“Yeah. I don’t know anything about being romantic and even if I did, I wouldn’t bother.”
“Why?”
“Because romance is looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. And when a woman looks at me, I want her to clearly see the flaws she’d be getting.”
In order to keep her away? Maura decided the answer to that question didn’t matter. She was looking at him and the future with clear eyes. Quint was a straightforward guy. She’d gone into his arms knowing not to pin any sort of hopes and dreams on the two of them being together permanently.
“Don’t worry,” she replied. “I won’t be expecting flowers.”
He stared at her for long moments and then his mouth crushed down on hers in a kiss that wiped everything from her mind and stirred the want in her all over again.
“Maybe we’d better stay here a little longer,” he whispered huskily. “Until the rain stops.”
Almost a week later, Quint found himself driving up the narrow dirt road that led to his grandfather’s ranch house. For the past few days, he’d fought the urge to return to Apache Wells. He didn’t have the time or energy to make the forty-mile drive often. Hell, he didn’t need to remind himself that he had a ranch of his own to run. With cattle to buy, fences to build, feeders to erect and horses to move from the Chaparral to the Golden Spur, he hardly had time to draw a good breath. But here he was anyway, he thought wryly. Because, in spite of his work and exhaustion, he desperately wanted to see Maura again.
Maura. With her wine-red hair and sea-green eyes. She’d bewitched him. That’s what she’d done. He could scarcely close his eyes without thinking of her naked, her hips arching up to his, scattering his senses like bits of grass in the wind. He’d expected to enjoy making love to her. After all, she was pretty and sexy; a combination hard for any man to resist. But he’d also expected the incident to be a brief encounter to enjoy for the moment, then sweep entirely from his mind.
Face it, Quint. The woman turned you inside out. She shot you straight to heaven, then let you fall back to earth with the slow rocking motion of a drifting feather. You’d never felt anything like it. And now you’re beginning to wonder if she’s something special. The sex was special, you fool. Not her. Get over it.
The cynical voice that had followed Quint around for the last six years tormented him until he braked his truck to a halt in front of the house and climbed out. Yeah, it probably was pure sex that had pushed him to drive forty miles this evening when he should have been taking an early night at home, he thought. But what was wrong with that? He was a man after all. And a man had needs.
To his surprise, he found Abe in his recliner, the television off and a Bible lying open on his lap. Maura wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Hey, Gramps,” he greeted.
Looking up with surprise, Abe carefully folded the book together. “Well,” he said mockingly, “the long-lost grandson has finally decided to honor me with a visit.”
Quint grimaced. “Don’t give me that bull. I was just over here last week. You expect me to come over here and hold your hand every day?”
Abe wiped a hand over his drooping white mustache. “No. After one or two days your smart lip would get mighty tryin’,” he countered.
Quint took a seat on the end of the couch, while looking and listening for signs of Maura. The house seemed exceptionally quiet and he couldn’t smell any sort of cooking coming from the kitchen.
“What are you doing in the house?” Quint asked him. “I thought you’d be down at the bunkhouse, playing cards with Jim and having coffee.”
“If you thought that, what are you doing in the house?” Abe parried.
Quint was shocked to feel his face flushing with heat. There was no point for him to hide his interest in Maura. Abe was too crafty for that. “I wanted to talk to Maura.”
“Well, you should have called first. She ain’t here.”
Quint had called three days ago. His conversation with Maura had been pleasant but brief, during which he’d told her he’d see her in a few days. The few days were up and here he was feeling like an idiot for presuming she’d be sitting around his grandfather’s ranch, waiting for him to make an appearance.
“Where is she?”
Abe placed the Bible on the end table next to his chair. “She’s at the hospital.”
It was all Quint could do to keep from leaping to his feet. “Hospital! Has something happened to her? And you didn’t call me?”
Beneath his bushy brows, Abe leveled a disgusted look at him. “Hell, boy, if something was wrong with Maura you think I’d be sitting here?”
Relief pouring through him, Quint rubbed his palms down his thighs. “No,” he conceded gruffly, “I guess not.”
“Damn right I wouldn’t,” Abe stormed back at him. “I’d be right by her side. That’s how a man shows his love.”
Caught by those last words, Quint’s brows arched with dismay. “You love Maura?”
Abe snorted as though Quint’s question was absurd. “Of course I love her. I’ve loved her from the first moment I laid eyes on her.”
Hell. That’s exactly what Quint had feared all along. “I see.”
“No, damn it, you don’t see. You haven’t seen much of anything about women since that silly little Johnson gal threw you over the fence for another man. You think they’re all like her, that they’ve all got their claws out for you. Well, if you’d take the time to look, you’d see that Maura doesn’t have any claws. That’s one of the reasons I love her.”
Dear God, Quint hadn’t driven for nearly an hour to get this sort of preaching, to hear his grandfather admit that he loved the same woman that Quint had taken to his bed. This was insanity.
“Okay. You’ve made your point, Gramps,” he said wearily. “You’re in love with the woman and I should realize that she’s an angel.”
Abe’s boots banged loudly against the footrest as he positioned the chair upright and got to his feet. “Quint, I didn’t say I was ‘in’ love with Maura. I said I loved her. There’s a difference. Sometimes a man has to know his limitations and I can see that she’s too young for me. So,” he said with a shrug, “I just have to settle with havin’ her company. Until she gets tangled up with a man who’ll give her a family.”
Quint let out a pent-up breath. “She’s told you that she wants a family?”
“Not in so many words. But I can just tell when a woman is ripe for that sort of thing.”
If that was the case, then Abe knew a hell of a lot more than Quint knew. From what Maura had implied to him, she wasn’t ready to jump into a serious situation with any man. That was one of the reasons Quint had been drawn to her in the first place. He didn’t have to worry about her getting all clingy and demanding.
“Tell me, Gramps, did Granny know that you were such an expert on women?”
“‘Course she did. She taught me everything I know.” He motioned for Quint to follow him to the kitchen. “C’mon. Let’s find us something to eat. And maybe Maura will show up before long.”
A few minutes later, when Maura arrived and spotted Quint’s truck parked near the front gate, her heart leaped into a dizzying speed. Even though darkness had just now settled over the ranch, daylight savings time made the hour late. Had he made the long drive to see his grandfather? Or her?
After parking her car beneath a covered carport at the back, she entered the house through the kitchen door and discovered both men sitting at the table, eating leftovers from the day before.
As