admiration at the spectacle before him. At that moment, he saw Dal’s face light up with such joy that he found his own heart pounding in his chest. Her blue eyes were filled with the fire of life as the eagle mantled, flapping his seven-foot wingspread, hackles raised on its head, and gave a fierce call from his blue-black beak. Jim stood transfixed, privy to something that few people would ever see. Nar folded his massive wings, his feathered legs and yellow feet in sharp contrast to the tanned kidskin glove he gripped, his amber eyes large and intelligent looking.
Dal laughed softly and raised her right hand, gently stroking his feathered breast.
“Poor day hunting, is that it?” she teased the bird. “His crop is empty,” she called to Jim. “That’s why he’s here.”
Nar lifted his majestic head, staring imperiously at Jim. Dal turned. “He doesn’t know you, so don’t come any closer,” she warned quietly.
“No need to worry,” he assured her, observing the raptor. “He’s got to be heavy.”
Dal nodded. “All thirteen pounds of him. He’s three feet in length. As you can tell, he’s fully matured because he has no white feathers under his wings here. He’s still a baby at seven years old.”
“He’s a big baby,” Jim said with a grin.
“A spoiled one. He must have been too upset after meeting you on the crest of that hill to continue hunting.”
“He wasn’t the only one,” Jim drawled, meeting her smile. My God, he thought, she was simply breathtaking. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled like dark sapphires. Jim had the urge to reach out and simply cradle her face between his hands and worship those smiling lips with his mouth. Right now, she was a child, as was he. His gaze traveled to the eagle. It was wildlife that brought Dal out of her cloak of distrust for him. He absorbed every nuance of her in those precious moments.
Jim eyed the eagle’s grasp on her arm now; Nar was barely gripping it. “When he’s upset he grips hard?”
“Yes. Remind me when he decides to leave to show you the scars I have on this arm.”
“God, he’s magnificent.”
Dal met his gaze. “Yes, he is. And he’s free.”
“And yet you’ve trained him to sit on your arm.”
She shivered beneath the husky excitement in his voice. Suddenly she was sharing one of the few joys of her life with Jim, and she wanted to. The look of excitement in his eyes told her everything. He was just as elated as she was with the majesty of Nar.
“I started feeding him when he was a baby. When he was old enough to begin to fly, I had to make a lure out of a rabbit skin with raw meat attached to it and teach him how to catch food.” She laughed. “I’d swing the lure and he’d sit on my arm looking first at me and then at it. Finally, I’d throw him off my arm and swing the lure and he’d stoop, grabbing it in his talons. After that, I’d take him out to one of the meadows, cast him off into the air and he’d hunt his own rabbits or whatever.”
“And he still returns to you after being put back out in the wild?”
“When I got here six months ago, Nar somehow knew I was home again. Every morning he’ll be sitting on the block right after sunrise, waiting for me.” She gave Jim a shy look. “It’s our special time together. Nar flies to the meadow, circling me as I ride on horseback. Then I give him a few scraps of chicken or beef liver and then we play.”
“What do you mean ‘play’?” Jim had a tough time accepting that the raptor knew the meaning of the word play. There was nothing harmless about the bird.
Her smile widened. “Want to ride with me tomorrow morning at dawn and find out?”
Removing his hat, he scratched his head and thought about the invitation. “He won’t attack me? I’ve heard of other falcons and eagles being so protective of their masters that they’ll attack anyone who gets near them.”
“Nar won’t hurt you. He knows you’re a friend and not an enemy,” she assured him.
At that moment Nar turned, chirping softly at her, and then raised one wing, preening his molten-bronze feathers. Dal smiled and leaned forward, touching the bird’s breast with her cheek. “He’s such a pushover,” she confided, lifting her head.
Jim nodded, thinking that the eagle had one hell of a deal going for him. Not only was the bird on the receiving end of her affection, she trusted him. He knew that with a murderous beak like that, Nar had only to strike with savage swiftness to quite literally open up half of Dal’s face, if he chose. Jim wouldn’t want that fierce predator on his arm for any reason…and that left him worried for her sake. Falcons or eagles that had been kept in captivity for years were known to turn moody unexpectedly and strike their owner, inflicting no small degree of damage. Dal’s flesh was too soft, too lovely to mar with a scar made by Nar.
“Some pushover,” he growled.
“Follow me. I’m going to take him to his block and feed him some beef liver. On some days when food is scarce, he’ll make his presence known here at the ranch in no uncertain terms. Millie’s chased him away from the henhouse more than once,” she added with a laugh. “And Rafe has been ready to strangle him on a number of occasions for frightening the foals as he glides across the paddocks to the garage where his block is.”
Jim followed her into the gloom of the garage. As if on some silent cue, Nar stepped like a gentleman from her arm to the large, round wooden block that stood five feet off the concrete floor. Dal rubbed her arm. “God, he’s heavy.”
“I thought he was going to knock you over when he went into that stoop.”
“He has, a number of times,” she said with a chuckle, going to the refrigerator. “You figure a thirteen-pound eagle stooping at thirty miles an hour and calculate the force with which he comes in for a landing! Then, when he wraps his claws around your forearm…” She pulled out a package of beef liver, unwrapped it and threw the meat toward Nar. The eagle’s right leg shot out, his talons catching the food midair. Then he mantled, flapping his wings. The feathers on his head rose and he shrilled in warning.
Dal reached over, taking Jim’s arm. “Come on. Feeding time means leaving him alone. If he thinks you’re going to try and take that food away, he’ll fly at us.”
Not needing any more coaxing, Jim slid his hand beneath Dal’s elbow and led her back out into the sunlight. They stood there, watching the eagle for a minute or two. Jim smiled to himself; Dal was standing less than six inches from him and wasn’t displaying any of her previous nervousness. He thanked Nar for that.
“Isn’t it dangerous raising a bird like that?”
She pulled the glove off her left arm and held out her hand to him. Innumerable white and even recent pinkish scars marred her artistic-looking fingers. Turning her palm over, Dal pointed to a long deep scar that ran the length of her hand. Her voice held a rueful note. “When Nar was six months old he decided to make a meal of Millie’s cat, Goodyear. You’ll see him around here, I’m sure. He’s a long-haired white and yellow cat who stole Millie’s heart. Consequently, she overfeeds him, and so we started calling him the Goodyear blimp because he resembled one. I was out with the foals when Nar flew from his aerie on the cliffs about ten miles north of here. It was the middle of the day, so I was surprised
