Desert Devil (22 page)

"We're going. If there's one thing I am going to do, it's get out of Cholla for a day," Brian muttered grimly.

Concealing a sigh, Juli picked up her purse and they got into the car. The crumpled fender had an irritating rattle that Juli suspected would drive her crazy before the day was over, but Brian just scowled and drove on. They were about halfway to town when a pickup traveling at high speed approached them.

"Idiot driver!" Brian growled, though the pickup didn't come anywhere near them.

Juli involuntarily clutched the door handle as the pickup whizzed by. Brian evidently hadn't noticed what Juli had—that the pickup was Thorne's four-wheel-drive vehicle, and Thorne was driving. He must be going out to the trailer. Why? To inspect his newly purchased property and make sure she was gone, no doubt. He was in for a surprise, then, she thought with a certain grim satisfaction, thinking of her car still parked squarely in the yard. She was uncertain whether or not he had recognized Brian's car or seen her in it. She was relieved she had gotten away from the trailer before he arrived and created some unpleasant scene.

Brian surprised her by taking the old road that cut across the dry riverbed to join the newer highway farther north. It was a paved road, but rough and potholed, and he had always seemed too fussy about his car to drive on such a road. She was further surprised to see the riverbed was no longer dry, that a wide expanse of water now covered the roadway. A pickup was pulling out on the far side, evidently having just forded the water.

Brian braked, scowled, then started forward toward the point where the paved road disappeared into the flowing water.

"What are you going to do?" Juli gasped.

"Drive across to the other side."

"But is it safe?" Juli questioned doubtfully. "The water seems to be moving rather fast."

"The pickup just crossed here."

"But it was a much larger vehicle," Juli pointed out. "The water will come up much farther on this car. Perhaps we should go around by the bridge."

"No, I am not going to drive all the way around by the bridge," Brian snapped. The front tires were touching the water now.

Juli tried a different tack. "But the water looks terribly muddy. Won't it ruin the paint on your car?"

It was the wrong thing to say.

"The water can't be more than a few inches deep, and it can't damage the car a damned bit more than it already is," Brian said sourly, eyeing the dented hood.

He acted, Juli thought in exasperation, almost as if the car were to blame for getting damaged and he was out to punish it still further. With him in this unpleasant mood, she thoroughly wished she had refused to come along. Stubbornly, he drove forward, and the water gurgled and sucked at the underside of the car.

"It's deeper than it looks," he muttered. "Why the hell don't they build roads with bridges in this country like they do everywhere else?"

"The riverbed is dry about ninety-nine percent of the time. Maybe they figure people will have enough sense to go around by the bridge when there's water in the riverbed," Juli retorted. Her annoyance at Brian's stubbornness was changing to alarm. The far side of the road still looked a long distance away, and the water wasn't getting any more shallow.

"Look, what's that?" Juli cried, pointing to some branches caught in the roadway ahead of them, a few straggly leaves showing above the water to mark a tangle beneath.

"Damn!" Brian muttered. He jerked the steering wheel to the right to avoid the branches, and then suddenly the car sagged and tilted to one side. In horror Juli saw water rising through the floorboards.

"What happened?" she cried.

Brian exploded with another oath. "The wheels on that side must have gone off the pavement!"

Juli was sitting at an angle on the tilted seat. She lifted her feet to keep them out of the water seeping in. Brian gunned the engine and the car jolted forward, only to tilt even farther. Then the engine sputtered and died.

"The engine must be wet," he muttered. He turned the key and pumped the accelerator, but the engine only coughed and sputtered uselessly.

"Look!" Juli cried. A road-maintenance truck had pulled up on the far side of the river and the crew was placing barricades across the pavement. One man was shouting and waving his arms at them.

Brian, on the high side of the car, opened his window and managed to lean out. When he looked back at Juli, his face had visibly paled. "He says there was a cloudburst north of here and another foot of water may come through here within the next half-hour. I guess we'd better wade to shore."

He opened the door and, grimacing in distaste, stepped out. Juli scrambled across the bucket seats, then hesitated when she saw the muddy water swirling around Brian's legs.

"Come on! I think it's already rising!"

Gingerly, Juli stepped into the water and felt the current pushing against her legs, threatening to unbalance her as she wobbled in her high-heeled sandals. Swiftly, she kicked off her high heels. Together they worked their way around the car. Juli was dismayed to see how far they had driven. They were almost in the middle of the riverbed.

"If I get out of this, I am leaving this miserable place and never coming back!" Brian muttered.

Juli didn't bother to reply, thinking that if it weren't for his stubbornness and anger, they wouldn't even be in this predicament. She felt her way forward in her bare feet, her full skirt floating around her. Brian kept a hand on her elbow, but when he muttered something about not being able to swim, Juli suspected he was clinging to her more for safety rather than to assist her.

A mesquite branch floated by, jabbing Juli with sharp thorns. The water sucked and pulled greedily at her legs. Once she stepped into a pothole and almost fell. Finally, the pavement beneath their feet slanted upward and the water became more shallow. Juli was in water below her knees when it happened. She stepped on something sharp with a bare foot, jerked back, stumbled, and crashed into the swirling water. Somehow in the process she tripped Brian and he fell across her. Juli came up sputtering and wiping her eyes and trying to get out from under Brian's wet weight.

"Well, are you two enjoying yourselves?"

Juli scrambled to her feet at the sound of the caustic voice. Thorne, hands on lean hips, stood beside his big pickup at the edge of the water.

"What do you mean, pulling a stupid stunt like this?" he demanded, his gaze flicking across both of them and then to the stranded car.

"Good heavens, we're drowning and my car is washing away and he decides to cross-examine us!" Brian muttered.

Juli didn't bother to answer either of the men. She was coldly furious with both—Brian for attempting what really was a stupid thing to do; Thorne for standing there looking at them both with such contemptuous superiority. With as much dignity as possible, considering her bedraggled clothing and disheveled condition, Juli held her head high and started toward the dry bank, only to stumble into another pothole and tumble headlong into the water again.

She was out of danger now and the fall didn't really hurt, but tears of frustration and humiliation sprang to Juli's eyes. That Thorne should see her like this, hair straggly, dress limp and dirty, pantyhose in tatters around her feet, was almost more than she could bear. But she wouldn't let him see how humiliated she felt. She wouldn't! She floundered to her feet, surprised to find how the struggle to reach shore had weakened her. Then two strong arms lifted her from the water and carried her to the pickup. Thorne thrust her inside, took off his jacket, and wrapped it roughly around her.

"You stay here," he commanded brusquely.

Juli was too limp and weak to protest and only nodded numbly. By now Brian was out of the water, too, looking as bedraggled as she felt. There was a helpless look on his face as he stared at his car. Juli shivered. The water looked higher now than when they had crawled out of the car.

Without a glance at Brian, Thorne pulled a cable out of the winch attached to the front of the pickup and started toward the car, ignoring the water rushing by and fending off branches and debris swirling around him. Juli watched with a frightened fascination as he reached beneath the dirty water to attach the hook to the car. Brian paced along the edge of the water.

Thorne made his way back to the pickup, holding onto the cable as the increasing strength of the current tried to drag him away.

Back at the pickup, Thorne activated the winch and slowly inched the car backward through the water. Then he moved the pickup, dragging the smaller car with it to higher ground in case the water rose still farther. He got out of the pickup, detached the cable from the car, and rewound it on the winch. It was all done so efficiently that Juli was left marveling in spite of her anger at his disdainful attitude. Brian mumbled his thanks, which Thorne ignored, except to say curtly that he would send a tow truck for the car.

No mention was made of Juli in the conversation, and Brian offered no objections as Thorne prepared to drive off with her in the pickup. A road crew arrived and Thorne opened the window and talked to them a moment. They said they were late in barricading this road because several subdivision streets had flooded, endangering homes. When Juli glanced back as the pickup drove away, Brian was examining the car, evidently more worried about it than Juli.

Thorne switched on the heater, sending a warm blast of air into the pickup cab. At a service station he stopped and telephoned for a tow truck. He seemed oblivious to his wet boots and pants, but Juli couldn't seem to stop shivering. When he returned he gave Juli a long, appraising look and finally spoke to her.

"Where on earth were you and Eames going?"

"To Phoenix."

"For what reason?"

"To… to celebrate my leaving!" she said defiantly. She might be soaked and shivering, but she refused to be humble.

"That was a damned stupid thing Eames did, trying to cross the water like that!" he growled.

"I believe you've already mentioned that once," Juli said, her voice aloof and distant. They drove along in a rather tense silence until Juli realized they were not on the road that led to the trailer.

"Where are you taking me?" she demanded.

"To my place."

"What do you mean by that? They're
both
your places now," she retorted pointedly.

He glanced over at her, forehead creased in a scowl that was half-angry, half-puzzled. She saw with an unexpected pang that a branch or the cable had grazed his jaw, leaving a raw, scraped area. She looked away. She didn't want to be touched by any concern for him.

"And what do
you
mean?" he demanded.

"You don't have to explain," Juli said. She had finally stopped shivering and she let the jacket slip away from her shoulders. Then, as Thorne glanced at her again and she realized the wet material clung to her breasts like a second skin, she hastily replaced the jacket.

He clenched his jaw, as if annoyed by the temporary distraction, and then said angrily, "Dammit, there isn't anything to explain! I'm not responsible for Nicole's underhanded schemes!"

"Nicole's schemes!" Juli repeated scathingly. "You deliberately used me to make Nicole jealous enough to marry you right away. Then you bought the trailer and property to get rid of me as fast as possible."

"Where did you ever get such a crazy, mixed-up idea like that?" he asked, his voice incredulous. "You really think
I
bought the place?"

"You don't need to raise your voice like that just because I figured out your little scheme," Juli said frostily. "It worked. I'm leaving in the morning."

"I will use any tone of voice I want when you come up with some fool story like that," he said grimly. "Nicole bought the property. I didn't know anything about it until a couple of hours ago. I've been working around the clock at the plant trying to save the construction site. If I hadn't, it could have been wiped out."

"Nicole bought the property?" Juli faltered.

"Yes, Nicole bought the property," he repeated in exasperation. "You must have signed the papers agreeing to the sale. Didn't you
read
them?"

No, Juli realized, she hadn't read them. She fumbled in the seat for her purse. The outside of the purse was wet from the spills she had taken, but the inside was relatively dry. She found the papers where she had stuffed them unread in the bottom of the purse. With a mixed sense of bewilderment and wonder, she realized he was right. Nicole Taylor was the purchaser. She replaced the papers in her purse, stubbornly refusing to let him know that she hadn't read the papers because her eyes had been too blinded with tears at the thought of what he had done.

"So Nicole bought the property," Juli finally said. "I'm sure that worked in nicely with your plans."

He exploded. "Juli, if you don't stop—"

"Very well, then, tell me
why
Nicole bought the property," she challenged.

"I'm sure I can't begin to explain the workings of Nicole's devious little mind," Thorne snapped. He hesitated, then said in a different voice, "Perhaps she did it because… because she thought I was falling in love with you."

Juli's heart lurched, but somehow she managed to keep her voice cold and aloof. "A natural mistake, I'm sure," she agreed, "after the charade you played for her benefit at lunch the other day." She didn't intend to say more, but in remembered outrage the words spilled out. "Insinuating we spent the night together. And—"

"The fact that we didn't wasn't for my lack of effort," he commented dryly.

Juli ignored that. "Kissing me like that right in front of her, so she had to see! It was humiliating!"

"Oh? Humiliating to whom?
You
seemed to be enjoying the kiss."

"That was before I realized how you were deliberately using me to make Nicole jealous," Juli repeated.

"Juli, I'm warning you—" he began angrily. Then he clamped his jaw shut. "We'll discuss this later. I think the water has muddled your head."

He drove under the archway to the estate and parked in front of the house. He pulled Juli roughly across the pickup seat, tossing the jacket aside. She was embarrassed at the way the wet material clung to her breasts and wrapped itself around her thighs. She also realized that the filmy mint-green material when wet was practically transparent. If she thought he would ignore that, she was wrong. He eyed her appraisingly.