by Janet Dailey
Immediately it smoothed itself away. "Was I frowning?'' She shrugged, and then quickly slid on to the contoured leather seat. "I was just thinking—about nothing really important."
He made no comment as he closed her door and walked around to the driver's side. The powerful engine sprang immediately to life at the turn of the key. He reversed the car out of the parking stall and turned it toward the parking lot exit.
"Are you still worrying, Brandy?" Jim asked quietly, flicking her a brief glance while he waited for a break in the traffic before pulling on to the road.
"Worrying?" she stalled. "I don't know what you mean."
"Isn't your inferiority complex troubling you for allowing James Corbett to take you home?" There was a deepening of the groove on one side of his mouth.
"I don't feel inferior to you, Jim," Brandy corrected softly.
"That was the impression you gave me when you turned down my dinner invitation," he replied, as the car accelerated on to the road.
"I don't feel inferior to you," she repeated, "it's just that we're two totally different types. Your world isn't like mine at all!"
"You saw a part of my world today and met some of the people I work with. Did you find them so extraordinary that you couldn't be friendly toward them? Were they so very different from yourself and the people you know?"
Brandy felt trapped. "No," she admitted grudgingly.
"Then why don't you reconsider your decision?"
"Which decision?" she countered.
"The one about having dinner with me," he answered smoothly.
Brandy wanted to take back her refusal. She wanted to say yes to Jim this time. But the words of acceptance lodged in her throat. She had been so adamant before. Rather than say anything she stared out the window, hating the wall of pride she had erected.
Jim let the silence stand, not prodding her for any kind of reply. Slowing the car, he turned it into a side road and switched off the motor. Her heart thudded against her ribs as she darted him a wary glance.
"Why are we stopping here?" She looked around to see if there was a legitimate reason for their stop.
"It's a good, quiet place to walk." He opened the door and stepped out. Leaning down, his gaze challenged her. "Are you coming?"
Surprised by the unexpected change of circumstances, Brandy faltered, "But . . . my parents will be expecting me home. I'm usually there to fix dinner in the evenings."
A sardonically amused light entered his dark eyes. "I wasn't suggesting that we spend the night, only go for a short walk. You're a grown woman—I doubt that your parents will worry if you're a couple of hours late. As for dinner, I'm sure your mother can manage to cope."
His reasoning wasn't to be argued with, so Brandy surrendered to the inevitable and stepped out of the car. He waited until she had walked around to join him before starting out.
Heat radiated from the sun-baked desert floor, although the intensity of the sun was on the wane. The scattered forest of giant saguaro cactus rose to dwarf them as they made their way around the sage-brush and prickly pear.
The tops of the rounded ends of the saguaro trunk and its arms were crowned with a waxlike blossom, the state flower of Arizona. The saguaro and the organ pipe were always the last cactus to bloom, and because they were the largest, they kindly let their smaller cousins be the first to herald spring.
In March, the little hedgehog cactus would open its rose-purple cups, and a month later the spiny ocotillo would release its scarlet-flamed trumpets. But the giants waited until late May, with the first saguaro blossom signaling the beginning of the Papago Indian's New Year.
Walking among these ancient towering plants with their vertical ridges of thorns, Brandy felt her gaze pulled repeatedly to the majestic saguaros. Their trunks stretched upward to the sky, a multitude of arms branching out and raised boldly to the sun. Their endurance in a hostile climate was marked by the fact that a saguaro was seventy-five years old before it began to branch out.
Most of the cacti surrounding Brandy and Jim now were older than the statehood of Arizona. Some of them were nearer the age of the United States. The timeless magic of them enfolded her.
"The tales they could tell!" Brandy murmured.
Jim glanced down, an indulgent gleam in his eyes. "I take it you don't regret coming for a walk."
"I don't regret it." She darted a quick look at his amused expression. "I didn't really object in the first place," she defended.
"Didn't you?" A dark eyebrow arched to doubt her word.
"Well, only a little bit," she admitted as a self-mocking smile curved his lips.
A car hummed along the road behind them, an unwanted reminder of civilization. Brandy much preferred to have her thoughts dwell on the natural beauty around her.
"Let's walk a little farther," Jim suggested, taking her arm and walking at a leisurely pace that kept her by his side.
"You know, I'm never able to understand why some people don't like the desert," she commented idly. "Even Karen says it's harsh and ugly and barren."
"It's a case of different likes, I suppose," Jim answered idly.
"Do you like the desert?" His answer was suddenly important to her. She didn't think she could stand it if he didn't see the beauty in it that she did.
"Yes," was his clear, simple reply.
"I don't think I'd ever want to live any place else," Brandy declared, looking over the landscape that had always been part of her home. There was a haze of lavender on the edge of the western horizon.
"Neither would I."
She glanced at him in surprise. "But you don't live here?"
"Yes, I do," he smiled. "I have for years, but it's been one of my few well-kept secrets."
"Where?" she demanded in a still doubting voice. "You don't mean around here?"
"If you say I don't, then I don't," he shrugged, taunting her with his smile.
Stopping, she gazed at him, realizing that he was telling her the truth. "You are serious, aren't you?" she said. "You do live in Arizona."
"Yes," Jim nodded.
"You don't have to tell me where," Brandy added hastily. If it wasn't common knowledge, then he obviously wanted his home kept secret. Although eaten up with curiosity, she didn't want to force him to disclose the actual location.
"I don't mind telling you. I don't think you'll spread it around, knowing how much I value my privacy." But he held her expectant look for long seconds without satisfying her curiosity. "My home is the Saguaro ranch."
Her turquoise eyes widened with shock. "But that's owned by a corporation in California," she protested. "It has been for years."
"That's right," Jim agreed smoothly. "I simply happen to be the sole stockholder of the corporation."
"I don't know what to say," she laughed shortly, believing him yet finding it incredible.
"How about, hi neighbor?"
A wide smile dimpled her cheeks as she held out her hand. "Hi, neighbor." After a brisk handshake, he retained possession of her hand, but Brandy was still too bemused by the sudden turn of events to notice. "How do you manage it? I mean, how could you keep it a secret?"
"There's a small airstrip on the ranch that I fly in and out of so my visits are never known about by the public," he answered.
"But the men on the ranch know, the ones that work for you," she pointed out.
"Yes, but then I pay their salaries, don't I?" Jim mocked. "Part of what I pay them for is to keep quiet."
"They've done an excellent job." Brandy shook her head.
"Oh, there have been one or two slips that started a circle of questions," he admitted, "but the denials were always eventually believed."
"Isn't anyone suspicious about you staying there now?" She tipped her head curiously to one side.
"Were you?" Jim countered.
With a laughing smile, she answered her own question. "I assumed that you were invited to stay there while you were filming the movie by whoever owned the ranch."
"That's what everyone believes. And of course, it's true, since I did invite myself to stay there." Laughter danced wickedly in his eyes.
With a small, amazed shake of her head, Brandy lowered her gaze, absently focusing on the large hand that held hers. "You've been my neighbor all this time," she mused, a half-smile still on her lips.
The pressure of his hand increased slightly, drawing her serene, jewel-colored eyes back to his face. The unfathomable darkness of his eyes seemed to pull her into their depths.
The fluttering in her chest took away her breath as she seemed to float into his arms, always a captive of those compelling eyes. Tilting her head back, Brandy watched them draw nearer, their warmth burning her. Then her gaze slid to his descending mouth.
As it closed possessively over hers, her lashes, fluttered down in a golden veil over her cheeks. There was nothing exploratory or tender in his kiss, its fierceness demanding that she respond.
The moaning sigh that slipped from her throat released the last of her inhibitions as she wound her arms tightly around his neck. Her flesh was pliant to the molding caress of his hands that sent strange new sensations shooting through her limbs.
The world became a perpetual sundown. The colors in her mind were ten times more brilliant, painted by a heavenly hand. It was a scattered rainbow of reds and orange, the vivid spectrum ranging from coppery gold to scarlet to magenta, cerise and lavender.
Crushed against him as she was, Jim's male outline was forever imprinted on her flesh. The sensuous touch of his lips along her neck and the hollow of her throat evoked more fiery sensations that rocked her slender body with their explosive effects. Then he was withdrawing from her, not loosening the hard embrace that kept her pressed against him. His dark head was drawn back, the challenging glitter of his gaze studying the protesting plea of her expression.
"Tell me again that you won't have dinner with me," he dared in a husky, threatening tone.
Her gold head moved bewilderedly to the side, wondering how he could think she would refuse after the way she had surrendered so completely to him.
She opened her mouth. "I—"
He covered it immediately in a punishing kiss that robbed the strength from her legs until she was clinging weakly to him for support. Then rough kisses were rained over her eyes, nose, cheeks and ear.
"I'm not going to let you go until you say yes," he warned thickly, his mouth moving against the lobe of her ear.
"Then," Brandy swallowed to steady the throb of ecstasy in her voice, "I'll wait a while," she whispered, turning her head to find his lips.
"You witch!" He laughed shortly, but with triumph gave her the kiss she sought and drew away before she was satisfied. He stared silently at the soft light that radiated from her face, his reaction to the burning embrace not as transparent as hers. His chest heaved in a deep breath against her. "I think we'd better go back to the car before you start something you might regret."
At this moment, Brandy was certain she would not regret anything that might happen, not anything, but she checked the impulse to wind her arms tighter around his neck. When his hands slid to her elbows, she reluctantly let her arms be pulled away.
Brandy was half-afraid that he was going to withdraw invisibly from her the way he had done that morning on the desert after the sandstorm. She didn't think she could endure it if he asked her to forget about this kiss, too.
But instead of stepping away, leaving her trembling and alone, Jim wrapped an arm around her shoulder and drew her to his side, protectively nestled against his shoulder. Matching his step to her smaller stride, he started toward the road.
In the car, Jim didn't start the motor. He turned sideways in the seat, his arm resting along the back cushion. His powerfully carved and bronzed features were drawn in lines of serious contemplation.
"Success or fame doesn't change a man, Brandy," he stated quietly. "He remains essentially what he always was. His faults or weaknesses are simply magnified tenfold, whether it's vanity, selfishness, conceit or cruelty. The same is true of whatever good points he possessed. The man doesn't change. The only thing that does change is the way the others, friends and strangers, look at him." His eyes seemed to pierce into her innermost soul. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"
With an amazing calm, Brandy returned his intensely penetrating gaze. A wondrous warmth filled her heart as she realized what he was telling her. The joy of the knowledge shimmered in her blue-green eyes.
"Yes, you're saying that you are the man I met on the desert. That you were never anything else," she answered quietly. "I changed you into someone else in my mind."
He released his breath in a slow sigh, a devastating smile curving the hard line of his mouth. Her pulse raced at the sight of it, sensuously male and disturbingly warm.
"I, Jim Corbett, would like to hear you say again that you'll have dinner with me on Saturday night." The firm, caressing voice sent shivers dancing down her spine.
"I would love to have dinner with you on Saturday night." Her voice vibrated with husky overtones that were emotion-charged.
"I'm not going to let you change your mind, you know that, don't you?" he stated. "I'll kidnap you if I have to." His mouth quirked to make a joke out of what was essentially an unhumorous threat.
"Promise?" Brandy smiled impishly.
Wickedly playful lights glinted in his eyes as Jim faced the front of the car. "Just try me," he murmured, and turned the key in the ignition.
Brandy leaned back in her seat as he turned the car on to the road. An unbelievable mixture of blissful contentment and giddy excitement claimed her. She had fallen in love with Jim Corbett, and the admission didn't frighten her one bit.
Silently she gazed at him. His rugged masculine profile was vividly outlined by the crimson-orange colors of the setting sun. The formidable strength in his features was reassuring.
With a sideways glance, Jim intercepted her study of him. Without a word he reached out and took her hand, holding it gently in his all the way to her home.
In the driveway, he didn't shut off the motor, nor did he release her hand. His dark eyes surveyed her silently for a minute.
"Will seven-thirty be all right on Saturday?"
It seemed like such a long time till Saturday. "Yes, seven-thirty is fine," Brandy agreed.
Jim hesitated. "I may get held up. We'll be shooting on Saturday, so if I'm not here right on time, don't give up on me." His mouth quirked into a winning kind of half-smile to make his statement sound like less of an order.
"I'll wait." For an eternity if I have to, she added to herself.
"You'd better mean that, Brandy." For a brief second, the intensity of his low voice made her think she had spoken the thought aloud. "Because I'll be here. If I see that I'm going to be very late, I'll try to phone you."
"Okay," she nodded understandingly.
Reassured, his eyes darkened with an intimate fire. "Come here."
She didn't need a second invitation to move toward him, her lips parting willingly under the hard pressure of his. While her senses were still whirling from his heady kiss, Jim set her away.
"You'd better go in," he said, "before your parents decide to send out another search party for you."
"Yes, I'd better." But her shaking hands moved very slowly for the door handle.
As she opened it, Jim repeated, "Saturday at seven-thirty." As if she could forget.
Chapter Seven
THE HEADLIGHT BEAMS from a car turning into the driveway flashed on to the living-room window.
"He's here. Mom, do I look all right?" Brandy felt more nervous than she had been on her first date or any date since then. She looked from her mother's patiently smiling face to her reflection in the bronze-framed mirror.
Choosing what to wear had been an agonizing decision. She couldn't make up her mind whether to wear something chicly sophisticated or casually elegant. In the end, the outfit she chose fitted neither category.
The cre
am-white pants outfit in a thin, clinging knit and wide flared legs did show off her golden tan and molded her slender curves. The tunic-styled top was classically plain, the perfect background for the Navajo-designed squash-blossom necklace she wore. The turquoise stones almost exactly matched the blue-green shade of her eyes. Earrings in the same trumpet-shaped curls tucked behind her ear to show off the long curve of her neck.
"You look lovely," Lenora Ames assured her.
"I hope so." Brandy started as she heard a car door slam.
"Brandy." There was a thread of caution in her mother's voice.
A faint smile touched Brandy's mouth. She knew what her mother wanted to say: the veiled warnings that Jim was older, more experienced and accustomed to a different life-style, and mostly that he was a celebrity. She wanted to caution her not to become too deeply involved with him. Brandy knew all of that, and it didn't alter anything.
"I know what I'm doing, Mom," she insisted gently, a serenity taking hold of her at the certainty of her emotions.
But her composure went out of the window when the doorbell chimed. Her knees were quivering as she opened the front door, smiling tremulously at the tall man dressed in a dark suit with a deep charcoal-gray waistcoat of shimmering silk.
His gaze raked her form in slow appraisal, quickening the beat of her heart. The darkening glow of admiration in his eyes restored her confidence, and she reached for his hand to draw him inside the house.
"You're only a quarter of an hour late," she declared brightly, as if the minutes hadn't dragged.
His attention shifted to the glossy shimmer of her lips, his look almost a physical caress as his hand tightened around hers with unmistakable possession.
"You're beautiful," his deep voice murmured softly.
Inside with the door closed, the light of intimacy in his eyes held her a silent captive. Brandy wanted to lose herself in the midnight sky of his gaze. She forgot that they were not alone in the living room until her father coughed delicately. A faint pink becomingly blushed her cheeks as she withdrew her hand from Jim's unresisting hold. His features softened into a half-smile.
"I'll get my bag, then we can leave," Brandy murmured.
