White Christmas: Woman Hater / The Humbug Man. Diana Palmer

like thunder, and then overflowing. He couldn’t hold it back this time, and the rush of it was incomprehensible to him.

      She felt his chest shaking, heard the deep rumble of sound from inside it. She would have bet that he didn’t laugh genuinely very often at anything. But she seemed to have a knack for dragging it out of him, and that pleased her beyond rational thought.

      The lean arm contracted, and for an instant she felt him in an embrace that made her go hot all over. What would it be like, she wondered wildly, if he turned her and wrapped her up in his embrace and put that hard, cruel mouth over hers….

      She tingled from head to toe, her breath catching in her throat. It shouldn’t have been like this, she shouldn’t still be vulnerable. She had to stop this, or it was going to be an unendurable month.

      “Watch out, Miss White,” he said at her ear, his voice deep and soft and dangerous. “Save the heavy flirting for Gerald. You’ll be safer that way.”

      He let her down at the porch, holding her so that she slid down to the ground. For an instant his dark face was very close, so close that she saw his dark eyes at point-blank range and something shot through her like lightning. She pulled back slowly, her eyes still linked to his. What had he said? Something about flirting with Gerald. But why should she want to flirt with her boss?

      “See you.” He wheeled his stallion and rode off, and she watched him with mingled emotions.

      Supper was an unexpectedly quiet affair. Winthrop was out when she and Gerald sat down to eat, along with the ranch foreman, Michael Slade, a burly man of thirty who seemed perfectly capable of handling anything.

      “Boss said he wouldn’t get back in time for chow,” Michael told Gerald with a grin. “Had to go into Butte for some supplies he needed. I offered, but he said he had some other things to do as well.”

      “Odd that he didn’t do it before he met us at the airport.” Gerald sighed as he took his medicine and glared at his plate. The doctor had told him that they didn’t treat ulcers with bland diets anymore, but Mary hadn’t believed him. Amazing, how disgusting green pea soup looked in a bowl, and he did hate applesauce. He glanced at Mary, sighed and then gave in to her, as he had done even as a child. He picked up his spoon and began to sip the soup. “Oh, well, that’s Winthrop. Unpredictable. How’s it going, Mike?”

      The foreman launched into grand detail about seeing to the winter pasture, fixing fences, storing hay, culling cows, doing embryo transplants for the spring calving and organizing other facets of ranch life that he’d expected would go right over Nicole’s head.

      “One of my family was into embryo transplants when it was barely theory,” Nicole interrupted. “They had some great successes. Now there’s a new system underway, implanting computer chips just under the skin to keep track of herds….”

      “Say, I’ve read about that,” Mike agreed, and Gerald sat and stared while the two of them discussed cattle.

      “Mr. Christopher must be feeling pretty proud of himself to have someone like you on the payroll,” Nicole told the foreman when they reached a stopping point. “You know your business.”

      “Forgive me, ma’am, but so do you.” Mike grinned, his ruddy face almost handsome with his blue eyes flashing. “I never knew a woman who could talk cattle before.”

      “I never knew a man who talked it as well.” She grinned back.

      “I thought you were from Chicago,” Gerald sighed, shaking his head, when Mike had gone and they were sipping coffee in the living room. “Until you admitted that you were a Kentuckian, at least,” he added. His gaze was warm and faintly questioning. “Amazing, that we worked together for two years and knew nothing about each other.”

      She smiled at him. “I guess most bosses and secretaries are like that, really,” she agreed. “You’re very nice to work for, though. You don’t yell, like some of your vice presidents do.”

      He laughed. “I try not to. Winthrop, now,” he said, watching her face as he spoke, “never yells. But it’s worse that way, somehow. He has a voice like an icy wind when he loses his temper, which isn’t often. I’ve seen him look at men who were about to start fights and back them down. One of our ancestors was a French fur trader up in Canada. Our grandmother used to say Winthrop takes after him.”

      “He has expressive eyes,” she agreed, glancing at Gerald warily. “He doesn’t want me here, you know.”

      His shoulders rose and fell. “He’s buried himself up here for three solid years,” he said irritably, staring into his coffee. “No company, except these hunting parties that he tolerates because it gives some variety to his life. No women. No dating. He’s avoided women like the plague since Deanne left him. He uses that limp like a stick, have you noticed?” he asked, lifting troubled eyes to hers. “It isn’t all that bad, and he could walk well enough if he cared to try, but it’s as if he needs it to remind him that women are treacherous.”

      “I’d heard that he was something of a playboy in his younger days,” she probed, curious about Winthrop in new and exciting ways.

      “He was,” Gerald agreed with a faint, musing smile. “He broke hearts right and left. But Deanne liked him because he was a new experience. I don’t think she really meant to hurt him. She was young and he spoiled her, and she liked it. But when he got hurt, she had visions of being tied to a cripple for life, and she ran. Winthrop was shattered by the experience. His black pride couldn’t deal with the humiliation of being lamed and deserted, all at once.”

      “Poor man,” she said gently, and meant it.

      “Don’t make that mistake, either,” he cautioned quietly. “Don’t ever pity him. He’s steel clean through, and if you give him half an opening, he’ll make a scapegoat of you. Don’t let him hurt you, Nicky.”

      She colored delicately. “You think he might?”

      “I think you attract him,” he said bluntly. “And I have a feeling that you aren’t immune to him, either. He doesn’t like being vulnerable, so look out.”

      Hours later, when she went up to bed, she was still turning that threat over in her mind. She could picture Winthrop behind her closed eyes, and the image made her sigh with mingled emotions. She’d never felt so empty before, so alone. She wanted him in ways that she’d never dreamed she could want a man. She wanted to be with him, to share with him, to ease his hurt and make him whole again. She didn’t quite know how to cope with the new and frightening sensations. Nicky had her own scars and she didn’t want involvement any more than Winthrop did. But there was something between them. Something that was new and a little frightening, and like an avalanche, she couldn’t stop it.

      She was almost asleep when she heard slow steps coming past her door. She knew from the sound that it was Winthrop, and her heart beat faster as he passed her room. Odd, how deeply she could be touched just by his step. She wondered if he was as curious about her as she was about him, despite his understandably deep distrust of women. He was like her, in so many ways, hiding from a world that had been cruel to him. They had more in common than he seemed to realize. Or perhaps he did realize it, and was drawing back because he didn’t trust her. She closed her eyes as she heard a door close down the hall. In no time at all, she was asleep, secure because the master of the house was back, and she was safe.

       Three

      Winthrop’s horses attracted Nicole immediately, even though he’d given her a terse warning at breakfast about going too close to them. One of the happiest memories of her childhood was watching old Ernie at her home in Kentucky as he worked the thoroughbreds when they were ready to be trained.

      Besides his saddle horses, mostly quarter horses, Winthrop