Christmas On His Ranch. Diana Palmer

her eyes. She simply looked at him, reconciling this man in his thirties with the man who’d wanted to marry her. The memories were unfavorable, because he was definitely showing his age, in the new lines beside his mouth and eyes, in the silver that showed at his temples.

      He was doing his share of looking, too. The girl he’d jilted was no longer visible in this quiet, conservatively dressed woman with her hair in a bun. She looked schoolmarmish, and he was surprised that the sight of her was still like a knife through the heart, after all these years. He’d been curious about her. He’d wanted to see her again, God knew why. Maybe because she refused to see him at her mother’s funeral. Now here she was, and he wasn’t sure he was glad. The sight of her touched something sensitive that he’d buried inside himself.

      Antonia was the first to look away. The intensity of his gaze had left her shaking inside, but that reaction was quickly hidden. It would never do to show any weakness to him. “Sorry,” she told her father. “I didn’t realize you had company. If you’ll come and see me off, I’ll be on my way.”

      Her father looked uncomfortable. “Powell came by to see how I was doing.”

      “You’re leaving so soon?” Powell asked, addressing her directly for the first time in so many long years.

      “I have to report back to work earlier than the students,” she said, pleased that her voice was steady and cool.

      “Oh, yes. You teach, don’t you?”

      She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Her gaze fell somewhere between his aggressive chin and his thin but sensuous mouth, below that straight, arrogant nose and the high cheekbones of his lean face. He wasn’t handsome, but five minutes after they met him, most women were enchanted with him. He had an intangible something, authority perhaps, in the sureness of his movements, even in the way he held his head. He was overwhelming.

      “I teach,” she agreed. Her eyes hadn’t quite met his. She turned to her father. “Dad?”

      He excused himself and came forward to hug her. “Be careful. Phone when you get there, to let me know that you made it all right, will you? It’s been snowing again.”

      “I’ll be fine. I have a phone in the car, if I get stuck.”

      “You’re driving to Arizona, in this weather?” Powell interrupted.

      “I’ve been driving in this weather most of my adult life,” she informed him.

      “You were terrified of slick roads when you were in your teens,” he recalled solemnly.

      She smiled coldly at him. “I’m not a teenager now.”

      The way she looked at him spoke volumes about her feelings. He didn’t avert his gaze, but his eyes were dark and quiet, full of secrets and seething accusation.

      “Sally left a letter for you,” he said unexpectedly. “I never got around to posting it. Over the years, I’d forgotten about it.”

      Her chest rose in a quick, angry breath. It reminded her of the letter that Sally had sent soon after Antonia had left town, the one she’d returned unopened. “Another one?” she asked in a frozen tone. “Well, I want nothing from your late wife, not even a letter.”

      He bristled. “She was your friend once,” he reminded her curtly.

      “She was my enemy.” She corrected him. “She ruined my reputation and all but killed my mother! Do you really believe I’d want any reminder of what she did?”

      He didn’t seem to move for a minute. His face hardened. “She did nothing to hurt you deliberately,” he said tersely.

      “Really? Will her good intentions bring back George Rutherford or my mother?” she demanded hotly, because George himself had died so soon after her mother had. “Will it erase all the gossip?”

      He turned away and bent his head to light a cigar, apparently unconcerned. Antonia fought for control. Her hands were icy cold as she picked up her suitcase and winced at her father’s worried expression.

      “I’ll phone you, Dad. Please take care of yourself,” she added.

      “You’re upset,” he said distractedly. “Wait a bit…”

      “I won’t…I can’t…” Her voice choked on the words and she averted her eyes from the long back of the man who was turned away from her. “Bye, Dad!”

      She was out the door in a flash, and within two minutes she’d loaded her cases into the trunk and opened the door. But before she could get in, Powell was towering over her.

      “Get a grip on yourself,” he said curtly, forcing her to look at him. “You won’t do your father any favors by landing in a ditch in the middle of nowhere!”

      She shivered at the nearness of him and deliberately backed away, her gray eyes wide, accusing.

      “You look so fragile,” he said, as if the words were torn from him. “Don’t you eat?”

      “I eat enough.” She steadied herself on the door. “Goodbye.”

      His big hand settled beside hers on the top of the door. “Why was Dawson Rutherford here a couple of nights ago?”

      The question was totally unexpected. “Is that your business?” she asked coldly.

      He smiled mockingly. “It could be. Rutherford’s father ruined mine, or didn’t you remember? I don’t intend to let his son ruin me.”

      “My father and George Rutherford were friends.”

      “And you and George were lovers.”

      She didn’t say a word. She only looked at him. “You know the truth,” she said wearily. “You just don’t want to believe it.”

      “George paid your way through college,” he reminded her.

      “Yes, he did,” she agreed, smiling. “And I rewarded him by graduating with honors, second in my graduating class. He was a philanthropist and the best friend my family ever had. I miss him.”

      “He was a rich old man with designs on you, whether you’ll admit it or not!”

      She searched his deep-set black eyes. They never smiled. He was a hard man, and the passing years had only added to his sarcastic, harsh demeanor. He’d grown up dirt poor, looked down on in the community because of his parents. He’d struggled to get where he was, and she knew how difficult it had been. But his hard life had warped his perception of people. He looked for the worst, always. She’d known that, somehow, even when they were first engaged. And now, he was the sum of all the tragedies of his life. She’d loved him so much, she’d tried to make up to him for the love he’d never had, the life his circumstances had denied him. But even while he was courting her, he’d loved Sally most. He’d told Antonia so, when he broke their engagement and called her a streetwalker with a price tag….

      “You’re staring,” he said irritably, ramming his hands into the pockets of his dark slacks.

      “I was remembering the way you used to be, Powell,” she said simply. “You haven’t changed. You’re still the loner who never trusted anyone, who always expected people to do their worst.”

      “I believed in you,” he replied solemnly.

      She smiled. “No, you didn’t. If you had, you wouldn’t have swallowed Sally’s lies without—”

      “Damn you!”

      He had her by both shoulders, his cigar suddenly lying in the snow at their feet. He practically shook her, and she winced, because she was willow thin and he had the grip of a horseman, developed after long years of back-breaking ranch work long before he ever made any money at it.

      She looked up into blazing eyes and wondered dimly why she wasn’t afraid of him. He looked intimidating with his black eyes flashing and his straight black hair falling down over his thick