Only 05 - Autumn Lover

stole another sprig of rosemary, unbuttoned the center of her bodice, and tucked the rosemary between her breasts.
    Hunter forgot to breathe.
    He wondered if Elyssa had seen him and was teasing him with a glimpse of her pale, perfect breasts. The sight of her gliding across the kitchen, her arms held out to him, was burned into his memory. Watching her fingers gliding over supple, scented leaves made him want to howl his frustration like a wolf.
    Elyssa was a silver wildfire consuming him.
    Distantly Hunter realized why Elyssa’s scent was always so pleasing to him. She wore rosemary and thyme rather than the heavy magnolia perfume favored by Belinda.
    Without meaning to, Hunter took a step toward Elyssa, then another, like a wild animal lured unwillingly by a fire burning in the center of night.
    On the third step a twig snapped beneath Hunter’s boot.

10
    W ith a startled sound, Elyssa spun around. In the moonlight her eyes were wide, dark, as unreadable as the night itself.
    When Elyssa realized that Hunter was near, she quickly turned her back. Her normally deft fingers fumbled with the tiny buttons on her bodice as she tried to fasten it up once more.
    “What are you doing out here?” Elyssa asked, her back still turned to Hunter. “I thought you’d be waltzing with Penny.”
    “I wanted to see who you were meeting.”
    “Meeting? In the garden? At night?”
    “Yes,” Hunter said.
    “Why on earth would I do that?”
    “For a little… conversation .”
    The last stubborn button finally allowed itself to be pushed back through its hole.
    Elyssa took a swift breath to collect herself. Then she turned and confronted the very man who had driven her to the solace of her garden in the first place.
    “Clever of you to guess,” she said.
    Hunter’s mouth flattened.
    “A little civilized conversation is so hard to findlately,” Elyssa continued, her voice low and artificially sweet.
    “Hoping to meet Mickey?” Hunter asked with false calm. “Or is it Bill you’re pining for?”
    “I was ‘pining for’ a bit of peace and quiet. People can be so trying.”
    “Women in particular,” Hunter retorted.
    “I was thinking of one man in particular. A man who is rude without reason. Abrupt. Impossible. And dead wrong . Surely you, of all people, understand my need?”
    “Conversation,” he said.
    “Words,” she agreed. “One after another. Pleasantries. Gallantries. Foreign to you, I’m certain, but not to my garden.”
    “You talk to your plants.”
    “Kindly.”
    Hunter struggled not to smile. He almost succeeded.
    “I also weed, prune, mulch, fertilize, water, and generally pamper them to the best of my abilities,” Elyssa said.
    “I noticed.”
    “Remarkable.”
    Hunter ignored the barb.
    “Whenever things upset you,” he said slowly, “you come to the herb garden, don’t you?”
    “It’s a habit I picked up in England. I spent so much time in the garden they called me a peasant, among other things.”
    Silence gathered while Hunter tried not to stare at the five buttons that had been undone so that a sprig of rosemary could lie in the velvet shadow between Elyssa’s breasts.
    When he spoke, it was without thinking.
    “Who is Bill Moreland to you?” Hunter demanded.
    “My father’s stepbrother.”
    “No relationship?”
    “As I said, my father’s—”
    “Stepbrother,” Hunter finished curtly. “No blood relationship.”
    “In a word, none. I used to call Bill an uncle, but it was a courtesy title.”
    Hunter’s eyes narrowed as he thought about the reasons why a girl might no longer call a man her uncle. Sex came to mind first.
    “So Bill is a courtesy uncle?” Hunter asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Too bad. With the Culpepper gang, you need something with more grit than a ‘courtesy uncle’ has to offer.”
    “Something such as you?” Elyssa asked acidly.
    The corner of Hunter’s mouth lifted in a smile as narrow as his eyes.
    “No, Sassy. I’m a gentleman.”
    Elyssa laughed.
    “A gentleman,” she repeated sardonically. “How kind of you to point it out. Somehow I had managed to overlook it entirely.”
    The cool dismissal in Elyssa’s tone rubbed Hunter’s already raw nerves.
    “Leash that tongue of yours,” Hunter said, “or I’ll take what you’ve been promising me.”
    “I never promised you anything but wages.”
    “Didn’t you?” he taunted. “What about when you waltzed up to me in the kitchen and stood so close I couldn’t breathe without