As Choya started to walk away, a faint smile curving the hard mouth, Robbie hobbled into the kitchen. He halted just inside the room and sniffed the air, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

"What's that?" he frowned warily.

"Dinner," Choya replied with a glittering look at Jacquie. "Or perhaps it's a burnt offering." Her cheeks flamed at his laughing taunt. "Come on, son," he said. "Let's wash our hands."

It definitely wasn't the tastiest meal Jacquie had ever prepared, although her experience in the culinary arts was very limited. There hadn't been another comment from Choya or Robbie, but Sam had clicked his tongue in dismay at the sight of the blackened pork chops.

The minor disaster meant that Jacquie had to spend more time than normal cleaning up, since the stove had to be scoured where the potatoes had boiled over. Then Robbie had appeared in the kitchen when she had finished. A checkerboard was in his hand and he challenged her to a game.

"I'm an expert," he declared, and proceeded to beat her soundly. When he proposed a second game, Jacquie suggested it was time for him to be in bed. "Okay," Robbie agreed without argument. "We can play another game tomorrow night. Don't feel bad that I beat you. I been playing checkers since I was three. Dad is teaching me chess, but I'm not very good at it, yet."

Jacquie smiled and said that chess was a complicated game. Silently considering the way Choya had outmaneuvered her so many times, she was certain he was a master at the game.

At Robbie's request, she tucked him into bed, then left his room when C.hoya appeared to wish him good-night. It wasn't a hasty re The Master Fiddler treat she made, keeping a firm hold of her resolve not to run from him.

As she entered her own bedroom, she congratulated herself on offering him such a calm good-night when she had walked past him. She had felt his tawny eyes briefly narrow on her, no doubt measuring the thickness of her composure.

Yawning, she didn't particularly care that for the moment it was vulnerably thin. She undressed for bed, crawling beneath the covers with the half-formed plan of waking after a few hours' sleep and attempting to steal from the house in the middle of the night.

Never would she cower before Choya nor beg for mercy. But she would take advantage of any opportunity to escape. Escaping a prison was not the same thing as fleeing from her jailer, she a.s.sured herself.

Within minutes of her head touching the pillow, she was asleep. Mental exhaustion made it a dreamless state and her subconscious failed to waken her in the midnight hours to escape.

A hand gripped her shoulder, shaking it slightly. Jacquie tried to shrug it away and snuggle deeper beneath the covers. The hand tightened.

"Rise and shine," a voice said.

"Go away," she mumbled sleepily without opening her eyes. Then memory returned as to where she was and who had just spoken. She rolled onto her back, automatically drawing the covers over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The gray light of dawn was peering through the window as she focused her somewhat bleary gaze on Choya.

She choked back the impulse to order him from her room, and asked instead, "What do you want?" An equally foolish question, since she didn't really want to know the answer.

Still drugged from heavy sleep, her senses were slow to alertness. Every part of him that her guarded look saw indicated his freshness and overwhelming vitality. Half-closed eyes of shimmering sand gold returned the study with disturbing results.

"You have twenty minutes to get up, get dressed if you choose, and have my breakfast on the table," Choya stated.

Jacquie breathed in deeply, relief flowing through her tensed muscles. He was still playing his waiting game and trying to turn her into a slave who did his bidding.

He wasn't her master because she wasn't his slave. Pulling the covers over her shoulders, she turned onto her side away from him.

"Fix your own breakfast," she muttered, and nestled her head deeply in the pillow.

The covers were ripped away and the soft flesh of her arm seized in a punishing grip. In a fluid motion, she was rolled onto her back, her other arm gripped, and half lifted out of the bed. When the movement stopped, she was drawn close to his face, her feet twisted in the bed sheets.

The strap of her pale blue shortie nightgown had slipped from her shoulder, revealing the rounded swell of her breast. The blocking grip of Choya's hand kept the strap from sliding farther and revealing more.

Deliberately he studied what the gown exposed, his gaze wandering to the pulsing vein in her neck, then on to the softness of her lips parted in surprise. His glittering eyes skimmed over the alluring disarray of her hair and halted his inspection with the turquoise pools of her rounded eyes.

Jacquie's hands rested on the solidness of his waist. With her feet tangled in the covers, she had no leverage to struggle. The touch of her hands against him was more for support than any thought to fight him.

The male line of his mouth descended to play with her lips, teasing the way they trembled at his touch. It was an exquisite kind of torture for Jacquie, afraid to feel the branding hardness of a kiss of possession yet unable to make herself twist away to avoid it. The scent of him enveloped her with the intoxicating effects of a heady liquor.

"If you don't get up and fix my breakfast," his warm breath flowed over her skin as he spoke against her lips, "I may decide to have it in bed."

"I can't." Her lips quivered against his teasing mouth.

Motionless for an instant, Choya asked, "Why?"

"Because " Jacquie breathed shakily, his disturbing attraction almost more than she could cope with in this semi-languorous state " I can't get up until you let go of me."

Lazily he drew his head back, dark hair glistening in the artificial light. Cat-soft eyes shimmered over her face, almost physically touching each feature before they glittered with a seductive light.

With deliberate slowness, he laid her back on the bed. Then he bent over her, a hand resting on the mattress on either side of her. Jacquie swallowed, trying not to reveal her lack of composure or her rising fear.

"You're free," he mocked. "You can get up and get dressed now."

She hesitated, uncertain that he meant what he said. To get up meant to move past him. The question was would he let her by? Yet she was positive if she didn't try, he would interpret it as an invitation.

With a quailing heart, she lifted her head from the pillow. As she moved upward, Choya straightened with a taunting gleam in his eye. Temper flashed in her eyes that he should toy with her so, but Jacquie didn't release it. She moved swiftly away from the bed, hurrying to her clothes on the straight chair.

When she glanced over her shoulder, Choya was leaning against the door frame, his arms folded across his waist. He looked as if he planned to stay.

"Will you please leave my room so I can dress?" Jacquie made the demand in a wary tone.

"Don't mind me," Choya drawled. "Go right ahead."

Seething inwardly, she wanted to order him out at the top of her lungs, but something in the veiled alertness of his gaze said he was waiting for that. With a nonchalance that she was far from feeling, she shrugged and turned her back to him.

Without removing her nightgown, she slipped on the faded jeans. The action gave him an unlimited view of naked thigh and leg, but that was all. With the front of her denims fastened securely, Jacquie pulled the nightgown over her head.

The cascading waves of her silvery blond hair covered her creamy gold shoulders as she kept her back squarely toward him. With an economy of movement she pulled on a strawberry-colored knit top and turned around.

There was an arrogant arch to one of her curved brows.

"What would you like for breakfast?" she inquired with false solicitude.

There was a half smile on his mouth as he straightened from the door. "Whatever you fix is fine." And he walked from the room.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

The keys weren't in her car. The maze of wires didn't give her a clue as to how it could be started without the ignition key. Sighing in defeat, she stepped from the car and closed the door.

A hot breeze blew from the south; whirling dust devils sprang up to dance through the sage and cactus growth, then spun themselves out and disappeared. The afternoon sun burned over the bareness of her arms. There was no sign of activity from the house. Jacquie crossed her fingers that it meant Sam Barnett was still sleeping. This was her third day of being Choya's prisoner and her first opportunity to test the strength of the invisible bars of her cage.

Yesterday she had steered the talkative Sam Barnett into discussing the land surrounding the ranch. Scanning the countryside, she realized he had told her very little that would be useful. His information had been historical.

To the north was the virtually impregnable stronghold of Cochise. Beyond it was Apache Pa.s.s. To the southwest lay Tombstone. The nearest neighboring ranch was to the south.

Everywhere Jacquie looked, she saw the savage beauty of the Sonora desert. She was not yet so desperate to escape that she wanted to flee on foot. The keys to her car were obviously in Choya's possession.

Sighing a second time, she hooked her thumbs in the belt loops of her black slacks. The metal of the silver concho belt was warm against her fingers. A horse whinnied near the barn and she wandered toward the sound.

At the corral, she rested her forearms on the upper bar and the toe of her shoe on the lowest. Three horses were in the enclosure. At the sight of Jacquie, they snorted and trotted nervously to the far end.

With the car eliminated and Jacquie unwilling to risk walking, that left escaping on horseback. Her mouth curved wryly. The first problem would be catching a horse; the second would be saddling him. She hadn't the vaguest notion how to go about doing either. At the riding stable, the horses had always been saddled and tied to a post.

So far, the invisible bars seemed escape-proof. Somewhere there had to be a vulnerable spot. Jacquie's concern was that she was running out of time to find it. Choya hadn't made any attempt to carry out his threat, but that didn't mean he wouldn't.

The horses p.r.i.c.ked their ears and faced the rutted track leading to the ranch yard. Jacquie turned, stepping away from the corral when she recognized the school bus bringing Robbie home. She walked forward to meet him as the bus stopped.

When the doors swished open, Robbie greeted her silently with a wide grin. He paused at the steps to glance over his shoulder at the other children in the bus, school papers tucked under his arm as he rested on the crutches.

"See?" Jacquie heard his voice challenge. "I told you!"

It was a curious and cryptic statement. He maneuvered the crutches and the unwieldy cast on his leg down the steps. His movement was awkward because Robbie was more concerned that he would drop his school papers than he was that he might fall.

"Let me carry your papers," Jacquie offered when he was safely on the ground.

As Robbie handed them to her, she noticed the bus driver give her a curious look and nod. Then the doors were closing and the bus was turning to leave. There had been something more than mere surprise in the driver's expression. Jacquie glanced warily at Robbie.

"What was all that about in the bus?" she asked.

"n.o.body believed me when I told them you were living with us," he answered, starting toward the house. "When they saw you, they knew I was telling the truth."

Oh, great, Jacquie thought to herself. The whole town would know she was out here and believe she was staying of her own free will. The bars closed more securely around her.

"What did you tell them about me?" she questioned.

Robbie seemed to hesitate. "Just that you were staying with us."

Her finger encountered the smooth finish of a stiff paper amongst the other plain papers in her hand. Curious, Jacquie separated it from the others and found hergelf looking at an enlarged photograph of a smiling young woman with short, cornsilk-colored hair Robbie's mother. She had seen the picture in his room, framed and sitting on a table by his bed.

"Why did you take this to school, Robbie?" Jacquie eyed him suspiciously. He peered at her anxiously through the top of his lashes, his pale golden hair gleaming brightly in the sun. "I took that one so I could show them what you looked like." He hastened to add, "You're prettier than any of the other mothers."

"You didn't tell them I was your mother, did you?"

Robbie looked uncomfortable. "No."

Jacquie sensed it was a truthful answer and also that it wasn't the

whole truth. "Do they think I'm your mother?""Well, maybe some of them do," he conceded."And you didn't tell them any different?" she accused with a heavy sigh. His chin dipped toward his chest. "Robbie, I am not your mother. I am not even your stepmother. It wasn't right for you to let the rest of your cla.s.smates think that I am."

"I know," he mumbled.

"Tomorrow you'll have to tell them the truth."

Large, luminous brown eyes were turned to her. "I wish you were my

mother."

It was such an expressively voiced statement that Jacquie lost her

irritation. Kneeling beside him, she gazed into his plaintivelywistful face."You know it's not possible," she smiled gently."Why?" Robbie asked solemnly. "Why couldn't I pretend that you're my mother? There wouldn't be anything wrong with that."

"Oh, Robbie," Jacquie sighed, wishing she was more immune to his innocent charm.

"It would just be pretend between you and me. I wouldn't tell anybody

else," he persisted as he saw her weakening."I " She shook her head hopelessly. "Pretend. Just between you andme. And everybody else would know that I'm not your mother."

"I promise." He leaned heavily on one crutch and crossed his heart with one finger.

"Okay." Jacquie offered her hand to seal the agreement.Robbie shook it eagerly. "Can I call you mom? When we're alone, Imean," he qualified quickly.

"Only when we're alone," she agreed. It was only a game.

She had played "pretend" often as a child. It couldn't do any harm.

His eyes twinkled brightly as a beaming smile split his face from ear to ear. "I'm hungry, mom," he declared.

Jacquie laughed and straightened, trailing a hand over his shoulders. "Then let's go in the house and see what we can find to eat."

Their secret game kept Robbie bubbling with an inner excitement all the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Every time he looked at Jacquie when his grandfather and Choya were around, she read the silent message of "mother" in his eyes. His delight was such that she couldn't bring herself to feel guilty for allowing him to become more attached to her.

The evening meal could not have been cla.s.sified as a success. Although Choya had shown her how to operate the stove, Jacquie still had difficulty judging the amount of heat for cooking. Tonight it had been the corn that was scorched.

Sam, probably out of self-preservation, had offered several times to help with the meals, but Jacquie had steadfastly refused. Stubbornly she had insisted on cooking everything herself. Her unintentional failures were a means of getting back at Choya for blackmailing her into the role of housekeeper. She almost hoped that she never would learn how to operate the stove successfully, even if she did have to eat the ruined dishes along with everyone else.

Except for Choya's comment about a "burnt offering" the first time she had fixed a meal, he had made no remark about her substandard cooking ability. Tonight he had been even more silent than usual, but his tawny gaze had narrowed on her thoughtfully several times. Jacquie simply ignored him. She couldn't begin to guess the reason for his silence and she wasn't going to try.

After the dishes were washed and Robbie was tucked into bed, Jacquie avoided the living room where Choya and Sam were, in favor of her bedroom. She had decided that she had to make another attempt to appeal to her parents. It would require a carefully worded letter that would make them aware of the seriousness of her need without alarming them.