Jennifer Greene - Arizona Heat

When he stood, though, he loomed over her. Maybe, if she were on tiptoe, the crest of her head might reach his chin. That long, angular face had character lines on his brow, a cleft in his cheek and eyes that made her think of skinny-dipping in a deep, dark lake at midnight—they were that black. That sexy. Even for a woman who was sick to death of men—and Kansas had judiciously avoided all species with a y chromosome for a long, peaceful year now—she didn’t figure any female on the planet could fail to perk up around this one. For a look at those eyes, a woman might even be tempted to wake up from a coma.

“Pax,” she agreed, and stuck out her hand. “My name is Kansas McClellan. And every which way I’ve turned since arriving in Sierra Vista, your name keeps cropping up as the only person who can help me.”

“Sounds doubtful. Somebody’s either giving me compliments or insults that I probably don’t deserve.” His smile was slow, his gaze shrewd and assessing as he clasped her hand for a millisecond and let it go. “What’s the problem? Sick animal?”

“No. A missing brother.” She saw the swift judgment mirrored in his eyes. It took no special perception to guess what he thought. She knew the image she projected—a bitsy, frail looking redhead, likely a sissy and definitely a wimp. Most men looked at her and immediately assumed she was a lightweight who needed protecting. Correcting that misconception required so much patience, time and aggravation that Kansas had finally thrown in the towel. It had been a lot easier on her heart to just give up men altogether.

Just then, though, Kansas had no time for pride. The irony prickled her sense of humor—for the first time in her life, she wanted a man to judge her solely by her appearance. If Pax saw her as frail, fragile and delicate, he might be more inclined to help her, and pulling off a “wimp” image took no acting. She was wilting miserably in the heat, and she noticed his gaze zipped immediately above her neck, earning him major brownie points as a gentleman. God knew, she had no figure to fret over, but her shorts and top were damply clinging and sticking in embarrassing places.

She forged ahead to explain. “My brother’s name is Case. Case Walker. We don’t have the same last name—different dads—but we were always as close as glue. I’m scared. Which is why I flew down here from home. Home is Minnesota. Anyway, Case is nineteen, doesn’t look like me, blue eyes, brown hair, a good looker and a little hefty—around 200 pounds—”

“I know him.” Pax interrupted her.

Some of the tension sagged out of her shoulders. “Good. I thought you did, because he’d mentioned your name in some of his letters. And that’s what other people told me, too—that you were kind to Case and helped him out when he first moved down here—”

“Why are you scared?”

“Because I haven’t heard from him in several weeks now. Neither has anyone in the family. Actually no one likely would have, but me. Case hasn’t exactly been winning prizes for maturity and responsibility with the family for the past couple of years. He’s having a little trouble finding his way, but he’s basically wonderful, a heart as big as the sky—”

Possibly Pax noticed her teensy tendency to ramble, because he interrupted again. “He was running away when he came here.”

“He’s just not quite ready to settle down,” Kansas instantly defended him.

“Whatever. If he disappeared from sight, could be he just got itchy feet again. Do you have some specific reason to worry?”

All these precise questions. Kansas pushed a hand through her snarled mass of curls. Precise questions weren’t exactly her forte. “He always wrote me, once a week. Occasionally we talked on the phone, too, but he was as regular as a clock with those letters. He just seemed more comfortable spilling out what was on his mind in written form. And I haven’t had a letter now in three weeks.”

Pax nodded. “Still not necessarily reason to worry. He could have gone off with some friends, taken a vacation.”

“He’s in trouble,” Kansas said.

“You know that for sure?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I love him,” she said irritably, and smacked at a bug hovering around her chest. She smacked so hard her chest stung, but Dr. Moore was starting to rattle her. Clearly he was one of those rational men who thought things through logically. How were they ever going to communicate? “I know my brother better than anyone on earth. Maybe it sounds crazy, but I’ve always had an intuition about when Case was in trouble. I don’t know if he’s hurt. I just know that something is wrong, really wrong, and somehow I have to get someone to believe me—”

“Now just take it easy,” Pax said, more slowly, more gently. His gaze drifted over her face again. “I never said that I didn’t believe you. I was just trying to get some straight answers. And I still don’t know what you want from me.”

“I was hoping you knew where Case is. Or that you could help me find him.”

“I don’t know where he is. And yeah, I noticed he wasn’t around for the past few weeks. But as you said, your brother doesn’t exactly ace the course in dependability—or predictability.”

“This is different,” she said firmly.

“Pretty clear that you believe it is.”

“I only arrived in town last night. Without knowing anything about the area or his friends, the best I could think of to do was knock on his neighbors’ doors. But no one knows anything. No one’s seen him. The only lead I ever picked up from his letters was you. And his neighbors said you’d know if anyone would, and also that you did some tracking—like finding people, campers or whatever, if they got lost in the canyons around here... damn, how can anyone think in this blasted heat!”

Well, who would have guessed that an exasperated complaint would finally coax a smile from him? And not that stingy ghost of a smile like before, Kansas noted, but a full-fledged charmer of a grin. So...he wasn’t stone. His expression revealed so little of what he was thinking that she’d started to worry that he was one of those emotionally constipated types—no one she could conceivably relate to.

“I’m getting the feeling you’re not too fond of our desert country.” Without asking, he unhooked the canvas-wrapped canteen from his belt loop and handed it to her.

“I’ll never complain about another Minnesota blizzard again.” Gratefully she took the canteen, twisted the cap and mainlined several gulps thirstily. The water was warm, but she didn’t care. It was wet. Throat-drenching, sweet, soft, wet. Nectar couldn’t taste any better. “Thanks. You saved my life.”

“I think you’d probably have survived a few minutes more,” he said wryly. When she returned it, he recapped the canteen and clipped it back to his belt. “You might want to remember, though, if you’re traveling much around here, it’s wise to carry some water on you.”

“If it were a vacation choice, I’d be in Alaska. The last time I remember being this miserable, I was laid up with the flu. This is supposed to be a healthy climate, huh? How many times have I read that you don’t feel the heat because it’s dry heat? What a total lie. Even my fingernails feel roasted from the inside out.”

Damned if she didn’t win another irresistibly male grin. “If you just got here, you’re bound to have a little trouble adjusting to the climate.”

She shook her head. “Adjusting is not an option. Obviously you’ve never been a redhead or you’d understand—the sun hates me. It was never anything I had a vote about. I don’t suppose there’s a way to air-condition the outdoors?”