Czytaj książkę: «Arizona Heat»

One

Lord, it was hot. Baking hot, choking hot, underwear-sticking hot. Kansas McClellan slapped at the insect buzzing around her neck with a scowl.

She’d been in southern Arizona all of twenty-four hours. Long enough to hate it. Sweat was drooling behind her knees; her calf muscles were screaming from the long hike; and redheads with delicate skin were simply not built to tolerate a climate with all this confounded, relentless sun.

Minnesota in May was a splendiferously superb place to live. Daffodils and lilacs in bloom. Lots of cool, clear lakes. Lots of dark, shady woods.

Kansas slapped another bug, musing that she’d sell her soul—without a qualm—for an ounce of shade right now. She was probably going to end up with heat stroke before this little adventure was over. For sure, she was going to end up with freckles. Naturally this impromptu trip had come up too fast for her to think about details like packing sunscreen. Her throat was parched. Her sandals hurt. Her daffodil yellow shorts and scoop-neck T-shirt were as close to naked as she could get without risking arrest. The outfit still felt hotter than a glued-on suit of armor. Briefly she indulged in a wanton, enticing fantasy about swimming stark naked in a cool mountain lake.

The fantasy was almost better than sex. Regretfully it didn’t last any longer than most men—but ahead, as she turned a corner, she found something more exciting than either. Just ahead was shade, real shade, serious shade...and the glimpse of a low-roofed building.

When she’d parked her rental car near the sign for the Mile Hi Ramsey Canyon Preserve, she had no idea it would be such a hike to the actual place—or that the landscape could conceivably change this fast. Suddenly there were trees instead of bleak, bald desert. Suddenly there was green. Suddenly—she saw the closed door to the building—there was a prayer of civilized air-conditioning.

Ignoring the heat, she aimed for the door at a breakneck sprint. Seconds later, she was inside the preserve office and basking in the immediate cool.

With a single glance, she could see she fit in here as well as a stripper on Wall Street. The dozen people milling around were all appropriately decked out in L.L. Bean and Patagonia labels. Her overbright shorts outfit had come from Marianne’s—on sale. Half the L-shaped room was an active bookstore, stocked with extensive references and tomes on the wildlife and geology of the area. Personally, Kansas favored romances.

Being a fish out of water rarely bothered her. At twenty-nine, she’d been a misfit so long that the title fit as comfortably as a pair of well-worn jeans. There were just a few times when she wished she had the gift for fitting in—like now. If she were ever going to find her younger brother in this dadblasted desert country, Kansas needed help.

Years ago, she’d have swallowed a bullet before admitting needing help for anything. As a kid, she’d been tough. She’d been stubborn. She’d also been proud, to the point of stupidity—a lesson she’d learned the hard way and didn’t intend to repeat.

Impatiently she waited her turn to speak with the woman behind the front desk. Apparently only small groups were allowed in the Preserve at a time, and a cluster of college-age kids stood ahead of her, pleading their case to the head honcho lady. From listening to their conversation, Kansas gathered that the canyon was the site of an annual hummingbird migration, that said-migration was spectacular, and that this spring was a one-of-a-kind viewing experience for hummingbird enthusiasts.

She blew a limp, carrot-top curl out of her eyes. She had no quarrel with the hummingbird lovers. She just had another agenda, and the day was wasting—the hour was already past three.

Finally the kids turned around and jostled past her. Kansas stepped up and cleared her throat, suddenly unsure how to phrase her question. The round-faced young woman took one glance at her looks and attire, and immediately assumed why she was here.

“You’re lost, right?” The lady’s tone was amused, but not unkind.

“No. At least, not exactly. I know this is going to sound a little strange, but I’m looking for a man—”

“Aren’t we all,” the woman murmured.

Kansas chuckled, and relaxed. “Actually, right now, I’m trying to locate a specific man—a vet. A Dr. Moore. Paxton Moore. I can’t imagine that you’d automatically know every single person who happens to be in the Preserve, but I’ve been calling his office since early this morning, and all I keep getting is an answering machine message that he’s here—”

“The doc? Sure, he’s here. No problem.”

The way the woman’s face lit up, Kansas gathered that nothing about the “doc” was ever a potential problem. As quick as a blink, she was given directions and aimed back outside toward the main trail. Another hike. And uphill yet. Swell.

Another hundred and fifty miles later, she found the man. At least, he appeared to be her quarry, since he was hunched over an extremely fat raccoon with an injured paw. The raccoon was wide-awake. And noticeably not a happy camper. The critter wasn’t winning the wrestling match, but it definitely expressed some violently negative opinions about the white bandage being wrapped around its right paw.

Kansas faked a delicate cough. “Excuse me. Are you Dr. Moore?”

No glance in her direction, no startled surprise at being interrupted. Just a “Yup. Be with you in a second.”

She was happy to wait, partly because it gave her a chance to catch her breath and quit huffing and puffing, and partly because she wanted—needed—a chance to study him.

Maybe he was a vet, but somehow she couldn’t see Dr. Moore catering to the poodle trade.

She guessed his age in the early thirties, and there had to be some Native American genes in his bloodline somewhere. His hair was Apache black, worn thick and straight and long enough to rubber-band into a ponytail. His skin was bronzed darker than gold, with high cheekbones carved into a long, strong, angular face.

Given a little face paint and a pony, and she could easily picture him licking Custer a few years back. Maybe single-handed. He wasn’t carrying an ounce of spare weight, but his shoulders and chest tested the seams of a worn navy T-shirt, and his old jeans explicitly defined long muscled thighs. Cords of veins flexed in his upper arms. There was no sweat on him, even though it was four hundred degrees, and the big hands working on the raccoon were competent and patient. It didn’t seem to bother him—if he noticed at all—that the critter was raising holy hell.

He was built for a fight, Kansas mused, but he was also unbelievably gentle with the wounded animal. Both qualities reassured her. For her brother’s sake, she would have sought out Godzilla if she had to—but dealing with a Godzilla-type would have been exhausting if not downright unproductive. She needed a man who could help her. Assuming she could talk him into it.

Eventually he finished the bandaging chore and let the raccoon free. Still sitting on his haunches, he watched how the critter handled its newfound mobility for several more minutes before glancing up. “You’re looking for me?”

“Yes. If you’re Dr. Paxton Moore—”

“Pax.” He immediately corrected her, and pushed off from his knees to stand.

Her pulse suddenly bucked like a nervous colt. Until that instant, the only thought that crossed her mind was about how this man might relate to her brother. It never occurred to her that she might have a personal reaction to him.

When he stood, though, he loomed over her. Maybe, if she were on tiptoe, the crest of her head might reach his chin. That long, angular face had character lines on his brow, a cleft in his cheek and eyes that made her think of skinny-dipping in a deep, dark lake at midnight—they were that black. That sexy. Even for a woman who was sick to death of men—and Kansas had judiciously avoided all species with a y chromosome for a long, peaceful year now—she didn’t figure any female on the planet could fail to perk up around this one. For a look at those eyes, a woman might even be tempted to wake up from a coma.

“Pax,” she agreed, and stuck out her hand. “My name is Kansas McClellan. And every which way I’ve turned since arriving in Sierra Vista, your name keeps cropping up as the only person who can help me.”

“Sounds doubtful. Somebody’s either giving me compliments or insults that I probably don’t deserve.” His smile was slow, his gaze shrewd and assessing as he clasped her hand for a millisecond and let it go. “What’s the problem? Sick animal?”

“No. A missing brother.” She saw the swift judgment mirrored in his eyes. It took no special perception to guess what he thought. She knew the image she projected—a bitsy, frail looking redhead, likely a sissy and definitely a wimp. Most men looked at her and immediately assumed she was a lightweight who needed protecting. Correcting that misconception required so much patience, time and aggravation that Kansas had finally thrown in the towel. It had been a lot easier on her heart to just give up men altogether.

Just then, though, Kansas had no time for pride. The irony prickled her sense of humor—for the first time in her life, she wanted a man to judge her solely by her appearance. If Pax saw her as frail, fragile and delicate, he might be more inclined to help her, and pulling off a “wimp” image took no acting. She was wilting miserably in the heat, and she noticed his gaze zipped immediately above her neck, earning him major brownie points as a gentleman. God knew, she had no figure to fret over, but her shorts and top were damply clinging and sticking in embarrassing places.

She forged ahead to explain. “My brother’s name is Case. Case Walker. We don’t have the same last name—different dads—but we were always as close as glue. I’m scared. Which is why I flew down here from home. Home is Minnesota. Anyway, Case is nineteen, doesn’t look like me, blue eyes, brown hair, a good looker and a little hefty—around 200 pounds—”

“I know him.” Pax interrupted her.

Some of the tension sagged out of her shoulders. “Good. I thought you did, because he’d mentioned your name in some of his letters. And that’s what other people told me, too—that you were kind to Case and helped him out when he first moved down here—”

“Why are you scared?”

“Because I haven’t heard from him in several weeks now. Neither has anyone in the family. Actually no one likely would have, but me. Case hasn’t exactly been winning prizes for maturity and responsibility with the family for the past couple of years. He’s having a little trouble finding his way, but he’s basically wonderful, a heart as big as the sky—”

Possibly Pax noticed her teensy tendency to ramble, because he interrupted again. “He was running away when he came here.”

“He’s just not quite ready to settle down,” Kansas instantly defended him.

“Whatever. If he disappeared from sight, could be he just got itchy feet again. Do you have some specific reason to worry?”

All these precise questions. Kansas pushed a hand through her snarled mass of curls. Precise questions weren’t exactly her forte. “He always wrote me, once a week. Occasionally we talked on the phone, too, but he was as regular as a clock with those letters. He just seemed more comfortable spilling out what was on his mind in written form. And I haven’t had a letter now in three weeks.”

Pax nodded. “Still not necessarily reason to worry. He could have gone off with some friends, taken a vacation.”

“He’s in trouble,” Kansas said.

“You know that for sure?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I love him,” she said irritably, and smacked at a bug hovering around her chest. She smacked so hard her chest stung, but Dr. Moore was starting to rattle her. Clearly he was one of those rational men who thought things through logically. How were they ever going to communicate? “I know my brother better than anyone on earth. Maybe it sounds crazy, but I’ve always had an intuition about when Case was in trouble. I don’t know if he’s hurt. I just know that something is wrong, really wrong, and somehow I have to get someone to believe me—”

“Now just take it easy,” Pax said, more slowly, more gently. His gaze drifted over her face again. “I never said that I didn’t believe you. I was just trying to get some straight answers. And I still don’t know what you want from me.”

“I was hoping you knew where Case is. Or that you could help me find him.”

“I don’t know where he is. And yeah, I noticed he wasn’t around for the past few weeks. But as you said, your brother doesn’t exactly ace the course in dependability—or predictability.”

“This is different,” she said firmly.

“Pretty clear that you believe it is.”

“I only arrived in town last night. Without knowing anything about the area or his friends, the best I could think of to do was knock on his neighbors’ doors. But no one knows anything. No one’s seen him. The only lead I ever picked up from his letters was you. And his neighbors said you’d know if anyone would, and also that you did some tracking—like finding people, campers or whatever, if they got lost in the canyons around here...damn, how can anyone think in this blasted heat!”

Well, who would have guessed that an exasperated complaint would finally coax a smile from him? And not that stingy ghost of a smile like before, Kansas noted, but a full-fledged charmer of a grin. So...he wasn’t stone. His expression revealed so little of what he was thinking that she’d started to worry that he was one of those emotionally constipated types—no one she could conceivably relate to.

“I’m getting the feeling you’re not too fond of our desert country.” Without asking, he unhooked the canvas-wrapped canteen from his belt loop and handed it to her.

“I’ll never complain about another Minnesota blizzard again.” Gratefully she took the canteen, twisted the cap and mainlined several gulps thirstily. The water was warm, but she didn’t care. It was wet. Throat-drenching, sweet, soft, wet. Nectar couldn’t taste any better. “Thanks. You saved my life.”

“I think you’d probably have survived a few minutes more,” he said wryly. When she returned it, he recapped the canteen and clipped it back to his belt. “You might want to remember, though, if you’re traveling much around here, it’s wise to carry some water on you.”

“If it were a vacation choice, I’d be in Alaska. The last time I remember being this miserable, I was laid up with the flu. This is supposed to be a healthy climate, huh? How many times have I read that you don’t feel the heat because it’s dry heat? What a total lie. Even my fingernails feel roasted from the inside out.”

Damned if she didn’t win another irresistibly male grin. “If you just got here, you’re bound to have a little trouble adjusting to the climate.”

She shook her head. “Adjusting is not an option. Obviously you’ve never been a redhead or you’d understand—the sun hates me. It was never anything I had a vote about. I don’t suppose there’s a way to air-condition the outdoors?”

“I don’t believe so,” he said dryly.

“Well, then, it’s hopeless. Write me off as a city sissy, but I just don’t think southern Arizona and I were ever meant to get along.” Kansas mentally shook her head when he let out a deep, throaty chuckle. She’d never planned on running on so long, but darned if it wasn’t working. All she’d had to do was honestly admit how miserable she was and make a little fun of herself. The starch left his shoulders; the formal reserve disappeared from his expression. If humor and honesty softened him up, she mused, they might just conceivably get along. She’d never have been able to find common ground with anyone who didn’t have a sense of humor.

“You don’t have to be here long,” he consoled her.

“You’ve got that right. I’ll only be here long enough to find my brother. But I can’t...” She lost the thought, diverted by the sudden flash and sparkle of something moving in the corner of her vision. Although ornithology had never been her hobby, she still knew enough to recognize a hummingbird. She’d just never seen one like this.

All kinds of trees and scraggly bushes bordered the trail, but unlike the emeralds and deep greens of woods in Minnesota, everything here was a sun-bleached and dusty dull green—which was probably why the bird riveted her attention. It was so startlingly bright and gaudy. Although it couldn’t be bigger than the cup of her hand, the dizzy bird dove like a whirling dervish, swooping and spinning as if the whole sky were its playground. Its head and beak were dark, but the hummingbird’s neck appeared to be wearing a collar of iridescent spangles in a glittering scarlet red that caught and reflected the sun.

Pax turned his head to find what she was looking at. “It’s Anna’s,” he said.

“You mean the bird belongs to someone named Anna?”

“No, I mean that’s the name of the species. Anna’s Hummingbird. Calypte Anna. More than a dozen different species migrate to the canyon around this time of year, peaking around the month of May. They’ve got a name for the hummingbirds around here—jewels of the sky.”

“That’s exactly how that one looks, as if it were covered in jewels.” She shielded her eyes with a cupped hand. “Do they all fly like that? Like drunk kamikaze pilots?”

He chuckled. “I strongly suspect there’s a girl somewhere in the trees that he’s trying to impress.”

“Ah. Hormones. The great equalizer in life. The one thing guaranteed to make fools out of every species in the kingdom, isn’t it?” She couldn’t take her eyes off the beauty. “I’m afraid the daredevil’s gonna crash land and kill himself.”

“If any other bird tried that, he probably would.” Pax hunkered down to gather his first aid and vet supplies. Instead of a traditional doctor’s black bag, he carried a hiker’s backpack. “Critters are my business, but there’s no explaining anything hummingbirds do. They break every natural law in the books.”

“No kidding? Like what?”

“Well...for one thing, the aerodynamic experts claim that the hummer’s wing and body structure should make it impossible to fly—but they’re outstanding flyers. They’re also the squirts of the bird kingdom, the tiniest in body size yet with the biggest wing span—breaking another universal physics law about weight and body proportion. And any biologist can tell you they’re not anatomically built to hover, much less hover over flowers for long periods of time—yet they’re excellent at that, too. Hummingbirds may look tiny and fragile, but they have a long history of doing the impossible. They just do it their way, and to hell with everybody else’s rules.”

Kansas didn’t look away until the hummingbird had disappeared from sight. Abruptly she discovered that Pax was standing beside her. He had packed up the supplies he’d used on the raccoon, and the knapsack was strapped to his back, as if he were ready to leave. But not at that exact instant. At that exact instant, his eyes were focused on her face with a look of such concentrated speculation that—if it hadn’t been broiling hot—she might have shivered.

“What?” she asked him.

“Nothing. It just crossed my mind how often appearances are misleading. Something tells me you’re not real fond of doing anything by anyone else’s rule book, either.”

Her cinnamon eyebrows feathered up. “Hoboy, you couldn’t be more wrong. I’m not only big on rules, but what you see is what you get. I thought you already figured it out—I’m a city wimp. Gutless. Weak. Helpless anywhere away from my air-conditioning.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. Which was how I was hoping to convince you that I seriously, honestly need help finding my brother. I just have no possible way to cope alone.”

* * *

Pax checked in at the preserve office, then gave Kansas a lift in his dusty Explorer to the inconceivably long distance she’d parked her rental car.

“Thanks,” she said fervently. When she hopped out, though, she didn’t immediately leave, but crossed her arms in the open truck window on the passenger side. “Seven o’clock tonight, right? And you know where my brother’s place is?”

The lady, Pax thought, was relentless. She could wear down a monk’s resolve if she put her mind to it. “I know where it is. Are you going to be able to find your way back to town okay?”

“Probably not.” She grinned. “But don’t worry. No matter how lost I get, I’ll be there and waiting for you at seven. And I really appreciate your being willing to help me. Thanks again.”

She flew toward the shiny red Civic before Pax could correct her—he had not, precisely, agreed to help her. He’d only agreed to talk a little further about her brother. And when push came to shove, he couldn’t exactly remember even agreeing to that.

His gaze roamed the length of her—it didn’t take long, not for a shrimp like her. Cute legs, but short. The color of her outfit was loud enough to wake a man from a sound sleep, and had some kind of sparkly appliqués on the front. The shorts and top hid nothing about her figure—no fanny to speak of, even though there was a hell of a swish in her walk, and not much on the upper deck, either. Her hair was the color of fire, and the blaze of curls tangled every which way around her face, no order, no control. With that vanilla-cream skin, he guessed her nose would be beet red by nightfall. And why the Sam Hill she’d be wearing long dangling earrings in the desert was beyond him.

There was no conceivable, justifiable, understandable reason why she had his blood pumping.

Pax had always liked women, and by thirty-two, he’d had the chance to know his share. Tall, leggy women were his preference, but he set no special stock in physical appearance. Temperament was more important. He sought out the women who liked the outdoors as much as he did, who were easygoing, natural to be with, restful.

Kansas McClellan was as restful as a rattlesnake.

He waited until she’d turned the rental car around before starting the Explorer’s engine. He had a call to make after this—Juan Gonzalez’s place—so he couldn’t follow her all the way to town, but he could at least make sure she was steered toward the right road in the right county.

Pax grew up with some outmoded, archaic values about men protecting women. Whether or not he had a tolerance for ditsy, scatterbrained redheads was irrelevant. That particular redhead looked as frail and fragile as one of the rare, delicate blooms on a cactus, and everyone in the area knew that Pax had a long history of volunteering to help people in trouble. His motivation had never been largess, but more making up for the rough beginnings he’d had himself.

Without hearing more of the story, he wasn’t sure he would—or could—help with the problem of finding her brother. But he’d suspicioned for some time that Case was dipping toward serious trouble. And he doubted that squirt of a lady could conceivably handle the kind of crowd her younger brother had gotten involved with—not without finding herself in some real danger.

She waved at him from the rearview mirror when she turned off at Hill Road. He watched her bump and bounce down the gravel road, driving way faster than was wise. Somehow he could have guessed she had a reckless lead foot. And for some reason he was again reminded of the hummingbirds who migrated to the canyons at this time of year; so tiny, so flashy and restless. But not at all as helpless as they appeared.

Abruptly he realized that his pulse was pumping adrenaline, as if some premonitory instinct were warning him to be careful about Kansas.

With a chuckle, he reached over to switch on the truck’s radio. The lady was certainly interesting, but by no stretch of the imagination was she the kind of woman that he had ever been attracted to or involved with. Kansas was no danger to him. The thought was so humorous that he had to laugh.