Lone Star Winter: The Winter Soldier. Diana Palmer

glared at him. “I would have if I’d wanted to,” she said mutinously.

      “But you didn’t.”

      She threw up her hands, almost making a basketball of her small purse. She retrieved it from the dash and plopped it back into her lap.

      “You’re the kind of woman that men marry,” he continued, unabashed. “You like children and small animals and it would never occur to you to be cruel to anyone. If you’d gotten involved with me while I was still in my former line of work, you wouldn’t have lasted a day with me.”

      “I don’t suppose I would have,” she had to agree. She looked through the windshield, wondering why it hurt so much to have him tell her that. Surely she hadn’t been thinking in terms of the future just because of one passionate kiss? Of course, her whole body tensed remembering the pleasure of it, the exciting things he’d said…

      “And you weren’t Walt’s usual date, either,” he said surprisingly. “He liked experience.”

      She grimaced. “I found that out pretty quick. He said I was the most boring woman he’d ever gone to bed with. Except for our wedding night, and the night be fore he was killed, he slept in a separate bedroom.”

      No wonder she was the way she was, he mused as the light changed and he sent the big vehicle speeding forward. She probably felt like a total failure as a woman. The child must have been some sort of consolation, because she certainly wanted it.

      “I’ll bet you hate admitting that,” he said.

      “Yes, I do. I felt inadequate, dull, boring,” she muttered. “He liked blondes, but not me.”

      “He liked that parcel service driver plenty,” he recalled, his eyes narrowing. “You were pitching hay over the fence to the cows and he was flirting with her, right under your nose. I never wanted to hit a man more.”

      Her lips parted on a quick breath. “You saw…that?”

      “I saw it,” he said curtly. “That’s why I stopped by later and said something about the way you were pitching hay by yourself.”

      She shifted in the seat. “He said they were old friends,” she replied. “I guess he really meant they were former lovers. He never treated me to that sort of charm and flirting. He really wanted Dad’s ranch. It was a pity I went with the deal.”

      “It was his loss that he took you for granted,” he corrected. “You’re not inadequate. You proved that earlier tonight, in the parking lot.”

      She cleared her throat. “An incident best forgotten.”

      “Why?”

      “Why?” She stared at him. “Walt’s only been dead two weeks, that’s why!”

      He stopped at a four-way stop and turned in his seat on the deserted road to look at her. “Lisa,” he said quietly, “it wouldn’t have mattered even if he’d still been alive, and you know it. What happened was mutual and explosive.”

      “It was a fluke…”

      His hand reached out and his fingers traced her lower lip. She couldn’t even speak. “Would you like me to prove that it isn’t?” he asked quietly. “There are plenty of dirt roads between here and home, and the seats re cline all the way.”

      “Cy Parks!”

      “Best of all,” he mused, “we wouldn’t even have to worry about pregnancy, would we?”

      Her face was scarlet; she knew it was. He was making her breathless with that torturous brush of his fingers, and she was vulnerable. She’d never really known desire until tonight, and she wished she could turn the clock back a day. Life was difficult enough without this new complication.

      He drew in a long breath and lifted his hand back to the steering wheel. “God knows I want to,” he said shortly, “but you’d die of shock and never speak to me again afterward.”

      “I…certainly…would,” she faltered, pushing her hair back unnecessarily just for something to do.

      He shook his head. He’d known her such a short time, really, but she seemed to hold his attention even when he wasn’t with her. Every future event he thought of these days, he considered her part in. It was disturbing to know that he considered her part of his life already.

      She fiddled with the top button on her coat. Her eyes were restless, moving from the dark horizon to the occasional lighted window flashing past as the utility vehicle picked up speed. What he’d said disturbed her, mostly because she knew it was true. She’d have gone anywhere with him, done anything with him. It made her guilty because she should be mourning Walt.

      “Don’t brood,” Cy told her. “You’re safe. No more torrid interludes tonight, I promise.”

      She fought a smile and lost. “You’re a terrible man.”

      “You have no idea how terrible.” He paused to look both ways before he crossed a lonely intersection. “Harley’s fired your part-time hired hands, by the way.”

      “He’s what?”

      “Calm down. They were being paid for work they didn’t do. That’s economically disastrous.”

      “But who’ll get in the hay and brand the calves…?” she worried.

      “You didn’t hear the noise? Harley got the tractors out in your hay field early this morning. The haying’s done. The corn crop is next. I’m hiring on four new men. Harley will supervise them, and your place will live up to its promise.” He glanced at her. “You haven’t decided not to sell it have you?”

      “I can’t afford to keep it,” she confessed. “I’m glad you don’t plan to build a subdivision on it or something. It’s been in my family for a hundred years. Dad loved it with all his heart. I love it, too, but I have no idea how to make it pay. I’d like to see it prosper.”

      “I think I can promise you that it will.”

      She smiled, content with just being next to him. He turned on the radio and soft country music filled the cab. After a few minutes, her eyes slid shut as all the sleep less nights caught up with her.

      She was vaguely aware of being gently shaken. She didn’t want to be disturbed. She was warm and cozy and half-asleep.

      “No,” she murmured drowsily. “Go away.”

      “I have to,” came a deep, amused voice at her ear. “Or we’ll have a scandal we’ll never live down. Come on, imp. Bedtime.”

      She felt herself tugged out of the seat and into a pair of warm, hard arms. She was floating, floating…

      Cy didn’t wake her again. He took off her shoes, tossed the cover over her, put her glasses on the bedside table and left her on the bed in her nice dress and coat. He didn’t dare start removing things, considering his earlier passionate reaction to her. But he stood beside the bed, just watching her, enjoying the sight of her young face relaxed in sleep. He wondered how old she was. She never had told him.

      He turned and went back out into the hall, pausing to check the lock on the back door in the kitchen before he went out the front one, locking it carefully behind him. He still wasn’t convinced that Lopez wouldn’t make a beeline for Lisa if he thought his men could get away with harming her. Cy was going to make sure that he didn’t.

      He stopped by the bunkhouse to have a word with Nels before he went home and climbed into his own bed. He stared at himself in the bedroom mirror, his eyes narrow and cynical as he studied his lean, scarred face and equally scarred body. He was only thirty-five, as Lisa had already guessed, but he looked older. His eyes held the expression of a man who’d lived with death and survived it. He was wounded inside and out by the long, lonely, terrible years of the past. Lisa soothed the part of him that still ached, but she aroused a physical need that he’d almost forgotten he had.