The Adventurer

gun sauntered toward her. Around her the jungle was alive with brooding menace. But nothing it offered seemed even as remotely threatening at that moment as the cold, deadly expression in the eyes of the human predator in front of her.
    Green, Hilary thought fleetingly as she stared, mesmerized through the windshield. She could see that his eyes were emerald-green like those of a jungle cat and just as chilling.
    Her friends had told her Jed Mclntyre was dangerous—a man who made his own rules out here in the wilds of Rio Pasqual. But Hilary, as usual, had refused to listen to good advice.
    She had insisted on setting out to find Mclntyre and now she was very much afraid that she had done exactly that. The man coming toward her with such casual, graceful menace certainly fit the description Kathy had given her.
    Dangerous.
    Jed Mclntyre was perhaps ten paces away from the Jeep when Hilary came to her senses and remembered the pistol she had stuck in the glove box. Jerking herself out of her momentary trance, she lunged across the seat for it.
    She never made it.
     
    Gideon closed the book and put it back in the stack as he heard Sarah's light footsteps behind him.
    "See what I mean?" Sarah asked as she went on into the kitchen. "All my heroes are like you."
    "Other than the color of Jed Mclntyre's eyes, I didn't see much resemblance."
    "Then you didn't read far enough." Sarah switched on the coffee maker and put a kettle of water on the stove.
    Gideon shrugged. If she wanted to see him as dark, dangerous and sexy, who was he to complain? "Just tell me one thing. Do I have to start carrying a gun and wear a knife strapped to my leg?"
    "Good heavens, no. You don't need one. In that sense, you're a lot more interesting than Jed. Jed, I'm afraid, tended to rely a bit too much on brawn instead of brain. But brawn works nicely in a romance novel."
    Gideon smiled at that. "Well, that's a relief. I've never liked guns or knives. Or khaki, for that matter. Stuff wrinkles like crazy." He went down the hall to the bathroom, which smelled of lemon-scented soap. Automatically he plucked the used towel that was hanging askew off the rack and tossed it into the hamper. He located a fresh one in a small closet.
    A few minutes later when he got back to the kitchen he found Sarah pouring freshly brewed coffee. The stuff really was a lot better than instant, he decided. He was getting used to it. He sat down in a high-backed stool at the counter and picked up the red mug.
    In front of him on the counter lay an assortment of odds and ends including a couple of large yellow notepads, a glass jar holding a dozen pens and a stack of romance novels.
    "All right," Sarah said as she plunked herself down on the seat beside Gideon. "What are we going to do about your pal, Jake?"
    "As I said, I'll have a talk with him." Gideon sipped his coffee thoughtfully.
    "But how will you convince him to stop pestering us about the earrings? This little matter of going through my files is more than I can tolerate, Gideon."
    "I agree and I'll deal with it."
    She looked skeptical. "If you say so."
    "Don't tell me you're losing faith now?"
    "No, it's not that." She broke off, her thoughts clearly taking her in other directions. "But I can't help worrying about those earrings. I don't like leaving them buried up there in the mountains. I don't have as much confidence in Jake Savage's lack of competence as you do, I guess."
    "Okay," Gideon said, coming to a decision. This had gone on long enough. Time to end it. "We'll go get them."
    Sarah swung around on her stool and stared at him in surprise. "We will?"
    "I want you to be able to relax and stop worrying about them. Obviously the only way to do that is to dig them up and put them in a safe place. We'll go see if we can find them in the morning."
    "What about Jake Savage?"
    "With any luck, he's still over at the coast, looking for an angle or contacting a talk-show producer. If he saw me leave, he probably assumed I followed you to Seattle."
    "Gideon, this is wonderful. Do you know what this means? Do you realize what you're saying?"
    He eyed her warily. "I'm saying we're going to dig up the earrings. If we can find them."
    "No, no, no." She shook her head with obvious impatience. "That's not what you're saying at all."
    "It's not?"
    She smiled, her bright eyes triumphant. "What you're really saying is that you finally realize it's all right to help me dig up the earrings because you no longer think I'm just