Desert Devil (12 page)

"You consider a kiss in broad daylight seduction? Oh, come now, Juli," he chided, "I don't think you're that innocent."

"I have no intention of discussing my… my innocence with you," Juli said. His touch was wildly distracting. She wasn't sure the words even came out coherently. Like some wild animal caught in a trap, she jerked away to escape the trap of his eyes and touch.

The mesmerizing spell snapped, but he didn't let her go. He grabbed her roughly by the arm.

"I intended to come over, flowers in hand, and apologize," he said grimly. "I figured you really were damned upset and I couldn't blame you. But when I went to the florist's shop, there you were standing on the street corner, all dressed up, smiling and talking to some guy as if you hadn't a care in the world. I suppose it was Eames you were with, wasn't it?"

"I wasn't
with
him—"

"Oh, no? I waited by your car for a while, and when you didn't come back I went looking for you. I presume you noticed me when I saw you in that bar. Or maybe you didn't, you were so busy drinking and laughing and letting him get an eyeful of you in that dress."

"It wasn't that way at all!" Juli gasped.

"And here I'd been worried about what I'd done and how upset you were," he said contemptuously. "That was when I realized you'd probably rather have the money than any apology from me. Money seems to be what you consider most important."

Juli stared at him, horrified and sickened at the way he made it all sound so cheap and tawdry. His biting fingers suddenly released her and she staggered slightly.

"But let me give you one little piece of advice. Stay away from Brian Eames," he warned.

"Why? And what gives you the right to give me advice about Brian or… or anything else?" she demanded.

"Because—" He hesitated almost imperceptibly, eyes narrowing. "Because he's ambitious and self-centered, and you'll wind up getting hurt."

"I don't see anything wrong with ambition," Juli said defiantly. That tiny moment of hesitation puzzled her, and so did his rather petty criticism of Brian. Then she realized what it must mean. "And that isn't the
real
reason you don't want me around Brian!"

"No?"

"You don't want me around Brian because you're afraid I might find out something you don't want me to know! Something about David. Something that will prove—"

His lean jaw tightened. "Don't be ridiculous."

He broke off as a slim figure in a well-filled-out green T-shirt came toward them. "Thorne, there you are. Where have you been? I've been looking all over for you." Nicole didn't see Juli until Thorne moved to one side. She stopped short, then stepped up to take a firmly possessive grip on Thorne's arm. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

Thorne introduced the two women smoothly, without a trace of embarrassment or awkwardness. "Or perhaps you've already met?" he added pleasantly.

At that moment Nicole's dark eyes suddenly widened with recognition. Juli felt a certain grim satisfaction that today she did not look like some waif desperately in need of a job.

"Yes, of course," Nicole agreed coolly. "You came by the house looking for Thorne a few days ago." She glanced up at him, a hint of a frown wrinkling her flawless skin. "I see you found him."

"Yes," Juli agreed. "And we've taken care of our business. So if you'll excuse me?"

"Yes, certainly. It was nice meeting you," Nicole said in the impersonal tone of a person making a polite remark to someone she never expects to see again. She turned back to Thorne, dismissing Juli. "It's time to start serving the food. And there's our announcement to make, too, of course."

Announcement
. Juli stumbled away. So, in spite of Thorne's mocking comment about not believing rumors, they were going to announce their engagement today. Her throat suddenly felt dry. Somehow she felt as if he had made a fool of her. Again. But she wouldn't let it show. She wouldn't! She held her back rigid, her hands clenched on her purse. And somehow she managed to walk contemptuously across that hundred-dollar bill without so much as a downward glance.

Juli and Brian stood in the long line of people that stretched from the serving table into the driveway. Up ahead the company executives were lined up on the opposite side of the table. It was company tradition, Brian said in his usual half-amused, half-disparaging tone, that on this day the executives served the other employees first and ate last themselves. Brian's boss, Dr. Johnson, flourished a large ladle as he prepared to dish up chili. Brian pointed out other V.I.P.'s dishing up salads and serving drinks. The two places at the head of the line, near the huge slabs of barbecued beef, were conspicuously empty.

Then Juli spied them, Thorne helping Nicole up the steps of the pavilion near the band, then leaping lithely to the raised floor himself. Nicole slipped her hand through Thorne's arm as someone brought them a microphone. Juli's appetite suddenly vanished, and she tried to steel herself to show no reaction to the announcement that was coming.

Thorne started out by welcoming everyone, telling them how glad he and Nicole were that they had all come. His only regret was that someone important was missing this year, his brother Jason. Then, more briskly, he added, "Now we have an important announcement to make, one I'm sure you'll all be pleased to hear."

All but one, Juli thought bleakly. She refused to examine why it should matter so much to her that Thorne and Nicole were getting married. Outside of that volatile physical electricity that arced between them, there was certainly nothing between herself and this man talking with such assured self-confidence over the microphone. She only knew that somehow it
did
matter, that her hands felt damp and her throat dry.

"In less than a week, we'll be breaking ground to start building on the next stage of the company's planned expansion program!"

Thorne sounded pleased and almost excited and the crowd applauded, but Juli just stared in astonishment until Brian prodded her to move with the line. Thorne and Nicole weren't announcing their engagement; they were just announcing the start of a new company building program!

Juli's appetite surged back and she loaded her plate with potato and macaroni salads, tiny cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, carrot sticks, and tortilla chips, plus a chunk of crispy Indian fry bread, and a big bowl of chili topped with shredded cheese. Brian looked a little astonished and made some laughing comment about wondering how she kept her gorgeous figure if she always ate like that. Juli just laughed back, feeling oddly light-hearted and giddy. The giddy feeling turned to shakiness when she came to Nicole and Thorne, handing out generous slices of beef expertly carved by Thorne.

Nicole's smooth brow creased ever so slightly in a frown when she saw Juli, but she said nothing. Thorne made some impersonal remark about hoping she enjoyed her meal, much the same as he was saying to everyone. Juli was uncertain whether she was relieved or disappointed, but in any case she thoroughly enjoyed the excellent food. Afterward, they went back for cherry pie and ice cream, plus a piece of genuine cactus candy. It tasted a little like her grandmother's old-fashioned watermelon preserves.

By the time Brian took her home, Juli was tired and a bit bemused by the day's events. What was the relationship between Thorne and Nicole? They were more than business associates, that much seemed obvious, and yet…

And yet, what difference did it make one way or the other? Juli chided herself over the next few days. It didn't change the things Thorne had done, his suspicious offer of payment to Aunt Kate, the "accidental" ripping of Juli's blouse, his arrogant suggestion that she would rather have money than an apology. And then warning her to stay away from Brian! He made her furious, and yet even in the midst of that fury she was all too apt to find herself reacting to his virile presence, melting under his touch. With an oddly hollow feeling inside, she realized she quite likely would never see him again.

The real estate agent brought a prospective buyer out Tuesday. Juli continued to clean and sort through David's things. She took a big pile of books to a second-hand store, books on subjects ranging from electronics to geology, Arizona history to Indian lore. On Thursday she decided to open up the hide-a-bed in the living room and vacuum the mattress. To her surprise she found there was no mattress inside, just a folded blanket. When she lifted the blanket, papers fluttered everywhere, pages and pages of notes and diagrams and maps. One map appeared to be on old parchment, the lines faded, the paper folded and refolded so many times that a brittle piece of it broke off in her hand.

Juli looked at the papers, bewildered. Why had David hidden them in the sofa? Because they were hidden, there was no doubt about that. This was not just another of David's haphazard piles of old junk.

Some of the notes were on quite technical geological subjects. Others were numbered in reference to corresponding numbers on various maps, most of which looked like copies of the parchment map. There was a page of dates and figures that appeared to show times of sunrise and sunset at various times of the year. And there were pages and pages of rambling notes in which David seemed to have been more or less talking to himself on paper, putting forth various theories about the location of something.

And then a few shocking words and phrases leaped out of the notes at her. David saying to himself that he doubted if this problem had ever been approached on a really scientific basis before, that he was certain he had achieved a real scientific breakthrough by correlating geological, historical, and personal investigative data.
Scientific breakthrough
.

This was what David had been working on, Juli realized with a sense of shock. Not some electronic invention or development, either on his own or for the company, but
this
. And what, exactly, was this?

Juli sank into a chair and studied the papers again. She finally figured out that David had been searching for a mine, a gold mine that he referred to as the Lost Dutchman's Mine, that had been lost for many years. He had, she also realized, evidently paid someone a rather large amount of money for the old map. The mine was somewhere in the Superstition Mountains. The name jarred her. That was where Jason Taylor had slipped and fallen to his death! Could David have had something to do with that death? Juli wondered in horror.

With shaky relief she read on as David talked to himself about Jason's death, his scorn coming through as he said Jason was searching in the wrong area entirely, an area David himself had never been near.
Perhaps the accident serves him right, however, for going behind my back and cheating on our previous agreement
, David had written. David sounded callous and certainly evidenced no great regret over Jason's death, but neither did he sound involved or responsible. With a jolt Juli remembered something Brian had told her, that Jason Taylor's hobby was looking for old mines. So it wasn't Thorne and Taylor Electronics whom David thought had cheated him in the past, she realized. It was Jason Taylor.

Stunned and incredulous, Juli gathered the papers into a neat stack. Whatever had gotten into David to let his work at the company suffer while he chased after some lost gold mine? It was incredible, so unlike what she thought she knew of David, and yet it was all there for her to see. It explained the collections of rocks he had piled all over the place, rocks he evidently thought had some geological significance in relation to the gold. It explained his absences from work, because he was out looking for the gold mine when he should have been on the job. Juli just stood there, shocked and stunned.