Hard to Handle Read Online Free PDF Page A

looking at Jennifer. “We’re honeymooners,” he said. “We want a double room.
    “Oh! I’m sorry, sir. Congratulations,” the clerk said with a pleasant smile.
    Dreams came true, Jenny thought, picturing all sorts of delicious complications during that night together. The desk clerk handed him a key after he signed them in—as Mr. and Mrs. Camp. Nice of Hunter to tell her their married name, she thought with faint amusement. But it was typical of him to keep everything to himself.
    He unlocked the door, waited for the bellboy to put their luggage and equipment in the room, and tipped the man.
    They were alone. He closed the door and turned to her, his dark eyes assessing as he saw the faint unease on her face. “Don’t start panicking,” he said curtly. “I won’t assault you. This is the best way to keep up the masquerade, that’s all.”
    She colored. “I didn’t say a word,” she reminded him.
    He wandered around the room with some strange electronic gadget in one hand and checked curtains and lamps. “No bugs,” he said eventually. “But that doesn’t mean much. I’m pretty sure we’re being observed. Don’t leave the room unless I’m with you, and don’t mention anything about why we’re here. Is that clear?”
    “Why don’t we just go out into the desert and camp?”
    “We have to have camping gear,” he explained with mocking patience. “It’s too late to start buying it now. The morning’s over. We’ll start out later in the afternoon.”
    “All right.” She put her suitcases on the side of the room that was nearest the bathroom, hesitating.
    “Whichever bed you want is yours,” he said without inflection. He was busy watching out the window. “I can sleep anywhere.”
    And probably had, she thought, remembering some of his assignments that she’d heard about. She put her attaché case with her maps on the bed, and her laptop computer on the side table, taking time to plug its adapter into the wall socket so that it could stay charged up. It only had a few hours’ power between charges.
    “Give me that case,” he said suddenly. He took the case with the maps and opened it, hiding a newspaper he’d brought into the case and then putting it in a dresser drawer with one of his shirts over it. The maps he tucked into a pair of his jeans and left them in his suitcase.
    Jenny lifted an amused eyebrow. He had a shrewd mind. She almost said so, but it might reveal too much about her feelings if she told him. She unpacked her suitcase instead and began to hang up her clothes. She left her underthings and her long cotton gown in the suitcase, too shy of Hunter to put them in a drawer in front of him.
    The gown brought to mind a question that had only just occurred. Should she put it on tonight, or would it look like an invitation? And worse, did he sleep without clothes? Some men did. She’d watched him put his things away out of the corner of her eye, and she hadn’t seen either a robe or anything that looked like pajamas. She groaned inwardly. Wouldn’t that be a great question to ask a man like Hunter, and how would she put it? Isn’t this a keen room, Mr. Hunter, and by the way, do you sleep stark naked, because if you do, is it all right if I spend the night in the bathtub?
    She laughed under her breath. Wouldn’t that take the starch out of his socks, she thought with humor. Imagine, a woman her age and with her looks being that ignorant about a man’s body. Despite the women’s magazines she’d seen from time to time, with their graphic studies of nude men, there was a big difference in a photograph and a real, live man.
    “Is something bothering you?” he asked suddenly.
    The question startled her into blurting out the truth. “Do you wear pajamas?” she asked, and her face went scarlet.
    “Why?” he replied with a straight face. “Do you need to borrow them, or were you thinking of buying me a pair if I say no?”
    She averted her face. “Sorry. I’m not