Diana Palmer - Trilby

Arizona,

Dear Diary,

It will take more than threatsand one overbearing rancher to drive me away from my rightful property

When I inherited this isolated land near the Mexican border, I knew running it would be difficult and dangerousvery different from my privileged life in Louisiana, where I was the genteel Miss Trilby Lang. But I certainly didnt expect that my neighbor, Thorn Vance, would be challenging me at every turn. Or that his brusque, ruggedly appealing ways would prove a dangerous temptation that Im finding harder and harder to resist. Now, with trouble sweeping the territory, I need his help. But how much will I risk putting myself in the hands of a man whos used to getting exactly what he wants?

Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller

who captures the essence of what a romance should be.

Affaire de Coeur

Sensual and suspenseful. Booklist on Lawless

Nobody tops Diana Palmer when it comes to delivering pure,

undiluted romance. I love her stories.

New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

The dialogue is charming, the characters likeable

and the sex sizzling.

Publishers Weekly on Once in Paris

This story is a thrill a minuteone of Palmers best. Rendezvous on Lord of the Desert

Diana

PALMER

H

HQIST

Chapter One

There was a yellow dust cloud on the horizon. Trilby stared at it with subdued excitement. In the months shed spent on the ranch, in this vast territory of Arizona, even a dust cloud had the potential to lift her boredom. Compared to the social whirl of New Orleans and Baton Rouge, this country was uncivilized. October was almost over, but the heat hadnt lifted. If anything, it was worse. To a genteel young woman ol impeccable Eastern breeding, the living conditions were trying. It was a long way from the family mansion in Louisiana to this isolated wooden frame house near Douglas, Arizona. And the men who inhabited this wasteland were as near to barbarians as a red Indian. There were plenty of those around, too. An old Apache and a youngYaqui worked for her father. They never spoke, but they stared. So did the dusty, unbathed cowboys.

spent a great deal of time inside, except on wash days. One day a week, she had to go outside, where she and her

mother dealt with a big black cast-iron pot in which white thingslike her fathers shirtswere boiled, and two Number Two tin washtubs in which the remainder of the clothes were, respectively, washed by hand against a scrub board and rinsed.

Is it going to be dust or rain? her little brother Teddy asked from behind, scattering her thoughts.

She glanced at him over her thin shoulder and smiled gently. Dust, I expect. What they call the monsoon season has passed and it is dry again. What else could it be? she asked.

Well, it could be Colonel Blanco and some of the insurrec-tos, the Mexican rebels fighting Diazs government, he suggested. Gosh, remember the day that cavalry patrol rode onto the ranch and asked for water and 1 got them a bucket?

Ted was only twelve, and the memory was the high point of his young life. Their familys ranch was near the Mexican border, and on October 10, Porfirio Diaz had been reelected president of Mexico. But the strongman was under attack from Francisco Madero, who had campaigned against him and lost. Now Mexico was in a state of violent unrest. Sometimes the rebelswho might or might not belong to a band of imurrectosraided local ranches. The cavalry watched over the border. The situation in Mexico was becoming even more explosive than it usually was.

It had already been an interesting year up until that point, too, with Halleys Comet terrorizing the world in May and the sad event of King Edwards death on its heels. In the months that followed, there had been a volcanic eruption in Alaska and a devastating earthquake in Costa Rica. Now there was this border trouble, which made life interesting for Teddy, but deeply upset ranchers and private citizens. Everyone knew people who were

connected with mining down in Sonora, because six Sonoran mining companies had their headquarters in Douglas. And plenty of local ranchers also owned land over in Mexico; foreign ownership of Mexican land to exploit mining interests and ranching was one of the root causes of the growing unrest over the border.

A detachment of khaki-clad U.S. Cavalry soldiers from the encampment at Fort Huachuca had come riding through only today, their officers in a snappy touring car with mounted troops behind them, scouting for trouble and looking so attractive that Trilby had to choke down a wildly uncharacteristic impulse to smile and wave at them, Teddv had no such inhibitions. He almost fell off the porch waving as they filed by. This column didnt stop to ask for water, which had disappointed her young brother.

Teddy was so unlike her. She had blond hair and gray eyes; he had red hair and blue eyes. She smiled as she remembered the grandfather for whom he was a dead ringer.

Two of our Mexican cowboys admire Mr. Madero very much. They say Diaz is a dictator and that he should be thrown out, he told her.

I do hope the matter is settled before it ends in a total war, she said worriedly, so that we dont get caught in the middle of any fighting. It worries Mama, too, so dont talk about it much, will you?

All right, he said reluctantly. Airplanes, baseball, Mexican unrest, and the often related memories of his elderly friend, Mosby Torrance, were his biggest thrill at the moment, but he didnt want to worry Trilby with just how serious the situation down in Mexico was becoming. She had no idea what the

cowboys talked about. Teddy wasnt supposed to know, either, but hed overheard a good deal. It was frightening to him; it would be more frightening to his sheltered older sister.

had always been protected from rough language and rough people. Being in Arizona, around Westerners who had to cope with the desert and livestock and the weatherand the threat of rustling to stay alive-had changed her. She didnt smile as often as she had back in Louisiana, and there was less mischief about her. Teddy missed the Trilby of years past. This new older sister was so reserved and quiet that sometimes he wasnt sure she was even in the house.

Even now she was staring out over the barren landscape, into the distance, with that faraway look in her eyes. I expect Richard is back from Europe by now, she murmured. I wish he could have come out to see us. Perhaps in a month or so, when hes settled at home, he can. It will be pleasant to be in the company of a gentleman again.

Richard Bates had been Trilbys big love interest back home, but Teddy had never liked the man. He might be a gentleman, but compared to these Arizona men, he seemed pretty anemic and silly.

He didnt say so, though. Even at his age, he was learning diplomacy. It wouldnt do to antagonize poor Trilby. She was having a hard enough time adjusting to Arizona as it was.

I love the desert, Teddy said. Dont you like it, just the least bit?

Well, I suppose Im getting used to it, she said quietly. But I havent yet developed a taste for this horrible yellow dust. It gets into everything I cook, she said, as well as into our clothes.

Its better to do girl stuff than brand cattle, I tell you, he

said, sounding just like their father. All that blood and dust and noise. The cowboys curse, too.

smiled at him. I expect they do; Papa, too. But never around us. Only when its an accident.