Mercenary's Woman. Diana Palmer

      Meanwhile, Sally Johnson was rapidly losing patience with her vehicle. He watched her push at a strand of hair that had escaped from the long ponytail. She kept a beef steer or two herself. It must be a frugal existence for her, supporting not only herself, but her recently blinded aunt, and her six-year-old cousin as well.

      He admired her sense of responsibility, even as he felt concern for her situation. She had no idea why her aunt had been blinded in the first place, or that the whole family was in a great deal of danger. It was why Jessica had persuaded Sally to give up her first teaching job in Houston in June and come home with her and Stevie to Jacobsville. It was because they’d be near Ebenezer, and Jessica knew he’d protect them. Sally had never been told what Jessica’s profession actually was, any more than she knew what Jessica’s late husband, Hank Myers, had once done for a living. But even if she had known, wild horses wouldn’t have dragged Sally back here if Jessica hadn’t pleaded with her, he mused bitterly. Sally had every reason in the world to hate him. But he was her best hope of survival. And she didn’t even know it.

      In the five months she’d been back in Jacobsville, Sally had managed to avoid Ebenezer. In a town this size, that had been an accomplishment. Inevitably they met from time to time. But Sally avoided eye contact with him. It was the only indication of the painful memory they both shared.

      He watched her lean helplessly over the dented fender of the old truck and decided that now was as good a time as any to approach her.

      Sally lifted her head just in time to see the tall, lean man in the shepherd’s coat and tan Stetson make his way across the street to her. He hadn’t changed, she thought bitterly. He still walked with elegance and a slow, arrogance of carriage that seemed somehow foreign. Jeans didn’t disguise the muscles in those long, powerful legs as he moved. She hated the ripple of sensation that lifted her heart at his approach. Surely she was over hero worship and infatuation, at her age, especially after what he’d done to her that long-ago spring day. She blushed just remembering it!

      He paused at the truck, about an arm’s length away from her, pushed his Stetson back over his thick blond-streaked brown hair and impaled her with green eyes.

      She was immediately hostile and it showed in the tautening of her features as she looked up, way up, at him.

      He raised an eyebrow and studied her flushed face. “Don’t give me the evil eye,” he said. “I’d have thought you had sense enough not to buy a truck from Turkey Sanders.”

      “He’s my cousin,” she reminded him.

      “He’s the Black Plague with car keys,” he countered. “The Hart boys wiped the floor with him not too many years back. He sold Corrigan Hart’s future wife a car that fell apart when she drove it off the lot. She was lucky at that,” he added with a wicked grin. “He sold old lady Bates a car and told her the engine was optional equipment.”

      She laughed in spite of herself. “It’s not a bad old truck,” she countered. “It just needs a few things…”

      He glanced at the rear tire and nodded. “Yes. An overhauled engine, a paint job, reupholstered seats, a tailgate that works. And a rear tire that isn’t bald.” He pointed toward it. “Get that replaced,” he said shortly. “You can afford a tire even on what you make teaching.”

      She gaped at him. “Listen here, Mr. Scott…” she began haughtily.

      “You know my name, Sally,” he said bluntly, and his eyes were steady, intimidating. “As for the tire, it isn’t a request,” he replied flatly, staring her down. “You’ve got some new neighbors out your way that I don’t like the look of. You can’t afford a breakdown in the middle of the night on that lonely stretch of road.”

      She drew herself up to her full height, so that the top of her head came to his chin. He really was ridiculously tall…

      “This is the twenty-first century, and women are capable of looking after themselves….” she said heatedly.

      “I can do without a current events lecture,” he cut her off again, moving to peer under the hood. He propped one enormous booted foot on the fender and studied the engine, frowned, pulled out a pocketknife and went to work.

      “It’s my truck!” she fumed, throwing up her hands in exasperation.

      “It’s half a ton of metal without an engine that works.”

      She grimaced. She hated not being able to fix it herself, to have to depend on this man, of all people, for help. She wouldn’t let herself think about the cost of having a mechanic make a road service call to get the stupid thing started. Looking at his lean, capable hands brought back painful memories as well. She knew the tenderness of them on concealed skin, and her whole body erupted with sensation.

      Less than two minutes later, he repocketed his knife. “Try it now,” he said.

      She got in behind the wheel. The engine turned noisily, pouring black smoke out of the tailpipe.

      He paused beside the open window of the truck, his pale green eyes piercing her face. “Bad rings and valves,” he pointed out. “Maybe an oil leak. Either way, you’re in for some major repairs. Next time, don’t buy from Turkey Sanders, and I don’t give a damn if he is a relative.”

      “Don’t you give me orders,” she said haughtily.

      That eyebrow lifted again. “Habit. How’s Jess?”

      She frowned. “Do you know my aunt Jessie?”

      “Quite well,” he said. “I knew your uncle Hank. He and I served together.”

      “In the military?”

      He didn’t answer her. “Do you have a gun?”

      She was so confused that she stammered. “Wh…what?”

      “A gun,” he repeated. “Do you have any sort of weapon and can you use it?”

      “I don’t like guns,” she said flatly. “Anyway, I won’t have one in the house with a six-year-old child, so it’s no use telling me to buy one.”

      He was thinking. His face tautened. “How about self-defense?”

      “I teach second grade,” she pointed out. “Most of my students don’t attack me.”

      “I’m not worried about you at school. I told you, I don’t like the look of your neighbors.” He wasn’t adding that he knew who they were and why they were in town.

      “Neither do I,” she admitted. “But it’s none of your business…”

      “It is,” he returned. “I promised Hank that I’d take care of Jess if he ever bought it overseas. I keep my promises.”

      “I can take care of my aunt.”

      “Not anymore you can’t,” he returned, unabashed. “I’m coming over tomorrow.”

      “I may not be home…”

      “Jess will be. Besides, tomorrow is Saturday,” he said. “You came in for supplies this afternoon and you don’t teach on the weekend. You’ll be home.” His tone said she’d better be.

      She gave an exasperated sound. “Mr. Scott…”

      “I’m only Mr. Scott to my enemies,” he pointed out.

      “Yes, well, Mr. Scott…”

      He let out an angry sigh and stared her down. “You were so young,” he bit off. “What did you expect me to do, seduce you in the cab of a pickup truck in broad daylight?”

      She flushed red as a rose petal. “I wasn’t talking about that!”

      “It’s still in your eyes,” he told her quietly. “I’d rather have done it in a way that hadn’t left so many scars, but I had to discourage you. The whole damned thing was impossible, you must have realized that by now!”