Fire Brand. Diana Palmer

pastures and white fences and huge groves of trees—but they were pale against this savage beauty.

      She crossed over the bridge that sheltered a tributary of the San Pedro. It was early for the summer “monsoons,” so there was barely a trickle of water in the creek bed. It was more of a sandy wash right now than the swollen, deadly creek it became after a good, heavy rain. Past the bridge was a long ranch road that led back from the flat valley into a small box canyon. There, in a small grove of palo verde and mesquite trees, stood Casa Río.

      It was old. The beautiful parchment color of the adobe walls blended in with the mountains behind it. The house was two stories high, and despite its stately aged appearance, with wrought iron at the windows, and the courtyard gate that led to the porch, it had every modem convenience. The kitchen was like something out of a Good Housekeeping layout. Behind the house was a garage, and adjoining the house was an Olympic-sized indoor swimming pool that was heated in winter. There were tennis courts and a target-shooting range, and a neat stable and corral where the breeding horses were kept. Farther away was the working stable, the barn, and a modern concrete bunkhouse where the six full-time bachelor cowboys lived. The foreman, assistant foreman, and livestock manager—all three married men with families—had small houses on the property.

      The driveway led around the house to the garage, but Gaby parked at the front gate, leaving her luggage in the trunk. She admired the only real home she’d ever known. There were flowers everywhere—pots and planters of geraniums and begonias and petunias. There were blooming rose bushes in every shade imaginable to either side of the house. The small courtyard garden had a winding, rock-inlaid path to the long front porch under the overhanging balcony that ran the width of the house. A staircase with inlaid tiles led up the side of the porch to the second-story balcony through a black wrought iron gate. There was a towering palo verde tree just beside it, dripping yellow blossoms, and a palm tree on the other side of the house. Ferns hung from the front porch, where wicker furniture beckoned in the shade of the balcony.

      She opened the big black, wrought iron gate and walked into the garden, smiling with pure pleasure as she meandered down the path, stopping to smell a rose here and there.

      “Always you do this,” came a resigned, Spanish-flavored voice from the porch. A familiar tall, spare figure came into the light, his silvery hair catching the sunlight. “Bienvenida, muchacha.”

      “Montoya!” She laughed. She held out her hands, to have them taken in a firm, kind grasp. “You never change.”

      “Neither do you,” he replied. “It is good to have you here. I grow weary of cooking for myself and Tía Elena. It has been lonely without the Señora Agatha and Señor Bowie.”

      “Have you heard from Aggie?” she asked.

      “Sí. She arrives today or tomorrow.” He glanced behind him and leaned forward. “With a strange hombre,” he added, “and Señor Bowie does not like this. There will be trouble.”

      “Tell me about it,” Gaby groaned. “He talked me into coming down here as a chaperone, and God only knows what Aggie’s going to say when she finds me here.”

      “When she finds you both here,” he corrected.

      “¿Qué hablas?” she asked, lapsing into the natural Spanish that seemed so much a part of Casa Río because its staff and Bowie spoke it so fluently.

      “Señor Bowie came an hour ago,” he said. “He seems to have had no sleep, and he has already caused Tía Elena to hide in the bathroom.”

      She felt a ripple of pure excitement that she shouldn’t have felt at the remark. “Bowie’s here? But he’s supposed to be in Canada...”

      “Not anymore,” Montoya sighed. “He left the project in the hands of his foreman and caught a plane to Tucson. He says that he cannot stand by and let his mother make such a mistake. He is going to save her.”

      He said the last tongue in cheek, and Gaby smothered a laugh. “Oh, my.”

      “If you laugh, niña, make sure the señor does not see you do it,” he said dryly. “Or you may have to join Tía Elena in the bathroom. He has the look of the coyote that tried to eat our cat last week.”

      “That bad, huh?” She shook her head. “Well, I’ll go see what I can do. Poor Aggie.”

      “We know nothing of this man,” Montoya reminded her. “He could be right, you know.”

      “He could be wrong, too.”

      “The señor?” Montoya put his hand over his heart. “I am shocked that you should say such a thing.”

      “I’ll bet,” she mused, grinning as she went past him. “Where is he?”

      “In the house.”

      “Where in the house?”

      Montoya shrugged. “¿Quíen sabe? I have better sense than to look for him.”

      She gave him a mock glare and went inside. Tía Elena, fifty, and severe as night in her black dress with her hair pulled back into a bun, peeked around the corner, her black eyes wary.

      “It’s only me,” Gaby teased. She hugged the thin older woman and laughed. “Still hiding, I see.”

      “Is it any wonder?” Elena asked, shaking her head. “I do nothing right, you see. The bed is made with colored sheets, the señor wanted white ones. I have polished the floor too much and he does not like it that it is slippery. The bathroom smells of sandalwood, which he hates; the air conditioner is set too low, and he is roasting; and I am certain that before dark he will find a way to accuse me of having the clouds too low and the sand too deep in the backyard.”

      Gaby laughed softly. Bowie on a rampage could do this even to people who’d lived with him for years. She patted Tía Elena on the shoulder gently. “It will all blow over,” she promised. “It always does.”

      “I am too old for such storms.” Elena sighed. “I will make a salad and slice some meat for sandwiches. The señora and her friend will arrive soon.” She threw up her hands. “No doubt the señor will accuse me of trying to poison the meat...” she muttered as she went back into the kitchen.

      Gaby went down the long hall of the first floor, skirting the staircase that led to the upstairs bedrooms, past the sweeping Western motif of Bowie’s study, past the elegant grandeur of the traditional living room, past the library with its wall-to-wall bookcases, pine paneling, and leather furniture, past the huge kitchen, and down the covered walkway to the pool house. And there was Bowie.

      He was cleaving the water with powerful strokes, easily covering the length of the Olympic-sized pool and turning with quiet strength to slice back through the water to where Gaby stood watching.

      His head came out of the pool, his blond hair darker wet than dry, his black eyes examined her curiously. She was wearing designer jeans, but they weren’t tight. The long, trendy, red-and-gray overblouse disguised her figure, except for its slenderness and the elegance of her long legs. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail with a red ribbon, and her dark glasses were still propped on her head.

      “Taking inventory?” she asked.

      “Not particularly. You’re late.”

      “I’m early, and what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Canada,” she reminded him.

      “I couldn’t stop worrying about Aggie,” he said simply.

      He put his big hands on the side of the pool, and with devastating ease, pulled himself out. As he got to his feet, Gaby found herself gaping at the unfamiliar sight of him in nothing but white swimming trunks.

      They were very conventional trunks, but they did nothing to disguise the sheer magnificence of his powerful body without clothing. She’d seen him this way before a time or two, but it had never affected her so much. Bowie had a physique that was nothing short of breathtaking. He was a big man, formidable in height as well as size, but there