Диана Палмер – Paper Husband (страница 3)

“No harm done,” he said gently. “We’ve learned a little more about each other than we knew before. It won’t change anything. We’re still friends.”

He made it sound like a question. “Of … of course,” she stammered.

He stood up, refastening his own shirt and tucking it back in as he looked at her with a new expression. Possession. Yes, that was it. He looked as if she belonged to him now. She didn’t understand the look or her own reaction to it.

She scrambled to her feet, moving them to see if anything hurt.

“The wire didn’t break the skin, fortunately for you,” he said. “Those jeans are heavy, tough fabric. But you need a tetanus shot, just the same. If you haven’t had one, I’ll drive you into town to get one.”

“I had one last year,” she said, avoiding his eyes as she started toward Bess, who was eyeing the stallion a little too curiously. “You’d better get Cappy before he gets any ideas.”

He caught Cappy’s bridle and had to soothe him. “You’d better get her out of here while you can,” he advised. “I didn’t think you’d be riding her today or I wouldn’t have brought Cappy. You usually ride Toast.”

She didn’t want to tell him that Toast had been sold to help settle one of her father’s outstanding debts.

He watched her swing into the saddle and he did likewise, keeping the stallion a good distance away. The urge to mate wasn’t only a human thing.

“I’ll be over to see you later,” he called to her. “We’ve got some things to talk over.”

“Like what?” she asked.

But Hank didn’t answer. Cappy was fidgeting wildly as he tried to control the stallion. “Not now. Get her home!”

She turned the mare and galloped toward the ranch, forgetting the fence in her headlong rush. She’d have to come back later. At least she could get out of the sun and get something cold to drink now.

Once she was back in the small house, she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror after a shower and couldn’t believe she was the same woman who’d gone out into the pasture only this morning. She looked so different. There was something new in her eyes, something more feminine, mysterious and secretive. She felt all over again the slow, searching touch of Hayden Grant’s hard fingers and blushed.

There had been a rare and beautiful magic between them out there in the field. She loved him so much. There had been no other man’s touch on her body, never another man in her heart. But how was he going to react when he knew the contents of her father’s will? He didn’t want to marry again. He’d said so often enough. And although he and Dana had been friends for a long time, he’d drawn back at once when he made her admit her innocence. He’d wanted an affair, obviously, but discovered that it would be impossible to justify that with his conscience. He couldn’t seduce an innocent woman.

She went into her bedroom and put on blue slacks and a knit shirt, leaving her freshly washed and dried hair loose around her shoulders. He’d said they would talk later. Did that mean he’d heard gossip about the will? Was he going to ask her to challenge it?

She had no idea what to expect. Perhaps it was just as well. She’d have less time to worry.

She walked around the living room, her eyes on the sad, shabby furniture that she and her father had bought so many years ago. There hadn’t been any money in the past year for reupholstery or new frills. They’d put everything into those few head of beef cattle and the herd sire. But the cattle market was way down and if a bad winter came, there would be no way to afford to buy feed. She had to plant plenty of hay and corn to get through the winter. But their best hand had quit on her father’s death, and now all she had were two part-time helpers, whom she could barely afford to pay. A blind woman could see that she wouldn’t be able to keep going now.

She could have wept for her lost chances. She had no education past high school, no real way to make a living. All she knew was how to pull calves and mix feed and sell off stock. She went to the auctions and knew how to bid, how to buy, how to pick cattle for conformation. She knew much less about horses, but that hardly mattered. She only had one left and the part-time man kept Bess—and Toast, until he was sold—groomed and fed and watered. She did at least know how to saddle the beast. But to Dana, a horse was a tool to use with cattle. Hayden cringed when she said that. He had purebred palominos and loved every one of them. He couldn’t understand anyone not loving horses as much as he did.

Oddly, though, it was their only real point of contention. In most other ways, they agreed, even on politics and religion. And they liked the same television programs. She smiled, remembering how many times they’d shared similar enthusiasms for weekly series, especially science fiction ones.

Hank had been kind to her father, too, and so patient when a man who’d given his life to being a country gentleman was suddenly faced with learning to be a rancher at the age of fifty-five. It made Dana sad to think how much longer her father’s life might have been if he’d taken up a less exhaustive profession. He’d had a good brain, and so much still to give.

She fixed a light lunch and a pot of coffee and thought about going back out to see about that downed fence. But another disaster would just be too much. She was disaster-prone when Hank was anywhere near her, and she seemed to be rapidly getting that way even when he wasn’t. He’d rescued her from mad bulls, trapped feet in corral fences, once from a rattlesnake and twice from falling bales of hay. He must be wondering if there wasn’t some way he could be rid of her once and for all.

It was nice of him not to mention those incidents when he’d rescued her from the fence, though. Surely he’d been tempted to.

Tempted. She colored all over again remembering the intimacy they’d shared. In the seven years they’d known each other, he’d never touched her until today. She wondered why he had.

The sound of a car outside on the country road brought her out of the kitchen and to the front door, just in time to see Hank’s black luxury car pull into the driveway. He wasn’t a flashy sort of man, and he didn’t go overboard to surround himself with luxurious things. That make of car was his one exception. He had a fascination for the big cars that never seemed to waver, because he traded his in every other year—for another black one.

“Don’t you get tired of the color?” she’d asked him once.

“Why?” he’d replied laconically. “Black goes with everything.”

He came up onto the porch, and the expression on his face was one she hadn’t seen before. He looked as he always did, neatly dressed and clean-shaven, devastatingly handsome, but there was still a difference. After their brief interlude out in the pasture, the atmosphere between them was just a little strained.

He had his hands in his pockets as he glanced down at her body in the pretty ruffled blue sundress.

“Is that for my benefit?” he asked.

She blushed. She usually kicked around in jeans or cutoffs and tank tops. She almost never wore dresses around the ranch. And her hair was long and loose around her shoulders instead of in its usual braid.

She shrugged in defeat. “Yes, I guess it is,” she said, meeting his eyes with a rueful smile. “Sorry.”

He shook his head. “There’s no need to apologize. None at all. In fact, what happened this afternoon gave me some ideas that I want to talk to you about.”

Her heart jumped into her chest. Was he going to propose? Oh, glory, if only he would, and then he’d never even have to know about that silly clause in her father’s will!

CHAPTER TWO

SHE LED THE WAY into the kitchen and set out a platter of salad and cold cuts and dressing in the center of the table, on which she’d already put two place settings. She poured coffee into two mugs, gave him one and sat down. She didn’t have to ask what he took in his coffee, because she already knew that he had it black, just as she did. It was one of many things they had in common.

“What did you want to ask me, Hank?” she ventured after he’d worked his way through a huge salad and two cups of coffee. Her nerves were screaming with suspense and anticipation.

“Oh. That.” He leaned back with his half-drained coffee cup in his hand. “I wondered if you might be willing to help me out with a little playacting for my ex-wife’s benefit.”

All her hopes fell at her feet. “What sort of acting?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“I want you to pretend to be involved with me,” he said frankly, staring at her. “On this morning’s showing, it shouldn’t be too difficult to look as if we can’t keep our hands off each other. Should it?” he asked with a mocking smile.

Everything fell into place; his odd remarks, his “experiment” out there in the pasture, his curious behavior. His beloved ex-wife was coming to town and he didn’t want everyone to know how badly she’d hurt him or how he’d grieved at her loss. So Dana had been cast as his new love. He didn’t want a new wife, he wanted an actress.

She stared into her coffee. “I don’t guess you ever want to get married again, do you?” she asked with studied carelessness.