Ravens prey, p.12
Raven's Prey, page 12
“That’s not possible, Judd.”
“What the hell do you mean, it’s not possible?” he demanded.
Honor took a deep breath and then said what had to be said. “Judd, I’m grateful to you for ending the crisis. But I can never forget that when the chips were down you didn’t really trust me. That night we spent together was not the turning point for you that it was for me. I gave you everything I had to give that night and the next morning you just went ahead with business as usual.” She moved one hand in a flat gesture of finality. “Whatever I was beginning to feel for you down in Mexico died the morning after we made love. You killed it when you made it plain that the night we had together meant nothing to you in terms of trust or love or anything else that’s important.”
“For God’s sake, Honor! I saved your life! I rescued you! How the hell can you stand there and tell me you feel nothing for me now?”
“I didn’t say I felt nothing. I said I was grateful, remember?” she reminded him harshly. “But that’s all I feel. I’m damn grateful Garrison was dumb enough to give himself away on the phone and I’m grateful you had enough in the way of scruples to bother checking out my story. But I’m not going to sleep with you out of gratitude! The man I choose to sleep with will be someone who loves and trusts me completely. A man who would go to the wall for me just because he cared. He wouldn’t wait to work out the logic of the situation before he decided which side to take. He’d be on my side come hell or high water, regardless of the damned logic of the thing!” She was aware that her voice was rising and her hands were clenching into fists. Deliberately Honor took deep breaths, striving to regain her control. She had lost her self-control far too many times with this man. It was time she took a leaf out of his book!
“Honor, I made it clear I would protect you right from the start!” Judd raked a hand through his hair, dark eyes gleaming with frustrated anger. “What more did you want from me?”
“Trust. I wanted you to be one hundred percent on my side, no questions asked. I wanted you to have absolutely no doubts about me.”
“Just because we’d been to bed together?” he demanded incredulously.
“Because I thought we’d made love together,” she corrected savagely. “But I was wrong, wasn’t I? Nothing changed for you that night. You woke up the next morning still the same cold, unemotional robot you were before you went to bed with me. Well, you got your proof and you did your duty by rescuing me. But don’t expect anything more than gratitude from me, Judd Raven. Because I haven’t anything more to give a cold-blooded mercenary who trusts his damned airplane more than he does me!”
She walked into the bathroom and shut the door far too quietly behind her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The apartment in Phoenix had never looked more inviting. Honor turned the key in the lock, knowing a vast sense of relief at being home. There had been too many lonely nights of wondering if she would ever be able to return. Her rakish little Audi was still parked sedately in the drive where she had left it that morning so long ago. Honor wondered if the battery still functioned.
The inside of the spacious one-bedroom apartment was exactly as she had left it, except, she noted wryly, all her plants had died. No, the little collection of exotic cacti in the corner of the window appeared to have survived. She walked across the white carpet to examine the array of thorny plants.
Other than the dead house plants, everything looked fine, in fact. It was hard to believe that nothing in her home had changed, when she herself had been through so much. The sophisticated yet softly romantic decor looked as it always had. The meandering peach velvet sofa, which formed an S shape in front of the white fireplace, didn’t even look dusty. The gilt antique desk in front of the garden window was still piled high with the books and papers she had left on it. There was even a delicate bone china coffee cup left on the round oak dining table.
She was home.
With a sigh of relief Honor carted her small suitcase into the bedroom, slinging it onto the round, flounced bed. She was home, but for a while there in Tucson she hadn’t been at all sure she was going to be able to make the last leg of her journey. The raven who had hunted her down in Mexico didn’t appear inclined to relinquish its prey.
There was nothing Judd could actually have done to stop her from going home, Honor told herself briskly as she unpacked, but all the same she had known more than a shade of uncertainty when she’d faced the implacable expression in those night-dark eyes.
Still, by refusing to succumb to the uneasy fear he generated in her, she had made it out of the motel room that morning and into a cab. From there she had gone to the airport and hopped one of the short flights to Phoenix. Honor hadn’t dared to glance back as the cab pulled away from the motel, but she had sensed Judd watching her from the window.
There had been no mistaking his mood, either, she reminded herself grimly. Every line of his lean, hard body had been almost vibrating with the effort of will he was exerting to hold himself in check. Honor had been unable to escape from the dangerous confines of the motel room quickly enough as far as she was concerned. At any moment she had feared Judd would simply stop fighting his instincts, reach out and grab her. She still wasn’t certain how he had managed to control himself. Maybe it was simply that he’d spent so many emotionless, self-controlled years already that he wasn’t sure how to let go, even in anger and frustration.
Whatever it was that had held him in check during those tense moments while she changed into her jeans, called a cab and fled the room, Honor decided she was safe now. Judd might have decided he wanted her, but she was sure he would recover from the fleeting emotion as soon as she was out of the picture.
He could damn well go back to his airplane for all she cared!
Judd Raven seemed to have the emotional responses of a wild creature, a lone hunter who had spent far too much time by himself. He could be provoked to lust or to violence but he didn’t waste emotional energy on more refined feelings like trust and love.
Honor dashed a hand across her eyes as she piled her clothes into the washing machine. Now why in hell was she crying? It was because her own emotional reactions weren’t nearly as limited as Judd Raven’s, she assured herself. She had been through a trying ordeal and it was natural for her body to work off some of the stress. She was willing to bet Judd had never cried a tear in his life!
Morosely she stood staring at the glass door of the washing machine, watching as the clothes sloshed around. For some reason the scene that day by the village stream flashed into her mind and she remembered Judd’s expression as he’d finally figured out that she was playing a game with him, a game he could win. For just a short while, there had been traces of genuine laughter in those glittering dark eyes. And she, idiot that she was, had assumed from such limited evidence that the man was human and that he could be reached on a human level.
Honor turned away from the sight of the spinning clothes. The last thing she wanted to recall was her own weak, very human and all too female nature! How could she have been so emotionally stupid as to read so much into that single night in his arms? She had actually awakened the next morning believing herself to be falling in love with the man!
And all he’d felt was male satisfaction at having conquered a woman to whom he’d been attracted.
Honor didn’t lie to herself now. She knew Judd was right when he accused her of romanticizing what was merely a straightforward physical relationship. Well, she’d learned her lesson. What in hell had made him think she’d stick around for more of the same? In rising disgust Honor realized she was having to dash away more dampness from her eyes.
* * *
The business of settling back into her normal round of activities began within twenty-four hours of her return to Phoenix. Honor threw herself into the task with a vengeance, knowing she needed outside stimuli to help her recover both emotionally and physically from the weeks of feeling hunted.
There were a lot of complicated explanations to make, too, she soon discovered. Her unannounced departure to Mexico had taken all her friends by surprise. Many had assumed she was still in Hong Kong. No one knew she’d been south of the border.
Not wanting to go into a long, involved explanation of her absence, Honor brushed off the questions by saying she’d wanted some time away after her return from the Orient. Steve Melbourne, however, demanded a bit more in the way of explanations.
“So you’re finally back from Hong Kong?” her former boyfriend began without preamble when she phoned him the morning after her return. “Sylvia told me you were back in town. And without that guy Prager, too. Can I hope for the best? Are you free tonight, for example?”
Honor took a deep breath and then smiled to herself. “Oh, yes, I’m quite free tonight, Steve.” She had never felt so free in her life!
“And Prager?”
“I’m not seeing him anymore,” she murmured feelingly.
“Great! Pick you up at seven. We can toast each other’s freedom.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re not seeing Evie these days?”
“She took that job in Denver. I guess she’s made her priorities pretty clear, hasn’t she?”
“Steve, you know she would have been a fool to turn down that promotion,” Honor chided gently.
“What about me? What the hell was I supposed to do? Give up my job and follow her to Denver?”
“One of you had to do something or give up the relationship. I gather you’ve chosen to abandon the relationship.”
“I’ll tell you all about it tonight. I could use a nice shoulder to cry on.”
Steve Melbourne wasn’t crying when he arrived at seven o’clock that evening, but it was obvious he’d been under something of a strain. They had developed an easy friendship since the end of their romance, and Honor sympathized with him, although she had felt powerless all along to help the situation between him and Evie Newcomb.
“It’s this damned women’s lib business,” Steve complained over drinks in a pleasant fireside lounge. His light blue eyes were meditative and somewhat resentful. Steve was a good-looking man in his early thirties, a very corporate-looking man, Honor had often thought. The kind you couldn’t imagine in anything besides a three-piece suit, even here in Phoenix where people tended toward the casual. His tawny hair and tanned features fit well with the business image. He was also very good at his job of comptroller for a large Phoenix firm. He’d go far, but so would Evie Newcomb. It looked as if they weren’t going to make the journey together.
“Come on, now, Steve, one of the things you’ve always admired about Evie was her brilliance on the job. It was natural she’d be faced with this kind of decision sooner or later. You must have seen it coming.”
“Yeah, I suppose so. I was living in a fantasy world thinking we could have it all. You can’t have it all these days, can you, Honor? Maybe you never could.”
“You can still make your own choices,” she reminded him.
“You mean follow her to Denver?”
“You could get a good job there. It probably wouldn’t hurt you at all careerwise,” Honor pointed out gently.
“If she loved me she would have stayed here in Phoenix!”
“If you loved her you’d go to Denver.”
Steve shrugged uneasily. “Looks like a no-win situation. But I really didn’t bring you out tonight to spend the whole evening talking about me and Evie. Tell me what you’ve been doing for the past few weeks. No one knew when you were coming back. No one was even sure where you were. We just assumed you’d stayed in Hong Kong for some extra sightseeing.”
“I, uh, had some time, so I did a little traveling,” she told him dryly. For some reason she simply didn’t feel like going into all the details. Not yet. Her reticence seemed to make him all the more curious, however, and she found herself deliberately looking for ways to switch the topic of conversation.
“Is it Prager? Are you upset about not seeing him anymore?” Steve finally asked commiseratingly.
“To tell you the truth, I hope I never see that man again!” Honor saw the astonishment on her friend’s face and laughed ruefully. “I’m not working for Garrison and Prager anymore, Steve. As a matter of fact, I shall be pounding the pavement soon, looking for a job. Any ideas?”
“Sure. How about Evie’s old job?” he shot back wryly.
“Oh, she’d love to hear that I was working in the same firm as you! I think she was always a little jealous that I knew you first.”
“Maybe it would bring her back to Phoenix,” he hazarded wistfully. “You know, there was something to be said for the good old days when a man could just pick out a woman, hunt her down and drag her back to his cave and keep her there.”
Honor blinked, aware of a chill down her spine. A man like Steve would never step out of his three-piece suit long enough to resort to such primitive methods. Steve Melbourne was well and truly trapped in the bonds of twentieth-century civilization. He, like most of the other men of his era, were learning to deal with women within the framework of the new social mores.
Looking at her friend across the small candle in the center of the table Honor suddenly realized just how different Steve Melbourne and the other men of her acquaintance were from Judd Raven. It made her realize just how lucky she had been to walk out of that motel room alone the previous morning. Raven’s hunting instincts were definitely pre-twentieth century, as was his lack of refined sensitivity. She shivered in the warm, smoky lounge and remembered the rustic cantina where she had first seen Judd.
In all honesty, she admitted now, Judd’s instincts, primitive as they were, had been correct on one score. He had been right when he’d said she couldn’t have ever been truly involved with Steve Melbourne in a full-scale love affair. She knew in her heart that if she’d ever felt a fraction of the passion with Steve that she’d experienced with Judd, there would have been no way she could sit across from Melbourne tonight and be a “friend.”
“Hey, don’t go moody on me,” Steve complained good-naturedly. “Come on, let’s dance. I haven’t danced since Evie left town.”
Honor managed a smile, setting down her drink. “What are friends for?”
There was a certain solace to be had in dancing with a friend, however, Honor discovered. She still had so many disturbing memories that had to be banished. Neither she nor Steve would be making any demands on each other tonight and she knew she could relax and give herself up to the pleasures of simple friendship.
Friendship. That was another of the refined sides of human nature about which she doubted Judd Raven knew very much. He seemed singularly lacking in friends from what little she had learned about him. Even his association with Craig Maddock, for whom he had apparently worked from time to time, seemed more of a wary, adversary relationship than a friendship.
That faint flicker of unease coursed through her once more and she found herself clinging a little closer to Steve Melbourne than she might ordinarily have done. What was the matter with her? She was safe.
“Will you be looking for a position similar to the one you’re leaving at Garrison and Prager’s firm? A sort of administrative assistant post?” Steve asked musingly.
“Yes, I imagine so. That seems to be the kind of work I do best: coordinating schedules, lining up details, summarizing data.”
“Evie always said you were very good at the administrative end of a business and good with clients, too. That should be a marketable combination.”
“I hope so.”
“Might be tough to find another job that involves all that great overseas travel, though,” Steve went on.
“Believe me, I’ve had my fill of travel for a while!”
“I wish Evie hadn’t been so interested in traveling to Denver.” He sighed.
“Steve, you’re going to have to make a choice. How much does Evie mean to you?” Honor asked firmly.
“A lot,” he groaned. “A hell of a lot.”
Honor was genuinely glad to hear he had found with Evie the passion that had been missing in her own romance with him.
“Then what are you going to do about the situation?”
He looked down at her bleakly. “You’re saying I should start job hunting in Denver?”
“It’s up to you, but it would definitely be one way of showing Evie how much you cared, wouldn’t it?”
“It would be a risk....”
“Women have been taking that kind of risk for men for years!”
He smiled wryly. “You’ve got a point. I never thought of it that way before. I like to think I’m a modern sort of man, but sometimes I think life would be simpler if I weren’t quite so modern.”
“Evie probably wouldn’t be half so interesting to you if she weren’t so modern!”
“Ouch!” Steve chuckled ruefully. “I’m afraid you’re right.”
It wasn’t until the music drew to a close that Honor saw Judd.
For an instant, as she came off the floor on Steve’s arm, Honor was transported back to that night in the smoky cantina when she’d first seen her hunter. Everything stood still as she absorbed the impact and the implications of his presence.
He was sitting in a darkened booth at the back of the room. Dressed in black he seemed a part of the shadows around him. But the glittering dark eyes burned with a cold, intense fire that seemed to reach out to trap her. He didn’t move as she stumbled slightly at Steve’s side, simply sat quietly watching her as if she were prey that he could take his time collecting. There was no place she could run.
