“Get used to the view,” Jeopard told her. He took his end of her chain to a stout young maple tree growing by the cave’s entrance. There he knelt and padlocked the chain into place.
The chain was easily thirty feet long, so Tess could walk to the center of the cave or well outside the entrance. But it was a short tether, considering her humiliation and anger.
She sat down on a rocky outcropping and stared into the distance, her back aching with the attempt to maintain her dignity, her thoughts turbulent. Jeopard refused to believe her story about the blue diamond, he claimed to be on her side, and yet he intended to keep her chained in a cave, at his beck and call.
And he’d said that he loved her.
“Here. Make yourself useful. Blow up these air mattresses.”
Jeopard dropped a heap of plastic and a bicycle pump onto the ground in front of her, then walked away. Her mouth clamped tightly shut, Tess went to work.
While she was inflating the first mattress, angrily stamping the foot pump, Drake came over and laid a large canvas bag beside her.
“Things for you,” he explained. “Jeopard told me to get them.”
Tess stared at the bag, wary of Jeopard’s continuing attempts at kindness. She hated the wistful, eager way her pulse jumped.
She started to open the bag, caught Jeopard watching her with a cool, slit-eyed expression, and changed her mind. Curiosity would make her vulnerable. After all, she’d never have gotten into this mess if she hadn’t been curious about an enigmatic stranger who had trouble docking his yacht.
She shoved the bag with her foot and went back to pumping up the air mattresses.
When Drake and Jeopard finished setting everything up she had her own territory on the left side of the cave. Tess arranged a pillow and sleeping bag on her air mattress and sat down.
She watched them fiddle with elite camping gear-powerful lanterns, a small kerosene-powered grill, buckets, pots, skillets, and a dozen other items.
“My apartment isn’t this well furnished,” Jeopard quipped.
He put his mattress on the opposite side of the cave, fixed a campfire site in the center, then came to her and gestured with one finger. “Up. Test time.”
She raged inwardly when she realized what he meant. He led her to the end of her chain, then moved gear around to make certain she couldn’t reach it.
“Afraid I’ll attack you with a spatula?” she asked grimly.
“Frankly, yes, War Woman.”
Drake set a CB radio on Jeopard’s side of the cave and ran a long cable to an antenna outside. “Six P.M. every day,” he called.
“I’ll be listening.”
Tess went back to her side of the cave and sat down. “Exactly how long are we going to be here?”
“As long as it takes. Look at it as a native cultural experience. Cherokees may have hidden in this cave a hundred and fifty years ago.”
“I doubt they had CB radios.”
She touched her voluminous jeans and shirt. They were hot and uncomfortable. “What am I supposed to wear?”
“Anything you want. Go naked. I could use the entertainment.”
“Perhaps you can amuse yourself by throwing rocks at small animals or pulling the wings off of insects.”
“I think I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone,” Drake interjected. “I’m not a good referee.” He mounted his horse and tipped a hand to his forehead in salute to Jeopard. “And you thought the Russians were tough.”
Jeopard glanced drolly at Tess. “I know how Custer felt.”
Russians? Tess was intrigued, but refused to ask for an explanation.
A sense of foreboding filled her as Drake rode away, leading the other three horses. When the forest swallowed him up, it was as if he’d never existed. She and Jeopard were alone, and the cave seemed awfully small and quiet.
His back to her. Jeopard knelt by a bag, unzipped it, and rummaged inside.
“What now?” she asked in a weary voice.
“Drake says there’s a big creek not far from here.” He stood and turned to face her. He carried towels and a bar of soap. He smiled pleasantly. “I’d say we both need a bath.”
IT WASN’T JUST a creek, it was a natural work of art, with a ten-foot waterfall that bubbled over a granite ledge into a shallow pool.
If she hadn’t been so upset, she would have sighed with awe. Tess sat down on a flat boulder by the pool and hugged her knees.
“I have no desire to bathe while you watch,” she told Jeopard.
He chained her to a nearby tree. “You spent the better part of a week naked in my bed. There’s no reason for you to be modest with me now.”
She stared into the shimmering pool while a knot of bittersweet pain grew inside her. “That was different,” she murmured. “I wasn’t ashamed of loving you then.”
He slowly sat down beside her, The air seemed to crackle with emotion. “You’re ashamed now?” he asked in a husky voice.
“Yes.”
Tess looked at him. A muscle flexed in his jaw, and his eyes were shadowed, but he looked more regretful than angry. She could have sworn that he was struggling with deep sorrow.
“Take a bath, Tess,” he finally said, his voice tired. “I won’t try to make love to you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
He turned away and stripped off his clothes. Tess watched, strange emotions gnawing at her as he revealed his body without inhibition.
Jeopard took the bar of soap and stepped into the pool, his back to her. “Are you coming in?”
“Is this the only chance I’ll have to wash?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” she said in a defeated tone. Tess removed her clothes and slid into the water, then turned her back and sank down until the water covered her to the shoulders.
She heard Jeopard splash water on himself and wanted to cry at the memory of running her hands over his body, of touching him everywhere, of pleasing him in every way a woman could please a man.
“Why did you want me to fall in love with you?” she asked in a tear-soaked voice. “Was I so easy and foolish that you couldn’t resist?”
“It was the other way around. I couldn’t resist you.”
She shut her eyes. Stop lying to me, Jeopard. “But you stole from me.”
“And after I turned the diamond over to its rightful owner, I planned to come back to Long Beach and tell you why I’d done it.”
“You did it for money. Someone paid you. How much?”
He hesitated for a second. “Twenty thousand dollars to my brother and me. We work together.”
She gasped. “Who wanted the diamond that badly?”
She heard sloshing noises. The water undulated around her. Suddenly Jeopard touched her shoulder. Tess jumped.
“The soap,” he said brusquely, and let it slip down her chest.
Trying to control her voice, she asked again, “Who wanted the diamond?”
He told her about Olaf Starheim, the Duke of Kara.
“But why would he want to kill me?”
Again Jeopard touched her. She wanted to withdraw, but couldn’t make herself do it. He ran his hand back and forth across her shoulders, massaging her.
“You tell me,” he murmured. “Tell me, and let’s go on with our relationship.”
Tess’s momentary languor dissolved in anger. She moved away from him and said tautly, “I won’t forget what you are and what you really want from me.”
“Just the truth.”
Tess dropped the soap in the water and buried her face in her hands. “I’ve told you. You don’t believe me. You’re hopeless. I don’t understand you. I don’t really know who you are.”
“I’m not sure myself these days,” he said bitterly.
“You frighten me. I don’t feel safe with you.”
“Tess. That’s the one thing you shouldn’t doubt.”
“Fine words from a con artist.”
His voice was more anguished then angry. “You’
re awfully arrogant for a jewel thief.”
Tess grabbed the soap, twisted around, and threw it at him. He caught it just in time to keep from being hit in the head. Slowly, his eyes taunting her, he smiled.
“I’m definitely keeping the spatula away from you.”
IF HE’D COUNTED the times she spoke to him during the next few days, he doubted they’d have come to more than a dozen. She withdrew into a silent, wary world, doing what he told her to do, asking quietly when she needed something, but otherwise ignoring him.
The one time he saw excitement and pleasure in her eyes was when she opened her canvas bag and found all the books and pamphlets he’d instructed Drake to buy for her at the museum on the Cherokee reservation, which wasn’t far from the Nantahala area.
“I thought you’d enjoy them,” Jeopard told her.
She clasped a book titled Myths and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees to her chest and drew herself up regally. “What do you want in return?”
He glared at her as if she’d just slapped him, then went outside the cave and stayed until nightfall. Had he lost her entirely? She was so bitter that there wasn’t any point in talking to her just then. The knowledge that she found him repulsive tore at his soul.
When he returned she was poring over the book of myths and formulas, and he had the disturbing notion that she was searching for some incantation to do him harm.
DRAKE CAME BACK a week later, bringing supplies, smaller clothes and more books for Tess, and a packet from Kyle.
“He’s been researching Kara,” Drake explained. “He thought you’d like to see what he found, even though it’s nothing exciting.”
That night, as Tess stirred a pot of soup over the campfire and a gas lantern cast sharp shadows on the cave’s walls. Jeopard opened the packet and began reading photocopies of articles about Kara.
“Kara is only a short flight from Sweden.” Tess spoke in a rare break from her habitual silence. “I went there many times on vacation. It’s a Scandinavian version of Monaco. Tiny and expensive.”
“Lots of ski resorts and casinos, it says here.”
“A beautiful little country. It’s an island, you know, between Sweden and Denmark. The royal palace is a fairy-tale place on a mountaintop that overlooks the North Sea.”
“What I can’t understand is how monarchies survive in the modern world.”
“The people loved the king and queen. I remember when the king died—I must have been about twelve—I was visiting Grandmother and Grandfather in Stockholm. Grandfather, being a member of the Swedish parliament, went to the funeral as a matter of courtesy. Grandmother and I went with him. I’ll never forget the people I met. They were sincerely grief-stricken over the king’s death. And they adored the queen.”
“Too bad nobody likes the king and queen’s nephew. Olaf has apparently been waiting all his adult life for the queen to pop off, so he could take over, and nobody’s happy about his claim to the throne.”
“So recapturing my diamond will win him some brownie points?”
“It’s not your diamond.”
“And killing me might win him more?” she continued pertly. “Tell me, if Olaf had approached you for that job, how much would you have charged?”
Jeopard struggled to keep from beating one fist against the cave floor. “I don’t kill people for pay. That’s the last time I’m going to say it.”
“Why do you kill people?”
“If they’re trying to kill me or someone I’m responsible for protecting. And I’m retired from that line of work. I’m just a plain, ordinary private investigator now.”
“Hmmm. I see. My father had no respect for PIs. He said they spend their time peeking through keyholes.”
“I’m not quite that disgusting,” Jeopard told her drolly. “I peek through keyholes, but only for big corporations and governments. I peek through important keyholes.”
“And con innocent people out of their possessions.”
Jeopard ground his teeth. She was retaliating for all that he’d put her through, and she obviously wasn’t afraid of him anymore, or she wouldn’t be so cocky. At least that was good.
“What else would you like to know about Kara?” she asked innocently, still stirring the soup.
“Why you wanted to keep one of the more mediocre royal diamonds. Why not steal something worth more?”
She didn’t say another word to him.
TESS WOKE TO a strange snuffling sound. She propped herself on one elbow and stared into the moonlight outside the cave’s entrance. Leaves and twigs crunched under ponderous feet.
She tugged at her chain. Jeopard could run. She couldn’t. Tess made a small fearful sound.
“Sssh, I’m here,” Jeopard whispered in the darkness.
Tess realized that he had slipped across the cave to her. He lay down on his stomach beside her. She caught a glimmer of steel in his hand and realized that he held one of the several guns Drake had supplied.
He pressed a tiny piece of metal into her palm. “Open your padlock.”
Surprised, she fumbled with it, but finally got the lock undone. The chain fell in a heap on the air mattress.
“Come here.” He put an arm around her and pulled her close to his side, shielding her with his body. Tess clutched his warm, hard waist and realized that he wore nothing but briefs.
The night was muggy, and she’d slipped off her T-shirt, so that she wore only her panties. Fear made her ignore that fact as she pressed herself to him and peered over his shoulder.
A huge, dark shape lumbered into view and stopped at the entrance to the cave.
“Bear!” she whispered.
“I know you are,” he whispered back in a voice choked with relief and amusement. “I can feel both of your breasts against my side. Your nipples are hard.”
The situation was too unsettling to allow her to think straight. She tweaked his back in playful rebuke. “What if it comes into the cave?”
“Know any Cherokee formulas that basically say, ‘Get away from me, you big monster’?”
“No! The Cherokees had a lot of affection and respect for bears!”
“Lovely. Just lovely. Cover your ears.”
Tess barely had time to clap her hands over her head before Jeopard fired the pistol. A tremendous reverberation rolled through the cave. The bear bolted into the night.
Her chest heaving, Tess grabbed Jeopard’s forearm. “You didn’t have to shoot him! Damn your cruelty!”
“I just fired a shot over his head! Lord, Tess, do you think I like hurting things?”
She inhaled sharply. “I’m sorry, I just assumed—”
“That I like to kill.”
She bent her head to his shoulder. “I’m sorry. Sorry.”
He rolled to one side, snatched the chain into his hands and put it back around her waist, then fiercely snapped the padlock into place. He took the key back and started to push himself away.
“Jep. Oh, Jep, I misjudged you this time,” she said sadly.
The sound of the nickname sent a shudder through him. “This time,” he said raspily. “Just this time, you mean.”
His hand brushed across her firm, full breasts as he drew back. He cursed darkly and returned to his own side of the cave.
Later he heard her crying in a way that told him she was doing all she could to stifle the sound.
CHAPTER 9
WHEN HE WOKE up the next morning she was sitting at the end of her chain as close as she could get to him, watching him solemnly, her hands latched around her updrawn knees. Jeopard caught his breath and lay very still, as if she were a wild animal he might frighten away.
She wore a long, colorful cotton skirt that Drake had picked out in a whimsical moment—it looked like something a pioneer woman might wear, he had mumbled—and a white T-shirt with the tail tied in a knot at her waist. The white shirt made her honey-colored skin look more dramatic; her hair was dark silk against the white background.
She was bare
foot, and she dug her toes into the earthen floor as if she were scratching the mountain’s back. Except for her hypnotizing silver-blue eyes she could have been a Cherokee princess dressed for the wrong century. The picture she presented was earthy, serene, and extremely feminine.
“Good morning,” she said. “I apologize for hurting your feelings last night.”
“Oh.” His chest swelled with pleasure and relief at her simple words. The night before, her crying had upset him more than her accusations. “I didn’t know I had feelings to hurt until I met you,” he offered gruffly.
She tilted her head in bewilderment.
“Never mind,” he said quickly. “What I mean is, apology accepted. Are you all right? I heard you crying.”
“Yes. Fine, the, urn, the bear upset me.”
Sure, the bear was the big problem. Jeopard couldn’t resist. “The bare what?”
She looked at him with guarded amusement. “The bare man who flopped onto my mattress carrying a gun.”
“I like to be ready for action when I meet a bear.”
“A bare what?”
“A bare woman who snuggles close to me for protection.”
This conversation was not helping him get out of the sleeping bag. Jeopard idly glanced down at himself, checking to make certain he was covered. He slept with the bag unzipped and sometimes threw the top back when he got warm.
He woke up hard and aching for her every morning, but since he usually woke before she did, he was able to keep his passion from complicating matters. Just then it would have been impossible to hide it.
“I’d like to go into the woods and look for wild roots,” she said politely. “Will you take me?”
Jeopard choked back a pained laugh. She could stay right there and find what she wanted. “Sure. What kind of wild roots?”
“I’ve been reading a book on herbs the Cherokees used. Since we don’t have much else to do, I thought we could go on a field trip.”
She paused, lifted a hand to caress the medallion and amulet she had taken to wearing all the time, and added, “But I’d like to visit the creek first. It’s an old ritual, to ‘go to water’ every morning. The Cherokees did it for spiritual reasons.”