Fire Brand (21 page)

“In my dreams, I was able to love you,” she whispered sadly.

He ground his teeth together to stop from groaning aloud. “Dreams aren't enough for a flesh and blood man,” he replied. “I won't stop wanting you.”

“You'll find someone else,” she said, almost choking on the words.

His black eyes narrowed. “Will I?” He laughed coldly and went out, closing the door behind him.

* * *

A
FTER
THAT
, G
ABY
threw herself into her work. She enjoyed her job well enough, and it was a godsend that things started heating up during the following week. She didn't have time to dwell on her shattered future.

Bowie went back to his apartment in Tucson for most of the time, appearing at Casa Río just briefly when he was needed to see about ranch business.

Monday, three days before the city council meeting that had been postponed suddenly last week, the agricultural combine called a press conference in Lassiter. The announcement that they were being denied land by a local landowner made statewide headlines and opened a can of worms that polarized the townspeople. Gaby was sent to cover it, because Harvey was conveniently busy. She knew he'd done it deliberately. It was going to be devastating for her to have to deal with the conglomerate now, and Harvey knew it. It was just one more way he was using the job to needle her.

But she went, and she covered the story, and she wrote it without a single bias. Bob Chalmers loved the article. It was front page, of course. The
Phoenix Advertiser
carried it with her byline and gave credit to the Lassiter paper. Johnny Blake called her personally to ask her to cover the story as it developed, and because Bob knew him and respected him, he agreed to let Gaby do it.

Bowie read the headlines and came home in the middle of the day, breathing fire.

Gaby took one look at his face and knew that she was going to have hell staying in the same country with him now.

He slammed the Phoenix paper down in front of her, where she was sitting on the sofa watching the news while she ate a quick lunch. His big body seemed to vibrate with contained fury.

“What the hell are you trying to do, incite a riot down here?” he asked in that quiet, measured tone that meant bloodshed.

“Bob sent me to cover the story, and he gave me permission to let Johnny Blake have it, since his paper could get it out before ours could,” she murmured, averting her eyes to his polished tan boots. She thought inconsequentially how well they contrasted with the pale tan suit he was wearing. “If I hadn't done it, Harvey would have. I gave both sides.”

“That's your eternal argument, isn't it, Gaby? Fair coverage. But this is going to stir up a damned hornet's nest!”

“I didn't call the press conference,” she protested. She pushed away the plate with her half-eaten sandwich. He sure was hell on the appetite.

“That wasn't a press conference, it was character assassination,” he returned. “Now I'm holding up progress, it seems. I'm a one-man reactionary who befriends rattlesnakes and Gila monsters!”

“The environmental people think you're a hero,” she said gently. “They've been singing your praises all morning.” She smiled shyly. “I'm doing a whole article on their point of view.”

“Great,” he muttered. “Just what I need—endorsements from the radical right.”

“They aren't radical. They're concerned about habitat and the ecology,” she muttered.

He turned, glaring at her. “What are you concerned with?”

She felt under attack. She hated the accusation in Bowie's black eyes, the sense of inadequacy and failure he made her feel. She was subdued these days—a shadow of the woman she had been. And the strange thing was that since she'd seen Bowie like that, vulnerable and in pain, sex had slowly become a natural physical act, not some ritual torture for a man's sole pleasure. Just knowing that Bowie was vulnerable had lessened her fear of him, but it was far too late to tell him now. And she couldn't be sure of her reaction until they went too far, and she hurt him again. She really couldn't put him through that anguish twice.

“I'm concerned with my job, I guess,” she said dully. “Nothing more.”

“In a few weeks, you'll own controlling interest in Casa Río,” he said stiffly. “I suppose the agricultural combine would settle for your twelve thousand acres, if you sold it to them.”

She started to protest, to tell him that she'd never dream of cutting the ground out from under him in such a cruel way. But the realization that he believed her capable of it stilled her tongue. How could she deny it without telling him she loved him? Not that he'd believe it now. If she loved him, she wouldn't have pushed him away—that was how he'd look at it.

Her eyes fell to the floor. “Aggie shouldn't have done that,” she said. “She wouldn't have, if you hadn't hurt her so badly over Mr. Courtland.”

“Damn Mr. Courtland,” he said icily. “I've got a few things to say to that gentleman, if I can ever find him. I've got private detectives combing the hills and they haven't turned him up yet.”

“Do you realize that we don't know where Aggie is?” she asked suddenly, looking up.

“What do you mean? She's with the Sevrils in Nassau.”

She shook her head. “I phoned her last night, to talk. She left there last week and didn't tell anyone where she was going. They don't know where to reach her, either.”

He drew in a rough breath. “My God. When it rains, it pours. Well, I'll have the detectives trace her, too. Courtland has turned the world upside down around here.”

“Your reaction to him did that,” she reminded him. “If you'd kept out of it...”

He turned, his eyes blazing. “My mother's welfare is my business.”

“Everything seems to be your business,” she said sadly. “Work is your whole life—that, and Casa Río. You're going to be just like your father when you get to his age. You're a company man from the head down.”

“At least I'm not frozen solid from the head down,” he returned with a cool smile.

She didn't flinch, even though it was that kind of blow. “You're right about that,” she said with forced gaiety. “At least I'm a good reporter, even if I'm a total failure as a woman.”

She got up and picked up her purse. “I have to get back to work.”

But as she started past him, he caught her upper arms and held her just in front of him.

“I didn't mean that,” he said quietly. His chest rose and fell heavily. “God, I'm lonely, Gaby.”

She swallowed. “So am I,” she said in a thready whisper.

His big hands brought her against his chest gently and he wrapped her up, holding her. He closed his eyes and rested his cheek against her high coiffure, feeling at peace for the first time in days. Just having her with him was heaven. He'd never been so miserable or unsettled in all his life, and his temper had become a local legend at the office—all because Gaby didn't want him in bed.

“What are we going to do, baby?” he asked heavily.

“You could find someone else,” she suggested bravely.

He only laughed, the sound deep and bitter. “I don't want anyone else. I can't even get aroused by anyone else.” His lean hands slid lower and pulled her gently to him, letting her feel his body's instant reaction to her closeness. “This only happens with you, Gaby.”

Her arms slid around him and she held him gently. “I love you, Bowie,” she whispered softly, closing her eyes against the tears. “I'm sorry I couldn't...”

He lifted his head and looked down into her misty eyes. “Say that again,” he breathed huskily.

“What, that I love you?” she asked, blushing. “Didn't you know?”

He shook his head. His breath sighed out and one hand came up to touch her face and trace her soft mouth. “My God.”

“You mustn't mind,” she whispered. “I'll get over it. You need someone who can give you what you need from a woman. You need...someone whole.”

His hands framed her face and he searched her eyes slowly. “Do you think that makes it any easier,” he asked softly, “when I go to bed aching for you every night?”

Her eyes closed painfully. “So do I,” she whispered. “I don't know what passion is, but I know what it is to love, now. You can't imagine how I hate myself for what I've done to you.”

He bent and put his mouth very gently against hers, loving the way it accepted him, parted for him, adored his touch.

His breath caught at the love in her voice, in her face, her lips. If she loved him, there was still hope. One day, somehow, she might be able to accept him. If he could learn patience and control, and exercise it...

“I thought I'd come home for the weekend,” he said, lifting his head. “You and I could go sightseeing. There's a place over near Cochise Stronghold where nobody ever goes. We run cattle there in the spring and fall, but it's deserted right now. There are some Hohokam ruins on it. I've never shown them to you.”

Her heart lifted as she searched his hard face. “Can you really bear to be around me...?”

His fingers stopped the words. He drew a breath. “After we look at the ruins, we could have a picnic. Sunday, we'll go to church together.”

“It isn't because you feel sorry for me, is it?” she asked miserably.

“I feel sorry for both of us, honey,” he replied quietly. “Because love is best expressed, for a man, in the act of love. But I'm desperate enough to settle for companionship, if that's all you can offer me.” He smiled bitterly. “Don't you know how I feel? Isn't it painfully obvious by now?” Her heart was going like a trip hammer. The look on his handsome face almost drowned her in tenderness.

“You want me,” she began.

“A man who feels nothing but desire isn't going to suffer the tortures of the damned just being away from the woman he wants,” he said stiffly. “I've driven work crews until they're talking assassination, I've harassed secretaries—I've even tried to pick a fight with one of my gang foremen. He very rightly told me that what I needed to do was go and see the woman who was driving me crazy.” He smiled faintly. “So I did. The story was just an excuse.” His big shoulders lifted and fell. “I've missed you.”

She could have walked on air. The words rippled over her like magic, and her wide, olive eyes held his without blinking until her toes curled. “I thought I was going to die,” she said, trying to smile. But the smile dissolved into tears, and as her lips trembled, his covered them very softly.

He lifted her and sat down with her on the sofa. “Whatever happens, it's you and me,” he whispered against her cheek. His lips touched her closed eyelids, sipping away the tears. “If all we do for the rest of our lives is sit and hold hands, that's all right, too.”

She really cried then, clinging to his neck, shivering with the anguished pleasure of having his arms around her, feeling his powerful body so close and warm against her. The fragrance of his spicy cologne filled her nostrils, the scent drowning her in sensation as his mouth parted against hers and he began to kiss her with a startling tenderness.

“Don't cry,” he whispered.

“I thought you hated me,” she mumbled tearfully. “I wanted to run the car over a cliff...!”

“And I'd have been two steps behind you,” he bit off against her mouth. “My God, don't ask me to try and live without you! I can't bear the thought of it,” he groaned.

She couldn't think. His mouth was slow and warm and exquisitely demanding. She lifted her arms around his neck and clung to him clumsily, but he didn't seem to mind. He cared for her. Just knowing it made everything all right, made the world bright with color again. Bowie was the world.

She found his hand and took the cigarette from it, leaning over to toss it into an ashtray.

“Weren't you through with it?” she whispered.

“I didn't even remember that I had it,” he whispered back, smiling.

She caught his fingers in hers and brought them gently to her breast, feeling his whole body go taut as she uncurled them against the warm, soft rise.

“I'm going to try, so hard,” she whispered, looking up into his black eyes as he held his hand against her body. “Because I don't want to spend the rest of my life as I am, Bowie.”

He looked down at the soft blouse where his hand rested. “We can't go as far as we did the other night. I'm afraid to risk it.”

“Then, one step at a time,” she whispered. “The way you said we would.”

He searched her eyes. The love shining out of them made him feel humble. “Gaby...could you forgive me, if it ever did go all the way?”

She reached up and touched his hard mouth. “I love you,” she said simply. “Of course I could.” She nuzzled her forehead against his chin, loving the soft caress of his fingers, the sound of skin against fabric loud in the stillness even though the television was still blaring. She liked the sensations she was feeling, and the fear had already diminished. She smiled. “Bowie... I'm sorry I hurt you that time, but it changed things for me.”

He kissed her forehead. “How?”

“Because I didn't know that men were vulnerable, too.”

He lifted his head, frowning. “What?”

“Well, it was always that loss of control that scared me so,” she explained. “But when I realized why you lost control, it put a new perspective on things. You were as helpless as I was, weren't you?”

“I don't damned well like admitting it,” he said irritably. “But, yes, I guess men are helpless when they get that hot.”

“It made me feel less threatened,” she said. “Do you understand? It made everything so much less frightening.”

“There's something else you don't know,” he replied quietly. “Something you haven't considered.”