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for yourself. And getting involved in murder might cause you more than a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of trouble. If I can make you see that, I might be able to get you to leave me here in Mexico. You’ll be able to go home to your precious airplane-ferrying business with the two thousand you left it to collect and without having gotten yourself mixed up with murder.”
    “You throw a big word like murder around pretty freely, Honor. I wonder if you have any idea of what you’re saying?”
    “Believe me, I know what I’m talking about!” she breathed.
    “God, maybe your shrink is right. Maybe you really are borderline paranoid. Maybe you’re already over the border,” he muttered.
    “But you don’t believe that, do you?” Honor challenged, suddenly aware that she had found a wedge. “You don’t think I’m really crazy. You think I’m just spoiled and difficult and childish. But would even a spoiled brat carry a tantrum this far? You think I’ve enjoyed living in this shack for the past few weeks? You think I like not being able to have a conversation with anyone in my own language? You think I like having to boil every drop of water I drink because I’m afraid I’ll get sick? You think it’s been pleasant doing without a telephone or a refrigerator or a car? For God’s sake, Judd. Spoiled brats don’t like to go too long without their creature comforts, do they? I would have headed for Acapulco or one of the other tourist centers if I’d just been trying to upset my family. Why would I make myself suffer in the process?”
    “You tried suicide once,” he pointed out inexorably. “Someone who did that might have some strange notions of how to make others suffer. Maybe living like this” —he waved a hand vaguely around the shack— “is your idea of punishing your father in some way.”
    Honor closed her eyes in hopeless frustration. “There’s no reasoning with you, is there?” she finally asked in a dead voice.
    Silence greeted the question and when she opened her eyes again it was to find him watching her with a long, brooding stare. “If,” Judd began cautiously, “I agreed to give you two (lays, would you be willing to promise me that you won’t give me any trouble when the time comes to take you home?”
    Honor swallowed, not quite believing her ears. “Do you mean that? You’ll grant me the time?”
    “I might.” Why the hell was he even considering the damn bargain? He should just tie her up hand and foot, throw her into the plane and leave at dawn tomorrow morning. But once he had delivered her to her family he would probably never see her again. And after having searched for her for nearly a week, Judd Was beginning to realize that he wanted a little time with this woman. Time to determine whether or not there was anything real beneath the soft mouth and the big eyes. Two days wasn’t going to matter one way or the other, he told himself, knowing even as he did so that he was rationalizing the situation. “But in return I’d want your personal guarantee that you’ll give me no trouble when it comes time to leave.”
    “You have it,” she vowed rashly, her relief shimmering in her eyes. Once again she impulsively put out a hand and touched his arm. “I swear you have it. Just give me a couple of days to explain this whole mess to you. Then, if you don’t believe me—”
    “You’ll start in all over again, won’t you?” he groaned “I’m a fool [_to let _]myself get talked into this.”
    “The worst tiling that can happen to you is that you’ll make an extra two thousand dollars!” she stormed.
    Damn it, why did she have to keep harping on the money? “No that’s not the worst thing that can happen to me,” he shot back bluntly. “The worst thing is that I’ll give you the impression that I’m a fool of a man who can be manipulated.”
    “But I don’t think that!” she protested, snatching her hand away again. He felt the loss of the warmth of her