Raven’s Prey(21)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“When?”

Why was he suddenly so interested? Well, far be it from her [_to _]squelch the first heart-to-heart talk they’d had yet. “There was a man in Phoenix,” she began hesitantly, thinking of Steve Melbourne with his three-piece suits and his easy, sophisticated charm. “We had a lot in common. Both of us had careers in the business world, we enjoyed the same things. He was very handsome,” she added lamely.

“So what went wrong?” Judd demanded.

Honor glared at him. “Nothing went wrong. We just decided we weren’t right for each other, that’s all.” How could you explain a relationship that had seemed to have everything going for it but somehow lacked the magic? There had never been any flash of boundless excitement between herself and Steve Melbourne, no matter how hard she had wished for it. Everything had seemed [_so _]right [_on the _]surface, but her romantic soul had shied away from a relationship that totally lacked passion. It was not, Honor had sadly learned, a commodity that could be infused at will into an association between a man and a woman. It was either present from the beginning or it was completely lacking.

“Do you still see him?” Judd pressed stonily.

“We’re friends.” She shrugged. “He’s engaged to someone else now, but, yes I still see him occasionally.”

“Friends! Then you couldn’t have been in love with him,” he declared flatly. “No man who’d ever been involved with you in a love affair could remain friends with you after it was over!”

“You’re an authority on the subject?” she drawled, fiercely resentful of his certainty.

“I’m just stating the obvious. Tell me about the other times you were in love. You said there had been a couple of occasions.”

“Is this just morbid curiosity on your part or genuine interest?”

“Just tell me, okay? It was your idea to talk about this.”

“The second occasion was a bit more dramatic, ft nearly got me killed!” she retorted without pausing to think. He was annoying her now with his persistent questioning of her love Me.

“Almost got you killed? Oh, Prager.”

“Yes, Prager.” She looked down at her drink, morosely stirring it with a finger. She suddenly didn’t want to talk about Nick at all.

“You told me before that you were carrying on a long-distance romance. You might as well give me the whole dazzling story,” he mocked gruffly.

Was anything being accomplished with this? Honor wondered unhappily. “Nick and I were becoming very close. He hired me into the firm and right from the start we were interested in each other. I suppose he seemed very romantic to me with his globe-trotting and all his connections. And he can be very charming,” she admitted with a sigh. “He knows how to make a woman feel pampered. Special. I thought… I thought he loved me” She broke off, shivering at the memory of how quickly Nick’s love had turned into a chilling threat. The man knew how to create the kind of mood that had appealed to her sense of the romantic, and she had been fool enough to respond to it. That trip to Hong Kong would have been the setting for the true beginning to their love affair if only Nick hadn’t turned out to be another kind of man altogether. Honor shuddered again at the thought of how close she had been to going to bed with a man who had shown no compunction about trying to kill her.

“So far you’ve told me you’ve managed to get involved with a man with whom you’re now ‘friends’ and another whom you claim wants to kill you. Hell of a[_ _]track record, Honor. Only a woman with a vivid imagination could classify either of those two tales as love affairs.’ You must be one of the last of the great romantics. If you want my opinion all you’ve had are a few interesting affairs, just like me.” Judd sounded utterly convinced of his own conclusions.

So much for the heart-to-heart exchange of confidences, Honor thought irritably. Time was running out and she still hadn’t made much headway in winning over this lone hunter of a man. All she’d accomplished tonight was to make herself seem like some kind of empty-headed, romantic fool

There was one other area in which Judd could be provoked into dramatic action, she knew, but ever since that devastating kiss, Honor had steered scrupulously clear of any attempt to elicit a sensual reaction from him. Oh, she still taunted him occasionally about his affection for the Cessna, but she never canted it far enough to make the situation dangerous.

She had known after that kiss that she was afraid to do so. It was that simple.

The possibility of using his physical attraction for her to build a sensual bond was too disturbing. Instinctively Honor sensed that, once started, she wouldn’t be able to control the outcome.

Judd made no secret of his willingness to share her bed but he was still manageable. He was still sleeping on the floor and that was where Honor had decided to keep him.

His constant proximity, however, was having an effect on her nerves. At night she lay on the cot and watched his quiet form curled on the floor for a long time before she fell asleep. Sometimes she would awaken from one of the many dreams of loneliness and undefined fear she’d had since she’d begun her self-imposed exile and took a deep comfort from Judd’s quiet presence in the room.

Which made absolutely no sense at all when she considered how dangerous he really was.

It wasn’t until the third night of her four-day reprieve that desperation began to set in. Honor knew that although some communication was taking place between herself and Judd, it wasn’t yet of a sufficiently bonding nature to assure her of his loyalty and trust. How could they build a relationship that intense when most of their conversations were about airplanes and flying? Besides, Honor thought in disgust, she was getting tired of always being the one to initiate the conversations! Judd didn’t actually seem to mind talking, he just didn’t seem to know quite how to get things started. His social life must have been rather limited, Honor mused grimly. He obviously hadn’t had much practice in verbal communication. Probably stemmed from sitting too long alone in the cockpit of an airplane!

She knew she had been far quieter than usual herself that third afternoon. Her head had been filled with an examination of the few options left to her. She could try to sabotage the plane, although at best that would only be a delaying tactic and one that would surely enrage Judd. That damned Cessna was all he seemed to care about in the world. God help her if she crippled it badly.

Then there was the possibility of making a scene at the border when they landed to go through customs, assuming Judd didn’t intend to try to sneak her back into the country by avoiding port of entry airports. But what if he did decide to avoid potential problems and simply flew her in illegally?