The Virgin Beauty

“Oh, I thought you meant unbalanced because I was asking you to dinner.” He flashed a quick grin at her, making that sharp face go gorgeous. “Like maybe you don’t get many dinner invitations.”

She flushed, because she didn’t, because she knew he was baiting her. “I get thousands. I need to hire a secretary just to handle them all.”

He gave her the long look this time, his head tilted to match hers. “I’ll bet. So what about it?”

“No, thanks.”

He narrowed his eyes on her. She was spoiling his plans. He wanted to know what kind of vet Niebaur had sold his damn practice to, and interrogating her over some fried chicken at the café was as good a way of finding out as any. The fact that he was very nearly aroused to the point of discomfort just standing next to her had nothing to do with it.

“Just a Welcome-to-Nobel dinner. I can give you my folks’ phone number. They’ll vouch for me.”

“Parents never know. Besides, I have a million things to do. I haven’t even been to my house yet.”

“Okay.” He could count on one hand the number of times a woman had turned down a dinner invitation from him. But he supposed a girl such as this, with those legs and that wit and a face like a Klimt painting, was turning them away by the truckload. He shrugged, took one last lingering look at both the legs and the veterinary supplies he wanted to get his hands on. “Welcome to Nobel, anyway, Dr. McKenna. I’ll see you around.”

“Yes. All right. And thank you for the help. My office will be open for business Monday, if you have animals that need tending.”

He considered for a moment. “I have a couple. I’ll be in touch.”

He pushed out the front door and strode across the street without giving so much as a glance around for potential traffic. Grace watched him go with a dead even mix of relief and disappointment.

He’d pronounced it “noble,” the name of his town. She’d been calling it “no-bell,” like the prize. She’d remember that. It was always important, when you were doomed to make a bad first impression, to remember what you could to make a decent second one.

Chapter 2

He walked into his mother’s kitchen late in the afternoon, not surprised to find it empty. Ever since he and his brother had taken over the running of the family cattle ranch at the base of the hills that shadowed Nobel, his mother and father had run amok.

He poked his head into the refrigerator, looking for a little fuel to keep him until dinner, an hour away and nothing much to look forward to anyhow, since he’d be having it alone.

“Mom?” he shouted, just to give general warning he was here and in her refrigerator. “Dad?”

They were probably out playing an afternoon rubber of bridge or something equally goofy and unproductive. They seemed to have taken to the goofy and unproductive since they retired, and he couldn’t have been happier for them. They’d worked like dogs every minute he’d known them, with the cattle and the hay and the occasional field of potatoes or sweet corn or wheat when the futures looked good. Had worked even harder to help him through college and then vet school. They deserved a break. He was more than happy to give it to them.

He pulled out a beer, twisted off the top, pinched the cap between his thumb and middle finger and flicked it across the kitchen, where it rebounded off the wall and landed in the trash.

Of course, he’d planned it all differently. They’d have still had their retirement, but Frank would have had the ranch on his own now, with Lisa helping full-time, and he’d have been in that cinder-block building instead of Grace McKenna, living in town with his wife and the life they’d planned together.

His wife. The phrase left a bitter taste in his mouth and he took a slow pull off his beer to wash it away. Julie had left him to face his disgrace and his failure alone. They’d only been married seven months when his life had started to come apart, so he supposed it was unfair of him to have expected her to ride out the trouble. But he had expected it. And he’d found, during the three years since she’d left, that it was as hard to forgive her betrayal as it was to face his own failure.

Today, standing in the office he’d always thought would someday be his, had brought it all back to him. Not that he ever forgot it, really. It was always there, haunting his days, tainting his nights. But he could back-burner it most of the time. Not today. Not watching Grace McKenna drive through town with his vet box bolted in the back of her truck, opening his office as the official new vet of Nobel County, Idaho.

He didn’t blame the woman for having his life. That would be deranged and foolish. He didn’t blame her.

He leaned back against the kitchen counter, his mossy eyes going dark and flat. Oh, hell, he blamed her a little.

Grace McKenna. Damn her. He took a long swallow of beer, his head tipped back. He wondered if when her mama named her she knew she’d grow into the kind of woman who needed a bigger name. Grace was a name for a petite blond woman with tiny feet and dainty hands. A blue-eyes belle, who never did anything nastier with those hands than pour afternoon tea for her garden club.

He could think of a dozen better names for Grace McKenna. Strong, mythic names, such as Hera, Diana, Minerva. He smirked into his beer. Okay, not Minerva. But a name for a woman with power and height, and that cap of dark curly hair that looked so soft, as though it belonged on a baby.

He knew what Grace McKenna did with her hands. For nearly twenty years he’d trained to do the same thing. She pushed her hands into the back ends of sick or pregnant cattle. She made stud colts into geldings. He’d bet she did not belong to a garden club or pour tea for anyone.

Quite suddenly and against his will, he started to wonder what else Grace McKenna might be capable of doing with those hands. More than a few ideas popped up in full color right in front of his glassy eyes.

He dug his thumb and forefinger into his eye sockets. Oh, jeez, where had that stuff come from? The last thing he needed was to start his feeble mind down that particular road with this particular woman.

“Danny!”

He jumped and almost bobbled his beer, feeling as if his mother had caught him looking at dirty pictures up in his room. Again.

“Mom!” He gave her a kiss as she went past, her hands full of grocery bags. “Any more outside?”

“Your dad’s getting them, sugar. What are you doing here?”

What was he doing here? He’d been pissed off and feeling sorry for himself all day, ever since he’d awakened and realized this was the day the new vet came to town. He’d tried to fight it out with the person in question, then tried to sweat it out all day working the herd. Neither tack had taken. Now he wanted a little comfort. And this was the place he’d always come for that.

“Nothing. Just checking in on you guys. Wanted to make sure you hadn’t taken up golf yet or anything.”

His mother laughed. “Not yet. Put them on the counter, Howard.”

Daniel’s father came in, loaded down. “I know where to put groceries, Liz. I’ve been bringing in your groceries for a hundred years. Hi, Danny.”

“Hey, Dad.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You know, I could name fifty people right now who would kill to get a visit from their son.”

“Not a son who drinks the good beer.” He pulled one out for himself. “I keep the cheap stuff in the can for you and Frank.”

Daniel grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Do that. You see the new vet?”

Daniel’s green eyes went flat again. “Yeah, I saw her.”

“Figured you had. Just saw Pat down to the grocery store and he said you’d been staring out the window of the Early Bird for pert near an hour this morning before she showed up.”

Daniel moved his ax-handle shoulders. “I just wanted to make sure she got settled in.”

Howard tossed his wife a glance. “Right. Did she?”

“She was getting there. She already had Doc Niebaur’s vet box bolted into the back of her truck, but she hadn’t even been to her new house, so I guess she’s got her priorities set.” He took another slug of beer, to wash the acid taste of animosity down his throat.

“Where’s she living?”

“The little house of Fourth. The one I tried to buy from Mrs. Hensen last year.”

“I hope she fixed that front stoop, the old skinflint.”

“She did. I went by to check on it.”

Howard and his wife exchanged another apprehensive look. Daniel watched his father take in a deep breath, knew from experience a lecture was coming. “Now, son—” he began.

Daniel warded him off with a raised hand. “It’s okay, Dad. I was just being neighborly.” They were both looking at him, his father’s arm slung across his mother’s plump shoulders, united in their love and concern for him. He smiled. “Really. She seems like a nice person. I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to go through her front porch on her first day, is all.”

His mother eyed him. “Sugar, I think you need to just let the whole thing go.”

“I know, Mom. I’m getting there.”

“Well, I hear she’s a big gal,” Howard said his booming voice emphasizing the “big.” “Pat said she was six foot if she was an inch.”

Daniel smiled. “More like six-two or three. Tall, but not skinny. She looks pretty good, actually.” He took another drink, dropped the bomb. “I asked her out to dinner.”

His parents goggled at him.

“Now, honey—” his mother began.

“Hell, boy—” his father said at the same time.

Daniel put both hands up this time, the long fingers of one stretched around the neck of his beer bottle. “She said no anyhow, but I didn’t ask her out because I’m interested in her. She could have been a troll for all I care, or a man. I was just going to grill her about her plans for my practice.”

“Oh, Danny,” his mother said. She shook her head at him. “It would have been better if you had asked her out because she’s good-looking.”

He grinned at her, to make that worry line between her brows disappear. Dammit, he hadn’t meant to say “my” practice. It had just slipped out. “I make it a policy to not date women who can take me in an arm wrestle.”

“Bad policy,” his father said under his breath, making Daniel laugh.

“I won’t have you harassing the girl,” his mother warned.

“I wasn’t harassing her. Exactly. Anyway, she caught me at it and made some nasty comment about my mental health.” Which, somehow, had both stung a little and made him want to laugh. He couldn’t figure it. “And she told me she wouldn’t have dinner with me, so I came to ask you guys if you want to go out. My treat. We can call Frank if you want to. Lisa, too, if she’s not doing anything.”

“I don’t think I can take an evening with Frank tonight,” Liz said, sighing. She put the last of the groceries away. “Besides, we have a canasta game.”

“Which we can cancel,” Howard countered. “You know I hate to play with the O’Sullivans, anyway. Harry cheats at cards like a lying dog.”

“Ha,” Liz said. “When it comes to cards, I wouldn’t talk about lying dogs if I were you.”

“I don’t cheat at cards!”

“Ha again! I’ve played poker with you, buddy boy. I know a cheater when I see a cheater.”

“Just at strip poker, Liz.” He leered at her stupidly, making her laugh.

Daniel smiled, threw his arms around them both. “I’ll get you back in time for your canasta game.” He headed them out the kitchen door. “I’d hate for you to miss anything as goofy as that.”

Grace’s day had turned out plenty goofy. First of all, there had been people everywhere. Not under her feet exactly, but close enough. They’d started coming by the minute Daniel Cash and his splendid body and Neanderthal brain had loped, flat-footed, back to whatever cave he’d come from.

She noticed the kid first, riding back and forth on his bike. He was all of eleven, she thought, and he’d passed the office a dozen times before getting up the nerve to come in to gawk sideways at her while pretending a remarkably intense interest in bovine nose pliers. She let him gawk. Better to get it over with.

Then a couple old men, bored with checkers and coffee or whatever occupied the long days of retired farmers, had sauntered over from the café across the street, made a complimentary comment or two about Doc Niebaur, wished her the best. They’d gawked at her, too. One of them taking to calling her “Stretch” in the middle of their short conversation.

One by one, two by two, people had come by, most too shy to poke their heads inside to say hello to the new vet, but hardly a soul in Nobel willing to miss out on the chance to get a load of the lady veterinarian who looked “pert near tall enough to be in the circus or something.”

She’d gone about her work vaguely accustomed to it all. She’d been the junior vet in three other offices since graduation and she’d always encountered these kinds of reactions. She supposed it would have been the same if she’d chosen secretarial work as her profession, or grocery clerking. Anything but women’s basketball or modeling. She’d never had the interest in one, the looks or the intellectual indifference required for the other.

She’d unpacked her boxes, snooped through the cabinets in the examining/operating room, though from the inventory list Niebaur had sent her when she’d bought his practice, she’d known almost to the syringe what was in there. She’d checked the kennel cages and taken a quick run through the files, trying not to look for “Cash, Daniel” on the folder labels. She’d found it, anyway, and dug it out.

A thousand head of cattle! No, she’d thought, that couldn’t be right. But there it was. Daniel and Frank Cash—a father, or a brother, maybe—owned Cash Cattle, Incorporated, and a thousand head of mother cows. A huge operation.

He’d said he had a couple animals. What a smart aleck.

She shook her head in memory of his smug grin.

She’d riffled through the file again, found the brucellosis vaccination records for the past ten years, the trich tests results on fifty Angus bulls, lapsed for three years now. He’d gone to artificial insemination then, she’d noted, and felt a little thrill when she’d realized she’d get to do it this year. A lucrative thing. The A.I. business. If he continued to go to a vet for it rather than hire one of the freelance A.I. technicians. Which he might do, considering his inexplicable animosity toward her earlier in the day.

She hoped he wouldn’t, though. She needed the income. Her parents had borrowed against everything they owned to help her pay for this practice, and she was determined to make it work. It was a huge risk, but she liked the idea of a small-town, large animal practice, and although this part of Idaho didn’t have an abundance of humans, it had enough dairy cows and beef cattle and hobby farms with spoiled horses to get her by. She hoped.

She’d squeezed the folder back into the file cabinet, promising she’d get the Cash Cattle file on computer, along with everyone else’s just as soon as she found an assistant. Niebaur’s office manager had promised to come in a couple of days a week for a while, but she was retiring, too. Couldn’t see herself working for another woman, she’d said. No offense.

Grace hadn’t taken offense, of course. She hadn’t wanted to work for anyone else, either.

Picking up the phone book, she glanced at the wall clock. 9:10 p.m. She riffled through the book for the number to the county newspaper and recorded her ad onto the machine that picked up.

She stretched out her long legs, hooking her heels on the edge of the reception desk. She looked out into dark main street of Nobel, Idaho, and congratulated herself. She had every single thing she wanted, now.

Minutes later she dozed off with a satisfied smile on her face.

He hadn’t meant to come by. He’d dropped his folks off at their house, intending to go home to his own small ranch house, just a half mile down the road from the house where he’d grown up. Instead his pickup truck—of its own accord, he’d swear—found its way the eleven miles back into town and past the building he owned, bought when his future looked exactly as he’d wanted it to look. The lights were on. He glanced at his watch. It was past ten, and he’d bet a hundred bucks she hadn’t been home all day.

He wheeled the truck into a casually illegal U-turn and brought it to rest behind hers by the curb. He scooped up the nameless old barn cat he’d brought with him as an excuse for coming by and tucked it under his arm, trying not to moon over the vet box in Grace’s truck as he made for the office door. He almost managed it, walking past with just a quick yearning glance.

Grace had her feet up on the desk in the reception area and her chin on her chest. Sound asleep. He watched her for a minute, the cat purring happily under his arm, then rapped on the glass of the door with the back of his hand.

She jerked awake and he saw in her brown eyes the instant cognizance of a doctor awakened from a sound sleep. She could perform surgery right now, he knew; intubate a calf, cesarean a breech foal. She had that look as she stared out at him. That completely-awake-and-aware look.

She stood and came toward him. He felt a sudden zip up his spine, a heated pooling of blood between his legs.

Man, oh, man. He’d wasted half the day away wondering if she’d really been the goddess he’d seen that morning, or if he’d imagined that her legs went up to her neck and her hips were narrow and smooth-jointed when she walked and her mouth was wide and lush. He didn’t much like this woman who was stealing his dreams, but he sure as hell wanted her.

For crying out loud, he reprimanded himself pitilessly. Grow up, Cash. He’d gone hard just watching her walk. Heaven only knew what would happen when she got the door open. He smoothed his free hand along the flank of his cat, hoping the thick fur would absorb the sudden dampness there. Didn’t want the goddess to know she’d made him sweat.

She stopped on the other side of the door. She didn’t smile, couldn’t. If she thought he’d been intense this morning, he looked positively dangerous now. It was only common sense and the bone-deep knowledge that she could never, in a million years, with her utter lack of experience and confidence, handle a man with that kind of lust in his eyes, that kept her from throwing the lock on the door and letting him take her.

“Mr. Cash,” she said through the glass.

He cleared his throat. “Doctor McKenna.”

She glanced at the contented bit of fur tucked into his elbow. “Nice cat.”

“Thank you.”

“He looks pretty healthy. Any reason you’re bringing him to my office at—” she checked her watch “—ten-eighteen p.m.?”

“He’s been in a fight.”

Grace frowned. “Really?”

“Would I lie about something like that?” he asked solemnly. Of course he would, but she didn’t need to know that.

“I don’t know. Would you?”

“No. Open the door, McKenna.”

She considered him for a full minute, but her active sense of self-preservation just couldn’t hold up against an injured animal she knew she could help. She reached up and turned the dead bolt.

“Take him back to the examining room.” She relocked the door and followed behind him as he unerringly found the examining room. She did her best not to study his rear end as he walked.

She washed her hands at the little sink and felt a familiar little zing of adrenaline. Her first client in her own practice. Could there be a more productive sensation than that? She turned to find the cat lounging on her stainless-steel examining table, the Neanderthal leaning against it with his hands widespread, watching her.

“Your cat is purring,” she pointed out.

“He’s in shock.”

“Hmm.” She took the cat in her hands. It rolled onto its back to have its belly scratched. Grace obliged automatically while looking for evidence of the fight. “What’s his name?”

“Uh, Tiger,” Daniel said, though the cat had been called “Cat” since the day it was born.

Grace looked up at him. “Tiger, huh?”

Daniel shrugged. “My brother named it.”

“Well, Tiger here has certainly been in a fight.”

“Yeah,” Daniel said, his mouth pursed in studied concern. “I thought I’d better bring him in.”

“And two weeks ago, I might have thought so, too. Mr. Cash.” She lifted the cat and dropped it into Daniel’s arms. He cradled it against his chest automatically, his fingers folding over its small head to scratch between its ears. Grace noted how unaware he was that he was doing it, how utterly at ease the cat was under his fingers. He’d probably spent hours sitting in some dusty old barn somewhere, that cat on his lap. She forced herself not to imagine it. “But probably not even then. The scratches were pretty minor even at the time they were inflicted. They are almost completely healed now.”

Daniel nodded, pretending ignorance. “So, you think he just needs a little antibiotic cream or something?”

“No, I don’t think he needs a little antibiotic cream or something.” She washed her hands. “I think he needs to go home. I think you need to go home. I think I need to go home.” She stalked out of the exam room, muttering something about wasted time.

Daniel ignored her. “Well, that’s a relief,” he said, following her through the office. “I’m glad I dropped by.”

“You didn’t drop by, Mr. Cash.” She unlocked the door and opened it wide. “Your home is eleven miles south of town.”

“How did you know that?”

“I looked through your file. I figured since you knew where I lived, I should know where you lived. In case I ever had to call the police on you or something.”

“Good thinking.” He paused in the doorway. “So, what are you doing here?”

“I work here.”

“So late.”

“I was just getting ready to go home.”

“Have you even been there yet?”

“I drove by it earlier.”

“Not good enough. I’ll see you home if you’re ready.”

She cocked her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Come on.” He jerked his head in the direction of her truck and his, then held up his cat as proof of his honor. “I own a cat. How bad a person could I be?”

“I believe the number-one choice of pets for crazy people is a cat.”

Man, she was cute. And quick. “Come on. Trust me,” Daniel said.

She did, for some idiotic reason. He didn’t look particularly trustworthy, despite the blissed-out cat in his arms. Something to do with that lingering gleam of reluctant lust in his green eyes, she thought. And he certainly didn’t feel trustworthy. She wasn’t experienced enough to know what it was she felt from him, but she knew she shouldn’t trust it.

Yet somehow… Grace went back for her bag and coat, flicked off the lights, and followed him onto the sidewalk, locking the door behind her. A cold wind sneaked under her sweatshirt and she shivered, ducking her head as much in reflex to the cold as to keep from meeting his eyes. She fumbled with her coat. It was snatched out of her hands at the same instant a cat began winding itself around her legs. She couldn’t decide which was more startling.

“Here,” Daniel said. He tucked her into her jacket, took the zipper between his fingers and pulled it up. If his knuckles brushed against the inside of her breast so slightly, if his hands lingered at the collar for one second too long, that didn’t make him a creep, right? He wasn’t harassing her. He was just being gentlemanly, and accidents happen. He bent and picked up Cat from where he’d dumped him unceremoniously on the sidewalk. Before touching her became less accidental.

“Get in your truck before you freeze solid.”

“Is it always so cold in March?” she asked pertly, to keep her mind off how gentle his hands had been, and how personal.

“Yes. March is a bitch. But January and February are worse, so by March you hardly notice how miserable you are.”

He’d walked her to her truck, stood while she dug in her purse for her keys. “I don’t need an escort home,” she said. “I know where I live.”