Harden

She stared up at him only half comprehending, her breath jerking out of her tight throat, her heart slamming at her ribs. “What…happened?” she whispered.

He let go of her and stepped back, his face rigid with unsatisfied desire. His chest heaved with the force of his breathing. “God knows,” he said tersely.

“I’ve…I’ve never…” she began, flustered with embarrassment.

“Oh, hell, I’ve ‘never,’ either,” he said irritably. “Not like that.” He had to fight for breath. He stared at her, fascinated. “That can’t happen again. Ever.”

She swallowed. She’d known that, too, but there had been a tiny hope that this was the beginning of something. Impossible, of course. She was a widow of barely one month, with emotional scars from the loss of her husband and child, and he was a man who obviously didn’t want to get involved. Wrong time, wrong place, she thought sadly, and wondered how she was going to cope with this new hurt. “Yes. I know,” she said finally.

“Goodbye, Miranda.”

Her eyes locked with his. “Goodbye, Harden.”

He turned with cold reluctance and opened the door again. He could still taste her on his mouth, and his body was taut with arousal. He paused with the doorknob in his hand. He couldn’t make himself turn it. His spine straightened.

“It’s too soon for you.”

“I…suppose so.”

There had been a definite hesitation there. He turned and looked at her, his eyes intent, searching.

“You’re a city girl.”

That wasn’t quite true, but he obviously wanted to believe it. “Yes,” she said.

He took a slow, steadying breath, letting his eyes run down her body before he dragged them back up to her face.

“Wrong time, wrong place,” he said huskily.

She nodded. “Yes. I was thinking that, too.”

So she was already reading his mind. This was one dangerous woman. It was a good thing that the timing was wrong. She could have tied him up like a trussed turkey.

His gaze fell to her flat belly and it took all his willpower not to think what sprang to his mind. He’d never wanted a child. Before.

“I’ll be late for the workshop. And you’ll be late for work. Take care of yourself,” he said.

She smiled gently. “You, too. Thank you, Harden.”

His broad shoulders rose and fell. “I’d have done the same for anyone,” he said, almost defensively.

“I know that, too. So long.”

He opened the door this time and went through it, without haste but without lingering. When he was back in the car, he forced himself to ignore the way it wounded him to leave her there alone with her painful memories.

Chapter 3

Evan was waiting for Harden the minute he walked into the hotel. Harden glowered at him, but it didn’t slow the other man down.

“It’s not my fault,” Evan said as they walked toward the conference rooms where the workshop was to be held. “A venomous woman hater who comes downstairs with a woman in an evening gown at eight-thirty in the morning is bound to attract unwanted attention.”

“No doubt.” Harden kept walking.

Evan sighed heavily. “You never date anybody. You’re forever on the job. My God, just seeing you with a woman is extraordinary. Tell me how you met her.”

“She was leaning off a bridge. I stopped her.”

“And…?”

Harden shrugged. “I let her use the spare room until she sobered up. This morning I took her home. End of story.”

Evan threw up his hands. “Will you talk to me? Why was a gorgeous girl like that jumping off a bridge?”

“She lost her husband and a baby in a car accident,” he replied.

Evan stopped, his eyes quiet and somber. “I’m sorry. She’s still healing, is that it?”

“In a nutshell.”

“So it was just compassion, then.” Evan shook his head and stuck his big hands into his pockets. “I might have known.” He glanced at his half brother narrowly. “If you’d get married, I might have a chance of getting my own girl. They all walk over me trying to get to you. And you can’t stand women.” He brightened. “Maybe that’s the secret. Maybe if I pretend to hate them, they’ll climb all over me!”

“Why don’t you try that?” Harden agreed.

“I have. It scared the last one off. No great loss. She had two cats and a hamster. I’m allergic to fur.”

Harden laughed shortly. “So we’ve all noticed.”

“I had a call from Mother earlier.”

Harden’s face froze. “Did you?”

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” his brother said. “She’s paid enough for what she did, Harden. You just don’t understand how it is to be obsessively in love. Maybe that’s why you’ve never forgiven her.”

Evan had been away at college during the worst months of Harden’s life. Neither Harden nor Theodora had ever told him much about the tragedy that had turned Harden cold. “Love is for idiots,” Harden said, refusing to let himself remember. He paused to light a cigarette, his fingers steady and sure. “I want no part of it.”

“Too bad,” Evan replied. “It might limber you up a bit.”

“Not much hope of that, at my age.” He blew out a cloud of smoke, part of his mind still on Miranda and the way it had felt to kiss her. He turned toward the conference room. “I still don’t understand why you came up here.”

“To get away from Connal,” he said shortly. “My God, he’s driving me crazy.”

Harden lifted an amused eyebrow. “Baby fever. Once Pepi gives birth, he’ll be back to normal.”

“He paces, he smokes, he worries about something going wrong. What if they don’t recognize labor in time, what if the car won’t start when it’s time to go to the hospital!” He threw up his hands. “It’s enough to put a man off fatherhood.”

Fatherhood. Harden remembered looking hungrily at Miranda’s waist and wondering how it would feel to father a child. Incredible thought, and he’d never had it before in his life, not even with the one woman he’d loved beyond bearing…or thought he’d loved. He scowled.

He had a lot of new thoughts and feelings with Miranda. This wouldn’t do. They were strangers. He lived in Texas, she lived in Illinois. There was no future in it, even if she wasn’t still in mourning. He had to bite back a groan.

“Something’s eating you up,” Evan said perceptively, narrowing one dark eye. “You never talk about things that bother you.”

“What’s the use? They won’t go away.”

“No, but bringing them out in the light helps to get them into perspective.” He pursed his lips. “It’s that woman, isn’t it? You saved her, now you feel responsible for her.”

Harden whirled, his pale blue eyes glaring furiously at the other man.

Evan held up both hands, grinning. “Okay, I get the message. She was a dish, though. You might try your luck. Donald and Connal and I can talk you through a date…and the other things you don’t know about.”

Harden sighed. “Will you stop?”

“It’s no crime to be innocent, even if you are a man,” Evan continued. “We all know you thought about becoming a minister.”

Harden just shook his head and kept walking. Surely to God, Evan was a case. That assumption irritated him, but he wouldn’t lower himself enough to deny it.

“No comment?” Evan asked.

“No comment,” Harden said pleasantly. “Let’s go. The crowd’s already gathering.”

Despite Harden’s preoccupation with Miranda, the workshop went well. He had a dry wit, which he used to his advantage to keep the audience’s attention while he lectured on the combinations of maternal and carcass breeds that had been so successful back home. Profit was the bottom line in any cattle operation, and the strains he was using in a limited crossbreeding had proven themselves financially.

But his position on hormone implants wasn’t popular, and had resulted in some hot exchanges with other cattlemen. Cattle at the Tremayne ranch weren’t implanted, and Harden was fervently against the artificial means of beef growth.

“Damn it, it’s like using steroids on a human,” he argued with the older cattleman. “And we still don’t know the long-range effects of consumption of implanted cattle on human beings!”

“You’re talking a hell of a financial loss, all the same!” the other argued hotly. “Damn it, man, I’m operating in the red already! Those implants you’re against are the only thing keeping me in business. More weight means more money. That’s how it is!”

“And what about the countries that won’t import American beef because of the implants?” Harden shot back. “What about moral responsibility for what may prove to be a dangerous and unwarranted risk to public health?”

“We’re already getting heat for the pesticides we use leaching into the water table,” a deep, familiar voice interrupted. “And I won’t go into environmentalists claiming grazing is responsible for global warming or the animal rights people who think branding our cattle is cruel, or the government bailing out the dairy industry by dumping their tough, used-up cows on the market with our prime beef!”

That did it. Before Harden could open his mouth, his workshop was shot to hell. He gave up trying to call for order and sat down to drink his coffee.

Evan sat back down beside him, grinning. “Saved your beans, didn’t I, pard?” he asked.

Harden gestured toward the crowd. “What about theirs?” he asked, indicating two cattlemen who were shoving each other and red in the face.

“Their problem, not mine. I just didn’t want to have to save you from a lynch mob. Couldn’t you be a little less opinionated?”

Harden shrugged. “Not my way.”

“So I noticed.” Evan stood up. “Well, we might as well go and eat lunch. When we come back we can worry about how to dispose of the carnage.” He grimaced as a blow was struck nearby.

Harden pursed his lips, his blue eyes narrowing amusedly. “And leave just when things are getting interesting?”

“No.” Evan stood in front of him. “Now, look here…”

It didn’t work. Harden walked around him and right into a furious big fist. He returned the punch with a hard laugh and waded right into the melee. Evan sighed. He took off his Stetson and his jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his white cotton shirt and loosened his tie. There was such a thing as family unity.

Later, after the police came and spoiled all the fun, Harden and Evan had a quiet lunch in their suite while they patched up the cuts.

“We could have been arrested,” Evan muttered between bites of his sandwiches.

“No kidding.” Harden swallowed down the last of his coffee and poured another cup from the carafe. He had a bruise on one cheek and another, with a cut, lower on his jaw. Evan had fared almost as badly. Of course, the competition downstairs looked much worse.

“You had a change of clothes,” Evan muttered, brushing at blood spots on his white shirt. “I have to fly home like this.”

“The stewardesses will be fascinated by you. You’ll probably have to turn down dates all the way home.”

Evan brightened. “Think so?”

“You look wounded and macho,” Harden agreed. “Aren’t women supposed to love that?”

“I’m not sure. I lost my perspective when they started carrying guns and bodybuilding. I think the ideal these days is a man who can cook and do housework and likes baby-sitting.” He shuddered. “Kids scare me to death!”

“They wouldn’t if they were your own.”

Evan sighed, and his dark eyes had a faraway look. “I’m too old to start a family.”

“My God, you’re barely thirty-four!”

“Anyway, I’d have to get married first. Nobody wants me.”

“You scare women,” Harden replied. “You’re the original clown. All smiles and wit. Then something upsets you and you lose your temper and throw somebody over a fence.”

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