Wild Orchids by Karen Robards Read Free Book Online Page B

she stopped in her tracks. There was no way she was venturing into one of those fields,
    She narrowed her eyes against the rain and peered back toward the car. He had walked around it and now stood with feet braced apart and the gun pointed in her direction. With only the car's headlights behind him for illumination, she could not see his face but the rest of him looked very big and dark and dangerous. She caught the mutter of his voice over the pouring of the rain, and guessed that he was cursing her with expert fluency.
    "Turn your back!"
    He didn't hear her the first time, so she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted. For a moment he stood irresolute, staring at her, but then he must have decided that she had no intention of doing what needed to be done while he stood and watched her. He turned his back. Lora had a brief moment of thankfulness that she wasn't wearing pantyhose, and then the whole business was concluded with satisfying speed. Feeling much better despite the fact that she was soaked to the skin, she stood, adjusted her clothing, walked around him back to the car, and got in. The thought of running did briefly occur to her, only to be quickly dismissed. When he caught her—and he would—he would be in a filthy temper, and she had already learned a healthy respect for his temper. Besides, the idea of slogging through acres of mud teeming with the source of that smell was off-putting in the extreme.
    "I ought to shoot you. I'm wet as a drowned duck." Those were his first words as he got back in beside her. The gun was raised threateningly, but even its shiny blue-black barrel was not as ominous as the scowl on his face. The straw sombrero had been no match for the rain; he threw it and the soaked sarape into the backseat with a gesture of disgust. He was as wet as she. Water still ran from his soaking hair down his face and dripped from the end of his thick eyebrows and mustache. His shirt clung wetly to his broad chest and his drenched jeans hugged his thighs, emphasizing taut muscles and sinews. Through the wet closeness of his shirt, she saw the dark shadow of body hair. Hairy chested men had always secretly appealed to her… Lora's eyes flickered at the thought. Averting her face with a belligerent lift of her chin, she reached to yank the car into first. It bucked forward, then, as she shifted with a loud grinding of gears, lurched on down the wet road.
    "Goddamn it!" He clutched the dashboard for support, and let the gun drop into his lap. Running his hand over his wet face, he sluiced away what water he could. Lora didn't even look at him as some of the droplets struck her arms and neck. She was so wet already, she couldn't get any wetter.
    They drove that way for perhaps fifteen minutes, while Lora grew clammier and clammier. He shut off the air conditioner, but that wasn't much help. He must have been as cold and uncomfortable as she was, because finally, with a muffled growl, he reached over and flicked on the heater. A musty smell was the only tangible result. Lora waited vainly for some evidence that the car was getting warmer, but if it was she couldn't tell.
    "Pull over," he ordered moments later, sounding fed up to his back teeth. Lora cast him a quick look. For some reason the black scowl that greeted her was almost reassuring. He nearly always looked like that; she imagined that, if he was planning to kill her for her temerity in making him get wet, he would wear quite a different expression.
    When she had done as he ordered, he reached out to grab her roughly by the arm and leaned forward so that his face was only inches away. Lora was very conscious of the rough masculinity of him as he loomed so near. She stared at him wide-eyed, and tried not to wonder how the bristle on his chin would feel against her skin…
    'If I'm not mistaken, there's an ejido— a cooperative farm— down that track," he said with a jerk of his head in the direction he meant. "We're going to drive down