Her face went rosy. Impulsively she reached out to strike him, but his steely fingers caught her wrist before she got anywhere near that strong, lean cheek. He held her without effort until he felt the muscles relax. Under his fingers, he felt the sudden increase of her pulse. When he looked into her eyes, he saw the faint flicker of awareness that she couldn’t hide, and her eyes betrayed her surprise and helpless attraction. A slow, cunning smile touched his hard mouth. Why, she was vulnerable! It made his mind spin with dark possibilities.
With a short laugh of triumph, he drew her hand to his broad, damp chest and pressed it into the muscle. He felt her gasp, and knew that she didn’t find him distasteful, because he was watching her face.
“Do eastern men stand for being slapped?” he drawled. “You’ll find that we’re a bit different out here.”
“No doubt a man of your sort would find it acceptable to strike me back,” she said with bravado. Under her long skirts, her knees were shaking.
He searched her wide, uneasy blue eyes with quiet confidence. Either she knew less of men than he knew of women, or she was a good actress. Chester had said that she was something of an adventuress, a globe-trotting modern woman. He wondered just how modern she was, and he had a mind to find out for himself.
“I don’t strike women,” he said easily. His pale eyes narrowed and he slowly stepped in closer. He wasn’t blatant or vulgar, but with that simple action he made her aware of his size and strength and of her own vulnerability. “I have…other ways of dealing with hostility from a female.”
She was left in no doubt as to his meaning, because he was looking at her mouth as he spoke. Incredibly, she went weak all over and her lips parted helplessly. Since Edward Summerville’s hateful advances, she had never liked men close to her. But her traitorous body liked this one, wanted to incite him even closer, wanted to know the touch of his warm strength in an embrace.
Because her thoughts shocked her, she jerked back against his restraining hand. “Sir, you smell like a barn!” she stammered angrily.
He laughed, because he saw through the anger to the hidden excitement. “Why, isn’t that natural? A cowboy spends a good portion of his time with animals. Or didn’t your dime novels tell you so?”
She straightened her cuff, still feeling his touch there. She couldn’t remember ever being so flustered. “I am learning that my novels are not altogether accurate.”
His firm mouth tugged up at the corner. It pleased him that as a ragged cowboy, he could have such a devastating effect on an adventuress who had been on safari and lived a modern life. None of the women of his acquaintance had dared to flout convention. He found this woman exciting beyond measure, and the thought of leading her down the garden path in his disguise was appealing. If nothing else, it would teach her not to jump to conclusions about people. Taking a man at face value, judging him on his appearance alone and by eastern standards of conduct, was hardly worthy of such a traveled aristocrat. But, strangely, she lacked that glossy veneer that he would expect a hardened adventuress to possess. Now, as he stared down at her flushed face, he thought that she seemed not much more than a flustered girl.
“You are very pretty,” he remarked gently. In fact, she was, with that wealth of chestnut hair and her fair skin and deep blue eyes.
She cleared her throat. “I must go inside.”
He swept off his hat and held it to his heart. “I will count the hours until we meet again,” he said on an exaggerated sigh.
She wasn’t certain if he was serious or teasing. She made a funny sound, like a stifled laugh, and moved quickly back into the house. She felt as if she might suffocate.
Cal watched her go with a pleased smile and speculation in his silver eyes. She was going to make an interesting quarry, he thought as he put his hat back on his head and slanted it over his eyes. When he got through with her, she was going to think twice before she looked down her nose at a man again, regardless of how he smelled.
AFTER THAT, CAL BARTON seemed to be everywhere she went. He was blatantly attentive, and he looked at her with such worshipful eyes that Melly began to tease her lightly about his devotion.
She wasn’t convinced that he wasn’t playing some monumental joke on her. She didn’t respond to his displays of interest, which made them all the more obvious. He made a point of speaking to her with warm affection, regardless of whether she was alone or in company at the time. He was making his company felt, and the way he looked at her made her toes tingle. She had never been actively pursued by a man whom she felt attracted to, and she wasn’t certain that she could handle this situation. She didn’t want to become attached to Mr. Barton. But the more he pursued her, in his gentlemanly, teasing manner, the more unsettled she became.
She worried about Cal Barton so much that she couldn’t sleep at night. To make matters worse, the cowboys had come in from the roundup. The noise from the bunkhouse that night was deafening. She knew that alcohol wasn’t allowed unless the cowboys went into town. But they went into town on weekends, and when they came back, more often than not, they were audibly inebriated. Nora was used to noise in the city, but it was disturbing when she heard raised male voices close to her open window. These sounded sober, which was reassuring, but they were loud anyway.
“I won’t!” a raspy male voice asserted. “I’m damned if I will! He ain’t puttin’ me to digging postholes, with my rheumatism in such bad shape! I’ll quit first!”
“Dan, your rheumatism is awful convenient,” came the amused reply. “It only hurts when you have to work. Best not rile Barton. Remember what happened to Curtis.”
There was a pause, and Nora felt the new information about Barton sinking in with deadly meaning.
“Guess I do like it here since Barton came,” the first man said on a sigh. “He got us better pay and he made the boss replace those damned worn-out horses. Hard to work cattle on a rocking horse.”
“Sure it is. And he replaced the cook, too. I don’t mind eating in the bunkhouse these days.”
“Me, neither.” There was a chuckle. “Sort of tickles me, about Curtis. There he was, throwing his gunman reputation around, intimidating the new kids. And he drew that big pistol on Barton and got his brains half knocked out with it for his pains.”
“Barton’s no sissy with a gun. I expect he’s shot some. He was in Cuba with Teddy Roosevelt—one of them Rough Riders.”
“Well, that don’t mean he knows Teddy personally,” the other man chuckled. “Come on. We got things to do before we bunk down. Roundup will start middle of next month, more’s the pity. A cowboy’s work is never done, is it?”
Murmuring voices and jingling spurs died away into the night. Nora curled deeper into her pillow with a sense of uneasiness. She was not used to rough men, and the only guns she’d seen used were in pursuit of wild game. She knew about war, that men fought in the unsettled regions of the country and sometimes with guns. But even on her previous trips to Texas, it had never occurred to her that she might meet men who had killed other men outside of war.
It was chilling to think of Mr. Barton with a smoking pistol in his hand, and suddenly she remembered one cold look from those silver eyes in that unsmiling, lean face, and realized what a formidable adversary he might be across the barrel of a gun. But he wasn’t like that with her now. He was gentle, attentive, and he smiled at her in a way that made her heart race.
She began to look forward to their frequent chance meetings, because that smile made her feel so wonderful. She turned over abruptly, trying to force it from her thoughts. What good did it do to dream when there was no hope for a future? She had nothing to give to Cal Barton. But knowing that didn’t stop her heart from racing every time she thought about him.
IT WAS NOW the second week of her visit, and as she saw more