Read Online Lover in the Rough by Elizabeth Lowell - Free Book Online Page B

places looking for more godforsaken treasures than any man alive.”
    “Did he ever find any?”
    Chance’s laugh was hard and unpleasant. “He lost the greatest treasure he ever found and didn’t even know it.”
    The cold emotion in Chance’s voice told Reba more than his words. Whatever Chance felt for his father wasn’t love. For the space of several breaths Chance stared out at the sea, his eyes narrow and remote. Then he took Reba’s hand in his as though he needed to feel something warm, alive.
    “Between treasure hunts, Dad prospected for gold, diamonds, gem-quality quartz, uranium.” Chance shrugged. “Whatever men would pay money to have.”
    “Another kind of treasure hunt,” said Reba softly, thinking of her own prowling among various collections, seeking the one unique specimen that would literally be worth its weight in diamonds to the right customer. “The adrenaline is addictive.”
    “It’s worse than any drug,” he agreed.
    “Have you made good strikes?”
    His face changed. “A few,” Chance said, his voice resonating with remembered excitement, memories of extraordinary pleasure lighting his expression. “There’s nothing like it. Nothing . There’s no risk too big, no work too hard, no sacrifice too great if a big strike is the reward.”
    Reba saw the change in him and felt something close to jealousy. It wasn’t that she wished she had found gold or diamonds buried in the earth as Chance had. It was the passion and intensity of his response that made her jealous. She wanted to be able to captivate him that completely, to have him as hungry for her as he was for gemstone buried in the earth.
    “You feel the same way about treasure as your father. Why do you hate him?” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded accusing.
    Chance turned on Reba with a look that made her want to get up and run. “My father knew enough about minerals to tell gold from pyrite but he didn’t know dirt from diamonds when it came to people. Luck was the same way. The strikes they made were stolen by gamblers and whores and gem buyers. Before I was old enough to fight back, Dad even gambled away money from my own small finds. He believed in honest card games almost as much as he believed in treasure maps and whores with hearts of gold. He never grew up.
    “But I did,” continued Chance in a hard voice. “I learned to tell an ambush from an accidental meeting. I learned that treasure maps are lies and that most gem buyers are crooks. I learned that any cards I don’t buy and deal myself are almost certainly marked and stacked against me. I learned that whores lie down with men for money, not pleasure. I learned that you never trust anybody. I learned that information is all that separates men from sudden death. If you know something that gives you an edge, you bloody well keep it tucked.
    “And most of all,” Chance said, watching Reba with eyes like hammered silver, “I learned not to be like my father. I never married and dragged a good woman after me into some of the worst hellholes on earth. I never made my family go ragged and hungry to buy a fool’s map. I never went off prospecting and left my seven-year-old son to watch his mother die of some jungle disease that didn’t have a name or a cure.”
    For a time there was only silence punctuated by the harsh cries of seagulls wheeling overhead. Reba realized that she was shaking her head in silent protest at what the answer to her question had cost Chance. She didn’t know she was crying until she felt a tear fall from her cheek. She looked down and saw her tears glistening on his hands.
    “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” said Chance, his voice gentle again as he held her clenched hands between his. “Don’t cry, chaton . I’m not angry anymore.”
    “That’s not why I’m crying.”
    He tilted her face up until she had to meet his eyes. “Why?” he asked.
    She took his hand and pressed her cheek against it, then she kissed his