Rawhide and Lace. Diana Palmer

she’d known him.

      “Why couldn’t they live together?” she asked him, curious.

      He shrugged. “He was a cold man, she was a hot woman,” he said succinctly. “That says everything.”

      She flushed as the meaning penetrated, and averted her eyes.

      “What brought that on?” he murmured, and actually started to smile. “I only meant he never showed his feelings, and she wore hers on her sleeve. I don’t know how they were in bed. I never asked.”

      The blush deepened. “Will you stop that?” she muttered.

      “And I thought I was old-fashioned,” he said. He took a draw from his cigarette and sighed heavily as he stared at the three graves. “I’m the last one, now,” he mused. “Funny, I thought Bruce would outlive me by twenty years. He was the one who loved life.”

      “And you don’t?” she asked, lifting her eyes.

      “You work yourself to death trying to make a living, and then you die. In between, you worry about floods, droughts, taxes and capital outlay. That’s about it.”

      “I’ve never known a man more cynical than you,” she told him. “Not even in New York.”

      “I’m a realist,” he corrected. “I don’t expect miracles.”

      “Maybe that’s why none ever happen for you,” she said. She leaned on the cane a little and stared down at Bruce’s grave. “Bruce was a dreamer. He was always looking for surprises, for the unexpected. He was a happy man most of the time, except when he remembered that he was always going to be second best. You’re a hard act to follow. He never felt that he could measure up to you. He said that even your mother talked about you more than she did about him.”

      He raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know that. She seemed to hold me in contempt most of the time. We never understood each other.”

      Her quiet eyes searched his face, the hard lines around his mouth. The iron man, she mused. “I don’t think anyone will ever understand you,” she said quietly. “You give nothing of yourself.”

      His jaw tautened and his pale eyes kindled through the cloud of smoke that left his pursed lips. “Now that’s an interesting statement, coming from you.”

      It was the emphasis he put on it. She saw with sudden clarity a picture of herself lying in his arms by the firelight, moaning as he touched her breasts….

      “I didn’t mean…that kind of giving,” she said uneasily, and dropped her eyes to his broad chest. It strained against the denim, rippling muscles and thick dark hair that covered him from his collarbone down.