Second Nature: the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down

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.

Chapter Two

If writers were often considered odd, writers’ conferences, Lee was to discover, were oddities in themselves. They certainly couldn’t be considered quiet or organized or stuffy.

Like nearly every other of the two hundred or so participants, she stood in one of the dozen lines at 8:00 A.M. for registration. From the laughing and calling and embracing, it was obvious that many of the writers and would-be writers knew one another. There was an air of congeniality, shared knowledge and camaraderie. Overlaying it all was excitement.

Still, more than one member stood in the noisy lobby like a child lost in a shipwreck, clinging to a folder or briefcase as though it were a life preserver and staring about with awe or simple confusion. Lee could appreciate the feeling, though she looked calm and poised as she accepted her packet and pinned her badge to the mint-green lapel of her blazer.

Concentrating on the business at hand, she found a chair in a corner and skimmed the schedule for Hunter Brown’s workshop. With a dawning smile, she took out a pen and underlined.

CREATING HORROR THROUGH

ATMOSPHERE AND EMOTION

Speaker to be announced.

Bingo, Lee thought, capping her pen. She’d make certain she had a front-row seat. A glance at her watch showed her that she had three hours before Brown began to speak. Never one to take chances, she took out her notebook to skim over the questions she’d listed, while people filed by her or merely loitered, chatting.

“If I get rejected again, I’m going to put my head in the oven.”

“Your oven’s electric, Judy.”

“It’s the thought that counts.”

Amused, Lee began to listen to the passing comments with half an ear while she added a few more questions.

“And when they brought in my breakfast this morning, there was a five-hundred-page manuscript under my plate. I completely lost my appetite.”

“That’s nothing. I got one in my office last week written in calligraphy. One hundred and fifty thousand words of flowing script.”

Editors, she mused. She could tell them a few stories about some of the submissions that found their way to Celebrity.

“He said his editor hacked his first chapter to pieces so he’s going into mourning before the rewrites.”

“I always go into mourning before rewrites. It’s after a rejection that I seriously consider taking up basket weaving as a profession.”

“Did you hear Jeffries is here again trying to peddle that manuscript about the virgin with acrophobia and telekinesis? I can’t believe he won’t let it die a quiet death. When’s your next murder coming out?”

“In August. It’s poison.”

“Darling, that’s no way to talk about your work.”

As they passed by her, Lee caught the variety of tones, some muted, some sophisticated, some flamboyant. Gestures and conversations followed the same wide range. Amazed, she watched one man swoop by in a long, dramatic black cape.

Definitely an odd group, Lee thought, but she warmed to them. It was true she confined her skill to articles and profiles, but at heart she was a storyteller. Her position on the magazine had been hard-earned, and she’d built her world around it. For all her ambition, she had a firm fear of rejection that kept her own manuscript unfinished, buried in a drawer for weeks and sometimes months at a time. At the magazine, she had prestige, security and room for advancement. The weekly paycheck put the roof over her head, the clothes on her back and the food on her table.

If it hadn’t been so important that she prove she could do all this for herself, she might have taken the chance of sending those first hundred pages to a publishing house. But then… Shaking her head, Lee watched the people mill through the registration area, all types, all sizes, all ages. Clothes varied from trim professional suits to jeans to flamboyant caftans and smocks. Apparently style was a matter of taste and taste a matter of individuality. She wondered if she’d see quite the same variety anywhere else. Absently, she glanced at the partial manuscript she’d tucked into her briefcase. Just for cover, she reminded herself. That was all.

No, she didn’t believe she had it in her to be a great writer, but she knew she had the skill for great reporting. She’d never, never settle for being second-rate at anything.

Still, while she was here, it wouldn’t hurt to sit in on one or two of the seminars. She might pick up some pointers. More important, she told herself as she rose, she might be able to stretch this trip into another story on the ins and outs of a writers’ conference. Who attended, why, what they did, what they hoped for. Yes, it could make quite an interesting little piece. The job, after all, came first.

An hour later, a bit more enthusiastic than she wanted to be after her first workshop, she wandered into the coffee shop. She’d take a short break, assimilate the notes she’d written, then go back and make certain she had the best seat in the house for Hunter Brown’s lecture.

Hunter glanced up from his paper and watched her enter the coffee shop. Lee Radcliffe, he mused, finding her of more interest than the local news he’d been scanning. He’d enjoyed his conversation with her the day before, and as often as not, he found conversations tedious. She had a quality about her—an innate frankness glossed with sophistication—that he found intriguing enough to hold his interest. An obsessive writer who believed that the characters themselves were the plot of any book, Hunter always looked for the unique and the individual. Instinct told him Lee Radcliffe was quite an individual.

Unobserved, he watched her. From the way she looked absently around the room it was obvious she was preoccupied. The suit she wore was very simple but showed both style and taste in the color and cut. She was a woman who could wear the simple, he decided, because she was a woman who’d been born with style. If he wasn’t very much mistaken, she’d been born into wealth as well. There was always a subtle difference between those who were accustomed to money and those who’d spent years earning it.

So where did the nerves come from? he wondered. Curious, he decided it would be worth an hour of his time to try to find out.

Setting his paper aside, Hunter lit a cigarette and continued to stare at her, knowing there was no quicker way to catch someone’s eye.

Lee, thinking more about the story she was going to write than the coffee she’d come for, felt an odd tingle run up her spine. It was real enough to give her an urge to turn around and walk out again when she glanced over and found herself staring back at the man she’d met at the airport.

It was his eyes, she decided, at first not thinking of him as a man or the hotel driver from the previous day. It was his eyes. Dark, almost the color of jet, they’d draw you in and draw you in until you were caught, and every secret you’d ever had would be secret no longer. It was frightening. It was…irresistible.

Amazed that such a fanciful thought had crept into her own practical, organized mind, Lee approached him. He was just a man, she told herself, a man who worked for his living like any other man. There was certainly nothing to be frightened of.

“Ms. Radcliffe.” With the same unsmiling stare, he gestured to the chair across from him. “Buy you a cup of coffee?”

Normally she would’ve refused, politely enough. But now, for some intangible reason, Lee felt as though she had a point to prove. For the same intangible reason, she felt she had to prove it to him as much as to herself. “Thank you.” The moment she sat down, a waitress was there, pouring coffee.

“Enjoying the conference?”

“Yes.” Lee poured cream into the cup, stirring it around and around until a tiny whirlpool formed in the center. “As disorganized as everything seems to be, there was an amazing amount of information generated at the workshop I went to this morning.”

A smile touched his lips, so lightly that it was barely there at all. “You prefer organization?”

“It’s more productive.” Though he was dressed more formally than he’d been the day before, the pleated slacks and open-necked shirt were still casual. She wondered why he wasn’t required to wear a uniform. But then, she thought, you could put him in one of those nifty white jackets and neat ties and his eyes would simply defy them.

“A lot of fascinating things can come out of chaos, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps.” She frowned down at the whirlpool in her cup. Why did she feel as though she was being sucked in, in just that way? And why, she thought with a sudden flash of impatience, was she sitting here having a philosophical discussion with a stranger when she should be outlining the two stories she planned to write?

“Did you find Hunter Brown?” he asked her as he studied her over the rim of his cup. Annoyed with herself, he guessed accurately, and anxious to be off doing.

“What?” Distracted, Lee looked back up to find those strange eyes still on her.

“I asked if you’d run into Hunter Brown.” The whisper of a smile was on his lips again, and this time it touched his eyes as well. It didn’t make them any less intense.

“No.” Defensive without knowing why, Lee sipped at her cooling coffee. “Why?”

“After the things you said yesterday, I was curious what you’d think of him once you met him.” He took a drag from his cigarette and blew smoke out in a haze. “People usually have a preconceived image of someone but it rarely holds up in the flesh.”

“It’s difficult to have any kind of an image of someone who hides away from the world.”

His brow went up, but his voice remained mild. “Hides?”

“It’s the word that comes to my mind,” Lee returned, again finding that she was speaking her thoughts aloud to him. “There’s no picture of him on the back of any of his books, no bio. He never grants interviews, never denies or substantiates anything written about him. Any awards he’s received have been accepted by his agent or his editor.” She ran her fingers up and down the handle of her spoon. “I’ve heard he occasionally attends affairs like this, but only if it’s a very small conference and there’s no publicity about his appearance.”

All during her speech, Hunter kept his eyes on her, watching every nuance of expression. There were traces of frustration, he was certain, and of eagerness. The lovely cameo face was calm while her fingers moved restlessly. She’d be in his next book, he decided on the spot. He’d never met anyone with more potential for being a central character.

Because his direct, unblinking stare made her want to stammer, Lee gave him back the hard, uncompromising look. “Why do you stare at me like that?”

He continued to do so without any show of discomfort. “Because you’re an interesting woman.”

Another man might have said beautiful, still another might have said fascinating. Lee could have tossed off either one with light scorn. She picked up her spoon again, then set it down. “Why?”

“You have a tidy mind, innate style, and you’re a bundle of nerves.” He liked the way the faint line appeared between her brows when she frowned. It meant stubbornness to him, and tenacity. He respected both. “I’ve always been intrigued by pockets,” Hunter went on. “The deeper the better. I find myself wondering just what’s in your pockets, Ms. Radcliffe.”

She felt the tremor again, up her spine, then down. It wasn’t comfortable to sit near a man who could do that. She had a moment’s sympathy for every person she’d ever interviewed. “You have an odd way of putting things,” she muttered.

“So I’ve been told.”

She instructed herself to get up and leave. It didn’t make sense to sit there being disturbed by a man she could dismiss with a five-dollar tip. “What are you doing in Flagstaff?” she demanded. “You don’t strike me as someone who’d be content to drive back and forth to an airport day after day, shuttling passengers and hauling luggage.”

“Impressions make fascinating little paintings, don’t they?” He smiled at her fully, as he had the day before when she’d tipped him. Lee wasn’t sure why she’d felt he’d been laughing at her then, any more than why she felt he was laughing at her now. Despite herself, her lips curved in response. He found the smile a pleasant and very alluring surprise.

“You’re a very odd man.”

“I’ve been told that, too.” His smile faded and his eyes became intense again. “Have dinner with me tonight.”

The question didn’t surprise her as much as the fact that she wanted to accept, and nearly had. “No,” she said, cautiously retreating. “I don’t think so.”

“Let me know if you change your mind.”

She was surprised again. Most men would’ve pressed a bit. It was, well, expected, Lee reflected, wishing she could figure him out. “I have to get back.” She reached for her briefcase. “Do you know where the Canyon Room is?”

With an inward chuckle, he dropped bills on the table. “Yes, I’ll show you.”

“That’s not necessary,” Lee began, rising.

“I’ve got time.” He walked with her out of the coffee shop and into the wide, carpeted lobby. “Do you plan to do any sight-seeing while you’re here?”

“There won’t be time.” She glanced out one of the wide windows at the towering peak of Humphrey Peak. “As soon as the conference is over I have to get back.”

“To where?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Too many people,” Hunter said automatically. “Don’t you ever feel as though they’re using up your air?”

She wouldn’t have put it that way, would never have thought of it, but there were times she felt a twinge of what might be called claustrophobia. Still, her home was there, and more important, her work. “No. There’s enough air, such as it is, for everyone.”

“You’ve never stood at the south rim of the canyon and looked out, and breathed in.”

Again, Lee shot him a look. He had a way of saying things that gave you an immediate picture. For the second time, she regretted that she wouldn’t be able to take a day or two to explore some of the vastness of Arizona. “Maybe some other time.” Shrugging, she turned with him as he headed down a corridor to the right.