studies and maybe even expensive computer time for the satellite Landsat maps.

But right now what mattered was the fieldwork. This particular area of southern Arizona bordered government land on one side and the Apache reservation on the other. The reservation was like a sovereign nation, with its own government and laws, and she couldn’t prospect there without permission. What Eugene hoped to find was in a narrow strip between the two claimed territories. He had a good batting average, too. Old-timers said that Eugene could smell oil and gold, not to mention moly.

It was too short a day. She collected all her equipment to be taken to the airport and the charts and maps she expected to have to refer to. With that chore out of the way, she went home.

Jenny cooked herself a small piece of steak and ate it with a salad, brooding over her confrontation with Hunter and dreading the trip ahead. He didn’t like her, that much was apparent. But it shouldn’t have affected their working relationship as much as it did. There were other women in the organization, and he seemed to get along well enough with them.

“Maybe it’s my perfume,” she murmured out loud and laughed at the idea of it.

No, it had to be something in her personality that set him off, because he’d disliked her on sight the first time they met.

She remembered that day all too well. It had been her first day on the job with the Ritter Oil Corporation. With her geology degree under her belt—a master’s degree—she’d landed a plum of a job with one of the country’s biggest oil companies. That achievement had given her confidence.

She’d looked successful that day, in a white linen suit and powder-blue blouse, with her blond hair in a neat chignon, her long, elegant legs in sheer hose, her face with just the right amount of makeup. Her appearance had shocked and delighted her male colleagues on the exploration team. But her first sight of Hunter had shocked and delighted her, to her utter dismay.

Eugene Ritter had called Hunter into his office to meet Jenny. She hadn’t known about his Apache heritage then; she hadn’t known anything about him except his last name. He’d come through the door and Jenny, who was usually unperturbed by men, had melted inside like warm honey.

Hunter had been even less approachable in those days. His hair had been longer, and he’d worn it in a short pigtail at his nape. His suit had been a pale one that summery day, emphasizing his darkness. But it was his face that Jenny had stared at so helplessly. It was a dark face, very strong, with high cheekbones and jet-black hair and deep-set black eyes, a straight nose and a thin, cruel-looking mouth that hadn’t smiled when they were introduced. In fact, his eyes had narrowed with sudden hostility. She could remember the searing cold of that gaze even now, and the contempt as it had traveled over her with authority and disdain. As if she were a harem girl on display, she thought angrily, not a scientist with a keen analytical mind and meticulous accuracy in her work. It occurred to her then that a geologist would be a perfect match for the stony Mr. Hunter. She’d said as much to Eugene and it had gotten back to Hunter. That comment plus the other unfortunate stunt had not endeared her to Hunter. He hadn’t found it the least bit amusing. He’d said that she wouldn’t appeal to him if she came sliced and buttered.

She sighed, pushing her last piece of steak around on her plate. Amazing that he could hate her when she found him so unbearably attractive. The trick fate had played on her, she thought wistfully. All her life, the men who wanted her had been mama’s boys or dependent men who needed nurturing. All she’d wanted was a man who was strong enough to let her be herself, brains and all. Now she’d finally found one who was strong, but neither her brains nor her beauty interested him in the least.

She’d never had the courage to ask Hunter why he hated her so much. They’d only been alone together once in all the years they’d know each other, and that had been the night they’d staged a charade for the benefit of the agents who were after Jenny’s survey maps.

They’d gone to a restaurant with Cabe Ritter and his then-secretary, Danetta Marist, Jenny’s cousin. Jenny had deliberately worn a red, sexy dress to “live down to Hunter’s opinion” of her. He’d barely spared her a glance, so she could have saved herself the trouble. Once they’d reached the apartment and the trap had been sprung, she’d seen Hunter in action for the first time. The speed with which he’d tackled the man prowling in her apartment was fascinating, like the ease with which he’d floored the heavier man and rendered him unconscious. He’d gone after a second man, but that one had knocked Jenny into the wall in his haste to escape. Hunter had actually stopped to see that she was all right. He’d tugged her gently to her feet, his eyes blazing as he checked her over and demanded assurance that she hadn’t been hurt. Then he’d gone after that second man, with blood in his eye, but he’d lost his quarry by then. His security men had captured a third member of the gang outside. Hunter had blamed Jenny for the loss of the second, who was the ringleader. Odd how angry he’d been, she thought in retrospect. Maybe it was losing his quarry, something he rarely did.

She washed her few dishes before she had a quick shower and got into her gown. The sooner she slept, the sooner she’d be on her way to putting this forced trip behind her, she told herself.

She looked at herself in the mirror before she climbed wearily into bed. There were new lines in her face. She was twenty-seven. Her age was beginning to bother her, too. Many more years and her beauty would fade. Then she’d have nothing except her intellect to attract a husband, and that was a laugh. Most of the men she’d met would trade a brainy woman any day for a beautiful one, despite modern attitudes. Hunter probably liked the kind of woman who’d walk three steps behind her husband and chew rawhide to make them soft for his moccasins.

She tried to picture Hunter with a woman in his arms, and she blushed at the pictures that came to mind. He had the most magnificent physique she’d ever seen, all lean muscle and perfection. Thinking of him without the civilizing influence of clothes made her knees buckle.

With an angry sigh, she put out the light and got under the sheets. She had to stop tormenting herself with these thoughts. It was just that he stirred her as no other man ever had. He could make her weak-kneed and giddy just by walking into a room. The sight of him fed her heart. She looked at him and wanted him, in ways that were far removed from the purely physical. She remembered hearing once that he’d been hurt on the job, and her heart had stopped beating until she could get confirmation that he was alive and going to be all right. She looked for him, consciously and unconsciously, everywhere she went. It was getting to be almost a mania with her, and there was apparently no cure. Stupid, to be so hopelessly in love with a man who didn’t even know she existed. At her age, and with her intellect, surely she should have known better. But all the same, her world began and ended with Hunter.

Eventually she slept, but it was very late when she drifted off, and she slept so soundly that she didn’t even hear the alarm clock the next morning. But she heard the loud knocking on the door, and stumbled out of bed too drowsy to even reach for her robe. Fortunately her gown was floor-length and cotton, thick enough to be decent to answer a door in, at least.

Hunter glowered at her when she opened the door. “The plane leaves in two hours. We have to be at the airport in one. Didn’t I remind you that I’d be here at six?”

“Yes,” she said on a sigh. She stared up at his dark face. “Don’t you ever smile?” she asked softly.

He lifted a heavy, dark eyebrow. “When I can find something worth smiling at,” he returned with faint sarcasm.