Miss Greenhorn (6 page)

“You could wind up in somebody's stewing pot in the jungle,” she felt obliged to point out.

He shrugged. “Death is nothing more than transition from one plane of existence to another, Christy. Why be afraid of it?”

“That's a different way of thinking about it,” she said, taken aback by his easy acceptance of something that was, to her, formidable.

“My parents were missionaries,” he grinned. “I grew up in places where you could wind up in a stew pot. That's why I'm not afraid of it.”

“Oh, I see.” She smiled at him. “I guess your childhood was a lot more exciting than mine.”

“You're from Jacksonville, aren't you?” he asked.

She nodded. “It's a great place to live. But I like Arizona,” she added, and her eyes went dreamy.

George grimaced. It wasn't hard to see why she liked it. He sipped his orange juice and wondered why he couldn't be more dashing.

Later, Christy sat with him while they worked at the dig, poring over pottery pieces. He didn't know that her mind was on the way Nate Lang had kissed her the night before and his strange behavior afterward and today.

Nate didn't come around all day, and he wasn't at supper. Christy called Joyce Ann because she was bored and sad and nervous and needed to talk.

“Are you getting homesick?” her older sister asked hopefully.

“Not really,” Christy began.

“Well, Harry must miss you. He's called three times already. Look, Christy, I know he leaves a lot to be desired, but he'd take good care of you…”

“I know that, Joyce Ann,” she told the older woman gently. She couldn't blame her sister for wanting to see her settled and secure. But Harry was not at all her idea of the husband she wanted to spend her life with.

“Tell me you aren't getting involved with that man you told me about,” Joyce Ann said suddenly. “A holiday romance is one thing, but you won't do something silly like getting in over your head with a stranger, will you?”

Christy's heart jumped. Amazing, how easily her sister read her. “Of course not,” she protested. “I mean, there are a lot of men out here. George works with me at the dig. He's a college senior and a very nice boy.”

“But he isn't the one you've got your eye on. Who is?”

She gave in to the need to tell someone. “His name is Nathanial,” she said. “He's a miner.”

“Oh, my God! A caveman!”

Christy burst out laughing. “No! He works in an office, not down a mine shaft. He's tall and rugged-looking, and very smart. He has a huge computer.”

“And money?” Joyce Ann asked shrewdly.

“He and his mother own this ranch,” she said.

“A mama's boy!”

“No!” She shook her hair back. “Joyce Ann, he's a very mature—”

“How old?”

“I don't really know. I guess he's in his middle thirties.”

“So is Harry.”

“Harry is forty and paunchy and about as romantic as Jell-O!”

“Speaking for myself, I find Jell-O with whipped cream on top very romantic indeed.”

Christy sat back in her chair, curling the telephone cord around her fingers. “Harry doesn't love me, and I sure don't love him.”

“Well, don't tell me you love the Arizona caveman,” Joyce Ann scoffed, “because you don't fall in love in just a few days.”

“Don't you?” Christy asked sadly. “I don't suppose it matters anyway, because he doesn't seem to feel that way about me. He takes me places and then goes off and ignores me.”

“Does he?” There was new interest in her sister's voice. “Gets mad, does he?”

“He seems to stay that way. And he looks at me in the oddest way.” She crossed her long legs. “Anyway, I don't suppose he'd be interested seriously in a schoolteacher from the East. He's rich and good-looking and has his pick of women. I don't imagine he has any trouble finding them, either. This ranch always has women guests, and most of them are rich.”

“Rich doesn't buy love.”

“So they say, but it makes it easier to digest, I'll bet. Joyce Ann, how would you like to hear about the
Hohokam
?”

“Not long-distance, darling, you'll go bankrupt. You can tell me about them when you come home. When are you coming home, Christy?”

“In another week,” Christy replied, feeling already the pain of parting from Nate. She'd only known him for a few days, but it felt like years and she couldn't bear the thought of leaving him.

“Don't sound so morose. Harry says he's going to meet you at the airport with a dozen roses.”

The thought of Harry with a dozen roses in his arms made her burst out laughing. She got Joyce Ann started, and then they began to reminisce about the old days, when their parents were still alive. Joyce Ann could be a pain, but it was so nice not to be alone in the world.

As she said good night and hung up, she wondered how she was going to manage if she had to go home and fight off Harry's practical proposal all over again.

T
he next day was Saturday, and the team was given the weekend off. A trail ride was planned for guests at the ranch, along with a shopping trip to town, a small rodeo, and a camping trip that night in the mountains behind the ranch. It would be a full day, but all Christy saw were the regular wranglers. She hadn't even caught a glimpse of Nate, and some of the joy and excitement went out of the activities because he wasn't around.

George, of course, stuck to her like glue. He was delighted to have a partner for the trail ride. The only thing was, he apparently couldn't ride at all. He was allergic to horses and obviously terrified of them. What happened was probably inevitable, Christy thought as she watched the horse he was on begin to buck. George came off the horse, landing flat on his back in the dust, with the breath knocked out of him.

She and Mrs. Lang fussed over him while one of the men was delegated to take him to town to be X-rayed. He was limping a little, but Christy was almost sure no real damage had been done. George was just enjoying the attention he was getting. He asked her to ride into town with them, but before she could answer, Nate came striding up and appropriated her with only a brief sympathetic word to George and a nod to his mother.

“George is hurt,” she protested.

“George is a blithering idiot,” he said shortly. He glared down at her as he propelled her back toward the barn. “And I'll be damned if he's going to monopolize you with that fake fall.”

“But it wasn't fake…!”

He turned her to him within sight of the other guests mounting their horses. “Listen. Your friend George hit hard, but he knew how to fall, surely you noticed that?”

She had noticed, although she hadn't suspected that George had done it on purpose. She stared up at Nate curiously.

He hated that look. He couldn't decide if she was sophisticated and trying to pretend she wasn't, or if that innocence was real. She was full of contradictions and he didn't know whether he was coming or going lately.

Frowning, he stared down at her, his eyes suddenly kindling as the look took on new dimensions, made her knees weak, her breath come in faint gasps. The magic was there again, as potent as ever.

“Where are we going?” she asked, trying to break the spell before she gave in to it again.

“Riding,” he said.

“But, I can't…!”

“I'll teach you.” He took her hand and led her into the stable where two of the cowboys were busily saddling horses for the guests. “Bud!” he called to one of them. “Saddle Blue for Christy.”

“Yes, sir!”

The young cowboy moved toward an older horse, a palomino, and Christy watched with delight as it was saddled and led to her.

“This is Blue,” Nate told her, thanking the cowboy as he took the reins. “Blue was my birthday present when I was fifteen. He's twenty-two now, and he doesn't get ridden much, but he likes a leisurely trail ride now and again. He's very gentle. He won't throw you.”

She moved toward the horse and lifted a hesitant hand to his soft muzzle. He let her stroke him, his big brown eyes kind and watchful.

“Oh, he's beautiful!” Christy exclaimed. “What a nice boy,” she cooed as she stroked his forehead. “Nice old fellow.”

“Here, give him this and he'll be your friend for life. Mind your fingers, though.” He handed her a sugar cube, which she fed to the horse. “We don't let him have much sugar these days. It isn't good for him to get overweight, but he's got a sweet tooth.”

“I guess you could ride from the time you could sit up,” she mused.

“Almost,” he agreed. “My dad put me in the saddle when I was four and kept me there until I learned to ride the way he thought I should. He was a former rodeo star. His son had to be the best, at everything, on horseback.”

The deep, angry note in his voice caught her attention. She looked up at him.

He laughed when he saw the way she was looking at him. “I'll bet your dad spoiled you rotten,” he murmured.

“My parents died when I was twelve,” she said. “Joyce Ann raised me. She's been more mother than big sister all my life.”

He brushed the hair back from her face, gently. “My kids aren't going to be pushed into doing things they don't want to do,” he said.

“Neither are mine,” she replied.

He searched her eyes. “We're different in coloring,” he murmured, lifting her hand in his to study it. “My skin is much darker than yours, like my hair and my eyes.”

“I take after my mother,” she said. “Her grandmother was Norwegian.”

He smiled. “I take after my mother, too. Her mother was Spanish.”

“I thought she might be. She's still very lovely.”

“Yes.” He let go of her hand, disturbed at the images that had been dancing around in his brain. He couldn't help but wonder if he and Christy had kids, which one of their parents the children would favor. Those weren't thoughts he should be considering. This was just a holiday romance, he told himself firmly.

He helped Christy into the saddle, trying not to laugh as she tugged and panted her way onto the horse with his help.

“My goodness, it's much harder than it looks on television!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, you should be overweight and try it,” he murmured dryly. “Riding a horse is pretty easy compared to getting on and off one. It just takes practice.”

She was still panting, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “I guess so.”

“You shouldn't ride longer than an hour, either,” he added as he went to get his own mount.

“Why?”

He swung into the saddle with the ease of years of practice and moved his horse up to hers. “Because you're going to discover that you use muscles you didn't know you had. By tonight you'll be walking bowlegged, and tomorrow you'll be stiff as a board.”

She fingered the reins. “I don't suppose there's a van going to church?”

He chuckled. That was a nice touch, he thought to himself. She was really putting on the act for him. “No. Most of the guests like to sleep late on Sunday. But mother and I go, if you'd like to come.”

She beamed. “Thanks.”

His slate-gray eyes ranged over her face with pure mockery, but she was too far away to see the expression. All she saw was the smile. “Don't pull too hard on those reins.”

He rode off ahead of her, more disturbed than he wanted to let on. If she'd been a hometown girl, if that pose of hers was real, she'd have been everything he'd ever wanted in a wife. As it was…

They headed around the valley and through a small canyon, and while they rode, he told her about the vegetation that grew in the desert and how it held water.

“Notice the leaves,” he said, reining in, indicating one of the prickly pear cacti beside the trail. “If the leaves are fat, it means we've had rain. If they're skinny, we haven't. The leaves on desert plants usually stay thin during periods of drought so that the plant won't require as much moisture. Now, the saguaro is pleated, like an accordion, to allow it to expand with water when it rains.” He crossed his forearms over each other on the pommel and stared at her. “Did you know that a saguaro can weigh up to ten tons? There's a skeleton inside it to support that weight, and most of it is just water. The saguaro doesn't grow an arm until it's from seventy to seventy-five years old. They can live to be two hundred years old.”

She caught her breath. Just looking at the huge cacti in the Saguaro National Monument outside Tucson had fascinated her as they drove through the monument to get to the ranch. But Dr. Adamson hadn't known a lot about the giant cacti, so conversation had centered on the dig, not the vegetation.

“That's not a fraction of fact on the plants here,” he mused, staring out over the desert. “My God, a botanist could spend his life learning about desert plants. The
Papago
use them for medicine, for food, for liquor. They make flour from the dried pods of palo verde and mesquite. They fry or boil the leaves on prickly pear cacti for food. They make a kind of beer from the fruit of the prickly pear and the saguaro. I could go on for hours.”

“I could listen for hours,” she replied. “I'd like to take pictures of those plants for my class back home. The children would enjoy learning about a different kind of vegetation than they're used to.”

He frowned as he looked at her. If she really was an elementary school teacher—and everything pointed to it—that one fact didn't jibe with what he thought she was. If she led a wild life, wouldn't the education department protest? And how could she settle for such a tame career, if she was the pretty little flirt she'd convinced him she was? It didn't make sense.

“Why do you teach school?” he asked bluntly.

“I don't know. It just sort of fell into my lap. My father was a teacher. He loved the life, and I loved him.” She smiled. “My mother was an artist. They were terribly mismatched, but it was just as well they died together.” The smile faded. “They were so devoted to each other that one wouldn't have thrived without the other. I suppose I've spent my whole life looking for that kind of love, but maybe it's so rare that it only happens for one couple out of ten thousand.”