A Wolf in the Desert Read Online Free PDF Page B

Patience’s breath hissed through clenched teeth. “Why don’t you explain what could possibly be worse than being your squaw.”
    â€œHush! Now!” He shook her, just once, but it was enough to signal how near he’d come to the end of his tolerance. “Put a check on your Irish temper and shut that pretty little mouth or I’ll...”
    â€œYou’ll what? Hit me? Ravish me? Or do you plan to threaten me to death?” Her chin lifted a notch, her voice was laced with contempt. “So much for Indian’s word.”
    â€œDamn you!” His fingers bit into her shoulders, driving closely trimmed nails into her flesh as he moved closer and into the light. His chest heaved in controlled anger, his body was as unrelenting as stone. “I’m not going to hit you, or ravish you. And anything I say will be fact or promise, never threat. Yes, I gave you my word on it before. I’ve kept my part of the bargain.”
    â€œAnd I didn’t?”
    â€œYou promised you wouldn’t fight me.”
    â€œI’m not Cochise.” She pulled away from him then and was surprised that he let her go. Crossing her arms at her breasts in a belligerent attitude she glared up at him. “I didn’t promise I would fight no more forever.”
    His look moved over her in grudging admiration for her defiance, her courage against impossible odds. “No, you didn’t, did you?” Something akin to a smile ghosted over his lips and vanished. “It was Chief Joseph.”
    â€œSo?” Patience shrugged her indifference, neither understanding nor caring to understand the cryptic remark.
    â€œYou were quoting Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce. The correct phrase is ‘From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.’”
    â€œThat’s just lovely.” Her drawl was saccharine. “I doubt there were six bikers and one Indian threatening him with every conceivable indignity.”
    â€œNo,” Indian answered thoughtfully, “there were no bikers.”
    â€œLucky man.”
    â€œAn intelligent man, who knew when to fight and when to stop.”
    Her head moved abruptly side to side, rejecting the subtle overture. “I’ll stop fighting when one of us stops breathing.”
    He sighed heavily, threads of frustrated tension frayed as he struggled against the urge to break his word and throttle her. If there was ever even a ghost of a smile it was forgotten and buried. His face was somber, a startlingly tantalizing mask of stark lines and planes. “The only good Indian is a dead Indian? Is that it?”
    Patience should have heeded the savage undertone in his words, but she was too lost in her own hostility to hear. “Considering that you’re the only Indian I know, yes, that’s precisely it.”
    He moved, then, like a striking snake. Quicker than the eye could focus, or the mind comprehend, he swept her into his arms. One hand locked around her waist, the other cradled her head in uncompromising control. Her head was yanked back, her face lifted to his. If the moon had been a strobe, the disgust he felt couldn’t have been clearer. “Considering your reckless mouth and your ungoverned temper, I’m surprised you survived this life long enough to lose yourself in the desert. Since you have, and since it’s my misfortune to be stuck with you, we have to do what we must and make the best we can of a bad situation.”
    â€œYour misfortune?” She struggled against his embrace, but he was far too strong for her. “Yours!”
    â€œYes, mine. There are things you don’t understand. Things you can never know.” The words rumbled deep in his throat, a whispered growl rather than spoken. His hand tensed in her hair as she fought to turn away from a quiet anger more frightening than savage rage.
    Suddenly he was silent, as motionless as the saguaro. As inscrutable. His posture did