Fire Brand. Diana Palmer

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СКАЧАТЬ company, and over the years, he’d spent a good deal of his time at building sites, pitching in when deadlines were threatening. That explained the muscular physique, but not the brooding look he wore much of the time. Later, Gaby would learn that he didn’t smile very often. She’d learn, too, that his extraordinary good looks were deceptive. He wasn’t a womanizer, and if he had affairs, they were so discreet as to be almost unnoticed. He was a quiet, introspective man who liked Bach, old war movies, and more than anything else, the land upon which Casa Río sat. Bowie was a preservationist, a conservationist. That, in a builder, was something of an irony, but then, Bowie was full of contradictions. Gaby knew him no better now than she had that first night. He was rarely ever home when she visited his mother, Aggie—it was almost as if he purposefully avoided her.

      That long-ago rainy night, he’d been in evening clothes. Gaby’s frightened eyes had followed him as he stared into a stall and rubbed the velvet nose of the big Belgian horse that occupied it. He turned on the light, and she could see that his blond hair was very thick and straight, conventionally cut with a side part, and neatly combed, despite the hour. His profile had been utterly perfect; a strong, very handsome, very definite face that probably drew women like honey drew butterflies. He had a straight nose and a square jaw, and deep-set eyes under heavy brows. His mouth had a chiseled look, and there was something faintly sensuous about it. Gaby tried not to notice sensuality—she was afraid of men.

      But masculine perfection like Bowie’s was hard to ignore. She watched him as she might have watched a sunset, awed by its impact. The black suit he’d been wearing clung with a tailored faultlessness to his powerful body, emphasizing his broad chest, the length of his muscular legs, the narrowness of his hips, the width of his shoulders. He bent his head to light a cigarette, and she saw the faint orange flair of the match turn his tanned face just briefly to bronze.

      She must have accidentally moved and made noise, because all of a sudden he whirled toward her with an economy of movement. His eyes narrowed.

      “Who the hell is that?” he asked. His voice was deep, curt, without an accent, and yet there was something faintly drawling about it.

      She hesitated, but when he started toward the empty stall where she was huddled in fresh hay, she stood up and moved out into the aisle, terrified of being hemmed in.

      “I’m not a burglar or anything,” she said, trying to smile. “I’m sorry about this, but it’s so cold, mister, and I just needed to get in out of the rain.” She sneezed loudly.

      He stared at her quietly, his deep-set black eyes frightening. “Where did you come from?”

      Her heart hammered in her chest. She hadn’t expected that question, and she wasn’t used to telling lies. Her father, a lay minister, had drummed morality into her at an early age, and honesty was part of her upbringing. Now, it was hard not to tell the truth. She lowered her eyes. “I’m an orphan,” she said miserably. “I was looking for a cousin, a Sanders, but a neighbor said the family moved years ago.” That much was true. “I don’t have anyplace to go...” Her lower lip had trembled. She was so afraid—not only of him, but of having the recent past come down on her head. Her big, olive-green eyes had stared up into his, pleading.

      He didn’t want her around. That much was obvious. She could almost see courtesy going to war with suspicion in his mind.

      “Well, I’ll take you inside and let my mother deal with you,” he said then. “God knows, she’s partial to girls, since she never had one of her own.”

      She breathed a sigh of relief. She could still see herself as she’d been that night, her long black hair straggly around a pinched white face. Her clothes had been so worn that they had holes in a few places—especially her faded jeans and denim jacket. She’d had only a coin purse with her, which contained a one-dollar bill and some change, and there was a handkerchief in her jacket pocket. There was no learner’s permit, no credit card, nothing to give her away or help anyone trace her back to Kentucky.

      “What’s your name, kid?” the big man had asked. He towered over her, enormously tall and powerful. She was five foot six, but he had to be at least six foot three.

      “Gabrielle,” she stammered. “Gabrielle Cane.” That was her real name, but she’d deliberately hesitated before she gave him her last name, to make it seem as if it was a false one. “Most people call me Gaby.” Her eyes surveyed the neat barn, with its wide brick aisle and well-kept interior. “What is this place?”

      “It’s called Casa Río—River House. In the old days, the river ran within sight, but its course changed over the years. Now you can’t see the river, and there isn’t any water in it for most of the year,” he’d replied. “My parents own it. I’m Bowie McCayde.”

      “Your parents live here?” she asked nervously.

      “Yes, they live here.” His voice had been curt. “I have an apartment in Tucson. My father is in the construction business.”

      That would explain his dark tan and the muscles rippling under that jacket. He had big, lean hands, and they looked strong, too. She shifted and sneezed again.

      “Come on, we’ll go inside.” He’d reached out to take her arm, but she moved back jerkily. She had plenty of reason not to like being touched, but instead of being angry, he only nodded at her reticence. “You don’t like being touched. Okay. I’ll remember,” he’d added, and he had.

      The biggest surprise of her life had been meeting Aggie McCayde. The only woman she’d known for any length of time had been the matriarch of the big race horse farm where her father had been working, in Lexington, Kentucky. Her own mother had died when she was barely old enough to go to school, so Agatha McCayde came as a very big surprise to a girl used only to the company of her father. Aggie took one look at the sneezing fifteen-year-old and immediately began fussing over her. Her husband Copeland had welcomed the girl with equal kindness, but Bowie had kept apart, looking irritated and then angry. He left for Tucson a day early, as she’d later learned. When he saw how Gaby was fitting in with his parents, his visits became fewer and briefer. He seemed to have difficulty getting along with Copeland and Aggie, a problem that Gaby didn’t have at all. She opened her heart to the older couple as they opened their heart and home to her.

      For the first time in her life, she was cosseted and spoiled. Aggie took her shopping, watched over her when the nightmares came and she woke up sweating and crying in the night. The older woman listened to her problems when she enrolled in the local high school that fall, helped her overcome her difficulty fitting in because she was so shy and uneasy. Aggie even understood when Gaby didn’t date anyone. That wasn’t really so much design as circumstance, she recalled. She wasn’t a pretty teenager. She was skinny, shy, and a little clumsy and nervous, so the boys didn’t exactly beat a path to her door. Aggie loved her and doted on her, which was why Bowie really began to resent her. She noticed his attitude, because he made no attempt to hide it. But incredibly, Aggie and Copeland didn’t seem to notice that they were treating her more like their child and Bowie more like an outsider. By the time she realized it, the damage was done. She knew Bowie resented her. That was one reason she’d opted for college in Phoenix, but it had been difficult there—much more difficult than she’d realized—because her old-fashioned attitudes and her distaste for intimacy put her apart from most of the other students. She formed friendships, and once or twice she dated, but there was always the fear of losing control, of being overpowered, long after the nightmares had become manageable and the scars of the past had begun to heal.

      Gaby had had one violent flare-up of sensual feeling—oddly enough, with Bowie. Aggie had pleaded and coaxed until he’d taken Gaby to a dance at college. He’d been out of humor, and frankly irritated by the adoring looks СКАЧАТЬ