Arizona Heat
Jennifer Greene

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

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.

Two

Kansas peered out the front window of her brother’s place for the dozenth time: 6:50. Too early to worry that Pax wasn’t going to show, yet her heart was still thudding with anxiety and nerves.

If Pax couldn’t help find her brother, the world would not suddenly end. Kansas would find another way. She always had. But damn, right now she really didn’t have a clue where else to turn.

Too antsy to sit still, she hustled into the bathroom to check her appearance. The mirror didn’t reveal any noticeable difference since she checked five minutes ago. Her fresh-washed hair had been coaxed to look wilder with a judicious application of spritz. Exuberantly impractical bangles dangled from her wrists and ears. A filmy blouse covered a tank top, both tucked into her shorts with a jeweled belt. The blouse was emerald green and bright, but the fabric was as insubstantial as wind.

She looked—she hoped—like a helpless city slicker, inept, vulnerable, flighty, impractical...and momentarily she felt a qualm of conscience. It wasn’t exactly nice to try to manipulate a man with her appearance. She’d only caught one weakness in Pax—a sense of honor as extinct as dinosaurs in most men. He had both a reputation and job that labeled him a rescuer. Never mind ethics. Her brother mattered more than any darn fool ethics, and if she looked like a woman who needed rescuing, it might up the odds of Pax being willing to help her.

Kansas slugged her hands into her shorts pockets, musing that the situation was downright humorous. She had a real bug about men who treated her like a helpless cookie. On the surface, it seemed the height of irony to be inviting the same response from Pax that drove her bananas. But life was more complicated than surface appearances, as Kansas had learned the hard, painful way.

Her mind inevitably spun back to the car accident. She’d been fourteen at the time, green-young, with a heart full of confident dreams about becoming a strong, athletic Amazon when she grew up. During those long months of recovery, it bit like a bullet to be a helpless invalid, hurt even more to be a dependent burden on those who loved her. En route, though, she’d discovered the difference between real pride and false pride.

She was never going to be a physically strong Amazon in this lifetime, but that measurement of strength had never been worth poppycock. Real strength—the kind of grit and guts that mattered—came from accepting whoever, or whatever you were. Just because a woman was stuck looking like a physical weakling never meant she couldn’t be tougher than steel on the inside.

When Kansas heard the knock on the front door, her hand flew to her stomach. A woman of steel, she told herself firmly, should not be having a problem with jittery butterflies.

She sprinted for the door. When Pax walked in, she abruptly remembered where all those butterflies came from. Him. The toughest woman on earth could hardly fail to notice that he was one hormone-arousing hombre.

He’d cleaned up before coming over, and was dressed casually enough in jeans and a chambray shirt, but two of her could tuck in his shadow. His jet black hair was still damp from a recent shower, yanked back in a ponytail with a leather thong. Her pulse suddenly galloped around an electric racetrack. It wasn’t something she could help. Personally she thought a man with eyes that dark, that deep should come with a warning about high voltage.

“Come on in. I appreciate your coming,” she said cheerfully.

“I told you I would.” He strode in, his posture as rigid as an oak trunk, but his gaze traveled the length of her. It didn’t take him twenty seconds to make the journey from her city-slicker outfit to her wild baubles to her carrot-top artsy craftsy hairstyle. He noticeably relaxed, with an amused smile for her sunburned nose. “You look like you recovered from the heat this afternoon.”

“Thankfully it cools down around here at night.” She told herself she wasn’t irked. An easy, relaxed smile was exactly what she wanted from Pax. Flash and sparkle were clearly not his personal cuppa, which was absolutely fine with her. She’d never dressed and fussed to have him notice her as a woman—she’d put on a version of the dog to win his sympathy for her brother’s cause.

And Case, of course, was the only thing on her mind. She suddenly wrapped her arms tightly around her chest. “I’ve got some wine and crackers in the living room, but to be honest, I’d like to show you around first. I haven’t had time to really clean the place up, so almost everything is just like I found it when I got here yesterday. I think I can show you why I’m so worried about my brother.”

“I don’t know that I can help you with your brother, Kansas.”

“I know. I understand that. But I’m really coming into this area cold—I don’t know anything. If nothing else, I’m hoping you could give me some leads or ideas.”

“I’ll try.” His forehead suddenly creased in a frown. “For starters, was the house locked when you got here? How did you get in?”

Kansas could have told him that she’d climbed on two suitcases and broken in by jimmying a window latch with a crowbar. But somehow she didn’t think Pax would be too quick to aid a helplessly impractical city slicker if she confessed such resourcefulness—or her willingness to commit breaking and entering without a single ethical qualm. “The house was locked, which reassured me at first. I mean, it seemed to indicate that Case planned to be away. But then I got inside...”

She ushered him around, trying to show him the house as it had first appeared from her own eyes. Her brother had barely had two cents to rub together. The place he’d rented was a long way from deluxe—just four rooms, all simply done in adobe and tile.

The red-tiled kitchen was no bigger than a walk-in closet, with aging appliances and a jutting counter that functioned as an eating table. “I had to clean up here. Case had left dirty dishes piled in the sink—which wasn’t untypical of him—but the food was just crusted on. When I opened the refrigerator, there was spoiled milk, lunch meat that had turned prehistoric...” She shook her head. “Maybe he’d planned on going somewhere, but not for this long. Not for three weeks.”

“Case wasn’t famous for planning ahead,” Pax said pointedly.

“I know he’s a little...impulsive. But he left so many other things just hanging.” She jogged ahead. Just off the kitchen was a utility room, where an aging washing machine and dryer were located. She showed Pax how clothes had been left in the washer, dried out but never transferred to the dryer. And then she zoomed past him toward the only bathroom in the place, where basic men’s toiletries were still strewn around the sink—toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, deodorant. “Everything he left is daily-life-necessity stuff—nothing he’d take for an evening, but positively things he would have packed if he’d planned on being gone for three weeks.”

“I think you’re right—the clues add up to a trip he didn’t plan. But that still doesn’t mean that Case disappeared in some frightening or scary sense, Kansas. He’s just a kid, and few kids that age excel at responsible choices. He could easily have made a spur-of-the-moment decision to take off.”

His voice reminded her of the nap side of velvet: soft, gentle, soothing. He probably calmed dozens of wounded critters with that sexy baritone, but it scraped against her feminine nerves like squeaky chalk. How was she ever going to get through to Pax if he persisted in being so logical?

“Maybe if I show you the bedroom,” she said in frustration, and then stopped so quickly in the middle of the hall that Pax almost ran into her. “No. Forget the bedroom.”

“Why?”

Because she had lingerie and clothes and her brand of “girl stuff” wildly strewn all through her brother’s bedroom. Because she was oddly edgy around Pax without exposing an intimately unmade, rumpled bed to his dark eyes. “Because,” she said, “there are just more important things to show you in the living room.”

“Okay,” he said, as gently as if he were talking to a skittery mouse.

She felt skittery. It wasn’t just this increasingly strange feeling she had around Pax, but the attack of anxiety raising again about her brother. Something had happened to Case. She knew it. And walking into the living room intensified that restless feeling of worry and panic tenfold.

She gestured toward the pots of dead plants on the tile floor by the sliding glass doors. “You can see those plants wilted and died from lack of water...which, again, made me think that Case had never expected to be gone for so long. But those plants are so weird, besides...I mean, they look like ugly weeds, hardly some charming little philodendron or standard houseplant. And I can’t imagine my brother taking the time to fuss with any plants—he never had a homemaker bone in his whole body. So that really struck me wrong, and then there was the letter—”

“What letter?”

She whisked around the worn tan couch and old, scarred bookcase. The living room was furnished with typical rental property decor—bland beiges and browns—so ordinary that she had no way to explain to Pax why the room first scared her. He couldn’t know her brother. Not the way she did.

Case had always been more into playing than deep thinking—yet there were books about mysticism and religions and heavyweight philosophy stashed all over the bookshelves and tables. A stained-glass pentagram hung from one window; a Tibetan prayer wheel was stuck on a shelf. Maybe the previous renter had left them, because Kansas couldn’t believe Case even knew what those symbols meant. The prints and posters tacked on the walls were all surreal unearthly scenes, wild and dark, and absolutely nothing like her brother’s taste. At least the brother she knew.

But the most disturbing thing for Kansas was the letter. At the far corner of the living room was a battered pine desk, where she’d found the letter yesterday—a half-finished missive, to her, in Case’s blunt scrawl and dated three weeks before. She picked up the white notebook paper, feeling such a huge well of anxiety that she could hardly swallow. “Case would never have left a half-finished letter. And it’s to me. He mentions a girl, Serena—actually, he brought up her name before—but I have no idea what her last name is. And most of the letter is about how he finally found a way to turn his life around, something he was serious about and committed to...but that’s when it ends. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

She spun around to hand Pax the letter, expecting him to be right behind her—but he hadn’t followed her across the room. Instead he was hunkered down by the sliding doors, sniffing and then fingering the leaves of those long-dead plants.

“Do you know what those plants are?” she asked him.

“Yeah. I think so. It’s a plant called datura. Common enough in the desert. Some call it jimsonweed.”

“Why on earth would he grow a weed?” Kansas asked bewilderedly, and then sucked in a breath. “Don’t tell me it’s something like marijuana. I’d never believe you. My brother has faults—he can be wild and irresponsible and he doesn’t always think things through—but at heart, he couldn’t be more clean-cut. He was never the type to mess around with recreational drugs—”

“It’s not an illegal substance, Kansas. Nor is it a recreational drug.”

Since that was exactly what she wanted—and expected—to hear, Kansas should have felt reassured. Yet her heart suddenly seemed to be thudding louder than a base drum. Pax straightened, and then walked straight toward her and picked up the letter.

While he studied the letter, she studied him. Although Pax clearly wasn’t a man to reveal emotion in his expressions, she sensed something had changed. Likely he had only made this visit because she’d played out the role of a lady in distress, not because he really believed her brother was in trouble.

But there was something dead quiet about the way he read that letter. And when he finished, he glanced back at the plants.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You know something.”

He hesitated. “I don’t know anything, I told you. When Case first dropped in town, I ran into him in a restaurant. He had no place to bunk down, no money in his pockets. It was no hardship for me to give him a hand. He stayed with me for a short stretch, and I gave him part-time work in my surgery until he had some cash ahead. Then he found this place, got a job at a store in town. He stopped by to talk sometimes, shoot the bull. That’s all, Kansas. I wasn’t really in his confidence—”

“You know something,” she repeated, her gaze on his face. “What? Something about those plants?”

When he hesitated again, her instincts set off mental smoke alarms.

“Pax, for cripe’s sake, you’re scaring me half to death. If you have some idea where he is, what happened to him—”

“Like I said, I don’t know anything...look, why don’t we just sit down for a minute. I didn’t mean to shake you up. I’ll explain what I know. We’ll just talk about this real calm, real quiet.”

“Okay,” Kansas said. And on the catch of a breath, screamed at the top of her lungs.

* * *

Pax already had a few clues that Kansas was no more predictable than a loaded gun, but her sudden earsplitting scream came from absolutely nowhere. For such a sprite, she had a prize-winning set of lungs. And if the scream wasn’t enough to stun him speechless, she suddenly threw herself straight into his arms.

He grabbed her. It wasn’t a choice or thought, but just a basic, masculine physical response. The scream still ringing in his ears sounded petrified, and his instinctive reaction was to protect her. He’d have done the same thing for any other small, vulnerable creature—woman, child, animal, would have made no difference.

But in the spin of those seconds, Pax recognized a telling difference. Heat suddenly charged through his veins. Whatever scent she was wearing hit his nostrils with muscle-tightening awareness—no sweet, safe, flowery perfumes for Kansas, but something just like her: spicy and sensual and disturbingly unignorable.

She’d slammed into him with the force of a catapult—an awkward, miniature catapult. Her weight didn’t throw him off-balance, but she did. Never mind her size. That small trembling body was still a woman’s body, with a heart heaving like thunder and breasts layered so explicitly against him that every masculine hormone came stinging, singing awake. She had her arms cuffed so tightly around his waist that he couldn’t breathe. For that millisecond, he didn’t want to.

He wasn’t expecting the jolt of chemistry. Not to her. Not with her. Even accounting for a stretch of abstinence, he’d never been remotely attracted to dynamite or trouble, and from his first glimpse, he’d sensed Kansas was both. Understanding his incomprehensible response to her would have to come later, though.

Her hair was stiff with mousse and tickled his chin; her dang fool shoulder-length earrings tangled with his collar—but over the top of her head, he abruptly spotted the reason for her scream. An extremely hairy orange and black tarantula was scooching slowly across the floor.

His heartbeat immediately simmered down and he almost laughed. Not at her fear, but at her response to the “avicularia.” Kansas had already struck him as emotional and impulsive and pure female. Somehow he could have guessed that she’d never waste time on a halfway gasp when a full-body sissy scream would do.

“Kansas,” he said gently, “it’s just a spider.”

“You call that a spider? I call it a monster—big enough to kill us both! How do you live in this horrible country? I’ll never sleep for a week!”

“If you let me loose, I’ll take care of it,” he said soothingly.

“If you think I’m letting go of you, you’re out of your mind!” But having made that completely irrational statement, she reared back her head and shrieked again when she saw the tarantula.

By tomorrow, maybe, his ears might stop ringing. “I’m not saying you want to be bitten by one, but it’s not going to attack you. If you just calm down for two seconds—”

“Calm down? I hate spiders and crawly things! Oh, God, oh, God. I’m gonna have nightmares about this for a year!”

Pax opened his mouth to try to reassure her again—and abruptly and completely closed his mouth.

Kansas, still ranting, tore loose from his arms. Still raving about how petrified she was, she raced across the room and grabbed a folded newspaper. Still claiming to be an ace-pro wuss who couldn’t handle, just couldn’t handle, creepy-crawly critters, she scooped the tarantula onto the paper, whisked across the room to open the sliding doors and let the critter outside.

When she slammed the glass door closed, she leaned against it with a dramatic hand on her chest. “I think I’m gonna have a heart attack.”

Pax scratched his chin. He’d thought she was going to have a heart attack, too. He would have quickly educated her about how painful a tarantula bite could be—if she’d given him the chance. He would also have taken care of the critter for her—if she hadn’t moved at the speed of light and done it herself.

For someone who made big noises about being a self-proclaimed coward and a gutless wimp, Kansas wasn’t quite living up to her image.

Or maybe she just wasn’t what she seemed.

Kansas suddenly peered up at him. “You probably think I’m a scatterbrained ditz.”

That thought had crossed his mind. “Actually it’s a pretty good idea to be scared of tarantulas...and the same goes for a few other desert critters who live around here. Most have a far more exaggerated reputation than they deserve, but a tarantula bite can hurt real good. Best to stay away from them.”

“I’ll be happy to.” She clawed a hand through her hair, which made a cowlick stick up in a spike. “I’m gonna have the willies all night unless I check every corner of the house for any more of those things.”

Pax could have offered. It wasn’t a lack of chivalry that kept him silent, but just plain dark humor. Kansas kept saying how terrified she was, but she certainly didn’t seem to be counting on anyone to rescue her. A man might even come to the confounded conclusion that the lady was damn used to rescuing herself. He glanced again at the ethereal blouse, the fragile bones, the sky-soft blue eyes, the impractical baubly jewelry dangling and tangling all over the place...

“Pax—do you want some wine or something? Before that tarantula scared the wits out of me, I thought you were going to tell me something about my brother.”

“I’m not much on wine.” He glanced at his watch. “And it’s getting pretty late. I’ve got a call on a rancher at six in the morning.”

Immediately she looked guilty. “I didn’t mean to take so much of your time.”

“Hey, I volunteered.” More to the point, Pax just wasn’t sure what to say about her brother. Long before Kansas arrived, he’d had some suspicions clawing in his mind about what Case might have gotten himself involved with. The things she’d showed him around the place had worried him more.

But suspicions weren’t fact. And even if his worries were true, Pax still wasn’t sure what or how to tell Kansas anything. No question, she had a lioness’s fierce loyalty to her brother. That was a sweet quality, a damn fine quality that Pax only wished someone had felt toward him in his own life. But to let an emotional, impulsive sissy of a city baby loose in a situation way out of her ken—hell, Kansas could land herself in a heap of trouble, if not downright danger.

She walked him to the front door with her arms wrapped around her chest and her mouth zipped in a firm line. No talking. She respected that it was late and he had to leave. Her gaze kept shooting to his face, though, and Pax had the uneasy feeling that she’d rope and hog-tie him if he dared try leaving without saying something else about Case.

When he pushed open the back door, she was as faithful as a dog on his heels. It had turned dark. The lights of Sierra Vista were a soft glow in the sky to the north, but this far out of town, there were no lights, no traffic, no people noise. The night came alive here. The air was impossibly clear and pure, the silence soothing on a man’s soul. So typically, the Arizona spring night was seeped in desert smells and sounds and a huge, ghost white full moon—his favorite kind.

Kansas’s gaze was still glued tightly on his face. Pax doubted she noticed the moon or the night—at that precise moment, he doubted she’d notice an earthquake—and mentally sighed. Yeah, he’d been thinking about the problem of her brother.

“My work schedule is pretty weird,” he told her. “I’m not an ‘office hours’ kind of vet. About the only thing I do in the office is surgery—most of my work is out in the field, and I use a cellular phone for people trying to track me down. My hours are always crazy, and like I said, I really don’t know where your brother is, Kansas. The best I could do—if you don’t mind working around my hit-or-miss schedule—is take you around, show you some places where Case used to go, that kind of thing.”

“That kind of thing would be wonderful,“ she said fervently, and smiled like he’d just turned on the switch for the sun. “That was all I was asking for—some help. I know it’s an imposition, and I really appreciate the offer. In fact I would be glad to pay you—”

“Around here, we haven’t caught up with big city values yet. A neighbor still helps a neighbor. Money has nothing to do with it.” Pax dug the truck key out of his jeans pocket. He doubted the wisdom of getting involved, but there was no help for it. Letting Kansas poke and pry on her own just wouldn’t sit on his conscience. “I won’t be free tomorrow until after three in the afternoon.”

“That’d be great.”

Pax wasn’t sure it’d be great. He wasn’t sure of anything except that he felt a whomp upside the head every time he looked at her.

Kansas moved aside so he could open the driver’s door to the Explorer. He opened the door, but he didn’t immediately climb in.

It had been a long time since anyone or anything confused him. His real name, Paxton, had been shortened to Pax because the Latin base for the nickname had always pegged his personality. He liked peace. He’d had enough turmoil in his childhood to last forever. Most things that mattered in life reduced to simple terms, if a man was determined to lead a simple life.

Nothing seemed simple about Kansas. Right then, she was standing in a shower of moonlight, her eyes softer than the big black sky. The filmy blouse she wore was no thicker than a veil, and never mind that it was sexier than a man’s midnight fantasies. The fabric was ethereal and fragile, and everything she wore, every damn thing she did, shouted loudly that she was a wimp and a wuss and a crushably vulnerable woman.

Yet she’d taken off cross-country without a qualm “to save” her brother. And he’d watched the confounded shrimp tackle the tarantula, when she had a rescuer right at her fingertips who could have handled it. It didn’t make sense. She didn’t make sense.

Kansas cocked her head. “I’m in no rush if you want to stand here all night,” she murmured humorously. “But you’re looking at me like there’s a bug on my nose.”

“There’s no bug on your nose.”

“Maybe you were thinking of something else having to do with my brother? Because if there’s anything else you could tell me about Case—”

“I wasn’t thinking about your brother.” Pax just kept thinking that somehow, someway, he had to figure out what kind of woman Kansas really was.

She could get hurt if he misjudged what she was capable of.

She could get into serious trouble unless he had a measure of what she could handle—and what she couldn’t.

All Pax wanted was some simple, clean-cut answers. In a dozen years, though—in a hundred years—he never planned on kissing her.

Three

Kansas didn’t move when he took a step toward her. And she saw his arm reach up, felt the knuckles of his hand brush her cheek. But Pax didn’t seem to even be thinking about her. There was a dark wedge of a frown grooved in his brow, as if some weighty problem was consuming his attention.

Even when he ducked his head, it just never occurred to her that he planned to kiss her. There’d been no come-on. No man-woman exchange of looks or body-language signals. If anything, Kansas sensed that Pax saw her as a pesky little sister—humorous and a little annoying, but as safe as a sibling to be with.

His lips touched hers, in a whispery-soft kiss. A safe kiss. A kiss swifter than the feather stroke of a spring wind.

Her heartbeat picked up a sudden, strange rhythm, but she still didn’t move. Even if the kiss was a surprise, no threat of danger crossed her mind. Heaven knew what motivated Pax to kiss her at all, but she had no fear of where it was going. Every man she’d ever known had treated her like breakable china. It wasn’t their fault; positively her delicate appearance provoked that attitude, but her looks were nothing she could change. Still, she was so experienced at handling careful, cautious, gentle kisses that she never anticipated any other kind.

His hands sieved into her hair and he tilted her face up. His black eyes burned on her face for all of a second, before his mouth dipped down again.

Holy kamoly. For damn sure he wasn’t kissing his sister this time.

Fire shot through her veins before she’d even smelled sulphur. The shock alone curled her toes. Pax wasn’t trapping her—except for his big hands framing her face, he wasn’t holding her at all. The only connection was his smooth, warm lips tasting hers, then taking hers, with a pressure that made her blood spin.

Reflexively her hands shot up. Her fingers closed around his wrists, not necessarily to stop him. Just to hold on. She sure as patooties needed something to hold onto, because an innocuously pale moonlit night had abruptly exploded with color.

He was supposed to treat her like a fragile cookie. Everyone else did. Every other man had always kissed her...respectfully. Pax kissed her like someone had accidentally opened the cage doors on a big, hungry bear—a bear who’d been contained and deprived of sustenance for just too long. She couldn’t catch her breath. He seemed to have the same problem.

His shadow covered her more completely than a sheet on a bed. She couldn’t see his face, but she could feel the harsh, beating pulse in his wrists, hear the raw, rough sound that came out of his throat. It was a lonely sound. Lonely and wild. And he sealed her mouth under his with the pressure of a brand. His brand.

He was a relative stranger, her mind recognized, and Kansas hadn’t survived to the vast age of twenty-nine without knowing the girls’ rule book. When a stranger came on to a woman with the intimidating force of a steamroller, she wasn’t supposed to melt faster than ice cream in the tropics. She was supposed to sock him. She was supposed to make him behave. And if those options weren’t clear-cut easy, she was supposed to have the good sense to run faster than the wind.

But she didn’t run. And when his tongue found hers, an unprincipled kiss that was already pushing the boundaries of trouble suddenly dived straight off that cliff. He tasted dark and wicked. He tasted exotic and forbidden. He tasted like the most dangerous flavor she’d ever tried...yet her fingers loosened on his wrists, hovered for a second in midair, and then slowly wrapped tightly around his waist.

Her response wasn’t something she could justify, not in rational terms. Yet her never-too-logical heart seemed to think she’d known Pax forever. Maybe one tough, strong cookie recognized another. Maybe it took someone who’d never belonged to anything or anyone, to recognize how fierce and desperate that longing could be in someone else.

There were no maybes on her mind at that instant, just emotions taking her under with gale force. She kissed him back, as she’d never dared kiss anyone. She took him in, as if a pipsqueak-size woman could actually shelter a tall, strong man in the circle of her arms. Some need in Pax touched her heart. And damnation, no one had ever touched her heart, not like this.

Her feet arched up on tiptoe. Her breasts tightened, arched, ached against his chest. His belt buckle grazed her abdomen. The angle of stark moonlight on his face, the warmth pouring off his skin, the tight flex of his thighs and the shiver-arousing feeling of his arousal growing, pressed intimately between them—if she had been more razor-sharp aware of a man, she didn’t know when. She could feel his whole body shudder with tension—sexual tension that had suddenly become as volatile as lightning.

Kansas kept telling herself she should be scared—maybe even scared out of her mind—but she’d never known this crazy kind of heat even existed. If this was madness and mayhem, she’d been waiting for it all her life. Damned if she’d be afraid of something this rich, this wondrous and powerful. And damned if there’d ever been a man who’d made her feel this way. Liquid from the inside out. Needed. Desired. As if nothing else existed but the two of them at that pure moment in time.

It didn’t last. On a harsh groan, he tore his mouth free and reared his head back. Firm hands grasped her by the shoulders and forced a separation. His lungs hauled in air like he’d been underwater for the last year or two.

If putting some physical distance between them was supposed to cool him down, or calm him down, it didn’t seem to be working. His eyes looked dazed drunk in the moonlight. He looked at her, and then hauled in another lungful of air. “Kansas...I didn’t mean that to happen. Hell. I don’t even know what happened.”

Her relationship with gravity was still a little shaky, and she was having the same tough time catching her breath as he was. Still, she definitely didn’t share his problem with figuring out what happened. He’d kissed the living socks off her. And she’d kissed him back the same way. “It’s all right,” she said gently.

“The hell it is. I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“Yeah, there is. I don’t...I would never have...hell,” he said again, and clawed a hand at the back of his neck. “I apologize for jumping you. And I don’t want you afraid that it’ll happen again. It won’t.”

Kansas realized fleetingly that Pax was rattled. She rattled easily—didn’t take any more than a mouse running across the floor—but she suspicioned that Pax rarely let his control off the leash. He didn’t seem to know where to look, what to say, or what the Sam Hill he was supposed to do. And she was afraid it might go on forever—his swallowing hard and saying hell in between apologies—unless she took charge.

“Hey, there’s no problem here,” she said calmly. “Maybe I was surprised when you kissed me. Maybe we were both surprised. But people have been indulging in that particular pastime since the beginning of time...” Oops, she thought that might earn a smile, but no. “No one’s upset, right? No one’s mad. Everybody’s fine. And it’s late, like you said. Let’s just call it a night, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He leaped on that excuse to split, she noticed dryly, like a dog for a bone. Moments later, the Explorer’s headlights bounced out of her driveway.

She headed inside, intending to lock up, clean up and get ready for bed. She locked up, then completely forgot the rest of that game plan, and found herself standing in the front window, staring out at the empty driveway.

Her heart was beating like a revved up 747.

Thoughts were tumbling through her mind like dandelion fluff in a hurricane wind.

And every feminine hormone in her body was alive, awake and singing arias.

Inappropriate arias, Kansas mused. It was only a kiss. From a man who clearly wished he hadn’t indulged in the impulse, and in a place where she neither lived nor planned to stay long. As there was positively no chance to pursue a relationship, there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

And she wasn’t worried. She’d just never felt that fierce, instantaneous pull for anyone else. Before completely giving up men—which, as far as Kansas was concerned, was the most brilliant decision she ever made—she was no stranger to passion. Hal had been her last lover, and making love with him had been nice. Messy and time-consuming, but nice. Maybe she had an unusual pocketful of inhibitions, but she’d never been in a tearing hurry to get naked with a man, and Hal had been sweet, gentle, comfortable. Untenably, exasperatingly, as possessive as a bloodhound, but the intimate side of their relationship had been A-OK. She’d thought.

How startling, to discover at the vast age of twenty-nine, that a man could wipe all those previous preconceptions right off the map. If Pax had scared her, it was the most delicious scared she could remember. No man had ever kissed her like a lush slide straight into sensual oblivion, as if her whole world had been an arid desert until he touched her.

Kansas wasn’t about to mistake a molehill for a mountain—for both of them, it had probably just been a crazy, lost moment in time.

But she didn’t want to forget that kiss.

Kansas turned around, and forced her mind to concentrate on getting ready for bed. She had a bad, bad feeling that falling for Pax could be a terrible temptation. That wouldn’t do at all; not for him or her. For a few moments there, she’d almost forgotten that she was violently, sensibly and firmly off men.

It was a relief to remember that.

* * *

Pax turned down Cactus Court with a glance at the digital clock on his dash. Three o’clock on the button.

It was going to be a lot easier to deal with Kansas, he considered, now that he knew for sure she was a stark-raving lunatic.

His experience with her the night before couldn’t possibly have been more helpful. He had her measure now. She might be a wimp, but she had more guts—and recklessness—than any twenty women. And before getting any further involved in her brother’s problem, that was precisely what Pax needed to know—how she’d respond to trouble.

Now he knew.

She had no concept of trouble or danger at all. Skydive without a parachute—no problemo for Kansas. Pet a grizzly bear—what fun. Respond to a guy she barely knew with open vulnerability and passion and a free, naked invitation to do whatever the hell he wanted...damn that woman. Had she even thought about saying no?

Pax braked in her driveway, and slammed the door as he leaped out of the Explorer. Hot sun beat down on his shoulders, healing, soothing sun. He’d been up since five. Spring was calving season. He’d showered before leaving the Hernandez ranch—most of the local ranchers offered him a meal and a place to clean up as an automatic courtesy. So he was clean, but his muscles still ached from the physical work and long, grueling hours. He wouldn’t have minded ten minutes to put his feet up.

He’d have been even happier if the memory of Kansas coming apart in his arms would disappear, splat, from his mind. And yeah, he was guilty of initiating that kiss. But he’d only intended a kiss, not a pass. He’d only intended to test her a little, see how she responded to a little surprise, a little stress. God knew how it had gotten out of hand so fast.

It was her fault. Completely. Only blaming her somehow didn’t make him feel better. Pax did not open up to strangers. Ever. He positively did not come onto women like a rabid bull. Ever. He was a grown man, a hundred years too old to let hormones rule his life or his behavior, and he had never touched a woman where he wasn’t in full control. It was unconscionable. It couldn’t have happened.

The front door hurled open...and Pax mentally braced. Trouble bounced outside, in a flurry of ditsy chitchat and a wincing bright orange streak of color.

“Hi there, Pax! You’re right on time. Wait, wait, wait—I forgot my purse...and I’d better lock the door. I just have to remember where I put the key to the house....”

Pax wiped a hand over his face as he waited for her to shoot back inside and come up with the key and purse and heaven knew what else. Last night must have been some kind of surreal fantasy, something he’d half imagined or blown out of proportion in his mind. This was the Kansas he’d first met. One of those alien species known as a Pure Female. In her case, a pure ditsy female, a chatterer with just an eensy tendency to be an airhead.

She chased back outside with a grin bigger than the sky, a floppy crocheted bag dangling from her arm. Her fingers were covered—plastered—in rings; bracelets clattered around her wrists; and he hadn’t a clue how to classify what she was wearing. Technically it seemed to be some kind of dress, but it buttoned from a loose neck and ended midthigh. A short midthigh. The fabric was a light cotton knit, and snuggled up to every skinny bone. Hell, a gusty sigh would probably knock her down.

Her fragility hit him every time he saw her. Never mind all the flash and sparkle—he’d felt her body last night. She didn’t own a sturdy bone and her skin was softer than a baby’s behind. He guessed she’d bruise if a man even looked at her roughly, and that thought was disturbing. Pax couldn’t imagine her surviving in any physically demanding situation—past five minutes—and there was just no way this side of the moon that he could stop himself from feeling protective of her.

“Ready,” she announced, and gave him another winsome, wicked grin. “At least I think I’m ready. We didn’t exactly pin down an agenda for the afternoon. Do we have a game plan on the table about where we’re going?”

“I have a place in mind, where your brother used to spend some time. But first—I should have asked you yesterday if you’d talked to the sheriff.”

“Why, sure. When I couldn’t get ahold of Case and started worrying he was missing, the first places I called were the hospitals—and then the law. Sheriff Simons and I are old phone pals. I called him at least a half dozen times from Minnesota.”

“And?”

“And...he was real sweet and real kind, but all those long-distance calls got me nowhere.” Kansas climbed into the passenger side of the Explorer and strapped herself in.

His Explorer was used to smelling like hay and vet medicines and a whole host of other natural, earthy smells. But his truck, for sure, had never been exposed to a blast of exuberantly sexy French perfume. Something about that audacious scent—or her—was developing a dangerous habit of arousing his hormones. But Pax consoled himself that at least she’d made no reference to the kiss the night before. Apparently they were both going to play this nice and comfortable and pretend it never happened—which was totally okay by him.

“The sheriff went so far as to drive out to Case’s place,” Kansas continued. “But when he didn’t find any sign of breaking in or a problem, he said that was the best he could do. There was no reason to think my brother was really missing. Case had a habit of taking off on any whim, and apparently everyone around here knew it. Unless I come up with some reason or proof that Case is in trouble, the sheriff just said he had no legal basis to do anything.”

“I told you the same thing yesterday,” Pax reminded her.

“Yeah, I know you did.” Blue eyes skimmed his face, then zipped away. “That’s exactly why I’m grateful that you believed me.”

“I don’t necessarily believe that your brother is in trouble,” he said, correcting her.

“He is.” Her voice had turned quiet. “And you must believe me to some extent, or you wouldn’t be here.”

That wasn’t precisely true. Pax checked the rearview mirror and backed out of the driveway. “Al loco y al aire, darles calle,” he murmured under his breath.

“Pardon?”

“It’s a common Spanish saying around here. Clear the way for madmen and the wind.” Pax didn’t mention that men usually pounced on that Southwestern proverb in reference to the insanity of arguing with a stubborn woman. If he hadn’t been afraid Kansas would take off on her own—and potentially risk running into trouble—he wouldn’t be here.

“Madmen...?” she repeated curiously.

“It’s nothing. Just a thought that crossed my mind.” He switched subjects quickly. “There’s a place at the far end of Sierra Vista. Just a bookstore, with a kind of deli and coffee shop attached. Doesn’t sound like anything, but somehow the kids have made it into a hangout spot. I know Case used to spend a lot of time there.”

“Great.”

Pax couldn’t swear that it would be “great”—or that Kansas would gain any helpful leads there about her brother. But it seemed a relatively safe place to start. His mind zipped back to the image of the datura plants at her place. It wasn’t a good omen, those plants. “Tell me about your brother,” Pax suggested.

“Tell you about Case? What do you want to know?” Adobe buildings with red-tiled roofs flashed by. The landscape was dominated by signs in Spanish and native cactus lying dusty in the sun. She kept looking out the window as if the view were as alien as a visit to the moon.