Saddle Up(17)

“Fact is not always the same as truth,” he countered, his breath coming shorter as he vigorously forced the handle up and down. “Facts can be twisted and distorted into falsehoods. But truth can’t be spun or twisted.” The pump gave a violent hiccup. “Truth is immutable.” A sudden surge of rusty water sputtered and splashed into the bucket. “You didn’t present the truth,” he contended fiercely.

“Oh really?” She snorted. “If anything, deceit is your specialty. You presented yourself as a clinician, when you’re really just a poser. A talented one, I’ll give you that, but you don’t really teach anything. It was all just a big show, wasn’t it? You trained your horse to do tricks and then worked your seductive magic on your audience. That’s fine if you’re just an entertainer, but you touted yourself as more than that.”

She’d been as enthralled as the rest of them after watching him work with Picasso at his clinic and felt inexplicably let down once she’d realized what he was really after—sex and money.

“How about you?” he threw back. “That film you made depicted me as a phony, but it was nothing but a series of half-truths. My people have a proverb, Miz Sutton. ‘Do not wrong your neighbor, for it is not he that you wrong, but yourself.’”

“But I didn’t wrong anyone,” she insisted. “Maybe Bibi embellished the film for the sake of entertainment, but how can you fault her when you’d already sensationalized yourself?” She faced him, hands on hips. “Do you deny that you were born in New York? That you changed your name purely to promote your career?”

“Lots of people use a stage name,” he retorted. “There’s nothing dishonest in that. I never tricked or deceived anyone. Two Wolves is the Shoshone name my grandfather gave me. It’s mine by right of heritage.”

“Heritage?” She regarded him, perplexed. “I-I don’t understand. Isn’t your family from Long Island? I looked it all up, your birth date, even the hospital name. Your family—”

He glared back at her. “They aren’t my real family. I was born in New York, but my father was full-blooded Shoshone. I am Shoshone through his blood and by tribal adoption.”

“What you’re saying isn’t making any sense.”

“Of course not,” he said. “How could it when you have only half of the story? If you’d ever asked me, I would have told you the rest. But you never asked, did you?”

“That wasn’t up to me,” she replied defensively. “It was Bibi’s project, not mine. I just did the job she told me to do.”

Still, guilt gnawed at her insides. She’d always considered herself a good judge of character, but it seemed she’d been wrong about him. Maybe he wasn’t all he’d presented himself to be, but he also wasn’t quite the phony the film accused him of being. “Did Bibi know the truth?” she asked.

“She knew.”

Her jaw went slack. “I don’t understand. Why would she have purposely—”

He turned back to the pump. “I’ll water the horses. You gather wood.”

*

Still brooding, Keith kept Miranda in his peripheral vision while he tended the horses. There was no question in his mind that Bibi had set out to ruin him, but Miranda wasn’t completely innocent. Maybe under different circumstances he would have enjoyed being alone with her, but he couldn’t forget the part she’d played.

She returned with an armful of dead wood she’d gathered from around the two Joshua trees and dumped it on the ground. “How much more?”

“Two more loads,” he replied refusing to look up.

He turned his attention to unpacking supplies but couldn’t seem to keep his eyes from following every time she turned her back. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t ignore his body’s awareness of her. He hadn’t felt himself inside a woman in a long time. Far too long. He’d had no shortage of opportunities, but he’d steered clear of them. It was all part of the self-inflicted penance he’d undertaken to purify his spirit. It had taken months of prayer, meditation, and time spent in the heat and darkness of the sweat lodge to purge impure thoughts.

He’d finally managed to banish sex almost completely from his mind…until now. He might not like Miranda, but the male part of him still appreciated the female parts of her. As she squatted and gathered up the dead branches, he couldn’t help noticing the long legs encased in tight jeans that also showcased a small but perfectly shaped behind. He briefly fantasized how those long legs would feel wrapped around his waist while his hands cupped that nicely rounded ass.

Her hoarse whisper called him back from the erotic abyss.

“Keith, do you hear that?”

A soft, ominous rattle echoed her words.

“Shit.” He grabbed the hunting knife from his belt scabbard. He hadn’t really expected her to encounter any snakes. They were usually hibernating this time of year. He’d mentioned them simply to torture her, but the danger was real enough now. “Where is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t see over the wood.” Her arms were loaded and her eyes wide with fear. “What should I do?”

“Don’t move until I say so.” He crept toward her, knife in hand, locating it quickly by sound—a Mojave rattler, the deadliest snake in North America. It was coiled and extremely agitated. “It’s on the left about two feet away from you,” he said.