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  “I’m not sure,” Martha answered. “I think folks are a little suspicious of the whole thing.”

  Kate looked amused. “Do people in Beauville have that many secrets?”

  “Well,” Gran said, “Doris Hansen’s great-grandfather was said to have escaped a murder charge in California by jumping on a train. When he woke up, he was in Beauville.”

  “Mother,” Martha said, pushing the photo albums aside as if they were dead cats. “I don’t know why you think you have to resurrect the past.”

  “We’ve had our share of problems, too,” Gert declared. “Your brother—wherever he is—caused his share of heartache.”

  “Amen to that,” Martha breathed.

  “And his father wasn’t much better,” Gert added. “I’ve written that part already. Now I’m at the time when the boys were going off to war.”

  “It’s very good so far,” her writer granddaughter said. “Gran has a terrific memory for details.”

  “All I’m saying is that no one wants their dirty laundry aired in public, Kate. What’s private should stay that way.”

  “Mom, I’m beginning to think you have a deep dark secret you don’t want anyone to find out.”

  Gert raised her eyebrows at that. The guilty expression on Martha’s face proved Katie right. “Is that so, Martha? And can I use it in the book?”

  Her daughter stood up and picked up her purse. “I’m not going to listen to this kind of talk,” she said. “Besides, I thought we were going out to dinner tonight.”

  “It’s only three o’clock, Martha,” Gert felt obliged to point out. “You want to eat at three o’clock?”

  “I’m going to get my hair done,” her daughter said. “I’m thinking of a blond rinse. And I’m tired of talking about secrets.” With that, she swept out of the room. A few seconds later the back door slammed and, sure enough, when Gert leaned back in her chair and peered out the front window, she saw Martha’s car making dust as she headed out to the highway.

  “My goodness,” Gert declared, chuckling at her granddaughter. “Your mother’s a little edgy lately, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe she’s spending too much time with Mr. Jackson.”

  “Or not enough,” Gert pointed out. Seemed like Martha might need some male companionship. The woman had to get lonely; after all, Ian had been gone for nine years. “Your father was a fine man, but it just might be time for your mother to marry again.”

  “Marry? She’s talking about moving into those retirement villas, not getting married.” Kate didn’t look too pleased.

  “I’m sure you both miss your father,” Gert said. “That heart attack took him so fast, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I couldn’t wait to leave and go to college,” Kate admitted. “The house was so empty without him.”

  “Maybe Martha’s feeling the same way now.” She managed to lift herself out of the chair and wandered over to the kitchen window. “Dustin’s back. His truck is parked by the horse barn. You haven’t been riding yet, have you?”

  “No.”

  “I still keep a few horses,” Gert said. “They could use some exercise, if someone wanted to go out there and saddle them up.”

  “I’ll ride tomorrow morning,” she said, “when it’s not too hot. I’m going to get the rest of my things from town and spend the rest of my vacation here. That way I can get some work done.”

  “What kind of work?” She watched for signs of the man or the boy. Sometimes Dustin stopped in to tell her what was going on. She liked that, when he’d come over and talk to her about cattle and feed and how the water was holding up. The boy would drink lemonade or milky, sugared coffee and it would be like the old days, when she ran this place and the foreman—Sandy, that was his name—would check in and see what she thought needed doing.

  She liked a man who knew how to communicate. Gert turned toward her granddaughter, a young woman who didn’t have the sense to know she had a place in the world and a good man to claim. Kate was pretty and smart, independent, too—a good thing in a woman, Gert knew, because it kept you from depending on other people to make you happy—but she should be running the Lazy K. She should be having babies and making love to a hardworking man who would work along with her and make something of their lives together.

  “Kate,” Gert said, and her granddaughter looked up from the photo albums, “the barn needs painting real bad.”

  “Dustin said he was working on it.”

  “The man doesn’t have time,” Gert said, sighing to show how worked up she was about it. “And I just get so depressed looking at that barn now and seeing how run-down it looks.”

  Kate untangled her legs and walked over to look out the window, too. “Well,” she said, “I have ten more days. You must have a ladder around here somewhere.”

  “Dustin can do the high spots. If you could work on the barn and then maybe the outbuildings it would sure be a big help.” And it would put Kate outside with the cowboy, who sure as shootin’ wouldn’t be able to stay away from her.

  “Sure.”

  “We’ll stop and get more paint and brushes tonight in town,” she said. Painting could lead to other things, of course. Gert hid her smile of satisfaction and then decided to try one more thing. “Why don’t you make a fresh pot of coffee? I could use a cup myself, and Dustin might stop by.”

  “Dustin? Why?”

  “Well, to tell me how things are going,” Gert explained. “He usually comes by around three-thirty.” And he would come if she hung a red rag in the window. That was their private signal, one that meant Gert wanted to talk. She rummaged through her linen drawer—Kate must have rearranged it—while Kate fussed with the coffee grinding machine she liked so much. It only took a second to tuck the edge of the red bandanna into the window latch.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “YOU’RE GOING TO finish painting the barn,” Dustin repeated, as if he’d never heard anything so crazy in his life. Kate set a mug of coffee in front of him and ignored that she was only inches away from him. If they were alone she’d sit on his lap and start kissing him again, so it was a good thing Gran and Danny were in the room. In fact, she noticed, the chaperones were destroying a perfectly good cup of coffee by adding large amounts of cream and sugar.

  “Yes.” Kate brought her own cup of coffee to the table and sat down across from Dustin. “It was Gran’s idea. She’s doing most of her own typing now.” And she’d cleaned out the refrigerator, scrubbed the cupboards and washed the kitchen floor until the old linoleum turned a shade lighter. “And she’d like some of the outbuildings painted.”

  He frowned and turned to her grandmother, who was busy dishing out cookies to Danny.

  “They’re only store-bought,” Gran explained, plopping several chocolate chip cookies onto Danny’s napkin. “But I like ’em anyway.”

  “Yeah,” the boy said. “Me, too.”

  “Gert,” Dustin said, trying to get her attention. “I’ll get the barn done myself, but Kate—”

  “Is perfectly capable of holding a paintbrush,” Kate finished for him. “I’ve done it before.”

  “Not in this kind of heat you haven’t.”

  “I’ll wear a hat.” She would show him. Maybe she wasn’t baking cinnamon rolls or having babies or training horses, but she could dip a brush into a bucket of paint and slap it on the side of a barn.

  “You’ll start at dawn then,” the man said. “You can’t work much past nine, not in these temperatures.”

  “What time is dawn?” she asked, though she thought she should know, having been out with him until three-thirty or so the other morning.

  “Five.” Dustin took another sip of coffee. “I’ll meet you on the west side of the horse barn tomorrow morning.”

  “You’re going to paint, too?”

  “No. I’ll just get you started, get a ladder, things like that.” That’s when he looked at her and smiled. “I’ll bet ten bucks you’re not an early riser, are
you?”

  “I can manage,” she promised. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Kate’s a good worker,” Gert declared, passing Dustin a plate full of cookies. “’Course she doesn’t belong in New York, but that’s her business. She’d be better off comin’ home and takin’ over the Lazy K.”

  “Gran—”

  Dustin turned that cool gaze her way again. “So why don’t you?” He really was handsome, better looking than nine years ago.

  “I—” she began, then stopped when she realized she didn’t have an answer. Her home was here, in Texas, but her job—her career—was in New York. But was she really happy working seventy-hour weeks and dealing with the insanity of an hour-long television show that ran five days a week?

  “See?” Gert chuckled. “My granddaughter is speechless. That doesn’t happen very often.”

  “I’m a television writer. I don’t know anything about running a ranch,” Kate said, leaving the table on the pretense of getting the coffeepot. She would refill cups that didn’t need refilling and try to change the subject back to painting barns. “We’ll get more paint tonight when we’re in town.”

  “I’ve got plenty,” Dustin said. “Enough to get you started, anyway.”

  “You know more than you think you know,” her grandmother insisted, not content with discussing paint. “You hire the right people and you start learning from those who know more than you do, people you trust.” Gran smiled and handed Danny another cookie. “Besides, ranching’s in your blood. You come from five generations of Texans, Katie. How many people can say that?”

  “What’s ‘in your blood’ mean?” the boy asked.

  “It means you’re born liking things your daddy likes,” Gert replied. “And you’ve got a good daddy. Maybe you’ll grow up to be a rancher, too.”

  Kate glanced toward Dustin, who was looking at her as if he wanted to get into a car and drive away someplace private and without deputy sheriffs with flashlights and attitudes. Well, there was a lot of land here on the Lazy K. If he wanted to be alone with her, all he had to do was open a car door and ask.

  “I’ve got some cows to check on,” the man said, serious as he could be though his dark eyes held a gleam that could only be described as X-rated. “Do you want to take a ride with me?”

  Bingo.

  “Go on,” her grandmother said. “Danny and I will play a game of cards, won’t we, boy?”

  “Sure.” He didn’t even check with his father first, Kate noticed. The little kid really liked having Gert for a grandmother.

  “Okay,” Kate said, wondering if she should sound so eager. It probably wasn’t ladylike. “Let me get a hat.”

  “There’s an extra in the truck.” He stood and took his empty coffee cup to the sink. “We won’t be gone more than an hour or two.”

  “I need to be back by five-thirty.”

  “There’s no hurry,” Gert said. “I’ll call your mother and tell her we’ll meet later, say about seven. Go on.” She made a gesture as if shooing them out of the kitchen. “Go make my granddaughter into a rancher,” she told Dustin. “I could use some more help around here.”

  “You got me,” Danny piped up. “I help.”

  “Yes, you sure do, honey, and—” her voice was drowned out by the squeak of the back door opening. Dustin put his hand on Kate’s back and gently pushed her outside into the hot afternoon sun.

  “I’d say we’re going to be gone quite a while,” the man declared.

  “Look, Dustin, I—”

  “Let’s make your grandmother happy,” he said. “And I wouldn’t mind some cheering up myself.”

  “Is this about last night?”

  “Forget about that,” the man said, and Kate turned around to look up at him. “Let’s go for a ride.”

  Forget about last night? Forget the way the cowboy’s hands felt on her skin and what heated relief it was to sink against him and start making love?

  Not likely.

  HE TOLD HIMSELF he wanted to talk about the ranch, wanted to know where he stood should Gert move to town or—God forbid—die and leave the ranch to Jake and Kate. Jake would keep him on as foreman; he couldn’t see the Johnsons moving off their own place and setting up housekeeping at the Lazy K. In a perfect world Kate would stay in New York and he would stay on as foreman, with free rein to improve the place, turn a profit and continue to run a few head of cattle himself.

  In a perfect world, Kate would be naked and willing in his bed tonight, too.

  She looked about twelve years old sitting beside him wearing a faded green baseball cap sporting the logo of Beauville Feed & Grain. He headed the truck north, with no particular destination in mind, except there was a pretty stand of cottonwoods by the creek up there. He decided there was only one way to deal with Kate McIntosh, and that was by making love to her. It was safe enough, he told himself. He was older and wiser. The boy who had promised “no strings” and gotten tangled up in love was now a grown man. A serious man with responsibilities and all sorts of experience. A man more than capable of protecting his heart against visiting city women.

  But the rest of him wanted her. After all, here was Kate—long legs, gold-streaked hair, hazel eyes that with one look could make him hard. Could make him long for privacy and a long dark night to have her all to himself.

  A hot bright afternoon would be the next best thing.

  “Where are we going?”

  He glanced toward her. “Do you care?” He dared her to protest, dared her to object.

  “I suppose not.” She stifled a yawn.

  “Short night.”

  “Yes.” She chuckled. “I think we’d better stay out of drive-ins from now on.”

  “Do you think that would solve this?”

  “I don’t think anything will, until I go back to New York.”

  “Out of sight, out of mind,” he muttered, annoyed with the reminder of her other life. They rode in silence, as Dustin wondered if he’d made another mistake. He should have left her to paint the barn, should have spent his day far from any living creatures except for cattle.

  But he wanted her. He hadn’t slept much last night, knowing she was within walking distance.

  He’d vowed to get her out of his system and then get on with his life, whatever it was he ended up doing. Fatherhood was going okay, even if he didn’t have much experience at it. The boy seemed content enough with three meals a day and his own bed to sleep in.

  Dustin parked the truck in the meager amount of shade a couple of scraggly trees provided. The brook was a mud puddle, and a couple of heifers eyed them from the other side of the sloping bank.

  “Now what?” She turned to face him and he thought he saw her smile as if to tease. He didn’t feel like smiling back.

  “You’re angry,” she said. “Why?”

  He could have told her then, he supposed. Explained he was angry that she’d believed some stupid rumors. Because she’d tossed him aside and all this time he’d thought it was because a wild Jones boy wasn’t good enough for the honor student in the fancy home. She hadn’t cared enough to ask him for the truth, hadn’t loved him enough to suspect that there could have been an explanation, hadn’t given him a chance to explain that he couldn’t think of making love to someone else when Kate was in his life and in the back seat of his car.

  “Sweetheart,” he drawled. “Why would I be angry?” He was, though. It was old and went deep and he didn’t like himself for holding on to it. He could tell her the truth any time he chose, but he didn’t want to. Not yet. Let her think what she wanted—she had for all these years, so what difference did it make now?

  Dustin took a deep breath and looked out the window. The heifers looked back at him as if they too waited for the next move. He turned to face her. “You kiss like a woman who hasn’t been with anyone for a long time.”

  “And you’re an expert on women, of course,” came the reply. She looked at him as if she was trying to solve a puzzle. He didn’t thin
k she’d have much luck.

  “Of course.”

  “You act like a man who hasn’t been with a woman in a long time,” she answered.

  “And you would recognize the signs?” He didn’t want to think of the other men she’d slept with. She was his—or she would be soon, if his instincts were right—and that was all that mattered.

  “Let’s stop this,” Kate said. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”

  “No,” he agreed, taking his hands from the steering wheel. His fingers were stiff. He turned off the ignition and looked at her again. She took off the cap and ran her fingers through her hair as casually as if they were in the middle of a crowd.

  “We can leave anytime,” she said. “And we can stay away from each other for the rest of my vacation. It wouldn’t be so hard to do.”

  “It would be impossible,” Dustin said. “Gert is doing her best to throw us together.”

  “I can talk to her, get her to stop,” Kate said.

  “We came here to finish what we started last night,” he reminded her, though the coward in him wanted her to fly back to New York this afternoon.

  “Yes,” she said, those hazel eyes studying him. “Do you think making love will help?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” he answered, as if discussing sex with her was effortless. His insides were rearranging into knots.

  “Oh, yes, it could,” came her soft reply. Dustin wondered if she was finally being honest with him.

  He reached for her, took her left hand and brought it to his mouth. He kissed her warm palm briefly. “I won’t hurt you, Katie,” he promised.

  She was silent a moment.

  “No strings?” Her question echoed his cocky declaration of years before. Her fingers swept his jaw and tempted him to kiss her.

  “No strings,” he agreed, though he knew as he spoke that he lied. He held her hand against his face for the length of a heartbeat and then, with his free hand, urged her closer. Her arms went to his shoulders, his hands cupped her face. The first kiss was light and sweet, a cautious brush of lips that tested his patience and teased his willpower.