The Master Fiddler Part 5

There wasn't even a flicker of doubt in the tawny cat eyes. He didn'tbelieve her. Trembling with anger, Jacquie folded her arms around herbulky handbag and stared straight ahead. Tears scaled her eyes, aresult of the ferocity of her emotion.

With the engine growling steadily, Choya turned the jeep on to the main highway. "Save the tears," he jeered. "I don't buy the helpless female act."

"I always cry when I lose my temper!" Jacquie retorted in a chokedvoice. "I wouldn't waste tears trying to appeal to you."

"As long as we understand one another," he said indifferently.

"I understand you very well. You're as stubborn as a mule once youmake up your mind about something or someone," she accused angrily. "Ihope I'm around the day you also find out that you've made an a.s.s ofyourself."

"There is a possibility that your wallet is lost," he conceded dryly, "but nothing I've seen or heard would lead me to change my opinion of you."

A thousand insulting retorts sprang to mind, but Jacquie doubted thatany of them would penetrate his th.o.r.n.y exterior. A cactus by name anda cactus by nature! She would be a fool to keep getting herselfp.r.i.c.ked. One of these times a thorn might find a more vulnerable spotthan previous barbs had.

Keeping her mouth shut, she tossed him the key to her motel door whenhe stopped the jeep. She took a firm hold on her temper and blinkedaway the few hot tears before following him to the door. With her gazefocused on a point between the wide shoulders, it was difficult not toremember the last time he had been in her room and the searingbriefness of his kiss.

His aggressively masculine presence dominated the small room. Theunmade bed suddenly seemed to suggest an intimacy that disturbedJacquie's senses. She paused inside the doorway and leaned against thewall, folding her arms in front of her.

"Search away, Mr. Barnett," she invited. "I would help, but I wouldn't want you to accuse me later on of hiding the wallet somewhere."

His gaze flicked sharply to her, then scanned the room. She watched his methodical search. The motel room was spa.r.s.ely furnished and it took little time before he had completed.

"Perhaps you should go through my luggage," Jacquie suggested caustically. "I might have secreted it somewhere among my clothes."

Choya glanced at the suitcase near her feet. "I accept that your wallet is missing and, I presume, all your money with it."

"Every cent of it, except three pennies that were loose in the bottom of my handbag. Plus my credit cards and my identification, not to mention pictures and a lot of other things that can't be replaced." Her chin was thrust forward at a rebellious angle. "I'm completely dest.i.tute, with the exception of my clothes and my car, which is in the garage with a large repair bill owing on it."

"The accident was your fault." He stood in the center of the room, tall and decidedly in command. "You can't blame me for the damage to your car."

"I don't." She released an angry breath and straightened away from the wall.

"Do you have any family or friends that you might call?"

"Yes." But she would almost rather starve to death than call home, running to her parents for help when she had only been on her own for less than a week.

"I suggest you call them," Choya said briskly, his tone bordering on an order.

Jacquie slid a hand through her hair, shaking its length down her back. As much as she resented his suggestion and dreaded making the phone call, it was the only logical solution now. Without money, how could she find a place to sleep or buy food or anything?

Sighing, she walked to the telephone beside the bed and placed a collect call to her home. She crossed her fingers, feeling stupidly superst.i.tious, and offered a silent prayer that her mother would answer the telephone.

"A collect call from whom?" Her father's voice boomed at the other end of the line.

"Dad, it's me, Jacquie," she rushed, but the operator broke in, asking again if he would accept the reversed charges.

"No, I won't, by G.o.d!" he declared. "She wanted to be on her own, and if she wants to talk to me bad enough, she'll pay for the phone call herself." And the receiver was slammed down.

Jacquie thanked the operator and replaced the telephone. Her teeth sank into her lower lip. Considering how vehement she had been in declaring her independence, she could hardly blame her father. Proudly she lifted her head and met Choya's speculating gaze.

"They wouldn't accept the call," she informed him, adopting an air of unconcern. The truth was it hurt, probably as much as she had hurt her parents.

"There's no one else you can call?"

Jacquie considered her girlfriend Tammy in Bisbee, but as Tammy was newly married, she knew that her friend's finances wouldn't stretch to the amount Jacquie needed.

She shook her head. "No. That's all right," she shrugged nonchalantly. "I'll get by."

"How?" he challenged.

"I'll find a way," she declared.

"Like today," Choya taunted, "when you were trying to trick Bob into letting you take your car without paying him for the repairs."

"I would have paid him!" Jacquie flashed.

"Yes," his mouth quirked sardonically. "I'd forgotten you vowed you would do any thing." His dark head was tilted to one side, his carved features coldly cynical. "What would you have done if he had taken you at your word?"

"I could have handled him," she answered confidently. At the skeptical curl of his lip, she added, "I started filling out my jeans when I was twelve. I know something about men and how to make them think the way I want them to."

Amus.e.m.e.nt teased the corners of his mouth. "That sounds like a childish boast," he taunted, his gold look sweeping insolently over her.

Childish? A finely arched brow shot up. The glove of challenge had been thrown down and Jacquie was not the type to ignore it.

"Do you know what you sound like?" she murmured, wandering with seemingly aimless purpose toward him, her thumbs hooked in the waistband of her jeans. Her head was tipped back, rippling silver gold hair streaming down her back. "You sound as though you're sorry I didn't come to you for help. Do you want me to ask you for money?"

Something harsh flickered across his chiseled features, a suggestion of savagery that was quickly gone. Jacquie had seen it, but she kept the knowledge from being revealed in her eyes as she returned his speculating study.

"Would you make me the same promise of 'anything' as an incentive?" The hard mouth quirked cynically. "And forget to keep it?"

"I wouldn't forget." She moistened her lips, her gaze running provocatively over his wide shoulders, then to his masculinely compelling features. "In fact, keeping a promise like that might even be fun."

A muscle twitched along his powerful jaw-line. "Do you think so?"

"I know so," Jacquie replied with an almost kittenish purr. "Don't you?" "No."

"You still don't trust me, do you?" she laughed throatily. "You still think that I might cheat you in some way. I wouldn't, though. I always pay my debts in full."

In a fluid movement, she eliminated the distance that separated them. Her hands spread over his chest to the width of his shoulders, then circled them while she pressed her soft curves against his granite length. His fingers gripped her hip bones, tightening as if to shove her away, then hesitated.

Jacquie smiled slowly, certain now that she hadn't made a mistake. She knew what was going on in his mind. Little did he know that he was playing right into her hands. Men, she thought smugly, if they only knew how easy they were to manipulate!

"Are you beginning to see how much fun it could be, Choya?" speaking his name with a seductively husky pitch to her voice.

She heard the hiss of his sharply indrawn breath. Her fingers slid into the umber brown thickness of the hair at the back of his neck. Raising on tiptoes, she touched her lips against the firm line of his mouth. Persuasively she began kissing him, lightly, tantalizing, until his mouth was not quite so stiff beneath hers.

The musky scent of shaving lotion clung to the sun-browned skin of his smooth cheeks, a heady combination with the warm, male scent of his body. Her heart quickened its beat, a pagan drumbeat to match her role as the temptress.

Pliantly she molded her body more firmly against him, letting him take her weight. The stamp of his virility was marked in every muscled inch of him, proof that he couldn't resist her feminine offering indefinitely.

Her kiss deepened with unforced pa.s.sion, and his hard mouth answered the pressure, although the initiative remained hers. With a r shuddering sigh, almost of regret, Jacquie disentangled her lips from his, sliding her hands from the muscled column of his neck to his shoulders.

Through the curling sweep of her lashes, she looked into the tawny gold of his eyes. They were still infuriatingly unrevealing, as was the impa.s.sive expression carved in the bold lines of his face.

"Now do you see?" she purred.

With the swiftness of a striking serpent, her hand lashed out at his cheek, a satisfying sting in her palm. Her eyes blazed with the fires of revenge as she twisted free of the large hands on her hips.

"But I would never come to you!" she hissed as his cold surprise turned to icy fury. "I would never ask you for money if you possessed all the wealth on earth! Your opinion of me is nothing compared to my opinion of you! You, with your superior airs and your smug arrogance! You think you know me, but you don't know me at all! I don't need your help. I don't need anybody's help!"

"Don't you?" Choya countered in a voice so low and so controlled that it was almost frightening.

Her lips parted slightly in surprise. She had expected retaliation verbal abuse, a barrage of insults, but not this ominous silence. Her anger evaporated with chilling swiftness as he pivoted away.

Stunned, she watched him, unable to believe that she could a.s.sault his ego without receiving some repercussions. She had felt safe pretending to seduce him because she had known he didn't want her. He considered her disgusting and had only played along to see how far she would go. She had known all this, had guessed it, had planned her action around this knowledge.

But now now, she didn't feel safe. His reaction had not followed the expected pattern. Choya wasn't even making an outraged exit. He was walking toward the unmade bed.

CHAPTER FIVE.

His objective wasn't the bed. It was the telephone. Without a glance at Jacquie, he picked up the receiver and dialed a number. She was still staring at him in shock when he turned around to hold her gaze.

"Bob?" he said into the receiver. "This is Choya. How much was Miss Grey's repair bill... ? Send it to me. I'll be by to pick up the car later today."

Her mouth opened to protest, but nothing came out. Her gaze followed the black receiver as it was returned to its cradle. Tremors of fear quaked through her, turning her bones to liquid jelly.

"You're expensive, Jacquie." His low-tim bred voice said her name with insulting emphasis. "It's going to take some time to get my money's worth."

Her gaze flew to his face, the uncanny cat like eyes glittering now at his trapped prey. His lips curled with sardonic amus.e.m.e.nt at her frightened look.

"You can't be serious," she breathed.

A dark eyebrow arched in arrogant mockery. "You put the proposition to me."

"I didn't proposition you!" Jacquie protested in shocked astonishment.

"What would you like to call it? Bribery?" Choya returned.

"I..." she faltered, the words stammering off the end of her fl.u.s.tered tongue, "I told you I... I would never c-come to you."

"Suit yourself." The wide shoulders shrugged with his even reply. "But it's the only way you'll get your car."

"You can't keep it. It's mine," she declared frantically.

"Possession is nine-tenths of the law." There was a wicked glint in his eyes. "The car is mine until the debt against it is paid in full. Either pay me the money or we'll revert to the old system of bartering goods and services for payment."

Jacquie swallowed. "I'll send you the money, I swear I will."

The harsh grooves on either side of his mouth deepened. "As you pointed out, I don't The Master Fiddler trust you. Payment in advance is the only thing I'll accept. Only when the full amount of the bill is satisfied will the car be yours again."

Appealing to him was useless. Jacquie reached down into her shaken depths for a bit of bravado. She slid the tips of her trembling hands into the pockets of her jeans and boldly met his look.

"All right, I'll pay you," she agreed. "I'll get a job and earn the money."

Her a.s.sertion only seemed to amuse him further. "Doing what, and where? Not here in Tombstone. The tourist season is over. There aren't any jobs to be had. What would you do for a place to sleep and food to eat in the meantime? I'm offering you both for the same price you'd have to pay to any other man."

"There are people other than men on this earth!" Jacquie fired back, his logic cornering her.

"But your feminine wiles wouldn't work very well on a woman," Choya reminded her. "What do you intend to do about your motel bill? The manager is a woman and I don't think she'd take it kindly if you tried to skip out without paying. In the eyes of the law, you're a vagrant with no visible means of sup port and no money and no possessions of any value."

"I have my car."

"No, I have your car." He smiled coldly. "You owe me for the repairs."

"You can't expect me to agree to let you " Jacquie couldn't even get the words out. Her head drew back in negative denial. "You know how I feel about you. How unwilling I would be to have you " Again the words lodged.

"Unwilling?" A humorless chuckle sounded deep in his throat. "You wouldn't be unwilling not a girl like you."

"Stop it!" She was trembling now, her blood turning to ice. "You're simply trying to frighten me. You wouldn't dare touch me."

The tawny yellow eyes never left her face as he moved lazily toward her. Jacquie's first impulse was to retreat, but that was what he wanted her to do. He was planning to intimidate her until she cowered before him, humbly begging for his mercy. So Jacquie stood her ground, refusing to give him the satisfaction he sought and not believing for an instant that he meant to carry out his threat.

When he stopped in front of her, Choya reached out and caught a handful of hair. It shimmered white gold against his sun-browned The Master Fiddler fingers. Jacquie didn't move. She wouldn't struggle like a mouse under a cat's paw.

Through half-closed eyes, he studied her unyielding expression. Thick, dark brown lashes veiled the amber caution light that might have warned Jacquie she had underestimated him again. His fingers wound cruelly into her hair, roughly jerking her head farther back. The need to relieve the shooting pain in her scalp brought her voluntarily against him.

His free hand closed over the rounded fulness of her breast. Jacquie stiffened, pride saving her at the last minute from jerking away from the intimacy of his touch. She would not struggle like a frightened animal. He was only toying with her, she reminded herself.

But her heart was pounding against her ribs like a terrified bird beating its wings against the bars of a cage. His mouth had begun a slow descent toward hers, drawing out the seconds until she wanted to scream. Then the hard kiss was bruising her lips, crushing their softness against her teeth.

Her senses were clamoring to be recognized as she fought to ignore the salty taste of blood in her mouth. The pain in her scalp had stopped and the iron band of his arm had her in a vice grip. An ounce more of pressure and she was certain her spine would snap.

Searing flames had begun to lick through the lower half of her body where his muscled thighs had burned his brand into her skin. The suffocation of his kiss and his hold was draining her strength. The hands that she had held rigidly at her side were now raised to strain against the rippling muscles of his upper arms. She needed air to keep the whirling blackness from taking possession.

Choya allowed the one gasp for air as he freed her lips and began a rough exploration of the sensitive cord in her neck and the hollow of her throat. Involuntary shivers of sensual excitement tingled down her spine. Primitive instinct had her b.r.e.a.s.t.s swelling against the knit material of her top.