teaching Indian children to read and write Spanish in a convent school. If she’d aroused Chase while undressing, that was a lucky accident. She wouldn’t know how to seduce a man if he gave her step-by-step instructions, and Chase Beaudine didn’t seem likely to do that.
“ ‘Where there’s a will,’ ” she said, abbreviating another of the proverbs she’d picked up from the sisters. Actually, Sister Maria Innocentia’s advice had usually been a bit wordier. “Action must necessarily follow resolution if goals are to be achieved,” the venerable mother superior was fond of saying.
Annie glanced up suddenly, searching the cabin with her gaze. Chase had mentioned a shower, hadn’t he? She’d always done her best thinking in the convent’s makeshift shower, and she badly wanted to get reacquainted with some warm water and a bar of soap. It had been so long.
Rising stiffly to her feet, she tugged at the short cotton shift that had once come down to her calves and was the regulation undergarment in the convent. After years of trying to tuck the voluminous thing into her jeans, she’d simply whacked most of the bottom off one day, much to the sisters’ dismay. So as not to further offend their sensibilities, she’d left intact the words embroidered in pink thread across the bodice: VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD.
She found the shower in a closet-sized bathroom off the hallway. The floor was wooden slats spaced wide for drainage, and the rusty shower head looked as if Chase had stolen it off the nozzle end of a hose. Not what she’d hoped for, but nothing could have dissuaded her from the prospect of cleaning up.
She turned on the tap and then jumped back with a startled cry as an icy jet of water hit her. It took several minutes for it to warm up, but when it did, she stepped into the stinging spray with great relief, shift and all.
It was heaven, pure bliss, she decided, scrubbing herself with a bar of gritty soap that smelled so strongly of lye it stung her nostrils. “Cleanliness and godliness,” she murmured. “However that one goes.”
Turning in the shower spray, luxuriating in its pounding heat, she could have stood forever in the soapy, steaming cocoon. But all the years of convent living and the impoverishment of her circumstances made her feel a little guilty about indulging herself now. She glanced down at her water-soaked shift and felt a pang of despair as she ducked her head under the spray. Was virtue really its own reward? she wondered, soaping her hair. And what chance did a woman with a platitude embroidered on her underwear have of seducing an unwilling man?
The black Ford Bronco’s chassis bounced against taut springs, its engine snarling as Chase geared down and swerved to avoid a darting ground squirrel. The gravel access road that led to his cabin had ruts the size of small open graves and a pitch too steep for anything but a rugged four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Grocery bags Chase had forgotten to secure toppled over in the backseat as the Jeep jolted up the hill. There went the eggs, he thought, glancing in his rearview mirror. They’d be scrambled before he got back to his place. But he didn’t bother to slow down. A blazing sunset had drenched the craggy mountain peaks ahead of him in coppery oranges and reds, which meant he had less than a half hour to get home before dark.
The slimy character Chase had apprehended on the McAffrey spread had turned out to be telling the truth. He was a newly hired hand, according to the foreman, who assured Chase the man had been sent out to mend fences.
Something about the situation still stank as far as Chase was concerned, but he’d let it go, apologized to the man for roughing him up, and headed into Painted Pony to pick up supplies. Then, before he’d left town, he’d tried to contact his former partners by telephone and hadn’t been able to reach either of them. Johnny Starhawk was arguing an important case before the Federal District
“ ‘Where there’s a will,’ ” she said, abbreviating another of the proverbs she’d picked up from the sisters. Actually, Sister Maria Innocentia’s advice had usually been a bit wordier. “Action must necessarily follow resolution if goals are to be achieved,” the venerable mother superior was fond of saying.
Annie glanced up suddenly, searching the cabin with her gaze. Chase had mentioned a shower, hadn’t he? She’d always done her best thinking in the convent’s makeshift shower, and she badly wanted to get reacquainted with some warm water and a bar of soap. It had been so long.
Rising stiffly to her feet, she tugged at the short cotton shift that had once come down to her calves and was the regulation undergarment in the convent. After years of trying to tuck the voluminous thing into her jeans, she’d simply whacked most of the bottom off one day, much to the sisters’ dismay. So as not to further offend their sensibilities, she’d left intact the words embroidered in pink thread across the bodice: VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD.
She found the shower in a closet-sized bathroom off the hallway. The floor was wooden slats spaced wide for drainage, and the rusty shower head looked as if Chase had stolen it off the nozzle end of a hose. Not what she’d hoped for, but nothing could have dissuaded her from the prospect of cleaning up.
She turned on the tap and then jumped back with a startled cry as an icy jet of water hit her. It took several minutes for it to warm up, but when it did, she stepped into the stinging spray with great relief, shift and all.
It was heaven, pure bliss, she decided, scrubbing herself with a bar of gritty soap that smelled so strongly of lye it stung her nostrils. “Cleanliness and godliness,” she murmured. “However that one goes.”
Turning in the shower spray, luxuriating in its pounding heat, she could have stood forever in the soapy, steaming cocoon. But all the years of convent living and the impoverishment of her circumstances made her feel a little guilty about indulging herself now. She glanced down at her water-soaked shift and felt a pang of despair as she ducked her head under the spray. Was virtue really its own reward? she wondered, soaping her hair. And what chance did a woman with a platitude embroidered on her underwear have of seducing an unwilling man?
The black Ford Bronco’s chassis bounced against taut springs, its engine snarling as Chase geared down and swerved to avoid a darting ground squirrel. The gravel access road that led to his cabin had ruts the size of small open graves and a pitch too steep for anything but a rugged four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Grocery bags Chase had forgotten to secure toppled over in the backseat as the Jeep jolted up the hill. There went the eggs, he thought, glancing in his rearview mirror. They’d be scrambled before he got back to his place. But he didn’t bother to slow down. A blazing sunset had drenched the craggy mountain peaks ahead of him in coppery oranges and reds, which meant he had less than a half hour to get home before dark.
The slimy character Chase had apprehended on the McAffrey spread had turned out to be telling the truth. He was a newly hired hand, according to the foreman, who assured Chase the man had been sent out to mend fences.
Something about the situation still stank as far as Chase was concerned, but he’d let it go, apologized to the man for roughing him up, and headed into Painted Pony to pick up supplies. Then, before he’d left town, he’d tried to contact his former partners by telephone and hadn’t been able to reach either of them. Johnny Starhawk was arguing an important case before the Federal District
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