Free Deep Purple by Parris Afton Bonds Page B

brown body was bare. “I’m so glad it’s you!”
    “ Oh?” He rose now and scrambled down between a wedge of rocks, crossing to catch the bridle of the roan, which danced nervously at his approach. He stroked the soft muzzle, and when the horse calmed, looked up at Catherine. “I had an idea you might be happier to see someone else.”
    She tensed. She forced her gaze to meet those watchful eyes. "Whatever are you talking about?”
    His mouth stretched thin in a grimace. “Don't pull one of Lucy’s simpering acts on me, Miss Howard. I thought you were above something like that.”
    He did not wait for her to reply but took the roan ’s bridle and began to turn the horse about. “You’re going up a boxed-in canyon,” he explained as he led her back the way she had come, then up a slight ravine hedged by ironwood. Fifty yards away stood the gotch-eared sorrel he rode and a burro loaded with picks and shovels.
    “ Have you been prospecting?” she asked.
    He release d the bridle. “Trying to. Not much luck. But then I’m not the superstitious sort.” He grinned—not a mocking but a friendly, teasing smile. “Been out wading in any creeks lately?”
    So, he had not forgotten that night. She had hoped the aguardiente he had consumed had wiped out the memory. “No,” she said quietly. “Nor have I been out picking night-blooming flowers.”
    “ Then it’s time you did something impractical again.” And before she could protest, his hands clasped her waist and lifted her from the saddle.
    “ Oh, no. Law Davalos,” she said as he pulled her along with him, “I’m not about to go traipsing the hills for some mysterious flower.”
    “ It’s not a flower this time. It's a tree.”
    “ It’s far too hot to be—”
    “ There,” he said, pulling her up before him.
    She star ed at the tree—a type she occasionally had seen in her rides. The largest of the yucca cactus, it had grotesque branches all pointing in the same direction. And yet there was something weirdly beautiful about the tree.
    “ It’s a Joshua tree,” he said behind her. “The Mormons named it so because it looks as if it’s lifting its arms to heaven in supplication. The Yaquis and Mexicans tell superstitious lore about it.”
    She turned her head to the side so that she could see his face. “ Like what?”
    He shrugged and sm iled. “The usual things. Like making wishes.”
    “ Then if I make a wish, will that satisfy you? Can we go back?” She pursed her lips and squinted her eyes, as though concentrating. “I am wishing that you won’t drag me off to look at any more desert plant life.”
    He laughed. “ Oh, no. That won’t do. Miss Howard. You can’t tell a wish or it won’t come true. Try again.”
    She sighed and turned around to face him. “ All right. Let me think a minute.” And with her eyes closed there suddenly seemed only one important wish. It overrode even the desire for the return of her mother’s health. Love—and marriage—with a man like Sherrod.
    Law took her shoulders. “ You’re a foolish woman. Miss Howard,” he said grimly. “The kind of man my stepbrother is would never make you happy.”
    Her eyes snapped open. So, it had been Law out in the compound the night she talked with Sherrod. “ And do you think you would?” she gritted.
    For an answer Law jerked her to him. His mouth ground down on hers. It was nothing like the kiss he had given her t he first time. She tried to twist away, but he held her fast. When he forced her lips apart, his tongue first teasing, then ravishing, she was shocked. She felt sullied. But out of that revulsion there sprouted a seed of desire to take root in her loins, and it seemed that too soon he released her.
    “ No,” he said, still holding her wrists, “I’m not that man. But then I don’t think you’ll give any man a chance at laying claim as long as you got Sherrod sitting on that mountaintop. ” Anger shot through her, but before she could