Desert Devil (11 page)

"Well, well, our illustrious leader displays another talent," Brian remarked derisively as he watched Thorne.

Juli felt a small flash of annoyance. Brian didn't need to be quite so disparaging about
everything
. It was rather generous of Thorne to open his property and provide all this for his employees. But then she scoffed at herself for even momentarily defending him. Thorne probably cold-bloodedly put a dollar value on buying employee goodwill this way. He had certainly seemed to think he could buy her!

"I suppose he'll whip out his camera to record all this for posterity," Brian added. "That's another of his talents."

"Oh?" Juli said, curious in spite of herself.

"He's rather well known for his desert photography. He's had quite a few photographs published in
Arizona Highways
and won some awards."

So that explained why he was up on the ridge taking photographs that first night she had encountered him, Juli realized. She also suspected as she glanced at Brian's slightly scowling face that he was probably envious of Thorne and his talents and accomplishments. She knew the feeling, she thought ruefully, thinking of Nicole being not only gorgeous but a company owner—and competent with horses, besides.

At that moment the object of Juli's thoughts walked up and put her arm through Thorne's with a possessive gesture that indicated she owned not only the company, but Thorne, as well. She was wearing the uniform of the day, but hers were designer jeans with saucy little red hearts appliquéd to the rear, and she filled out her T-shirt with voluptuous fullness. Her hair was loose and tousled, and she did look stunning, though in a rather different way from what Juli had expected. Again Juli felt uncomfortably overdressed.

"Well, what do you think? Is she wearing a bra or isn't she?" Brian commented appraisingly.

For a moment Juli was shocked by Brian's remark, but then she realized it was just part of his generally derisive air, an air she was beginning to realize he put on because he felt uncomfortable and out of place.

"I'm not sure," Juli returned, smiling. "Shall we go ask her?"

"Or Thorne," Brian said with a suggestive movement of his eyebrows. "I'm sure he knows."

That was probably true, Juli thought with an odd little hollow feeling inside as she watched the two of them together. Nicole was introducing Thorne to someone now, her arm still holding his. They might be waiting for a decent interval to pass before marrying, Juli thought cynically, but she doubted if they had bothered to observe such proprieties before establishing—or re-establishing—an intimate relationship.

"It's kind of ridiculous, isn't it?" Brian said scornfully. "All the company executives coming out here and trying to prove how common and ordinary they are one day a year. That's my boss, Dr. Johnson, over there with the big apron. And look at Nicole Taylor! She looks like some oversexed adolescent."

"Thorne doesn't seem to mind," Juli observed wryly.

"I think company management and owners should maintain a little dignity," Brian said.

Juli halfway agreed with his remarks as far as Nicole and her strategically placed heart-shaped appliqués were concerned, but she couldn't resist a teasing. "When you're a company owner, I'm sure you'll never be accused of being undignified."

The remark earned her a slightly sheepish grin from Brian. "I guess I do sound like kind of a stuffed shirt, don't I?" They both laughed and he reached for her hand. "C'mon, let's get something to drink."

They turned toward the refreshment stand, and it was just at that moment that Juli glanced up and met Thorne's eyes. She was separated from him by the barbecue pit and several tables, and yet even at that distance his shock at seeing her was obvious. He evidently got another jolt when he realized she was with Brian, and his chiseled lips compressed into a single hard line.

Juli's eyes dropped first, breaking the electric jolt that had momentarily arced between them. "Maybe I shouldn't have come here," she said uneasily. Somehow she wouldn't put it past Thorne to stride over and arbitrarily demand that she leave. "If the barbecue is supposed to be just for employees—"

"The announcement invited employees, families, and guests," Brian said unconcernedly. He had missed the brief byplay between Juli and Thorne. "Here, what would you like to drink? Coke? Lemonade? Beer?"

Juli chose a lemonade and they made their way to a small, unoccupied table and bench off by themselves. She surreptitiously glanced Thorne's way again, but she needn't have been so careful. His back was to her. Perhaps deliberately, she thought. Then she scoffed at that thought. She was attaching too much importance to herself. He no doubt had been surprised to see her here, but she was just another mouth to feed.

Still, she had to talk to him sometime, she thought uneasily, though at the moment it looked as if Nicole had a death grip on his arm again. She thought about simply stepping up and politely saying she must speak to him alone for a moment, but she knew she hadn't the nerve for that. She would just have to watch and wait for a chance to catch him alone.

A small pavilion had been set up near the band, and now some square-dancers were performing. Juli and Brian strolled over to watch, carrying their drinks with them. The dancers seemed to be having a good time, the women's full skirts swirling and the men giving an occasional whoop and holler. Later Juli and Brian leaned on the corral fence and watched the children and even a few adults playing more games on horseback, racing at breakneck speed around poles or barrels. A haze of dust hung over the corral, but no one seemed to mind.

Brian introduced her to people here and there, and they finally sat down with two couples he seemed to know fairly well. The men immediately started talking shop, and then a small boy raced up to tell his mother that he'd just won a baseball mitt in some children's contest. He accidentally knocked over what was left of Juli's lemonade.

"Oh, that's all right," Juli said to the boy's apologetic mother. "All that was left was melting ice cubes." Her hands felt sticky, however, and she excused herself to find a faucet to rinse them off.

She was surprised to find comfortable rest rooms built on the far side of the cottonwoods. Thorne didn't skimp on details. She washed her hands and then ran a comb through her hair. Her tan had deepened over the last week and her hair had lightened with flattering sun streaks. She might not be suitably dressed for this occasion, but she had been aware of more than a few complimentary glances. Not from Thorne, however, she thought wryly.

She picked up her purse and went outside again. The trail back to the tables led through the cottonwood grove. She caught her breath as a tall figure stepped out to intercept her.

"What are you doing here with Eames?" he demanded without preliminaries.

"He invited me," Juli stated defiantly. How had Thorne happened to be standing alongside the trail just at the moment she passed by? she wondered warily. Unlikely as it seemed, it almost appeared he had deliberately arranged to catch her alone. In any case, Juli thought as she took a deep, steadying breath, it gave her the opportunity to return his "gift."

Thorne's eyes narrowed, as if he considered her reply too flippant. "And just how do you happen to know him?" he pursued. He had moved up closer to her now and the faint aroma of smoke from the barbecue clung to him. Somehow it only emphasized his rugged masculinity.

Juli retreated a step, determined not to be affected by the man-woman awareness that always seemed to vibrate between them, even in moments of anger. "I… I don't think that is any of your concern." Without taking her eyes off him, she fumbled in her purse and fished out the one-hundred-dollar bill. She thrust it at him. "And you can have this back! You have a rather exaggerated idea of the cost of my blouse."

"I presumed there was some mental stress and strain which should be compensated for, as well as the purchase of a new blouse." His voice was contemptuous when he added, "However, I doubt if that was the case. I don't think that you were exactly suffering."

Juli gasped both at the contempt in his voice and the insolence of his words. How dare he be contemptuous of her after what
he
had done! How dare he imply that she had enjoyed his savage attack! And then to think he could send her
money
to compensate for what he had done!

"You tore my blouse off and you have the nerve to—" Words failed Juli in her fury.

"I didn't, as you say, tear your blouse off," he replied with infuriating reasonableness. "I merely ripped the neckline by accident."

"
Accident
?" echoed Juli.

"By accident," he repeated. He smiled grimly. "If I had intended to tear your blouse off, I would have done a considerably more thorough job of it than that. And I might not have stopped with your blouse," he added with an insinuating glance at the shadowy hollow between her breasts revealed by the deep neckline of the coral dress.

Juli felt her face flame to match the color of the dress, but she managed to retort, "Don't you think Mrs. Taylor might have heard my screams if you had tried that?"

He tilted an eyebrow, his eyes unexpectedly gleaming with wicked amusement. "Would you have screamed? You weren't exactly screaming a moment earlier when—"

"I think you… you are despicable!" Juli gasped. She looked at the hundred-dollar bill in her hand, wondering frantically what to do with it. He had folded his arms against his chest, refusing to take the bill from her outstretched hand. "And I don't want your money!" she cried.

She stepped forward, meaning to stuff the money between his folded arms and muscled chest, but he moved and the green bill fluttered to the ground. He ignored it. A woman and several children came down the trail just then. He touched Juli's arm lightly to make room for the woman to pass. When she resisted, his grip tightened warningly. Rather than make an embarrassing scene, Juli let herself be guided off to one side while he, the benevolent employer, smiled at the kids. The hundred-dollar bill remained where it had settled on the sandy ground.

"You ran into Nikki at the house that day, didn't you?" he mused. "Did you think she was my wife?" His lips twitched as if he found that thought amusing.

"She gave me that impression, yes," Juli agreed with a lift of her head and a futile attempt to control the flush that stormed to her cheeks again. It did not escape her attention that he used a familiar, almost endearing form of Nicole's name. "From what I hear, she soon will be."

"You shouldn't believe every rumor you hear about what may happen," he remarked lazily. He leaned back against a cottonwood, his long, lean-hipped body relaxed, yet ready. The fine, bronzed hairs on his forearms glinted against the green company T-shirt. Did he mean, she wondered warily, that nothing definite was yet decided between himself and Nicole?

"The rumors aren't only about what may happen, but also what has already happened in the past," Juli finally said tartly.

"Such as?" he challenged.

She bit her lip. She had forgotten his disconcerting habit of coming bluntly to the point, of refusing to let oblique remarks pass by unchallenged. She had no intention of discussing his past, or present, affair with Nicole, however.

"If you'll excuse me, I believe Brian is waiting for me," Juli said, snapping her purse shut decisively. "You'll find your money on the ground over there."

"It isn't my money," he pointed out, not even glancing toward the bill on the ground. "I sent it to you. Along with the flowers. I trust you enjoyed the long-stemmed roses?"

"Yes, of course, they were beautiful," Juli said, flustered. "Thank you. But I won't take the money. Now, if you'll excuse me, Brian—"

"Let Brian wait," he said insolently. "Patience is one of the virtues of a good researcher."

Juli gasped. "I have consideration for others, even if you do not!"

"Meaning?" He raised a taunting eyebrow.

"Why didn't you open the gates when you first saw I intended leaving, instead of waiting until I almost ran into them?"

"As far as I was concerned, our… uh… discussion was not yet over. I thought you would come to a sensible stop when you saw the gates were still closed." With a wry twist of his lips, he added, "I didn't realize you were stubborn and hard-headed enough to ram them head on."

Juli caught her breath. He evidently did not realize that in her agitated condition she had actually forgotten the gates were closed, that she had been watching for him and hadn't realized the gates still barricaded her way until she was almost upon them. He really thought she was headstrong enough to ram right into them!

"Of course, it was a bluff," he said, eyeing her reflectively with those gray-green eyes that reflected the desert coloring around them.

"And yet you couldn't take the chance," Juli taunted, "so you'll never know for sure." She was not about to tell him of the pure terror that had en-gulfed her when she saw those iron gates barring her way, that thoughts either of ramming or bluffing had never entered her head!

He stepped closer to her, panther-quick in his movements, his folded arms instantly ready at his sides. "If I were you," he suggested softly, "I would not try to bluff
me
very often."

Juli tried to retreat, but something sticky against her back blocked her way. "Wh-what more did you think there was to add to our conversation?" she asked. The words came out shaky, instead of cool and defiant, as she had intended. There was something both menacing and tantalizing in the depths of those gray-green eyes.

"Perhaps it wasn't verbal conversation I had in mind," he murmured. He lifted a tanned hand and touched her lightly, lingeringly, under the chin.

The touch sent the clashing sensations of a cold shiver down her spine and a hot flood through her body. She wanted to slap his hand away, and yet she couldn't seem to move. His fingers trailed down her throat, stroked the nape of her neck, lightly caressed the lobe of her ear.

"What did you have in mind—seducing me into forgetting what you had done to my aunt?" Juli asked scornfully, willing herself not to acknowledge or reveal the wild response surging through her. She held her body rigid, damp hands clenching her purse.