The pickup truck bounced over the uneven road, which was actually no more than a pasture trail. Linc had no idea where he was going, but he was in a hurry to get there. He reasoned that Kerry wasn’t well acquainted with Cage’s spread either. She probably would have stayed close to the road so she’d be certain to find her way back to the house.
His instincts paid off. After twenty minutes of hard driving over rugged terrain, he spotted a stock tank as large as a small lake. Its steep banks were shaded by the feathery branches of mesquite trees. The spring grass, not yet burned brown by the summer sun, was lush and green. One of Cage’s well-groomed quarter horses was tied to the lower branches of a mesquite on the rim of the bank overlooking the placid tank.
At the sound of the approaching pickup, Kerry, who was lying beneath the tree on a blanket she had taken from the tack room and tied behind her saddle, propped herself up on one elbow. She lifted the other hand to shade her eyes. She thought at first that it was Cage driving the truck, but sprang upright when she recognized the long-legged silhouette approaching her as belonging to Linc.
The incline didn’t slow him down at all. Within seconds he was looming over her, his booted feet planted firmly on the ground at the edge of her blanket. Her eyes moved up his legs, up his torso, and straight into a disconcerting golden glower. She didn’t have to guess at his mood. He was enraged. On the inside, she quailed, though she kept her chin up and met that intimidating stare without flinching.
“You lying bitch.”
Kerry didn’t even pretend to misunderstand. With a sinking heart and rapidly diminishing courage, she knew that she’d been found out. The only recourse she had was to brazen it out.
“Now, Linc,” she said, quickly wetting her lips and holding her hands out in front of her as though to stave him off, “before you jump to any conclusions—”
He effectively cut her off by dropping to his knees and roughly grabbing her by the shoulders. “Before I jump on your bones, you mean.”
Her face drained of color. He hadn’t made her a seductive promise but a menacing threat. “You wouldn’t.”
“The hell I wouldn’t. But before I do, I want to know why you told me that ridiculous lie.”
“I didn’t!” She tried to work herself free, but to no avail. The more she struggled, the more inescapable his hold became. “I never told you that I was a nun.”
“I didn’t dream it up, baby.”
“You heard the children call me sister and drew your own conclusions. You—”
Her teeth clicked together when he hauled her up closer to his face, which was taut with fury. “But you sure as hell let me believe it, didn’t you? Why?” he roared.
“To protect myself from you.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
She went hot all over at his sneering insult. “I knew what you had in mind. Don’t deny it. You were thinking that our escape through the jungle was going to be a lark, during which you planned to use me for a bedmate.”
“Me Tarzan, you Jane.”
“It was no joking matter. You forced me to kiss you, to change clothes in front of you!”
“I didn’t see anything that you hadn’t advertised by wearing that cheap dress!” he shouted back. “And whether you admit it or not, lady, you loved those kisses.”
“I did not!”
“Like hell.”
She had to take deep, restorative breaths before she could continue. “I was trying to think of a way to avoid your unwelcome sexual advances when the children inadvertently provided me with a way.”
“Why did they call you Sister Kerry?”
“Because when I first got there, they started calling me Mother. I didn’t want them to think of me that way. I was already planning to bring them to the United States for adoption. I thought that being like an older sister would be a healthier relationship. Don’t blame me for your own gross mistake.”
“What I blame you for is making a fool of me.”
“I didn’t do it maliciously,” she cried.
“Didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Come now, Miss Kerry Bishop, daughter to one of the chief swindlers of our times, didn’t you take delight in playing me like a puppet? Don’t you come by those manipulative skills naturally?” Kerry shuddered at the reference to her father and his corruption. Apparently Linc knew all about her background now. His scorn was well-founded, but it still hurt her to the core that he thought she was capable of such machinations.