Something Different/Pepper's Way (34 page)

“It isn’t a game, is it?” Thor asked suddenly, quietly. He was standing by the front window, staring out. “It was never a game.”

Pepper stacked the cards neatly facedown on the coffee table and then sat back, gazing across the room at his broad back. She wasn’t surprised by his comment; her little voice inside had been telling her all day that the buffer of her friends had only postponed the inevitable.

Equally quiet, she said, “For me, no; it was never a game. The… methods … maybe. But I was serious from the start.”

“Why me?” he asked, still without turning around.

“Ask me how many angels can dance on the head of a pin,” Pepper said wryly. “I’d have a better answer for that.”

He turned around, leaning back against the windowframe and looking across at her. She was somehow surprised to see that his expression was calm, his eyes thoughtful. As if his mind were somewhere else, he asked, “How did you get that scar?”

Pepper didn’t even consider evasion. Or games. “I was carrying a briefcase full of gems and a man tried to steal them from me,” she said calmly.

eight

PEPPER’S STATEMENT CERTAINLY CAUGHT
Thor’s attention. He smiled slowly. “I see. Did you rob a museum?”

She smiled a little. “Not quite. From time to time, I take jobs as a bonded courier. I don’t need the money, but I enjoy the … the challenge of it. What I’ve carried most times was something small but valuable that the owner didn’t want to entrust to any other method of transport. Stamp collections, old coins, heirlooms.”

Making an innocent, empty-handed gesture, she said, “Now I ask you—do I look as if someone would entrust something valuable to me?”

“No,” Thor replied dryly.

“The ace up my sleeve.” Her smile turned rueful. “I haven’t lost anything yet.”

Thor nodded toward the scar on her hand. “But someone came close?”

Pepper rubbed a thumb across the mark. “Close only counts in horseshoes.”

“What happened?”

“From the beginning?”

“Please.”

“A wealthy American collector sold several of his finest pieces to an equally wealthy British collector. About that time there had been more than one jewelry theft on both sides of the Atlantic, and these pieces were very, very valuable. Couriers had been robbed en route; so the collectors decided on a shell game. They sent out several couriers along different routes, all but one empty-handed. I had the gems.”

Thor crossed the room slowly to sit down on the couch beside her. “And?” he asked, obviously intrigued.

“There was a leak.” Pepper sighed. “Only the two collectors were supposed to know which of us had the jewelry; we found out later that the buyer’s valet had decided to go into business for himself. I’ll pass up the remark about how hard it is to get good servants these days. Anyway, I made it across the Atlantic and into London in one piece. Unfortunately it was a foggy day in old London Town, which gave the would-be thief excellent cover and loused up my sense of direction.

“I must have run through most of the mews in the city— with him right behind me—before I finally located the buyer’s house. And after a conspicuous lack of bobbies for more than two hours, there was one practically on the buyer’s doorstep. And… well, that’s all.”

Thor reached over to cover the small, restless hand with its faint scar. “Other than this, did he hurt you?”

“He didn’t get the chance!” Pepper grinned. “I’m small, but I’m fast.”

Not returning the grin, Thor said slowly, “Dangerous work.”

“Not really. Not usually.” She shrugged. “I’ve been a courier for about six years; that jewel thing happened last year, and it was only the second time someone tried to hold me up.”

Thor’s hand tightened on hers. “What happened the first time?”

Pepper laughed suddenly as the memory flooded her mind. “It was hysterical really. You would have gotten a kick out of it. The poor guy wasn’t after the old stamp collection in my case. He was just your average, run-of-the-mill mugger. I was carrying the collection from L.A. to New York, and had a one-night layover in Kansas City.

“I decided to visit some friends there, and I was walking to their apartment when this man yanked me into an alley. There he stood with this rusty pipe, getting ready to brain me. I don’t know what made him hesitate, although he said later that it was because he hadn’t realized until then that I was so small. Anyway, I had a few seconds to get good and mad, and so I pulled my gun out of my shoulder bag and—”

“Your gun?” Thor seemed equally fascinated and horror-struck.

“Uh-huh. I’m licensed to carry a gun, although I don’t do so outside the States of course. It’s a forty-five automatic. I’ve found that nothing makes a potential burglar or mugger more nervous than a very small woman inexpertly waving about a very big gun.”

“Are you inexpert?”

“Of course not, but he didn’t know that.”

“Oh,” was all Thor could manage to say.

“Anyway, as soon as he saw the gun he dropped the pipe and started stuttering and shaking. I was cussing him up one side and down the other, and the madder I got, the more he shook—it was really very funny.”

“What happened?” Thor asked in the tone of a man who wasn’t quite sure he wanted to know.

“I treated him to a hamburger,” Pepper said gravely.

“You what?” Thor asked faintly.

“Well, he was hungry. We talked for a while, and then had a hamburger and talked some more. And then I took him with me to my friends’ house and he slept on the couch. By the time my plane left the next day, he had a job training horses at a local stable. His name is Henry, and I drop in to see him about once a year. He tells everyone within earshot the story of how we met, and says he has a little Nemesis that makes him keep to the straight and narrow.”

“I don’t believe it,” Thor murmured, staring at her.

“I don’t see why not. Henry wasn’t a very good mugger, but he turned into a first-rate trainer.”

“Matchmaker… and mender of lonely hearts.” Thor shook his head slightly. “Cal was right. You’re an enigma wrapped up in a puzzle surrounded by a mystery—followed by a question mark.”

“Cal said that?”

“Yes. After knowing you for ten years, he said that.”

Pepper attempted a laugh that didn’t quite come off. “I didn’t realize I was so complicated.”

“But you are.” The arm lying along the back of the couch moved, and his free hand brushed a strand of silver-blond hair away from her face. “You are.”

A subdued violence in her tone, she said suddenly, “But I don’t want to be! Not to you! Thor, I’m
not
complicated! I’m ordinary!”

“I knew you were prone to understatement the first time I saw that ‘van’ of yours,” he murmured with a tiny smile.

Pepper didn’t return the smile. Having finally abandoned the “game,” she never looked back. “I’m just a woman, Thor— no more and no less. Oh, sure, I’ve seen a lot of the world. I’ve seen things I hope to God I never see again, and I don’t suppose ladies carry guns or turn muggers into horse trainers, but that doesn’t mean I’m complicated. I laugh and cry and get
mad like other women, and—
dammit!
—what’s so complicated about that?”

Thor realized that she really wanted to know and he supposed that, from her point of view, she wasn’t complicated, but he didn’t quite know how to explain her uniqueness. Instead, he smiled suddenly and said, “Tell me your name.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “Didn’t you ask Cal?”

“I didn’t want to admit to ignorance.”

Pepper could feel Thor’s fingers moving gently at the nape of her neck, and while the little caress sent her nerves jangling, it was also oddly soothing. She smiled at him and took a deep breath before announcing, “Perdita Elizabeth Patricia Elaine Reynolds.”

Thor looked more than a little taken aback. “How much?”

A giggle escaped her. “There was a squabble over what to name the baby roughly twenty-eight years ago. My mother’s sister, Perdita Elizabeth, and my father’s sister, Patricia Elaine, both wanted the honor. They were both spinsters, and were mortal enemies from what I’ve heard; they both died while I was in my teens. The argument became so violent that my parents combined the names, literally flipping a coin to decide what came first.
Then
there was a threatened bloodbath over what to call me. One of my aunts—I don’t know which, since both later claimed the inspiration—realized that the first letter of each name, with an extra
P
arbitrarily added, spelled Pepper. I’ve been called that ever since.”

“Perdita,” Thor mused. “That’s not English.”

“No. Latin or Greek. It means ‘the lost one.’”

Thor stared laughing. “And you claim to be ordinary! Lord, Pepper, you’ve been unique from the moment of birth!”

Gazing into his smiling gray eyes, Pepper thought suddenly,
I’ve come home.
And there it was—the answer to the big question. Why him? Because she’d looked into those eyes, and
the gooseflesh and thudding heart had whispered
home.
She had known that she loved him; until then she hadn’t known why.

The restlessness that had tormented her for years seeped away in that moment. Before meeting him, she had tentatively planned to visit the Australian Outback during the winter and then see Venice in the spring. There was no hankering in her now to see either place.

Thor, his amusement fading away, saw something different in her violet eyes. A glow that was soft and deep and strangely mysterious. And it wasn’t until he heard his own voice speaking that he realized something inside himself recognized that look.

“I can’t ask you to break your rules,” he said huskily.

“You don’t have to.” Pepper felt herself smiling, and knew that there was nothing of defeat in it. “I want permanence, Thor. But I know how to live for today. It’ll be enough.”

“Will it?”

“It’ll have to be. Besides, I learned a long time ago that sometimes rules have to be broken. There’s just no other way of dealing with them.”

“Pepper—”

“Have you ever been seduced?” she asked seriously.

He blinked. “That’s … that’s a loaded question.”

“No, I mean, really. Have you ever been seduced?”

“No. No, I haven’t.”

Slipping her hand from his, she reached out with both to begin slowly and steadily unbuttoning his flannel shirt. “Well… there’s a first time for everything, or so they say.”

Thor was silent and still through three buttons, his eyes locked with hers. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” he breathed finally his hands catching her wrists in a gentle grip.

Pepper chose deliberately to misunderstand him. “Well, I
admit that it’s not something I’ve done before, but I’ve heard that every woman’s a harlot way down deep. I think that’s true; I don’t feel at all like myself at the moment.”

The hands on her wrists didn’t attempt to stop her as her fingers continued their task. Instead, they slid up her arms slowly until they came to rest on the delicate bones of her shoulders. His fingers moved slightly, and she could feel the warmth of them through her own flannel shirt.

Pepper’s fingers reached the button just above his belt and fumbled suddenly, becoming awkward and uncertain.
If he doesn’t help me out,
she thought a little wildly,
I’ll never forgive him!

Whether he sensed her sudden confusion or simply lost patience himself, Thor did help her out. With an odd rough sound that seemed to come from deep inside his chest, he pulled her abruptly against him, his mouth finding hers in a surge of compulsive need.

Her hands slid slowly up his chest, feeling the rough brush of the dark gold mat of hair and the tautening muscles beneath. All her senses came almost painfully alive, sharpened, keen. The tangy scent of his after-shave, the crackle of the fire in the hearth, the hot demand of his lips, the thudding rhythm of his heart, her heart—all filled her being.

She rose up on her knees against him, her fingers tangled in his thick copper-gold hair, her mouth returning fiery demand for fiery demand and adding a helpless plea. She felt her breasts swell and harden against his chest, felt the fierce possession of his hands sliding down her back to her hips. And a reckless, desperate need flooded her veins with molten fury

Thor’s lips finally left hers, and she allowed her eyes to drift open, feeling boneless as he rose and lifted her into his arms in one smooth motion. She kept her arms locked around his neck, gazing into the silvery sheen of his eyes for a long moment.

Then her arms tightened and she buried her face briefly in the crook of his neck. She felt his rough breath stirring the hair piled loosely on top of her head.

“Pepper…” His voice was hoarse, driven. “If you’re not sure…”

Her head lifted, violet eyes soft and impossibly deep. “Make love with me, Thor,” she whispered. “I need you.”

He kissed her briefly, his lips hard and possessive, then turned and carried her toward the stairs. As he started up them Pepper looked back over his shoulder and saw the dogs still in the den. Both pairs of canine eyes were watching their exit, but neither dog attempted to follow them.

How tactful, Pepper thought vaguely, then dismissed the dogs from her mind and concentrated on the feeling of being carried in a man’s arms—this man’s arms—as though she weighed nothing. Instead of feeling helpless, she felt strangely cared-for and cherished.