Raven’s Prey(20)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“Pick up the shirts, Honor” he ordered in a deep, dark voice as he reached the opposite bank with her in his arms. He stood in the water and lowered her just far enough so that she could reach the two shirts he had left lying on the ground.

Feeling more uncertain than ever now, Honor did as ordered, reaching down to collect the two shirts. As soon as she had them in her hands he straightened and carried her back into the middle of the stream.

“Judd, put me down,” she commanded quickly as a premonition told her what he planned to do. The stream became wider and deeper just a few feet away. Deep enough to toss in a recalcitrant woman together with two shirts that needed washing! “Judd, so help me, if you—”

The rest was lost as Judd found the spot he was looking for and opened his arms. With a resounding splash Honor sank below the surface of the stream, automatically clutching the shirts that had been in her hands.

Damn it to hell, she thought furiously as she floundered for a moment beneath the surface. You’d think a grown woman would have known better than to taunt a wild, unpredictable bird of prey.

She came back into the air, standing waist-deep in the stream, and found her tormentor watching from a short distance away. He was only in water up to his calves.

“Are the shirts done yet?” he asked politely in Spanish. The women shouted their laughter, vastly amused by the whole scene. The [_gringos _]were crazy, but they livened up the place.

Honor glared at him, her hair dripping in a sleek, wet mass around her shoulders. She honestly didn’t know whether to be elated or infuriated. She certainly didn’t appreciate the high-handed treatment, even if she had brought it all on herself. By rights she ought to be feeling outraged.

But there was a gleam in Judd’s dark eyes that was: totally new. A playful, almost human expression which told her that in the end he had been playing with her, not just manhandling her.

It was one of the few cracks she had seen in that wall he had built around himself and it was strangely reassuring. Laughter could form a bond, too, just as other emotions did.

Four days. Four more days in which to get him to trust her. Getting dunked was a cheap price to pay for having opened a tiny chink in the wall. Her life depended on demolishing every last brick.

“I do believe your shirts are about finished,” she informed him in careful Spanish for the benefit of their audience. “If you’ 11 give me a minute longer I’ll see that they get properly rinsed.”

She wasn’t sure she had the right word for “rinsed,” but everyone seemed to know what she meant. It was fairly obvious she had temporarily surrendered to the will of her lord and master, Honor thought wryly. Across the stream Lupe and Maria giggled.

Judd stared for a moment as Honor bent to scrub the two shirts. He was aware of a fierce satisfaction at having won the small, meaningless battle. In addition to the satisfaction there was an undeniable feeling of pure, masculine pleasure in watching Honor wash the damn shirts. He liked to see her touching his things and know that he would be wearing them later.

What was the woman doing to him? How the hell did he come to find himself standing fully clothed in a stream watching Honor Knight do his laundry?

Honor kept her head submissively bent, devoting great attention to the shirts. But her mood was lighter than it had been since Judd Raven had arrived in town.

The hunting bird Leo and Nick had sent after her had a human side to his nature. She’d seen it this morning when he’d let the whole village take turns sitting in his precious airplane. And she’d seen it again this afternoon as he found himself engaged in a playful game of taming the shrew.

She had four days to turn the bird of prey into a man who could trust her.

Chapter 5

Two days later Honor’s hopeful determination to create a bond between herself and Judd was faltering badly.

The problem, she told herself in disgust, was that the man was a slow learner. An emotional underachiever. Furthermore, unless he was answering a direct question his conversation tended to be rather limited. The one exception was when she asked him questions about his flying. He opened up slowly but surely on that topic. Unfortunately it wasn’t a topic that furthered her goal.

Oh, she was making progress on one front. As she had discovered that afternoon at the stream, Judd could be provoked into something resembling playfulness. It was, she freely admitted, somewhat like trying to play with an untamed, unpredictable wild creature, but it [_was _]a form of genuine playfulness. He never actually laughed, but once or twice a smile had actually touched his mouth and his eyes. It was as if he himself wasn’t very certain of his own emotional state on those occasions when she provoked him with teasing banter or challenge.

On another front she was having far less success. During the two days that had passed since her dunking in the stream, she had made any number of efforts to get Judd to talk about himself. It was like talking to a clam.

“It must be a nice, simple sort of life for you,” she finally exploded one night over drinks in the cantina. “No emotional involvement, no hazing to take chances on people, no need for socializing. Tell me something, Judd Raven. Have you ever fallen in love?”

“No.”

The monosyllabic answer stopped her for a few seconds. She stared at him in utter disbelief. “Never? In your whole life? My God, you must be nearly forty years old!”

“You don’t have to look at me as if I’ve suddenly grown two heads”

“But never to have fallen in love in your whole life…”

He glared. “I didn’t say I haven’t had a few interesting affairs, damn it! Why are you always trying to make it sound as if I’m not capable of going to bed with a woman?”

“I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about a serious relationship!” she retorted. ‘There’s a difference, you know!”

“Is there?”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” Honor exclaimed in absolute disgust, sinking back into her chair and snatching up her margarita.

Judd studied the rigid line of her eyebrows and the sulky twist of her mouth and then he astounded her by asking, “Have you?”

“Have I what?” She didn’t bother looking at him, concentrating instead on the row of men at the bar.

“Have you ever been seriously involved with a man?” he asked patiently.

For an instant she didn’t know what to say, and then she decided on the truth. Perhaps he really was trying to make meaningful conversation. She didn’t want to throw cold water on his efforts. “A couple of times,” she admitted cautiously.