Arizona Heat. Jennifer Greene
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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?”
“I don’t believe so,” he said dryly.
“Well, then, it’s hopeless. Write me off as a city sissy, but I just don’t think southern Arizona and I were ever meant to get along.” Kansas mentally shook her head when he let out a deep, throaty chuckle. She’d never planned on running on so long, but darned if it wasn’t working. All she’d had to do was honestly admit how miserable she was and make a little fun of herself. The starch left his shoulders; the formal reserve disappeared from his expression. If humor and honesty softened him up, she mused, they might just conceivably get along. She’d never have been able to find common ground with anyone who didn’t have a sense of humor.
“You don’t have to be here long,” he consoled her.
“You’ve got that right. I’ll only be here long enough to find my brother. But I can’t...” She lost the thought, diverted by the sudden flash and sparkle of something moving in the corner of her vision. Although ornithology had never been her hobby, she still knew enough to recognize a hummingbird. She’d just never seen one like this.
All kinds of trees and scraggly bushes bordered the trail, but unlike the emeralds and deep greens of woods in Minnesota, everything here was a sun-bleached and dusty dull green—which was probably why the bird riveted her attention. It was so startlingly bright and gaudy. Although it couldn’t be bigger than the cup of her hand, the dizzy bird dove like a whirling dervish, swooping and spinning as if the whole sky were its playground. Its head and beak were dark, but the hummingbird’s neck appeared to be wearing a collar of iridescent spangles in a glittering scarlet red that caught and reflected the sun.
Pax turned his head to find what she was looking at. “It’s Anna’s,” he said.
“You mean the bird belongs to someone named Anna?”
“No, I mean that’s the name of the species. Anna’s Hummingbird. Calypte Anna. More than a dozen different species migrate to the canyon around this time of year, peaking around the month of May. They’ve got a name for the hummingbirds around here—jewels of the sky.”
“That’s exactly how that one looks, as if it were covered in jewels.” She shielded her eyes with a cupped hand. “Do they all fly like that? Like drunk kamikaze pilots?”
He chuckled. “I strongly suspect there’s a girl somewhere in the trees that he’s trying to impress.”
“Ah. Hormones. The great equalizer in life. The one thing guaranteed to make fools out of every species in the kingdom, isn’t it?” She couldn’t take her eyes off the beauty. “I’m afraid the daredevil’s gonna crash land and kill himself.”
“If any other bird tried that, he probably would.” Pax hunkered down to gather his first aid and vet supplies. Instead of a traditional doctor’s black bag, he carried a hiker’s backpack. “Critters are my business, but there’s no explaining anything hummingbirds do. They break every natural law in the books.”
“No kidding? Like what?”
“Well...for one thing, the aerodynamic experts claim that the hummer’s wing and body structure should make it impossible to fly—but they’re outstanding flyers. They’re also the squirts of the bird kingdom, the tiniest in body size yet with the biggest wing span—breaking another universal physics law about weight and body proportion. And any biologist can tell you they’re not anatomically built to hover, much less hover over flowers for long periods of time—yet they’re excellent at that, too. Hummingbirds may look tiny and fragile, but they have a long history of doing the impossible. They just do it their way, and to hell with everybody else’s rules.”
Kansas didn’t look away until the hummingbird had disappeared from sight. Abruptly she discovered that Pax was standing beside her. He had packed up the supplies he’d used on the raccoon, and the knapsack was strapped to his back, as if he were ready to leave. But not at that exact instant. At that exact instant, his eyes were focused on her face with a look of such concentrated speculation that—if it hadn’t been broiling hot—she might have shivered.
“What?” she asked him.
“Nothing. It just crossed my mind how often appearances are misleading. Something tells me you’re not real fond of doing anything by anyone else’s rule book, either.”
Her cinnamon eyebrows feathered up. “Hoboy, you couldn’t be more wrong. I’m not only big on rules, but what you see is what you get. I thought you already figured it out—I’m a city wimp. Gutless. Weak. Helpless anywhere away from my air-conditioning.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah. Which was how I was hoping to convince you that I seriously, honestly need help finding my brother. I just have no possible way to cope alone.”
* * *
Pax checked in at the preserve office, then gave Kansas a lift in his dusty Explorer to the inconceivably long distance she’d parked her rental car.
“Thanks,” she said fervently. When she hopped out, though, she didn’t immediately leave, but crossed her arms in the open truck window on the passenger side. “Seven o’clock tonight, right? And you know where my brother’s place is?”
The lady, Pax thought, was relentless. She could wear down a monk’s resolve if she put her mind to it. “I know where it is. Are you going to be able to find your way back to town okay?”
“Probably not.” She grinned. “But don’t worry. No matter how lost I get, I’ll be there and waiting for you at seven. And I really appreciate your being willing to help me. Thanks again.”
She flew toward the shiny red Civic before Pax could correct her—he had not, precisely, agreed to help her. He’d only agreed to talk a little further about her brother. And when push came to shove, he couldn’t exactly remember even agreeing to that.
His gaze roamed the length of her—it didn’t take long, not for a shrimp like her. Cute legs, but short. The color of her outfit was loud enough to wake a man from a sound sleep, and had some kind of sparkly appliqués on the front. The shorts and top hid nothing about her figure—no fanny to speak of, even though there was a hell of a swish in her walk, and not much on the upper deck, either. Her hair was the color of fire, and the blaze of curls tangled every which way around her face, no order, no control. With that vanilla-cream skin, he guessed her nose would be beet red by nightfall. And why the Sam Hill she’d be wearing long dangling earrings in the desert was beyond him.
There was no conceivable, justifiable, understandable reason why she had his blood pumping.
Pax had always liked women, and by thirty-two, he’d had the chance to know his share. Tall, leggy women were his preference, but he set no special stock in physical appearance. Temperament was more important. He sought out the women who liked the outdoors as much as he did, who were easygoing, natural to be with, restful.
Kansas McClellan was as restful as a rattlesnake.
He waited until she’d turned the rental car around before starting the Explorer’s engine. He had a call to make after this—Juan Gonzalez’s place—so he couldn’t follow her all the way to town, but he could at least make sure she was steered toward the right road in the right county.
Pax grew up with some outmoded, archaic values about men protecting women. Whether or not he had a tolerance for ditsy, scatterbrained redheads was irrelevant. That particular redhead looked as frail and fragile as one of