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Under The Western Sky
Laurie Paige
HE HAD THE KIND OF SMILE THAT DID THINGS TO A WOMAN…until he arrested her. Julianne Martin had come to New Mexico' s canyon country on a mission of deliverance. But now Special Agent Anthony Aquilon had just accused the compassionate nurse-midwife of making off with priceless Native American artifacts!Tony' s alluring thief-at-large was no common criminal but an uncommon woman born to warm the cold places inside a man. A modernday warrior who' d defend those he loved to his last breath, Tony longed to place his trust in Julianne…and more. Could a simple case of mistaken identity lead to the perfect match?
“Kiss me,”
Julianne demanded. “Kiss me and don’t stop until…until…”
“We turn blue?” Tony said, feeling laughter and being surprised by it. Inside, he was serious, very serious.
“Until there’s no more hunger,” she whispered.
“If the hunger is satisfied, then we’ll be lovers in every sense of the word,” he warned her. “I’d kiss you until we both went crazy. If we were lovers.”
“Yes,” she cried softly. “Yes.”
“Would you melt in my arms? Would you yield to me? Give me anything I want?”
She forced her weighted eyelids to open, to meet his challenging stare. “What we both want,” she reminded him.
“If we were lovers,” he said roughly.
“If we were lovers,” she echoed in agreement.
Dear Reader,
I found out how effective a coyote fence was the hard way—I backed into one while trying to get the best picture of an impressive rock formation. The fence was made from cactus canes nailed side by side on a wooden structure. My hostess, who had a lovely flower and vegetable garden, said it also kept rabbits and other critters from sneaking in and eating the plants. I asked how she got the cactus nailed up without getting stickers. Her answer: “Very carefully.” I’m not saying this incident was the sole inspiration for Tony and Julianne’s story, but it certainly seemed to fit into their investigative efforts!
Best,
Laurie Paige
Under the Western Sky
Laurie Paige
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
LAURIE PAIGE
“One of the nicest things about writing romances is researching locales, careers and ideas. In the interest of authenticity, most writers will try anything…once.” Along with her writing adventures, Laurie has been a NASA engineer, a past president of the Romance Writers of America, a mother and a grandmother. She was twice a Romance Writers of America RITA
Award finalist for Best Traditional Romance and has won awards from Romantic Times BOOKclub for Best Silhouette Special Edition and Best Silhouette in addition to appearing on the USA TODAY bestseller list. Recently resettled in Northern California, Laurie is looking forward to whatever experiences her next novel will send her on.
This story is for Ali, Becka, Susan, Kris and Merry, who
wanted to know what happened to the three orphans.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter One
Julianne Martin matched the address on the store-front to the label printed in block letters on the box of pottery she was to deliver. Yes, this was the place.
Something about the building—probably its rundown state—induced a definite sense of caution in her.
This wasn’t the most practical part of town to try to sell tourist goods. The Chaco Trading Company out on I-40 was a better location, with plenty of travelers heading west to the Grand Canyon and other national parks, and West Coast residents heading east for family reunions or a tour of the Four Corners and Mesa Verde areas.
Well, it was none of her business. She was just the delivery service…in more ways than one.
She smiled at the thought. As a midwife-nurse-practitioner, she’d been delivering babies on her own for three years. Happy years, she mused in satisfaction, filled with work that she loved.
Two days ago, out near Hosta Butte, she’d helped deliver a darling little boy to a Native American couple. The delighted father had asked her to bring his pottery into town and leave it at this store, which was located on a side street of Gallup, New Mexico. Since she lived only a couple of miles from town, she’d readily agreed.
In this part of the country, with its vast distances people helped each other when they could. Today was Saturday, the first day of October, and the earliest moment she’d had enough free time to keep her promise. She peered in through the open door of the shop.
“Hello?” she called, going inside and pausing while her eyes adjusted to the dim light.
The place was crammed with Indian blankets, baskets and carvings depicting Western themes, all in a helter-skelter fashion. A good dusting and some organization would help sales, in her opinion.
She grinned to herself. Her bossy ways were showing themselves, her brothers would have said. True, she admitted. She liked things to be in good order.
“Whew,” she said when she had the heavy box safely on the floor. “Anyone here?”
“Sure.”
A man appeared in the doorway behind the cluttered counter. He looked to be close to her own age, which was twenty-six.
No, older, she decided upon inspecting him more closely when he came forward and stopped beside the cash register. He had hair that was almost black and eyes to match. His face was lean and angular. So was his body—tall and wiry and muscular—definitely a man who kept himself in shape. He was perhaps an inch over six feet. He wore faded jeans, a T-shirt with a logo of Ship Rock on it and a billed cap advertising a local bar.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his voice a rich baritone with a gravelly roughness that was oddly pleasing.
His eyes took in everything about her—from her white cotton blouse and khaki cargo shorts to the woven leather huaraches on her feet. He lingered for the briefest second on her legs, which were nicely shaped, if she did say so, then his gaze returned to hers.
The impact of that probing stare did a couple of strange things to her. One, her sense of wariness increased. Two, so did her heartbeat. He made her nervous for no reason that she could pinpoint, but there it was—a hard beating of the heart, tension in every nerve, a quickening deep inside.
Then he smiled.
Awesome was the description that came to mind. His teeth were very white in his tanned face. The smile did nice things for him, relaxing the stern set in the line of his jaw and the frown line between his eyebrows, adding friendly creases at the corners of his eyes.
The dark eyebrows rose slightly in question as he glanced from the box to her.
She stated her business. “I have a box of pottery for you. From Josiah Pareo?” she added when he didn’t respond.
“I see.”
She sensed something in his tone or a subtle change in manner—she didn’t know what, but she felt a sharpening of his attention. Her own sense of caution caused her to quickly survey their surroundings. She saw nothing out of place. When he came around the counter and frowned at the box, she instinctively stepped back.
“Uh, you were expecting the delivery, weren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s take it to the office. We can inventory it there, then I’ll pay you.”
She nodded and followed when he lifted the heavy box as if it weighed no more than a pound cake. She glanced at her watch. Past noon. She was tired and ready for a nap since she’d been called out on a delivery at five that morning.
Babies always chose the most inconvenient times to arrive, but all had gone well with the birth. Now she wanted to go home. Food and sleep. She needed both, she admitted, unable to suppress a huge yawn.
“Have a seat,” he said, interrupting the yawn and giving her a speculative once-over.
She wondered what he was speculating about. Maybe her eligibility? She almost grinned at the ridiculous idea. The handsome shopkeeper was all business as he set the box on the floor. Ah, well.
“Sorry, I was up early this morning,” she said when he caught her yawning again.
His cocoa-dark eyes slid over her once more, then returned to his task. He opened the cardboard flaps and began placing the pots and vases on a table next to the desk in the messy, crowded office.
Watching his hands, Julianne was reminded of an artist she knew in her hometown of Albuquerque. His fingers were lean, too, the backs of his hands sinewy. Strong hands. Capable. Confident.
This man’s were the same. There was also sensitivity in his touch as if he was aware that, in this pottery, he handled the creation of someone’s mind and heart. He therefore treated it with great care.
The proprietor’s air of concentration surprised her. He examined each piece of pottery as if it were a rare and precious find. There were six pieces in all.
She looked more closely at the wares. They were black glazed, a type that was popular with tourists, with an allover pattern intricately detailed in a way that few potters did nowadays since it was time-consuming.
“How much do you want for these?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She’d assumed that was all taken care of. Josiah hadn’t mentioned a price. “How much do you think they’re worth?”
“A thousand.”
At the quick, flat statement, she was totally taken aback. “Really? That seems like a lot. But I actually don’t know,” she added, not wanting to cast doubts on Josiah’s abilities.
She’d had no idea he could get prices like that, especially in a place like this. She glanced around the dusty, cluttered office and shrugged. The tourist trade must be more lucrative than she’d thought.
“Cash or check?” he asked.
She considered. She was pretty sure the couple didn’t have a bank account. They’d paid her twenty-five dollars a month for eight months for the delivery of the baby. “Cash.”
He counted out ten crisp one hundred-dollar bills and held them out to her. When she reached for the money, his other hand shot out and he snapped a handcuff on her wrist.
She froze in terror. Like images from a horror movie, scenes hurtled through her mind—broken glass from a patio door, a pool of blood, death, the bewilderment of the child who stared at the horrible sight.
In the next instant, the training from years of self-defense courses kicked in, overriding the fear. Instead of struggling to get away, she crashed into the man, using her head to butt him under the chin, since she wasn’t tall enough to reach his nose.
She twisted her captured hand, turning his wrist back so he had to let go of the other end of the cuffs. With the heel of her left hand, she slammed into his nose and felt a satisfying crunch of cartilage.
“Ow,” he yelled, dropping the cash.
When he tried to recapture her hand, she kicked him in the shin as hard as she could, ignored a sharp pain in her big toe as a result and stomped on his instep as she brought her foot down. Then she ran.
Tony Aquilon cursed a blue streak, but that didn’t stanch the blood pouring from his nose. Ignoring his wounds—not the least of which was to his pride—he started after her at a dead run. He could hear the fugitive shrieking as she ran down the street.
“Fire!” she shouted. “Fire!”
A mechanic, wiping his hands on a grease rag, appeared at the door of the garage next door. A couple peered out from the used-furniture store across the street. Two beer-drinking, taco-munching patrons at an outside table of a tiny cantina hardly bothered to look up.
Tony grimaced at this new ploy by the damn sneaky female. He went after her as fast as his limp would allow.
“Call 911,” she yelled.
Nobody did anything. Live and Let Live was the motto of the folks in this neighborhood, he could have told her.
“Stop. That’s an order,” he bellowed, feeling like a fool with his damn nose bleeding all over the place.
She flashed a calculating glance over her shoulder and slowed down a bit.
He caught her halfway down the block just before she scrambled into a car, managing to wedge his arm and body in the opening without getting his fingers or other important parts mangled in the process.
“Got ya,” he murmured.
Again she didn’t fight fair. Instead of pulling away, she threw herself at him, trying to break his hold.
“Man, you’re just full of tricks, aren’t you?” he muttered. Holding her was like grasping a maddened wildcat.
While he enjoyed wrestling around with a woman, this wasn’t exactly the situation he’d envisioned, he thought with fleeting humor. He had a second to appreciate the strength in her slender curves before she tried to pound his head against the car. He grabbed her hands, spun her around so her back was to him and got her under control. Sort of.
