Raven's Prey

the window appeared to have survived. She walked across the white carpet [_to _]examine the array of thorny plants.
    Other man the dead house plants, everything looked fine, in fact It was hard to believe that nothing in her home had changed, when she herself had been through so much. The sophisticated yet softly romantic decor looked as it always had. The meandering peach velvet sofa, which formed an S shape in front of me white fireplace, didn’t even look dusty. The gilt antique desk in front of the garden window was still piled high with the books and papers she had left on it. There was even a delicate bone china coffee cup left on the round oak dining table.
    She was home.
    With a sigh of relief Honor carted her small suitcase into the bedroom, slinging it onto the round, flounced bed. She was home, but for a while there in Tucson she hadn’t been at all sure she was going to be able to make the last leg of her journey. The raven who had hunted her down in Mexico didn’t appear inclined to relinquish its prey.
    There was nothing Judd could actually have done to stop her from going home, Honor told herself briskly as she unpacked, but all the same she had known more than a shade of uncertainty when she ‘d faced the implacable expression in those night-dark eyes.
    Still, by refusing to succumb to the uneasy fear he generated in her, she had made it out of the motel room that morning and into a cab. From there she had gone to the airport and hopped one of the short flights to Phoenix. Honor hadn’t dared to glance back as the cab pulled away from the motel, but she had sensed Judd watching her from the window.
    There had been no mistaking his mood, either, she reminded herself grimly. Every line of his lean, hard body had been almost vibrating with the effort of will he was exerting to hold himself in check. Honor had been unable to escape from the dangerous confines of the motel room quickly enough as far as she was concerned. At any moment she had feared Judd would simply stop fighting his instincts, reach out and grab her. She still wasn’t certain how he had managed to control himself. Maybe it was simply that he’d spent so many emotionless, self-controlled years already that he wasn’t sure how to let go, even in anger and frustration.
    Whatever it was that had held him in check during those tense moments while she changed into her jeans, called a cab and fled the room, Honor decided she was safe now. [_Judd _]might [_have _]decided he wanted her, [_but _]she was sure he would recover from the fleeting emotion as soon as she was out of the picture.
    He could damn well go back to his airplane for all she cared!
    Judd Raven seemed [_to _]have the emotional responses of a wild creature, a lone hunter who had spent far too much time by himself. He could be provoked [_to last _]or to violence but he didn’t waste emotional energy on more refined feelings like trust and love.
    Honor dashed a hand across her eyes as she piled her clothes into the washing machine. Now why in hell was she crying? It was because her own emotional reactions weren’t nearly as limited as Judd Raven’s, she assured herself. She had been through a trying ordeal and it was natural for her body to work off some of the stress. She was willing to bet Judd had never cried a tear in his life!
    Morosely she stood staring at the glass door of the washing machine, watching as the clothes sloshed around. For some reason the scene that day by the village stream flashed into her mind and she remembered Judd’s expression as he’d finally figured out that she was playing a game with him, a game he could win. For just a short while, there had been traces of genuine laughter in those glittering dark eyes. And she, idiot that she was, had assumed from such limited evidence that the man was human and that he could be reached on a human level.
    Honor turned away from the sight of the spinning clothes. The last thing she wanted to recall was her own weak, very human and all too female nature! How could she have been so emotionally stupid as to read so much into that single night in his arms? She had actually awakened the next morning believing herself to be falling in love with the man!
    And all he’d felt was male satisfaction at having conquered a woman to whom he’d been attracted.
    Honor didn’t lie to herself now. She knew Judd was right when he accused her of romanticizing what was merely a straightforward physical relationship. Well,