A Wolf In The Desert. Bj James

      He repressed a flinch as an enraged roar rose behind him. The sharp report of an open palm against bare flesh preceded a shrill curse. The coarse and vicious culmination of a drunken quarrel echoed through the canyon. Indian caught back a sigh. He was taking her into this. Into a culture few could imagine. A life-style she shouldn’t have to suffer.

      Temptation was strong in him. The need to ride out of the desert with her, turning his back on commitment and obligation, nearly overpowered him. It would be so easy, if he were truly Indian. Truly the man she thought him.

      But there was more to this than Patience O’Hara and a man called Indian. More lives at risk than hers. More than his.

      He was so close to a truth that had eluded him for months. One he couldn’t turn away from. Not even for her.

      “Indian?”

      He heard the edge in her voice and forced his thoughts aside. “Yes?”

      “You were so quiet. What were you thinking?”

      “Only that soon it will be time we went into camp.”

      She shook her head, gazing intently into the darkness that shrouded his face. “It was more than that.” She looked past him to the camp. “You hate this, don’t you? You hate my being here as much as I. You hate it for my sake, but for your own purposes, as well.”

      “I have no purposes.”

      “I think you do. And now you’re torn between that purpose and keeping me safe.”

      Indian stood impassive. By neither gesture nor word did he reveal how near she’d come to the truth. Patience O’Hara was truly a woman to guard against. An intuitive woman, who saw and understood more than he would wish. He laughed, shrugging aside her suggestion as if it were nonsense. “Careful, if you endow me with such nobility, next must come trust.”

      “Maybe.” She brushed a hand over her eyes, as if by brushing bangs from her eyes she could brush cobwebs from her mind. “Maybe I do trust you. A little, at least.”

      “At least.” It was a beginning. He had his first concrete hope that he could make the best of this for both of them. She was frightened. She hadn’t stopped being frightened. He’d seen it through her anger, when she fought with him, or goaded him.

      Patience was no stranger to fear—the gut-wrenching, heart-stopping fear that could paralyze and decimate. She’d learned to deal with it and function with it. He’d guessed it from the first, when she’d faced impossible odds with stoic courage. Now he was certain.

      Where? he wondered. How and why? What circumstance had given her the stamina to deal with this? She’d wondered about him, and questioned. He wondered now about her. “Who are you, Patience O’Hara?” he asked, bemused. “What manner of woman are you?”

      “A cowardly simple-minded one,” she answered. “If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

      “Foolhardy, perhaps, but not simple-minded.” He smiled to himself, remembering a derringer and most of all a rifle that was not loaded. The bluff had taken more than courage. “Certainly not cowardly. I would say daring, even reckless.”

      “Daring? Reckless? My family wouldn’t agree. I’m plain Patience, prudent Patience. A dullard with my books and quiet walks. Poor, placid Patience, jinxed by a placid name.”

      “I think not.” She was anything but placid, anything but dull. “I should think your family would appreciate what you are, and love you for it.”

      “Oh, they appreciate me, and they love me. There’s no question of it. They appreciate and love me to the point of suffocation. That’s why I’m here.” Patience stopped abruptly. A hand tugged at the spill of her hair tied securely by Indian. “If they could see me now, they’d think I was insane.

      “I think I must be insane! Sitting astride a motorcycle, in the dark, in the middle of a desert, heaven knows where. My beautiful, impractical car stripped and dumped in a canyon. Ravening monsters at my feet.” She looked up at Indian. “And you. And what am I doing? Babbling on as if it were teatime with an old friend.

      “My Lord! I’m losing my marbles.” With her fingers at her temples, she massaged muscles that ached from teeth clenched too long and too hard. “Why else would I forget that for all your soft words and your sweet promises, you’re still the enemy?”

      Indian grasped her wrists in his, holding them, forcing her to look at him. “I’m not the enemy.”

      She tried to pull away. When he wouldn’t release her, she stopped struggling. “No?” She looked pointedly at her wrists manacled by his fingers, then at him. “Then what do you call this? What do you call holding me against my will? Taking me where I don’t want to go? You keep saying you’ll take me home. If that’s true, if you really want me to believe you and trust you, take me now.”

      Releasing her, he backed away. “I can’t.”

      “Can’t or won’t?”

      Indian considered lying. He was sorely tempted. But if she was going to trust him, she needed the truth. “Both.”

      “That makes no sense.” She gestured toward the canyon. “Look at them. Who’s to stop us from riding out now? Right this minute. Not one would be sober enough to follow. We could go, Indian.” There was a wistful note in her voice, a note of entreaty. “No one would be the wiser before morning.”

      “I can’t.” Indian raked a hand through his bound hair, nearly tearing it free from the leather that held it. Where would he take her? Who was out there in the sparse settlements that dotted the fringe of the desert? Who could be trusted to take care of her? If the Wolves came looking, bent on taking back their booty, who could keep her from them? Who would? Who was innocent and uninvolved? And who among the innocent did he dare put at risk?

      There was only one, but he was far from the desert. And Indian had too much to lose to go the distance. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “Sorry I can’t take you, and sorry I can’t explain. There are things you can’t know. But if you could just trust me.”

      “Trust you! You ask too much.”

      “I know, yet you told me you did before. Only a little, but it was a start.”

      “Yeah, well I also told you I was losing my marbles. Trusting you to any degree is proof.”

      Indian sighed, a low, weary sound, discovering he was tired as well. Before the gang stumbled across Patience, he’d ridden for half a day. A hard, taxing ride, adding one more name, one more contact to a growing list. Only one, when there were so many.