She was out of breath, but she wasn’t out of fuel. Her eyes burning into his, she put all her strength into one last move. Just in time, he shifted his weight and avoided the knee to the groin.
“Some things never change,” he muttered, and studied her while he waited for his labored breathing to slow.
She was stunning—or perhaps it was the fight that made her seem so. Her skin was flushed now, a rosy pink that enhanced the sunlight color of her hair. Its short, almost severe cut played up the elegance of her bone structure. She had sharp cheekbones. Warriorlike, he thought again. Like a Viking, or a Celt. Large, long-lidded gray eyes smoldered in frustration but not in defeat. Her nose was small and sharp, and her mouth was full, with the lower lip slightly prominent in a pout. She smelled like the forest—cool, exotic and foreign.
“You’re very good,” he said, and gave himself a moment to enjoy the way her body held firm and unyielding under his.
“Thanks.” She bit the word off, but she didn’t struggle. She knew when to fight and when to plot. He outweighed her and he had outfought her, but she wasn’t ready to discuss terms of surrender. “I’d appreciate it if you got the hell off me.”
“In a minute. Is it your custom to greet people by tossing them on the floor?”
She arched one pale brow. “Is it yours to break into people’s homes and poke around in their bedrooms?”
“The door was unlocked,” he pointed out. Then he frowned. He was certain he was in the right place, but this was not the woman called Libby. “This is your home?”
“That’s right. It’s called private property.” She struggled not to fidget while he studied her as though she were a particularly interesting specimen in a petri dish. “I’ve already called the police,” she told him, though the closest telephone was ten miles away. “If I were you, I’d make tracks.”
“If I wanted to avoid the police, it would be stupid to make tracks.” He tilted his head, considering. “And you didn’t call them.”
“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t.” The pout became more pronounced. “What do you want? There’s nothing worth stealing in this place.”
“I didn’t come to steal.”
A quick panic, purely feminine, fluttered just below her heart. Fury banked it. “I won’t make it easy for you.”
“All right.” He didn’t bother to ask her what she meant. “Who are you?”
“I think I’m entitled to ask you that question,” she countered. “And I’m not really interested.” Her heart was beginning to thud thickly, and she hoped he couldn’t feel it. They were sprawled across the unmade bed, thigh to thigh, as intimately as lovers. His eyes, green and intense, stared into hers until she was breathless all over again.
He saw the panic now, just a flicker of it, and eased his grip on her wrists. Her pulse was beating rapidly there, causing an unexpected reaction to race through him. He could feel it singing through his blood as he shifted his gaze to her mouth.
What would it be like? he wondered. Just a touch, an experiment. A mouth that soft, that full, was designed to tempt a man. Would she fight, or would she yield? Either would prove rewarding. Annoyed by the distraction, he looked into her eyes again. He had a purpose, one he didn’t intend to detour from.
“I’m sorry if I startled you, or if I interfered with your privacy. I was looking for someone.”
“There’s no one here but—” She caught herself and swore under her breath. “Who? Who are you looking for?”
It was best to play it safe, Jacob decided. If he had somehow miscalculated the time, or if Cal’s report had been faulty—as they had sometimes been before—it wouldn’t be wise to be too specific. “A man. I thought he lived here, but perhaps my information is incorrect.”
Sunny blew her bangs out of her eyes. “Who? What’s his name?”
“Hornblower,” Jacob said, and used his smile for the first time. “His name is Caleb Hornblower.” The surprise in Sunny’s eyes was all he needed. Instinctively his fingers tightened on her wrists. “You know him?”
Ideas about her sister’s somewhat mysterious husband sprang into her mind. He was a spy, a fugitive, an eccentric millionaire on the run. Family loyalty ran deep, and she would rather have had bamboo slivers under her fingernails than betray a loved one.
“Why should I?”
“You know him,” Jacob insisted. When her chin came up, he let out a frustrated sigh. “I’ve come a long way to see him.” His lips curved at the understatement. “A very long way. Please, can you tell me where he is?”
When she felt herself softening, she jutted her chin out again. “Obviously he’s not here.”
“Is he all right?” Jacob released her hands and gripped her shoulders. “Has anything happened to him?”
“No.” The very real concern she heard in his voice had her putting a hand over his. “No, of course not. I didn’t mean to—” She caught herself again. If this was a trap, she was falling neatly into it. “If you want any information from me, you’ll have to tell me who you are and why you want it.”
“I’m his brother, Jacob.”
Sunny’s eyes widened as she let out a long breath. Cal’s brother? It was possible, she supposed. The coloring was similar, and the shape of the face. There was certainly more family resemblance between this man and her brother-in-law than there was between herself and Libby.
“Well,” she said after a brief debate with herself, “it really is a small world, isn’t it?”
“Smaller than you can imagine. You do know Cal?”
“Yes. Since he married my sister, that makes you and me . . . I’m not exactly sure what that makes us, but I think we’d be better off discussing it vertically.”
He nodded, but he didn’t move. “Who are you?”
“Me?” She offered him a big, bright smile. “Oh, I’m Sunbeam.” Still smiling, she wrapped her fingers around his thumb. “Now, if you don’t want this dislocated, you’ll get the hell off my bed.”
Chapter 2
They moved apart warily, two boxers retreating to their corners at the sound of the bell. Jacob wasn’t entirely sure how to handle her, much less the bombshell she had dropped. His brother was married.
Once they were standing a careful three feet apart, he dipped his hands in the pockets of the comfortable jeans. He noted that, though her stance was easy, she was still braced, ready to counter any move he might attempt. It would have been interesting to make one, just to see what she would do and how she would do it. But he had priorities.
“Where’s Cal?”
“Borneo. I think it’s Borneo. Might be Bora Bora. Libby’s researching a paper.” She had time to study him objectively now. Yes, there was a definite resemblance to Cal, in the way he stood, in the rhythm of his speech. But, even though she accepted that, she wasn’t ready to trust him. “Cal must have told you she’s a cultural anthropologist.”
He hesitated, then brought out the smile again. He wasn’t nearly as concerned now with what Cal had or had not told him in his report as with what his brother had told this woman named Sunbeam. Sunbeam, he thought distractedly. Was anyone really named Sunbeam?
“Of course.” He lied smoothly and without compunction. “He didn’t mention he’d be away. How long?”
“A few more weeks.” She tugged the red sweater down over her hips. She could already feel bruises forming. It didn’t annoy her. She had held her own—well, almost held her own—against him. And she hoped she’d get another shot. “It’s funny he never said you were coming.”
“He didn’t know.” Frustrated, he looked out the window at the snow and the trees. He’d come so close, so damn close, only to wait. “I wasn’t sure I could make it.”
“Yeah.” With a lazy shrug, she rocked back on her heels. “Like you couldn’t make it to the wedding. We all thought it was odd that none of Cal’s family showed up for the big day.”
He turned back at that. There was definite censoriousness in her voice. He didn’t care for it—he rarely
