Renegade Man (13 page)

But she still
had cigar boxes of shells, sherds and spearpoints to recategorize. Boxes in
hand, she started back toward Jonah’s camp, only to be sidetracked by the
Renegade’s deliciously gurgling, cool water. Its rippling surface sparkled in
the sunlight.

She settled the
boxes securely in a U formed by a cottonwood’s roots and began to disrobe:
tennis shoes and socks, jeans and shirt. Magnum dropped down beside the mound
of clothing to nap beneath the cottonwood’s shade.

The
late-afternoon breeze, hot and dry, evaporated the sweat sheening her flesh.
Clad only in her panties and bra, lacy things wholly impractical for her
pragmatic career, she waded into the rushing stream. The fine sand scrunched
between her toes. The cold water inched up her sun-heated flesh, topping her
knees.

Bliss!

She began to
splash her arms and chest with the water. Twice Magnum barked in his sleep,
probably at an imaginary cat. Chuckling, she turned to waken him, and all the
air rushed out of her lungs.

Staring at her,
Jonah stood on the gravelly bank beside a yawning Magnum. His jaw was tight
with tension, and anguish simmered just below the surface of his blank
expression. “I heard the dredger engine stop—”

“I . . . I got
hot.”

“Is there any
reason why I find you in the water so often? Washing away your sins.”

She should have
been affronted. Would have been affronted a week ago. But her inner wisewoman
suspected it wasn’t judgment that drove Jonah to castigate her but desire.  He
had to feel something for her. He couldn’t have been unaffected by last night’s
kiss. The need to prove that she was a woman after three years of emptiness and
frustration and denial— the need to prove that he felt something—made her lift
her hands slowly to unfasten the bra’s front hook. Slowly she removed the bra,
hoping to tantalize him, to torture him with the same need she was feeling. She
let it float across the water to wash ashore near his scuffed boots.

His body was
rigid, his expression as dark as a thundercloud. “What the hell do you think
you’re doing?”

She wasn’t going
to let that frown deter her. “I told you I was hot,” she offered with a look of
wounded innocence, but her mouth felt dry. “I’m cooling off – and making quite
sure I wash away
all
my sins.”

He glowered down
at her. “Damn it, I’ve seen breasts before, Ritz. They usually come in pairs.”

Embarrassment
flushed through her, heating her flesh all over again. But she couldn’t cop out
now. Her thumbs slid inside the elastic of her lacy panties. Nervously, she
peered up at him through her lashes. “Good. Then you don’t have to bother to
turn your head, do you?”

He looked rough
and mean. His voice had a jagged edge to it. “I don’t play games. You better be
sure you know what you’re doing, sweetheart.”

She swallowed.
He was calling her bluff. Her thumbs inched the panties downward. Her lids
closed, blocking out his fierce, hostile face. She knew she would regret what
was going to happen, because she didn’t want it to happen like that between her
and Jonah ... not something that was cold and taunting and careless.

He knew what she
was like, knew she never surrendered. Wouldn’t he leave her with any shred of
her dignity?

Grandpops would
have said she was cutting off her nose to spite her face, but then, Rita-lou
Randall had never been one to call it quits. She opened her eyes. Jonah’s
expression scared her. His gaze followed the panties as she tugged them down,
then came back to the golden fleece they had been covering.

Battling the
current, first on one leg, then the other, she tried to slip the panties off
gracefully. He wiped his arm across the back of his mouth, a gesture that
didn’t bode well. Still, she tossed the soggy scrap of nylon and lace toward
the bank.

At that moment
Magnum chose to remember he was a Labrador retriever and made a leap for the
airborne article. With a cannonball dive that splashed water in her eyes and
drenched her hair, the dog paddled toward her, the panties successfully
retrieved and clamped as delicately as a wounded duck between his jaws. She
wanted to groan at the humiliation of it all, but Jonah’s 90-proof grin cut her
short.

“Go away!” She
glared at him through water-heavy lashes. She yanked the panties away from
Magnum. “Get out of here, Jonah Jones. And so help me God, if you say one
thing, I’ll... I’ll...”

But he was
already ambling away, chuckling loudly enough for her to hear.

By the time she
dressed and returned to his campsite, he was back at the picnic table, sifting
the day’s tailings through a sieve and separating the impurities on white paper
anchored by rocks against any sudden breeze. At her approach, a broad locker-room
grin spread across his face.

The man had a
positively tacky sense of humor. She sent him a look of disgust. There was a
certain dignity in animosity. Sailing past him, she pushed furiously at a damp
strand of errant hair that chose that moment to tumble from her skewered
topknot onto her nose. As she climbed the two steps into the camper, he called
out, “It’s your night to fix dinner.” Once inside, she speedily changed out of
the wet underwear and dirty clothing into a string-knit-top over an ivory teddy
that made her look as if she was naked underneath. She knew exactly what she
was doing: preparing for battle.

Tugging on clean
jeans, she mentally chided herself for leaving her white slacks at home, but
they would have been impractical on a dig. She found her brush among the other
personal toiletries she had stored in the small cabinet above her bunk and
brushed her damp hair until it felt fluffy and flowing. Then she quickly dug
into her shoulder bag and came up with a tube of lipstick. Lastly she riffled
through the purse’s contents for a perfume sample and used it sparingly. There.
Now she felt armed with a woman’s defenses against Jonah’s sea-wolf attraction.

His display of
humor diminished visibly when he entered the camper. He eyed her clothes, and
his nostrils flared, picking up her perfume. She had succeeded too well. And
then there was the camper’s small size. They had no space to protect them from
the sexual frustration that crackled between them.

Saying nothing,
he pulled on a navy sweatshirt whose seams were strained by his broad
shoulders. His hair was wet, and he was clean and fresh-smelling, telling her
that he, too, had washed in the river after finishing his work. The cold water
hadn’t improved his mood. He wore a bad-tempered frown that drew his brows
together over the bridge of his nose.

Dinner was a
silent, tense affair. The tuna sandwich she had fixed was dry in her mouth.
Across from her, Jonah munched on his with an expression that told her he’d be
just as happy chewing burnt cardboard.

She wet her lips
nervously. “You don’t like me staying here, do you?”

“Your cooking’s
not fit for a dog.”

The fine hairs
at her nape bristled. “If I remember right, Long John Silver, even Magnum
wouldn’t eat the potatoes you charcoaled!”

His eyes
narrowed, and his jaw set in a hard line. “Those potatoes were charcoaled
because you couldn’t resist seducing the old boyfriend cooking them.”

“Boyfriend! I
don’t think sworn-in-blood secrets twenty-five years ago and a few pecks on the
cheek qualified you as a boyfriend.” She struck where she knew he was most
vulnerable. “You didn’t have half the charm Chap did, Jonah Jones!”

His expression
became a mean sneer. “That doesn’t seem to bother you now. You seem more than
willing to surrender your charms to me.”

A part of her
was pleased by his angry mood. Maybe it meant he did care beyond his obvious
desire for sex with her. A little, anyway. At that moment she figured something
out about Jonah: he believed that if he didn’t let himself need anyone, he
couldn’t be hurt. He protected his vulnerability behind a shield of immense
self-containment.

She smiled
coolly. “Maybe that’s because you’re here and he’s not.”

“Sweetheart,
I’ve sampled some of the most delightful charms in the world, and you don’t
know what charm is. It’s certainly more than flaunting your.. .assets. A
dockside doxy can do that—and a whole hell of a lot better than you’ve been.”

“Any inadequacy
I may have hasn’t seemed to stop you from staring like a horny teenager!”

He thudded his
glass on the table, and milk splashed on his hand. “I’m going into town.”

She slammed her
half-eaten sandwich on the paper plate. “Well, so am I!”

He stood up,
towering over her. “Not with me, you’re not.

She slid from
the bench to face him. “Did I say I wanted to ride in with you?” She reached
around behind him and grabbed her shoulder bag from the alcove above her bunk.
Fumbling inside for her keys, she yanked open the door.

A hand slammed
it shut. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Slowly she
turned, her gaze going from the sun-browned hand inches from her head to his
face. The icy expression in his eyes told her that she had pushed him too far.
This wasn’t her childhood friend. This was a violent stranger. An image of him
in hand-to- hand combat jumped into her mind. He would be victorious. He could
inflict pain. Her hips bumped against the door as she tried to move away, but
there was nowhere to go.

She gathered her
courage, stilling her trembling lips. Her chin tilted haughtily. She spaced her
clipped words for emphasis. “I beg your pardon?”

He raked his
hand through his heavy hair, and she could tell he was trying to get control of
himself. After a long moment he reached out and brushed her neck with his
knuckles, saying, “Ditching me for Chap was the smartest thing you ever did,
Ritz. We would have been a mistake together.”

She stared up at
his shuttered green gaze, unsure of how to react. Then he released her from his
spell by stepping away from her. “No sense in both of us wasting gas making the
trip into Silver City and back.” He grabbed his hat from the peg. “Let’s go.”

She wasn’t about
to argue.

The ride into
Silver City was as silent as dinnertime had been. Jonah drove his pickup along
the winding road fast and furiously. With someone else behind the wheel, she
would have been nervous, but she didn’t doubt for a moment that he was in
complete charge of the vehicle. After all, hadn’t he told her that he’d learned
to navigate sophisticated submersibles under the most adverse conditions?

On Friday nights
the main drag of Silver City was lit up like the Strip in Las Vegas. Cowboys,
college students and miners all cruised the boulevard. Jonah spoke for the
first time in the hour-and-forty-five- minute drive. “Where do you want me to
let you out?”

“The Border
Cowboy.”

A frown pulled
down his lips, but then his big frame seemed to relax. He dropped his voice to
a mocking drawl. “Listen, pardner, that place ain’t big enough for the both of
us.”

God, what charm.
How had she missed it when they were kids? She shrugged and managed an easy
“Let’s give it a try.”

The Border
Cowboy was jammed with laughing, sweating customers. Jonah, who towered above
almost everyone else there, surveyed the room. He dipped his head toward her.
“Which way you going?”

“Upstairs.” Out
of the main logjam of bobbing human bodies.

He tugged his
hat lower over his eyes. “I’ll take downstairs, then.”

Feeling as if
she had been curtly dismissed, she spun away and began to make her way through
the packed, perspiring people. She might as well have been going up a down
escalator. The lack of air ignited claustrophobic feelings that constricted her
lungs even further.

Then Jonah was there,
his roughened hand protectively on her arm, towing her along as he shouldered a
path for them.

Upstairs the
place wasn’t as crowded, but it was hotter. The rising heat didn’t stop the
gyrating dancers. She recognized two or three people from her high school days,
but since they weren’t expecting to see her there, they didn’t take note of
her.

Jonah released
her arm, and at once she missed the reassuring warmth of his touch. She looked
up at him, and he tipped the brim of his hat with his fingers. “See you at
midnight?”

She only nodded,
afraid that if she spoke she would ask him to stay with her. Her eyes swept the
filled booths and packed dance floor. What was she going to do with herself for
three hours?

She was saved by
a man coming off the dance floor: Soren. A young woman with a brightly made-up
face—Rita-lou didn’t recognize her—clung to his arm.

“Rita-lou!” he
said. “Are you with anyone?” His voice was warm with pleasure.

She glanced
around at Jonah. He was already moving away. “No,” she said, turning back to
Soren. “I’m not.”