Before Sunrise

He hesitated. “No.”

She grinned. “Just kidding.”

His fingers curled around hers, creating little electrical sparks all along the paths of her nerves. “One day at a time,” he said firmly. “You’ll learn that I don’t do much on impulse. I like to think things through before I act.”

“I can see where that would have been a valuable trait in the FBI, with people shooting at you,” she said, nodding.

He let go of her hand with an involuntary laugh. “God, Phoebe…! You say the most outrageous things sometimes.”

“I’m sorry, it slipped out. I’ll behave.”

He just shook his head. “I’ll never forget the first thing you ever said to me,” he added. “‘Do you have shovel-shaped incisors?’ you asked.”

“Stop!” she wailed.

He caught her long braid and tugged on it. His dark eyes probed hers. “I hate your hair bound up like this. I’d like to get a handful of it.”

“I know how you feel,” she murmured, glancing pointedly at his own ponytail.

He smiled. “We’ll have to let our hair down together again some time,” he mused, “and compare length.”

“Yours is much thicker than mine,” she observed. She pictured it loose, as she’d seen it, when they were tracking people around the toxic waste site last year. She remembered standing on the riverbank with him while they kissed in a fever that never seemed to cool. If they hadn’t been interrupted, anything could have happened. She flushed as she remembered how his hair had felt in her hands that last few minutes they were together as he crushed her down the length of that long, powerful body…

“Cut it out,” he said, glancing at the thin gold watch on his wrist. “I have to catch a plane.”

She cleared her throat and tried not to look as hot and bothered as she felt. And he tried not to see that she was.

They finished their meal and he drove her back to the hotel where Clayton and Derrie were staying. He parked the car in a parking space a healthy walk from the hotel door, under a maple tree, and turned to her. The difference in their heights was even more apparent when they were seated. Her head barely came up to his chin. It excited him. He didn’t understand why.

“I have my own room,” she said without looking up. “And Derrie and Clayton won’t be back yet.”

“I won’t come in,” he said deliberately. “I don’t have much time.”

“I wish you could stay and have supper with us,” she remarked.

“I left a case hanging fire to come here. It was all I could do to manage one day.”

“I don’t know anything about you, really,” she told him honestly. “You said you were FBI when you were in Charleston, and then you told Derrie you were CIA, then you turned out to be a government prosecutor. You keep secrets.”

“Yes, but I don’t lie as a rule,” he said. “I would have told you more if I’d been around long enough. It wasn’t necessary, because I wasn’t going to be around, and we both knew it. I came here against my better judgment, Phoebe. I’m too old and too jaded for a woman your age. You haven’t even reached the stage of French kissing, while I’ve long passed the stage of Victorian courtship.”

She felt her cheeks burn, but she met his eyes levelly. “In other words, if you stayed around long enough, you’d want to sleep with me.”

His dark eyes ran slowly over her face. “I already want to sleep with you,” he said. “There’s nothing I want more. That’s why I’m going to get on a plane and go straight back to D.C.”

She wasn’t sure how she felt. Her eyes searched his. “You might ask,” she said.

“Ask what?”

“If I’d like to sleep with you,” she said.

“I might not like the answer.”

She studied his hard, lean face. “Would any woman do?”

He touched her cheek. “I’m old-fashioned,” he said quietly. “I don’t play games. I’ve only had a handful of women in my life. They all meant something to me at the time, and most of them still speak to me pleasantly enough.”

She sighed gently and her eyes were sad as she smiled up at him. “I wish you’d stay,” she said honestly. “But I wouldn’t try to make you feel guilty about it. Thank you for coming to my graduation,” she added. “It was kind of you.”

He was watching her hungrily and hoping it didn’t show. “It’s just as well that you’re bristling with principles,” he said. “Our cultures won’t mix at close range, Phoebe. They’re too different. You’ve studied anthropology for years. You know the reasons as well as I do.”

“Good Lord, I’m not proposing marriage!” she burst out.

“Good thing,” he mused. “I’m married to my job. But if you’re ever in the market for a lover, I’ll be around.”

She gave him a pointed look. “Thanks bunches.”

“Just a thought,” he returned thoughtfully. “All the same, you might consider me a friend, if you ever need one. D.C. is a big, exciting place. I’ll be close by if you ever get in trouble.”

She studied his hard face, seeing the maturity in it. He was devastating at close range like this, and she’d never wanted anything so much as she wanted a chance to have him in her life. But they were already at an impasse, just as they’d been last year. There was a conflict of principles as well as cultures between them, and complicating it all was that formidable age difference. But, oh, he was sexy. She smiled faintly as her eyes roamed over his lean face possessively.

He cocked a heavy eyebrow. “Looking at me that way will bring you to grief,” he chided softly.

She shrugged. “Promises, promises.”

He touched the tip of her nose with his forefinger. “If I ever make one to you, I’ll keep it. Congratulations. I’m proud of you.”

She sighed. “Thanks again for coming all this way to watch me graduate. It meant a lot to me.” Her eyes searched his and she smiled wistfully. “I hate public places.”

He caught her long, thick braid and tugged her closer, so that her head went back against the seat and her face was under his. “This isn’t public,” he whispered against her mouth.

She barely got over the shock of his warm, hard lips on hers before he drew back and released her. He was already cursing himself for that lapse. He hadn’t meant to do it. This whole trip had been against his better judgment, but he couldn’t help himself.

She was watching him like a blue-eyed cat.

“Something on your mind?” he prompted.

“Yes. Is that it?” she asked pertly. “That’s the best you can do?”

“Excuse me?” he asked.

She sighed and touched his chin lightly with her fingers. “I can’t help but compare that very anemic peck with the unbridled, passionate kiss you gave me last year on a riverbank,” she said outrageously.

He looked down his long, straight nose at her. “That was last year. Things were less complicated.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Yes?” she prompted.

He traced her small ear with his forefinger and seemed to be brooding at the same time. “I have a brother, Isaac,” he replied. “He’s fourteen years younger than I am. About your age, in fact. My parents and I managed to get him through high school, but ever since, he’s had one brush with the law after another. Now it’s woman trouble. My mother has a bad heart and my father and I are afraid that all this is going to kill her.”

She was sorry for his situation, but flattered that he’d be so honest about a personal matter with her. “I’d have liked a brother or sister,” she remarked. “Even one who had problems.”

He smiled gently. “I know your father is dead. What about your mother?”

“She died of cancer when I was eight,” she said simply. “My father remarried and six years later, he died in Lebanon in the Marine barracks attack. My stepmother remarried. I haven’t seen her in years. My grandparents and Aunt Derrie are all I have left.”

He scowled. She wasn’t asking for sympathy, and he didn’t offer it. But he felt sad for her. His family was dear to him. He’d do anything for them.

“Heavens, I didn’t mean to run on like that!” she exclaimed, laughing self-consciously. She looked up at him with raised eyebrows. “Wouldn’t you like to come inside with me and have wild, unprotected sex on the carpet?”

His eyes twinkled with suppressed humor. She was outrageous.

“Listen, I heard a girl say one time that if you used plastic wrap…!” she persisted.

He held up a big hand. “Stop right there,” he said firmly, still fighting laughter. “I am not using plastic wrap for birth control.”

She sighed theatrically. “What’s going to become of me?” she asked the dashboard. “You’re condemning me to ridicule when I have to fill in employment forms.”

He leaned forward. “What?”

“There’s this place where it says sex, and because I’m an honest person, I’ll have to fill in that I can’t have any because the only man I want refuses to cooperate.”

He did laugh, then, shaking his head. “Get out of here!” He leaned over her to catch the door handle.

She was right up against him, with her mouth a scant inch from his, because she didn’t move, as he expected her to. At the proximity, she could see dark rims around his black irises, she could feel the minty taste of his breath against her parted lips.

Her fingers touched his warm throat gently. They were like ice. “I dated three boys this past semester alone,” she said in a husky tone. “I had to grit my teeth to even let them kiss me good night.”

“Are you making a point?”

Her eyes were eloquent. “I don’t feel anything with other men.”

“Baby, you’re very young,” he said in a soft, tender tone, his fingers lightly brushing her full lips. He wasn’t even aware of the endearment. His face was solemn. “Somebody will come along.”

“He already did, but he keeps leaving,” she muttered.

“I have a job,” he reminded her. He bent to her mouth and brushed it with his, very lightly. It was like electricity between them. “And a backlog of cases. I wasn’t lying.”

“I’ll bet you never take vacations,” she whispered against his lips, tracing them with her own in a desperate ploy to keep him with her.

“They’re rare.” He nipped her upper lip with his perfect white teeth, and then ran his tongue along the underside of it. His heartbeat increased abruptly and he felt his body responding to her with an urgency that he wasn’t used to. Involuntarily his fingers speared into the bound hair at her nape and tilted her face up to his. “This is not a good idea,” he ground out, but his mouth was already on her parted lips, and he was kissing her in a way that made her whole body leap.

She slid her arms around his neck, blind to the possibility of passersby. They were in a secluded area of the parking lot and it was deserted. It wouldn’t have mattered if it hadn’t been. She was on fire for him.

He groaned into her open mouth and his tongue darted in past her teeth. His big hands slid up her rib cage to the firm, soft thrust of her breasts and he took their delicate weight into his palms, his thumbs rubbing tenderly at the nipples until they went hard.

She shivered.

He lifted his head and looked straight into her dazed, misty eyes. His own were blazing with hunger. His hands contracted and he saw her pupils dilate even as she shivered again with pleasure.

“If you were older,” he bit off.

“It wouldn’t matter, because you’re too attracted to me,” she whispered, tightening her arms around his neck. “You’d run like a scalded dog before you’d take me to bed, Jeremiah,” she murmured shakily. “Because you’d be addicted overnight.”

“So would you,” he replied curtly, angered by her perception. The sound of his given name on her lips was strangely intimate, like the way he was holding her.

“I know,” she said huskily. She tugged his head back down and kissed him with all the pent-up longing of a whole year, enjoying the way he kissed her back, roughly and hungrily, with no restraint.

But all too soon, he caught her upper arms and pulled them down. His head lifted and the look in his eyes was suddenly remote.

“I have more personal problems than I can handle right now,” he said, his tone deep and slow. “I can’t manage you as well.”

“You want to,” she said daringly.

His eyes flashed. “Yes,” he said after a minute. “I want to.”

The admission changed her. She smiled, dazed.

“But I have to deal with the issues at hand, first,” he replied. He drew in a steadying breath and looked down at her soft mouth with real longing. He traced it with a long forefinger. “By Christmas, perhaps, things will resolve themselves. Do you spend it with Derrie, in Charleston?”

“Yes,” she replied, beaming, because he wasn’t saying goodbye forever.

“Think about the job opportunity I mentioned, will you? I’ll get some more details and mail them to you. What’s your address?”

Diverted, she fished for her purse and extracted a notepad and pen. She scribbled down Aunt Derrie’s address in Washington, D.C., where she lived working for Senator Seymour—except on holidays—and her Charleston address. “I guess I’ll stay at Aunt Derrie’s place in Charleston for a while, until I know what I’m going to be doing.”

“The job I’m recommending you for pays really well,” he said, smiling. “And I’d see you often, because I spend a lot of time doing pro bono work in the area of their offices.”

Her eyes were bright with hope. “What an incentive.”

He laughed softly. “I was thinking the same thing.” He hesitated, watching her. “I’m not good with people,” he said then. “Relationships are hard for me. Even surface ones. You’re demanding.”

“So are you,” she said simply.

He grimaced. “I suppose I am.”

“I’m not pushing you. I’m not even asking for anything,” she said quietly.

He touched her cheek with his fingertips. “I know that.”

She searched his dark eyes. “I knew you, the first time I saw you. I don’t understand how.”

“Sometimes, it’s better not to try,” he replied. “And I really do have to go.” He bent and kissed her with breathless tenderness, teasing her mouth with his until she lifted up to him. She moaned softly and tugged at his strong neck. He bent, crushing her against his chest with a harsh groan. She felt her whole body throbbing as the kiss went on and on until her mouth was swollen and her heart raced like a wild thing. He lifted his head reluctantly. But then he let her go abruptly and drew back.

He looked as unsettled as she felt. “We’ve got things in common already. We’ll probably find more. At least you aren’t totally ignorant of indigenous customs and rituals.”

She smiled gently. “I studied hard.”

He sighed. “Okay. We’ll see what happens. I’ll write you when I get back to D.C. Don’t expect long letters. I don’t have the time.”

“I won’t,” she promised.

He touched her chin with his thumb. “You were right about one thing,” he said unexpectedly.

“What?”

“You said that if I missed your graduation I’d regret it for the rest of my life,” he recalled, smiling. “I would have.”

Her fingers slid over his long mouth, tingling at the touch. “Me, too,” she agreed, with her heart in her eyes as they met his.

He bent and kissed her one last time before he reached across her and opened the door. “I’ll write.”

She got out, nodding at him. “So will I.” She closed the door and stared down into the car. “I hope things work out for you at home,” she added.

“They will, one way or the other,” he replied. He studied her with turbulent eyes and an uncanny sense of catastrophe ahead. His father and uncles and the medicine men who were his ancestors would have found that perception a blessing. To him, it was a nuisance.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, because the look on his face was eloquent.

He shifted. “Nothing,” he lied, trying to ignore the feeling. “I was just thinking. You take care, Phoebe.”

“You do the same. I enjoyed my graduation.”

He smiled. “I enjoyed it, too. This isn’t goodbye,” he added when she looked devastated.

“I know.” She felt uneasy, though, and she couldn’t understand why. He gave her one last look. His eyes were dark and shadowed and full of misgiving. Before she could ask why he looked that way, he rolled the window up.

He waved, and pulled out of the parking space. She watched him until he was out of sight. Her mouth still tingled from the press of his lips, and her body was aching with new sensations. With a sense of excitement and wonder, she turned and went slowly back into the hotel. The future looked rosy and bright.

CHAPTER TWO

Three years later

THE SMALL NATIVE AMERICAN museum in Chenocetah, North Carolina, was crowded for a Saturday. Phoebe smiled at a group of children as they passed her in the hall. Two of them jostled each other and the teacher called them down, with an apologetic smile at Phoebe.

“Don’t worry,” Phoebe whispered to the teacher. “There’s nothing breakable that isn’t behind glass or a velvet rope!”

The teacher chuckled and walked on.

Phoebe glanced at the board that translated Cherokee words into English. It wasn’t exact, but it was an improvement on the board that had hung there previously. The museum had been so ragged and unappealing that the county was thinking of shutting it down. But Phoebe had taken on the job of curator, and she’d put new life into the project. At the top of the board was the name of the town, Chenocetah, and its Cherokee translation: “See all around.” You really could, she thought, considering the tall, stately mountains that ringed the small town.

Phoebe had completed her master’s degree in anthropology by doing distance education and spending the required few weeks on campus during the summer in order to graduate. She was given the curator’s job in the Chenocetah Museum on the poviso that she was to obtain her master’s in the meantime.

Here, only a few minutes away from Cherokee, North Carolina, land was at a premium. The Yonah Indian Reservation, a small stronghold of native people, reached almost to the city limits sign of Chenocetah. On the outskirts of the small mountain town that boasted more hotels per square inch than Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, three construction companies were racing to put up several hotel complexes. One of the conglomerates was erecting up a Las Vegas-type theme hotel complex. The other two were luxurious tourist resorts with wildlife trails included in the design. They had the added attraction of being located with their backs to a mountain honeycombed with caves, a sure draw for spelunkers.

Two members of the city council had protested violently at the ecological impact of the mammoth projects, but the other three and the mayor had voted them down. The water rates alone would fill the city coffers, not to mention the tourists they would draw into the already tourist-oriented area.

Phoebe, like the two protesting councilmen, was thinking of the cost of enlarging the sewage system and water delivery system to accommodate the added demands of the huge hotels. They were going up close enough to the Chenocetah Cherokee Museum that they would probably impact the water pressure in the museum, already less than she liked with so many visitors. Another problem was going to be the headache of traffic snarls that would accompany the increased traffic near the small town’s city limits at one of the county’s worst intersections. One of the sheriff’s deputies who flirted with her regularly had mentioned that consequence. She didn’t flirt back. Phoebe had a grudge against anyone with a badge these days.

“You frown too much,” her colleague, Marie Locklear murmured dryly as she approached her. Marie was half Cherokee and a graduate of Duke University. She was the museum’s comptroller, and a precious asset.

“I smile when I’m alone,” Phoebe confessed. “I wouldn’t want to upset the staff.”

“My cousin Drake Stewart’s coming by at lunch, again,” she said, naming the deputy sheriff who patrolled the area. “I asked him to bring us a couple of those spicy chicken salads from the new fast-food joint.” Marie added, “He’s sweet on you.”

Phoebe winced. “I’m off men.”

“Drake’s thirty and drop-dead gorgeous,” Marie reminded her. “He’s got just enough Cherokee blood to make him sexy,” she added. “If he wasn’t my first cousin, I’d marry him myself!”

“He’s also a deputy sheriff.”

“That’s right. I forgot. You’re down on lawmen.”

Phoebe went into her office, with Marie right behind. “I’m down on men, period,” she replied.

“Why?”

Phoebe ignored the question. Dragging up the past was just too painful.

“Can we afford to fix that hole in the parking lot?” Phoebe asked. “We’re getting complaints.”

“If we forego fixing the roof, we can,” Marie said demurely.

“Not another leak!” Phoebe groaned. “Where is it?”

“In the men’s bathroom,” Marie replied. “There’s a puddle in front of the sinks.”

Phoebe sat down at her desk and put her head in her hands. “And it’s November already. We’ll have snow and sleet soon and the roof will just collapse under the weight. Why did I take this job? Why?”

“Because nobody else wanted it?”

Phoebe actually chuckled. Marie was incorrigible. She grinned at the younger woman. “No, actually because nobody else wanted me,” she corrected.

“I can’t believe that. You graduated in the top one percent of your class, and you did a great job with your master’s degree, which you completed in record time,” Marie recalled. “I read your curriculum vitae,” she added when Phoebe looked surprised.

“Credentials aren’t everything,” Phoebe replied.

“Yes, but your area of expertise is forensic anthropology,” came the reply. “There must be a lot of jobs going in that area, because it’s so specialized.”

“There were none when I needed one,” she said quietly, pulling a file toward her. “I wanted to get away from my family, from everything. This is an area where I didn’t know anyone, and where I wasn’t likely to run into…” She was going to say Cortez, but she bit her tongue. Marie perched her ample figure on the edge of the desk, pushing back her long, thick straight hair. “I know you don’t talk about it,” she said, “but I think you’re better now, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “Yes. I think I’m over it.”

“You will be when you rush out to Drake’s car and kiss him blind and beg him to take you on a date,” Marie said with a wicked grin.

Phoebe glared at her. “From what you’ve already told me, Drake’s got a girl on every street corner,” she said. “He loves women, all shapes and sizes and ages, and they love him. I don’t want an overused man.”

Marie’s eyes popped.

Phoebe realized what she’d said and burst out laughing. “Well, hypothetically speaking,” she murmured, flushing. “And don’t you dare tell Drake I said that!”

Marie touched her ample bosom. “Would I do that?”

“In a heartbeat,” Phoebe agreed. “Get to work. Find me a way to budget roof repair and pothole repair into our fiscal year.”

“We could go over to the Yonah Reservation and talk to Fred Fourkiller,” she replied. “He can make medicine. Maybe he can influence the board of directors to give us a bigger budget!” Medicine reminded her of Cortez, who was descended from a long line of medicine men. Involuntarily her hand rested on her middle desk drawer. She jerked it back.

“We may have to try that if all else fails,” Phoebe said, turning on her computer. “I’d better get my paperwork done before the school crowd arrives,” she added. “We have another busload at eleven, from the middle school.” She glanced at Marie wistfully. “When I first came here, we were lucky to get two tourists a month. Now it’s busloads of kids every week.”

“A lot of people around here have Cherokee blood, because we’re so close to the reservation,” Marie reminded her with a smile. “They want to learn about their heritage, so history classes like to come here.”

“It’s nice revenue, like all those regional books on local history that we sell in the souvenir shop,” Phoebe had to admit. “I only wish we had a patron.”

“It’s early days yet,” Marie said with a smile. “I’ll get to work.”