A Wolf in the Desert Read Online Free PDF

would have been astounded, but not now. Not here. “Give me your word.”
    His smile vanished. “I think you will prove a formidable adversary.”
    â€œCount on it.”
    â€œIn that case, you have my word.” He offered his hand, when she took it his fingers closed over hers in a strong clasp. A flash of anger crossed his face as he looked down at broken nails and bruises and the drying blood of cuts from splintering glass. But when he spoke again the anger was hidden. “Come, there is more we have to do.”
    â€œWhat might that be?”
    â€œYou’ll see.” When she resisted, jerking away from him, in the same quiet voice he’d used to reason with his companions he said, “You have a choice. Indian, or the rest of them, which will it be?”
    She hesitated, weighing choices that weren’t choices. When she put her battered hand in his again, it was her life, as well.
    â€œNo matter what I say, no matter what I do,” he said softly, “remember I will never hurt you.”
    He led her then to the center of the road, waiting in silence for the revelers to attend him. Slowly, one by one, they turned, curious looks on their faces. When all was quiet he spoke. “Blue Doggie lies there in the gutter, felled by the woman. She would have escaped, I stopped her. By our law that makes her mine to do with as I wish.”
    â€œLaw! What law?” Patience whirled on him, her protest lost in the roar of complaint from the bikers.
    Indian ignored them, he ignored her. Keeping her hand firmly in his, he addressed Custer, the leader, with the stilted formality of a declaration. “She is a woman befitting a warrior. From now and for as long as I wish, she will be my woman.”
    Patience stared at him, for once she was speechless.
    Turning to her, meeting her stunned gaze, into a hostile hush he declared, “Only mine.”

Two
    â€œA ll right, Just Indian, what the devil was that all about?”
    As they moved beyond the hearing of capering, beer-guzzling revelers, Patience ripped away from the grasp that guided her over a nearly hidden stretch of rough terrain that separated his bike from the others. A grasp, if she could believe her own muddled perceptions and trust this man called Indian, that was solicitous rather than restraining.
    But she didn’t trust him. She wouldn’t trust anyone until she walked out of the desert, free and unharmed.
    Spinning around in front of his bike she faced him, bootheels digging into crumbling soil, fisted hands at her hips. “What was that gibberish about laws?”
    â€œSticks in your craw, doesn’t it? Being called my woman,” he asked quietly. Before she could lash out again, he added just as quietly, “It isn’t gibberish.”
    â€œIt isn’t gibberish when a pack of lawless morons prattle about laws?” The moon was fully risen. A perfect leviathan ball hanging in the sky, half as bright as the sun, painting the desert in sharp silvered edges and inky pools. In an eerie moonscape he loomed over her, as somber as the land in the night shade of a saguaro. More than half a foot taller and an easy sixty pounds heavier, he was an intimidating figure, but she was too indignant to be intimidated. “Law,” she snarled. “From creatures who give themselves animal names and play at being human?”
    His hands shot out of shadow, catching her shoulders in a firm hold. “I brought you out here to talk to you, not quarrel, you hotheaded little fool. So shut up and listen before you make matters worse than they are already.”
    â€œWorse!” Patience flung back her head, her eyes blazing. “What could be worse? Stranded in the desert. Harassed, attacked. Pawed and fondled. Fought over by mad dogs. Parceled off like a...” She cast about her mind, searching for the ultimate insult.
    â€œLike a squaw?” Indian supplied.
    â€œExactly.”