THE MASTER FIDDLER.

By Janet Dailey.

CHAPTER ONE.

After she had traveled westward from Dallas, Texas, for two days, the unending desert scenery had begun to bore Jacqueline Grey. The road seemed to stretch through the same land. The rocks and shrubs were jumbled in different order yet appeared almost identical. The heat was oppressive on this September morning.

Actually it was closer to noon, Jacquie realized as the gold bracelets jangled away from the face of her wrist.w.a.tch. Her start out of Bisbee, Arizona, had not been early, but considering the hour she had gone to bed the night before or this morning, however one wished to look at it she deserved congratulations for being behind the wheel at this moment.

With a wry smile curving the fullness of her mouth, she knew that no one mapping out a trip from Dallas to Los Angeles would ever succeed in including Bisbee along its path. Neither would she if it hadn't been for the fact that her girl friend Tammy had recently moved there with her husband.

The sun glared on the road ahead. A dull pain throbbed at Jacquie's temples, an unpleasant reminder of the too many tequila c.o.c.ktails she had consumed last night. With one hand on the steering wheel, she fumbled through her oversize leather purse for the dusty, rose-shaded sungla.s.ses.

Once in place on the fine bridge of her nose, the gla.s.ses shaded her eyes, hiding their unusual turquoise green color without concealing the curling length of her thick lashes. A raking movement of her long fingernails flipped the hair that had fallen across her cheek to the back of her shoulder. The pale, silver gold color of her hair, a completely natural hue since birth, resembled corn silk.

Jacquie was not bund to the somewhat stunning quality of her beauty. Without conceit, she knew the impact she made on the male members of her species when they met her. A beautiful child grown into a beautiful woman of twenty, she was accustomed to second glances and fulsome compliments.

Nor was she the type to falsely bemoan her looks when men concentrated on her physical attributes instead of her intelligence or her vivacious personality. She was attractive and darned glad of it!

As for faults, Jacquie would readily admit to having her share. For starters, she was too much her father's daughter headstrong, independent, and proud. Secondly, she was spoiled. As an only child of relatively wealthy parents, she had been to a certain extent pampered and indulged. Naturally, she had a temper, a very human trait. Enemies, of which she probably had a few, would be more able to list her failings, Jacquie decided. Except what did all this self-a.n.a.lysis explain, she wondered irritatedly. Certainly not her restless and unsettled mood. It had been with her spasmodically for the last several months. It had brought her here to southern Arizona en route to California.

Last night when she had presented herself at Tammy's doorstep, she had made it sound like a grand adventure, cutting the parental ties and striking out entirely on her own. The argument with her parents, mainly with her father, had been laughingly related.

It hadn't been funny at all. Looking back, Jacquie wished she could take back some of the bitter words she had hurled. Since she hadn't understood the reason for her action, she hadn't been able to explain it to her parents. The argument had begun with her announcement that she wouldn't be returning to the university when the fall term started.

"What do you mean?" her father had demanded, an incredulous frown appearing on his forehead. "You only have two years before you get your degree."

"My degree in what, dad?" Jacquie had replied somewhat cynically. "I'm a liberal arts major. That means I'm just getting an education in a little bit of everything because I don't know what I want."

"At least you're getting an education. There are a lot of people in this world who would like to trade places with you."

"That's precisely my point." Jacquie had seized on her father's attempt to remind her of the good fortune she had. "There's someone out there who would love to have the education I'm receiving. I don't happen to want it, so I'm quitting to make room for that someone who does."

"How magnanimous of you!" her father had mocked. "And just what do you plan to do instead of attending college?"

"The very same thing I would do after I ?.

graduate," she had replied, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "Get a job."

Her father had impatiently raked his fingers through his hair, now more a silver gray than the silver blond of his daughter's. "Without an education, what type of job do you think you'll get?"

"I don't know. I don't even know what kind I want. An education isn't going to solve that."

"A degree will allow you a wider choice," he had retorted. "Do you know what kind of jobs would be open to you now? I'll tell you. You can be a waitress or a sales clerk or a typist."

"What's wrong with those?" Jacqueline had challenged the faintly sn.o.bbish ring of his voice. "They're honest jobs."

"I never said they weren't," he had answered defensively. "Is it wrong for me to want something more for my daughter? At least at college you would be meeting suitable young men."

"The university isn't a marriage market, dad. And marriage has nothing to do with my decision anyway. I want to be on my own for a while."

"What do you know about earning your own living? You haven't done a day's work in your life!" he had snapped. "It's rare to even see you helping your mother around the house!"

That was the point when the angry words had really begun. Her father's angry accusation that Jacquie only wanted a free ride through life on his shoulders had forced her to insist that she wanted nothing from him but the right to live her own life the way she wanted.

The end result of the argument was this journey to Los Angeles where Jacquie intended to start her new life. There was no particular reason. It had been the first city she had thought of when her father had demanded to know where she was going.

Before she had answered his question, he had bitterly added that he was certain it would be somewhere close by so she could run home to momma when the world got too rough. So the city of Los Angeles had popped out and here she was on her way. It was not the city she would have chosen if she had given it more thought. But once that was said, Jacquie was too stubborn and headstrong to be talked out of her choice.

A glance at the speedometer of her foreign economy car brought an easing of the pres sure of her foot against the gas pedal. A chuckle slipped from Jacquie's throat. For two and a half days she had been on her own. Thus far she had acquired a speeding ticket in Texas, another in New Mexico, and a hangover in Bisbee. It was hardly an auspicious beginning.

The roofs of a small town appeared ahead of her. Jacquie had breakfasted only on coffee late that morning, her stomach not prepared for anything more substantial. Now its distinctly hollow feeling might be part of the reason for her dull headache.

There was no curiosity at what small town it might be. Other than verifying which highway would lead her into Tucson, Jacquie had not paid any attention to the route she had plotted that morning, therefore the sign identifying the town limits of Tombstone, Arizona, was unexpected.

Turning the car into the driveway of a service station, Jacquie had the idle thought that after lunching she might wander the boardwalks of the historic western town. The station attendant obligingly gave her directions to the restaurants located on the main street of town only two short blocks from the highway.

More concerned with her immediate destination than any oncoming traffic, Jacquie started to accelerate the car across the road. A horn blared. Her startled gaze swung toward the sound, spying the open-sided jeep an instant before it crunched and bounced off the front side of her car. Neither vehicle had been traveling very fast, but the collision had jolted severely.

Shaken but unhurt, Jacquie tried to open the car door, the image of the little blond-haired boy sitting in the pa.s.senger seat of the open jeep filling her mind with terrifying thoughts. The door was jammed. Her futile attempts to open it failed until a superior force from the outside yanked it open.

The dusty rose lenses of her sungla.s.ses shaded, but didn't conceal, the frightened roundness of her eyes. Jacquie stared into the tanned, lean face bending toward her. The man's cheek and jawline were sculptured out of granite, relentlessly hard and grim. His mouth was firmly thinned into a forbidding line. A dusty brown hat was pulled low on his brow and the sungla.s.ses affixed on the aquiline nose revealed only the silvery image of herself.

"Are you all right?" his growling voice demanded.

The accident had lodged her heart in her throat, choking off any words she might have wanted to speak. Jacquie was reduced to nodding dumbly that she was unharmed. There was an ominous tightening of the man's jaw-line as his face moved away.

On shaking legs, Jacquie forced herself to step out of the car. Her heartbeat had accelerated to a mad pace and her breathing was much too shallow both aftereflects of the collision, she a.s.sured her jangled nerves. She pressed a hand to her throbbing temples before raising her head to gaze at the man standing tall in front of her.

Five foot six in stockinged feet, Jacquie wasn't short by normal standards, but the man dwarfed her. He was easily over six foot with shoulders to fit his height. Perspiration plastered the short-sleeved tan shirt against his chest, the material clinging to the waistband of the dark brown rough cord denims. There wasn't an ounce of spare flesh anywhere.

"You didn't even look for traffic," the man accused in the low voice that reminded Jacquie of thunder rolling toward a crescendo. "Of all the empty-headed, feather brained " The rest was bit off in mid sentence as the barely imperceptible movement of his head indicated a shift of his attention. Jacquie glanced hesitantly over her shoulder. The little blond boy she had fleetingly glimpsed in the jeep was hobbling toward them on crutches, his right leg in a plaster cast.

Rounded eyes of the palest brown were riveted on Jacquie. "Are you all right?" the boy inquired anxiously.

Her voice returned in a sighing laugh as her mouth curved into a tremulous smile. "Scared out of my wits," she admitted, "but I'm not hurt."

"I thought I told you to stay in the jeep, Robbie."

The boy's eyes flickered to the man beside Jacquie, then skittered to the rocky ground near his feet, his chin tucked against his chest. "Yes sir," the boy named Robbie admitted.

The boy's concern had been genuine and Jacquie couldn't stop herself from softening the rather harsh att.i.tude of his father. The return of her voice had brought a return of her poise and strength. Ignoring the man beside her, she walked the few steps to the boy.

"Are you all right?" she asked gently, pushing her sungla.s.ses on top of her silvery blond head and bending toward him.

He peered at her through stubby brown lashes, his gaze locking with fascination on the long hair that swung forward across her cheeks. "Yes ma'am."

"I'm glad," Jacquie smiled.

"Your hair is pretty," he breathed absently.

Her eyes darted to the tow-headed shade of his hair. "It's almost the same color as yours," she pointed out.

The small, thin fingers of his right hand, the arm resting on the crook of his crutch, started forward as if to touch the spun silver gold of her hair, but the man's voice arrested the boy's movement.

"Wait for me at the station with Bob, Robbie," the man ordered crisply.

The chin lowered again. "Yes sir," the boy mumbled the words together. His small hands tightened on the crutches to propel him forward. A hesitant smile was offered to Jacquie. "I'm glad you're all right."

"So am I." Jacquie straightened and watched the boy's awkward progress toward the service station.

The man's broad shoulders blocked her vision after the boy had traveled several feet.

Harsh displeasure was etched in the thin line of his mouth. With her usual aplomb, Jacquie smiled warmly.

"An apology isn't sufficient, I know, but I truly am sorry about the accident. I'm not usually so careless," she offered.

The mirroring sungla.s.ses prevented her from seeing his eyes, yet she cbuldn't shake the sensation that his piercing gaze had just raked her curving figure, taking note of the snug fit of her cranberry slacks, the bare skin of her middle revealed by the mid riffed top of clinging knit. Not one flicker of admiration appeared in any way on the man's carved features.

Jacquie's a.s.sessment of him had been that he was all man, but he had evidently found her wanting in some respect. It was vaguely irritating that he had failed to respond to the warm ness of her smile.

"At least you recognize you were careless," he murmured cynically, a faint curl to his upper lip.

Counting to ten, Jacquie turned away from him. It was never wise to lose your temper when you were in the wrong. "How badly did I damage your jeep?" she asked instead.

"A dented b.u.mper, no worse than that," the man answered, a mocking inflection in his tone. "It's made to take punishment. The same can't be said for yours."

A glance at the crumpled b.u.mper of the jeep affirmed his words a second before he mentioned her car. Jacquie pivoted around, dismay pulling down the corners of her mouth when she saw the mashed front end of her little car.

"You're lucky it wasn't worse," the man stated, leaving unspoken his implication that he thought she deserved worse. "The police will be here shortly to make out a report, then Bob " nodding the crown of his brown Stetson toward the service station " can give you some idea of the extent of the damage."

"The police," Jacquie repeated weakly, thinking with dread of the two speeding tickets she had already paid and the undoubted citation she would receive as the driver in error at this accident.

What with fines and the repairs to the car, her supply of cash wasn't going to be as large as she thought by the time she reached Los Angeles.

"Yes, the police," he spoke the words again with biting conciseness.

"There... there really isn't any need to involve them in this," she began hopefully, blinking her sea-green eyes at him and receiving no outward reaction to her appeal. "I mean, after all, the damage was mostly to my car. No one was hurt, so why bother them?"

"There was an accident involving considerable property damage. It has to be reported." His commanding voice left no room for argument.

"I see," Jacquie nodded, pretending her previous request had been made in ignorance of the law.

At about that time, a car, bearing an official insignia on its door, pulled into the service station behind them. It was just as well that Jacquie hadn't argued the point.

The officer greeted Robbie's father with easy friendliness. The actual questioning period was brief, due mainly to the clear, concise account of the accident given by the tall, imposing man. The officer took one look at Jacquie, who couldn't be expected to be totally perfect in everything. Had it not been Robbie's father but some other man susceptible to her attraction involved in the accident Jacquie believed she could have avoided the citation for reck less driving. But the man's presence seemed to demand that she be issued it.

Within seconds after the paper was in her hand, another was thrust toward her by sun-browned fingers. Before she had an opportunity to read the writing scrawled on the plain paper, the man informed her that it was the name and address of his insurance company and could he please have hers a command phrased in a politely worded request that grated.

Rumaging through her oversized purse, Jacquie found paper and a pencil and quickly wrote down the information. He shoved it in his shirt after a verifying glance at what was written.

"Good day," the man said crisply, more to the officer than Jacquie.

Without a backward glance, his long strides carried him to the jeep where his long legs were tucked under the wheel. She watched with faint anger while he pulled into the nearby service station to collect Robbie, wishing that she had given in to the sarcastic impulse to tell him it had been nice running into him.

From the pa.s.senger seat of the open-sided jeep, a small hand waved goodbye. Jacquie returned the gesture with a determined flourish of her arm, wondering how a sensitive little boy could have such an insensitive father. With the very willing a.s.sistance of the officer and the service-station attendant, her car, no longer able to move under its own power, was towed the few yards to the garage. A sigh was expelled as she wondered how extensive the damage might be.

"How long do you think it will take?" Bracelets jangled as she tucked silken hair behind her ear, her eyes anxiously studying the mechanic's face after his initial inspection of the damage.

"Can't tell," he shrugged. "A while, I expect. Providing I can get the parts I need. That's a foreign-made car you got."

"Yes," Jacquie sighed, fearing the worst at this moment.

"You'll want me to give you an estimate first before I go ahead and start fixin' it, won't you?" he inquired, tilting a cap back on his receding hairline and wiping the grease from his hands on a rag.

"Of course," she nodded, but she knew it was only a business formality. She really had little choice except to let him fix it, regardless of how badly it depleted her cash reserve. Glancing down at her hands, she noticed the piece of paper twisted in her fingers. Unfolding it, she read the precise handwriting and spoke the name out loud.

"Choya Barnett." A frown creased her forehead. "Choya," she repeated it. "What kind of a name is that?"

"What?" the mechanic looked at her blankly.

"Choya," Jacquie tried the name out again and the man's blank expression didn't change. "The man I ran into his name."

A chuckle of understanding broke from the mechanic's lips. "It's p.r.o.nounced cho-ya. Choya Barnett."

Jacquie murmured the correct p.r.o.nunciation, finding it easier and more musical. Then she shook her head. "I've still never heard it before."

"It comes from a kind of cactus in the p.r.i.c.kly-pear family," the man explained with a smile.

"I beg your pardon?" She tilted her head to the side.

"The cholla cactus, spelled c-h-o-l-l-a, but p.r.o.nounced cho-ya," the mechanic repeated. "Choya Barnett was named after that cactus. Old man Barnett found him in a bed of cholla when he was a baby. Barnett spelled it the way it sounded."

A bubble of laughter rose in her throat. Jacquie bit hard on her lower lip, reducing it to a silent giggle. How appropriate! He was named after a th.o.r.n.y cactus! The more she thought about the name, the better it suited him. Its meaning was appropriate and the sound of it was proud, like the man.

"If you want to go eat, miss, while I get this written up," the mechanic suggested, "you're welcome to go ahead. I'm going to have to make a few phone calls anyway to get some prices on parts I'll need."

"Yes, I think I will," Jacquie agreed, still smiling at her secret thoughts and inner laughter.