Chapter 4

Maan Singh Khurana watched out of the corner of his eye as the girl swayed slightly, slumped, and snapped herself back up again. He was without a night or two of sleep himself, but long training had made it easier for him to adjust. He slid over carefully in her direction, and the next time she slumped her head landed on his shoulder and stayed there.

He shrugged himself into the most comfortable position he could find, and slipped one arm around her shoulders to keep her from bouncing away from him. Her mind might be tough, he told himself, but her shoulder is a tender morsel indeed.

'Harridan'. Who said that, me? It just goes to prove something or other. A lovely creature, no doubt about it, living on nerves and coffee, I suppose. I wonder what she'd be like totally relaxed?And I wonder what kind of a game I've fallen in to? Soft shoulders under his hand, soft, rounded hip pressed against his own, a narrow waist,and pert, proud breasts that bounced, unfettered, under that silk blouse. The car moved off the paved highway on to an unpaved ranch road. 

Maan licked his lips appreciatively, and settled back to see what the future might bring. 'Do anything you can,' Uncle Rajveer had written, and suddenly doing-just that had pleasant overtones. He licked his dry lips and settled back against the upholstery.

The famous Flat Plains of Kansas were not all that flat. Along the eastern border of the state,where the Missouri River chased itself in yellow flood, there were more than enough hills to make a decent-sized mountain. A few miles to the west, in the neighborhood of Manhattan,Topeka, Cottonwood Falls, the land looked like a child's landscape puzzle, piled up on itself. The limousine was taking them on a south-westerly line away from the town of Libertyville, up on to the rolling hills and prairie land known as the Flint Hills.

But the road went on—and on.Until finally the limousine broke out of the bottoms, across a line of sheltering trees into a little watered valley on the other side of the ridge, and rattled over a cattle-guard. The weathered sign said 'Bar Nine'. A few head of well-fed cattle lifted their eyes briefly as the car plugged on by them. 

Herefords, he judged, and, penned in the far corral, what looked to be a few head of Texas Longhorns. And then they were at the ranch house, a native stone building that seemed as old as the Oregon Trail, where they had started. The car came to a halt,the girl woke up in his arms, startled, and a pair of hound dogs came baying down the wind from around the corner of the barn.

'Excuse me,' she said hesitantly as she moved as far away from him as she could get.

'No excuse necessary.' He grinned. It was his first tactical mistake.

Her jaw hardened. 'Let's be sure there's no further need for such,' she snapped.

His deep brown eyes assessed her,and decided. 'Yes, ma'am,' he acknowledged.

'And don't call me ma'am,' she snapped. 'My name is Handa.'

'I see,' he said gravely. 'It's just, where I come from, it isn't considered polite to call a woman by her last name without a name or title to go

with it.'

The first sign of rebellion, Geet told herself. If I were in my right mind I'd fire him here and now and let him walk back. But I want more than a day's work from this man; it would pay to be a little conciliatory, just this once.

'All right,' she conceded. 'You may call me Geet. Now, what's your last name?'

He seemed about to answer. At least, his mouth began to form words, but by that time the chauffeur had opened the back door of the limousine, and the hounds were on them. One of them was a middle-aged bitch who sat quietly beside the door and wiggled and whined. The other was a dog,barely a year old, exuberant, anxious.

'Get down, Blue,' Geet commanded as the dog squeezed into the car and began to slobber over her.But she said it with affection. And that, Maan told himself, is the first time I've heard her sounding pleased about something. He squeezed out of the car, not an easy feat for a man his size. The elderly bitch looked up and inspected him carefully, then offered a triple tail-wag.

'Henrietta approves of you,' Geetsaid. 'That's in your favor. A good judge of people, is Henrietta.'

'I'm glad somebody likes me,' he replied as he stooped to pat the animal. Henrietta growled. 'I see,' he said, laughing. 'Wag, but not touch, Henrietta? Don't you think that's a half-hearted commitment?'

The woman behind him was startled for a moment, then controlled her face.

'We'll go up to the house,' she said, indicating the broad wooden steps that led up to the porch.

'The place looks empty,' he commented as he walked up the stairs behind her.

'It is, Maan-' she said, leaving a space for him to volunteer his last name. He ignored her offer. Geet was caught off guard again, and a tiny blush swept over her cheeks.She brushed him aside, and led the way into the house.

The front door opened directly into the small living- room. She felt the need to defend herself and her possessions. 'It gets cold in Kansas in the wintertime. That's why we have small rooms and low ceilings.

If you would sit down on the couch, Maan?' It wasn't exactly a request, but rather the polite expression of an order that she intended he should obey. He paused to look around the room. She stood there, fuming, as he did so.

An old fireplace was blocked up,and a Ben Franklin stove stood in its recess. The wallpaper was clean,but oh, so very dull. The furniture was in good shape, but old. Grand Rapids, turn of the century, his roving eye told him. And the carpet on the floor had seen too many boots stalk across it for its own good. It might have once been burnt amber. On the wall across from the stove hung a painting of a fierce old man. 'Your father, Geet?'