Free Linda Castle by Temple's Prize Page A

His scowl was darker than a thunderhead. “Of course she doesn’t need anything, Hughes. Haven’t you been listening? She is more than competent. She is a bloody wonder,” Temple snapped. “If she meets up with a grizzly she can explain to him that she is a most accomplished anatomist, or she can sketch him.” He put his arms akimbo while he spoke. “I am sure the bear will be most impressed by Miss Cadwallender’s long list of accomplishments.” Temple clasped his wide hands at his waist. “He will be so awed that he will forget all about wanting to eat her.” He was practicallybellowing by the time he spit out the last two words.
    “Really, Temple, you are astonishing.” Constance had no idea what Temple was going on about, or why Mr. Hughes had doubled over in the seat with laughter at this latest outburst. She didn’t understand what possessed either one of them, but she had grown tired of trying to figure them out. She tucked her sketching box beneath her arm and starting walking.
    Temple hammered his tent stake deep into the earth with the mallet. He stood up and surveyed his work with a critical eye. The canvas was taut, the lines pegged securely into the Montana dirt. He had placed the opening to the east so the morning sun would warm and wake him, or so he told himself.
    When he looked up from the mouth of his tent it was Connie’s camp that greeted his eyes on the other side of the gorge. And just as he expected, Peter Hughes was busy erecting Connie’s tent while she was meandering through the bottom of the canyon.
    A wave of some emotion swept through Temple, but he couldn’t quite define it. It might have been irritation that the old goat went out of his way to pamper Connie, but it just as easily might have been something else.
    “I am not jealous,” Temple muttered aloud while he hit the last stake with the mallet. “The idea is preposterous.”
    But he glanced back at the neat camp growing on the other side of the hollow and found unexpected emotions flooding through him.
    “I couldn’t care any less. She is on her own.” Hekicked a tent stake with the toe of his boot. The rope twanged in response.
    After he came to live with C.H., Temple had always been the one who fixed things or solved problems that were beyond Connie’s ability. He had been her hero.
    Now he stared at the tent poles and struggled to deny he was disappointed that he was not the one she would come to when she needed help here in Montana.
    The sound of paper fluttering in the canyon drew Temple’s attention. He walked to the edge of the cut and looked down. There, about thirty feet below him was Connie. She was sitting on the dirt with her sketching pad in her lap. Her dark chestnut hair had tumbled free along her back and the sunlight skipped over her delicate cheek and deposited tiny diamonds on her smooth skin. The scene could have been from a watercolor study, such a bucolic picture she made.
    Temple shook his head and steeled himself against the wayward thoughts and feelings.
    She was his enemy—his competitor. Temple Parish had survived the past ten years by never forgetting the most important thing in his life was winning.
    He never gave an edge to those who were against him and Constance Honoria was very much against him as long as she was aligned with C.H. and Dandridge University. He had never forgotten what happened ten years ago. With the exception of the death of his mother on that freezing January night, his departure from C.H.’s house had been the most traumatic and painful event in his life. He couldn’t allow himself to hurt like that again, he thought as he took a step closer to the edge.
    Constance was concentrating on an interesting stony outcrop when a scatter of gravel rained down on herhat. She shielded her eyes against the sun with the side of her hand and scanned the ridge above her.
    Much to her surprise, Temple was standing on the edge, about three stories above her. She pushed her