“I…I'm sorry. You do look pale,” Janet said uneasily. “It must be painful.”
“I'll live.” He looked past Janet to the younger woman, and his chin lifted, his eyes narrowing. He scowled thoughtfully as Maggie stepped from the car, and she saw his eyes under the shadowy brim of the hat.
She was tempted to turn around and run. It was that kind of look. There was nothing welcoming in his lean, sharp-featured countenance. He had a crook in the middle of his nose, as if somebody had broken it. His black eyebrows were as shaggy and thick as the hair on his head, and his protruding brow shadowed eyes as light as candles, as penetrating as only blue eyes could be. His high cheekbones ran down to a firm, hard-looking mouth over a stubborn chin. He wasn't a handsome man, although his face had character and his body was as sensuously powerful as that of a movie star. The fabric of her dreams—in the flesh. But it was no surprise to Maggie that he was thirty-eight and unmarried. It would take a strong woman, a fiery woman, for a man like that. She felt cold chills at the thought of what he might expect of a woman in intimacy.
The feeling must have been mutual, because the look he was giving her spoke volumes. She could imagine how citified she must seem to him, in her lacy white blouse and white slacks, with dainty strapped sandals. She should have worn jeans, she thought belatedly, as she'd planned to in the beginning. Why had she dressed up so? She needed this vacation so badly, and here she'd gone and antagonized him at first glance.
“Gabe, you remember Mary's daughter, Maggie Turner, don't you?” Janet asked.
Maggie stared up at him, watching the fleeting lift of his eyebrows. He looked at her with cold disinterest. “I remember her.”
“It's nice to…see you again,” she faltered.
He nodded, but he didn't return the greeting. He dismissed her without a second thought and turned back to his mother impatiently as a truck with the ranch logo purred to a stop nearby. “I won't be gone long, but I'm expecting an important call from Cheyenne. If it comes through while I'm gone, have the party call back at five.”
“Certainly, dear,” Janet agreed. “I'm sorry if I've…we've come at a bad time…”
“Don't you always, Mother?” he asked with a cold smile. “Isn't Europe more your style than dust and cattle?”
“I came to see you,” the older woman said with quiet pride.
“I'll be back directly.” He turned without another glance and walked to the truck, grimacing despite his iron control as he climbed inside the cab and managed to close the door, waving away the cowboy who offered to help him. They drove off in a cloud of dust.
Janet sighed half-angrily. “I'll never understand him,” she said under her breath. “I didn't raise him without manners. I'm sorry, Maggie.”
“There's no need to apologize,” Maggie said quietly. “I gather that he's in some pain.”
“And irritable at having to stay at home when there's work to be done. Roundup is a bad time for everyone. Besides that,” she said miserably, “he doesn't like it when I come here. I have to confess that I needed you as much as you needed the rest. I don't like having to cope by myself. But truly, you'll enjoy it. He won't be around much,” she added with a hopeful look. “Just until his arm will let him go back to work. Knowing my son,” she added bitterly, “it shouldn't take more than a couple of days. Nothing keeps him down for long. He'll convince the doctor that strapping it will accomplish miracles.”
“He isn't the most welcoming man,” Maggie murmured.
“He'll be gone before you know it. Now come on and let's get settled in,” Janet said firmly. “This is my home, too—even if I'm not allowed to visit it very often!”
Maggie didn't reply. She wasn't sure that she'd done the right thing in coming. Gabriel was stone-cold hateful, and time hadn't improved his old dislike of her. She knew instinctively that if his mother hadn't been around, he'd have packed her right back to San Antonio. It wasn't the brightest beginning.
She spent the next two hours reacquainting herself with the big house and getting to know the new cook and housekeeper, whose name was Jennie. She was small and dark and gay, and Maggie liked her immediately.
She settled in, changing her white outfit for jeans and a yellow blouse. She brushed her short hair toward her face and hoped that her appearance wouldn't antagonize the cattleman any further when she went down to have supper with the family.
Gabriel was already at the table, looking furious and glaring at her the minute she walked into the spacious, elegant dining room. In fact, his look was so accusatory that she froze in the doorway, flashing on a line from a dog-training manual about not showing fear and making no sudden moves. Perhaps it would work with the half-civilized cattleman whose mother was obviously kicking him under the table.
“Do join us, dear,” Janet said with a glare toward her taciturn son.
“I'm sorry if I've held you up,” Maggie said gently, seating herself on the other side of Janet for protection with a wary, green-eyed glance at Gabe that seemed to amuse him.
“Dinner is promptly at six,” he returned with a lifted eyebrow. “I don't like being held up, in case you've forgotten.” She started to speak, but he cut her off with a lifted hand, ignoring his mother's seething irritation to add mockingly, “I don't bite, Miss Turner,” his voice deep and faintly amused.
“Could I have that in writing, please?” she asked with a nervous laugh. She smiled at Janet. “The air smells so fresh and clean out here. No exhaust fumes!”
“That's right, city girl,” Gabe replied. He leaned back carefully, favoring his right side, with his coffee cup in his lean hand. He wasn't even neatly dressed or particularly cleaned up. He was still wearing his work clothes, except that his dusty shirt was open halfway down his tanned chest, where a wedge of thick black hair arrowed toward his wide leather belt. That disturbed Maggie, just as it had in her teens, and she looked down at her plate, fiddling with putting the napkin in her lap.
“I would have cleaned up,” he said unexpectedly, a bite in his slow drawl as he obviously mistook her expression for distaste, “but I'd just come in from the holding pens when I went to the doctor, and I'm a bit tired.”
Her eyes came up quickly, with an apology in them. “Mr. Coleman, this is your home,” she said gently. “I wouldn't be so rude as to criticize how you dress.”
He stared at her calculatingly for a long moment—so long that she dropped her gaze again to her plate. Finally, he reached for the platter of beef and helped himself, to his mother's obvious relief.
“How did you get bitten, darling?” Janet asked him.
“I reached for a rope without looking.”
Janet gnawed her lip. “It must be painful. You won't be able to work for a few days, I guess.”
He gave her a cold stare. “I'm managing. If I felt a little stronger, I could ride. It's just the swelling and the pain, that's all. I won't be stuck here for long, I hope.”
Janet started to make a comment, but she forced herself to remain silent. It did no good to argue with him.
He glanced from her to Maggie as he buttered a huge fluffy biscuit. “What are you doing these days?” he asked curiously.
“Me? I'm working at a bookstore,” Maggie told him. She glanced up and down again, hating the surge of heat to her face. He had the most incredible effect on her, even after the anguish of her marriage.
“Working, did you say?” His light eyes lifted and probed hers like a microscope. “Your people were wealthy.”
“Times change,” she