Читать книгу The Texas Way - Jan Freed - Страница 9

MARGARET REACHED for a stick of margarine, paused, and cautiously sniffed the air. Oh, no! Slamming the refrigerator door, she cringed at the ominous clatter of glass and raced to the stove. Acrid smoke billowed from a frying pan.

Coughing, she turned off the burner and stared down at the gooey mess in the pan that had once been a rubber spatula. A second skillet lined with uncooked strips of bacon sat on the adjacent burner. Not good, not good. Cooking meals was part of the agreement she’d made the day before, and now she’d botched Scott’s breakfast. Her ex-husband would have had a field day with this if he knew. Jim’s patronizing still stung.

You can’t even tell left from right, Margaret, and you want a career? Now don’t pout, honey. You already have a job. Just keep being the prettiest hostess any Jacobs and McMillan associate ever had, and I’ll make partner yet.

Grimacing, Margaret carried the ruined pan to the sink and twisted the cold water tap. Hot rubber hissed and foul-smelling steam rose to cloud the window. She slumped against the counter and marveled at human nature.

After three years of enduring similar put-downs from Jim, there was no reason that particular insult should have aroused The Mule in her. But it had. Oh, she’d done her job, such as it was—and filed for divorce the day Jim announced he’d made partner.

Marrying the ambitious lawyer had been a mistake of course. At the time, she’d still felt numb with guilt over Matt’s death and undeserving of happiness. Even knowing that Jim had prized her only for her ornamental value and social connections, she’d grabbed the chance to escape her father’s control. Margaret huffed and straightened from the counter.

Some escape. Her husband’s handling had been no less confining for being velvet-gloved. He’d been truly shocked when she’d called him chauvinistic. And now she was working with a man who made Jim seem practically a feminist.

She had no doubt Scott would be horrified or, worse, pitying, if he knew about her disability. It would be just the excuse he needed to renege on their agreement. Well, she wouldn’t give him the chance! She would succeed on her own, depend on herself and maybe, just maybe, win back her self-respect in the process.

Boot steps and a twanging screen door jerked her thoughts to the present. Her good intentions cowered. Please let it be Grant.

The back door opened. She spun around. Scott stepped inside, whipped off his hat and fanned the air. His brows formed a fierce line.

“What is that godawful smell?”

He glanced at the stove top, then peered over her shoulder at the hardened glob of rubber and defaced metal. His frown deepened.

She hung her head, realized what she was doing and summoned the courage to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry. It was…an accident.”

“I can’t afford careless accidents, Maggie.”

“I’ll buy you a new pan.”

“Save your money and time for Twister. We’re twenty miles from town and there’s a full day of work ahead—” he gave her white shorts and sneakers a scornful once-over “—even if you are dressed for tennis at the club. Guess we’ll have to make do with one fryin’ pan from now on.”

Sliding his hat on with a grieved expression, he nodded toward the bacon. “That was for Pete, you know.”

“P-Pete?”

“He lives in a trailer behind the barn. We take turns running into town for supplies, but he hasn’t come up to the house to pick up his stuff yet. Dad and I eat the turkey bacon.” He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “But since you’ve opened the package, go ahead and cook it. We don’t waste things on this ranch.”

She sidled by his looming form and moved to the stove, wishing he were somewhere else, wishing she were someone else. She couldn’t think with him watching her, couldn’t sort out the confusing letters beneath each knob on the electric stove. Let’s see, she’d turned this one before. Three choices left. Reaching blindly, she turned a control. Coils glowed, but not under the frying pan.

“Gawd,” Scott muttered from behind.

Her face grew scorching. Sensing he’d turned, she frantically twisted knobs until the correct burner lit. The refrigerator door clunked open.

“What the…? Dammit, Maggie, I told you about this door. Half the stuff in here is broken or spilled.” Each word wallowed in disgust. Each clink of glass hitting the trash can punctuated his censure.

Biting her lip and blinking furiously, Margaret tried to concentrate while he cleaned up her mess. Eggs. She’d planned on scrambling some. But those were probably Pete’s, too. How thoughtless to fry bacon for someone who’d just had heart surgery. How negligent to ruin a pan. How stupid to botch a simple task like cooking breakfast.

The shame she’d been holding at bay all morning attacked full force. Her nose lifted, her muscles froze, her sight glazed—the defense mechanisms developed as a child were automatic now. She was only vaguely aware of the bacon sizzling. A popping noise produced a corresponding sting on her arm, but she didn’t flinch.

“Turn down the heat, Maggie! What are you trying to do, burn breakfast and the house? Can’t you even fry a batch of—”

“That’s enough, Scott.”

Gentle hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her back from the stove. Grant adjusted the control, reached for her wrist, and slowly uncurled her fist. His work-worn fingers moved up to probe an angry red circle on her pale skin.

“Let’s get some ice on that burn before it blisters.”

She searched his eyes and found only compassion, as if he knew her pain went much deeper than a grease burn. Her senses slowly thawed.

“I’m sorry about the pan, Mr. Hayes, and the bacon. I shouldn’t have been so…careless.” Scott’s accusation was convenient, and much kinder than the truth she had no intention of revealing.

Grant released her arm with a pat. “Call me Grant, remember? That ol’ skillet should’ve been tossed out along with the Nixon administration. And don’t apologize about the bacon. I like my meat on the burned side—just ask Scott. Been eatin’ his cookin’ for years and never complained.”

The older man’s lopsided, teasing grin added lines around his eyes and subtracted years from his face. It was easy to see where Scott’s masculine good looks came from. Heaven help her if the son ever emulated the father’s conscious effort to charm.

“Scott, you get an ice cube on this girl’s arm while I make us all some pancakes.” He led Margaret to the scratched kitchen table, pulled out a chair with courtly grace and waited.

“Really, Mr. Hayes…Grant. I can make pancakes if that’s what you want.”

“Let the princess fix her own breakfast,” Scott said. “I’ll make you some Eggbeaters, Dad.” Hunkered in front of the refrigerator, Scott threw down his sponge and rose to a standing position.

“Mind your manners, son. And take off that hat. Sit down, Margaret. Please.”

To refuse would be an insult. Carefully avoiding Scott’s eyes, she sat.

Grant rubbed his neck, drawing Margaret’s attention to his frayed sleeve cuff. She frowned. The cost of a single custom-made shirt from her father’s closet could buy a dozen replacements for the one Grant wore.

He dropped his arm and sighed. “If I eat one more bite of Eggbeaters, Scott, you’ll see last night’s dinner again. Only it won’t look near as appetizing this morning.”

“The doctor said—”

“Stirring batter is not going to raise my blood pressure. And one normal breakfast every now and then is not going to clog my arteries. Dr. Hearn was clear about that. You gotta quit treating me like an invalid, son, and trust me to take care of myself.”

The moment stretched, Grant’s obvious frustration gaining Margaret’s sincere sympathy. How many times had she encountered the same lack of trust in her own abilities?

Scott relented first. Setting his hat on the refrigerator, he opened the tiny freezer compartment and cracked loose an ice cube from a dented metal tray. Cube in hand, he stepped aside.

“Make my order a double stack,” he said wryly.

Breaking into a relieved smile, Grant moved forward and began rummaging for ingredients. Scott gave him a look of affectionate exasperation, then slowly turned his head.

Margaret tensed.

Their eyes met.

She felt his contempt like a physical blow. It simmered in his tawny eyes, along with something else, a sexual charisma that was as genetically inherent as his square jaw, as unconscious for him as breathing.

Her gaze faltered and dropped. He wore a white, Western-style shirt like his father’s. But where the material swallowed Grant’s gaunt torso, it strained against Scott’s muscular frame. She focused on a pearl snap button near his tooled leather belt, refusing to look lower, unable to look higher as he walked to stand in front of her.

“Hold out your arm, Maggie.”

He was too close, and he hated her. She tilted her head back. “I can take care of myself. I’m not an invalid any more than your father is.”

One minute he was towering over her, the next he was sitting in a chair with her hand on his thigh, his fingers clamping her wrist.

“Hold still now, this might get a little uncomfortable,” he said soothingly, his glittering eyes and viselike grip hidden from Grant.

Scott raised the dripping ice cube and pressed it against her burn. She yanked her arm and gasped, more stunned at his immovable strength than the shock of cold. Jerk. He knew she couldn’t do anything with his father mixing batter not fifteen feet away. She pressed her bare knees primly together and pretended they weren’t sandwiched between denim-covered muscles.

He looked different without a hat, she realized, staring. Up close, his hair was a thick, swirling mixture of chocolate browns and caramel highlights. It begged a woman’s fingers to plunge right in. As if sensing her thoughts, he looked up through sun-tipped lashes and smiled, a lazy curl of lips that did funny things to her stomach. Returning his focus to her burn, he rubbed the ice in small circles.

Her hands flexed, the one on his thigh noting muscles gone suddenly concrete. The ice cube released a fat drip. It rolled down the curve of her skin and joined the spreading wet spot on his jeans.

He gentled his hold on her wrist. “Feel better?”

The skin on her forearm felt frozen, the skin underneath on fire where he massaged her wild pulse with his thumb. She felt flustered, aroused and very, very confused. But better?

“I’ll be fine now, thanks.” She pulled back her arm, freeing her wrist and dislodging the ice. It slithered over her thigh and fell to the floor.

“How many pancakes can you eat, Margaret?” Grant called from the stove.

She tried to answer. She tried to do anything but shiver from the combined impact of frigid ice and a predatory gold stare.

“One,” she managed breathlessly.

“What was that?”

She dragged her gaze to Grant. “One.”

“Lost your appetite, princess?” Scott asked softly, his eyes slitted with knowing amusement.

He was insufferable. He’d been insufferable from the time they’d first met. But she wasn’t a painfully shy teenager anymore. She was her own person, a woman strong enough to stand alone.

She scraped back her chair and stood.

“I changed my mind, Grant, I’ll have a short stack…with bacon.” She sent Scott a scathing look. “Suddenly I could eat a pig.”

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Ada Butler cut the engine of her pickup and resisted the urge to check her face in the rearview mirror. Silly fool. Powder and a dab of lipstick wouldn’t disguise forty-nine years of hard living. Besides, Grant wouldn’t notice if she dyed her salt-and-pepper hair green and danced naked on his bed.

She smoothed her jeans, anyway, and wished briefly she hadn’t changed from her Sunday dress. The minister’d said the blue silk matched her eyes. Then again, it was his Christian duty to say something charitable about everyone—especially aging spinsters.

With a huff of self-disgust, she slid out of the truck and scanned the dirt yard. Her squinted eyes widened on a flashy red Porsche by the barn. Who on earth was here? She spun toward the house and shaded her eyes with one hand.

The yellow clapboards shimmered in the midday sun, every curl of paint glaringly exposed. Missing shingles pockmarked the roof. The long front porch sagged in the middle, surely more so than the last time she’d stopped by? Dropping her hand, she frowned and moved toward the house.

Scott had assured her that after the surgery his father was fine, that there was no reason for her to visit the hospital or drop off a casserole when Grant came home. Yet Ellen Gates had done both. Every congregation member sitting within five pews of the new widow heard how she’d read scripture by Grant’s bed—no doubt wishing she was in it, the hypocrite—and taken him her famous Chicken Delight the next week. Baiting the trap for a husband, that’s what she was doing.

A series of grunts from the back of Ada’s pickup gave her pause. It was true Ellen had boobs the size of Canada. But Ada had fifty times more brains. Surely that gave the widow only a moderate edge.

She was halfway up the porch steps when Grant opened the door.

“Ada, what a nice surprise.”

Hand pressed to pounding heart, she allowed herself one devouring look. He was so thin! Yet the rakish smile and lively green eyes were as irresistible as ever.

“Hello, Grant. How’re you feeling?”

His eyes lost some of their sparkle. “Oh, good as an old man with one foot in the grave can feel.”

She arched a brow. “Glad I came by in time. Dead men are so boring.”

When he chuckled, her pleasure pulsed bone deep.

“Come on in out of the sun, Ada. I think I can manage a little conversation before the funeral.”

“You’re sure I’m not intruding? Looks like you’ve already got company.” She glanced pointedly at the Porsche.

“That’ll take some explaining. Come in.”

She climbed the remaining steps while he held open the door. His fingertips branded the small of her back as she swept into the oak-planked parlor. He made her feel protected and utterly feminine when she didn’t need the first and certainly wasn’t the second.

And that, she supposed, was why she’d loved Grant Hayes most of her adult life.

He settled her on the camelback sofa and squeezed into the room’s only chair, a wooden rocker far too delicate for his large frame.

“The car belongs to Margaret Winston. You remember, Donald Winston’s daughter?”

“I’m not likely to forget.”

No single family in the county had provided as much juicy gossip as the Winstons. People still wondered what really happened the day young Matt Collins died. One thing was clear—a body never mentioned Margaret’s name around Scott unless she wanted her head snapped off. And Ada was rather fond of hers.

“I thought Margaret lived in Dallas now. What brings her here?” she asked, listening enthralled to Grant’s account of the past three days. When he finished, she slowly shook her head.

“If that doesn’t beat all. To hear Doc Chalmers tell it, Twister was spawned from the bowels of hell. Do you really think a little thing like Margaret can handle that devil?”

“She saddled him up not twenty minutes ago and took off on their first ride. Damnedest thing I ever saw. You’d have thought he was a Shetland pony at the kiddie park. Margaret’ll handle Twister just fine. But handling Scott…now, that’s a whole different ball of wax.”

Did he know his eyes were as green as fresh mint? Did he know how masculine he looked in that dainty chair or what happened to her stomach when he smiled?

“But enough about us, Ada. What brings you away from your sows during spring farrowing? Can’t be my charming company.”

Of course he didn’t know. She was plain, practical Ada Butler, raiser of hogs and peaches, not men’s pulses. She glanced from his jutting arms and knees to the empty cushion beside her and blinked back the horrifying sting of tears.

“Ada? What is it?” He unfolded from the chair and left it rocking wildly to sit on the sofa. Reaching for her hands, he gave them a squeeze and searched her eyes. “Has something happened at the farm? Do you need help?”

Concern had accomplished what her pitiful charms could not. It would be easy enough to let the tears flow, to find a plausible problem and see where it led. Already prickles of excitement from their joined palms spread up her arms. Heavenly.

She drew a deep breath and pulled her hands away. “Nothing’s wrong, Grant. It’s my silly allergies. They always act up this time of year.”

Avoiding his gaze, she rose and walked to the door, clearing her throat and sniffing for effect. “You’re right, I really can’t stay away from the farm long. But I ran into Scott last week in town, and he mentioned wanting to raise a hog for fall slaughter.” Some day was what he’d said. She opened the door and stood half in, half out.

“Morning Glory’s last litter was a beaut,” she babbled on. “Twelve in all, but the runt barely made it. He’ll bring next to nothing at market and less than that as breeding stock. You’re welcome to take him if you want. He’s in the truck now.”

“Really? One of your prize Hampshires? I don’t know what to say, Ada.”

Neither did she, since he’d moved to peer out the door and driven every coherent thought out of her head. Her spine hugged the doorjamb. Her chest rose and fell an inch from his arm. Oh, to be Ellen Gates now.

He turned and looked down, his evident pleasure shifting to surprise, then keen awareness. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen that expression in a man’s eyes. Never had it thrilled her body and soul like now.

She saw his gaze fasten on her mouth, felt her lips soften in response, watched him frown in confusion and step out onto the front porch. As he stared into space, realization hit. Lord in heaven, he’d almost kissed her!

Her heart soaring, she breezed across the porch, floated down the steps and turned to call up teasingly, “C’mon, old man. Let’s get your pig unloaded.”

Spinning on one serviceable work boot, she was amazed at how naturally her walk had an extra sway when she knew Grant was watching. One thing about working a farm sunup to sundown—it kept her figure trim and supple. From this view, she might even have the edge on Ellen.

At her truck, Ada dropped the tailgate, grabbed a flimsy chicken-wire cage and pulled. Excited grunts erupted from the black-and-white shoat inside. She’d always had a soft spot for runts. She’d only postponed this one’s inevitable fate, but still, she felt noble.

“Hush, little guy. We’ll get you out of there in a minute,” Ada crooned, dragging the cage to the edge of the tailgate. The eight-week-old pig trembled miserably, his tail tucked as low as the curl would allow. Intent on getting the poor creature settled, Ada tightened her grip on the cage and heaved.

“Let me help,” Grant rumbled unexpectedly in her ear.

Her fingers slackened. The cage hit the ground. Wire crunched, popping the door open. And thirty pounds of squealing, outraged pig dug in his toes and raced wildly for the barn.

After exchanging a stunned look with Grant, Ada took off in hot pursuit.

She focused with dizzying results on the corkscrew tail twirling counterclockwise to anatomy. Ah, good. The rascal was headed straight for the first stall. Easy pickings. She plunged through the stall just behind the pig, waited tensely while he bobbled against three walls and grasped empty air as he squirted between her legs and out the door.

“Get him!” Ada shrieked at Grant, who stood watching with an infuriatingly superior male smirk.

Stumpy legs pumping, the runt streaked into the next stall. Grant leapt into manly action. Ada stumbled into the corridor just in time to see the frenzied pig rounding the stall like a fresh-shelled pea in a bowl. When Grant zigged with hands open, the black-and-white terror zagged straight out through the door.

It was a beautiful moment.

“Get him!” Grant roared, lurching out of the stall with murder in his eyes.

There were advantages to being a runt, Ada discovered during the next ten minutes. Never again would she feel sorry for nature’s pip-squeaks. Runts were faster than their heftier siblings, for one thing. And small enough to wiggle under sawhorses, between stacked well pipe and behind metal storage cabinets.

In a distant part of Ada’s awareness, she registered the sound of an approaching vehicle, then closed out all distractions save the pig eyeing her with myopic defiance four feet away. For some reason, he’d skidded to a stop in another stall. Afraid to move, she spoke in a soft, singsong voice.

“That’s a good piggy, just stay where you are and we’ll stick an apple in your mouth yet, yes we will. If you’re there, Grant, close the stall door now, because our little friend here looks very nervous.”

She watched the pig’s beady eyes follow Grant’s movement toward the door.

“Yoohoo. Oh, Gra-ant?” came a woman’s glass-shattering voice.

Hide bristling, the runt bolted for the stall door. Ada lunged, groaning as a piece of his tail slipped through her fingers. Dusty, sweaty and completely alone, she hung her head.

Outrage brought her chin up. She charged out of the stall and spotted Grant pounding down the corridor, hard on the tiny rump of Turbo Pig. A voluptuous woman in a flowing, ankle-length dress stood silhouetted in the barn entrance, holding a cake aloft.

“My, it’s dark in here. Is that you, Grant? I brought you my famous Molasses Spice Cake everybody raves abou—Eeeeek! Get away! Get away, you nasty thing!” Spinning in a circle, Ellen Gates trapped the thrashing, frantic pig in her swirling skirt.

You should have changed out of your Sunday dress, Ada thought smugly.

“Stand still, Ellen,” Grant ordered. “He won’t hurt you.”

“What won’t hurt me? What won’t hurt me, goddamn it!”

Tsk-tsk, what would the preacher say?

“It’s a pig. A small pig,” Grant explained with a superior male smirk Ada didn’t mind at all.

Just then, the animal in question caught scent of his favorite flavor in the world, the one Ada used to sweeten his sorghum and tempt his runty appetite, and snuffled as high as he could reach beneath Ellen’s skirts.

“Eeeeeyuu!”

The cake hit the ground with a succulent splat. The pig fought his way out of Ellen’s skirts with a squeal of ecstasy and began gobbling scattered molasses shrapnel from the dirt floor. The last of Ada’s hostility toward the little runt faded.

“Do something!” Ellen wailed.

Ada pushed past Grant, grabbed the warm, quivering pig, and repositioned his leathery snout dead center in the cake. “Enjoy yourself, runt. It’s famous.”

SCOTT CAUGHT a loose strand of barbed wire with his hammer claw and pressed the tool back against a worm-eaten mesquite post. He waited for the telltale twang of maximum tension before plucking a staple out of his mouth, lifting a second hammer from his belt and securing the strand with two solid whacks. Only then did he straighten and wipe the sweat from his brow.

Repairing fence alone was tricky work and required all his concentration—which was exactly why he’d declined Pete’s offer to help. If Scott had time to think, he might remember Maggie’s stricken expression earlier today when he’d lectured her about ruining a frying pan. Or her startled awareness when he’d forcibly held her wrist. Neither reaction spoke well of his behavior. But then, she’d always brought out the worst in him.

Frowning, he dropped both hammers and noted the belch of dust on impact. Damn, it was dry for April. Unless a gully-washer hit soon, the approaching summer would dry up his stock tanks. They were dangerously low as it was.

He peeled off his work gloves and walked to the pickup parked in the dubious shade of a young mesquite. This part of the ranch hadn’t been cleared in two years. The profusion of cactus, scrub brush and spindly trees depressed him. Pulling his shirttail free, he wrenched open the snaps in one movement and threw the wadded material into the open window. He’d had big plans for this place once. Now he just got up, worked until he couldn’t see straight, then fell into bed—day after day after day.

Lifting out the thermos of water he always carried, Scott gulped and then backhanded his mouth. If only watering his cattle was so easy. Inevitably, irresistibly, his gaze drifted to the thick stand of oaks and cotton-woods edging the horizon.

The trees sheltered the Guadalupe River, whose far bank sloped up to the foot of a manicured green lawn. His mind provided details of the plantation-style house, massive horse barn and various outbuildings he’d seen only twice in his life.

Riverbend. The embodiment of everything he wanted, yet couldn’t have.

As a kid, he’d listened to his dad talk about buying the riverfront acreage from old man Perkin and improving H & H Cattle Company’s holdings. Then his mom had grown ill. The medical bills stacked up, and the talk stopped.

After she died, they’d all handled it differently. Laura found comfort in excelling at school, Grant relinquished his dream, and Scott grabbed hold of it with both hands. At the ripe old age of twelve, he’d extracted a promise from Andrew Perkin to give Scott first crack at purchasing the prime riverfront land one day.

For seven years he’d worked any job his spare time would allow and saved his earnings. After high school graduation, Mr. Perkin had made noises about being too old to keep farming, and Scott had picked up a loan application from the bank. While his friends dreamed about college, he’d fantasized about his Santa Gertrudis herd drinking from the Guadalupe.

Until someone with more money, more clout and more cojones beat him to it.

Scott pushed off from the truck with a snort and headed for the fence post. He’d do well to forget the past if he hoped to show any degree of civility in the next few months. Stooping over, he jerked his gloves on and attacked his work with a vengeance.

Ten minutes and two fence posts later, he heard the jingle of a bit, the clack of a hoof connecting with rock. He straightened at the sight of Maggie riding Twister slowly up the fence line. The stallion looked foreign but magnificent, with an English saddle and slender woman in jodhpurs on his back.

She stopped about twenty feet away, one hand holding the reins loosely while the other scribbled on paper against the saddle pommel.

Scott walked forward, straining to see. Some sort of drawing, it looked like. Bracing against Twister’s nudge of greeting, Scott watched her quickly fold the paper and slip it into the pocket of her pale blue shirt.

“I thought you weren’t going to ride today,” he said, reaching up to hold the bridle.

Her gaze fluttered over his bare chest and darted away. “The farrier rescheduled for tomorrow. I decided to scope out possible training sites. Twister hasn’t given me a bit of trouble—” she leaned over and rubbed the glossy neck “—have ya, handsome?”

Her sleeveless shirt gaped at the neck. Scott’s breath snagged on a glimpse of milky flesh and scalloped cream lace.

She straightened and stared out over the fence. “I never realized Riverbend was this close to your ranch.”

“No, I don’t suppose you did. It’s beneath a princess to notice the peons.”

Her head snapped around. Twister snorted and sidestepped. She collected the reins and eyed Scott with regal scorn.

“Quit calling me a princess.”

He almost smiled, but shrugged, instead. “It’s what you are.”

“Because my father bought Riverbend out from under your nose?”

His grip tightened on the bridle. How did she know about that?

“I spent some time at the feed store last week. I found out you worked there off and on all through high school. Apparently the whole town knew about your bargain with Mr. Perkin. My father didn’t win any friends around here by offering a deal the old man couldn’t refuse. Still, that has nothing to do with me.”

Like hell. “Donald Winston bought that land for you, for his little princess, so she could win horse shows.”

“So I’m the daughter of a man obsessed with winning.”

“A rich man.”

“Okay, a rich man. I can’t help it if I have wealthy parents. They don’t define me. When have I ever treated you like I was a princess, Scott Hayes?”

She sat there with her nose in the air and her posture church perfect and her eyes frosting the air between them, and Scott felt his control snap. He moved closer and gripped the supple riding boot that epitomized her privileged world.

“Since the first day I met you,” he said, all the confusion and humiliation of that day resurfacing. He wanted to shake her ivory tower till her teeth rattled. “Do you even remember that day, Maggie?”

Her cheeks flushed to match her sunburned nose. She remembered.

“Must’ve been quite a social comedown for you to hang out with the locals, huh?”

“No, I was grateful to be invited. Being new to the area wasn’t easy.”

“Our nasty red dust get your Corvette dirty?”

“You’re not being fair!”

“That’s life in the big country, princess. It ain’t fair and it ain’t easy. You don’t belong here any more than you did ten years ago.”

He’d spotted her right off when he’d walked into Lucy’s Café. Her sophisticated haircut, her expensive clothes, her French-restaurant table manners—hell, everything about her had screamed class. He’d been fascinated—and intimidated.

“My buddies bet me ten bucks I couldn’t get your phone number. I gotta admit, Maggie, you were good.”

She shifted in the saddle and frowned. “Good?”

“I thought I’d been around, knew all the tricks. But you played me like a puppet for thirty minutes before cutting the strings. I didn’t even see it coming.” He’d bought into that shy smile, the pleasure in her dove gray eyes, one hundred percent.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do. I think you waited for the exact right minute to put me in my place. Everyone there saw me asking for your phone number. Everyone there knew I didn’t get it.”

He’d held out that pen and napkin for a hundred excruciating years while she’d given him the Snow Princess treatment. Her friends had giggled when he’d snatched his hand back. His own friends had snickered as he joined them in a corner booth. Losing the bet wasn’t the half of his shock.

Mr. Stud had finally been rejected, his friends had told him, by a Dallas blueblood—daughter of the millionaire who’d just bought old man Perkin’s place.

Twister tossed his head and stamped, jolting Scott back to the present. He focused on Maggie’s overly bright eyes, the pressed lips, which trembled nonetheless. She didn’t look cold now. She looked close to tears.

“It wasn’t you. It was me. I’m…” Her swallow was audible. She shook her head and fumbled with the reins.

Scott resented his pang of sympathy. “You’re what, Maggie?”

Her eyes hardened. Her chin came up and out. “I’m a damn good horse trainer, that’s what. That’s all you need to know about me.”

Twister launched forward into a fast trot, wrenching Scott’s hand from her boot. Stunned, he watched horse and rider kick up dust until they melted into the brush.

Absently rubbing his right glove, he stared unmoving at the horizon. The sun beat down hotter than ever, but he scarcely noticed. Something important had happened just now, no doubt about it.

He wished like hell he knew what it was.