She could have been good. She could have rocked back on her heels and left him alone.
Instead she went back for more. One more. Because leaving him alone suddenly struck her as a terrible idea. She’d been standing in that relentless Arizona sunlight, and her mouth was softer, warmer, than a flower petal drenched in the afternoon sun. She just wanted to offer him a drink of that warmth. She just wanted him to taste a little appreciation, and discover it didn’t hurt to take it.
Pax’s hands moved, faster than a whip, to grip her waist. He was going to push her away, she thought, but that repressive grip almost immediately loosened. His fingers were suddenly kneading her soft flesh, and then not kneading, because his arms swept around her, and he was kissing her back.
Her pulse unraveled like a skein of yarn tumbling down a hillside. Heat clustered low in her belly and feather-fanned all the way to her toes. Her body swayed toward his, into his, as if she had no more power than silver dust to his magnet.
She wasn’t trying to resist very hard. He was too alone; Kansas had sensed this before. Alone on the inside. There was a time she’d been just like him—too proud to take help from anyone else, too shamed at the idea of needing anyone. It had taken those long, awful months of being an invalid before she understood that when you lived that way, you shut the door on offering people an opportunity to give.
People had a right to love you. And a need to give as a way of communicating caring.
It was damn selfish to not let them.
And damn lonely.
It was that brand of loneliness she sensed in him. His kisses were more rough than skilled, and his hands, roving her back, were more wild than deliberate. Pax was no invalid. Not as she’d been once. But he didn’t seem to know that revealing a little need wasn’t going to hurt him. Expressing need was no weakness. It was just human.
And maybe she kept giving, kept offering him more, because his response was so delicious. Rough and real. Reaching something rough and real inside her. Longings. Longings so naked and vulnerable that they had no name. Desire so sudden and fierce that she just wanted to ride it, like a roller coaster, because excitement this wondrous never happened to her. Except with him. The damn man had done it to her last night, too. She didn’t know how. And she didn’t know why it had to be Pax. She just knew that there wasn’t a man alive who’d ever made her feel…dangerous. Ever. Before him.
His hands cupped her fanny, squeezed her tight against him, making her shiver from the inside out, making her intimately aware of what he was packing in those jeans. It was time to cool this down, she thought, time to get smart. Yet she couldn’t seem to stir up any interest in getting smart. His hands were on the road again. Her pulse accelerated like a hot-rod engine, and another hot shiver sluiced down her spine when his hand traveled around to the front of her dress.
His palm burned through the cotton knit fabric, bunching the thin material, claiming the soft skin of her abdomen in an exploring caress before climbing up to her ribs. By the time his thumb brushed the underwire base of her bra, she’d quit breathing.
He hadn’t. He was breathing hard and hoarse, breathing into her, breathing into a kiss that did an extraordinary job of turning her heartbeat to butter…but she knew where that thumb of his was. She knew exactly. Her breasts were already taut, already sensitive and aching and chafing at the confinement of the underwire torture device, but the bra thankfully had a front clasp. His thumb was a half inch from it. His hand didn’t have to move far, and her heart was beating like a crazy clock, anticipating, expecting, waiting unbearably for his fingers to flip that latch and cover her, knowing as sure as she was born that intimacy was coming.
“Dammit, Kansas.”
His fingers connected, all right. In the form of knuckles right under her chin. He’d cut off that kiss with the harshness of a knife slice, but her face was still tilted to his. She could see his expression. He was not a happy camper.
“I thought you were so damn terrified of lizards.”
“Hmm?” His voice was rusty and low, his eyes darker than liquid smoke. Haunted smoke. She’d been so busy coping with her world spinning that it took a second to realize she’d spun his world, too. Pax so fiercely valued invulnerability. She couldn’t stop looking at that deep, dark vulnerability in his eyes.
“What happened to all that shrieking terror about the lizards? You haven’t even looked down. For all you know, that little gecko could be sitting on your foot right now—and you wouldn’t give a holy damn.”
“Hmm?” So, she mused, it was damns this time instead of hells. At least he wasn’t wasting his breath apologizing. If Kansas were inclined to be wildly optimistic, she just might call that making headway.
“Stop saying hmm. And stop looking at me like that. You’re the most incomprehensible woman—the things you’re supposed to be afraid of, you’re not. The things that aren’t worth a second thought give you the shrieks. Dammit, Kansas. You have to know what real danger is.”
“You think I should be afraid of you?”
“I think you should be afraid of inviting something you don’t want to happen.”
“Okay,” she murmured, “I will be very careful from now on not to invite anything I don’t want to happen.”
His brow bunched in a frown that was thicker than thunderclouds. She’d certainly tried to respond to his concern, but the nature of her answer didn’t seem to please him worth spit.
“Kansas, I’m serious,” he warned her.
“So,” she promised, “am I.”
Five
The instant his truck popped into the driveway, Kansas pelted out of the house and hustled for the door. “So you found Serena? My brother’s girlfriend?”
“I haven’t met her, Kansas. All I found out was that her last name is Madieros and that she works in Tombstone. It’s about a twenty-minute drive from here—”
He’d told her some of this in a telephone call before coming over, but Kansas had barely slept the night before and was fuzzy from a nap when he called. For sure, she hadn’t caught the name of the town where they were going. “Tombstone? We’re really going to Tombstone? You mean the town too tough to die? Wyatt Earp and the OK Corral and Boot Hill and all that?”
“Yeah, I mean that tourist trap,” Pax said dryly. “And I don’t know if it’s such a great idea to try to connect with her there. If she’s working, she could be too busy to talk. But now was the time I had a few hours free, so if you wanted to at least get a look at her—”
“I do,” Kansas assured him. In the few seconds it took her to belt in, she felt his gaze sliding over her, lingering on her bare legs and the simple white shorts and T-shirt. Momentarily he looked startled, but he didn’t say a word, just turned his attention to backing out of the driveway.
It was eighty-five lung-parching, sun-baking degrees even this early in the afternoon. Considering this godforsaken climate, Pax was lucky she hadn’t shown up naked, and if he was surprised to see her in plain old ordinary clothes instead her usual flamboyant attire…well better for her. If a helpless city slicker image made Pax more willing to help with her brother, she’d have worn gold lame cut to the navel. But he had already volunteered his help. And by Kansas’s value system, there was a time when a woman could justifiably resort to fakery, and a time when a woman needed to come clean.
He’d scared her last night. Scared her enough so that she’d been pacing the floors in the wee hours of the morning, unable to sleep, unable to even lay her head down.
The picture kept flashing in front of her mind from the evening before. Pax, warning her not to invite trouble. Pax, with his eyes darker than moonbeams, his face carved with taut lines of control, and an innocuously sunlit driveway so charged with electricity that Kansas figured they were lucky it didn’t smoke.
All night, she’d imagined making love with him. All night, she’d reminded herself that every experience she’d had with overprotective men was a telling omen. Pax was protective. She knew ahe
ad that meant a relationship had terrible odds of working. She knew ahead that it was an ominously bad idea to fall in love with him.
Yet she seemed to be falling fast, hard and helplessly. And it was the strangest thing. Some how she couldn’t shake the crazy, outlandish notion that for the first time, she’d found a man who needed her instead of the other way around. For the first time, she’d found a man who needed protecting—and a woman’s brand and breed of strength—if he just didn’t shut the door before she could show him what that meant.
He’d shut that door awfully tight last night, though. And if she sensed how deeply he could matter to her, she also sensed that he could be hurt. Chemistry had blown up between them with a bludgeoning fast speed, though. And of all the times to be considering taking emotional risks, this one just about couldn’t be worse.
God knew, she had other mountainously serious problems on her mind. “Pax…” She leaned her head back against the headrest. “I waded into several of those books Case had laying around. One was about the Aztecs and their religion. Apparently the Aztecs—at least by legend—used two drugs, datura and peyote, to produce visions as part of certain religious rituals. Datura. Isn’t that the plant you said Case was growing in the living room?”
“It isn’t the common term for that plant today, but yeah, it looked like it.”
“And I saw your expression when you noticed that plant. You think my brother was growing it to use as a drug, don’t you?”
“I never said that, Kansas.”
“Well, it isn’t true. Case never played around with either drugs or alcohol. Ever. The kind of trouble he got into was pure bad judgment and mischief, but he steered clear of the drug crowd and hated that whole scene. Adamantly. He always said life was all he needed to get high on.”
“People can change,” Pax said quietly. “Hadn’t it been some long months since you’d seen him?”
“It doesn’t matter. He didn’t change, not in that direction. I know him. Maybe there was some other reason why he was growing that plant. Maybe he thought it was something else.”
“Maybe.”
“Quit looking at me like you think I need a bullet from a reality gun. I’m not naive.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And don’t call me ma’am.”
Pax cleared his throat. “By any chance, are we a little touchy today?”
Touchy didn’t begin to cut it. When Kansas was short on sleep, she was crabbier than a porcupine, and it didn’t help that she was restless and edgy and increasingly scared for her brother. “I read some other things, too. I found another book laying around about some kind of old, Native American religion. The basic beliefs were about worshiping the earth and natural things. Respect for animals and nature. That sounded very much like something that would interest my brother, but I’m telling you, there was nothing weird or wild about it. Nothing! Except…”
“Except what?”
“Except that there was quite a focus on meditation and psychic visions.” She rushed on swiftly and stubbornly. “I happen to believe in psychic phenomenon. I don’t think there’s any question that some people have special perceptions. They can see things ahead, or feel things about other people. I know there are some quacks and fakes out there, but that doesn’t take away from the real people who have some real gifts.”
“Kansas?”
“What?”
“I keep having the feeling that you’re expecting me to attack your brother. Honey, if I wanted my throat cut, I’d hit a redneck bar at two in the morning. I have absolutely no death wish. I got nicknamed Pax because of being a peace lover.”
He’d called her honey, she noticed. And the endearment settled in her stomach like hopelessly warm fuzz. “Are you…um…tactfully trying to suggest that I can get a wee bit defensive about my brother?”
“I think you’d charge into a lion den for your brother and not think twice. But as it happens, I’m not a lion. And on the subject of psychic phenomenon, I wasn’t about to disagree.”
“You weren’t?”
“No. I don’t know that I’m fond of that word ‘psychic,’ but many of the Native American religions sought visions through fasting and meditation. Mysticism may have been part of those beliefs, but basically you’re just talking about people seeking meaning and spiritual insights. I think they were right—that we could all pick up self-perception if we opened our minds. We’re part of our earth, part of our planet, and it wouldn’t hurt any of us to meditate some on how we fit into the whole.”
Kansas swiveled in the seat, swinging a leg under her, her gaze riveted on Pax’s face. “You talked with my brother about this, didn’t you?”
“More than once,” Pax admitted. “But only to a point. I knew he’d picked up a fascination for some of those ideas. Nothing wrong with that, that I saw. I think everyone has a spiritual side—but I also think it’s a matter of the heart. I don’t mess with anyone’s personal beliefs of the heart.”
“Pax? Dammit, what are you not telling me?”
His gaze honed on her face for a few short seconds before returning to the road. “I think people are vulnerable about their personal beliefs, Kansas. Especially young people, who are just exploring their feelings about meaning and life and all that other good nonsense. And in the wrong hands, even the most innocent idea can be reinterpreted, taken too far.”
“Geezle beezle, would you quit beating around the bush? Just tell me straight what you think my brother was involved in. You’re not talking about a Koresh kind of scene, are you? Some commune or cult where the kids have been brainwashed?”
“Now take it easy. I don’t know anything for sure—I’ve told you before—but I never heard one word about a ringleader or anything organized at that serious a level. All I’m aware of was a group of kids who started going off in the hills to meditate together, who’d become real involved in this private religion of theirs. In the beginning, no one thought anything of it. But there started to be some talk about witches and ‘cleansing rituals’—which was a small part of those old beliefs back when. And some of those kids dropped out, way out. But just because your brother was reading and interested is absolutely no proof that Case was directly involved,” Pax repeated, and then said, “We’re here.”
Kansas jerked her head toward the window for her first view of Tombstone. Pax was challenged to find a parking space on even the side streets. Tourists were as packed on the road as the sidewalks. Except for the tourists, the town could have been a step back to a hundred years ago.
Cowboys in chaps and Stetsons and dusty boots strolled the sidewalks—wearing six-shooters—and some duded up in buckskin and fringe. A few of the women wore long calico dresses, while others were gussied up with face paint and low-cut satin gowns with miles of tucks and flounces. Bawdy music spilled from a building marked the Bird Cage Theater. Signs pointed to the OK Corral. Low-slung, wooden buildings were covered with dust, and the shuttered doors swung open from the Crystal Palace saloon.
It was wonderful. It was charming and delightful and fascinating, how the town had chosen to recreate history and make it so real. But Kansas rubbed the back of her neck, feeling as disoriented as a hummingbird suddenly thrown into a swimming pool. Her mind just wasn’t on this.
Hot day or not, her skin felt chilled and her nerves felt shaky. Witches. Case was involved in some kind of witch cult. All along, she’d intuited that he was in some kind of danger, but she’d been hand wringing that he was lost or had broken his leg or something like that. In a thousand years, she’d never envisioned that her happy-go-lucky brother could fall off this type of deep end.
Abruptly she became aware that Pax was standing there, patiently holding the passenger door open for her. “I have to find him,” she said fiercely. “If he’s involved in anything like a cult, I have to find him and get him out.”
“No purpose in borrowing trouble, red. There isn’t one damn thing you know for sure—and neither do I. Not at this point.”
<
br /> “I don’t care. I have to do something! Now!”
“We are doing something. We’re going to get a look at the girl Case was involved with.”
Serena. Kansas scooched out of the truck faster than a jet-propelled rocket the instant she remembered the girl.
If Pax had a choice, he’d never have mentioned anything about witches or cult worship to Kansas. It wasn’t a question of hiding information from her. She had a right to know about her brother. But until facts had surfaced, he saw no reason to worry her with wild suppositions that could prove unfounded. Red tended to react so emotionally that he was afraid she’d go off half-cocked and do God-knows-what.
Unfortunately all the clues surfacing about her brother seemed to be aimed in same direction. Pax had tried to soften the edges and temper her reaction with common sense. As he should have guessed, that effort was like throwing water down a drain.
Once he told Kansas their destination—the OK Corral—she galloped down the sidewalk at a pace designed to mow down everyone else. She barreled into the tourist office faster than a gunman with a date for a shoot-out at high noon.
Then, thankfully, she slowed down and took a breath.
They both identified Serena Madieros from the girl’s name tag. She was one of the three employees manning the ticket counter for the next show—which was imminent, judging from the packed crowd. Clearly there would be no chance to catch a word with the girl until that was done, but the waiting gave him and Kansas a chance to look her over.
Pax judged Serena’s age in the late teens. Her long raven hair was coiled in an old-fashioned style, suited to the period costume she was wearing—a calico dress with some frilly lace around the neck. Pax saw the flashing black eyes. The oval face with no makeup or artifice. The slim hands, with the nails cut short and no nail paint.
“Why, she’s a darling,” Kansas murmured.
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