Desert Devil Read online

  Mrs. Taylor broke it by pleasantly changing the subject. "I saw the lovely photographs you took of Juli. I've never understood why you've always avoided photographing people when you do it so nicely."

  "I thought you made it a rule not to photograph people," Nicole interjected sourly.

  Thorne barely glanced at Nicole. Instead, with a meaningful look at Juli, he said, "There is an old saying that rules are made to be broken. I'm sure that is especially true with a subject as photogenic as Juli."

  He smiled at her, a smile that unexpectedly rocketed her to dizzying heights. He was trying to make up and apologize for all that had happened last night, and he was doing it where it mattered most, where Nicole could not fail to see. All Juli's anger and suspicions melted in a blaze of feeling that she was suddenly afraid exposed her love for all the world to see. She felt glad and tremulous and frightened and hopeful all rolled together. Whatever had gone wrong between them last night was nothing that couldn't be straightened out. Thorne's apology was hardly a humble pleading for forgiveness, but coming from him she knew it meant more than the most abject of apologies from many other men.

  Finally, Thorne glanced at his watch and stood up. "Having lunch with three beautiful ladies has been most enjoyable, but it's time I was getting back to work. Juli, would you walk with me to the gate? There's something I'd like to discuss with you."

  Juli set her glass on the table and wiped damp hands on a napkin. She felt as if she had been on an emotional roller coaster ride during the last twenty-four hours, swooping up or down as Thorne's whim directed. And now the ride was about to come to some kind of a conclusion.

  Chapter Nine

  They walked to the gate, Juli's heart thundering and her back feeling the stab of Nicole's venomous glances. It gave her an odd feeling to realize jealousy was behind Nicole's anger. Nicole, beautiful, pampered, and half-owner of the company, was jealous of her. That thought was forgotten as they reached the gate and she wondered frantically what Thorne was going to say. Did he want to talk to her about last night or the trip to Tucson? Perhaps admit he was wrong in his accusations? But she couldn't let him take all the blame for what had almost happened between them last night. She had wanted it, too. Thorne opened the gate, neither of them having yet spoken a word.

  "What did you want to discuss?" Juli faltered.

  Without answering, he took her hand and pulled her partway through the open gate. With a deft gesture he slid his other arm around her waist and molded her body against his.

  A small gasp escaped Juli's startled lips. He hadn't pulled the gate shut. Mrs. Taylor's back was to them, but they were in Nicole's full view and Juli knew Thorne must be aware of that fact.

  "Thorne—please, people are watching!" She made a small effort to pull back.

  He grinned, a devil-may-care flash of white teeth, and only held her more tightly. "Let them watch."

  "Thorne, really, maybe we should talk—"

  "We've talked too much already. I can say everything there is to say like this."

  With calm deliberateness, his other arm encircled her back and his dark head bent to meet her lips. And in that instant Juli forgot everything—forgot Nicole's spiteful gaze, forgot everything except the feel of his mouth and his hard, masculine body, forgot everything except the wild rapture of being in the arms of the man she loved.

  Juli took a cab home a few minutes later. The Porsche was still out front for her use, but a remnant of pride that lingered beneath her joy kept her from using it. Because, if she took Thorne's car to the trailer, Thorne obviously would be obligated to come and get it. She wanted to do nothing that could possibly be construed as conniving or scheming on her part to manipulate Thorne into doing anything.

  She was vaguely aware of the angry glitter in Nicole's eyes, but now she felt a sort of pity for the older girl. Juli knew it was jealousy that prompted the anger, and she had felt those searing pangs herself when she earlier thought Thorne was in love with Nicole. Even now she had to admit to a small twinge of her own jealousy in the knowledge that Nicole would be right there in the house with Thorne with every opportunity to work her charms on him. Charms to which Thorne had earlier not been immune…

  Resolutely, she put such thoughts out of her mind. Nothing was going to mar her happiness this wonderful day, not with the feel of Thorne's mouth still burning on hers, not with the look in his eyes promising far more to come. Whatever had happened in the past was all over now, and Thorne had seemed not only immune to, but quite oblivious to, Nicole's charms today. Not that Nicole had been exactly charming, Juli thought with a certain wry amusement as she remembered Nicole's venomous glances and acid voice.

  When the cab let her off at the trailer, Juli felt as if she had been gone days or weeks, rather than hours. The real estate salesman's card was stuck in the door, showing he had been there while she was gone. There was also a note from Brian. He sounded a bit querulous as he wrote that since she had no phone with which he could contact her that he had driven out Sunday evening and then found she wasn't home. He left a phone number and asked her to call him.

  She intended to call him. She really did intend to, but the truth was she simply forgot all about him until his car pulled into the yard Tuesday evening. Her mind had been too full of thoughts of Thorne, full of the wonder of her love for him and the growing feeling that her love was returned.

  "You're certainly a hard person to get hold of," he grumbled as he came up the trailer steps. "I was beginning to get worried about you."

  "No need to worry. I've just been busy," Juli said brightly. She peered out the door at the clouds glowering over the ridge. "I think it's going to rain."

  "It's about time," Brian snorted. "Day after day of sunshine just isn't normal. You never have a day just to lie around and feel grumpy and blame it all on the weather."

  Juli laughed. "You seem to be managing."

  Brian laughed, too. "I think I'm grumpy because I came out hoping to take you to a movie Sunday evening and you weren't here. I can see I'm going to have to take up sending smoke signals… or making plans further in advance."

  Juli had the feeling he was about to issue some invitation she would probably hurt his feelings by rejecting, and she quickly interrupted with an offer of coffee.

  He added cream and sugar after she poured coffee and set the cup in front of him. "I hoped I'd have something more helpful to report about your cousin David, but I'm afraid all I've learned is more of the same."

  It seemed so long ago that Juli had found David's papers about the lost gold mine that it was with a sense of shock that she realized she had never told Brian about any of her findings. Very briefly she did so now, concluding, "It was unfair of me to be so suspicious of Taylor Electronics' offer to Aunt Kate. I know now that they're under no obligation, not even a moral one, to pay her anything. It was just a very generous gesture on Thorne's—Mr. Taylor's—part."

  Brian glanced up sharply at her use of Thorne's first name, but he made no comment on it. "I think you are the one being generous, or naive, if you think Thorne Taylor did anything out of pure generosity," he said cynically. "He and his lawyers and accountants probably figured it all out very carefully on a cost/benefit ratio. A sweet little old lady suing the company could make for very bad publicity."

  Thorne had said practically the same thing himself, but somehow the statement grated on Juli's ears coming with Brian's measured cynicism. "I'm just glad Aunt Kate is getting the money," Juli said finally, half-annoyed because, the way Brian phrased it, she did come off sounding naive for believing Thorne had been generous. But then, she thought firmly, Brian didn't know Thorne the way she did.

  "Nicole Taylor was at the plant today," Brian went on unexpectedly. "I understand she gets the urge every once in a while to play company owner and throw her weight around. Probably another reason Thorne Taylor would like to get a ring on her finger as quick as he can. He'd no doubt have a little more control over her then."

  Juli tri
ed to conceal a quick stab of dismay. She put her cup down so the sudden tremor in her hand wouldn't be so obvious. "From what I've seen, Nicole is probably the one in a hurry," she suggested.

  "Hard to tell," Brian reflected. "I'd say she holds all the high cards. Thorne needs her more than she needs him. He'd be in a real fix if she up and married someone else the way she married Jason so suddenly. Thorne would find half the company completely out from under his control, and I'm sure he's not about to let that happen."

  "Do you think she's interested in someone else?" Juli asked tentatively.

  "I imagine Thorne wonders what she does with her evenings up in Scottsdale," Brian said, nodding his head sagely. "He's not about to forget how she threw him over once to marry someone else and that she might do it again."

  "She must wonder what he does with his evenings here in Cholla," Juli returned.

  "True," Brian agreed. He laughed. "Somehow I have the feeling they deserve each other."

  "But surely you don't think a man would marry purely for business reasons, do you?" Juli protested. "I mean, a man like Thorne Taylor seems too—" Juli broke off awkwardly. The word that came to her mind to describe Thorne was passionate, and she didn't dare use that. "Surely a man like Thorne Taylor would think love was important, too."

  Brian reached across the plastic-topped table and patted her hand as if she were a child. "Juli, you are naive. You don't think Thorne is going to let a little thing like marriage interfere with his love life, do you? Once he gets Nicole safely in hand, he'll do exactly as he pleases. Maybe that's why she'd rather come down here and play house with him occasionally than marry him. Once she actually marries Thorne, she loses her trump card, her threat that she might up and marry someone else." He paused. "And then again, maybe he really is madly in love with her and will be completely faithful. She's not exactly unattractive, you know."

  "I think that plant must be a rumor mill, and you've been listening to too many of them," Juli said lightly, managing to sound much more unconcerned than she felt.

  "There's another thing, too," Brian said reflectively.

  He held his cup out for a coffee refill and, a little reluctantly, Juli went to the stove for the pot. She didn't like listening to Brian's suppositions and rumors, and yet there was a certain morbid fascination about hearing them.

  "I doubt that Thorne really gives a damn about what people think," Brain went on. "Oh, he may give lip service to the proprieties, but he's not about to let them interfere with his life."

  "I don't see what you're getting at," Juli said cautiously, curious in spite of herself.

  "It hasn't been all that long since Jason's death. If Nicole and Thorne marry too soon, it's going to be obvious they had something going while Jason was still alive. As I said, Thorne probably couldn't care less what people think, but Nicole quite likely does. Mama Taylor might even take a dim view of her former daughter-in-law marrying her son too soon."

  "Surely Mrs. Taylor wouldn't put all the blame on Nicole. Thorne has to share some responsibility," Juli protested. Then she realized that .she had somehow gotten into the absurd position of defending Nicole in this conversation.

  "I doubt that her darling son could do anything wrong in Mama Taylor's eyes," Brian said.

  Juli struggled to hold her temper and keep her expression unconcerned. It was true, of course, that Mrs. Taylor did seem quite tolerant of her son's behavior. Her easy acceptance of Juli's presence at the house Monday morning seemed to verify that. But calling that gracious, dignified woman by the sneeringly familiar term "Mama Taylor" seemed almost a sacrilege.

  Neither could Juli accept what Brian was saying about Thorne's eagerness to rush Nicole into marriage. At one time she might have believed it, but not after the lunch at his pool. To use Brian's blunt terms, Thorne obviously hadn't cared a damn about what Nicole thought or felt. He couldn't have held and kissed Juli with such passion in front of Nicole's very eyes if he did care, to say nothing of his blatant insinuations that they had spent the previous night in the same bed.

  And yet, in spite of all that, there was a tiny nagging doubt way back in one corner of Juli's mind—a small, niggling suspicion that perhaps she was incredibly naive, that not all was what it appeared to be in Thorne's and Nicole's sophisticated world.

  "I don't know how we got off on this subject," Brian said suddenly. "I came out to see if you'd like to take in a movie. Or maybe go bowling." Seeing something negative in Juli's expression, he added hopefully, "Maybe just a drink? That wouldn't take long."

  "Thanks, anyway, but I don't think so," Juli said firmly. "I'm really rather tired and it's starting to rain."

  "Would you like to run up to Phoenix some week-end? It has a little more than Cholla to offer in the way of restaurants and entertainment."

  "Maybe sometime," Juli said with deliberate vagueness. She stood up in what she hoped was a signal for him to go.

  "I'll check with you later in the week, then," he said, evidently realizing this was not the most propitious moment to ask.

  She nodded, and finally he was gone. The rain was falling quite steadily now and the air smelled fresh-washed and springy. Juli stood in the open doorway, filling her lungs with the air, determinedly discarding Brian's gossipy rumors. He meant no harm, of that she was sure, but there was something insidious about gossip and rumors. She would not leave her mind open to the damage they could do.

  The rain had let up somewhat by morning, but the overcast sky was threatening more. Juli felt restless. She had done about all she could with cleaning the trailer. The weather didn't invite walking, and she didn't feel like reading. About mid-morning she decided fresh paint on the cabinets would brighten the kitchen considerably. She drove into town to pick up paint and a brush, plus a few groceries.

  When she returned to the trailer, she found another of the real estate salesman's cards stuck in her door. She had somehow pushed into the back of her mind any thought that the property might sell very soon, so it was with stunned shock that she read the brief note on the back of the card. The property had just been sold. The deal was simple and straightforward: cash and no quibbling over price. He wanted her in the office that afternoon to sign some papers.

  Juli dumped her sacks on the kitchen table, still stunned. She didn't want the place to sell—not now!

  What would she do? She couldn't just up and leave Cholla—and Thorne. The very thought made her feel dizzy and empty. Why, oh, why, did it have to sell now!

  Unhappily, Juli glanced at her watch. It was almost noon. The salesman probably wouldn't be back in the office until later. She paced the floor. Could she turn down the offer? But that wouldn't be fair to Aunt Kate. Getting the full asking price, and in cash, was a deal that couldn't be rejected.

  What would Thorne say? Would he ask her somehow to stay, perhaps even ask… more? Ever since Monday morning she'd had the quivery feeling that they were on the brink of something beautiful and wonderful. And now fate had seen fit to jerk the rug out from under her!

  She struggled through a sandwich for lunch, hardly noticing what she ate. But by the time she headed back to town, one possible solution had occurred to her. The buyer must plan to develop the property into home-sites, because that was where the value lay. And in that case the buyer was probably in no particular hurry to take possession. Just a few weeks, Juli thought tremulously, might make a lifetime of difference to her.

  The real estate office was surprisingly busy when Juli walked in. The salesman waved her to a seat and said he'd be with her in a few minutes. He finally rushed over between customers and handed her some papers..

  "The final papers will have to go back to your aunt for her signature, of course, but your signature on these will get things started." He handed her a pen. "You couldn't ask for a better deal. Quick and clean—no ifs or ands or other conditions. I wish we had more deals like this."

  Juli took the pen hesitantly. "I hope the buyers aren't in a hurry to take possession. I'd like to… to s
tay on here a little longer."

  The salesman looked surprised. "As a matter of fact, that was the one point upon which the buyer was quite insistent. Immediate possession. I was under the impression you wanted to return home as quickly as possible, so I didn't think you'd object."

  "Immediate possession?" Juli echoed in dismay. "What does that mean?"

  "Today, I gathered, if you could make it. But if you can get out by the end of the week, that will probably be satisfactory." He laughed. "When the Taylors want something, they don't fool around."

  Juli stared at him wide-eyed. "Not… not the Taylors of Taylor Electronics?" she asked faintly.

  "One and the same," he said cheerfully. He winked. "If I'd had any idea they might be interested, we might have upped the price a bit. But it's still a darned good deal. You won't find many buyers with all that cash."

  Juli was hardly hearing. Thorne had bought the place and he wanted her out. Now. Why? The answer was all too obvious. He wanted to get rid of her as quickly as possible, and this was the easiest way. Juli felt dizzy with bewilderment. What had changed his mind since the lunch at his pool, when he had seemed so affectionate and kissed her so passionately? She had thought he was falling in love with her the way she had already fallen for him—and now this! With heart-stopping realization, Juli suddenly knew there had been no change in him, that his interest and affection had been nothing but a carefully calculated phony pretense.

  "Miss Townsend, are you all right?" the salesman asked with concern. He reached out to steady her as she swayed.

  Her mind was too numb even to fabricate an explanation for her unsteadiness. With eyes blurred with tears, she simply signed on the empty line he indicated, jammed her copies into her purse, and fled before she broke down completely.

  Somehow she managed to make her way back to the car and she sat there clutching the steering wheel with unfeeling hands, grateful for the fresh downpour of rain that concealed her from passersby. Desperately, she searched for some explanation that would reveal that Thorne had purchased the property as a helpful gesture. Perhaps as a further help to Aunt Kate. That hopeful explanation was so weak that it scarcely deserved consideration, and she knew she was naive even to consider it. Brain had been right, she thought grimly. Thorne did nothing out of pure generosity.