His hands whipped around to rebutton her and put her back together. Or they tried to. She distracted him.
She touched his cheek and smiled, straight into his eyes. “I may just have to dare you into taking me to bed, Dr. Moore,” she whispered.
Ten fingers. And every one of them abruptly turned into thumbs. If his life depended on it, he wasn’t positive he could handle those buttons. “Red, are you trying to give me an ulcer? Or does it just come naturally?”
The comment flew right by her. She wasn’t even listening. “I think it’s going to happen whether I dare you or not. And I think it’s going to happen soon. But not today, hmm?” Her tone was easy, cheerful, communicating no perception whatsoever that she’d just wrung a man inside and out. “I’ll see you later.”
Pax clawed a hand through his hair as he watched her drive away, thinking that he didn’t need her. He couldn’t need her. She was just a stranger passing through, not of his world, as flighty as wind to his rock, as ethereal as a cloud to his unbudgable solidness. It was inconceivable that he could become attached to her in this short a time. It was unconscionable that he was even thinking about it.
That word “need” stuck in his mind like a sharp sliver, though, long after Kansas was out of sight. Eventually he figured out why. She needed him. She literally needed help finding her brother, and undoubtedly that was why chemistry bubbled up so powerfully between them. She was scared right now, and alone. Pax didn’t mind being her anchor; it was a role as a man he’d always been comfortable with.
More to the point, he felt better, much better, once he’d identified who had the problem with need.
It was her. Not him.
It couldn’t be him. When he cared about a woman, he’d always brought strength to the relationship—not need, not weakness. He’d sure as hell never pawn his weaknesses on someone more vulnerable than himself, and Kansas was about as vulnerable as a woman could be.
Making love with her was out of the question.
That decided, Pax released a pent-up sigh, scooped up one of the mangy cats and headed into the house.
Seven
He’d slept with her.
When Kansas first stepped into the hardware store, Pax was right behind her. She paused a second to get a feeling for the ambience of the place where her brother had worked. The store was crowded, late afternoon, and clearly one of the bright, new mode of female-friendly hard ware stores where one could buy anything from nails to fancy dinnerware to African violets for the kitchen windowsill. Kansas wasn’t paying much attention to the people—until the woman spotted Pax and raced over to greet him.
According to the button on her shirt, the lady was an assistant manager. Physically she was tall, willowy and buxom, with her hair done up in a classy French braid and a smile as natural as sunshine.
Kansas examined every inch of the other woman’s appearance in five seconds flat. Never mind that she had no court evidence to prove Pax had had an affair with the sturdy, no-makeup and no-artifice brunette. She knew. The way the woman looked at Pax spoke louder than a highway billboard.
So this was the kind of woman Pax had succumbed to before, was it?
Kansas felt an instantaneous slam of both jealousy and despair. Blast and tarnation. The woman was absolutely everything that Kansas wasn’t—and never would be. Worse yet, she had never been prone to envy or jealousy. That such emotions could leap so fast to her heart warned her exactly how disastrously important Pax had become in her life.
“Kansas…” When Pax realized she’d fallen a step behind him, he scooched an arm around her shoulder to bring her into the conversational fold. “This is Laney Roundtree. We’ve known each other for years. She didn’t hire your brother, but she worked here when he did.”
Laney immediately extended a hand—and another one of those disgustingly warm, genuine smiles. “Glad to meet you, Kansas. I thought a lot of your brother. We were all surprised when he suddenly stopped showing up for work—we really thought he was pretty happy here.”
“I’m glad to meet you, too, and thanks.” Kansas put some feminine oomph into the return handshake—and mentally kicked herself. A familiar anxiety surged through her pulse the instant Laney mentioned Case. This was just no time to be worrying about her relationship with Pax. Her brother had to be her first and only priority right now. “That’s exactly why I’m here—because of my brother’s disappearance. I was hoping to talk with someone he worked with, especially if there was anyone he was close to?”
“Well, you can talk to the boss—Jane Edgars runs the place, and she’s the one who hired him. But you might have better luck just talking to Randy. He’s one of the stock boys, used to go to lunch with Case all the time—he’s in the back room right now. The sign says Employees Only, but you can just push open the door back there.”
Kansas suspected that Ms. Roundtree was tickled to have a few minutes alone with Pax, but raving jealousy or no raving jealousy, she didn’t mind being dismissed. Pax might not approve of her methods, but she never had a problem getting people to talk with her one-on-one. She hoped this boy might have some real answers concerning Case.
She found Randy in the back room, unloading boxes from a delivery truck, the sweat pouring from his pale face like a river. A scrawny tuft of hair stuck out of his chin. It was more than clear he wasn’t going to shave that hair—it was his best manly try at a beard. He was just a boy. He had a man’s shoulders, but a kid’s gangling arms and legs and a face still full of pimples. He reminded her of her brother.
And he scared her half to death.
Twenty minutes later, Kansas walked blindly out of the stockroom, barely noticing where she was going until Pax abruptly clutched her shoulders. She’d nearly crashed right into him. “Hey. Are you okay?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“You found the kid?”
“Yeah, and I talked to him.”
His hands dropped, but he studied her face with the sharpness of a laser beam. “What happened? What’d he say?”
She didn’t answer until they were out of the crowded, noisy store and back in his truck, alone. As he tooled down the highway, she pushed off her sandals and propped her bare feet on the dash, but she couldn’t stop her mind from racing at a hundred miles an hour.
“All this time, I’ve been trying to believe that Case was involved in nothing more than tarot readings on a lazy afternoon. Something for fun, and for pete’s sake, I love messing with a little mysticism and otherworld stuff myself.” She sank her head against the headrest. “That Randy was just a boy. Clean-cut. Sweet. Not all that different from my brother. Only suddenly he’s talking about the real existence of witches and ‘dark spirits.’ Purification rituals to drive out the devils and evil spirits in ourselves. How to get ‘pure’ and be part of nature again. And dammit, Pax, he believed what he was saying…I’m going to Nogales.”
“Nogales?”
“Randy gave me a lead. A name of someone with a shop there. A guy named Miguel, supposedly a close friend of Case’s. He said Nogales wasn’t that far a drive, and I figured I could still head there tonight.”
“You’re right, it isn’t a far drive. Nogales is the biggest border town from here—lots of tourists shoot down there to walk into Mexico and shop. And it’s great for that, but a woman doesn’t go there at night, Kansas.”
She glanced at her watch, then at him. “I’ve taken up another one of your afternoons, haven’t I? You probably have animals to take care of and a hundred things to do.”
“Women don’t go there alone at night,” Pax repeated. “That’s an automatic. It’s a period. Wouldn’t matter if you were a six-foot athlete with a black belt in karate. It’s not safe. If you want to hit Nogales, you do it during the day.”
She nodded. “Don’t worry about it, Pax. I fig ured you got roped into plans for the evening.”
“Pardon?”
“Laney. She’s real pretty, seemed real nice.” Kansas fixed the jangling charms on
her bracelet. “I don’t know how long the affair’s been over, but it wasn’t hard to figure out that she’d love to pick it back up again. She asked you for dinner, I’m guessing.”
“Kansas…” Pax cleared his throat. “Damned if I know how this conversation moved so fast from Case and Nogales to Laney—but you’re five miles off base.”
“Okay.”
“She’s just an old friend.”
“Okay.”
“You didn’t talk to her for five minutes. How you could come up with such wild conclusions is beyond me. She’s a real nice woman and an old friend. And that’s all.”
Kansas nodded soothingly. “I guessed the affair had been over for a while. Three years?”
“Four.” As fast as the word slipped out, Pax rolled his eyes in chagrin. “I swear you could get blood out of a turnip. I never meant to say that.”
“Ah, well. It’s just me. It’s not like you’re giving away crown secrets to a rival government.” She grinned at him, then casually slipped in another question. “So…why didn’t it work?”
“Why didn’t what work?”
“The relationship. Personally the French braid got to me. I always want to strangle women who can work all day and still not have a hair out of place. It’s not normal. It’s disgusting. But that was the only serious flaw I noticed.” Kansas rearranged the charms on her bracelet. Again. “She looked athletic and outdoorsy. I’d bet you two tuned into lots of the same channels. She seemed really grounded, secure, comfortable with herself. It was obvious she cared about you. And you must have been attracted to that willowy look or you’d never have had the affair. So what didn’t work?”
“How about if we do something really strange and heretofore never tried before—like attempt to finish one conversation at a time? The last I knew, we were talking about your not going to Nogales.”
“Oops. I was being nosy again, wasn’t I? Prying too deep?”
“Don’t waste your breath trying to sound repentant. Nothing’s going to stop you from being nosy in this lifetime.”
“True,” she admitted, “but you certainly don’t have to feel obligated to share anything with me—”
“Hell.” Pax sighed, a loud, aggrieved, distinctly male sigh. “I can tell we’re going nowhere until you get this out of your system. Yes, she asked me to dinner, and no, I’m not going out with her. Tonight or any other night. And we ended the affair amicably. There was never any big, huge problem—she just wanted a level of closeness that I couldn’t seem to give her. I tend to go off on my own, need time to myself—I told you I’m an independent type. We made good friends, but bad lovers, and that was that. Now is there anything else you want to know?”
“I’ll bet she never poked her nose into your private business,” Kansas murmured.
“You’re right. She didn’t.”
“I’ll bet she never badgered you into talking about a problem, either, did she?”
“She never badgered me about anything. She was nice. Easy, quiet, restful to be around.” He added meaningfully, “Unlike some women I know.”
“Hmm. Is that what you usually go for? Willowy? Stacked? Nobody real intrusive…the kind of woman who just basically lets you alone? Nobody who’s gonna stir the leaves?”
“I don’t want the leaves stirred. I’m a peaceful man. I like a calm, quiet life. And enough is enough—you’ve had your twenty questions, Kansas. About your going to Nogales—”
“Well, heavens, if my going to Nogales alone bothers you that much, not to worry. I just won’t go. No sweat.”
There were two towns named Nogales—one on the American side of the border, the other on the Mexican side. Both towns were teaming with noises, smells and dark shadows.
Pax grabbed her arm before Kansas got mowed down by a motorcycle. They’d chosen to drive her rental car, because the Honda was small enough to squeeze into the rare parking spots near the actual border. They’d parked on the American side, but from then on, they were traveling on foot. “You hug your purse, and you stick close.”
“Yes, Pax,” Kansas said, and then murmured, “This is fantastic!”
Pax sighed. It was going to be a long couple of hours. She listened to his suggestions about caution about as well as she told the truth. He knew damn well she was determined to make this trip and find that cohort of her brother’s. She’d have gone—and alone—if he hadn’t gotten tough and insisted on coming with her.
Lights glared brightly directly at the border gates, and enough uniforms hovered around to make anyone feel secure. No American needed a passport to cross, and once through the turnstile, it was easy walking distance to the shopping district of Nogales…assuming they ever got there.
Kansas gawked with fascination at everything. The driver of a rickety truck with a precariously loaded bed full of produce screamed in Spanish about some delay. Cycles and mopeds zoomed around cars, honking and threatening all pedestrians. Peddlers hawked spicy foods from street stands, the food odors choking thick on the crowded streets.
There was nothing wrong with the place in the daytime. A lot of women called it a “shop till you drop” paradise. It was just that darkness changed the ambience. A few other things went for sale that were more conveniently hawked in shadows and dark alleys.
Once past the border itself, the real bright lights disappeared. They hadn’t walked a block before Kansas started getting catcalls and invitations from passing male admirers.
“They seem to be a little short on redheads in this neck of the woods,” she said dryly.
“I warned you, didn’t I?” He’d suggested that she dress subdued, and in principle, she had. The navy pants and blouse were the closest to conservative he’d ever seen on Kansas, and she’d left off all jewelry, all color. But the pants snuggled to her nonexistent fanny; the blouse was open at the throat, and that carrot top of hers was always going to be a beacon.
“Are you still annoyed with me?” she asked him. “I never meant for you to feel obligated to come. I live in St. Paul, for heaven’s sake. I’m no rookie about how to behave in a city.”
“This isn’t your average Emerald City, Toto. It’s literally another country.”
“If I’d thought ahead, I’d have applied a little black shoe paint to my hair,” she admitted, as yet another dark-eyed Lothario whistled as she passed. “I’m beginning to feel—just an eensy bit—like a hanging rack of lamb. How far is that address to Miguel’s, anyway?”
“Just a few more blocks.” The street number for this Miguel was in the middle of the main shopping drag. The shopping district was set up like a street fair, with small booths packed together, and wares jammed and spilling into the street. The sellers stood outside, trying to entice and cajole every passerby into stopping, wildly flattering all the women who passed, promising everything they’d ever dreamed of—and a few things they hadn’t.
Kansas slipped an arm around his waist, as if blithely announcing his ownership claim over this particular rack of lamb. They passed a dozen jewelry places where the shine of native silver should have given her a lust attack—God knew, she loved bangles. Other stalls displayed ceramics and leather, clothes with bright embroidery, belts, purses, rugs and wall hangings that should have aroused an orgy of spending in a bargain hunter.
She didn’t even look. Her chin was cocked up and her smiles were easy, but her fingers clutched his ribs in a death grip. He knew she was anxious, even if no one else did.
As if they were old lovers, they found a gait and walking pace that adapted to their different heights. Her hip rocked against his thigh, and her scent drifted to his nostrils, warm and evocative. He could feel the damp heat in her palm. He could feel the soft swell of her breasts rubbing his side, like a mosquito bite he couldn’t itch.
The phrase “out of control” came to his mind.
Around Kansas, he thought darkly, the phrase “out of control” was becoming as familiar as his own heartbeat. She hadn’t said one word about their conversation that
afternoon, yet it lingered and buzzed in his head like a bee sting. His past relationships with women were an off-limits subject. Kansas had no respect for off-limits subjects. She was shamelessly nosy. She was as relentless as a hound and as stubborn as a mule. She deliberately used guilt and feminine wiles to trick a man into talking.
The entire world—every single person who knew him—picked up fast that Pax was a man who valued his privacy. Anyone with a brain, or a hair of perception, realized quickly that intrusions on his personal life were unwelcomed. Except for her.
He wasn’t used to a woman who poked under his lid. And he’d known what she was getting at in that conversation about Laney. Kansas implied that he’d been picking entirely wrong women in the past, based on the criteria that they hadn’t badgered him or gotten under his skin or driven him nuts. As if a man would want a woman who drove him nuts. As if he’d been missing something because he’d chosen to be with nice, reasonable, rational, sane women in the past.
“Pax?” Her hip stopped rocking against his. In fact, she suddenly stopped dead, right in the middle of a throng of pedestrians.
“What?”
“I’m about to get the hiccups. And I think I’m getting a blister on my right heel. And I can’t seem to get my head straight about what I should say to this guy.”
If there was some logic to this sequence of announcements, it eluded Pax. Either he was getting used to following her impossible conversations, or he was learning to quit listening to what she said and pay more attention to what he saw. The face tilted up to his was tense and pale. “Don’t tell me you’re nervous? I’ve seen you take on strangers right and left without a qualm.”
“I’m not nervous. I’m scared to death. It’s an entirely different thing. If this Miguel doesn’t have answers about my brother, we’re out of leads. And if he won’t talk—”
“He’ll talk.” The traffic would just have to route around them. He bent down to kiss her. He hated to break a lifelong pattern of never indulging in an impulse, but there was no help for it. This had nothing to do with the disturbing idea that she’d become irrationally, crazily, heartbeat important to him. This had to do with Kansas being afraid. Never mind if heat sluiced through his blood in a rush—a kiss was a sure cure for that sheet-white pallor. Color shot straight to her cheeks. So, eventually, did a smile.
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