The Royal Hunter (9 page)

One of the helpers—Stella?—came out of the kennel building and headed his way. He groaned silently. Talia had told her employees that he and Baleweg were friends of Beatrice’s, the woman who’d left her that monstrosity of a house, as well as her livelihood as Patron Saint to Abandoned Beasties. He found a smile in that. So they were both paid saviors, of sorts.

“She’s coming along great, isn’t she?” Stella propped a boot up on the fence.

It took him a second to realize she was talking about the mare and not Talia. No one, including him, had been allowed access to her sessions with Baleweg. So he had no idea how she was coming along. Which had nothing whatsoever to do with his grotty mood. He couldn’t care less what she was up to in there, or how she was faring. Honestly, he
hardly even thought about her, except the way she had made his life a living, boring hell.

Stella was looking at him expectantly. He managed a noncommittal, “I suppose.”

“Talia was right to put her in with Old Sam. She needs to be with her own kind for a while, you know?”

The perkier and more animated Stella became, the older and crankier he felt. He didn’t belong in this pastoral setting where the only sound was the incessant buzzing of the flies. He wanted to be back in the city. At this point any city would do.

Stella leaned back against the fence, her attention moving from the horses to him, a speculative gleam in her eyes. Archer bit off the scowl, but kept his attention firmly on the horses. What was it about women, anyway? The more distant and uncommunicative a bloke got, the more interested they became in disturbing his peace. Talia being the main exception to that rule. Not that this annoyed him. Not a bit.

“She’s really something, isn’t she?” She waved to the grounds. “She built this herself, you know.”

“I thought she inherited the whole gig from the old la—er, Beatrice.”

Stella laughed, a high-pitched sound that grated on his already raw nerves. “Mrs. Fontaine took in strays, but she’d let them take over the house. I think at one time she had something like thirty cats and Lord knows what else living in there.”

Archer shuddered.

“The stables were here, but that was for the few riding horses she kept. Talia was the one who turned this place into a real rescue operation.” Stella smiled, but this time the warmth that filled her whole face was guileless and fully sincere. Archer wanted to tell her if she was interested in attracting boys, this was the smile she should hold on to.

Talia had chosen her help wisely. They held the same passions she did. But Talia was a puzzle. Passionate about her work, about the animals she saved, about the old people at the Lodge. But she lived alone. Other than the old cat he’d seen wandering about, she kept no animals in the house.

“She’s really worked miracles here,” Stella went on.

That caught his attention. “What kind of miracles?” Had Talia been holding out on him about her special skills?

“She finds good homes for all of her strays. They are never turned away or put down. It’s almost spooky how successful she is.”

“Spooky? In what way?”

Stella warmed to her subject. “Well, she works with rescue leagues and the Humane Society, even the pound. They send her their hopeless cases, animals they don’t want to put down but know they can’t find homes for.”

“And she fixes them up herself?”

“No, the vet does that. Ken’s a great guy, he helps her for cost.” She studied him, considering. “I sort of thought he might have a thing for her, you know?”

Archer was still focused on the healing, and he was a bit slow on the uptake. “A thing?”

She stared at him meaningfully. “She is single, you know.” Then she shrugged, the movement so calculated, Archer didn’t know whether to laugh or pat her on the head and send her home. “But Ken is a workaholic who wouldn’t know romance if it bit him on his butt.” She sighed then. “And a nice butt it is.”

Archer did smile now. “I’m sure,” he said, wondering what Talia thought of Dr. Ken’s butt. Not that it mattered one way or another. He managed to stop himself short of wondering what she might
think of his own backside. He cleared his throat. “What did you mean about spooky?”

“Oh. Well, it’s just that she saves so many of them. Even the hopelessly neurotic respond to her.” She shrugged and Archer wisely kept silent. “It’s the weirdest thing. It’s like stray animals seem to find her. They just show up. They wander out of the fields and stuff, like there’s some psychic animal network out there and they all know this is their mecca.”

Archer just looked at her blankly, then she leaned closer, her expression animated. “She just shrugs it off. Still, it’s odd. She’s devoted her whole life to them. She spends more time with animals than with people. She needs more friends, y’know?”

More like the animals call out to her and she feels their distress, he thought. Obviously Talia kept her empathic gifts a secret from her staff. Archer understood that empaths weren’t typical in this time. He looked around at what she’d done with her abilities and grudgingly admitted respect.

He knew how hard it was to be an outcast. He respected how hard it would have been for her to find her way, alone, with no one to guide her. He’d been alone longer than he could remember. And no one had ever stood by his side. Like Talia, he’d learned everything the hard way.

He thought Talia was doing okay. She’d sure earned Stella’s respect and admiration. Yet, he couldn’t stop thinking of her as a child, orphaned and alone in a time that didn’t understand her. “Yeah, I guess I do know.” He left Stella to her work, his thoughts all muddled as he approached the porch. Talia was supposed to be inside with Baleweg, but she was sitting on the swing, her gaze unseeing as she pushed her toe against the porch to make the swing rock.

Turn around and continue the recon assignment
, Archer told himself. He wasn’t one for entanglements or involving himself more than he had to. He should just leave and not push at things better left undisturbed. But Archer had long ago learned that he was biologically incapable of not pushing at boundaries.

He didn’t go so far as to climb the steps. He moved near the end of the porch where the swing was and leaned against an old shade tree. “Evening.”

She didn’t startle, so she must have seen him approach. Perhaps she’d even watched him as he talked with young Stella. But if she was interested in his activities, she didn’t show it. She nodded absently to his opening gambit.

Irritated without quite knowing why, he moved from the tree and drew closer to the railing. “Lessons all done for the day?”

She nodded again.

What had possessed him to try and be sociable with her, he had no idea. “Fine then, I’ll go back to my rounds.” He turned away. “Such as they are.”

“Wait.”

Archer didn’t normally respond well to demands, but he wanted to respond to hers. He said nothing as she rose and moved down the porch stairs toward him.

He was not controlled enough to keep from noticing how gracefully she moved. Even the baggy getup she wore didn’t disguise the innate elegance of her body. And he was fairly certain she was clueless about the graceful way she held herself, dignified and strong. As if she’d been born to serve at the feet of kings and queens.

Which, of course, she had.

“I’ll go with you,” she said. A command, not a request.

He fought a smile, wondering if she understood she had been born to serve royalty, not be royalty herself. “Will you, then?”

It was only when she drew closer that he noticed her expression was still distracted, that she wasn’t focused on him as much as her own thoughts. He was surprised to discover he was curious about what she might be thinking. That bothered him. Entanglements and all that. But not enough to sway him from prodding her a bit.

“Tough day in healing school?”

That earned him a full-on glare. “I just want to take a walk, okay?”

Archer stopped and waved an arm in front of him. “By all means, walk on. Just tell me in what direction Your Healing Highness desires to go and I will make certain that my lowly presence doesn’t cross her path and that danger doesn’t befall her.”

That finally seemed to snap her out of whatever state she was in. She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “Can you just walk and not talk at the same time?”

Maybe it was because she looked so damn contained and controlled when he felt anything but. Or maybe it was because he liked to stir things up, and Talia was available for the stirring. Whatever the case, he couldn’t resist the urge to crumble her façade. “I can do a lot of things very quietly.” When she didn’t move, much less back down, he stepped closer. “But experience has taught me it’s usually a lot more fun to be … expressive.”

She didn’t even blink. “Can you be … expressive silently?”

She didn’t respond to him like most women. Normally he found it quite easy to be charming and affable with members of the opposite sex. Never around her, however. He’d told himself it was the
situation, the mission. He wasn’t here to be charming. But that didn’t keep it from being damn frustrating. And okay, a little goading. He moved close enough that she was going to have to deal with him, one way or another.

“I can be amazingly silent.” He reached out and lifted the heavy strap of her overalls, tucking a finger or two beneath the edge. Slowly, as he stared into those translucent gray eyes of hers, he slid the backs of his fingers down along the edge, stopping a breath away from brushing the outer swell of her breast with his fingertips.

Her eyes darkened. That was the sum total of her response. No pulse ticking away at her temple, no hard swallow, no nostrils flaring. In fact, it was almost as if she’d gone into a trance or something, she was so focused. He found himself impossibly aroused by her control. And wanting to slip his fingers further beneath her overalls to see just how affected she truly was. And she was affected. Because she wasn’t pushing him away. His body hardened slowly and most pleasurably.

She held his gaze steadily, her gaze so intent he could feel it like an actual caress.

He moved closer, began leaning in, already imagining what those lips would taste like, when suddenly her eyes went wide and she stumbled away from him looking stricken. Archer glanced behind him, certain there was some immediate threat to her safety. Because no damn way was that reaction due to the kiss he’d almost taken from her. At least he couldn’t imagine it. She was sheltered out here, but not that sheltered.

His hand went immediately to his hip and he swore—would it have killed Baleweg to give him one simple little gazzer?—even as he turned to find there was nothing behind them. He swung back to her.
Her cheeks were flushed, but the rest of her face was stone white. Her eyes were glassy, but not with desire. It looked more like shock. And perhaps a little awe.

“What in the hell happened?”

“It worked,” she whispered, then covered her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she said into her hand, then dropped it and said the words again. “I did it.” She looked down at the ground, then at some point beyond him. “Jesus Christ, I actually did it!”

“What? What did you do?”

Then a sudden look of horror crossed her face as she looked at him. “Oh, my God. I did it with you!”

“What in the hell are you talking about? We didn’t do a damn thing!” Maybe he’d been wrong and she had been that sheltered. No, no way. He’d seen the look in her eyes, she knew what was what. So what in hell had just happened? There was no doubt he was involved somehow. But how?

“You,” she repeated, looking at him as if he’d just risen from hell or sprouted two heads. “Why in the world did it work with you? I’ve been trying for a dozen freaking hours with everyone under the sun and it ends up being
you?
Why?”

He had no idea what in the hell she was talking about, but he was pretty certain he was really insulted. “All I know is one second you’re all but daring me to, to … you know damn well what you were daring me to do! Then the next you’re leaping about like a cat on a hot sidewalk. What’s wrong with you?”

The shock left her eyes as suddenly as if a shield had dropped over them. The glassiness remained, however. She looked straight at him. “Everything is wrong with me,” she said flatly. Then without another word, she turned and walked back toward the house, leaving him behind without so much as a glance over her shoulder.

Jesus, Joseph, and Elvis, she was a royal pain in the arse. “What about our walk?”

She just waved a hand over her head. “You go on.”

But he didn’t want to go on. Not without her. Dammit, that wasn’t what he’d meant to think at all. It was just that he wanted to know what in God’s name had just happened. He’d been a participant in it, whatever it was, and somehow he’d managed to ruin whatever the hell it was she’d done, too.

“Hold up.” He actually had to run after her. “Could you wait just a damn minute?”

She finally stopped at the base of the steps, but she didn’t turn. When he tugged her around by the arm, she didn’t meet his gaze. He cupped her chin and dragged her gaze to his. “What happened back there, Talia?”

“I … I can’t explain. Not to you. I hardly understand it myself.”

Leave her alone, you idiot
.

And yet, for reasons he didn’t quite understand, he couldn’t do it. So he took her hand and turned back toward the pond, tugging her after him. “Come on.”

She tugged back. “Archer, really, I don’t want—”

He kept walking. “I promise, total silence. Just take a walk.” He looked over at her. “For once I’ll play bodyguard without getting all snakey about it, okay?”

She didn’t smile. If anything she seemed irritated. That was how he knew he’d said the right thing. The hollow, haunted look was gone. This was the Talia he’d come to know, all prickly and edgy. He still didn’t know what had happened, but somehow right then it didn’t seem to matter. He’d find out in due time.

She managed to tug her hand free, but fell into step beside him.

He hid his smile and headed on down the path.