Читать книгу Second Nature: the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down - Нора Робертс - Страница 7

The week a magazine like Celebrity went to bed was utter chaos. Every department head was in a frenzy. Desks were littered, phones were tied up and lunches were skipped. The air was tinged with a sense of panic that built with every hour. Tempers grew short, demands outrageous. In most offices the lights burned late into the night. The rich scent of coffee and the sting of tobacco smoke were never absent. Rolls of antacids were consumed and bottles of eye drops constantly changed hands. After five years on staff, Lee took the monthly panic as a matter of course.

Celebrity was a slick, respected publication whose sales generated millions of dollars a year. In addition to stories on the rich and famous, it ran articles by eminent psychologists and journalists, interviews with both statesmen and rock stars. Its photography was first-class, just as its text was thoroughly researched and concisely written. Some of its detractors might have termed it quality gossip, but the word quality wasn’t forgotten.

An ad in Celebrity was a sure bet for generating sales and interest and was priced accordingly. Celebrity was, in a tough competitive business, one of the leading monthly publications in the country. Lee Radcliffe wouldn’t have settled for less.

“How’d the piece on the sculptures turn out?”

Lee glanced up at Bryan Mitchell, one of the top photographers on the West Coast. Grateful, she accepted the cup of coffee Bryan passed her. In the past four days, she’d had a total of twenty hours sleep. “Good,” she said simply.

“I’ve seen better art scrawled in alleys.”

Though she privately agreed, Lee only shrugged. “Some people like the clunky and obscure.”

With a laugh, Bryan shook her head. “When they told me to photograph that red and black tangle of wire to its best advantage, I nearly asked them to shut off the lights.”

“You made it look almost mystical.”

“I can make a junkyard look mystical with the right lighting.” She shot Lee a grin. “The same way you can make it sound fascinating.”

A smile touched Lee’s mouth but her mind was veering off in a dozen other directions. “All in a day’s work, right?”

“Speaking of which—” Bryan rested one slim jean-clad hip on Lee’s organized desk, drinking her own coffee black. “Still trying to dig something up on Hunter Brown?”

A frown drew Lee’s elegant brows together. Hunter Brown was becoming her personal quest and almost an obsession. Perhaps because he was so completely inaccessible, she’d become determined to be the first to break through the cloud of mystery. It had taken her nearly five years to earn her title as staff reporter, and she had a reputation for being tenacious, thorough and cool. Lee knew she’d earned those adjectives. Three months of hitting blank walls in researching Hunter Brown didn’t deter her. One way or the other, she was going to get the story.

“So far I haven’t gotten beyond his agent’s name and his editor’s phone number.” There might’ve been a hint of frustration in her tone, but her expression was determined. “I’ve never known people so closemouthed.”

“His latest book hit the stands last week.” Absently, Bryan picked up the top sheet from one of the tidy piles of papers Lee was systematically dealing with. “Have you read it?”

“I picked it up, but I haven’t had a chance to start it yet.”

Bryan tossed back the long honey-colored braid that fell over her shoulder. “Don’t start it on a dark night.” She sipped at her coffee, then gave a laugh. “God, I ended up sleeping with every light in the apartment burning. I don’t know how he does it.”

Lee glanced up again, her eyes calm and confident. “That’s one of the things I’m going to find out.”

Bryan nodded. She’d known Lee for three years, and she didn’t doubt Lee would. “Why?” Her frank, almond-shaped eyes rested on Lee’s.

“Because—” Lee finished off her coffee and tossed the empty cup into her overflowing wastebasket “—no one else has.”

“The Mount Everest syndrome,” Bryan commented, and earned a rare, spontaneous grin.

A quick glance would have shown two attractive women in casual conversation in a modern, attractively decorated office. A closer look would have uncovered the contrasts. Bryan, in jeans and a snug T-shirt, was completely relaxed. Everything about her was casual and not quite tidy, from her smudged sneakers to the loose braid. Her sharp-featured, arresting face was touched only with a hasty dab of mascara. She’d probably meant to add lipstick or blusher and then forgotten.

Lee, on the other hand, wore a very elegant ice-blue suit, and the nerves that gave her her drive were evident in the hands that were never quite still. Her hair was expertly cut in a short swinging style that took very little care—which was every bit as important to her as having it look good. Its shade fell somewhere between copper and gold. Her skin was the delicate, milky white some redheads bless and others curse. Her makeup had been meticulously applied that morning, down to the dusky blue shadow that matched her eyes. She had delicate, elegant features offset by a full and obviously stubborn mouth.

The two women had entirely different styles and entirely different tastes but oddly enough, their friendship had begun the moment they’d met. Though Bryan didn’t always like Lee’s aggressive tactics and Lee didn’t always approve of Bryan’s laid-back approach, their closeness hadn’t wavered in three years.

“So.” Bryan found the candy bar she’d stuck in her jeans pocket and proceeded to unwrap it. “What’s your master plan?”

“To keep digging,” Lee returned almost grimly. “I do have a couple of connections at Horizon, his publishing house. Maybe one of them’ll come through with something.” Without being fully aware of it, she drummed her fingers on the desk. “Damn it, Bryan, he’s like the man who wasn’t there. I can’t even find out what state he lives in.”

“I’m half inclined to believe some of the rumors,” Bryan said thoughtfully. Outside Lee’s office someone was having hysterics over the final editing of an article. “I’d say the guy lives in a cave somewhere, full of bats with a couple of stray wolves thrown in. He probably writes the original manuscript in sheep’s blood.”

“And sacrifices virgins every new moon.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Bryan swung her feet lazily while she munched on her chocolate bar. “I tell you the man’s weird.”

“Silent Scream’s already on the bestseller list.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t brilliant,” Bryan countered, “I said he was weird. What kind of a mind does he have?” She shook her head with a half-sheepish smile. “I can tell you I wished I’d never heard of Hunter Brown last night while I was trying to sleep with my eyes open.”

“That’s just it.” Impatient, Lee rose and paced to the tiny window on the east wall. She wasn’t looking out; the view of Los Angeles didn’t interest her. She just had to move around. “What kind of mind does he have? What kind of life does he live? Is he married? Is he sixty-five or twenty-five? Why does he write novels about the supernatural?” She turned, her impatience and her annoyance showing beneath the surface of the sophisticated grooming. “Why did you read his book?”

“Because it was fascinating,” Bryan answered immediately. “Because by the time I was on page 3, I was so into it you couldn’t have gotten the book away from me with a crowbar.”

“And you’re an intelligent woman.”

“Damn right,” Bryan agreed and grinned. “So?”

“Why do intelligent people buy and read something that’s going to terrify them?” Lee demanded. “When you pick up a Hunter Brown, you know what it’s going to do to you, yet his books consistently spring to the top of the bestseller list and stay there. Why does an obviously intelligent man write books like that?” She began, in a habit Bryan recognized, to fiddle with whatever was at hand—the leaves of a philodendron, the stub of a pencil, the left earring she’d removed during a phone conversation.

“Do I hear a hint of disapproval?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Frowning, Lee looked up again. “The man is probably the best colorist in the country. If he’s describing a room in an old house, you can smell the dust. His characterizations are so real you’d swear you’d met the people in his books. And he uses that talent to write about things that go bump in the night. I want to find out why.”

Bryan crumpled her candy wrapper into a ball. “I know a woman who has one of the sharpest, most analytical minds I’ve ever come across. She has a talent for digging up obscure facts, some of them impossibly dry, and turning them into intriguing stories. She’s ambitious, has a remarkable talent for words, but works on a magazine and lets a half-finished novel sit abandoned in a drawer. She’s lovely, but she rarely dates for any purpose other than business. And she has a habit of twisting paper clips into ungodly shapes while she’s talking.”

Lee glanced down at the small mangled piece of metal in her hands, then met Bryan’s eyes coolly. “Do you know why?”

There was a hint of humor in Bryan’s eyes, but her tone was serious enough. “I’ve tried to figure it out for three years, but I can’t precisely put my finger on it.”

With a smile, Lee tossed the bent paper clip into the trash. “But then, you’re not a reporter.”

Because she wasn’t very good at taking advice, Lee switched on her bedside lamp, stretched out and opened Hunter Brown’s latest novel. She would read a chapter or two, she decided, then make it an early night. An early night was an almost sinful luxury after the week she’d put in at Celebrity.

Her bedroom was done in creamy ivories and shades of blue from the palest aqua to indigo. She’d indulged herself here, with dozens of plump throw pillows, a huge Turkish rug and a Queen Anne stand that held an urn filled with peacock feathers and eucalyptus. Her latest acquisition, a large ficus tree, sat by the window and thrived.

She considered this room the only truly private spot in her life. As a reporter, Lee accepted that she was public property as much as the people she sought out. Privacy wasn’t something she could cling to when she constantly dug into other people’s lives. But in this little corner of the world, she could relax completely, forget there was work to do, ladders to climb. She could pretend L.A. wasn’t bustling outside, as long as she had this oasis of peace. Without it, without the hours she spent sleeping and unwinding there, she knew she’d overload.

Knowing herself well, Lee understood that she had a tendency to push too hard, run too fast. In the quiet of her bedroom she could recharge herself each night so that she’d be ready for the race again the following day.

Relaxed, she opened Hunter Brown’s latest effort.

Within a half hour, Lee was disturbed, uncomfortable and completely engrossed. She’d have been angry with the author for drawing her in if she hadn’t been so busy turning pages. He’d put an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation and done it with such skill that Lee was already relating to the teacher who’d found himself caught up in a small town with a dark secret.

The prose flowed and the dialogue was so natural she could hear the voices. He filled the town with so many recognizable things, she could have sworn she’d been there herself. She knew the story was going to give her more than one bad moment in the dark, but she had to go on. That was the magic of a major storyteller. Cursing him, she read on, so tense that when the phone rang beside her, the book flew out of her hands. Lee swore again, at herself, and lifted the receiver.

Her annoyance at being disturbed didn’t last. Grabbing a pencil, she began to scrawl on the pad beside the phone. With her tongue caught between her teeth, she set down the pencil and smiled. She owed the contact in New York an enormous favor, but she’d pay off when the time came, as she always did. For now, Lee thought, running her hand over Hunter’s book, she had to make arrangements to attend a small writers’ conference in Flagstaff, Arizona.

She had to admit the country was impressive. As was her habit, Lee had spent the time during the flight from L.A. to Phoenix working, but once she’d changed to the small commuter plane for the trip to Flagstaff, her work had been forgotten. She’d flown through thin clouds over a vastness almost impossible to conceive after the skyscrapers and traffic of Los Angeles. She’d looked down on the peaks and dips and castlelike rocks of Oak Creek Canyon, feeling a drumming excitement that was rare in a woman who wasn’t easily impressed. If she’d had more time…

Lee sighed as she stepped off the plane. There was never time enough.

The tiny airport boasted a one-room lobby with a choice of concession stand or soda and candy machines. No loudspeaker announced incoming and outgoing flights. No skycap bustled up to her to relieve her of her bags. There wasn’t a line of cabs waiting outside to compete for the handful of people who’d disembarked. With her garment bag slung over her shoulder, she frowned at the inconvenience. Patience wasn’t one of her virtues.

Tired, hungry and inwardly a little frazzled by the shaky commuter flight, she stepped up to one of the counters. “I need to arrange for a car to take me to town.”

The man in shirtsleeves and loosened tie stopped pushing buttons on his computer. His first polite glance sharpened when he saw her face. She reminded him of a cameo his grandmother had worn at her neck on special occasions. Automatically he straightened his shoulders. “Did you want to rent a car?”

Lee considered that a moment, then rejected it. She hadn’t come to do any sight-seeing, so a car would hardly be worthwhile. “No, just transportation into Flagstaff.” Shifting her bag, she gave him the name of her hotel. “Do they have a courtesy car?”

“Sure do. You go on over to that phone by the wall there. Number’s listed. Just give ’em a call and they’ll send someone out.”

“Thank you.”

He watched her walk to the phone and thought he was the one who should have said thank-you.

Lee caught the scent of grilling hot dogs as she crossed the room. Since she’d turned down the dubious tray offered on the flight, the scent had her stomach juices swimming. Quickly and efficiently, she dialed the hotel, gave her name and was assured a car would be there within twenty minutes. Satisfied, she bought a hot dog and settled in one of the black plastic chairs to wait.

She was going to get what she’d come for, Lee told herself almost fiercely as she looked out at the distant mountains. The time wasn’t going to be wasted. After three months of frustration, she was finally going to get a first hand look at Hunter Brown.

It had taken skill and determination to persuade her editor-in-chief to spring for the trip, but it would pay off. It had to. Leaning back, she reviewed the questions she’d ask Hunter Brown once she’d cornered him.

All she needed, Lee decided, was an hour with him. Sixty minutes. In that time, she could pull out enough information for a concise, and very exclusive, article. She’d done precisely that with this year’s Oscar winner, though he’d been reluctant, and a presidential candidate, though he’d been hostile. Hunter Brown would probably be both, she decided with a half smile. It would only add spice. If she’d wanted a bland, simple life, she’d have bent under the pressure and married Jonathan. Right now she’d be planning her next garden party rather than calculating how to ambush an award-winning writer.

Lee nearly laughed aloud. Garden parties, bridge parties and the yacht club. That might have been perfect for her family, but she’d wanted more. More what? her mother had demanded, and Lee could only reply, Just more.

Checking her watch, she left her luggage neatly stacked by the chair and went into the ladies’ room. The door had hardly closed behind her when the object of all her planning strolled into the lobby.

He didn’t often do good deeds, and then only for people he had a genuine affection for. Because he’d gotten into town with time to spare, Hunter had driven to the airport with the intention of picking up his editor. With barely a glance around, he walked over to the same counter Lee had approached ten minutes before.

“Flight 471 on time?”

“Yes, sir, got in ten minutes ago.”

“Did a woman get off?” Hunter glanced at the nearly empty lobby again. “Attractive, mid-twenties—”

“Yes, sir,” the clerk interrupted. “She just stepped into the rest room. That’s her luggage over there.”

“Thanks.” Satisfied, Hunter walked over to Lee’s neat stack of luggage. Doesn’t believe in traveling light, he noticed, scanning the garment bag, small Pullman and briefcase. Then, what woman did? Hadn’t his Sarah taken two suitcases for the brief three-day stay with his sister in Phoenix? Strange that his little girl should be two parts woman already. Perhaps not so strange, Hunter reflected. Females were born two parts woman, while males took years to grow out of boyhood—if they ever did. Perhaps that’s why he trusted men a great deal more.

Lee saw him when she came back into the lobby. His back was to her, so that she had only the impression of a tall, leanly built man with black hair curling carelessly down to the neck of his T-shirt. Right on time, she thought with satisfaction, and approached him.

“I’m Lee Radcliffe.”

When he turned, she went stone-still, the impersonal smile freezing on her face. In the first instant, she couldn’t have said why. He was attractive—perhaps too attractive. His face was narrow but not scholarly, raw-boned but not rugged. It was too much a combination of both to be either. His nose was straight and aristocratic, while his mouth was sculpted like a poet’s. His hair was dark and full and unruly, as though he’d been driving fast for hours with the wind blowing free. But it wasn’t these things that caused her to lose her voice. It was his eyes.

She’d never seen eyes darker than his, more direct, more…disturbing. It was as though they looked through her. No, not through, Lee corrected numbly. Into. In ten seconds, they had looked into her and seen everything.

He saw a stunning, milk-pale face with dusky eyes gone wide in astonishment. He saw a soft, feminine mouth, lightly tinted. He saw nerves. He saw a stubborn chin and molten copper hair that would feel like silk between the fingers. What he saw was an outwardly poised, inwardly tense woman who smelled like spring evenings and looked like a Vogue cover. If it hadn’t been for that inner tension, he might have dismissed her, but what lay beneath people’s surfaces always intrigued him.

He skimmed her neat traveling suit so quickly his eyes might never have left hers. “Yes?”

“Well, I…” Forced to swallow, she trailed off. That alone infuriated her. She wasn’t about to be set off into stammers by a driver for the hotel. “If you’ve come to pick me up,” Lee said curtly, “you’ll need to get my bags.”

Lifting a brow, he said nothing. Her mistake was simple and obvious. It would have taken only a sentence from him to correct it. Then again, it was her mistake, not his. Hunter had always believed more in impulses than explanations. Bending down, he picked up the Pullman, then slung the strap of the garment bag over his shoulder. “The car’s out here.”

She felt a great deal more secure with the briefcase in her hand and his back to her. The oddness, Lee told herself, had come from excitement and a long flight. Men never surprised her; they certainly never made her stare and stammer. What she needed was a bath and something a bit more substantial to eat than that hot dog.

The car he’d referred to wasn’t a car, she noted, but a Jeep. Supposing this made sense, with the steep roads and hard winters, Lee climbed in.

Moves well, he thought, and dresses flawlessly. He noted too that she bit her nails. “Are you from the area?” Hunter asked conversationally when he’d stowed her bags in the back.

“No. I’m here for the writers’ conference.”

Hunter climbed in beside her and shut the door. Now he knew where to take her. “You’re a writer?”

She thought of the two chapters of her manuscript she’d brought along in case she needed a cover. “Yes.”

Hunter swung through the parking lot, taking the back road that led to the highway. “What do you write?”

Settling back, Lee decided she might as well try her routine out on him before she was in the middle of two hundred published and aspiring writers. “I’ve done articles and some short stories,” she told him truthfully enough. Then she added what she’d rarely told anyone. “I’ve started a novel.”

With a speed that surprised but didn’t unsettle her, he burst onto the highway. “Are you going to finish it?” he asked, showing an insight that disturbed her.

“I suppose that depends on a lot of things.”

He took another careful look at her profile. “Such as?”

She wanted to shift in her seat but forced herself to be still. This was just the sort of question she might have to answer over the weekend. “Such as if what I’ve done so far is any good.”

He found both her answer and her discomfort reasonable. “Do you go to many of these conferences?”

“No, this is my first.”

Which might account for the nerves, Hunter mused, but he didn’t think he’d found the entire answer.

“I’m hoping to learn something,” Lee said with a small smile. “I registered at the last minute, but when I learned Hunter Brown would be here, I couldn’t resist.”

The frown in his eyes came and went too quickly to be noticed. He’d agreed to do the workshop only because it wouldn’t be publicized. Even the registrants wouldn’t know he’d be there, until the following morning. Just how, he wondered, had the little redhead with the Italian shoes and midnight eyes found out? He passed a truck. “Who?”

“Hunter Brown,” Lee repeated. “The novelist.”

Impulse took over again. “Is he any good?”

Surprised, Lee turned to study his profile. It was infinitely easier to look at him, she discovered, when those eyes weren’t focused on her. “You’ve never read any of his work?”

“Should I have?”

“I suppose that depends on whether you like to read with all the lights on and the doors locked. He writes horror fiction.”

If she’d looked more closely, she wouldn’t have missed the quick humor in his eyes. “Ghouls and fangs?”

“Not exactly,” she said after a moment. “Not that simple. If there’s something you’re afraid of, he’ll put it into words and make you wish him to the devil.”

Hunter laughed, greatly pleased. “So, you like to be scared?”

“No,” Lee said definitely.

“Then why do you read him?”

“I’ve asked myself that when I’m up at 3:00 A.M. finishing one of his books.” Lee shrugged as the Jeep slowed for the turn-off. “It’s irresistible. I think he must be a very odd man,” she murmured, half to herself. “Not quite, well, not quite like the rest of us.”

“Do you?” After a quick, sharp turn, he pulled up in front of the hotel, more interested in her than he’d planned to be. “But isn’t writing just words and imagination?”

“And sweat and blood,” she added, moving her shoulders again. “I just don’t see how it could be very comfortable to live with an imagination like Brown’s. I’d like to know how he feels about it.”

Amused, Hunter jumped out of the Jeep to retrieve her bags. “You’re going to ask him.”

“Yes.” Lee stepped down. “I am.”

For a moment, they stood on the sidewalk, silently. He looked at her with what might have been mild interest, but she sensed something more—something she shouldn’t have felt from a hotel driver after a ten-minute acquaintance. For the second time she wanted to shift and made herself stand still. Wasting no more words, Hunter turned toward the hotel, her bags in hand.

It didn’t occur to Lee until she was following him inside that she’d had a nonstop conversation with a hotel driver, a conversation that hadn’t dwelt on the usual pleasantries or tourist plugs. As she watched him walk to the desk, she felt an aura of cool confidence from him and traces, very subtle traces, of arrogance. Why was a man like this driving back and forth and getting nowhere? she wondered. Stepping up to the desk, she told herself it wasn’t her concern. She had bigger fish to fry.

“Lenore Radcliffe,” she told the clerk.

“Yes, Ms. Radcliffe.” He handed her a form and imprinted her credit card before he passed her a key. Before she could take it, Hunter slipped it into his own hand. It was then she noticed the odd ring on his pinky, four thin bands of gold and silver twisted into one.

“I’ll take you around,” he said simply, then crossed through the lobby with her again in his wake. He wound through a corridor, turned left, then stopped. Lee waited while he unlocked the door and gestured her inside.

The room was on the garden level with its own patio, she was pleased to note. As she scanned the room, Hunter carelessly switched on the TV and flipped through the channels before he checked the air conditioner. “Just call the desk if you need anything else,” he advised, stowing her garment bag in the closet.

“Yes, I will.” Lee hunted through her purse and came up with a five. “Thank you,” she said, holding it out.

His eyes met hers again, giving her that same frozen jolt they had in the airport. She felt something stir deep within but wasn’t sure if it was trying to reach out to him or struggling to hide. The fingers holding the bill nearly trembled. Then he smiled, so quickly, so charmingly, she was speechless.

“Thank you, Ms. Radcliffe.” Without a blink, Hunter pocketed the five dollars and strolled out.