The video report on Cal’s wounded ship had shown exactly what Cal had been through. The black hole, the panic, the helplessness as he’d been sucked toward the void and battered by its gravitational field. That he had survived at all was a miracle, and a tribute to his skill as a pilot. But if he’d had a scientist on board he might have avoided the rest. And he would be home now. They would both be home. Where they belonged.
Calming himself, he turned from the window. In a few weeks, they would be. All he had to do was wait.
To pass the time, he began to toy with the clunky computer sitting on the desk in the corner. For an hour he amused himself with it, dismantling the keyboard and putting it together again, examining switches and circuits and chips. For his own entertainment he slipped one of Libby’s disks into the drive.
It was a long, involved report on some remote tribe in the South Pacific. Despite himself, Jacob found himself caught up in the descriptions and theories. She had a way of turning dry facts about a culture into a testament to the people who made it. It was ironic that she had focused on the effects of modern tools and technology on what was to her a primitive society. He had spent a great deal of time over the last year wondering what effect the technology he had at his fingertips would have on her time and place.
She was intelligent, he admitted grudgingly. She was obviously thorough and precise when it came to her work. Those were qualities he could admire. But that didn’t mean she could keep his brother.
Shutting the machine down, he went back downstairs.
Sunny didn’t bother to look up when she heard him come down the stairs. She wanted to think she’d forgotten he was there at all as she’d pored over her law books. But she hadn’t. She couldn’t complain that he was noisy or made a nuisance of himself. Except that he did make a nuisance of himself just by being there.
Because she wanted to be alone, she told herself as she glanced up and watched him stroll into the kitchen. That wasn’t true. She hated to be alone for long periods of time. She liked people and conversation, arguments and parties. But he bothered her. Tapping her pen against her pad, she studied the fire. Why? That was the big question.
Possibly loony, she wrote on her pad. Then she grinned to herself. Actually, it was more than possible that he’d had a clearance sale on the top floor. Popping out of nowhere, living in the forest, playing with faucets.
Possibly dangerous.That turned her grin into a scowl. There weren’t many men who could get past her guard the way he had. But he hadn’t hurt her, and she had to admit he’d had the opportunity. Still, there was a difference between dangerous and violent.
Forceful personality.There was an intensity about him that couldn’t be ignored. Even when he was quiet, watchful in that strange way of his, he seemed to be charged. A live wire ready to shock. Then he would smile, unexpectedly, disarmingly, and you were willing to risk the jolt.
Wildly attractive.Sunny didn’t like the phrase, but it suited him too well for her not to use it. There was something ruthless and untamed in his looks—the lean, almost predatory face and the mane of dark hair. And his eyes, that deep, dark green that seemed to look straight into you. The heavy lids didn’t give them a sleepy look, but a brooding one.
Heathcliff, she thought, and laughed at herself. It was Libby who was the romantic one. Libby would always look into a person’s heart. Sunny would always be compelled to dissect the brain.
Absently she sketched his face on a corner of the paper. There was something different about him, she mused as she penciled in the dark brows and the heavy lashes. It bothered her that she couldn’t put her finger on it. He was evasive, secretive, eccentric. She could accept all that—once she discovered what he was evading. Was he in trouble? Had he done something that required him to pack up quickly and find a place, a quiet, remote place, to hide?
Or was it really as simple as he said? He had come to see his brother and to get a firsthand look at his brother’s wife.
No. Scowling down at the impromptu portrait, Sunny shook her head. That might be the truth, but it was no more than half of it. J.T. Hornblower was up to something. And, sooner or later, she was going to find out what it was.
With a shrug, she set her pad aside. That was reason enough for her interest in Jacob Hornblower. She only wanted to know what made the man tick. With that in mind, she rose and went into the kitchen.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
Jacob glanced up. Spread all over the table in front of him were the various parts of the toaster and a carpet of crumbs. He’d found a screwdriver in a drawer and was having the time of his life.
“It needs to be fixed.”
“Yes, but—”
“Do you like your bread burned?”
She narrowed her eyes. His fingers, long, lean and clever, skimmed over screws. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Maybe.” He smiled, wondering what she would say if he told her he could dismantle an X-25 primary unit in under an hour. “Don’t you trust me?”
“No.” She turned to put on the kettle. “But I don’t suppose you can make it any worse than it already is.” Friendly, she reminded herself. She would be friendly and casual, then move in for the kill. “Want some tea?”
“Sure.” With the screwdriver in his hand, he watched her walk from stove to cupboard and back to stove. Grace, he thought, when combined with strength, was an appealing combination. She had a way of shifting her weight so that her whole body flowed into the movement. Yet there was a control about her, the kind of discipline seen in athletes and dancers. And it wasn’t genderless, but innately and completely female.
When the nerves at the back of her neck began to prickle, she glanced over her shoulder. “Problem?”
“No. I like to watch you.”
Because she didn’t have a ready response for that, she poured the tea. “Want a cupcake?”
“Okay.”