Raven's Prey

tortillas on the side of the hot plate. “Too bad everyone I’ve met hasn’t had the opportunity to discuss my character failings with my loving family. Tell me something, Judd. How did you convince all those nice people to tell you about me?”
    “I gave them an explanation they could comprehend very easily.”
    “I’ll bet. What was it?” She dished out the eggs onto two chipped pottery plates and added a corn tortilla to each.
    “That you were my woman who had run away and that I’d come to find you and take you home,” he told her very casually, accepting one of the plates.
    “So that’s why Paco kept calling you my man.” Honor sighed, having guessed as much. “What a joke.”
    He expertly curled the tortilla and used it to scoop up a section of egg. “If it’s any consolation everyone seemed to be on your side.”
    “Then why the hell didn’t they refuse to tell you where I was?” she snapped in annoyance.
    “They wouldn’t dream of interfering in a domestic situation of that sort,” he drawled as she took the other straight-backed chair and began to eat in short, angry bites. ‘They all recognize the elemental fact mat a man has certain rights over his woman.”
    “Uh-huh. So how did you get the impression they were on my side?” she demanded bitterly.
    “Nearly everyone I talked to urged me not to beat you too severely when I eventually located you. They all seemed to feel you were just a high-strung, temperamental female who needed a gentle hand, not a heavy one.”
    Honor made a small, disgusted sound and downed another bite of egg and tortilla. “It looks like Mexico wasn’t such a good choice as a hiding place, was it? Maybe I should have tried Canada.” Except that there she wouldn’t have had the language barrier to slow down the two men who were hunting her. For all the good that had done her in the end, she thought sadly. They had simply hired someone who spoke Spanish to come after her.
    Judd made no immediate response to her rhetorical comment. He wasn’t about to tell her how strange it had seemed to pretend to everyone he met that she was his errant woman. He didn’t want her to know about the times he’d been alone in the Cessna between villages when reality and fantasy had begun to merge; about the times he’d begun to wonder what the hunt would have been like if she actually were his runaway bride. The last time someone had advised him not to beat Honor too severely he had found himself nodding gravely and agreeing to accept the advice. The old man who was giving it had been pleased, smiling toothlessly and clapping him on the shoulder.
    “You will see, my son,” the old man had said cheerfully. “It will be worth your while to go easy on her. She has spirit and a good heart. A wise man does not break the spirit or harden a softhearted woman. Not if he knows what’s good for him.”
    By the end of the week Judd was asking himself over and over again just what sort of woman he was hunting. Could she really fool so many people? Possibly. Look what she’d managed to accomplish last night. She’d wrangled a promise of two days’ grace out of him—and that was after she’d pointed a gun at him and gone for his eyes with her nails. Automatically his fingers went to the angry red line on his cheek.
    “I think,” he said softly, “that it’s time you started feeding me the great fairy tale. I’m ready to listen now.”
    Honor stiffened resentfully and then reminded herself to take it one step at a time. After all, by rights she should have been stuffed into the Cessna this morning and halfway back to Arizona by now. One step at a time.
    “It’s not a long story, really, but the basic fact, the one I can’t prove here in this village, is that the two men who hired you aren’t related to me in any way. Their names are Leo Garrison and Nick Prager and they want me back so that they can silence me.”
    “You’re going to stick by the paranoia theme?” Judd asked caustically, finishing his tortilla and egg combination.
    “You said you’d listen with an open mind!”
    “Have you got the makings for coffee?”
    Honor subsided with a groan. “Yes. Instant. Be sure to boil the water well first. I’ve been lucky so far. I’d just as soon not get any intestinal problems now.”
    “Don’t worry.” He ran water from the bathroom sink, the only source, into a pot and set it on the burner. “Go on with the story. I promise not to interrupt again.” But