.

Duke midsentence. “You ungrateful little—”

      “What? Just because I don’t want to work as an unpaid ranch hand? Why do you think I left here in the first place?”

      “If you’d listen once in a while instead of jumping to conclusions, you might not be such a hothead.”

      “Hothead?”

      “I thought if you worked with the mare, and you liked her, I might give her to you. I was not plotting to turn you into slave labor.”

      Well, that took the wind right out of Wade’s sails.

      “You might say thanks.”

      “Yeah, thanks.” Amazing how hard that one word was to push past his teeth. “I don’t need two horses, though.”

      “Traveler’s competition days might be over.” Wade’s jaw tensed, and he consciously relaxed it. “He’ll be fine.”

      Jonathan shrugged. “This time, maybe. But what about next year?”

      “I’ll worry about that when the time comes.” And maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have to worry about it.

      “So where were you, really?” Jonathan asked. “I was at the barn till eleven-thirty. You weren’t with Traveler.”

      “It’s been a lot of years since anybody kept tabs on my activities.”

      “Just curious.”

      “I was with a woman.”

      Jonathan looked his younger brother up and down. “You work fast. You’ve been here, what, three days?”

      “We were just talking.”

      “Who? Or am I being too nosy?”

      “Too nosy.” He wasn’t ready to talk about his Annie to anyone yet. Especially not when she’d just shot him down so thoroughly.

      He wasn’t done with her, though. She might not know it yet, but she needed him, and not just for a weekend. Somebody had to put a smile back on that girl’s face—and keep it there.

      Chapter Three

      “Well, Anne, everything looks great,” Jeff Hardison said, closing the folder that held her chart. “Your weight’s almost back to normal, there’s no sign of infection, and you’ve even smiled at me once or twice.”

      She appreciated his vote of confidence. Jeff had seen her at her worst, and it was partly due to his conscientious care that she was looking and feeling so much better. Not back to normal. She’d been broken and glued back together—she probably would never be exactly the same person she was before. But at least she was in one piece and moving forward.

      “I’m feeling great,” she confirmed. “So why do we have to do the blood tests?”

      “Anne, we’ve been over this.”

      “But I’m not sure there’s really a point. I’d like to move forward, not dwell on the past.”

      “This is looking forward,” he insisted. “If there’s a problem, it could affect your ability to have children in the future.”

      “I don’t plan to have children.”

      “You might change your mind. You’re only twenty-five.”

      He had a point. For the next five to ten years she would not have the time to devote to raising a family. Her law career would demand 100 percent of her concentration. If she had a husband, kids, they would only end up neglected—and what was the point in that?

      But once she was established, once she’d paid her dues, she might want to switch gears. She wasn’t dumb enough to believe a career could answer all of her needs.

      “All right. Might as well get it over with.”

      “I’ll have Molly draw the blood. She’s so gentle, it’ll feel like a butterfly kiss.”

      “Yeah, right.” Anne laughed despite her concerns.

      “It’s good to hear you laugh. Keep it up, huh?” In a treatment room a few minutes later, Anne determinedly studied a spot on the wall while Molly, Jeff’s nurse, deftly inserted a needle into Anne’s arm. As long as she didn’t look at the needle or see the blood, she would be okay. At least, that was what she told herself.

      She’d put off her follow-up visit to Jeff for several days, until Jeff himself had called the house and reminded her. Even knowing he wanted her blood, she hadn’t been able to come up with a graceful excuse. So here she was, letting Molly torture her.

      “They’re having a sale over at Hollywood Lingerie,” Molly said, continuing her nonstop monologue. Anne didn’t know if Molly’s chatter was designed to distract patients from the procedure or if she just liked to talk, but it did help.

      “I’ve never been there,” Anne made herself answer. “What kind of stuff do they have? Ouch.”

      “Sorry. Well, a lot of real naughty stuff, that’s what. Negligees with cutouts in places you just can’t believe, and panties so sheer you might as well not be wearing any.”

      Anne didn’t own any sexy lingerie. She’d been raised in practical white cotton, which her mother insisted was the only sort of underwear a real lady would wear. In college she’d branched out to pastels, but that was as wild as she’d gotten.

      She’d never thought much about it until her weekend with Wade. She’d been wearing all those provocative outer clothes, which Wade had taken a great deal of pleasure in removing. But then came her underwear—they were so dull! They didn’t fit the Annie image at all.

      “My Tom can be the most boring man in the world,” Molly went on, “but show him a pair of black lace panties and he turns into Casanova.”

      “So you actually wear that stuff?”

      “Honey, nothing makes you feel sexier. And I’m telling you, men can sense it when you’re wearing a hot-pink teddy, even if you have all your clothes on. Sexy underwear gives you an attitude.”

      “Maybe I’ll stop by and take a look.” Her mother would have a conniption if she found hot-pink anything in the laundry. Then again, Deborah didn’t do the laundry—she had a housekeeper for that.

      Ordinarily Anne wouldn’t worry so much about upsetting her parents. But the past couple of months had shaken both of them to their foundations. She had promised herself she would make it up to them by being their ideal daughter, at least while she was living under their roof.

      “All done,” Molly said, pressing a cotton ball to the inside of Anne’s arm, then folding the arm to hold the cotton tight against her traumatized vein. “That wasn’t so bad.”

      “Not for you,” Anne quipped.

      “Dr. Jeff wants to see you again before you leave. Let me see if I can catch him between patients, and I’ll send him in. Now, you just drink that orange juice and rest.”

      Molly left with a whole trayful of blood-filled test tubes. The sight of all that red made Anne light-headed, so she was happy to sit still for a few minutes and recover from the ordeal. She wondered why Jeff wanted to see her again. Hadn’t they covered all the territory?

      Almost immediately someone tapped discreetly on the treatment-room door.

      “Come in,” Anne called.

      Jeff entered, looking tall and reassuring in his white coat. “I see you survived. A butterfly kiss, was I right?”

      “Molly is a charming little vampire. Was there something else?”

      “I’m heading next door for coffee. You want to come?”

      “Sure, I could use a coffee.”

      Jeff