by Sharon Ihle
After a quick stop at Rand's Mercantile, where Dimitri bought a large sun bonnet for Shylo and a pair of rugged denim work pants and a Stetson hat for himself, they were finally on their way out of town.
At Shylo's insistence they started their journey by traveling east, to the location where the train had been disabled. Using that spot as a landmark, she was able to make a better guess at the precise direction in which the gang had ridden off. Within four hours of leaving Winslow, they reached a dry river valley leading into the windswept mesas and isolated buttes that made up the outlying regions of the Little Painted Desert.
Concerned about the mazelike appearance of the softly contoured slopes ahead, Dimitri brought the mule to a halt. He glanced up at the sky, noting the willowy- wisp clouds skating across the harsh noonday sun, then looked back out at the badlands. The barren landscape summoned him, promising ancient discoveries the equal of any of the treasures he'd unearthed at Mycenae, but he knew he couldn't answer the call. Although he felt more relaxed than he'd been since setting foot on American soil, more comfortable with his clothing and more excited by his surroundings than he could ever be as a "merchant of means," he had Shylo to think about. He'd allowed all the risks with her life he intended to.
"It's taken us almost half the day to get this far," he said. "If we go any farther, we might get lost and never make it out before dark."
Shylo, who was grateful for the company, not to mention fascinated by this new "westernized" Dimitri, kept her wits and her patience as she turned to him. She could hardly believe the change in him since he'd donned his new hat and Levi Strauss denims. The hat, black with a turquoise-and-silver band circling the crown, made him look less aloof and, incredible as it seemed, even more handsome than before. If she hadn't been so preoccupied by her sister's plight, Shylo thought, she might even have picked up with this man where she'd left off aboard the train, with another kiss.
But Cassie came first. "Let's at least go in far enough so I can climb to the top of one of those mountains and have a look around. I could call out Cassie's name a few times, and who knows? She might be out there lost and hear me."
Dimitri shook his head. "I'm afraid if we go in, we might be the ones who'll be lost. I don't think we ought to take that chance."
Fighting the urge just to fling herself off the wagon and forge ahead on her own, Shylo forced a soft tone as she touched the sleeve of Dimitri's shirt and said, "Please. I can't go back now that we've come this far. Let's just go in a little ways, far enough anyway for us to find a vantage point so I can at least look for signs that she's even been here. Please?"
Again spurning logic and his better judgment, Dimitri sighed, cracked the buggy whip over the mule's back, and guided the rig into the narrow valley. As they passed within touching distance of striated cliffs of russet, beige, and smoke gray, he couldn't help but feel a tremor of foreboding.
* * *
Three miles into the heart of those badlands, Cassie and Buck were in the cave, resting from a bout of fervent lovemaking. Cassie's traveling suit was covered with sandstone, her petticoats ragged and torn, and her body felt bruised and tender, raw from one end to the other. She'd never felt better in her life.
Yawning loudly, she turned on her side and caressed Buck's bare chest. "You sleeping again?"
He patted her hand. "Just resting, sugar. You plumb wore me out."
"Do you still love me?"
"You know I do, girl. What do I got to do to prove it?"
That was an easy enough question. Cassie pouted as she said, "Stay with me forever. That'll prove it."
Buck groaned. "You know I can't do that. I got to meet up with the gang to get my share of the loot. Besides, if I don't show, they'll think something's happened to me. A couple of them might even come looking for me. I can't let any of the boys take that kind of risk with a posse coming for us sooner or later."
"But you can let me go just like I never meant nothing to you?" Her pout grew more pronounced. "Well, the hell with you, Buck Dilly, and the hell with your stupid gang. I hope you all get caught and thrown in jail."
Cassie sat up as if to leave, but Buck pulled her back down beside him. "It don't have to be like that, sugar lips. We just got to make us a plan for meeting up again."
Her expression wary, she said, "What kind of plan?"
"Well, let's see." Buck rubbed the stubble of his sparse beard. "I've got to clear out of here by morning, ain't no two ways about that. I'll ride you out of these here hills and get you as close to Winslow as I dare without getting spotted."
"What's in Winslow?"
"The sheriff, for starters, and I'd guess your sister. She wouldn't have gone on to California without you, would she?"
Cassie considered that a moment. "I don't think so, but she is awful set on finding our ma. If Shylo is in Winslow, do you expect me to walk all the way to town while you ride off to Utah?"
She was pouting again, so Buck tickled her under the chin as he said, "I told you I'll get you as close to Winslow as I can without being seen. You'll be all right."
"Maybe. But what about you and me meeting up again?"
"I'm thinking on it, I'm a-thinking." He scratched his head, and then shot Cassie a big grin. "You're going on to San Diego no matter what, ain't you?"
She shrugged. "Sure. We still got train tickets supposed to take us there, and I expect that once I'm found, we'll be heading to California again. Why?"
"I ain't never been west of Flagstaff." His grin deepened. "Would you like it if I was to meet up with you at San Diego in, say, three or four weeks?"
Cassia squealed. "Really? You'd come all that way just to get me?"
"I sure would, sugar face." He captured her chin and pulled her up close for a kiss. "You begin marking the clays tomorrow, and at the end of three weeks' time, you'd best start moseying on down to the San Diego post office every day to check and see if there ain't a letter addressed to Miss Cassandra McBride. General delivery, of course."
"You re gonna write me a letter? What for?"
"For you to read, cotton-head. I'll write down the name of a spot and a time for us to meet. I'll be there every night until you show."
"Oh, Buck." Cassie's heart was aglow with the romance of it all. "That's the best plan I've ever heard."
"You think that's good, wait till you hear the rest of my plans." At her look of bafflement, he gave her a broad wink. "We just got today and tonight to last us for a month. I don't know about you, but I don't plan on wasting the little bit of time we got left on talking." Then he took her into his arms and kissed the remnants of her pout right off her lips.
* * *
Less than two miles from the cave, Dimitri was pacing alongside the disabled wagon, his concerns about being able to repair it growing as each minute ticked by. The front left wheel had fallen into a deep fissure, a rut he hadn't seen because Shylo had distracted him with another of her "sightings"—a ruse, he suspected, to get him to drive deeper and deeper into the badlands. Now the rig was buried up to its axle at an impossible angle, and if the loud crack he'd heard when the road gave way was any indication, they had a broken wheel to contend with as well. All because of Shylo's constant insistence that they move farther into this forbidding desert in search of her friend.
Dimitri turned to her, his frustrations and fears for their safety rising, and said, "Are you happy now? Even if I use the mule, it will take me hours to get this wheel free, and when I do, I think we'll find at least one broken spoke."
"So what?" she snapped in response to his tone. "Can't we just fix it?"
"With what? Look around you, Miss Folsom." He swept his arm in an arc to encompass the smoothly rounded hills, which showed few signs of vegetation. "If spokes are broken, I'll need some sturdy wood to repair them. Do you see any trees around here?"
Wiping her brow with the edge of her sleeve, an overheated, overwrought Shylo could think only of continuing her search. In frustration she kicked the buried wheel, an
d then winced as a sharp pain shot from her big toe to her shinbone. "You don't know that it's broken for sure," she snapped at him again, "so why don't we dig it out first and worry about fixing it later?"
"Whatever you say, Miss Folsom, but I know not why I should listen to any more of your great ideas. If I hadn't listened to you in the first place, we would not be in this, this... unhappy..."
Dimitri turned and started for the rear of the wagon where the tools were stashed, trying to cool his temper. His command of English was good enough that he could usually think as clearly in the foreign language as he did in Greek—unless, of course, he was flustered, highly excited, or downright angry. And right now he was all three.
Dogging his heels, Shylo said, "Are you blaming me for getting the wagon stuck? Me?"
Dimitri reached over the low side of the wagon, grabbed the shovel, and flung it toward the front wheel. "Yes, I am," he said, losing the battle with his temper. "I wanted not to go in here, but you insisted we search this, this God-hates-it desert. I can't believe I am idiot enough to let you talk me into coming all the way out here."
"And I can't believe you were idiot enough to drive the wagon over a rut as big as the Grand Canyon." She picked up the shovel. "What were you thinking of, anyway?"
With the pick in his hand, Dimitri stomped to the front of the wagon. Leaning his face in close to hers, he said, "I think if I'd stayed in Greece, maybe where I belong, I would not be here."
Although his words didn't make a lot of sense to her, the tone did. Jutting back her shoulders, Shylo said, "Well, I sure won't try to argue you out of that. I'd be better off if you'd stayed in Greece, too."
The veins in Dimitri's neck bulged, and his olive skin took on a deep red flush. He knew he was overreacting, and that worry over their circumstances was the major force driving him on, but he couldn't seem to stop himself or find his usual control. That, in turn, made his English even worse.
"And I," he said, his tone blistering by now, "should not know a stubborn, sass social woman like you. I would not to accompany across the street this female, but never to California."
Shylo almost laughed over the way he'd slaughtered the sentence, but he'd said it well enough for her to understand what he meant. "Then why did you accompany me out here, you two-faced son of a—It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that you heard the president of the United States is my uncle, would it?"
Dimitri should have collected himself right then, defended himself against her accusation—even if she had touched on the truth—and gone to work on the wagon wheel, but the last of his control unraveled when Shylo pointed the tip of her nose toward the sky, uttered a self-satisfied grunt, and twirled away.
"Yes," he shouted, his words bringing her to a skidding halt. "Now you have truth. I would not think of to bring you anywhere with your mule head. But of course I did because of your famous uncle. But of course."
Although she'd believed that herself, it hurt her to hear it. Suddenly all her recent training as a refined lady was shot to hell. She turned back to him. "Why, you miserable, no-good, two-faced bastard."
"This is not good talk." Dimitri narrowed one eye. "For that, you should eat wood."
"Huh?" Shylo knew she had offended him by mouthing off that way, but the rest baffled her. "What does 'eat wood' mean?"
Beyond frustration, Dimitri simply couldn't think of an English translation to make it clearer, so he showed her. Raising his right fist, he drove it into the palm of his left hand. "Eat wood. Katalaves?"
Shylo gasped and backed away from him. "I hope my uncle Grover never finds out that I let myself be escorted to California by a madman like you. Why, you're no gentleman at all, let alone a Greek god. You're nothing but a dang Greek—period."
The woman's eyes were bluer and hotter than the blazing Arizona skies overhead, and her breasts were rising and falling with the force of her anger. Between her statement and the wild, savage look of her, Dimitri couldn't have stopped himself from forcefully taking her into his arms if he'd wanted to. He jerked her up against his body, his voice a low, dark growl as he said, "And don't you or your uncle ever forget it, because that's exactly all I am, woman."
She tried to shrink away from him then, a shadow of fear crossing her exquisite features, but Dimitri's grip remained firm around her waist and shoulders. His eyes glittering with equal parts of rage and sudden, painful desire, he became fully aware of Shylo as a woman—a woman he wanted so badly, he could almost taste her, even though thoughts of wrapping his fingers around her throat and squeezing seemed almost as intense a need. Aware finally that he'd gone way beyond the limits of decorum, Dimitri set her away from him.
"It is getting late," he said, his voice harsh. "I think we should not worry who is in blame for our troubles, but better if we try to find a way to get that wheel fixed." He glanced at the sky, noting that the slowly sinking sun was already draping the pastel mountains in glorious shades of purple and crimson.
Then he lowered his head and pinned her with a heated, purposeful gaze. "It will be dark soon. Believe me when I say that you do not want to be left out here alone with this 'dang' Greek for the night."
Chapter 8
Much to their mutual chagrin, by the time Shylo and Dimitri managed to free the wheel and repair two of the three broken spokes with the branches of a creosote bush, the hour had moved beyond dusk, leaving them with no choice but to spend the night where they had broken down. Dimitri's temper had cooled considerably by then, too, and after assuring Shylo that she really had nothing to fear from him, they finished the fried chicken the hotel had prepared for them and settled down for the evening. Although neither of them was particularly pleased by these arrangements, they decided there would be less danger if they slept in the back of the wagon and left the warm desert sands to the more hostile creatures of the night: rattlesnakes, gila monsters, and scorpions among their numbers.
As the moonless sky progressed slowly toward dawn, releasing its grip on the utter darkness, Shylo drifted in and out of sleep, aware not only of the man lying beside her, but of how indecently close she'd gotten to him while she slept. When they'd bedded down, the gap between them had been as wide as the rig's walls would allow, but sometime during the night Shylo figured she must have gravitated toward Dimitri, most probably seeking his warmth. Even though temperatures during the daylight hours had been blazing, the desert was surprisingly chilly after the sun went down. What other reason could there be for her to awaken and find herself snuggled up against this otherwise unapproachable man, her head nestled into the crook of his arm?
Dimitri stirred then, tugging her hair in the process, and Shylo realized that her braid had slipped loose of its bonds—and that one of Dimitri's hands was tangled in her tresses. Another accident of the night? she wondered. She breathed deeply, inhaling the essence of a man who'd toiled without rest until darkness kept him from completing his task. Surprisingly enough, his scent did not offend her, but rather beckoned her, prompting her to wriggle even closer to him, to slide her hand up to the center of his chest, where her fingers lingered, tracing the outline of the dark curls just beneath his shirt.
At these exploratory caresses, Dimitri stirred again. He rolled toward Shylo, swung the hand that was not tangled in her hair across her hip, and tugged her close to his body in a very possessive, intimate embrace. Yet he did not seem to be awake. He inhaled deeply, let out his breath in a long, sleepy sigh, and then murmured something far too low for her to understand. The impact of this whispered prattle, however, was no less potent. The sound of his melodic voice, coupled with his clean, honest scent and sensuously warm embrace, collided within Shylo, striking a match deep in her belly, a flame that grew hotter and blazed a wider path through her body with each passing moment. Could these be the sensations she'd been seeking as she'd edged toward him in slumber?
Impossible. Until the moment she dropped off to sleep, Shylo had still been furious with Dimitri, blaming him for everything from Ca
ssie's plight, to the broken wheel, to the fact that she had only a scratchy woolen horse blanket with which to cover herself for the night. Between the loose equine hairs clinging to her nose and mouth and the pungent, unrelenting aroma of stale horse sweat, she'd almost opted to sleep directly on the wooden floor of the wagon, with only her thin lawn dress to protect her from the elements. Of course, that was before the noises had begun.
Just as Shylo finally had started to drift off to sleep, an owl had punctuated the quiet with a series of queries, bringing her fully alert again. Shortly after that, the mournful barking of coyotes had begun echoing off canyon walls, some yelping in such high-pitched tones that she'd wondered if they weren't tearing each other to bits. Finally, adding the most frightening sound of all to the cacophony, the shrill, ominous cry of a killdeer, night bird of the desert, had filled the air.
She'd been truly frightened then, more so than at any time during their journey, but had managed to fall asleep in spite of her fears. Perhaps those sounds combined with the chill in the air had driven her to seek Dimitri's embrace—though Shylo still couldn't understand how she'd wound up in his arms. She knew only one thing for sure right now: a deep sense of belonging had come over her as she lay enveloped in Dimitri's embrace, a feeling akin, she supposed, to this imaginary thing called love.
Whatever it was, she couldn't remember having felt anything like it in her entire life. She'd experienced almost the same sensations in his room when he'd pressed her so tenderly against his chest, making her think that he cared just a little bit. Of course, that had all been a part of an act, a way of impressing the president's niece. What would he do if he knew the woman he'd performed for was nothing but an impostor? Not a socialite or debutante, but a penniless orphan? She had an idea he would loathe her for the terrible lies she told, and that the fit of anger she'd witnessed in him yesterday would seem like a minor irritation.
