Page 34 of Hunter

“But what is the use—the utility?”

“Some people like to stroke the fur. It makes them calm.”

He nodded, his finger brushing the green plush. “It feels good, like—” He stopped, his gaze skimming over her hair. “It should be red.”

She swallowed, dropped her gaze to the box of pasta in her hand.

He moved farther into the room, testing the weight of a metal candlestick, touching the raised flower pattern on a lamp base.

Everything here was normal, ordinary. Nothing special. Yet the cottage was a novelty in his limited experience. It seemed Dr. Kolb had made a shrewd proposal. Simply taking Hunter out of his sterile environment was expanding his horizons.

She had impulsively bought a bouquet of pink and white carnations and set them on the dining room table. Hunter studied them from several angles, touched the petals, bent closer.

“They feel soft, but they smell—spicy,” he said.

“Do you like the smell?”

He started to pull one out of the vase, then stopped. “Yes. Are they part of supper?”

She managed to keep her face impassive. “They’re just to make the table look pretty. Make the meal more festive.”

“Festive?”

“Nicer. It’s a gracious touch,” she amplified, wondering what he might make of the explanation.

He bent to smell them again. “On television, I have seen people living in houses like this. With flowers—and the other things.”

“Do you watch much television?”

“No. Colonel Emerson thinks it is a bad influence.”

“Why do you call him colonel?” she asked, casually.

“I think of him that way—as a soldier. A lot of the men do, too.”

Maybe they’d served with him, she thought. Or maybe he wasn’t as retired as he’d claimed.

“Um. Well, he’s probably right about TV,” she said.

“Why?”

“Except for a few good shows, it’s superficial. Silly. It plays to people with low tastes.”

“Like the men on the training staff.”

She laughed. “You’re perceptive.”

He chewed on that for a while, then asked, “Where do you live?”

“An apartment. In a high-rise building. In Baltimore.”

He moved on to the kitchen, opening cabinets, taking out packages of food and examining them. After sticking his finger into a jar of mustard and stealing a taste, he gave her a guilty look.

“That is not polite, is it?” he asked.

“No.”

Opening a bottle of vanilla, he contented himself with a deep sniff.

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