The Virgin Beauty. Claire King

you? I don’t think so.”

      “Why not?”

      She cocked her head, looked him up and down. She’d been right about the length of his legs, but she ignored the tiny buzz of interest in them. She put her hands on her hips and gave him her most confident glare. “Because you seem a little unbalanced, frankly. What’s the matter with you?”

      He frowned at her. “‘Unbalanced’?”

      “Yes,” she said. “Unbalanced. You nab my box of meds without introducing yourself, play with those surgical instruments like some kind of serial killer, grill me on my credentials and my qualifications and then ask me where I live? Not to mention I met you all of three minutes ago. And I’m supposed to go out to dinner with you?”

      “Oh, I thought you meant unbalanced because I was asking you to dinner.” He flashed a quick grin at her, making that sharp face go gorgeous. “Like maybe you don’t get many dinner invitations.”

      She flushed, because she didn’t, because she knew he was baiting her. “I get thousands. I need to hire a secretary just to handle them all.”

      He gave her the long look this time, his head tilted to match hers. “I’ll bet. So what about it?”

      “No, thanks.”

      He narrowed his eyes on her. She was spoiling his plans. He wanted to know what kind of vet Niebaur had sold his damn practice to, and interrogating her over some fried chicken at the café was as good a way of finding out as any. The fact that he was very nearly aroused to the point of discomfort just standing next to her had nothing to do with it.

      “Just a Welcome-to-Nobel dinner. I can give you my folks’ phone number. They’ll vouch for me.”

      “Parents never know. Besides, I have a million things to do. I haven’t even been to my house yet.”

      “Okay.” He could count on one hand the number of times a woman had turned down a dinner invitation from him. But he supposed a girl such as this, with those legs and that wit and a face like a Klimt painting, was turning them away by the truckload. He shrugged, took one last lingering look at both the legs and the veterinary supplies he wanted to get his hands on. “Welcome to Nobel, anyway, Dr. McKenna. I’ll see you around.”

      “Yes. All right. And thank you for the help. My office will be open for business Monday, if you have animals that need tending.”

      He considered for a moment. “I have a couple. I’ll be in touch.”

      He pushed out the front door and strode across the street without giving so much as a glance around for potential traffic. Grace watched him go with a dead even mix of relief and disappointment.

      He’d pronounced it “noble,” the name of his town. She’d been calling it “no-bell,” like the prize. She’d remember that. It was always important, when you were doomed to make a bad first impression, to remember what you could to make a decent second one.

      Chapter 2

      He walked into his mother’s kitchen late in the afternoon, not surprised to find it empty. Ever since he and his brother had taken over the running of the family cattle ranch at the base of the hills that shadowed Nobel, his mother and father had run amok.

      He poked his head into the refrigerator, looking for a little fuel to keep him until dinner, an hour away and nothing much to look forward to anyhow, since he’d be having it alone.

      “Mom?” he shouted, just to give general warning he was here and in her refrigerator. “Dad?”

      They were probably out playing an afternoon rubber of bridge or something equally goofy and unproductive. They seemed to have taken to the goofy and unproductive since they retired, and he couldn’t have been happier for them. They’d worked like dogs every minute he’d known them, with the cattle and the hay and the occasional field of potatoes or sweet corn or wheat when the futures looked good. Had worked even harder to help him through college and then vet school. They deserved a break. He was more than happy to give it to them.

      He pulled out a beer, twisted off the top, pinched the cap between his thumb and middle finger and flicked it across the kitchen, where it rebounded off the wall and landed in the trash.

      Of course, he’d planned it all differently. They’d have still had their retirement, but Frank would have had the ranch on his own now, with Lisa helping full-time, and he’d have been in that cinder-block building instead of Grace McKenna, living in town with his wife and the life they’d planned together.

      His wife. The phrase left a bitter taste in his mouth and he took a slow pull off his beer to wash it away. Julie had left him to face his disgrace and his failure alone. They’d only been married seven months when his life had started to come apart, so he supposed it was unfair of him to have expected her to ride out the trouble. But he had expected it. And he’d found, during the three years since she’d left, that it was as hard to forgive her betrayal as it was to face his own failure.

      Today, standing in the office he’d always thought would someday be his, had brought it all back to him. Not that he ever forgot it, really. It was always there, haunting his days, tainting his nights. But he could back-burner it most of the time. Not today. Not watching Grace McKenna drive through town with his vet box bolted in the back of her truck, opening his office as the official new vet of Nobel County, Idaho.

      He didn’t blame the woman for having his life. That would be deranged and foolish. He didn’t blame her.

      He leaned back against the kitchen counter, his mossy eyes going dark and flat. Oh, hell, he blamed her a little.

      Grace McKenna. Damn her. He took a long swallow of beer, his head tipped back. He wondered if when her mama named her she knew she’d grow into the kind of woman who needed a bigger name. Grace was a name for a petite blond woman with tiny feet and dainty hands. A blue-eyes belle, who never did anything nastier with those hands than pour afternoon tea for her garden club.

      He could think of a dozen better names for Grace McKenna. Strong, mythic names, such as Hera, Diana, Minerva. He smirked into his beer. Okay, not Minerva. But a name for a woman with power and height, and that cap of dark curly hair that looked so soft, as though it belonged on a baby.

      He knew what Grace McKenna did with her hands. For nearly twenty years he’d trained to do the same thing. She pushed her hands into the back ends of sick or pregnant cattle. She made stud colts into geldings. He’d bet she did not belong to a garden club or pour tea for anyone.

      Quite suddenly and against his will, he started to wonder what else Grace McKenna might be capable of doing with those hands. More than a few ideas popped up in full color right in front of his glassy eyes.

      He dug his thumb and forefinger into his eye sockets. Oh, jeez, where had that stuff come from? The last thing he needed was to start his feeble mind down that particular road with this particular woman.

      “Danny!”

      He jumped and almost bobbled his beer, feeling as if his mother had caught him looking at dirty pictures up in his room. Again.

      “Mom!” He gave her a kiss as she went past, her hands full of grocery bags. “Any more outside?”

      “Your dad’s getting them, sugar. What are you doing here?”

      What was he doing here? He’d been pissed off and feeling sorry for himself all day, ever since he’d awakened and realized this was the day the new vet came to town. He’d tried to fight it out with the person in question, then tried to sweat it out all day working the herd. Neither tack had taken. Now he wanted a little comfort. And this was the place he’d always come for that.

      “Nothing. Just checking in on you guys. Wanted to make sure you hadn’t taken up golf yet or anything.”

      His mother laughed. “Not yet. Put them on the counter, Howard.”

      Daniel’s father came in, loaded down. “I