LITMIR.BIZ

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he could have guessed that she’d never waste time on a halfway gasp when a full-body sissy scream would do.

      “Kansas,” he said gently, “it’s just a spider.”

      “You call that a spider? I call it a monster—big enough to kill us both! How do you live in this horrible country? I’ll never sleep for a week!”

      “If you let me loose, I’ll take care of it,” he said soothingly.

      “If you think I’m letting go of you, you’re out of your mind!” But having made that completely irrational statement, she reared back her head and shrieked again when she saw the tarantula.

      By tomorrow, maybe, his ears might stop ringing. “I’m not saying you want to be bitten by one, but it’s not going to attack you. If you just calm down for two seconds—”

      “Calm down? I hate spiders and crawly things! Oh, God, oh, God. I’m gonna have nightmares about this for a year!”

      Pax opened his mouth to try to reassure her again—and abruptly and completely closed his mouth.

      Kansas, still ranting, tore loose from his arms. Still raving about how petrified she was, she raced across the room and grabbed a folded newspaper. Still claiming to be an ace-pro wuss who couldn’t handle, just couldn’t handle, creepy-crawly critters, she scooped the tarantula onto the paper, whisked across the room to open the sliding doors and let the critter outside.

      When she slammed the glass door closed, she leaned against it with a dramatic hand on her chest. “I think I’m gonna have a heart attack.”

      Pax scratched his chin. He’d thought she was going to have a heart attack, too. He would have quickly educated her about how painful a tarantula bite could be—if she’d given him the chance. He would also have taken care of the critter for her—if she hadn’t moved at the speed of light and done it herself.

      For someone who made big noises about being a self-proclaimed coward and a gutless wimp, Kansas wasn’t quite living up to her image.

      Or maybe she just wasn’t what she seemed.

      Kansas suddenly peered up at him. “You probably think I’m a scatterbrained ditz.”

      That thought had crossed his mind. “Actually it’s a pretty good idea to be scared of tarantulas...and the same goes for a few other desert critters who live around here. Most have a far more exaggerated reputation than they deserve, but a tarantula bite can hurt real good. Best to stay away from them.”

      “I’ll be happy to.” She clawed a hand through her hair, which made a cowlick stick up in a spike. “I’m gonna have the willies all night unless I check every corner of the house for any more of those things.”

      Pax could have offered. It wasn’t a lack of chivalry that kept him silent, but just plain dark humor. Kansas kept saying how terrified she was, but she certainly didn’t seem to be counting on anyone to rescue her. A man might even come to the confounded conclusion that the lady was damn used to rescuing herself. He glanced again at the ethereal blouse, the fragile bones, the sky-soft blue eyes, the impractical baubly jewelry dangling and tangling all over the place...

      “Pax—do you want some wine or something? Before that tarantula scared the wits out of me, I thought you were going to tell me something about my brother.”

      “I’m not much on wine.” He glanced at his watch. “And it’s getting pretty late. I’ve got a call on a rancher at six in the morning.”

      Immediately she looked guilty. “I didn’t mean to take so much of your time.”

      “Hey, I volunteered.” More to the point, Pax just wasn’t sure what to say about her brother. Long before Kansas arrived, he’d had some suspicions clawing in his mind about what Case might have gotten himself involved with. The things she’d showed him around the place had worried him more.

      But suspicions weren’t fact. And even if his worries were true, Pax still wasn’t sure what or how to tell Kansas anything. No question, she had a lioness’s fierce loyalty to her brother. That was a sweet quality, a damn fine quality that Pax only wished someone had felt toward him in his own life. But to let an emotional, impulsive sissy of a city baby loose in a situation way out of her ken—hell, Kansas could land herself in a heap of trouble, if not downright danger.

      She walked him to the front door with her arms wrapped around her chest and her mouth zipped in a firm line. No talking. She respected that it was late and he had to leave. Her gaze kept shooting to his face, though, and Pax had the uneasy feeling that she’d rope and hog-tie him if he dared try leaving without saying something else about Case.

      When he pushed open the back door, she was as faithful as a dog on his heels. It had turned dark. The lights of Sierra Vista were a soft glow in the sky to the north, but this far out of town, there were no lights, no traffic, no people noise. The night came alive here. The air was impossibly clear and pure, the silence soothing on a man’s soul. So typically, the Arizona spring night was seeped in desert smells and sounds and a huge, ghost white full moon—his favorite kind.

      Kansas’s gaze was still glued tightly on his face. Pax doubted she noticed the moon or the night—at that precise moment, he doubted she’d notice an earthquake—and mentally sighed. Yeah, he’d been thinking about the problem of her brother.

      “My work schedule is pretty weird,” he told her. “I’m not an ‘office hours’ kind of vet. About the only thing I do in the office is surgery—most of my work is out in the field, and I use a cellular phone for people trying to track me down. My hours are always crazy, and like I said, I really don’t know where your brother is, Kansas. The best I could do—if you don’t mind working around my hit-or-miss schedule—is take you around, show you some places where Case used to go, that kind of thing.”

      “That kind of thing would be wonderful,“ she said fervently, and smiled like he’d just turned on the switch for the sun. “That was all I was asking for—some help. I know it’s an imposition, and I really appreciate the offer. In fact I would be glad to pay you—”

      “Around here, we haven’t caught up with big city values yet. A neighbor still helps a neighbor. Money has nothing to do with it.” Pax dug the truck key out of his jeans pocket. He doubted the wisdom of getting involved, but there was no help for it. Letting Kansas poke and pry on her own just wouldn’t sit on his conscience. “I won’t be free tomorrow until after three in the afternoon.”

      “That’d be great.”

      Pax wasn’t sure it’d be great. He wasn’t sure of anything except that he felt a whomp upside the head every time he looked at her.

      Kansas moved aside so he could open the driver’s door to the Explorer. He opened the door, but he didn’t immediately climb in.

      It had been a long time since anyone or anything confused him. His real name, Paxton, had been shortened to Pax because the Latin base for the nickname had always pegged his personality. He liked peace. He’d had enough turmoil in his childhood to last forever. Most things that mattered in life reduced to simple terms, if a man was determined to lead a simple life.

      Nothing seemed simple about Kansas. Right then, she was standing in a shower of moonlight, her eyes softer than the big black sky. The filmy blouse she wore was no thicker than a veil, and never mind that it was sexier than a man’s midnight fantasies. The fabric was ethereal and fragile, and everything she wore, every damn thing she did, shouted loudly that she was a wimp and a wuss and a crushably vulnerable woman.

      Yet she’d taken off cross-country without a qualm “to save” her brother. And he’d watched the confounded shrimp tackle the tarantula, when she had a rescuer right at her fingertips who could have handled it. It didn’t make sense. She didn’t make sense.

      Kansas cocked her head. “I’m in no rush if you want to stand here all night,” she murmured humorously. “But you’re looking at me like there’s a bug on my nose.”

      “There’s

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