by Janet Dailey
"Take care of yourself," she whispered tightly.
He hesitated, his expression growing serious. "I'm not going anywhere, Brandy."
"But—" She looked anxiously over her shoulder.
The helicopter was close enough for her to make out the pilot and the man sitting beside him. Even as she realized that, she saw the pilot point toward them. It was too late.
"Oh, Jim!" Bitter tears filled her eyes. "They've seen us. They've seen you."
Reaching out, he brushed an imaginary lock of hair behind her ears. "Brandy, I'm sorry. I am very sorry," he murmured cryptically.
"I'm the one who's sorry," she insisted with a con fused frown.
His hand settled over her shoulder, turning her round. "There's a clearing over there where the helicopter will probably land to pick us up."
With Jim more or less pushing her along ahead of him, they started toward the clearing. Brandy couldn't believe it was all happening.
"Aren't you going to try to get away?" she accused in disbelief. "You still might make it." Jim didn't answer, but kept pushing her toward their destination. "Do you want to get caught, is that it? You'll go to jail." The helicopter was very near and she had to shout the last to make herself heard above its din.
Not until they had reached the clearing did he speak, his hand falling away from her shoulder as he suddenly seemed very remote. "I'm not a cattle rustler, Brandy." His voice was controlled and clear.
"But you said—" she started to protest.
"No, you said it," he corrected smoothly.
He seemed so completely different somehow. She made a frowning study of him, trying to figure out what it was. She tipped her head warily to one side.
"Who are you, anyway?" she demanded.
Dust swirled around them as the helicopter descended on to the clearing. Its arrival distracted Brandy as she turned to face it, shielding her eyes against the grains of sand kicked up by the propeller blades that whirled on top. The pilot remained at the controls as the second man stepped out and ran in a crouching position toward Brandy and Jim.
A wide grin of relief was splitting the man's face. "Dammit, Jim," he exclaimed as he reached them, vigorously shaking Jim's hand, "am I glad to see you're all right! Raymond saw your horse heading for the main house just before the storm hit." Then the man glanced at Brandy. "You must be the Ames girl."
Numbly she moved her head in an affirmative nod as the poncho-blanket flapped roughly against her side from the whirling wind generated by the spinning helicopter blades. Her confusion was increasing with each ticking second. Her mind raced to separate the true facts from the false. The man appeared to know Jim very well, and Jim was his name. In her bewilderment, Brandy recognized that he had been more concerned about finding Jim safe than her. Jim wasn't a cattle rustler, he was somebody important, but who?
Then Brandy remembered that initial sensation that there was something about him that was familiar. With eyes narrowed against blowing dust, she turned to study his face. His features were obscured by the beard and the wide brim of his hat pulled low on his forehead. Obsidian-dark eyes were returning her gaze with cool alertness.
"Are you ready?" he asked. Part of her mind registered the fact that Jim was repeating the question put forth by the other man, but she stared without answering, trying desperately to recognize him. "Miss Ames, are you ready to leave?"
Miss Ames! The formal term of address jolted Brandy out of her daze. If it had been issued in gentle mockery instead of such distant politeness, she might not have felt quite so shocked. It had always been just Brandy and Jim.
"Yes." She nodded her head in accompaniment of the softly-spoken agreement that was whipped away unheard by the noisy chop of the helicopter.
It was the other man's hand, not Jim's, that took a guiding hold of her arm and led her in a crouching walk to the open sides of the helicopter. The man helped her into the far rear seat, gesturing toward the seat belts to strap herself in.
Feeling strangely betrayed, Brandy wouldn't allow herself to look at Jim as he climbed effortlessly into the seat beside her. While the other man took the seat beside the pilot, she concentrated on buckling her seat belt tightly.
The man leaned sideways to shout above the deafening roar of the motor to the pilot. "Did you radio the sheriff that we found the Ames girl with Corbett?"
The pilot nodded affirmatively and the upward motion of the helicopter began.
Corbett! The name struck Brandy like a blow to the stomach. The image flashed in her mind of a dark-haired, dark-eyed man with bluntly carved cheek and jaw, the strong chin with its faint cleft. Sardonic grooves were etched either side of a cynical yet blatantly sensual male mouth. The rest of the image she recognized, the dark eyes that could glitter with cold menace or sparkle with mockery or be totally veiled so that no emotion at all was revealed.
The beard and the circumstances had kept her from guessing his identity. Who would ever have guessed, she reasoned in silent desperation, that a disreputable-looking cowboy camped alone in the desert would turn out to be James Corbett the actor?
Shock waves of recognition quaked her shoulders as she admitted who he really was. She felt sick to her stomach. How he must have laughed at her! He had probably thought it was hilariously funny that she had mistaken him for a cattle rustler. She could imagine him relating the tale for the amusement of his acting friends. What a fool she had made of herself!
Flames of supreme embarrassment burned her cheeks. She sank her teeth into her lower lip to hold back the sob of injured pride that would make her humiliation complete.
Through the veil of her lashes, her traitorously bright blue-green eyes darted a look of smoldering resentment at the man seated beside her. His dark eyes met the look emotionlessly before he diverted their attention to the desert scrub the helicopter was flying above.
Brandy jerked her head to the front, riveting her gaze on the pilot. Jim must have realized that she had finally recognized him, and now that his little game was over, he no longer found her amusing. With a little catch of her breath, she discovered that she still thought of him as Jim. Starting now, she had better begin thinking of him as James Corbett, celebrity and actor.
The pilot pressed the earphone of his headset more tightly against his ear, then signaled to the man in the co-pilot's seat to pick up the set of earphones hooked on the lower part of the control panel. Adjusting it over his head, the man spoke into the microphone mouthpiece, then listened.
Grimacingly wryly at the pilot, the man turned in his seat toward Jim. "There are reporters at the Ames house," he shouted. "Somehow they heard the search party had been instructed to look for you, too. Do you want to land at Saguarro instead?"
The swift glance Brandy darted at Jim encountered his measuring look. His mouth was compressed into a grim line of displeasure. She wanted only to go home and bring this miserable nightmare to an end, but it seemed she was going to have to run through a gauntlet of reporters before she reached the sanctuary.
"We'll go to the Ames house," was the terse command.
The man moved his shoulders in a shrug that said Jim was the boss and relayed the message to the pilot. Within a few minutes, Brandy saw the familiar buildings of her home just ahead. Cars, trucks and horse trailers littered the driveway and the area around the stable.
As the helicopter began its downward descent, using the graveled road in front of her house for its landing pad, a group of people surged forward to meet it. Brandy caught a glimpse of the anxious faces of her parents in the crowd before they were lost in the cloud of dust churned up by the rotating blades.
When it had settled to the ground, Jim ordered the pilot to turn the motor off. Its sputtering stop left the slowing, centrifugal whirl of the blades to fill its silence. Fumbling with her belt, Brandy finally got it unbuckled and started to crawl out of the helicopter.
Jim waited for her on the ground, but she ignored the large hand that offered to help her and jumped down una
ssisted. His broad chest blocked her path to the crowd: unwillingly, she let her gaze be drawn to his face. She was more wary of him now than she had ever been before.
"Excuse me, Mr. Corbett." Her voice sounded cool and surprisingly self-possessed. She didn't want to hear whatever it was that he had been on the point of saying. "My parents are waiting for me."
Brushing past him, she hurried to the smiling, relieved faces that belonged to her parents. The smile she gave them was forced and taut as she tried to guess what they were thinking about their daughter's return in the company of a celebrity.
Lenora, her mother, looked calm and happy. The camel tan trouser suit that she wore was subtly tailored to reveal her slender figure. Her medium-length hair was ash-blonde, cunningly streaked with gray to give her a sophisticated yet intellectual appearance. It was in her mother's arms that Brandy first sought shelter.
"You gave us such a scare, darling," Lenora Ames scolded as she cupped her daughter's face in her hands and laughed in relief. "You look like a grubby little urchin."
Brandy realized that she probably did look a sight in her dust-encrusted poncho and the gritty fine sand that clung to her hair, skin, and clothes.
"I am a mess," she agreed before turning to her father's burly figure.
She had taken only one step toward him before she was enveloped in his hearty bear-hug. His dark, curling hair was peppered with gray, but his sun-burned face was still youthfully handsome.
"Are you all right, Brandywine?" Stewart Ames whispered in her ear, using his own pet name for her.
"I'm fine, Daddy." She hugged him a little tighter. Over his shoulder, she could see the reporters clustering around Jim Corbett. Cameras were clicking pictures, and she knew several had been taken of her reunion with her parents.
When her father released her from his embrace, it seemed to be a signal for the reporters to close in. There were only three, but the questions bombarded her as if they came from double that number.
"How do you feel, Miss Ames?"
"Fine," she nodded.
"Is it good to be home?"
"Of course."
"How did you get lost?"
"What was it like spending a night on the desert?"
"Tell us about it?"
The questions followed one another in such rapid succession that Brandy had barely focused her thoughts on one than another was thrown at her. Bewilderedly trying to decide which question to answer first, she didn't notice Jim's approach. Suddenly he was there, smoothly introducing himself to her parents, and Brandy felt very proud of the way they reacted to him. They were respectful without being awed at his status.
"We heard you were caught in the sandstorm, Mr. Corbett," her father commented.
"Miss Ames," one of the reporters broke in, "what did you do when the sandstorm came up?"
There was a pause that allowed Brandy to answer. "Actually J . . . Mr. Corbett saw the storm approaching and we were able to find shelter in some rocks until it blew over," she explained, hurriedly correcting the instinct to use his first name.
"Do you mean you and Mr. Corbett were together when the sandstorm hit?" a second reporter queried.
"I—that is—" Stammering, Brandy realized too late that no one had been told that she and Jim had been together prior to their rescue. Her eyes wildly sought assistance from Jim. There was no one else who could help.
"Miss Ames and I met last night," he announced calmly to the now intensely curious reporters, "she had lost her way in the dark, saw the fire from my camp and came in."
He made it sound so matter-of-fact, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and not something that would cause comment.
"Then the two of you spent the night together on the desert, is that right?"
Jim Corbett smiled coldly. "I guess you would have to put it that way, yes."
"Where did you get those scratches on your arm, Miss Ames?"
Brandy glanced almost with surprise at the marks on her arms. She had completely forgotten about them. She wished she had remembered them and hidden them from beneath her poncho. Thank heaven the poncho covered her ripped blouse! That would really raise some eyebrows.
"Cactus and mesquite thorns," she answered, "I ran into some cactus and mesquite thorns."
"What were you running from?" one reporter laughed rather snidely.
She crimsoned, remembering her mad flight into the desert when she had seen the knife in Jim's hand. She could not possibly tell them that.
"Are you asking Miss Ames if I chased her around the campfire?" There was a mocking lift of one eyebrow at the reporter. "I think she was using a figure of speech when she said "ran into" some cactus and mesquite thorns."
"That's right," she agreed quickly.
"Why don't you describe for us what it's like to be stranded in the desert with James Corbett?" A reporter teased Brandy with a suggestive wink.
She waited, half expecting Jim to speak up to reveal that she hadn't known who he was. But he said nothing, leaving her to parry the question as best she could.
"To be honest," she said hesitantly, "by the time I saw the fire last night I was so grateful there was another human being around that I didn't care who it was."
"But afterward?" the reporter prompted.
"Afterward—" Brandy faltered again.
Jim picked up the sentence where she left off. "—she ate some of the rabbit I cooked. I put some antiseptic on her scratches and she went to sleep beside the fire. It wouldn't make a very good movie script, would it?"
Not the way he put it, Brandy thought to herself as the others laughed a little self-consciously. He had deliberately omitted the damaging parts, like the humiliating way she had thought he was a cattle thief and the fact that her scratches were not limited to her arms. She sent up a silent prayer of gratitude that he had, because she never would have been able to endure the tongue-wagging that would have followed the publication of those items.
"Mr. Corbett has quite a reputation with the ladies. Were you concerned about spending the night with him, Miss Ames?"
"I never even thought about his reputation," Brandy answered honestly, since she hadn't known who he was.
Even now she couldn't admit to knowing anything about him personally, but a man as ruggedly masculine and virile as he was, and a celebrity too, probably had had a long string of beautiful women in his life. Something inside her froze a little at that thought, remembering that expert kiss he had given her, and the open way she had responded.
She had been so stupidly naive. No wonder he had felt the need to tell her that the kiss meant nothing! He was a star and she was a nobody, and a not very glamorous nobody, too.
"Lost the way you were, it must have been quite thrilling to be found by James Corbett," one reporter observed.
Humiliating was the word, Brandy corrected him silently as she glanced at Jim with an upward sweep of the lashes. His dark eyes were glittering at her with that mocking light so reminiscent of the night before. Then she noticed the cynical twist of his mouth and turned away.
"Yes, it was," she lied calmly.
"Miss Ames—" the question forming on another reporter's lips never was completed.
"Fellers, fellers!" The man who had been in the helicopter with them stepped into the circle of people, a good-natured but firmly commanding expression on his face. "I think that's enough questions, don't you? I'm sure Miss Ames is tired and thirsty and much in need of a relaxing few hours in the comfort of her home after all she's been through. And I know Mr. Corbett is going to want to rest up before we start filming tomorrow morning. You have your stories, so let's break this gathering up."
Although they grumbled, none of the reporters protested too earnestly to the request. As they began to disperse, Brandy realized that she wasn't going to be able to enter her home without saying some form of goodbye. Drawing on the composure of her parents who had steadfastly remained at her side during all the questioning, she turned to Jim.
> "Goodbye, Mr. Corbett," she said stiffly. "I appreciated your help."
His mouth tightened for a second as if in irritation. She supposed it was because she hadn't sounded sufficiently impressed that she had had the privilege of spending so much time in his company. Then he challengingly offered his hand in goodbye, and she had to resist the impulse to slap it away.
"It's been a pleasure meeting you, Miss Ames," he murmured.
Her hand rested limply in his, not responding to the firm clasp of his fingers.
"I'm sure you found it amusing." Brandy smiled coldly as she made the sweetly cutting comment.
His grip tightened with painful pressure when she tried to slip her hand away. There was a swift narrowing of his dark eyes as he made a thorough study of her coolly polite expression. Then his gaze darted to the reporters, still lingering near their cars.
"You will be explaining that remark." The threatening promise was issued in an ominously soft tone meant only for Brandy to hear. Her hand was released as he nodded politely to her parents and pivoted toward the waiting helicopter.
For a few seconds, Brandy watched him striding away before she turned to her parents. Her mother curved a comforting arm around her waist and started toward the house.
"You go on in," Stewart Ames instructed. "I'll be there in a few minutes. I want to thank the men again for all they've done."
Inside the house, the tension that Brandy hadn't been aware of slipped away like the shedding of a coat. The muscles in her legs ached from her long walk over the rocky desert, she was tired from her night spent on the ground, and she felt caked with perspiration and grime.
"You must be hungry," her mother smiled, her green eyes still bright with relief at Brandy's safe return. "I'll fix you some soup and sandwiches." Then she laughed. "I'd better fix some for all of us. I just realized Stewart and I haven't even had breakfast. I'd just poured the orange juice when he discovered you weren't in your room and your bed hadn't been slept in."
That confirmed what Brandy had suspected. She almost wished they had discovered she was gone the night before; maybe she would have been found before she stumbled into Jim's camp. In all probability, though, she wouldn't have been and her parents would have spent endless hours imagining all sorts of terrible things.
