Free Hunter by Diana Palmer Page B

lying on the ground far away in the Middle East, where they were working on assignment one time, searching for oil.
    He glanced up when she came out in her working gear, nodding at the hat. “You remembered, I see,” he remarked.
    â€œYou gave me hell,” she recalled, smiling.
    â€œYou deserved it.”
    â€œYes, I did. All the same, you got me to a medic in short order. You probably saved my life.”
    â€œI don’t want hero-worship from you,” he said flatly, staring back at her. “We’d better get going. Keep to the trees if you can. We know we’re not alone. It’s best not to take chances.”
    â€œThe stream bed is where I want to be,” she said coldly. “And it isn’t hero-worship.”
    â€œNo?” He gave her a mocking appraisal. “Then what is it?”
    â€œFascination,” she said with a mocking smile of her own. “You’re different.”
    He didn’t betray so much as a flicker of an eyelash, but the words hit home. She’d accidentally betrayed what he’d suspected all along, that she coveted him because he was a new experience for her. Like another white woman, years before, who’d been entranced not by who he was so much as what he was.
    â€œDifferent,” she emphasized. “Hardheaded, cold-eyed, bad tempered, unpredictable and totally exasperating!”
    None of which had anything to do with being Apache, he mused, relaxing a little. He smiled with reluctant amusement.
    â€œI could go on,” she added. “But I do have a job to do.”
    â€œI’m not the only one here with a bad temper,” he replied as they started out. “And you have a hard head of your own.”
    â€œI wouldn’t have a bad temper if you’d stop stripping around me,” she blurted out.
    His eyebrows arched. “When did I do that?”
    â€œAt the motel.”
    â€œOh.” He chuckled as he strode along beside her. “I wanted to see if it would affect you.” He glanced down. “It did.”
    â€œMost men your age are as white as dead fish and flabby,” she remarked, refusing to let him get to her. “I can’t be the only woman who’s ever found you fascinating without your shirt.”
    No, but she was the only one it mattered with, he admitted to himself. He found her equally disturbing, but it wasn’t a good time to say so. His eyes were alert, watching for signs.
    â€œLook!” she exclaimed, bending down at the creek where tracks were visible in the wet sand. “A cougar!”
    He knelt down beside her. “So it is. How did you know?”
    â€œBig print, no claw marks,” she explained. “Dogs and wolves can’t draw their claws back in like a cat can, and they leave claw marks. Look at this. It’s a buck deer—cloven hoofprint. A doe’s is rounded.”
    He met her eyes with grudging admiration. “Tracking interests you, I gather?”
    â€œIt always has. My father hunts deer every fall. He taught me.”
    â€œKill Bambi?” he exclaimed with mock horror.
    It was the first real flash of amusement she’d seen in him. She laughed delightedly and impulsively pushed him. He fell heavily onto his side, laughing, too.
    â€œYou hellcat,” he murmured, reaching out with a lightning movement to drag her down heavily against him. He rolled her in the damp sand, pinning her, his face hard, his eyes glittering with excitement as he loomed over her. His gaze went down to her breasts, where the buttons of her blouse had parted during the struggle, leaving her cleavage bare. His breath quickened as he looked at her, his expression changing from humor to intent male appreciation.
    The feel of all that hard muscle so close made her tremble with pure need. She could smell the scent of his clothing, the cologne that clung to his skin. She looked up into his black eyes and knew in that moment that he was