Diamond Spur. Diana Palmer

have healed properly alone, thank you. God knows why everybody on the place thinks I’ll die if they don’t drag you over every time I scratch myself,” he muttered.

      “Because to you everything short of disembowelment is a scratch,” she replied. “People do make mistakes from time to time, even you. It’s human.”

      “That’s the one thing I’m not, cupcake,” he replied dryly. “Ask any one of my men during roundup, and they’ll tell you the same thing.”

      He turned off the city road onto the long, sparsely settled ranch road that led eventually to the Diamond Spur. Clouds were gathering against the horizon, dark blue and threatening as they loomed over the gently rolling landscape.

      “Those are rain clouds,” Jason remarked. “The weatherman was predicting some flash flooding this afternoon.” He scowled. “If the Frio runs out of her banks before we finish the bottoms, we may lose some cattle.”

      “You and your blessed cattle,” she grumbled. “Don’t you ever think about anything else?”

      “I can’t afford to,” he mused. “Ranchers are going bust all over. Don’t you read the market bulletin anymore?”

      “Only when I can’t find a fashion magazine,” she returned.

      “Speaking of which, how are you doing with that designing course?”

      “I’m almost through it, thank you,” she sighed. “Although I still think I’d have done better at a regular design school.” She glared at him. “Thanks to you, I never made it out of Frio County.”

      “Atlanta is too far away,” he replied imperturbably. “Besides, you’d get claustrophobia down in Georgia. Too many trees.”

      “I like trees. I’d have made friends.”

      “Your mother would have missed you,” he said, glancing at her as they sped down the deserted road. “She isn’t half as capable as she makes out. She needs looking after.”

      “Apparently you think I do, too,” she replied, feeling argumentative. “And that can’t go on, Jason. I’m a grown woman now, not a teenage girl.”

      “You were pretty wise, for a teenager.” His eyes narrowed as he stared down the road. “I don’t guess you knew that time how dangerous it was to come that close to me when I’d been drinking.”

      “Which was probably a good thing, or I’d never have had the nerve,” she recalled with a warm smile, studying him. “But you needed someone. Gene was too frightened of you to do any real good, and so was Sheila.”

      “They remembered too well what happened when the old man got loaded,” he said, memories tautening his jaw. One corner of his mouth twisted mockingly. “He used to hit. The drunker he was, the harder he hit. I don’t drink often, or very much.” He shifted against the seat, his eyes narrow. “I guess I’ve always been afraid I might end up like him. And who knows, if you hadn’t come along at the right time, I might have.”

      “Not you,” she said with conviction, her quiet eyes adoring his profile. “You’re not a cruel man.”

      “Neither was he before he started drinking,” Jason said. He sighed. “You were lucky, honey. Your father never touched the stuff.”

      “I was lucky in a lot of ways,” she agreed. “I still am.” She wondered if Jason knew that she’d heard about how his father had once extended his blind fury to Jason and Gene’s mother, that he’d beaten Nell Donavan once and only once, and that she’d vanished the next day, leaving her sons at his mercy. Probably he didn’t realize that Sheila had passed that bit of gossip on to Kate. He hardly ever talked about his childhood, even to her. It was a mark of affection he had for her that she knew anything about those dark days. Jason was a very private man. “I’ve never been really afraid of you,” she said absently, “even when you were drinking. That night, I never thought that you might harm me.”

      He smiled at her. “You saw deep that night,” he said quietly. “Right through the anger to the pain. Most people never look past my temper, but you did.”

      “I liked you, God knows why,” she said, smiling back. “And there wasn’t anybody else who seemed inclined to look after you after that blond sawmill got through with you.”

      “She taught me a hard lesson,” he replied. “One I’ll never forget. In my way, I loved her.”

      “One bad experience shouldn’t sour you for life,” she told him. “All women aren’t out for what they can get.”

      “How would you know?” he asked bitterly. “You with your little girl crushes on movie stars and pinup boys? My God, the men you’ve dated weren’t even men in any real sense. They were geldings you could lead around by the nose,” he said shortly. “You haven’t even been intimate with a man, have you?”

      Her face went stiff. Amazing, she thought angrily, that it was the twentieth century and she still couldn’t toss off sophisticated chatter with any credence. “How could I have managed that, with you and my mother bulldogging me at every turn and keeping me away from men who knew anything?” She turned in the seat, her green eyes accusing. “My goodness, after Baxter Hewett joined the Marines, all the local men decided you were too much competition and I’ve spent my evenings at home ever since!”

      He lifted his cigarette to his mouth with a faintly surprised glance in her direction as they bumped along the ranch road. “I didn’t realize that.”

      “Think how it looks, when you beat up men who try to seduce me,” she sighed.

      “I don’t want other men seducing you,” he said without thinking. “Especially not a ladies’ man like Hewett.”

      “Why not?” she burst out, exasperated.

      “There’s a question.” He turned off onto a dirt road. “God, it’s dusty!” he muttered.

      She spared the thick yellow dust a glance and turned her attention back to him. “Go ahead, avoid the question. That’s what you always do when you don’t want to talk about things.”

      He lifted an eyebrow as he glanced at her. “Well, it works, doesn’t it?” he asked reasonably. “All right, if you want to know the truth, sexual freedom may be in vogue all over the world, but I’m an old-fashioned man. I believe God made women to have children and be the foundation of a family. To my mind, that doesn’t mix with easy virtue and high-pressured careers.”

      She gaped at him. “You reactionary!” she accused. “You mean you think the little woman should stay at home, chained to a stove and slave to a man’s hungers?”

      “What would you know about a man’s hungers, Kate?” he asked suddenly, his dark eyes cutting and intent as they met hers across the seat.

      She shifted restlessly. “What do you know about a woman’s heart?” she returned. “With an attitude like yours, you’ll never find a woman to marry.”

      “Praise God,” he replied easily. “A wife is the last thing on earth I want.”

      “Well, you’ll never get an heir for the Spur without one,” she returned.

      He frowned thoughtfully through a thin veil of smoke. With a brief glance in the rearview mirror, he pulled off onto the grassy shoulder and cut off the engine. All around them was open land, and Kate noticed the familiar Diamond Spur logo on each gate. What Jason had was a small empire. It stretched practically into San Frio, and encompassed large tracts of bottom land up and down the Frio and small tributaries.

      “I want to show you something.” He got out, moving around the Bronco to open the door and help her down from the high cab.

      She was briefly close to him until he reached past her to shut the door. Then he leaned back against it, his long legs crossed, the cigarette dangling from one hand.

      “Blalock