by Diana Palmer
“You take a great deal on yourself,” David said angrily, but he wasn’t pushing.
“I’ve been out here a long time, Colonel,” Powell said easily, his eyes measuring the other man. “While you were back East situated in Washington society, I was out on the desert digging arrowheads out of troopers while we tracked Geronimo across this godforsaken wilderness.”
David colored. “Dr. Powell…”
“Go home, Colonel,” Powell said gruffly. “You are excess baggage here.”
David hesitated. After a long, regretful look at Lisa’s averted face, he went out and slammed the door.
“Thank you,” she said sleepily.
A big, callused hand touched her forehead. “Go to sleep, Mrs. Morris. No thanks are necessary.”
She drifted off, feeling safe for the first time in recent memory, despite the lingering pain and fear. When she was asleep, a somber man with a big nose and weary blue eyes sat beside her and held her hand. He didn’t let go until morning.
THANKSGIVING DAY HAD been quiet and uneventful. The women had spent the day cooking and the evening cleaning up. It had been a congenial gathering, but Trilby’s heart wasn’t in it. Richard’s attentiveness to an increasingly flirtatious Julie had ruined the holiday for her.
Sissy persuaded a depressed Trilby to go with her into the desert, only a little way, where there were a few scattered ruins.
“Are these Hohokam ruins?” Trilby asked when the two women had climbed out of the buggy and were wandering around a site with broken pottery on a plain near the close mountain chain.
“I don’t know.” Sissy knelt down and picked up a piece of pottery. “Isn’t it incredible?” she said, with reverence. “Trilby, do you realize that this little piece of pottery was made by human beings perhaps a thousand years ago?”
Trilby fanned herself with the broad-brimmed hat she was wearing with her long riding skirt and middy blouse. Sissy was similarly dressed, and it was hot in the desert. The dry air made little difference.
“I do wish we’d brought the car,” Sissy was murmuring.
“The horse and buggy are much less trouble, believe me, but I’m glad you drove it on the way down.”
“I think you’re doing very well as a pupil,” Sissy remarked.
Trilby smiled. It amazed her that she’d felt brave enough to come out with Sissy, but the horse pulling the buggy was a gentle one and didn’t frighten her, and she hadn’t had to drive. Yet. She looked up, frowning. “Sissy, there are clouds on the horizon. Remember what I told you—about the danger of dry washes even if the rain is miles away, and about the terrible flood back during the summer?”
“Yes, I remember,” Sissy murmured, but her mind wasn’t really on it.
“We’d better go back.”
“But we just got here!”
“Sissy!”
“Now, Trilby. I just want to poke around a bit. This isn’t a dry wash, after all. Why don’t you pick up Richard at the corral?” she added, with a sly grin. “I can’t be bothered to move right now.” She sighed theatrically. “You shall have to go alone.” She peered up at Trilby and grinned. “I’m sure you’ll be heartbroken about having to pick me up on your way back.”
Trilby’s heart leaped. It was an opportunity to be alone with Richard, who’d ridden with them as far as the corrals to watch the men brand cattle. The girls had left him there with a promise to be back in a few minutes to pick him up. Sissy was playing Cupid, and Trilby blessed her for it. Except that she’d have to drive the buggy alone. She studied the quiet horse nervously; he was tethered by having his reins trail on the ground, a miracle of training, she sometimes thought.
“I’m still a bit nervous about that horse,” Trilby said worriedly.
“He likes you. Just snap the reins to make him go and pull back on them to make him stop. He’ll follow the road, and Richard will drive on the way back.”
“Well…all right. But I shouldn’t leave you alone out here—” Trilby began.
“Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly safe. I even have this ugly thing your father insisted we carry.” She picked up the pistol gingerly by the handle as if it were a snake. “Ugh!”
“I’ll only be a minute or so,” Trilby promised, her eyes brightening with delight at the thought of being alone with Richard. “You are such a lovely person!”
“I know it.” Sissy chuckled. “Go on. Give Julie something to worry about.”
“She could have come with us,” Trilby muttered.
“And ruined her complexion in the sun? Horrors!”
Trilby laughed. She climbed into the buggy. “I won’t be long.”
“It’s all right if you are,” Sissy murmured, lost already in her pottery hunting.
Trilby made it to the corral in one piece, but she gratefully gave the reins to Richard on the way back. She and Richard bumped along the road with a lengthy silence between them. He was hot and half out of humor from the heat and the smell of branding. He’d gotten sick, actually sick, at the corrals, and some of the cowboys had laughed at him. His pride was stinging.
“I detest this place,” he said irritably. “I’m sorry I came.”
Trilby shifted uneasily. “I’d hoped you might enjoy your visit, Richard,” she said. “It’s not so bad once you get used to it.”
“I can’t agree.” His eyes scanned the horizon. “It’s like hell, pardon the expression. It really is a wasteland.”
Trilby lowered her eyes to the floorboard as he touched the reins gently to the horse’s rump, forcing him to go faster. “Are you going to marry Julie, Richard?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “She’s pretty and sweet and her people have money. She certainly isn’t content to live in the middle of the damned desert!”
Trilby’s eyes brightened and overflowed with tears.
“Oh, damn! Here, Trilby, I didn’t mean that.” Richard pulled back on the reins and stopped the horse. His hand touched her pitiful face. “I’m sorry, little one. Really, really sorry. Trilby…”
He tilted her chin up and looked at her soft, trembling mouth. He’d only kissed it once, long ago, but it looked very tempting with her gray eyes full of tears. Smiling ruefully, he bent and brushed his mouth slowly over her lips before he settled it between them and pulled her close.
Trilby had expected stars to shatter if Richard kissed her like this. She was surprised to find that it was nothing like the explosive pleasure Thorn had kindled in her body. That wounded her, and she reached up to kiss him back, trying to force herself to feel what she must feel. She loved him! Of course she did!
The man on horseback close by was certain of it when he saw them kissing. He was bristling with fury, feeling betrayed and murderous.
“Stop,” Naki said quietly, reaching out a firm, strong hand. “That isn’t the way.”
“You’re one to talk about restraint,” Thorn said brutally, jerking his arm away.
“Oh, but restraint and the courts make a good combination for my people,” he told Thorn. “One day we’ll throw you white eyes out on your ears, just as the Mexicans are determined to do with their Spanish overlords in this revolution they’ve started. Except that we’ll do it legally—and beat you at your own game.”
“Good luck to you.”
“Women are fickle,” he added, watching as the woman disengaged herself from the man. “That one is out of place here.”
“She wouldn’t be if she tried to fit,” Thorn said through his teeth. With his broad-brimmed hat pulled low over his lean face, he looked menacing. “Damn that Eastern dandy! Why did he have to come out here now? He isn’t even a man! My God, he was vomiting at the sight of cattle being branded!”
Naki chuckled softly. “I noticed.”
“So did everyone else. What does she see in him?”
“The past,” Naki said wisely. “Memories that live in him.” He looked at his friend. “If you want her, take her.”
“That’s your philosophy, is it?”
“Sometimes you amaze me with your insight,” Thorn said thoughtfully. “Let’s go down and break up that touching tryst.”
Naki’s eyes turned skyward. “Rain’s coming. Wasn’t that skinny woman in glasses with her when they came out?”
Thorn frowned, wondering how Naki knew that. Thorn had seen them go bumping by in the buggy, but Naki hadn’t been around. “So she was. They were going to look for pottery, her younger brother said.”
“I’d better find her. The ruins are near a dry wash.”
“She seemed pretty frightened of you when we were introduced. I’d better go.”
“No. I will,” Naki replied, smiling mischievously. “I’ll take her back to the ranch for you.”
“Don’t enjoy it too much.”
Naki raised his eyebrows. “Would I enjoy the terror of a naive young woman?”
“You sure as hell would! Just remember that they’re Jack Lang’s guests, and I want his water.”
“You want his daughter just as much, unless I miss my guess.”
“Get out of here,” Thorn muttered.
Naki chuckled. He wheeled his pinto and rode away toward the ruins.
Trilby had pulled away from Richard when she spotted the riders in the distance. Angrily she realized at once who they were.
“What is it?” Richard asked, smiling. He thought she was shy and it touched him. She wasn’t as exciting as Julie, but her soft mouth was sweet and he liked kissing her. Having Trilby under his spell was too flattering to miss.
“It’s Thorn Vance and one of his men—the Apache, I think,” Trilby said nervously.
Richard turned his eyes toward the rise where they were sitting. As he watched, the Indian turned his pony and rode away. Vance moved toward them, as at home in the saddle as any of the cowboys. Richard was irritated by the way he looked, so damned arrogant and confident, when he rode up beside the buggy.
“Good day,” he said, touching his fingers to his hat. “Having trouble with the horse, or are you lost?”
Trilby flushed. “Neither. We only stopped to talk,” she choked. The way Thorn was looking at her made her uncomfortable. He brought back vivid memories of the fiesta and the feel of his long, powerful body against her own while his mouth made magic against hers. Kissing him had been as explosive as touching fire, while the same caress with Richard was oddly unsatisfying.
“Surely you must have something better to do?” Richard seconded, with angry eyes.
Thorn pushed back his hat. “Oh, I do,” he agreed, with amusement. “But there’s a flash flood looming. I think you’d better get home while you can.”
Trilby suddenly remembered her friend. “Sissy! I left her at the ruins!”
“Naki’s gone to fetch her,” Thorn said. “She’ll be all right.”
“The Apache?” Trilby was horrified. “She’ll faint dead away! She’s afraid of him!”
“She’d better get used to him,” Thorn said. “He’s going camping with us. You do still want to go?” he asked Richard.
The young man brightened. “I say, of course I do. It’s been dead boring, just sitting around the house.”
“You’re certain you like to hunt?” Thorn asked, with a veiled reference to the man’s unsettled stomach at the branding.
Richard’s cheekbones flushed. “There is a substantial difference between hunting and tormenting cattle.”
“Rustling is a real threat out here, son,” Thorn said condescendingly. “Cattle we don’t brand, we don’t keep.”
“I’m certain that Richard knows that, Mr. Vance,” Trilby said pointedly.
He met her eyes levelly, leaning over the pommel of his saddle. His dark eyes twinkled with humor and traces of desire. They dropped to her soft mouth and lingered there so long that her pulse began to race. She fingered the reins nervously, afraid that Richard might notice Thorn’s interest.
He did. It amused him that the older man found Trilby attractive when Trilby obviously didn’t share that interest. He slid a possessive arm over her shoulders and drew her close, feeling her go soft.
“This hunting trip, when will we go?” Richard asked Thorn.
He straightened in the saddle, his fascination with Trilby’s mouth turning to frank dislike of the dandy sitting so close beside her.
“In two or three days,” he said. “I’ll make arrangements with Jack Lang and lay in some supplies. You have your own rifles with you?”
“Yes, indeed,” Richard replied. “I never travel without my hunting and camping gear.”
“Naturally not.”
“I’m sorry that you’re in such a hurry, Mr. Vance,” Trilby said meaningfully, “because of the rain.”
“Is that why I’m in such a hurry?” he asked. “Very well. I must be, I suppose. Be careful and don’t linger in any dips in the road. It could be fatal. I could escort you, if you like.”
“We can get home all by ourselves,” she muttered. “You’re sure your Indian cowboy will see about Sissy?”
“I’m sure,” he assured her.
Richard frowned. “You’ll see about Sissy yourself, I hope,” he told Thorn. “I don’t like the idea of my sister alone with an Indian.”
“Your sister will be perfectly safe, I assure you.”
Richard took that to mean that Thorn would go along after her and he relaxed.
“Very well then. Good day.” Richard twitched the reins and urged the horse into a trot, leaving a smug, amused Thorn behind.
“He does have a way of making one bristle, doesn’t he?” Richard said as he removed his arm and stretched lazily. “Still, it will be pleasant to do a spot of hunting. Here you go—” he handed her the reins “—you drive for a while. I’m simply exhausted. Try not to hit too many bumps, won’t you, lovely?”
He leaned back, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes—and Trilby could have screamed. She realized only then that Richard had been paying her attention to get at Thorn. It hadn’t even been real, only pretended. She wanted to cry.
As they wound down the road toward the ranch, the clouds moved closer. She hoped Sissy would forgive her.
CHAPTER NINE
SISSY WAS GETTING more nervous by the minute.
There was thunder in the distance and Trilby still hadn’t come back. She remembered the terrifying story Trilby had told her about the floods that had killed several people a few months back. She wrapped her arms tight around herself, clutching her precious pieces of pottery in the handkerchief where she’d tied them. She hoped her passion for the past wasn’t going to be her downfall.
The sound of a horse’s hooves diverted her. Odd, she thought, there wasn’t the usual metallic noise that accompanied the approach of Mr. Lang’s horses. Her heart began to race. Unshod ponies were usually ridden by Apaches, she seemed to recall.
Even as the thought occurred to her, the tall Apache Mr. Vance had called Naki came into view over the ridge. She could hardly believe it! Her eyes widened and her heart leaped. He did look so majestic against the clouds. But she didn’t dare let him see her interest.
He rode straight down to her and reined in, sitting high in his saddle to look down his arrogant nose at her. He didn’t smile menacingly this time. He simply stared. His dark eyes gave away nothing as they registered her poise and composure. This was a far cry from her most recent behavior when they’d met.
She really was thin, he thought, and much too pale. But even if she was afraid of him and hiding it, she wasn’t running. That intrigued him.
“Rain,” he said, pointing toward the horizon and then to the dry wash nearby. “White woman drown in wash when rain come,” he said stoically.
She stared up at him with a mischievous gleam in her green eyes. She was sure there was much more to this man than
what he showed. He was very handsome, she thought, the kind of man who’d never give a plain-Jane like her a second thought. She sighed as she realized that her lack of looks was just as much a handicap out here as it had been back home. Nothing changed except the location in which you were miserable, she thought.
“You don’t have to look as if you find the prospect of my imminent demise so delightful,” she said, with droll humor.
Both his eyebrows arched. “Perhaps you sink like rock in that rig.” He nodded toward her long, thick skirt.
His sarcasm unseated her temper. “Perhaps you fall off that high horse and break your arrogant neck.” She mimicked his accent.
He chuckled and crossed his wrists over the pommel of his saddle, leaning over it to study her. He liked her. He couldn’t remember feeling such warm thoughts about a woman since Conchita. Conchita had been beautiful. This woman wasn’t. Yet there was something about her that touched him. “Heap plenty rattlesnakes out here.”
“Sorry to bash your hopes, but I don’t mind rattly snakes. We have them back East, and bigger than the ones I’ve seen in Arizona so far.” She looked past him. “I’d just love to stand and talk to you, dear man, but I don’t relish drowning out here. My friend should be along soon to pick me up.”
“Not soon.” He shook his head. “Too busy kissing white man in buggy.”
“Oh, bother!” she said worriedly. “She’ll forget me and I’ll drown!”
“Injun save white woman. I carry you away from here.”
She eyed him warily. This didn’t sound real. Apaches lived in a modern age, but she knew for a fact that some of them still lived free in the Sierra Madre and raided Mexican villages even now. If he was having a silent laugh at her expense, and she thought he was, it was time to make him show his true colors.
“In a pig’s eye,” she said smartly. “I’m not going to be carried off to your tepee and made to chew your moccasins. I haven’t forgotten that you asked Mr. Vance how many horses my brother wanted for me. I wouldn’t go to the nearest rock with you!”
