Fire Brand

She lifted her eyes, frowning. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I’ve got my own hangups.” He pulled on the jeans and fastened them with quick, deft movements. His lean fingers worked at the buttons of his shirt, concealing the thick hair and hard muscles of his chest while he studied Gaby’s frankly curious eyes.

“Then I’m flattered,” she said, and tried to appear less embarrassed than she was.

He tucked his shirt into his jeans, and his black eyes held hers. “I’ve never made love to a woman, except in the dark.”

“Oh.” She shifted restlessly. Now that she’d seen him, all sorts of thoughts were flailing about in her brain—shocking things. She turned away while he got into his socks and boots.

“How did Aggie take your arrival?”

“Fine—until Montoya told her you were here,” she told him, glancing back with a nervous but mischievous smile.

“She’s livid. I think we’re both going to be on the lunch menu as entrées.”

“Think so?” He got up, pausing to run his comb through his thick, straight hair in the mirror. It looked like burnished gold, and he kept it conventionally short and neatly trimmed. She loved the very way he moved, with such elegance and grace.

“I offered to go back to Phoenix, but she wouldn’t hear of it,” she said, searching for something to break the silence.

“You can’t go back to Phoenix and leave me here to deal with this,” he said shortly. He pocketed the comb and turned, looming over her. “Aggie’s obviously in the throes of infatuation, and God knows what kind of man he is.”

“You might give him the benefit of the doubt,” she suggested, brushing back an irritating strand of black hair.

“Not before I size him up.” He looked down at her for a long, tense moment, until her knees felt rubbery all over again. “Don’t start avoiding me now,” he said unexpectedly. “I’m not embarrassed, and there’s no reason for you to be. Okay?”

She nibbled her lower lip. “Okay.” Her eyes fell to his polished boots. “You have this way of making the most extraordinary things seem perfectly natural.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been called extraordinary before.”

She glanced up, laughing, because his tone had been droll and dry. His eyes were twinkling with humor. All the tension left her. “Pity,” she murmured and turned away quickly.

He chuckled, moving to open the door for her. “Next time, go swimming when I ask you to,” he said at her temple when she passed him, “and you’ll know when I’m in the shower.”

She met his eyes briefly. “I haven’t been swimming in years, you know,” she said abruptly, without even meaning to. “I don’t own a bathing suit.”

His eyes lost their amused glow and narrowed, searching hers in a silence that took fire. “Don’t you think it’s time you stopped hiding your body and took a woman’s natural pride in it, little one?” he asked quietly. “Wearing a sexy outfit isn’t going to put you in danger with me. And I’ll fight off the rest of the male population for you, if that’s what frightens you.”

For once she was without her customary defenses. “You would?” she asked hesitantly, her olive eyes wide and unblinking.

That gaze knocked him in the stomach. She had eyes that seduced. She probably didn’t even know it, but she was working on him in ways he hadn’t expected.

“Yes,” he said, answering her at last. “I would. I might take you out to dinner and dancing one night.”

Her breath stilled and then became quick and sharp. “You might?”

His lips parted. He was talking to her, but the words were superfluous. The real communication was between his black eyes and her olive ones, and the tension was beginning to build in a feverish way.

“Why not?” he asked, his voice becoming deep and slow, like dark velvet. “Do you dance?”

“Not really. Don’t you remember? At that dance in college, I stumbled all over you and finally gave up.”

He did remember, all too well.

“You might try teaching me again,” she ventured.

He felt his body going taut. The effect of the words was visible and he thanked his lucky stars that she was too green to see it. “Yes. I could teach you.” It wasn’t dancing he was thinking about. His eyes dropped to her soft mouth and lingered there. He could teach her passion. It was there, inside her, he knew it. All it would take was a little tenderness...

“Bowie?” she whispered.

His eyes lifted slowly to hold hers. He was close enough that she felt the warmth of his body striking into her, and she could feel the coiled strength in him as his hand came up very slowly to her upper arm. His fingers spread over it, encompassing it, testing its silky warmth.

“I want your mouth,” he whispered. His hand pulled her gently toward him, moving her inches closer, so that they were almost touching.

She let him. The sensations she was feeling were new and overwhelming. It was like being drugged, she thought, and the dragging sensation in her stomach and upper thighs was oddly crippling. She was trembling inside, in a way she’d never expected. Her breasts ached. It was as if just the feel of those black eyes on her mouth had made some basic change in her chemistry. She felt the threat of his great strength at the same time she wanted to feel his body against the length of hers. She wanted to put her arms around him and be hugged until her breasts ached, kissed until her mouth was swollen and sore. She went pale. Was she going to be able to face the past at last and move into womanhood?

It almost seemed so. Her lips parted on a shaky breath, and her eyes searched Bowie’s fierce ones.

“Do you want my mouth on yours, Gaby?” he asked huskily, and his head started to bend. His gaze fell to her parted lips. “Do you want to feel me kissing you?”

“Oh... God,” she groaned, her legs going weak as the passionate need snapped in her. “Bowie...!”

She was reaching up to him, shaking with anticipation. And that was when the voice, stark and bleak, shattered the fever that was building in the pool house.

“Sẽnor Bowie!”

Bowie’s hands contracted sharply on Gaby’s arms, almost bruising. His eyes met hers, black with frustration and shocked fury. Then she was free and he was striding out into the hall.

“What is it, Montoya?” he asked in a steely but perfectly normal tone.

“Lunch is served, sẽnor,” Montoya called, grinning at the end of the hall. “Is Gaby with you?”

“She’s around somewhere. I’ll go hunt her up.” He paused, waiting until Montoya disappeared back into the dining room before he turned and motioned to Gaby.

She walked out into the hall on shaky legs, avoiding his eyes. But he didn’t move and she cannoned into him.

“It’s only a reprieve,” he said quietly, holding her wide eyes. His face was hard and his expression dogged. “I’m going to have that kiss. I’m going to take the breath out of your body and the strength out of your arms, and you’re going to want me like hell. That’s a promise.”

He slid his hand into hers and pulled her along with him toward the dining room, his profile intimidating. His fingers contracted and he glanced down. “Don’t start looking for excuses, either,” he added. “You and I aren’t related in any way. We can hold hands, we can go on dates. We can even make love. There aren’t any barriers.”

Her breath felt shaky. “That’s what you think,” she said under her breath.

“I’ll get past those hangups, honey,” he mused. “I’m not a rounder by any stretch of the imagination, but I know very well what to do with a woman. I won’t hurt you—not ever.”

She wanted to argue, to tell him that she couldn’t, she wouldn’t. There were so many secrets from the past, so much hidden pain and fear and guilt. But she couldn’t pour all that out. She couldn’t let Bowie know what had happened—she couldn’t let him get close to her at all. That knowledge was like a thorn in her heart. She wanted him—really wanted him. It was a new and exciting feeling. But what a pity to find it now, with the one man in the world she didn’t dare love. Her love could destroy everything the McCaydes had built up for themselves. And she couldn’t even tell Bowie why. She should never have gone near him in the first place.

She tried to disengage her fingers from his strong, lean ones, but he refused to let go as they walked into the dining room.

When Aggie looked at them, she knew why. Aggie had been sure that Bowie and Gaby had come down to protect her from her new friend, but when she saw them holding hands and felt the blinding tension radiating from their set faces, she formed a new opinion. She pursed her lips and her eyes began to show sheer pleasure rather than astonishment.

Gaby looked up at Bowie to see a raised eyebrow and an amused twinkle in his dark eyes. She glared at him. So that was his game—throwing Aggie off the track with a red herring. She wondered how much of what he’d said to her in the pool house had been part of the plan. Had he meant it, or had he just been stirring her up so that Aggie would read even more into her expression?

She didn’t trust men at the best of times, but she’d always felt that she could trust Bowie. Now she wasn’t sure anymore. She felt vulnerable and afraid.

“Hello, mother,” Bowie said. He let go of Gaby’s hand and seated her before he leaned over to kiss Aggie’s cheek. “How was Jamaica?”

“Jamaica was lovely,” Aggie murmured dryly. She glanced at her friend and put her thin hand over his big one. “Bowie, this is Ned Courtland.” She made a caress of his name.

“How do you do?” Bowie said pleasantly enough, but his features were rigid and his eyes were already damning the other man to hell.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Ned returned in a slow drawl. “How are you, son?”

Bowie bristled, but he didn’t rise to the bait. He smiled coolly. “I hear you run a few head of cattle.” He sat down beside Gaby and lit a cigarette, his first that afternoon. “What do you think of the Japanese outlook?”

Ned raised thick eyebrows. “Well,” he began, “I don’t much care for Japanese food, to be honest, but I guess I could learn.”

Bowie’s expression, in another place, would have been comical. He leaned forward, his smoking cigarette in one lean hand resting on the other forearm. “I meant the export of beef to Japan.”

“Oh, that.” Ned smiled. “Damned if I know much about it.”

Bowie’s eyes were speaking volumes, and Gaby could see Aggie starting to fidget as Montoya brought coffee and Elena set platters of food on the table.

“There’s been a movement afoot to encourage the Japanese to import more American beef,” Gaby began, trying to help things along.

Ned glanced at her in an odd way. “Is that so?”

“There’s a hell of a lot more to the situation than that,” Bowie said irritably, glaring at her.

“I refuse to talk shop at the table,” Aggie said shortly, her dark eyes challenging her son. “Eat your lunch, Bowie, then you and Gaby and I might show Ned the operation here.”

“What a wonderful idea,” Gaby agreed enthusiastically. “Casa Río has some beautiful purebred Brahmans.”

“I hate Brahmans,” Ned said pleasantly, and smiled as if at some secret joke, his lean hands ladling chili into a bowl from the red pot on the table. “Ugliest damned cattle in the world.”

“Yes, they are,” Aggie chuckled, “but very suited to desert conditions.”

Bowie finished his cigarette and put it out with a deliberate motion that meant trouble.

“What breed of cattle do you like, Mr. Courtland?”

“Call me Ned.” He pursed his lips as he sampled the ham. “I like red and white ones.”

Gaby picked up her napkin and smothered a helpless laugh in it. Aggie was doing the same thing. Bowie looked as if he might take a bite out of his plate and then Mr. Courtland.

“Have some ham, Bowie.” Gaby offered the platter to him quickly.

He searched her eyes with pure malice, but he took the hint. He fell to eating while Aggie and Gaby caught up on each other’s gossip. Mr. Courtland seemed pretty intent on his own food, but there was a definitely amused gleam in his dark eyes the one time Gaby got a good look at them.

After lunch, Gaby stuck to Bowie like glue, torn between her growing attraction for him and her need to help Aggie ward off his temper before it exploded over Mr. Courtland.

The pasture stretched all the way to the main highway. Parts of it were fenced, only to keep in certain cattle. The rest, like most ranch land, was open range, and the cattle wandered where food and water were available. Bowie had plenty of windmills that pumped out groundwater into troughs for the cattle. All the same, the groundwater table on his land was dropping steadily. There were small streams running out of the mountains, but not nearly enough to supply his vast herds of cattle with adequate drinking water. It was this facet of ranching that the proposed agricultural project threatened. Agriculture used tremendous amounts of water for irrigation, and drawing it out of an already stressed aquifer only made the water table drop even lower. Besides that was the danger of pesticides leaching into that ground water and contaminating it, and the erosion from the disturbed soil. Agriculture was big business all over Arizona, but more and more farmland was being sold as agricultural ventures failed. Farmland was being developed into housing and business enterprises, which used less water.

But Gaby had a sneaking suspicion that Bowie would be just as opposed to a housing project or an industrial park on his land—maybe more so. It was the history and heritage of the land that he wanted to preserve, and its natural beauty. He had a keen sense of continuity, of saving his heritage for posterity—laudable goals that were hard-kept against the kind of public opinion that was polarizing against him. Unemployed workers wanted jobs. Conservation was all well and good, but it didn’t pay bills and feed hungry children.

“We have some fine grazing land here,” Aggie was telling Ned, sighing over the panorama that spread to the mountains on the horizon. “Despite the desert environment, there’s plenty of food for the livestock.”

“We can even feed them prickly pear—cholla and oco-tillo, too, but the thorns have to be burned off first,” Bowie offered.

“How do you get enough water to them?” Ned asked.

“We use windmills to pump it out of the ground,” Aggie said.

Ned frowned. “Why not pump it out of the river?”

Aggie laughed. “Ned, our rivers aren’t like yours up in Wyoming. Ours only run during the rainy season. We wouldn’t know what to do with a river that ran year-round.”

“My God,” Ned said reverently.

“Do you have prickly pear up your way, Mr. Courtland?” Gaby asked politely.

He shook his head. “Lodgepole pine, aspens, prairie grass. It’s an easier country for cowboys, except in the winter. We lose a hand or two every winter to wanner country. Six-foot snowdrifts just don’t appeal to everybody.”

“We get snow here once in a while,” Aggie said. “Up around Tucson, the saguaro cacti get a white dusting of it. It sure is pretty. Did you know that saguaro grows nowhere else in the country except in southern California, Arizona, and Mexico?”

“I thought I’d seen a few in west Texas and New Mexico.” Ned frowned.

“Organ pipe cactus, maybe, or cardon cactus.” Aggie nodded. “But not saguaro. There’s a lot to learn about them.”

“For example?” Ned grinned.

“Well, they can live for over a hundred and fifty years. They can weigh up to three tons. They’re pleated so that they can expand during the rainy season like an accordion. They’re woody inside. The fruit was and is gathered by the Papago Indians to make jelly and a fermented drink...”

“Tohono O’odham,” Gaby corrected. “They changed the name.”

Aggie made an irritated sound. “You and your Papago history. Well, I can’t pronounce that and I won’t try.”

“Yes, you will.” Gaby chuckled.

“Yes, I will,” Aggie sighed. “But it’s hard.”

“All the same, it’s their own word, in their own language, not a borrowed name in Zũni, which Papago is,” the younger woman replied. “Tohono O’odham means ‘People of the Desert.’”

“You people sure do know a lot about where you live,” Ned commented.

“Oh, we haven’t started yet.” Aggie smiled. “We’ll have to take you out on the reservation and show you the White Dove of the Desert—the San Xavier Mission—and buy you some Papago fry bread and take you through the Saguaro National Monument and out to Old Tucson where they make Western movies.”

“And that’s only the tip of the iceberg,” Gaby added as they walked toward the fence. “You could stay busy for weeks and still not see half the sights. Tombstone is just a few minutes down the road, and it’s a must-see.”

“Will it spoil your day if I tell you I’ve been there?” Ned chuckled. “When I was a boy, it was the dream of my life to stand where the Earps did. I spent a week in Tombstone when I was in my twenties, and I’ve never forgotten a thing about it.”

“So this isn’t your first time in Arizona?” Bowie asked as he bent his head to light a cigarette. He was bareheaded, and the sun burnished his blond hair like a halo.

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