Heart of the Hunter Read Online Free PDF Page B

last minutes before a summer squall. When the wind lay still, city streets outside her gate were wrapped in a waiting hush, and this little part of her world was softer, sweeter. When there truly was peace before the storm.
    Soon the wind would rise again, bringing with it the rain, the thunder and the lightning. But when it was done, the city would go on as before, and her garden would be rife with the promise of new life.
    Nicole believed with all her being that in Charleston and Kiawah, she’d found the best of both worlds. One offered serenity embodied in a rain-swept garden. The other, the wild exhilaration and the furor of the sea. She loved them both.
    She was content with her life. As she wandered this tiny space that was hers alone, she knew she was more content than she had ever hoped. But the way had been long and hard, leading, at last, to a place far away from who she was and where she’d begun. Only then had she put the past behind her.
    Three days ago a part of that past had stepped back into her life, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about him. She wasn’t sure she wanted to feel anything.
    Catching a drooping blossom in her palm, she watched as moisture gathering on a creamy petal trembled like tears. The tears she’d shed over Jeb.
    Jeb. She’d loved him. With every beat of her fifteen-year-old heart she’d loved him. As she’d trailed behind her brother and his best friend, she’d known his smiles were only kindness, and his kindnesses only pity. But the knowledge didn’t keep her from worshiping him.
    In the days, weeks and months when classes were a grim, cliquish ordeal, when well-meaning professors singled her out and older students who perceived her as a freak shut her out, there was always Tony. But most of all there was Jeb.
    When she was near him, she was even clumsier than usual. All bony knees and jutting elbows. Hair a shaggy disaster. Teeth a mass of silver wires and bands, and her tongue eternally tied to the roof of her mouth. But he never seemed to notice.
    â€œHe was just...Jeb,” Nicole murmured. He’d been kind and gentle when little else of her life was kind and gentle. Then she loved him even more. For one school year, though he never knew, he was the center of her universe. Then the end of the term came. He and Tony graduated, she became a sophomore. One more rung on the ladder of escape. She’d thought her heart would break without him, and maybe it did, but she’d survived and even flourished in a new life. And she never saw him again.
    Until now.
    Suddenly she was restless, petals drifted from her hand like falling snow. He had promised he would call after the sale. She wondered if it wouldn’t be better if he didn’t. She couldn’t say why, except that she was afraid. But afraid of what?
    The wind stirred, nudged her gently at first, then whipped the full skirt of her dress about her knees, and tangled in her hair. She was glad of the diversion as she hurried to the piazza. She was almost at the first step when a melodic gong summoned her to the garden gate.
    â€œNow who?” she questioned as she retraced her steps over the patterned brick walk. Not a delivery, certainly. Bouquets and gifts wishing her well with the sale would’ve arrived days ago and at the gallery, not here. Friends and customers had already called in droves, afterward, celebrating her success, until even the most obtuse realized she needed rest and time to herself. Graciously they’d given her exactly that. Time and rest.
    So one had decided it was time her self-imposed exile be ended.
    Annabelle, of course. Only she would risk a drenching on such a Quixotic mission. Nicole smiled as she imagined the shapely little woman struggling with her voluminous skirt in the wind and weather. But not too hard. Annabelle believed with all her heart that a glimpse of a well-turned ankle, or thigh and maybe a bit of sexy lace was good for the