Passion Flower. Diana Palmer

eyes glanced down ruefully at the red dust on the hem of her dress, and the scuff marks on her last good pair of white sling pumps. She could have cried. One of her stockings had run, and she was sweating. She could hardly have looked worse if she’d planned it.

      She couldn’t help being a little nervous about the older brother. She had Everett Culhane pictured as a staid old rancher with a mean temper. She’d met businessmen like that before, and dealt with them. She wasn’t afraid of him. But she hoped that he’d be glad of her help. It would make things easier all around.

      Her footsteps echoed along the porch as she walked up the worn steps. She would have looked around more carefully weeks ago, but now she was tired and run-down and just too exhausted to care what her new surroundings looked like.

      She paused at the screen door, and her slender fingers brushed the dust from her dress. She put the suitcase and the typewriter down, took a steadying breath, and knocked.

      There was no sound from inside the house. The wooden door was standing open, and she thought she heard the whir of a fan. She knocked again. Maybe it would be the nice young man she’d met in Atlanta who would answer the door. She only hoped she was welcome.

      The sound of quick, hard footsteps made her heart quicken. Someone was home, at least. Maybe she could sit down. She was feeling a little faint.

      “Who the hell are you?” came a harsh masculine voice from behind the screen door, and Jennifer looked up into the hardest face and the coldest dark eyes she’d ever seen.

      She couldn’t even find her voice. Her immediate reaction was to turn around and run for it. But she’d come too far, and she was too tired.

      “I’m Jennifer King,” she said as professionally as she could. “Is Robert Culhane home, please?”

      She was aware of the sudden tautening of his big body, a harsh intake of breath, before she looked up and saw the fury in his dark eyes.

      “What the hell kind of game are you playing, lady?” he demanded.

      She stared at him. It had been a long walk, and now it looked as if she might have made a mistake and come to the wrong ranch. Her usual confidence faltered. “Is this the Circle C Ranch?” she asked.

      “Yes, it is.”

      He wasn’t forthcoming, and she wondered if he might be one of the hired hands. “Is this where Robert Culhane lives?” she persisted, trying to peek past him—there was a lot of him, all hard muscle and blue denim.

      “Bobby was killed in a bus wreck a week ago,” he said harshly.

      Jennifer was aware of a numb feeling in her legs. The long trip on the bus, the heavy suitcase, the effects of her recent illness—all of it added up to exhaustion. And those cold words were the final blow. With a pitiful little sound, she sank down onto the porch, her head whirling, nausea running up into her throat like warm water.

      The screen door flew open and a pair of hard, impatient arms reached down to lift her. She felt herself effortlessly carried, like a sack of flour, into the cool house. She was unceremoniously dumped down onto a worn brocade sofa and left there while booted feet stomped off into another room. There were muttered words that she was glad she couldn’t understand, and clinking sounds. Then, a minute later, a glass of dark amber liquid was held to her numb lips and a hard hand raised her head.

      She sipped at the cold, sweet iced tea like a runner on the desert when confronted with wet salvation. She struggled to catch her breath and sat up, gently nudging the dark, lean hand holding the glass to one side. She breathed in deeply, trying to get her whirling mind to slow down. She was still trying to take it all in. She’d been promised a job, she’d come hundreds of miles at her own expense to work for minimum wage, and now the man who’d offered it to her was dead. That was the worst part, imagining such a nice young man dead.

      “You look like a bleached handkerchief,” the deep, harsh voice observed.

      She sighed. “You ought to write for television. You sure do have a gift for prose.”

      His dark eyes narrowed. “Walking in this heat without a hat. My God, how many stupid city women are there in the world? And what landed you on my doorstep?”

      She lifted her eyes then, to look at him properly. He was darkly tanned, and there were deep lines in his face, from the hatchet nose down to the wide, chiseled mouth. His eyes were deep-set, unblinking under heavy dark brows and a wide forehead. His hair was jet-black, straight and thick and a little shaggy. He was wearing what had to be work clothes: faded denim jeans that emphasized long, powerfully muscled legs, and a matching shirt whose open neck revealed a brown chest thick with short, curling hair. He had the look of a man who was all business, all the time. All at once she realized that this man wasn’t the hired hand she’d mistaken him for.

      “You’re Everett Culhane,” she said hesitantly.

      His face didn’t move. Not a muscle in it changed position, but she had the distinct feeling that the sound of his name on her lips had shocked him.

      She took another long sip of the tea and sighed at the pleasure of the icy liquid going down her parched throat.

      “How far did you walk?” he asked.

      “Just from the end of your driveway,” she admitted, looking down at her ruined shoes. “Distance is deceptive out here.”

      “Haven’t you ever heard of sunstroke?”

      She nodded. “It just didn’t occur to me.”

      She put the glass down on the napkin he’d brought with it. Well, this was Texas. How sad that she wouldn’t see anything more of it.

      “I’m very sorry about your brother, Mr. Culhane,” she said with dignity. “I didn’t know him very well, but he seemed like a nice man.” She got up with an odd kind of grace despite the unsteadiness of her legs. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”

      “Why did you come, Miss King?”

      She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now in the least.” She turned and went out the screen door, lifting her suitcase and typewriter from where they’d fallen when she fainted. It was going to be a long walk back to town, but she’d just have to manage it. She had bus fare back home and a little more. A cab was a luxury now, with no job at the end of her long ride.

      “Where do you think you’re going?” Everett Culhane asked from behind her, his tone like a whiplash.

      “Back to town,” she said without turning. “Good-bye, Mr. Culhane.”

      “Walking?” he mused. “In this heat, without a hat?”

      “Got here, didn’t I?” she drawled as she walked down the steps.

      “You’ll never make it back. Wait a minute. I’ll drive you.”

      “No, thanks,” she said proudly. “I get around all right by myself, Mr. Culhane. I don’t need any handouts.”

      “You’ll need a doctor if you try that walk,” he said, and turned back into the house.

      She thought the matter was settled, until a battered red pickup truck roared up beside her and stopped. The passenger door flew open.

      “Get in,” he said curtly, in a tone that made it clear he expected instant obedience.

      “I said...” she began irritatedly.

      His dark eyes narrowed. “I don’t mind lifting you in and holding you down until we get to town,” he said quietly.

      With a grimace, she climbed in, putting the typewriter and suitcase on the floorboard.

      There was a marked lack of conversation. Everett smoked his cigarette with sharp glances in her direction when she began coughing. Her lungs were still sensitive, and he seemed to be smoking shucks or something equally potent. Eventually he crushed out the cigarette and cracked a window.

      “You