Tyler. Diana Palmer

you up, of course. Get in.”

      It wasn’t as if she had a choice. He escorted her to the passenger side and put her in like so much laundry, closing the door gently behind her.

      “You’re killing my ego,” he remarked as he pulled out onto the road.

      Her nervous hands twisted her soft gray leather purse. “You don’t have an ego,” she replied, glancing out at the expanse of open country and jagged mountains.

      “Thank you,” he replied, smiling faintly. “That’s the first nice thing you’ve said to me in weeks.”

      She let out a quiet breath and stared at the purse in her hands. “I don’t mean to be like this,” she confessed. “It’s just—” her shoulders lifted and fell “—I don’t want you to think that I’m running after you.” She grimaced. “After all, I guess I was pretty obnoxious those first days you were here.”

      He pulled the station wagon onto a pasture trail that led beyond a locked gate, and cut off the engine. His green eyes lanced over her while he lit a cigarette with slow, steady hands.

      “Okay, let’s put our cards on the table,” he said quietly. “I’m flat busted. I work for your uncle because what I have left in the bank wouldn’t support me for a week, and I can’t save a lot. I’ve got debts that I’m trying to pay off. That makes me a bad prospect for a woman. I’m not looking for involvement….”

      She groaned, torn by embarrassment, and fumbled her way out of the car, scarlet with humiliated pride.

      He was one step behind, and before she could get away he was in front of her, the threat of his tall, fit body holding her back against the station wagon.

      “Please, you don’t have to explain anything to me,” she said brokenly. “I’m sorry, I never meant to—”

      “Nell.”

      The sound of her name in that deep, slow drawl brought her hurt eyes up to his. Through a mist of gathering tears she saw his face harden, then his eyes begin to glitter again, as they had once before when he’d come close to her.

      “You’re all too vulnerable,” he said, and there was something solemn and very adult in his look. “I’m trying to tell you that I never thought you were chasing me. You aren’t the type.”

      She could have laughed at that statement. He didn’t know that years ago she’d run shamelessly after Darren McAnders and almost begged for his love. But she didn’t speak. Her eyes fell to the quick rise and fall of his broad chest under the well-fitting suit, and she wondered why he seemed so breathless. Her own breathing was much too quick, because he was close enough that she could feel his warmth, smell the expensive cologne that clung to him.

      “I’m nervous around men,” she said without looking up. “You were the first one who ever paid me any real attention. I guess I was so flattered that I went overboard, trying to make you happy here.” She smiled faintly, glancing up and then down again. “But I never really thought it was anything except friendship on your part, you know. I’m not at all like Margie.”

      “What do you mean by that crack?” he asked sharply.

      She shivered at his tone. “She’s like the people in your world, that’s all. She’s poised and sophisticated and beautiful…”

      “There are many different kinds of beauty, Nell,” he said, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it. With surprised pleasure she felt the touch of his lean fingers on her chin as he lifted her face up to his eyes. “It goes a lot deeper than makeup.”

      Her lips parted and she found that she couldn’t quite drag her eyes away from his. He was watching her in a way that made her knees weak.

      “We’d better go…hadn’t we?” she asked in a husky whisper.

      The timbre of her soft voice sent ripples down his spine. He searched her dark eyes slowly, finding secrets there, unvoiced longings. He could almost feel the loneliness in her, the hidden need.

      And all at once, he felt a need spark within him to erase that pain from her soft eyes.

      He dropped his cigarette absently to the ground and put it out with a sharp movement of his boot. His lean hands slid against her high cheekbones and past her ears.