Desert Heat (2 page)

Chapter Two

Mallory found Mike
Malone easily. His picture on the website hadn’t done him justice. Tall, blond,
well-built, and wearing a bright red and white Arizona Cardinals windbreaker,
he was hard to miss. She grinned as two women went by and did an obvious double
take.

She approached
him. “Mr. Malone?”

He held out a big
hand. “Call me Mike. And you’re Miss James?”

She nodded,
suddenly overly conscious of her rumpled appearance. She hadn’t taken time to
apply makeup and her unruly mop of hair probably needed a comb. It usually did.
Her black-rimmed glasses rested halfway down her nose. “I’m Mallory.”

His warm hand
enveloped hers for a moment. She resisted the urge to leave it there. “Do you
have more stuff?”

Mallory took her
hand back and nodded. “A little bit. I didn’t know if it was hot here, or not.
Sometimes it gets cold in Vegas . . .”

He headed for the
conveyor belt. “Let’s pick it up then and head to the ranch.”

 
“Do you have to get other guests?” Mallory
glanced around as she walked at his side, but saw no one who looked like they
were here for a week of R and R.

 
“Just you.”
He
sounded angry.

Surprised by his
tone, Mallory only nodded.

A few minutes
later, they stowed her bags in the back of a new black SUV with
The
Jumping
Cholla Resort
painted across the door in gold letters. The interior
smelled like an expensive pair of leather gloves she’d once owned. They quickly
left Sky Harbor behind and merged onto I-10.

Mallory leaned back
into the luxurious seats and tried to relax. Although more tired than the night
before, her nerves skipped, making her skin feel too tight.

 
“Did you have any problems getting here?” Mike
asked.

Mallory jumped.
“What? Oh, no. The flight was routine.”

 
Silence stretched between them as he navigated
the crowded streets. Mallory took in the view. Phoenix’s suburbs seemed similar
to those of Vegas. A lot of mini malls, nice homes, golf courses. There were
more palm trees in Phoenix, but the hovering cloud of ugly, black fog seemed
the same. Even the horizon looked similar. Cactus covered foothills with large,
expensive houses springing out of them at every turn. If her dad wanted a
change of scenery, she didn’t know what had brought him here.

 
“Have you visited Phoenix before?” Mike asked.

 
“No.”

 
“The city is growing by the day,” he
continued, apparently not catching her reluctance to talk about it. “Snowbirds
flock here by the hundreds every year. I grew up on a guest ranch right there.”
He pointed to a cacti-covered lump.
“Under Camelback
Mountain.
It’s a golf course now, surrounded by million-dollar homes.”

 
“Have you ever lived anywhere else?” Mallory
glanced at his profile. Strong nose, cheeks, and jaw defined his face. He shot
a glance at her, his bright blue eyes piercing.

 
“Only the U of
A and
the Cholla.
Never wanted to be anywhere else.”
His
features settled into a hard line. “Nothing will ever force me off my land.
They’ll bury me there.”

Mallory’s
tightened her lips. He sounded just like her father, a man her mother had
always described as someone who put his own wishes first.

She relaxed a
little as they left the rush of Phoenix, then Mesa behind. The city streets
gave way to Bush highway; two lanes of winding asphalt lined by a forest of
cactus. Mostly
cholla
, but hundred-year-old saguaro
and
palo
verde
trees grew
there, too. As a professor of Environmental Studies, she sometimes took her
students into the field for research, but the Nevada desert wasn’t covered as
thickly with cacti. It was open and far more barren. She didn’t see how anyone
could make their way through this one.

Her thoughts were
diverted when Mike flipped on his blinker and slowed. He turned under a sign
that said
Welcome, Guests
. Then under that,
The
Jumping Cholla, est. 1905
. And, strangely, several hand-painted posters
with messages
stop destroying our desert!
and
earth
murderer!
strewn
about.

Mallory
turned to ask Mike about them, but his jaw was set in such a hard line that she
decided not to pry. They drove down a long, winding dirt lane that finally
opened to an oasis. A large adobe lodge rose from the desert floor like a red
sand castle on a beach. A quarter-acre or more of closely cropped emerald green
grass circled the building. At the edge of the lawn, a pristine pool glistened
in the morning sun. Several picnic tables and beach chairs, shaded with bright
blue and yellow striped awnings, surrounded the aqua depths. Several smaller
haciendas, a barn, and horse corral stood off a ways from the lodge.

~*~

Mike pulled up to
the front door of the lodge and parked. “This is it.”

He retrieved her
luggage from the back of the SUV,
then
led Mallory
through heavy wooden doors. Their heels clicked eerily on the flagstone floor.
She glanced around with a curious expression. He’d lived here for over ten
years, and imagined what it would be like to see the ranch for the first time.
Through an open doorway sat a game room with a pool table, several video games,
three large couches, and a bar at one end. On the other side of the hall were
the bathrooms. A little farther, to the right, a dining room was filled with
gleaming oak tables.

At the end of the
hall, Mike paused before turning right. He went to the first door and opened it
with a master key. He dug a room key out of his pocket and handed it to her. “I
hope this is okay.”

He watched as she
walked in and looked around.

Decorated in a
sparse, Spanish-style, the room was meant to sooth jangled nerves and
reduce
stress. Her room faced a rock patio with a fountain
in the middle, other suites directly adjacent from hers. Several strategically
placed dark blue hammocks called out an open invitation to relax. Orange and
red nasturtiums climbed the
walls,
a wall of
glossy-leafed oleanders blocked the pool.

Mallory turned and
walked toward him. She moved like a desert deer, full of grace. He usually went
for curvy blondes, but something about her dark eyes and curly brown hair
caught and held his attention. The plain white tee and straight green skirt she
wore flattered her tall, rail-thin frame and tanned skin. Pretty in a classical
way, she intrigued him.
A lot.

Surprised at the
direction his thoughts headed, Mike made an effort to rein them in. The last
thing he needed was an involvement with anyone. He had to concentrate on saving
The Cholla from the clutches of a group of environmentalists bent on running
him out. Because the ranch sat on the banks of the Salt River, they wanted him
gone. Although they had failed before, this time the judge had placed an
injunction against the ranch’s operations until the next court date, sometime
in June.

Tired of his
stubborn streak, and his refusal to give in, Elisha had left him. He hadn’t
loved her for her vast family fortune, but when she left, she took the funding
to fight the Salt River Protection League. He had enough to live on, to keep up
the ranch, including the horses, but much more was out of the question. Fear
gripped him—maybe the SRPL was going to beat him this time.

 
“I’ll show you where I live.” Mike turned his
thoughts away from his grim reality. They went back up to the main hall and
crossed to the other side. “The library is right there. Feel free to use it.”

He unlocked a
door, stepping aside to allow her to enter first. A matching hunter-green sofa
and chair rested under a bay window that overlooked the pool. The other end
held a king-sized bed, two night stands, and a dresser. A TV, stereo, and a
collection of CDs covered the dresser. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases took up one
wall; an antique roll-top desk swamped with papers dominated the other.

He moved in front
of the desk, and blocked her view of the torn map laying there. “Welcome to my
home, Miss James.”

She glanced around
with a puzzled look. “Where do you eat?”

 
“I generally have meals with the staff in the dining
room. Or at least I did.” Bitterness filled his voice.

 
“Where did my dad stay? How could he afford
this on a full-time basis?”

 
He held his hands up in a gesture of
surrender. Like he had done something wrong,

instead
of something nice. He didn’t know why he was
reacting this way to a woman he barely knew. “I let Skeeter stay from time to
time, when he needed a place, but he wasn’t around much.”

 
“I see.” Her tone suggested she didn’t. “May I
see where he . . . died?”

They walked out,
back past her room and down the hall. Going through a door, they came out at
the far end of the building. Silently, they went side-by-side down a red gravel
path lined with purple oleanders. Finally, the trail opened to a row of small
adobe cabins. At the last one, again slipping the master key out of his pocket,
Mike unlocked the door and pushed it open.

With a glance at
him, Mallory stepped inside.

A strong
antiseptic odor hit her nostrils. Styled much like hers, the room was empty
except for a dresser, night stand, and lamp. There was no bed. Generic desert
prints adorned the walls. If she hoped to find some essence of her father here,
she was sadly disappointed. “Did he sleep on the floor?”

 
“I had to burn the mattress. He
laid
there a long time.”

His words cut her
heart. “I see.” She took another step into the sterile room. “Did he have any
possessions?”

 
“Very little.
What he
had is here.” He indicated a green duffel bag.
“Oh, and
Nobody.”

 
“Nobody?”

 
“
Skeeter’s
little
burro. I’ll show you.” He stood at the door, one hand on the knob.

With a last look
in the death chamber, Mallory backed out with her hands over her mouth. She
uncovered her nose and sucked in several gasps of fresh, flower-scented air. “I
didn’t expect this. I thought he would die on an archeological dig in the
Sahara, like Indiana Jones or someone romantic.”

 
“You okay?” Mike’s blue eyes were kind.

 
She felt like she had been punched. “Yes.”

 
“Come on, I’ll introduce you to Nobody.” Mike
took her arm and guided her down another red gravel pathway to a barn and
several corrals. Thirty horses stood either munching hay from large metal tubs
or resting under loafing sheds, swishing their tails. An ugly little burro
dozed.
in
a pen by himself.

Mallory touched
one long ear and the burro opened an eye. “This is
Nobody
?”

 
“This is him,” Mike confirmed.

Gently, she
stroked the burro’s neck. “Hi, little guy. What are we going to do with you? I
don’t have room for you at my house in Vegas.”

 
“He can stay here if you want,” Mike offered.
He patted the burro’s neck. “I
kinda
like having him
around. And the guests’ kids will love him when they come back.”

 
“I couldn’t possibly impose any further.” She
slid
her slender fingers over the burro’s soft nose.

 
“It’s no trouble. Look, he’s used to it here.
Trailering
him to Las Vegas would be expensive, far more
than he’s worth. I feed a lot of horses; one more small mouth isn’t going to
make a difference. I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want to do it.” Mike met her
troubled gaze. “He’s earned a nice retirement. Let me provide it.”

 
“Please let me pay his board. You’ve already
done so much.”
 

 
“Not a chance,” he said with a smile.

“Okay, then,” she
said. “Thank you.”

 
“Would you like to rest? Swim?” He glanced at
a watch on his wrist. “It’s nearly noon.
How about lunch,
then a siesta?”

 
“Please, Mr. Malone? Mike? I’m not on
vacation. Don’t feel you need to wait on me. I’m sure you have guests who need
looking after. I’m fine on my own.”

His mouth
tightened. “Haven’t you noticed, Miss James? You’re the sole visitor on The Cholla.”
He waved a hand in a wide arc. “There’s not a single paying customer on the
place. In fact, there’s virtually no one here. I have less than a skeleton
staff on board.”

 
“What?” She gaped at him. “Why on earth don’t
you have tourists? This is a guest ranch? Isn’t this the busiest time of year
for you? I thought it seemed slow, but I assumed everyone had a day off or
something.”

 
“Normally we should be at capacity right now.”
He fought to keep the anger from his voice. “But I have legal issues which prevent
me from operating until we get them untangled. So, you see, it wasn’t a
hardship to have Skeeter stay here.”

 
“I don’t understand.”

 
“Until I get a matter settled, I’m prohibited
from running my business.” In spite of his effort not to let bitterness show,
it filled his voice. “Thanks to a bunch of busybodies with nothing better to do
than harass me, there isn’t a single guest on the premises.”