The Adventurer

"How is my answering your question going to tell you what sort of employer I'll be?"
    "I won't know until I hear the answer."
    She drummed her fingers on the table, contemplating that. "It's hard to explain. I just knew later that I should have understood Richard didn't really want to marry me. He was on the rebound and he only thought he wanted to marry me."
    "How did you feel toward him?"
    "Well, you have to understand that I was at a point in my life when I was trying to be terribly realistic about relationships. I had convinced myself that the man of my dreams was pure fiction and I would only get hurt looking for him. Richard was sexy and charming and very nice, really. We had a lot in common and he gave me a whirlwind courtship. Very romantic."
    "What happened?"
    "The night before our wedding his ex-wife decided she had made a mistake and called him up. He went to meet her. I thought he was going off to his bachelor party. Some bachelor party. At any rate, he didn't show up the next day in church. All for the best, of course. Imagine getting married and then having him change his mind."
    "Richard sounds like a real son of a—"
    "That is, naturally, one point of view. I'm inclined toward it, myself." Sarah's eyes gleamed with mischief. "The reason the whole thing shook me up so much was that I'd never really made that kind of mistake before. I had plenty of warning and enough hints that he was still emotionally tangled up with his ex-wife, but I didn't pay any attention to them. I felt like an idiot later."
    Gideon eyed her thoughtfully. "It threw a scare into you, that's what really happened. You'd always relied heavily on your intuition and it failed you."
    "No. I keep telling you, my intuition was fine. I just wasn't paying attention."
    "You got a scare. It should have taught you a good lesson about trusting your so-called intuition, but I'll bet you didn't learn a damn thing from the experience."
    For the first time since she had landed like a whirlwind in his life, she looked genuinely annoyed with him. "Look, Gideon…"
    "Forget it," Gideon said. "This brings us to the little matter of your hiring me as a treasure-hunting consultant."
    "It does?"
    He was finally beginning to feel like he was catching up with her. At this rate, he might even gain the upper hand for a few breathless minutes. "It does," he confirmed. "It's obvious that you can't really be any more sure of me than you were of this jerk, Richard."
    "Not the same thing at all."
    "How do you know?"
    "I know."
    "Got a feeling, right?" he mocked.
    "Yes, I do, damn it. Don't make fun of me, Gideon."
    "I wouldn't think of it."
    She glowered at him. "And don't, whatever you do, turn out to be one of those people who
lectures
."
    "God forbid." He sat back and swirled the wine in his glass. So much for trying to make her think twice about the whole project. He wasn't sure why he had bothered. Maybe just to see how deep her certainty ran.
    "That was the only thing that worried me a tad, you know," she said finally.
    "I've lost you again. What was the only thing that worried you?"
    "That you might have a tendency to lecture. I picked that up here and there in some of your letters. But it's a relatively minor flaw and one I'm sure we can work around."
    "You think so?" Gideon met her mischievous gaze and the vague tension that had been gnawing at him for several hours suddenly coalesced into a powerful urge to take her into his arms and wipe some of that feminine assurance out of her eyes. He knew just how he would kiss her. Hard and deep and very thoroughly.
    "I think so. Say, I've been meaning to ask, did you ever try that recipe for buckwheat noodles I sent you last month?"
    "No. The local stores don't run to fancy stuff like buckwheat noodles."
    "You should have told me. I'd have sent you some."
    "I was thinking about it," he admitted. "But you showed up on my doorstep before I got around to writing the letter." No point telling her that all the recipes she'd sent him during the past four months were neatly filed in a kitchen drawer. He took them out and read through them regularly but he had never actually tried one.
    "I see."
    Gideon watched her closely. "You're determined to go after the Flowers, aren't you?"
    "Absolutely."
    "What will you do if I don't agree to come along?"
    "Gideon, I'm counting on you to help me."
    "Forget the big-eyed approach. I don't respond to it." Like hell. His whole body was responding. "Any idea how much the earrings are