Diana smiled benignly, her eyes alight with humor. “He speaks very highly of you when you’re not around.“
“I’ll just bet he does. He’d as soon rip out my throat as look at me.“ Colby grinned briefly, showing his own teeth.
“He tolerates me because he’s afraid to offend you. He’s probably worried you’d cut off his rations if he gets in the habit of tearing apart your dinner guests.“
“If he’s smart enough to have figured that out, then you can hardly call him a dumb dog.“
“I never said he was dumb. Just very uncute.“
“No,“ Diana agreed thoughtfully, “He’s not what you’d call cute. But, then, I’ve never gone for cute.“ If J had, she added silently, J wouldn’t be entertaining you here in my summer cottage, Colby Savagar.
Colby was anything but cute. Like Specter, he was strong, street-smart and no doubt dangerous when provoked.
But the truth was, she didn’t know much more about Colby’s past than she did about her dog’s. She knew Colby had an apartment in Portland, that he was forty years old, and that he looked his age. There were a number of uncompromising lines in his face.
Colby’s nearly black hair was streaked with silver at the temples. It would have made him look distinguished if he’d had the kind of pleasant, regular features of most successful businessmen, doctors or lawyers. But Colby didn’t have those kind of features, and the net effect of the silver in his hair was to make him look a lot like a battle-scarred wolf.
In the few weeks she had known him, Diana had never seen Colby dressed in anything but jeans, faded denim or khaki shirts and well-worn running shoes. The uniform suited him in some undefinable way.
“Where did you get the monster?“ Colby asked casually, as he helped himself to more of Diana’s stir-fried vegetables.
“I found him in the pound.“ Diana smiled, remembering. “We took one look at each other and knew it was fate.“
“Uh-huh. More likely he took one look at you and knew a soft touch when he saw it. My guess is, there was probably a damned good reason why that dog was in the pound in the first place.“
“He’d been abandoned.“ She smoothed the dog’s rough fur, and Specter leaned more heavily against her leg. His watchful brown eyes looked up at her with open adoration.
“Somehow, the fact that someone had enough sense to abandon him doesn’t surprise me. What is he, anyway? I mean apart from half-dragon?“
“I’m not sure. The lady at the pound said she thought he had some Rhodesian Ridgeback in him, but she didn’t know what the rest was.“
“I’ll bet he earned his living as a junkyard dog before you got him.“
Specter grinned savagely, and then tried to hide it behind a doggy yawn.
“What did you earn your living at before you became a writer?“ Diana asked suddenly. Her curiosity about Colby was growing daily. She knew she was deeply attracted to him but she didn’t like the idea of being attracted to what she did not understand. Diana was accustomed to being very much in control of herself and her life.
“Anything and everything that came along. I was in the army for a while. Construction work mostly after that. Then the writing started to sell.“
She knew he was impatient with her questions. This was one of the few he had bothered to answer. Diana savored the small tidbit of information. “Would you like some more rice?“
“Thanks.“ Colby took the bowl with alacrity. “No offense, but is stir-fried vegetables and rice the only thing you know how to make? You’ve served the same thing every night I’ve been here.“
Diana grinned. “It’s my one and only company dish. I’ve never really had time to learn how to cook for guests.
Besides, vegetable dishes suit me. I like to keep my weight under control.“
“I guess it’s a good thing I like vegetables, too.“ Colby sprinkled soy sauce on a fresh heap of greenery.
“Obviously Specter’s not the only one around here with a hearty appetite.“
“I’ve got an excuse,“ Colby said around mouthfuls of rice. “I did some climbing this afternoon.“
“You climbed to the top of Chained Lady Falls again?“
“Yeah.“
“You’re really fascinated with those falls, aren’t you?“
“One of these days I’ll take you up there at twilight. It’s a hell of a sight. The water catches the sun in a certain way and turns the whole thing the color of blood.“
Diana shuddered. “Is that where you got the idea for the title of the book you’re working on?“
“Blood Mist! Yeah.“ His hooded, gray eyes moved assessingly over her face as he put down his fork and reached for his wineglass.
Savagar’s gaze had a disconcerting effect on Diana. It was one of the reasons she had been careful to keep him at arm’s length since she had first met him at the post office in town a few weeks earlier. She had sensed something obscurely dangerous in that gaze, yet she had been unable to resist when he had practically invited himself over for dinner a few days later.
One dinner had led to another, and now here she was, almost a month later, playing a reckless game of sexual hide-and-seek with a man she couldn’t quite fathom. Common sense warned her to sever the relationship before she was caught, but Diana found herself unable to do that. She was too attracted, too curious, too intrigued. She felt compelled to take the risk of learning more about her summer neighbor.
“What did you do today?“ Colby asked, as if sensing the direction of her thoughts and wanting to distract her.
“The usual.“ Diana smiled and fed Specter a bite of broccoli. The dog wolfed it down as if it were a choice piece of steak. “Had breakfast, typed up some more resumes and letters to my job-hunting contacts, picked up the mail, took a long walk with Specter and read a few more chapters of Shock Value.“
“Sounds like you’re having one hell of a summer vacation, aren’t you? What made you choose this burg in the first place? How come you didn’t go to the coast?“
Diana shifted restlessly. She’d privately asked herself that same question more than once. “I’m not sure what made me choose this part of the state. I wanted someplace quiet. One day when I was looking at a map, I spotted Fulbrook Corners and something just clicked. I made the decision on the spot.“
“And now you’re stuck feeding me and trying to get through one of my novels. Fate works in mysterious ways, I guess. It’s not exactly a compliment to my writing that you’re taking so long to finish that book, though.“ Colby’s mouth curved wryly upward at one corner.