Raven’s Prey(27)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“And you don’t need that this morning, do you?” she shot back scathingly. “You’ve go plans!”

“That’s right,” he agreed evenly.

“A cold-blooded mercenary,” she repeated dully, sinking back down onto the cot with the sheet wrapped around her. She stared at the wall as if there were nothing left for her in life.

Judd started forward, aware of a violent desire to shake her until she stopped calling him names. Didn’t she understand what had really happened last night? She was an intelligent female, even if she was prone to dramatics, even if she was more than a little prone to romanticizing situations. “Don’t you want to hear my plans?” he charged.

She hesitated and then swung her wide, accusing gaze away from the blank wall to stare at him. “Go ahead,” she ordered bitterly, “tell me all about how you’re going to get me killed. But I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t come any closer in the process. Just stay away from me.”

“Damn it to hell! You’re acting like a woman scorned this morning!”

“I am,” she agreed, nodding once. “Very scorned.”

He turned away from her because if he didn’t Judd knew he would do something violent. With an effort of will he regained control of himself and went to stand on the far side of the small room. Leaning against the wall, his arms folded across his chest, he regarded her stubborn, proud profile.

“Honor, I’m going to make a phone call from the town where we’ll be stopping for fuel. It’s on this side of the border. I’m going to call the man you say is Leo Garrison and I’m going to tell him to meet me at the border with proof that he’s really your father. We’ll meet in front of all those U.S. border guards at one of the points of entry. There will be plenty of protection for you if he’s not who he says he is ”

She didn’t move but he sensed she was at least listening. “I’ll stay right beside you all the way until we get this whole thing sorted out,” he went on encouragingly. “Even if he is your father, I won’t abandon you to him. It’s obvious there’s something screwy about your relationship with him and I’m going to go along with you until I find out exactly what it is.”

He watched her lashes lower briefly in despair but when she looked at him her gaze was clear and very level. There was no longer any sign of the budding hysteria. “And if he does show up with proof that I’m his daughter? Will you give me a chance to prove he’s lying? Will you let me dig out my birth certificate? Will you protect me while I go to my safety-deposit box in Phoenix and find some proof of my side of the story? [_Can _]you protect me?”

“I can and I will,” he vowed flatly.

She continued to watch him and for the first time since he had met her Judd realized he wasn’t at all sure what she was thinking. It was strange to suddenly be confronted with that cool little mask. Up until now her emotional state had been easy to define. Her underlying vulnerability had been evident from the start and so had all her moods. Last night, for instance, there had been no doubt about the level of her response. But right at this moment he was at a loss to understand her state of mind. Judd’s sense of unease grew. He didn’t like the feeling that she was somehow managing to shut him out. Perhaps it was just his imagination. “Honor?” he finally prompted.

“I don’t have much choice, do I?” she asked bluntly.

“No. Trust me, honey. That is the best way to handle this mess.”

“Trust you,” she echoed as if the words were in a foreign language. “Trust you?”

His eyes hardened but he didn’t move away from the wall. “You told me once that you thought you could. You said that in my own way I was probably very trustworthy.”

“But you don’t trust me. Not even after last night,” she whispered.

“Honor, be reasonable. Last night didn’t prove a damn thing one way or the other. I’ll tell you what last night was, it was a commitment. You gave yourself to me and now I’m going to take care of you.”

“You sound as if we made some sort of bargain in bed!”

“I guess we did, in a way.” He shrugged. “But I think die outcome would have been the same even if we hadn’t gone to bed together. I’ve been realizing since that first night that there was something weird about this whole operation. I told you a couple of days ago I wouldn’t turn you over to the guys who hired me until I found out for certain they really were your family.”

She smiled then, a bitter, cold smile unlike any expression he had ever seen shape that mobile, vulnerable mouth. “In other words I would have been in exactly the same situation this morning whether or not I’d taken the risk of sleeping with you, is that it?”

Why did she have to talk about taking risks? There had been no risk in going to bed with him last night Hadn’t she known from the start that he would take care of her? “Honor, last night gave me the right to protect you. Don’t you understand? Before that I was willing to stand by you as long as you felt you needed me but after last night I have the [_right _]to stand by you. There’s a difference.”

“Such logic,” she gritted. Slowly she got to her feet and started toward the tiny alcove that served as a bathroom. The sheet trailed behind her. “All logic and no trust.”

“Honor!” Perhaps he should take a firmer hand with her this morning, Judd decided uncertainly. She was such a temperamental, vulnerable little creature and she’d been under a lot of strain during the past month, regardless of the cause.

“Don’t worry, Judd,” she told him coolly from the doorway. “I’ll go with you. I’ll let you try your brilliant plan. But just in case it doesn’t work and we both wind up with a bullet in the brain, allow me to tell you now that I told you so!”

Judd winced as the door slammed behind her. At least some of her natural ire was returning. For a few minutes there he’d thought she’d turned into a block of ice on him. And he hadn’t liked it one bit.

* * *

Most of the village turned out to wish them goodbye and the children watched with wistful eyes as Judd went through a careful preflight check and then taxied out into the center of the dusty road.

Someday, he thought fleetingly as he taxied to the downwind end of the road and turned the Cessna into the wind, he’d like to give those kids a ride. He glanced at Honor’s rigid profile as she sat stiffly beside him. “What do you think about maybe coming back sometime and giving everyone a ride?” he asked above the sound of the engine. “I can still remember my first plane ride. It changed my whole life,” he added slowly.