Miss Greenhorn (9 page)

Christy smiled gently. “Goodnight.”

She knew it was cowardly to back out of church because she couldn't face Nate after what had happened the day before, but it was too much to ask. She was too ashamed of herself. He said that she'd led him on, and maybe she had. She hadn't realized that she was doing it, that was what made it so terrible. She was a greenhorn, all right, in just about every respect.

She got up the next morning after a sleepless night fraught with erotic, violent dreams that kept her tossing all over the bed until dawn. She dragged herself up and took a shower. Then she glared at herself in the mirror, wondering if she shouldn't go whole hog with her repentance and turn herself back into the pitiful wallflower she'd been before she came out here. But that would be silly, she decided, and it wouldn't bother Nate. It would just make people feel sorry for her, and that was the last thing she wanted. But she didn't go to a lot of trouble with the careful makeup she'd used before, and she didn't spend half an hour curling her hair with the styling rod.

She decided to give breakfast a miss, because she might run into Nate. Then she decided to give lunch a miss for the same reason. She had some cookies in her purse. She ate those and drank some water, hating her own cowardice. This wasn't like her, really it wasn't, but her pride and her heart had never been crushed so terribly.

When she didn't come out for lunch, Nate was disturbed because he knew she hadn't had breakfast. She couldn't starve herself, for God's sake! He felt more guilty by the minute for the way he'd hurt her the day before. He should have been a little less cruel, but then, hindsight was a great asset. He wondered how he was going to bear being around her for the rest of her stay, seeing that hurt look in her eyes and knowing he'd put it there. But then, she shouldn't have flirted with him so much, he told himself. And there was still the matter of those clumsy antics to get his attention. She'd asked for it. He had to keep believing that, or he was going to go crazy.

He went into the dining room where guests were going through the buffet line and started to fill a plate for her when he encountered George holding two.

“I thought I'd take Christy something,” he told Nate. “She's feeling kind of low. I guess the man back home called and upset her or something, because she was really depressed yesterday. I don't think she's even come out of her room. I haven't seen her at all.”

Nate felt as if he'd been frozen in his boots. “The man back home?” he prompted.

“The one she's going to marry,” George said miserably. “He's forty and settled, and she says he'll look after her—Here, Mr. Lang, you're about to spill that chicken…”

Nate set the plate on the table and walked out of the room without speaking. He found himself, eventually, out on the desert behind the ranch, standing bareheaded in a stand of spreading creosote bushes in the dirt. The wind whipped through his hair and he felt it, but it hardly registered. Christy was going home to marry someone. She'd been engaged all along and she hadn't told him. She'd let him take her out and make love to her, and then she'd fought free and started spouting excuses.

Was she a virgin? Or was it just guilty conscience because she was betraying the man she'd promised herself to? He wanted to jerk up a creosote bush and beat the desert with it. It might help alleviate some of his bad temper. The woman was driving him crazy! Well, let her go home and marry her settled man, he didn't care! He'd be glad when she was out of his hair and in someone else's, he told himself. Of course he would!

He was so angry and irritable that he locked himself in his study for the rest of the day and didn't even go in to the office. In fact, he didn't even stop working to eat. Let her marry her settled fool. He didn't give a damn.

* * *

Christy avoided the house all day, having an early night. Bless George for bringing her food, because she'd rather have starved than have to face Nate until she'd gotten her nerves settled. George had admitted that he'd told Nate about Harry, and she imagined what Nate was thinking now. He probably had a good picture of her as a two-timing Jezebel. She couldn't win for losing, she thought miserably.

Sure enough, Nate looked at her the next morning as if he hated the sight of her. She was wearing her jeans and a white embroidered smock top for coolness and comfort. She'd put her hair up and she hadn't used any makeup at all. But if she'd hoped to look plain again she didn't succeed. Her face looked young and innocent with her clear complexion, and her hair in its soft bun, leaving her nape bare, gave her a vulnerable air. Nate found her every bit as attractive now as he had when she worked at her makeup and her hairdo and dressed to the hilt. That made him feel even worse. He strode toward his car and went to his office without one single word to her, or to anyone else.

George stuck with her when they went out to the dig, encouraging and kind. Why, oh, why couldn't she have given her heart to him? He wouldn't throw it in the sand and stomp on it the way Nate had!

It was a long day, as Mondays always seemed to be, and the heat was oppressive. She was glad when they were able to go back to the ranch to have lunch under the palo verde trees. But when they got there, everything was in a frenzy. Mrs. Lang was nowhere in sight and one of the maids was trying to set the buffet table, muttering to herself in rapid-fire Spanish.

“What's wrong?” Christy asked gently.

But the answer came in Spanish and Christy had only a little French to her credit. She smiled apologetically, going out to sit with George.

Mrs. Lang, looking harassed and haunted, came out of the house just as everyone lined up for the buffet.

“What's wrong?” Christy asked gently.

“Nate,” came the reply. “There was a cave-in at one of the mines this morning. He was in it when it happened, part of an executive tour.”

Christy went stark white. “Is he alive?” she asked, her voice shaking.

Mrs. Lang studied the young face for a long moment and then she smiled gently and touched the thin shoulder. “Yes, he's alive. Very much alive. Just a little bruised and scratched, but the doctor wanted him to spend the rest of the day in bed, to make sure there are no complications.”

“Oh, thank God.” Christy bit back tears, embarrassed at the way she'd blown her cover. She shook her head to clear the tears, glad that she and Mrs. Lang were standing apart from the archaeological group, so that no one could see her face.

“I've got to go to town and get some prescriptions filled for him,” the older woman said with a calculating stare. “Could you sit with him for me?”

“He wouldn't like that, Mrs. Lang,” Christy said quietly. “It would be better if you asked someone else.”

“No, I don't think so.” She took Christy by the hand and led her firmly down the hall and into Nate's room, where he lay smoldering in his bed with his chest bare and the sheet lying precariously across his lean hips.

“I've asked Miss Haley to sit with you while I go to town for your prescriptions, Nate,” Mrs. Lang said, pretending innocence. “I'll have Nita bring a tray so you can have lunch while I'm gone. I won't be long.”

She was out the door before Christy could argue any more, before Nate could voice the words hanging on the tip of his tongue. He glared at Christy from cold slate eyes, a slash across his forehead and another across his cheek making him look even more dangerous than before. The gashes had been treated with antiseptic, and the one on his forehead was stitched. It would probably leave a scar. There was a bandage on one shoulder, white against the dark tan of his skin. He looked bruised and a little groggy, but formidable just the same.

“I'm sure one of the men wouldn't mind sitting with you…” she began hesitantly, so shy with him that it was painful just to talk to him.

“Sit down,” he said. “I won't bite.”

She colored as she slid into the chair near the bed, sitting stiffly on the very edge of it with her hands folded in her lap.

He studied her with more interest than he wanted to show, from the color in her cheeks to the rapid movement of her blouse. He made her nervous. He could see her eyes darting reluctantly over his bare, hair-roughened chest and away, as if the sight of him fascinated her. Once it would have amused him, even flattered him. But now he knew the truth about her, and he hated her attention.

“What's his name?” he asked, drawing up one knee under the white sheet to rest his wrist on.

“His…name?” she faltered.

“The man who's waiting for you back home. The one you're going to marry,” he returned, his voice cutting.

“Oh. Him.” She looked down at her hands. “His name is Harvey White, but most people call him Harry. He's forty, he teaches sixth grade, and he's…settled and mature.”

He was also fifteen years older than she was, he thought angrily. Too old. Of course, he himself was twelve years her senior. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind and glared at her.

“A bachelor?”

“No,” she replied. “He was married. His wife left him to marry another man. He has three teenaged sons. They're very nice,” she added helplessly.

His jaw tautened as he stared at her. “A readymade family. What about your own kids, how will they fit in?”

“We won't have any,” she said, refusing to look at him. “Harry had an operation. He…doesn't want any more children, he said three was enough for us to look after financially.”

“Oh, my God,” he ground out. “You little fool, is that what you want?”

She lifted her face, aware that most of the color had drained out of it. She had a little pride left. “I'll have a secure life. I might not have made a good mother. Some women aren't cut out for it.”

He was certain that she was. There was a nurturing quality about her, a tenderness, that a child would sense and respond to. He hated the thought that she wouldn't have children. It wounded him.

“There are other men in the world,” he said shortly.

“No, I don't think so,” she said sadly. She smiled. “I'll be fine, Mr. Lang, you don't need to be concerned about me.”

“Don't call me that,” he said, his voice harsh as he stared at her. “My name is Nate.”

She didn't know how to answer that, but she didn't have to. Nita brought in the tray and set it on the table by Nate's bed. There was coffee and tea and cups with cream and sugar, a platter of cold cuts, salad and dressing and fruit, with two plates and utensils so that Christy could make whatever combination they wanted.

Nate spoke to the little Mexican woman in her own tongue, very fluently. She laughed and left them.

“I want coffee, black, and salad with ham and cheese and Thousand Island dressing,” he said, leaning back on his pillows.

She almost smiled at his assertive tone. He was, at least, consistent. He never pulled his punches, even when he ordered lunch. She fixed his plate and handed it to him, putting his coffee cup and saucer within easy reach.

She fixed herself a fruit salad and coffee, also black, and went to sit in her chair.

They ate in a companionable silence. When they finished, she collected the plates and stacked them on the tray, then poured second cups of coffee.

“How did the cave-in happen?” she asked.

“Damned if I know. One minute the ceiling was overhead, the next I was wearing half of it,” he said simply. His dark eyes narrowed as he searched her face. “I don't spend a lot of time in the mines, but the occasional inspection is a necessary part of my work.”

“Yes, I suppose it would be,” she said. She sipped her coffee.

“I don't like your hair like that, Christy,” he said unexpectedly.

She steadied the cup that was trembling in her hands. “I'm sorry, but I don't wear it to suit you.”

“Christy.” He said her name, savoring it. “What's it short for?”

“Christiana,” she said. “I was named for my grandmother.”

“It's pretty.” He stared at her until she felt like a butterfly on a pin. “Get up and close the door, Christiana,” he said, his voice husky. Despite what he knew about her—perhaps even because of it—she stirred him to his bones. He wanted nothing more than the feel, the taste of her. It was suddenly exciting to know that no other man had touched her. He knew instinctively that even this man she was going to marry had never been allowed the intimacies he had. It made him feel a foot taller.

“I won't,” she said quietly. She closed her eyes, so that the sight of him that way, his skin dark against the white sheets, his face sensually inviting, wouldn't tempt her. He had nothing to offer except an affair, and she wasn't built for affairs, even with a man she'd grown to love.

“Afraid of me?” he asked, his voice deep and soft and slow as he watched her.

She lifted her haunted eyes to his. “Please stop it,” she asked softly. “I can't play the game. I'm not brave enough.”

He wasn't taking no for an answer. His lean fingers went to the sheet and he smiled at her in a way that made her nerves leap. “Close the door, or you're going to get an eyeful,” he said, and moved the sheet so that it inched down his ribcage.

She couldn't believe he'd do it, but she knew he didn't make threats. “That's not fair,” she accused.

“Live dangerously. I might only want to talk.”

“Really?” she asked in disbelief.

“Are you that conceited?” he murmured, letting his eyes run over her as if she hardly interested him at all. “You really aren't that desirable, honey,” he lied.

She flinched and got to her feet. “All right,” she replied. He'd cut her pride to the bone, but she wasn't going to let the hurt show. She went to the door and started to go through it.

“Do it,” he threatened, “and I'll follow you, just as I am.”