Читать книгу Trilby - Diana Palmer - Страница 5

Thorn was halfway back to the ranch when a cloud of dust caught up to him. He turned his head in time to see Naki, one of the two Apache men who worked for him, rein in to match his speed. The other man was tall and had long, shoulder-length black hair. He wore a breechclout and high-topped buckskin moccasins with a red-checked shirt and a thick, red-patterned cotton band tied around his forehead to keep his hair out of his eyes.

“Been hunting?” Thorn asked him.

The other man nodded.

“Find anything?”

The Apache didn’t even glance at him. He held up one hand, displaying a thick, bound book. “I’ve been looking for it everywhere.”

“I mean, did you shoot anything that we could eat for supper?” he said, glowering.

Naki’s eyebrows lifted. “Me? Shoot something?” He sounded horrified. “Kill a helpless animal?”

“You’re an Apache Indian,” Thorn reminded him, with exaggerated patience. “A hunter. Master of the bow and arrow.”

“Not me. I prefer a Remington repeater rifle,” he said in perfect English.

“I thought you were going to get us something in buckskin.”

“I did.” He held up the book again. “Leatherstocking Tales, by James Fenimore Cooper.”

“Oh, my God!” Thorn groaned. “What kind of Apache are you?”

“An educated one, of course,” Naki replied pleasantly. “You’re going to have to do something about Jorge’s cousin,” he added, the lightness gone from his tone and the smile from his deep-set black eyes as he stopped and faced the other man. “You lost five head of cattle this morning, and not to drought and lack of water. Ricardo confiscated them.”

“Damn the luck!” Thorn cursed. “Again?”

“Again. He’s feeding some revolutionary comrades hidden out in the hills. I can’t fault his loyalty to his family, but he’s carrying it to extremes and on stolen beef.”

“I’ll have it out with him.” He glared at the horizon. “This damned war is coming too close.”

“I won’t argue.” Naki tucked the book in his saddlebags. He produced two rabbits on a tether and tossed them to Thorn. “Supper,” he announced.

“Are you coming down to share it?”

“Share it?” Naki looked horrified. “Eat a rabbit? I’d rather starve!”

“What did you have in mind, or dare I ask?”

Naki’s white teeth gleamed in a face like sculpted bronze. “Fried rattler,” he said, his eyes glittering.

“Snob,” Thorn accused.

Naki shrugged. “One can hardly expect a man of European ancestry to measure up to a culture as ancient and sophisticated as mine,” he said, eyes sparkling with humor. “Meanwhile, I’ll track Jorge’s cousin down for you and bring him along.”

“Don’t, please, do anything nasty to him.”

“I?”

“No need to look so innocent, if you please. Or wasn’t it you who staked out that drummer on an anthill with wet rawhide when he sold you some snakebite medicine that didn’t work?”

“A doctor should stand behind his cures.”

“He didn’t know you were a Latin scholar,” Thorn reminded him. “Much less that you knew more about herbal medicine than he’d ever learned.”

“He won’t forget.”

“I daresay he won’t,” Thorn agreed. “And I believe he led a lynch mob after you…?”

“From which you were kind enough to save me,” Naki recalled. It had been the beginning of their friendship, and it went back a long, long way. Naki had reformed a little. Not much.

“Bring your snake and I’ll have Tiza cook it for us.”

“He cooks like he rides,” Naki muttered.

“I’ll cook it, then.”

“I’ll bring Ricardo along directly.”

He turned his paint pony and rode leisurely away.

The rest of the week passed all too quickly. Trilby dressed for Thornton Vance’s party with fingers that were all thumbs. She didn’t want to go to Thorn’s house. She dreaded the evening as she’d never dreaded anything else.

The only expensive gown she owned that had made it out from Louisiana with her was a lacy beige one. A vicious dust storm had destroyed most of their possessions on the drive from the train to their new home on Blackwater Springs Ranch. Even now, Trilby could feel the smothering sting of yellow sand as it had blanketed them, almost buried them, on the way from Douglas. One of their acquaintances had only smiled when he was told of their ordeal, remarking that they’d best get used to dust storms out here.

They had, after a fashion. But Trilby sometimes longed for the cool green bayous of her youth and the sound of Cajun patois being spoken on the streets as she went to the bakery each Saturday for a sack of beignets and to shop for new dresses.

With a full purse, it had been fun to go to town in the chauffeured T-model that Rene Marquis drove for the family. Her cousins had always been her friends as well, and there were parties and afternoon teas and picnics…and then, so suddenly, there had been Richard. But before he’d done more than hold her hand in his, her uncle had died, and her father had announced that the family was moving to Arizona.

Trilby had cried for days, but it hadn’t swayed her parents. Richard had gone off to Europe with his own family, with flattering reluctance and a promise to write. But to date, Trilby had written dozens of letters and she had only a card from Richard, from England. It wasn’t even remotely loving. Only a friendly note. Sometimes she despaired of ever gaining his love.

She pulled herself up short. It really wouldn’t do to let herself look back. This was home now. She had to adjust to being an Arizonan, to a different kind of life. But Richard might still come to stay; he might discover passionate feelings for her. She sighed dreamily.

She put on the gown, longing for the old days when she’d had plenty of fine clothes to wear. Money was no longer plentiful. She wanted to leave her hair loose around her shoulders, but Mr. Vance being Mr. Vance, it was better, she supposed, to appear dignified and conservative, so that she didn’t give him any special reasons for mocking her. He sometimes looked at her as if he actually considered her in the same light as a lady of the evening. It puzzled and hurt her. Not that she ever let it show.

She braided her soft blond hair with a blue ribbon and piled it on top of her head, grimacing at the severe thinness of her face. The heat had worn her down just lately. She had little appetite, and her slenderness had exaggerated itself.

When she finished dressing, she pinched her cheeks and lips to put a little color in them and picked up the lacy black shawl the Mexican ladies called a “mantilla.” Her father had brought it to her from Mexico the last time he’d been down there to buy cattle.

“You look lovely, Trilby,” her mother said warmly.

“So do you.” She hugged the older woman, approving the neat, elegant black dress her mother was wearing.

Her father, in his black suit, and Teddy, in his short pants and jacket, looked uncomfortable but fashionable. They climbed into the Model-T and waited while the man of the house fiddled around until it finally cranked. Then Trilby prayed all the way to Mr. Vance’s ranch that it wouldn’t snap a band, or break down, or have a flat tire on the deeply rutted road. It was drizzling rain, and it would be terrible to have to get wet waiting and hoping to be rescued.

Fortunately everything went without a hitch. They pulled up in the long dirt driveway that led to Los Santos Ranch. It was an adobe structure, two stories high, with balconies all around the upper level and patios and gardens surrounding the lower one. Every plant near it seemed to be blooming, even the tall, thin ocotillo that made a natural fence near the front. It was the first time Trilby had seen it, and she was enchanted. Most of the structures she’d seen in Arizona were made of adobe, but they were usually simple and very small. This showplace was something out of a slick Eastern magazine, elegant and expensive.

Thornton Vance was waiting for them on the front porch, which was long and cool-looking with its hammock on one end and comfortable chairs on the other. Light blazed out of the glass windows, spilling in patterns on the sandy, cactus-studded front yard. There was a breeze, but it was a warm night despite the faint mist of rain. The house looked warm and inviting. Incredible, Trilby thought, considering how uninviting its master looked when his dark eyes rested on her. In his dark suit and white shirt, he looked a little severe. His black hair was neatly combed. He looked as elegant as any New Orleans gentleman. Trilby was surprised at how handsome he was when he dressed up.

“Nice of you to invite us, Thorn,” her father said, with easy courtesy, as he helped first Trilby’s mother, then Trilby, out of the car.

“My pleasure. Watch your step, Trilby. You’re headed for a mudhole,” he said abruptly. “Here, Ted, hold this.”

He handed Teddy his glass and abruptly swung Trilby up in his arms—to her shock and her parents’ quickly concealed delight.

He turned, carrying her up onto the porch as if she weighed nothing at all. It didn’t seem to affect him, either, having her so close. But it affected her. She could barely breathe. His cologne was faint and barely detectable, but she seemed to be engulfed in its manly scent. His arms were strong and warm around her. She could feel the muscles in them despite the covering of his long-sleeved shirt and dark jacket. He wasn’t breathing hard at all, as if her weight was unnoticeable.

“Better hold on,” he murmured, with faint amusement. She was holding herself so stiffly that she felt brittle, and he knew she was barely breathing. It puzzled him that a woman of her character should be so nervous in a man’s arms. He didn’t imagine she’d been nervous in Curt’s! “It’s a bit of a steep climb up this porch.”

That slow drawl was seductive. The pitch of his voice had dropped, just enough to stroke her ears like velvet. She’d never been so close to a man before, and the steely Mr. Vance was devastating even at a distance. This was hardly conventional behavior, and she wanted to protest, but her parents were chiding her for being so wary.

“Relax, girl,” her father said, chuckling. “Thorn won’t drop you.”

Defeated, her thin arms climbed jerkily until they rested on his broad shoulders.

His head turned. His eyes met hers in the faint light from the windows, and the sounds of music and laughter and talking died suddenly as she was caught and held in their dark glitter.

His step didn’t falter, but he wasn’t watching as he carried her slowly up onto the porch. And before he stopped to put her down, his arm contracted very slowly, very deliberately, to bring her breasts hard against his chest.

She shivered at the unexpectedly stirring contact, so vulnerable that she was unable to conceal the reaction of her body to the faint caress.

He didn’t speak. Slowly he let her feet down on the floor. As he bent to release her, his mouth was only scant inches from her lips. He searched her eyes, and she felt her body grow warm at the look on his face. It was expressionless, except for the explicit longing in his eyes, the single-minded intent. He stood straight, releasing her, and she stood before him helpless, unable to move, to speak, to act.

Thorn watched her curiously. For a woman of her type, she was amazingly sensitive to his touch. Not that he found it strange that the apparently very correct and puritan Miss Lang should fall apart because of the attentions of a rough cattleman. She was obviously putting on a good act. And why not? She knew he was rich.

“Would you care for some punch, Trilby?” he asked, but his eyes had dropped to her mouth—and he looked as if he might bend and take it under his any second.

Trilby could hardly find her voice. She was so shaken that her purse almost fell from her fingers. “Yes,” she choked. “I would.”

If only he would stop staring at her lips! He made her trembly with an emotion she didn’t understand at all. Her legs would hardly support her. It was difficult to breathe. Her heart was beating like a hummingbird’s wings against her rib cage. All because Thornton Vance was looking at her mouth!

He took her arm, aware of her parents’ exchanged smiles. So they were thinking along those lines. He smiled faintly to himself. He was glad that Trilby was vulnerable to him. He found her very attractive, and he’d been a long time without a woman. He hadn’t wandered up to the wrong side of Tucson for entertainment, or anywhere else since his wife’s death. He was beginning to feel that abstinence. He knew what Trilby was. He wouldn’t need to worry about her reputation.

And if she fell in love with him a little, that wouldn’t hurt, either. He might enjoy having her become serious about him just before he cut it off. Trilby had all but destroyed his cousin’s marriage. The gossip hadn’t been lost on him, and Curt’s wife, Lou, had cried on his shoulder more than once. Lou didn’t know the identity of Curt’s clandestine lover, but she did know that the woman was a blonde. Vance had never doubted that it was Trilby. After all, Sally had seen her with Curt.

It was too bad about Jack Lang inheriting that ranch, he thought bitterly. If it hadn’t been for the Langs coming here to claim Blackwater Springs Ranch, Thorn would have been able to buy it. Then he wouldn’t be losing cattle right and left to drought. He had water on his Mexican property, but it was getting too dangerous to try to run cattle down there. He’d had one raid after another on his stock since the fighting had begun after Díaz’s reelection. Here, water was running out.

Thorn had to find a way to save Los Santos from ruin. The land came first. His father and his grandfather had instilled in him a terrible sense of responsibility for the land, for the heritage it represented, for the need to preserve it at any cost.

For just a moment, it flashed through his mind that he could solve all his problems by marrying Trilby. But he dismissed it at once. She wasn’t the sort of woman he wanted in his home. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted another woman that close.

Sally had sworn eternal love until he’d married her and taken her to bed. Afterward, she’d been a bubbling caldron of excuses. She enjoyed her wealthy way of life, but not her ardent husband. After a few weeks of her utter coldness, he lost most of his feeling for her. Her pregnancy had been the last straw. She hadn’t wanted a child, and she never fully adjusted to motherhood. For the few months before her death, she’d been different. There had been a new light in her eyes, a new radiance to her face. But not when her husband was near. She hated him, and never lost a chance to tell him so. Even Samantha suffered her hostility. At the last, Sally had seemed to resent her family bitterly.

The accident that had claimed her life had been in a buggy one rainy night. She’d gone to sit with a sick neighbor. When she hadn’t come home the next morning, he’d gone looking for her. He’d found her body in the wreckage of the buggy, half lying in a creek. It was on an out-of-the-way road, though, and nowhere near the sick neighbor. He’d assumed that she’d gotten lost in the dark, and his conscience had hurt him for letting her go alone. There was little love in their marriage, but he had loved her until her selfishness and greed killed his feelings for her.

He glanced toward his daughter Samantha, who was standing against the wall just inside the house, looking hunted. She was so fragile-looking, he thought. Odd, she’d been less high-strung since her mother’s death, but she was sad and shy, and, odd thing, she was very nervous around Curt and Lou. He did care for his child, but there was little love left in him. What was love, after all, he thought bitterly, but an illusion. A marriage for practical reasons had a better chance of success. As for the bedroom, there was no shortage of willing women to satisfy his hunger. He didn’t need a wife for that. His eyes sought Trilby, dark with masculine appreciation of her slenderness and grace.

Samantha approached the adults warily, managing a shy smile for Trilby. “Hello,” she said.

“Hello. It’s Samantha, isn’t it? You look very pretty,” Trilby said gently.

Samantha looked surprised at the compliment. “Thank you,” she mumbled self-consciously. “May I go to bed, now, Father?” she asked, with painful shyness.

“Certainly,” he said. He sounded very stiff and uncomfortable. Not like Trilby’s loving, affectionate father. “Maria will go with you.” He motioned to his housekeeper, who nodded and came forward quickly to herd the child upstairs.

“Don’t you tuck her in at night?” she asked, without thinking.

“I do not,” he answered, his voice hardly inviting further questions. “Will you have lime or fruit punch?”

“Lime, please.”

He filled a cup for her and placed it in a saucer. Her hands shook, though, and he had to hold them to help steady it. His eyes met hers again, narrow this time, and probing.

“Your hands are like ice. You can’t be cold?”

“Why can’t I?” she said defensively. “I’m thin. I feel chill more than most people.”

“Is it that, Trilby?” He lowered his voice, and his head, so that his eyes were very close to hers. His lean hands smoothed over the backs of hers. “Or is it this?” His thumb found the damp palm of one and drew over it in what was a blatantly sensual gesture, while his eyes kindled panic in her bosom.

The punch overflowed, fortunately missing her dress and his trousers.

“Oh, I’m—I’m so sorry!” she stammered, flushing.

“No harm done.” He motioned for one of the waiters and drew her out of the way while the man cleaned it up. Her parents and Ted were already mixing with the huge crowd, and no one seemed to have noticed the accident.

“I never used to be so clumsy,” she said nervously.

He drew her back into a small alcove that led to the lighted patio, its paper lanterns making artificial moons in the darkness. His hands framed her face and tilted it up to his dark eyes. “I don’t think it was clumsiness.”

He bent then, and she felt the warm, slow brush of a man’s mouth for the first time in her life. Even Richard had never once tried to kiss her. She’d had only dreams…She stiffened helplessly at the intimacy and a faint gasp passed her dry lips.

Thorn lifted his head. The expression on her face, in her eyes, was one she couldn’t have pretended. It was genuine surprise, mingled with awe, fascination. He had more than enough experience to recognize what she was feeling—and to know that it was new to her. Incredible, he thought, a woman of her experience being so stunned. Unless it was a pretense…

He bent again to make sure, but she jerked away from him, one slender hand going to her mouth. Above it, her gray eyes were like saucers in a delicately etched face blanched with uncertainty.

Thorn grew irritated with her for that dramatic facade. His face hardened; his eyes went cold. He stood watching Trilby, contempt in his very posture as he stared at her slender body.

“Don’t tell me you usually react that way to a man’s caress?” he asked, with smiling mockery. “There’s no need to pretend for me, Trilby. We both know that you aren’t unfamiliar with the feel of a man’s mouth on yours—even on your body.”

The sheer effrontery of the remark made her hand twitch. Her eyes flashed at him and she straightened. “If I had a gun, I’d shoot you, I swear I would! How dare you make such a statement to me!”

He raised his eyebrows. “What kind of treatment did you expect, Miss Lang? Do you think that prim act fooled me?”

She stared at him blankly. “What prim act?”

He looked vaguely mocking. “It’s not very effective coming from your sort of woman,” he drawled. “We both know you want a hell of a lot more from me than kisses.”

She gasped with furious indignation and gave him a fierce glare before she abruptly moved away from him, almost running. He poured himself a cup of punch and wandered off to mingle with his guests. But even as he smiled and wound through the crowd, he was thinking about Trilby. He really shouldn’t have baited her like that. Even if she’d been having a blatant affair with Curt, it didn’t make her a prostitute. She might actually love the man.

He didn’t understand why he’d said the things he had, except that thinking of her with his cousin made him angry.

His eyes finally found her, dancing with, of all people, Curt. The other man was about his height but much heavier and less abrasive. Curt had a ready smile and he liked women. They liked him, too, with his city manners and gentlemanly ways.

Thorn had been fond of him until his wife had thrown Curt up to him as an example of what she called a “civilized man.” He was tired of coming off second when compared to a dandy. Seeing Trilby in his arms made something explode inside him, especially when an icy, resentful Lou, Curt’s wife, sat seething as she watched them dance.

“How’s the Mexican problem?” Jack Lang asked, pausing beside him long enough to divert his attention.

“Getting worse, I think,” Thorn replied. He glanced at Trilby and away again. It was all he could do not to throw a punch at Curt for his duplicity. “Don’t let the women stray far from the house. We’ve had a few cattle stolen. One of my men tracked them down into Mexico. We never did catch the thieves.”

“You can’t fault the peons for taking the side of the insurgents,” Jack said patiently. “Conditions under Díaz are intolerable for the Mexican people, from what we hear from our vaqueros.”

“They’ve always been intolerable. They always will be,” Thorn said impatiently. “The average Mexican peasant has centuries of oppression behind him, from the Aztecs all the way up through Cortés and the Spanish and French, and, eventually, Díaz. These are a perennially oppressed people. They’ve been forced to knuckle under to everyone, especially the Spanish. It takes generations to overcome a suppressed attitude. They haven’t had enough time yet to break the pattern.”

“Madero seems to be doing it.”

“Madero is a little rooster,” Thorn mused. “His heart’s in the right place. I think he may surprise the Federales. They underestimate him. They’ll regret it.”

“His army is ragtag,” Jack protested.

“You need to read history,” came the dry reply. “It’s chock-full of ragtag armies taking over continents.”

Jack pursed his lips. “You’re amazingly astute.”

“Why, because I live on a ranch and spend my life around cattle and dust? I’m well read, and I have a friend who knows more about the past than he knows about the present. Did you meet my Eastern guest over there? McCollum’s an anthropologist, although he also teaches archaeology. He comes out with his students every spring to interview people from local Indian tribes and look for evidence of ancient cultures.”

“You don’t say! He never told me any of that,” Jack murmured, eyeing the tall, rough-looking blond man who was talking to an area businessman.

“McCollum won’t talk about his work. He’s opinionated enough about everything else,” Thorn said, with an amused smile.

McCollum glanced at Thorn and glowered. A minute later, he excused himself to the man with whom he was speaking and joined his host. “You’re talking about me, aren’t you?” McCollum demanded bluntly. “Behind my back, too.”

“I was telling my neighbor how much you know about the past,” he said, smiling. “This is Jack Lang. He owns Blackwater Springs Ranch. Jack, this is Dr. Craig McCollum.”

“Glad to know you,” Jack said. “Are you here to dig around?”

“No, more’s the pity. I’m in town on business, so I stopped in to see Thorn. What do you think about the Mexican situation?”

Jack told him. McCollum, a tall, dignified man, pursed his lips and his dark eyes narrowed. “You think the peons have a chance?”

“Yes,” Jack said. “Do you?”

McCollum shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Thorn has probably mentioned that he has several Mexican cowboys who work for him. Their fathers worked for his father. To them, being dominated by foreigners is a bitter way of life. Change takes time.”

“Is Madero going to win?”

“Yes, I think so,” Thorn said after a minute. “He genuinely cares about his people and he wants something better than they have for them. He’s managed to win the support of most of his people, and they’ll fight. Yes, I imagine he’ll win. But before he does, a lot of good blood is going to be spilled. What concerns me is that some of it may be ours. We’re in a sticky position here, on the border.”

“We don’t have to get involved,” Jack said stubbornly.

Thorn smiled indulgently. “We’re already involved. Or haven’t you noticed that some of your vaqueros disappear for a day or two at a time?”

Jack cocked his head and shrugged. “Yes. They go to see their families.”

Thorn chuckled and drained his punch glass. “They go to ride with the Maderistas and help raid neighboring ranches. Be careful they don’t raid yours. You’ve lost some cattle recently, too, I believe?”

“A few head. Nothing serious.”

“Perhaps those few were to see if you’d give chase,” Thorn cautioned. “Keep a close watch on your herd.”

“Yes. I’ll do that.” Jack sighed heavily, his eyes going to his wife, who was talking animatedly to some neighbors. “I dragged my family out here without realizing the gravity of the situation, you know. I had no idea the Mexicans would revolt. I put every dime we had into this operation, but it isn’t going as I thought it would. I’m losing my shirt, Vance.”

“Give it time,” Thorn said, mentally weighing his own chances to latch on to the ranch if Jack looked like he was losing it. “Things generally work out by themselves.”

“Yes, if I have anything left by then.”

“No need to sound so pessimistic,” Thorn reminded him. “If things heat up, there are plenty of U.S. troops ready to combat any threat. And besides the local militia, there’s support from Fort Huachuca if it’s needed. Buck up. Come on, I’ll introduce you to a couple of my bankers. You may need a friend in commerce one day. Craig, you can keep us company.”

From her position with Curt, talking to two unmarried young women talking about the upcoming marriage of a third, Trilby watched Thorn Vance and Craig McCollum with her father. Dr. McCollum wasn’t at all bad-looking, but it was Thorn who caught her eye. He was nice-looking when he made the effort, she thought reluctantly. Black suited him; it made him look more muscular, even taller than he was.

While she stared at him, he suddenly turned his head and caught her staring in his direction. A cold anger contracted his brows, and she flushed and looked quickly away. Her heartbeat was unusually fast and she wished she didn’t feel or look quite so breathless. It hadn’t been like this with Richard. She’d been so fond of him, but he hadn’t made her knees go weak. For heaven’s sake, all she’d thought about since she’d arrived was how it would feel if Thorn kissed her with real passion—not that faint brushing contact that had unnerved her. She almost wished that she’d given in to him, but that was unseemly, unladylike, and totally impossible. She couldn’t encourage him. A widower like Thorn Vance would certainly want more than she was prepared to offer, and he was hardly likely to offer her marriage. He was something of a ladies’ man, she gathered from their conversation, and he seemed already to think her a woman of loose morals. She had no thought of ending up a scarlet woman because of her body’s helpless reaction to him. She’d simply have to keep her distance from now on.

“Look at her,” Lou bristled minutes later when Thorn took her onto the dance floor. She was glaring toward Trilby, who was still standing beside Curt. “Has she no shame?”

“I’ll take care of it,” he told the woman, who was dark and much older than Trilby. “Don’t worry.”

“So blatant,” she choked. “He’s got two children, and he doesn’t care how much gossip he stirs up. It isn’t only her. Now there’s some woman down in Del Rio.” She dabbed at her eyes miserably. “I wish I’d never met him.”

“What do you mean, some woman in Del Rio?”

“A pretty little Mexican peasant girl whose father owns a taverna,” she said huskily. “He spends all his time down there.”

That struck Thorn as odd. If Curt were having a mad affair with Trilby, why was he seeing another woman as well? And a poor Mexican girl, at that?

“He likes to see me humiliated,” she whispered, glaring at her husband’s back. “He enjoys hurting me.”

“Why should he want to do that?” Thorn asked gently.

Lou blushed. “I was…in the family way when we married,” she said, faintly resentful. “He’s never let me forget it. He didn’t want to marry me.”

It began to make sense. “Are you certain that he’s seeing Trilby?” he asked her.

She shrugged. “He disappears every other night. Maybe he’s seeing them both. How should I know? I hate him!”

“No, you don’t.”

She sniffed. “No, I don’t. I wish I could.” She leaned her head against him. “Why couldn’t I have loved you, Thorn? You’d never cheat on your wife.”

“It’s not my way,” he agreed.

“Look at her,” she muttered, glaring at Trilby. “So cultured and citified and elegant. She’s nothing to look at, though. All bones and a face that no man could call pretty. I’m much better to look at than she is!”

“Now, Lou,” he said gently.

She stumbled and had to regain her balance. “I’m being spiteful, I know. Why don’t her people control her? If she’d been raised right, she wouldn’t be carousing around with my husband!”

The question made Thorn thoughtful. Mary and Jack Lang were moral people. They hadn’t raised Trilby to be licentious. Surely if they knew she was seeing Curt they’d stop her. Of course, he rationalized, they might not know about it.

Minutes later he approached her where she stood with Curt and slid his hand down to capture hers.

“Excuse us, won’t you?” he told Curt, and he didn’t smile. His cousin’s eyebrows arched in surprise.

Thorn led her onto the floor, where several people were doing a lazy waltz to the music of the live band he’d hired.

“I think it’s time Curt spent just a little time with his wife,” he said icily.

Trilby flushed with anger. She smiled coolly. “How kind of you to sacrifice yourself on her behalf.”

He shifted his eyes to where Lou was coaxing a reluctant Curt to dance with her. The whole situation made him angry.

His arms contracted around Trilby, and she stiffened. “I might as well dance with a slab of lumber,” he remarked as they went around the floor for the second time. His hand gripped her slender waist hard and he shook her gently. “Will you relax?”

She was stiff in his arms, because she was angry at the remarks he’d made and frightened of how he made her feel. Her hand in his was cold and nervous, more so when his fingers began sliding in and out between her own, making her knees wobbly. He’d been so antagonistic, and now he was acting as if—as if he wanted to seduce her!

“Please stop doing that,” she said irritably, tugging at her hand.

“Doing what, Miss Lang?” he asked, with every evidence of innocence.

She glared up into his dancing dark eyes and then down again. “You know what.”

“You relax and I’ll stop doing…that.”

Her teeth clenched. “Have you no knowledge of civilized behavior at all?” she asked haughtily.

His dark eyes glittered at her. “I’m a man,” he said quietly. “Perhaps you aren’t used to the breed?”

Her gray eyes flashed at him. “I do most certainly know a few men!”

“Pretty city boys,” he shot back. “With nice manners and manicured nails and slicked-back hair.”

“There’s nothing wrong with manners, Mr. Vance,” she told him. “In fact, they rate rather high on my list of priorities.”

“You sound very indignant. I’ve seen a setting hen less ruffled than you look right now,” he said mockingly. “All feathers and fury because I’ve insulted your background.” The smile faded as he looked at her. “I buried my parents with my own two hands,” he said, shocking her into lifting her eyes. “They were killed by Mexican bandits raiding up into Arizona. I have no love for outlaws, and less for Eastern tenderfeet who think a man is measured by his vocabulary. Out here, Miss Lang, a man is measured by his ability to hold on to what’s his, by his ability to protect his loved ones and insure their survival. Pretty talk doesn’t stop bullets or build empires.”

“You sound very critical of city folk,” she began.

“I am critical of them. We had two Washington big shots out here after my parents were gunned down. We tried to explain the situation brewing in Mexico and the need for some protection for settlers here, and we got nothing but promises of ‘looking into the situation.’”

“Washington is quite far away,” she reminded him.

“Not far enough away for me,” he said shortly. “I couldn’t get any cooperation from Washington or the army, so I handled the problem myself.”

“The problem?”

“I tracked my parents’ murderers down across the border,” he explained.

“Did you find them?”

“Yes.” He glanced toward the band and motioned to them. They’d been winding down, but they began the song again.

She didn’t pursue the question. The look in his dark eyes had been fairly explicit. She had a terrible vision of men being gunned down.

He felt the quiver against his hand at her back and he nodded. “You’re going to have to get a little tougher if you want to live in this country.”

“Did I ever say that I wanted to live here, Mr. Vance?” she asked with soft hauteur. “I came because I had no choice.”

“You seem to like some things about it,” he continued, with faint sarcasm.

“That’s right, I do love the dust! I’m thinking of starting an export business so that I can share it with the world.” She couldn’t face another argument. “Can we stop dancing?”

“Why?” Her attitude put his back up. She was making his desert sound like some alien and unwanted land. She made him feel like some uncivilized savage. Well, perhaps he was, but he didn’t like her so superior attitude. She was hardly fit to judge him, considering her behavior with his married cousin.

His hand contracted, bringing her close against him so that she could feel his chest warm and hard against her breasts, even through several layers of cloth. “Don’t you like being held close to my body like this, Trilby?” he asked, with deliberate mockery, holding her shocked eyes.

“Of all the insufferable things to say!” She stiffened and stopped dancing. No man had ever talked to her like this. She stared at him as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.

“You do that so well,” he remarked cynically. “You almost convince me that I’ve shocked you.”

She was out of her depth, and disturbed. He made her feel things she didn’t want to feel. “Shock is hardly the right word. Please let me go,” she said tersely.

“Very well,” he replied, loosening his hold. “But don’t think you’ll escape me completely,” he added mockingly. “I don’t give up when something, or someone, interests me.”

The words had an ominous ring.

“I should prefer to become an object of interest to a fat sidewinder!” she returned.

Her analogy amused him. He smiled, which made it even worse. Trilby turned away and muttered to herself all the way back to her parents and Teddy.

It was one thing to be faced with a head-on accusation and reply to it. But Thorn Vance was only making nebulous innuendos, and she didn’t know how to handle them. She couldn’t imagine why he thought so badly of her.

If it had mattered, she might have pressed him for an answer. As it was, she told herself, Richard was the only man in her life. That being the case, what did Mr. Vance’s opinion matter?