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Marry Me, Cowboy
Peggy Moreland


WIVES WANTED… ?Seemed all of Temptation, Texas, was wife-hungry - except for Harley Kerr! The rugged rancher had done the wedded bliss thing before, and he'd rather wrestle a rattler than get tied up with another woman, even one as pretty as his new neighbor.FAMILY FOUND!Mary Claire Reynolds and her two adorable kids were everything Harley had lost and thought to never have again. Then one moonlit night he kissed Mary Claire with a passion that was more than just neighborly… and discovered he'd just been bit! TROUBLE IN TEXAS… When Temptation beckons, three rugged cowboys lose their hearts.







Their Eyes Met...And Something Electrical Passed Between Them. (#u2d971a14-8cbd-52e6-89dd-9d6f88daaed2)Letter to Reader (#u4a1c08ad-2d36-5843-a8d3-c1b238544f84)Title Page (#udee72d7a-635b-5d98-8c25-333edf57da12)Dedication (#u4b3e54e7-078b-5e56-ad2c-784c459598bc)About the Author (#ua8bf835a-4fe4-501a-9866-8c5fe4e10702)HARLEY KERR’S THOUGHTS ON TEMPTATION, TEXAS! (#u88d08573-e560-51bc-8e6a-a7f911db1df0)Prologue (#u5eb1eccf-601c-5796-b1b3-a952b5e77688)Chapter One (#u16a8db68-6bad-55a7-ad5e-0e4abadf4d94)Chapter Two (#ud8b5a384-4383-5bae-a78b-5eaf17b319d8)Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Their Eyes Met...And Something Electrical Passed Between Them.

Something charged with so much force that it shocked every nerve in Harley’s body to life. Mary Claire’s nervous movements were as fleeting as those of a moth at a flame.

The brush of her fingers across his lips made Harley’s heart do a slow somersault while his blood warmed in his veins. It had been a long time since a woman had touched him in such a way. He’d forgotten the tenderness, the comfort rendered in so simple a gesture. On a sigh, he caught her wrist in his hand then held her palm against his cheek, absorbing the softness of her skin.

Slowly the thundering of her pulse trapped beneath his fingers registered in his muddled mind, and Harley’s gaze settled on lips slightly parted and eyes filled with... Was it longing?


Dear Reader,

THE BLACK WATCH returns! The men you found so intriguing are now joined by women who are also part of this secret organization created by BJ James. Look for them in Whispers in the Dark, this month’s MAN OF THE MONTH.

Leanne Banks’s delightful miniseries HOW TO CATCH A PRINCESS—all about three childhood friends who kiss a lot of frogs before they each meet their handsome prince—continues with The You-Can’t-Make-Me Bride. And Elizabeth Bevarly’s series THE FAMILY McCORMICK concludes with Georgia Meets Her Groom. Romance blooms as the McCormick family is finally reunited.

Peggy Moreland’s tantalizing miniseries TROUBLE IN TEXAS begins this month with Marry Me, Cowboy. When the men of Temptation, Texas, decide they want wives, they find them the newfangled way—they advertise!

A Western from Jackie Merritt is always a treat, so I’m excited about this month’s Wind River Ranch—it’s ultrasensuous and totally compelling. And the month is completed with Wedding Planner Tames Rancher!, an engaging romp by Pamela Ingrahm. There’s nothing better than curling up with a Silhouette Desire book, so enjoy!

Regards,






Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3


Marry Me, Cowboy

Peggy Moreland














www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To Jim Bob and Kelly Clayman of Windsong Farm in Georgetown, Texas, who helped make this author’s childhood dream come true! Thanks for hours of riding pleasure and for instilling in me the competitive edge needed to race barrels and bend poles!


PEGGY MORELAND

published her first romance with Silhouette in 1989. She’s a natural storyteller with a sense of humor that will tickle your fancy, and Peggy’s goal is to write a story that readers will remember long after the last page is turned. Winner of the 1992 National Readers’ Choice Award and a 1994 RITA finalist, Peggy frequently appears on bestseller lists around the country. A native Texan, she and her family live in Round Rock, Texas.


HARLEY KERR’S THOUGHTS ON TEMPTATION, TEXAS!

I’ve lived my whole life in Temptation, a small town with an unlikely name in central Texas. Though there were those who considered living in Temptation a hardship and couldn’t wait to escape, I’ve always loved it here and never gave a thought to leaving.

Since I was old enough to walk, I followed my father around the ranch, learning from his experience. I gleaned a ton of it on my own when I took over the place at the age of seventeen after his death. I fell in love when I was sixteen, married my high school sweetheart three years later and brought her home to my ranch.

Though I never gave it much consideration the first time around, I thought my expectations for a wife were simple enough. I wanted a woman I could love and care for, and one who was willing to love and care for me in return. She’d have to be a strong woman, someone who could stand the isolation of the land and still thrive, one who was both independent and dependent at the same time. I wanted a woman—a partner, if you will—who’d stand by me through thick and thin. I wanted, simply put, a home and a family and a woman to share it all with.

But my first wife didn’t share those expectations. When we married, she was looking for a way out of Temptation, Texas. So when she left, taking my two kids with her, I sealed off my heart and swore never to love again.

When my old buddy, Cody Fipes, started this fool plan to advertise for women to move to Temptation to save our dying town, it never occurred to me that my heart might be in jeopardy again.







Prologue

Sixty or so men were crowded into the End of the Road Bar, the official gathering place for the male population of Temptation, Texas. Some sat slumped at tables with their backs rounded against spool-back chairs. Others straddled bar stools, their dusty, mudcaked boots hooked over the stools’ lowest rungs. Those unfortunate enough to have arrived too late to claim a proper chair hitched a foot against chipped plaster and pressed their shoulders to the wall, while still others leaned back on elbows braced against the long, scarred bar.

Having made the trek into town straight from work on their respective farms and ranches, most of the men wore jeans and boots. Others sported bib overalls over soiled T-shirts. Since there wasn’t a lady in sight to complain about the breach of etiquette, to a man their heads were covered, either with straw cowboy hats or monogrammed caps advertising farm equipment or feed.

Arriving late, Harley Kerr stopped just inside the door and looked around. Cody Fipes, his friend and Temptation’s sheriff, sat at a table in the rear of the room. Harley slipped into the empty chair Cody had saved for him and was rewarded with a beer shoved his way. With a nod of thanks, he one-knuckled his sweat-stained hat to the back of his head and closed a hand around the cold brew.

“Was beginning to wonder if you were going to make it,” Cody murmured in a low voice.

“Bull got in a pasture with some heifers,” Harley replied dryly. “Took me a while to convince him he didn’t belong there.” Hot and tired, he tipped back his head and took a long, thirst-quenching drink before setting the beer down and turning his attention to Roy Acres, Temptation’s mayor.

Seated on a tall stool centered in front of the long bar, Mayor Acres resembled a fly-fattened frog. His face flushed with the effort, he raised his voice a level higher to be heard over the scrape of chairs and the buzz of conversation as he called the meeting to order. The topic for the night’s meeting? Temptation’s quickly disintegrating population and the closing of local businesses.

Heads wagged regrettably as Mayor Acres read through the list of businesses that had closed in the past year. Lips pursed as Acres reviewed a survey taken at the local high school that revealed only seventeen percent of the students registered there intended to remain in Temptation after graduation.

Usually filled with raucous laughter and loud country music, the End of the Road was as quiet as a church on Saturday night as its occupants absorbed the depressing news about the town where they’d spent their entire lives. If something wasn’t done and done fast, Temptation, like so many other rural communities, would soon be nothing but a ghost town.

Few understood this better than Harley Kerr and Cody Fipes. They’d spent a lot of time over the past few years cussing and discussing Temptation’s slow decline. But unlike Harley, Cody had come up with a plan. Not one that Harley totally supported, but he figured at least it was a start.

With a tense glance at Harley, Cody stood and dragged off his hat. “Roy,” he said, nervously tapping his hat against his knee, “I think I might have a solution to Temptation’s problem.”

“Well, speak up, then,” Mayor Acres grumped impatiently. “That’s why we’re here.”

Cody hauled in a steadying breath, not at all sure how his idea would be accepted. “What we need to do,” he said slowly, “is to advertise for women.”

Somewhere in the crowded room the legs of a chair hit the floor with a loud thump, and one man, caught in midswallow during Cody’s brief recitation, spewed beer. Across the room someone shouted, “Hell. If you’re horny, Cody, why don’t you just drive up to Austin and pick yourself up a whore for the night?” The comment was met with hoots and hollers and a general round of back slapping:

Cody frowned. He hadn’t expected anybody to jump on his idea, at least not at first, but he sure as heck hadn’t expected to be made a fool of.

“That’s not what I had in mind,” he said dryly. “It doesn’t take somebody with a college degree to figure out that if you want to grow a town, you need women to do it. As far as I know,” he added, narrowing an eye at the man who’d told him to find himself a whore, “men haven’t figured out how to reproduce on their own just yet.”

He shifted, drawing his hat between his hands. “What we need to do is take a look at the businesses we’ve lost, assess what businesses or professionals we’ll need in the future and advertise for women to move here and fill those needs.”

At the word “need,” someone snickered and Cody shot him a look that would peel paint off a barn. Sorry he’d even bothered to share his idea for saving Temptation, Cody rammed his Stetson back on his head. “That’s all I’ve got to say,” he muttered, then sat down.

The laughter continued and Cody’s face turned redder and redder until Harley felt compelled to come to his friend’s defense. With a sigh, he pushed to his feet. “You boys can laugh all you want, but I haven’t heard a one of you come up with a better idea. Personally I don’t give a double-damn whether any women move here or not.” He waited a beat, then added, “But Cody’s right when he says it’ll take women to grow our town.” He clapped a hand on Cody’s shoulder in a show of support. “I, for one, stand behind him on this plan of his to advertise for women, and I hope all of you will do the same.”

What no one in the room realized was that the reporter from the county newspaper was busily scrawling notes on a steno pad, recording Cody Fipes’s plan to save Temptation right along with Harley Kerr’s endorsement of the plan. When the weekly issue was delivered to its subscribers on Wednesday, the entire county would read about the meeting in the small town of Temptation, Texas, whose population had dwindled to a depressing 978, and Cody Fipes’s suggestion for how to save it. By Thursday, the AP service would have picked up the story and carried it nationwide.

By Friday afternoon, news trucks and vans would line the narrow main street that marked the town of Temptation, their cameras rolling, hoping to capitalize on this story of the town who hoped to save itself by advertising for women.

Within forty-eight hours, single women from all fifty states would be gossiping—and maybe dreaming a little—about the small Texas town of Temptation where the men outnumbered the women eight to one.


One

Houston, Texas

A television sat on the apartment’s breakfast bar, its volume muted, while a suited anchorman on the screen droned out the six-o’clock news. Across the narrow dining room, Mary Claire Reynolds sat at her kitchen table, cradling her sleeping eight-year-old son, Jimmy, against her breasts. Her chin rested on top of his head while hot guilty tears streaked down her cheeks and dripped onto the boy’s red hair, the same unique shade as her own.

With Jimmy sitting in profile on his mother’s lap, his bruised cheek and split lip were visible to the two women sitting on the opposite side of the table. They had arrived as soon as they’d heard the news of the boy being attacked, offering, as they had so many times in the past, support and comfort.

Leighanna exchanged a concerned look with Reggie, then leaned across the table to lay a comforting hand on Mary Claire’s arm. “It’s not your fault,” she murmured softly. “You mustn’t blame yourself.”

Mary Claire caught her lower lip between her teeth, trying to hold back the strangled sob that burned in her throat, and tightened her arms around Jimmy. “It is,” she said, unable to stop the hot angry tears that streaked down her face. “If I’d been home, this never would have happened.” She cupped a hand on her son’s tousled hair as if at this late date she could protect him from the fists of the gang of boys who’d attacked him. Her hand inadvertently touched the bruise on his cheek, and he roused and tried to pull from her arms. She hugged him tighter, rocking slowly back and forth, murmuring to him to soothe him back into a restful sleep.

When he had settled again, she pressed her lips to his head. “I never should’ve divorced Pete,” she murmured with regret. “I should’ve listened to my mother and simply looked the other way when he strayed.”

Reggie straightened, a look of shock on her face. “Mary Claire, you don’t mean that!”

“I do mean it,” she said fiercely. “If I’d stayed, I wouldn’t have been working. I’d have been at home with my children where I belong.”

“You were miserable married to Pete Reynolds,” Reggie reminded her. “He was a two-timing snake.”

Mary Claire lifted her tearstained face. “But we were safe. I’d gladly sacrifice my pride for my children’s safety.”

“What about the children’s happiness?” Reggie asked. “Would you sacrifice that, as well?”

Mary Claire closed her eyes against the painful reminder.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Reggie persisted. “The kids are happier now than they were when you and Pete were married. He never spent time with them. He was always too consumed with his job and chasing skirts. And when he was home, all the two of you did was fight.”

“But my children were safe,” Mary Claire insisted. “And I was at home with them to see that they stayed that way.” She pressed her lips to the top of Jimmy’s head again, then propped her chin there and turned her teary gaze on the television screen. Suddenly she stiffened, her eyes widening. “Leighanna! Quick!” she cried. “Turn up the volume on the television!”

Startled, Leighanna twisted in her chair and stretched to adjust the volume. On the screen a reporter stood in front of a sign that read Temptation, Texas, Population 978.

“Temptation? Isn’t that where your aunt Harriet lived?” Leighanna asked in surprise. Mary Claire nodded but quickly shushed Leighanna with a wave of her hand, her gaze riveted on the screen.

“...and while other small rural towns around the state and around the country are slowly losing their residents to the economic pull of larger cities, Temptation, Texas, has devised a plan to save their town.” The camera panned, taking in the sleepy community of Temptation.

Mary Claire felt her throat tighten at the sight of the town, remembering the lazy summers she’d spent there visiting her aunt Harriet. Things hadn’t changed much through the years. Temptation still looked like a Norman Rockwell painting.

An American flag still flew above the roof of Carter’s Mercantile, which served double duty as the town’s post office and only grocery store. A red-and-white-striped pole turned slowly in front of the barbershop while a dog napped on the sidewalk in front of the open door. The only movement that broke the solitude came in the form of a dust-covered pickup truck as it chugged down the street.

“That’s it,” Mary Claire whispered. The tears were gone and her eyes now glowed with newfound hope. “Temptation. We’ll move to Temptation.”

Leighanna turned to stare at her friend. “Temptation?” she repeated in disbelief.

“Yes, Temptation,” Mary Claire repeated firmly.

“Do you know anyone there?”

Mary Claire shook her head. “Just Uncle Bert and Aunt Harriet. But of course they’re gone now.”

“Oh, Mary Claire,” Leighanna cried, “you can’t just up and move somewhere where you don’t know a living soul! Temptation’s a small town. Why, there are more people living in a city block of Houston than live in that entire community.”

“Exactly.”

“But where will you live?” Leighanna asked, trying to keep the growing panic from her voice. “Where will you work? The reporter said the economy is drying up.”

Mary Claire kept her gaze on the screen. “I have my aunt Harriet’s house. There’s a renter living there now, but I’ll just tell him he has to move. As for work, I’ll find something.”

Knowing she was no match for Mary Claire’s stubbornness once she set her mind on something, Leighanna turned to Reggie for help. Of the two, Reggie was the more sensible and the only one whose stubbornness equaled Mary Claire’s. “Reggie, please,” she begged, “see if you can talk some sense into her.” When Reggie continued to stare at the screen, Leighanna gave her friend’s shoulder an impatient shove. “Reggie! Help me out here!”

As if waking from a dream, Reggie turned to look at Leighanna. “What?”

Leighanna let out a huff of breath. “For God’s sake, Reggie! Mary Claire says she’s moving to Temptation. You’ve got to try to talk some sense into her! She won’t listen to me. You heard the reporter. There’s nothing there! The economy has all but dried up.”

Slowly Reggie turned to look at Mary Claire. “You want to move to Temptation?” she asked, her face and voice completely stripped of emotion.

“Yes. If I have to take in laundry to support myself and my children, I’ll do it. Anything to get us out of Houston and to a safe place.”

Though she would have chosen anywhere else in the world for her friend to move, Reggie, unlike Leighanna, understood Mary Claire’s need to put as much distance as possible between herself and bad memories. She leaned over to cover Mary Claire’s hand with her own. “Then go,” she said, giving her friend’s hand a hard squeeze. “And know that if you ever need anything, whether it’s a shoulder to cry on or a loan to get you by until you’ve found a way to support yourself, all you have to do is call.”

Shocked, Leighanna nearly fell out of her chair.

Mary Claire curled her fingers around Reggie’s hand and squeezed back, tears budding in her eyes. “Thank you, Reggie.” She shifted her gaze to Leighanna, needing and wanting her approval, as well.

Leighanna hesitated only slightly before shifting to add her hand to the two already joined. “Personally I think you’re crazy,” she muttered. “But, like Reggie, I’m here if you need me.”

Temptation, Texas

Harley threw the last feed sack onto the back of his truck, then stripped off his gloves and tucked them into the back pocket of his jeans. Dragging his forearm across his brow, he narrowed an eye at the June sun blazing overhead. It had to be a hundred degrees in the shade and it wasn’t even noon. With a sigh, he caught the shoulder seams of his shirt between thick callused fingers and lifted in an attempt to peel the sweat-soaked fabric off his back. The day was going to be a scorcher, and although he’d been at it since well before six, his work was long from being completed. He still had the feed to unload once he reached his ranch and calves to move from one pasture to another.

On another sigh, he reached for the tailgate and started to lift, but stopped when he heard a whimpering sound coming from somewhere behind him. He turned slowly and let the tailgate fall back open when he saw a little girl, no more than five years old, limp ing barefoot and sniffling down the sidewalk toward him. He didn’t recognize her, but that didn’t surprise him. Ever since his old buddy, Cody Fipes, had proposed that Temptation advertise for women, the town had been overrun with strangers. He looked left and right but didn’t see another soul in sight to help the child.

In the way of small-town chivalry, he hopped up the step that led to the feed store and met her on the sidewalk, prepared to offer a helping hand. “Hey, there, sweetheart,” he said, dropping to one knee in front of her. “What’s wrong?”

She hiccuped once, then lifted her face, tears dripping off her chin. “I got a sticker in my foot,” she sobbed.

“Well, here, let’s have a look-see,” Harley said gently.

She laid her hand on his sleeve for balance, her touch as light as a butterfly, then lifted her knee. Though he strained, Harley’s size prevented him from being able to stoop over far enough to see the bottom of her foot. Needing a better vantage point, he caught her up under the arms and carried her toward his pickup. “Let’s set you up here, sweetheart, so I can have a better look.” He plopped her down on the tailgate and squatted down in front of her, lifting her foot. And there it was, tucked into the tender arch of her foot, a green-and-yellow sticker as big as a tick.

He frowned, knowing it was going to hurt like hell when he pulled the sticker out. “Can you count to three?” he asked.

She sniffled, dragging a hand beneath her nose. “I can count all the way to ten,” she said proudly through her tears.

“Well, you start counting and by the time you get to three I’ll have this old sticker out of your foot.”

“Okay,” she said, then hiccuped again. “One... two...”

Harley gave a quick yank and the sticker came out, along with a startled cry of pain from the little girl.

At that moment and out of nowhere, about sixty pounds of clawing anger slammed into Harley’s back. Startled, he stumbled to his feet, twisting around as he tried to grab ahold of what had hit him. An arm, no thicker than the branch of a willow tree, wound around his neck from behind and clung while a potato-sized fist pummeled his head. He made a grab behind him and within seconds had his hands on the shoulders and was looking into the eyes of a redfaced, redheaded boy who was fighting mad. That he was outsized didn’t seem to matter to the kid. Fists flying, tennis shoes kicking at Harley’s shins, he fought Harley as he screamed, “You let my sister go!”

“Now wait a minute,” Harley said in frustration as he tried to keep an arm’s-length hold on the kid while he angled him up against the side of his truck. “I’m not hurting your sister. I’m only—”

Before he could explain himself, Harley was hit again from behind, but this time the body that jumped him was a little heavier than the boy he’d just peeled from his back.

“What the hell—?” As he stumbled backward, a pair of legs wrapped themselves around his waist and a pair of arms locked around his neck, cutting off his air supply. A woman screamed at his ear, “Get your sister and run, Jimmy!”

Momentarily blinded by a mane of wild red hair, Harley gasped for breath as he struggled to wedge his fingers between the arms that circled his neck and his collar. When he’d won enough space to give himself some breathing room, he glanced down to see that the boy hadn’t moved an inch but was standing there bugeyed, his mouth hanging open wide enough to catch flies, staring at Harley as if he’d grown horns.

Harley had grown something all right, but it sure as hell wasn’t horns! It was on his back and whoever—or whatever—it was, was going to turn him into a damn eunuch if she didn’t quit kicking.

Having had enough of this craziness, Harley grabbed hold of the arms around his neck and twisted his body around, heaving at the same time, and sent the woman flying over his shoulder to land with a thump on the sidewalk in front of him. He followed her down, pinning her wrists on either side of her head while he straddled her. Startled green eyes stared at him through a tangle of red hair while her mouth moved ineffectively, sucking at air.

He gave her a minute to catch her breath, then regretted the courtesy when she started twisting and thrashing beneath him, still wanting to fight. He stilled her like he would a calf he’d just thrown to brand, squeezing his knees tighter around her chest and strengthening his hold on her wrists. He watched her face redden, her mouth open, felt her chest inflate...and knew she was fixing to let go a scream that would draw half the town.

“Don’t even think it,” he warned as he increased the pressure with his knees.

She clamped her mouth shut but glared at him through narrowed eyes. Her eyes suddenly shifted to something behind him and higher up. “Help me, Sheriff!” she cried desperately. “This man is trying to kill me!”

Harley half turned and muttered a curse when he saw Cody standing behind him. He turned back around, dropping his chin to his chest. He knew he was going to have a hell of a time explaining all this.

Cody hunkered down beside them. “What’s going on here?” he asked in a lazy drawl that was as much a part of him as the star he wore on his chest.

“I wasn’t trying to kill her,” Harley muttered miserably. “I was only trying to protect myself.”

Cody bit back a smile. “Protect yourself, huh?” He shook his head, clearly finding it hard not to laugh as he looked at the slip of a woman Harley held pinned to the sidewalk. “Maybe you’d better let her up, Harley,” Cody suggested reasonably. “I think you’re safe now.”

Harley loosened his grip on the woman’s hands, shifted his weight to his feet and slowly rose, careful not to let go of her until he was clear of danger.

With Harley out of the way, Cody offered the woman a hand and helped her to her feet.

Indignant, she dusted her palms across the seat of a pair of baggy jeans before she pointed a damning finger at Harley. “Sheriff, arrest this man,” she demanded.

“Now wait just a damn minute,” Harley said in growing frustration. “I haven’t committed any crime.”

The woman wheeled on the sheriff, her green eyes blazing. “He tried to abduct my children. He—”

Harley’s temper, slow to rise, suddenly boiled over. “I didn’t try to abduct anybody,” he yelled. “I—”

She spun, bracing her hands at her hips, thrusting her chin at him. “Then why is my daughter in your truck and why did you have my son pinned against its side?”

Harley pressed his lips together, knowing full well how all this must look. And he’d only been trying to do a good deed. He glanced at Cody for help.

But Cody just shrugged. “Maybe you’d better explain, Harley.”

Harley fought back the anger and heaved a deep breath. “I was loading feed on my truck when this little girl here,” he said, gesturing to the child who still sat on his tailgate, “limped by crying. Since there wasn’t anyone around to help her—” he paused long enough to shoot a damning look at the woman who continued to eye him accusingly “—I perched her up there on my tailgate to pull a sticker out of her foot. Before I knew what hit me, this boy here jumped me from the back. I’d no more than pulled him off when this crazy woman jumped me from behind, screaming for the boy to grab his sister and run.”

Cody listened, pursing his lips thoughtfully. The woman, to Harley’s immense pleasure, had paled and was already racing to the back of his pickup. Murmuring softly, she cupped a hand to the little girl’s cheek, thumbed away a lingering tear, then tenderly tipped up her foot.

“It’s okay now, Mama,” the child said cheerfully. “That nice man pulled the sticker out.”

At the tag “nice man,” the woman’s gaze shot to Harley. He drew a great deal of satisfaction in pushing a broad smile across his face as hers turned a deeper shade of red. She let her daughter’s foot down slowly, then picked the child up and shifted her to one hip. She motioned her son to her side. “I’m sorry, Sheriff,” she said, trying valiantly to keep her chin up and her pride in place. “It seems there’s been a mistake.”

Cody looked at her askance. “You don’t want me to arrest him, then?” he asked innocently.

The woman frowned at the laughter in Cody’s eyes. “No. That won’t be necessary.”

She shifted her gaze reluctantly to Harley’s. “Thank you for helping Stephie.” He watched as she struggled to form the apology they both knew was his due. “And I—I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.” He could see that the words had left a sour taste on her tongue, because once she’d offered them, her lips puckered up like she’d taken a bite of an unripened persimmon. She spun around and marched away, still balancing the girl on her hip and holding the boy cinched tight to her side.

Standing alongside Cody, Harley watched the three of them as they crossed the street to a minivan parked in front of Carter’s Mercantile.

“Well,” he said, releasing a pent-up breath, “so much for the role of Good Samaritan.”

Cody chuckled and slapped his old friend on the back. “Helluva way to greet your new neighbors.”

Harley cocked his head to look at Cody in puzzlement. “Neighbors?” he repeated stupidly. “What new neighbors?”

Cody nodded at the woman loading her kids into her van. “That, my friend, is the new resident of the old Beacham place.”

Harley scowled, sure that Cody was pulling his leg. “You know damn good and well that J. C. Vickers leases that place and has ever since Miss Harriet passed on.” Harley knew this better than anyone because he’d been trying to sublease the land surrounding the house from J.C. for more than five years. But J.C. was a stubborn old cuss, and even though he didn’t use the land, he refused to sublease it to Harley. Said he liked his privacy and didn’t want a bunch of bawling cows disturbing his peace and quiet.

Cody nodded sagely, trying hard not to grin. “He did until a couple of weeks ago when Mary Claire Reynolds, Miss Harriet’s niece, gave him notice to pack up and move out.” He chuckled, obviously delighted with the stricken look on Harley’s face. He knew his townspeople’s business as well as he knew his own, and he knew how badly Harley wanted that land.

“You might pay her a visit later on,” Cody suggested, thoughtfully pulling at his chin. “I hear she’s a divorcée from Houston. She might be a bit more reasonable than J.C. was about leasing you that land. Probably would have more use for the money than she would for the pastures.” With a chuckle he slapped his friend on the back. “But you leave those kids of hers alone, you hear? I’d hate to haul you in on kidnapping charges.”

He strode off laughing, leaving Harley standing on the sidewalk in front of the feed store looking as sick as a dog who’d just lost a fight with a skunk.

“You did the right thing, Jimmy,” Mary Claire said as she leaned across the console to give her son a comforting pat on the knee. “You were just trying to protect your little sister. And you did a good job of it, I might add.”

At the praise, Jimmy’s chest swelled with pride. He cut a teasing grin at his mother. “You didn’t do so bad yourself.”

Mary Claire shuddered, remembering the weight and strength of the man who’d held her pinned to the ground. “He was big, wasn’t he?” she asked weakly.

“Bigger than a grizzly bear and twice as mean,” Jimmy confirmed, unaware of the shiver that chased down his mother’s spine,

“I thought he was nice,” Stephie piped in from the back seat.

Mary Claire glanced at her daughter in the rearview mirror. Nice? Not so that Mary Claire had noticed. She was sure she’d be sporting a bruise where her backside had hit the sidewalk when he’d tossed her over his head. But it wouldn’t do to frighten her daughter. She wanted her to feel safe in their new home in Temptation. She smiled weakly at Stephie’s refleetion while she struggled to think of something favorable to say about the man. “It was kind of him to take the sticker out of your foot,” she finally said.

“Wouldn’t have had the darn thing if she’d kept her shoes on like I told her,” Jimmy muttered.

Stephie swelled up in a pout. “Mama said she always ran barefoot when she played here in the summers and that it felt good to feel grass under her feet. I just wanted to see what it felt like.”

“Key word is grass,” Jimmy returned dryly. “There wasn’t nothin’ but weeds and stickers on that playground.”

When Stephie would have continued the argument, Mary Claire interceded. “That’s enough, you two.” She strained to peer through the windshield against the glare of the sun. “Why don’t y’all help me watch for Aunt Harriet’s house?”

“What’s it look like?” Jimmy asked, already scanning ahead.

“A big two-story white house set back from the road with a little white picket fence running around it.”

“Is that it?” Jimmy asked, pointing ahead.

Mary Claire slowed and pulled to the shoulder. From the road, the house her son pointed to was barely visible through the snarl of twisted oaks and thick cedars that grew wild around it. If Jimmy hadn’t spotted it, Mary Claire knew she would have driven right past without even noticing.

But there it was, her aunt Harriet’s house, sitting behind the huge live oak with a trunk so thick that as a child she hadn’t been able to wrap her arms around it. She’d spent summers climbing that tree, playing hide-and-seek with her cousins and chasing fireflies at night around the two-story frame farmhouse shadowed by the tree’s massive branches.

“I believe it is,” she said, her voice almost a whisper as her mind slowly registered the changes. When Aunt Harriet and Uncle Bert had been alive, the trees had been carefully pruned and the lawn carpeted with green saint augustine grass. The beds surrounding the wraparound front porch had been filled with a profusion of flowers and shrubs, her aunt Harriet’s pride and joy. The place was nothing at all like it looked now.

Mary Claire made the turn onto the drive, emotion clotting in her throat, wondering what Aunt Harriet would say if she saw her home now and feeling guilty that she hadn’t taken a more active role in managing her inheritance—the inheritance that had enabled her to make the move from Houston.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Jimmy said, his wrinkled nose pressed against the side window as the house came into full view.

Mary Claire forced a smile, pushing back her guilt and her own uncertainties as she parked the minivan beside the sagging gate of the white picket fence. “Yep! This is it. Our new home. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Jimmy twisted his head around to look at her, his lip curling in disgust. “If you say so,” he muttered and kicked open his door.

A shy finger from the back seat tapped Mary Claire on the shoulder. “I think it’s pretty, Mama,” Stephie murmured encouragingly.

Tears burning in her eyes, Mary Claire patted the tiny hand on her shoulder as she stared at peeling paint, broken windows and five years’ worth of weeds. “Thanks, Stephie.” She sniffed and lifted her chin. “It’ll be even prettier when we get it cleaned up. You’ll see.” She took a fortifying breath, “Well, let’s check out the inside.”

The key she carried in her purse wasn’t needed, as the front door stood partially open. Hesitantly Mary Claire stepped across the threshold with her children pressed at her back. If possible, the inside of the house was worse than the outside. Trash littered the entry-hall floor, wallpaper sagged in faded strips from the wall running along the staircase, and the smell of mildew and weeks-old garbage nearly stole her breath. Silently cursing J. C. Vickers, her former tenant, for not taking better care of the place, she slowly wove her way to the kitchen.

With each step, her spirits sagged lower and her excitement in moving her children to Temptation and the house her aunt Harriet had left her grew a little dimmer.

It just needs a good cleaning, she told herself, and started rolling up her sleeves.

“Okay, you two,” she told her wary-eyed children. “Go out to the van and start hauling in all the cleaning supplies we bought in town.” When they’d turned to do her bidding, she started throwing windows open. Once she had fresh air circulating, she twisted on the faucet at the kitchen sink and murmured a silent prayer of thanks when a spray of clean tap water hit the bottom of the chipped porcelain sink.

At least the well hadn’t run dry.

Harley stood with his arms draped across the top of a fence post on the back side of his land, staring off across the acreage that separated his ranch from the Beacham homestead while his horse grazed a few steps away. Mentally, he assessed the repairs that would need to be made before he could move his livestock onto the neighboring pastures. The fence was down in a couple of places, the barbed wire dragged low by choking vines and overgrown vegetation. He’d need to add a gate between his land and theirs, he decided, for ease in rotating the cattle from his place to theirs. Plus, he’d need to hook up his brush hog to his tractor to clear out the cedars that had sprung up here and there. Maybe he’d even run a new line of fence, he thought, cutting the large acreage into two pastures. He’d need it if cattle prices didn’t go up soon. Either way, though, he needed that land.

Which brought to mind the new owner.

He shifted his gaze to the two-story house in the distance where sunlight glinted off the old tin roof. On the drive beside the house, a minivan sat parked, its doors gaping wide. Looking like ants from this distance, the two kids who’d caused him so much grief in town scurried back and forth from the vehicle to the house, loaded down with boxes.

As he watched, the kitchen door swung open, and the Reynolds woman herself stepped out onto the narrow porch, stooped by the weight of the five-gallon bucket she carried. Straining, she lifted and swung, sending a spray of murky water to wet the weeds growing beyond the porch steps. She took a step back, hooking the handle of the empty bucket over one arm and paused to wipe the back of her hand across her brow. With her arm raised high like that, the knot she’d tied in her white shirt lifted and snagged against her breasts while her baggy jeans dipped below her navel to ride low on her hips.

And Harley couldn’t make the muscles in his throat move enough to swallow.

He was too far away to get the full effect, but he remembered well the feel and shape of the woman he’d held prisoner beneath him only hours before. Slim-hipped, full-breasted, long-limbed. He’d been too damn mad to fully appreciate her figure at the time, but the memory was there now to tease him.

He blew out a shaky breath. A divorcée. Cody had said. Harley quickly shook away the distracting thought that formed in his head. Didn’t matter, he told himself. All he wanted from her was her land. Catching the reins of his horse, he swung up into the saddle and looked back at the Beacham place just in time to see the screen door slam shut behind her.

He’d give her a day or two to settle in, he told himself, then he’d pay her a call. She’d probably jump at the chance to lease him the land. He bit back a grin. More than likely, being a city girl, she wouldn’t have a clue to the value and he could lease it from her for a song.

That thought kept a smile on his face as he rode back across his land toward home.

It took more than a couple of days for Harley to get around to calling on Mary Claire. More like two weeks. He kept telling himself he was too busy to bother with it, but he knew in his heart he was just plain scared to face her again. Telling himself he didn’t have anything to feel guilty about didn’t help, because he couldn’t quite shake the memory of her lying on the ground beneath him, struggling, her eyes wide with fear, pinned by his greater strength and weight. A gentle man by nature, it shamed him to think he’d handled a woman in such a rough way.

But he needed that land, he told himself as he finally made the drive to the Beacham place. And if it meant confronting the Reynolds woman and his shame to get it, he would. He parked alongside the picket fence and frowned at the closed but sagging gate. From the direction of the house came the sound of blaring rock music. Hooking a hand on the top rail, he avoided the broken gate and swung himself over the short fence. He strode down the winding, weedchoked brick walk, determined to get this business behind him.

Harley took the three steps that led to the porch of the Beacham home at a lope, then nearly fell right back down them when his gaze slammed into the backside of Mary Claire Reynolds herself. She stood on the fourth rung of a stepladder, bent at the waist, scrubbing at the front windows. Covered by a pair of ragged-hemmed cutoffs, the cheeks of her butt did a game of now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t as she moved her hips in time with the beat of the music. Legs that seemed to go on forever pressed against the ladder as she leaned toward the windows...and he couldn’t help but remember the feel of those legs wrapped around his waist.

Not liking the direction of his thoughts, Harley swallowed hard, then cleared his throat. “Ms. Reynolds?” he called. When she didn’t respond, he raised his voice to be heard over the blasting rock music. “Ms. Reynolds!”

Startled, she jerked at the sound of his voice, then grabbed at the top of the ladder to keep from tumbling backward. Moving quickly, Harley lunged, grabbing her at the waist and hauling her to safety.

Momentarily stunned, she could only stare up into the face of the man who held her. Blue eyes, dark complexion, thick mustache and bushy brows. It took only a moment before recognition dawned. She pushed against his chest, her green eyes snapping. “Get your hands off me!”

Embarrassed to realize that his hands still circled her waist, Harley dropped them to his sides and took a cautious step back. “Sorry. I thought you were going to fall.”

“I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t scared the life out of me.” She let out a huff, tugging her T-shirt into place, then stooped to switch off the radio that sat beneath the ladder. More a George Strait fan himself, Harley sighed with relief at the silence that followed.

“What do you want?” she asked irritably.

Harley pulled off his hat and pushed his fingers through his hair. This business meeting wasn’t getting off to a very good start. “Well, ma’am, I’ve come to talk to you about leasing your land.”

Her head shot up, an eyebrow raised appraisingly. “And what need do you have for my land?”

“I’d like to run some cattle on it, if you’re of a mind to lease it.”

Mary Claire wiped her hands on the back of her cutoffs, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. “I hadn’t thought about leasing,” she said thoughtfully.

“Were you planning on using the land yourself?”

“No,” she replied slowly.

“Then perhaps you’d be willing to lease it to me.” He waited a beat, then added, “Seems a waste to let the land sit idle when it could be generating income for you.”

He saw the gleam of interest in her eyes before she covered it with a frown. “Who said I needed income?”

Taken aback, Harley looked at her in surprise. “Well, nobody did,” he said. “Just seems foolish to let good land go unused.”

Mary Claire continued to frown at him, her green eyes narrowed to suspicious slits.

Harley heaved a sigh. “I can see you’re not interested. Sorry to have bothered you.”

He started to turn away, but Mary Claire’s voice stopped him before he’d taken a full step. “I didn’t say I wasn’t interested. I just hadn’t considered the possibility of leasing the land before.”

Harley turned back. “Then you’ll lease it to me?”

Mary Claire’s frown deepened. She wasn’t sure she wanted to do business with this man. First impressions were important to her, and her first impression of this guy had been anything but pleasant. The bruise he had given her backside was a faded reminder of that first encounter. But money was important. She couldn’t afford to pass up an opportunity to generate income, no matter what the source.

“Depends,” she said, folding her arms beneath her breasts as she studied him. Deciding his offer was worth considering, she motioned for him to follow her. “I was just about to take a break, anyway, so you might as well come inside. We can discuss this over a glass of iced tea.”

Hat in hand, Harley followed her into the house and down the hall to the kitchen, trying to keep his excitement in rein. It wouldn’t do to let on how badly he needed her land. He looked left and right, wondering at the quiet. “Where are the kids?”

“Upstairs. It’s so hot I made them rest in their rooms for a while. Not that they’re resting,” she added dryly. “Jimmy’s probably playing Nintendo and more than likely Stephie’s knee-deep in dolls.”

Nodding, Harley took a seat at the table she gestured to, then watched in silence as she nabbed two glasses from the cupboards and filled them with ice. She set both on the table, then went back to the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of tea.

Taking the chair opposite him, she filled each glass, then picked hers up. She tipped it in a silent toast and took a long drink. Mesmerized, Harley stared at the smooth column of her throat and the slender fingers that held the glass. On a sigh she set it back on the table and leveled her gaze on his. “How much?”

Giving himself a firm mental shake, Harley blew out a slow breath. He’d already given the price a great deal of thought and named one just short of fair.

Her eyebrows shot up at his offer. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

He leaned back, ready to dicker. “Well,” he said lazily, “the land’s in pretty bad shape. I’ll have to do some clearing before I can run any cattle on it. And the fencing will need some work,” he added with a regretful shake of his head. “It’s down in several places.” He offered her a conciliatory smile. “But don’t you worry. I can take care of that,” he offered as if he was doing her a favor.

“At whose expense?” she asked pointedly.

Harley frowned, then replied, “I suppose I can handle that.”

Mary Claire studied him a minute, then named a new price.

This time it was Harley’s eyebrows that shot up. “Why, that’s highway robbery!” he exclaimed.

Mary Claire leaned back in her chair, smiling smugly. She knew nothing about the value of the land, but judging by the surprised look on his face, it seemed she had been right on target when she’d plucked the sum from thin air. She lifted her tea glass and tapped it against her bottom lip as she studied him over its rim. “You said you wanted the land,” she reminded him.

“W-well, I do,” Harley stammered.

“That’s my best offer. If you’re not interested, I’m sure someone else will pay my price.”

Harley shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He knew for a fact that at least one man would be willing to pay her price. Jack Barlow. And he could just see the smug look on Barlow’s face if he managed to lease the land right out from under Harley’s nose.

Harley huffed, then stood, jamming on his hat. “I’ll pay your price,” he growled.

“And you’ll do the repairs needed?” she asked sweetly.

“Yes, I’ll do the damn repairs.” He strode for the back door, then turned. “But I want a five-year lease,” he added, pointing a finger at her nose. “Or no deal.”

“And whose name do I put on the lease?” she asked, obviously not wanting him to have the last word.

“Harley Kerr,” he snapped, then stepped outside and slammed the door behind him.


Two

“Whatcha doin’?”

Harley glanced up, then straightened when he saw the little Reynolds girl standing on the other side of the fence watching him. He lifted his arm to wipe the sweat off his brow, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. She was a cute little thing with a little button nose and wide innocent blue eyes sparking with curiosity. “Mending fences. What are you doing?” he asked in return.

She dug the toe of her tennis shoe in the ground dejectedly. “Nothin’. Just watchin’ you.” She ambled closer, careful to place her hand between the barbs on the wire as she peered up at him. “Mama said I could watch you work as long as I didn’t get in your way. Am I in your way?”

He chuckled, hunkering down on one knee to put himself at eye level with her. “Now how could you be in my way when you’re on that side of the fence and I’m on this one?”

She screwed up her mouth like she had to think about that, then grinned. “So I can watch?”

“You can even help if you want.”

Her eyes brightened. “I can?”

“You betcha.” He stood and stretched his arms over the top wire. “Grab ahold and I’ll haul you over.”

Her arms laced with his and he lifted her clear of the barbed wire, then set her down at his side. He nodded toward a sack of staples on the ground at his feet. “You can hand me staples as I need them.”

He stooped and picked up his hammer. As he squatted down in front of the post again, he held out a hand, palm up. “Staple, please.”

Smiling proudly, she dug in the sack and dropped a staple on his palm, then watched as he positioned it over the wire. He swung the hammer, quickly burying the staple in the post in two strokes.

“Wow!” she said. “You must be pretty strong to do that.”

Harley shot her a wink. “Strength helps, but a careful aim is just as important.”

“Mama doesn’t aim so good,” she confided. “She smashed her finger a while ago.” She giggled and dipped her hand into the sack again. “She said an ugly word.”

Harley couldn’t help chuckling at the idea of Mary Claire letting loose on a cussword. “I’ve said a few myself when my aim wasn’t right. Hurts like hel—heck.”

Obviously unaware of his slip, Stephie sifted through the nails and let out a long sigh. “Mama and Jimmy are fixing that little fence that goes around our house. I wanted to help, but they said I was too little and would just get in the way.”

Harley heard the disappointment in her voice and remembered a time or two when his own daughter had suffered the frustrations of being too little to do things her brother was allowed to do. The memory made a cloud of sadness drift across his heart. “You’re helping me, though,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, I guess.” She crossed her ankles and sank down cross-legged on the ground, pulling the sack to her lap. She dug out another staple and handed it to Harley. “Do you have any little girls?” she asked, squinting up at him.

Harley froze, his fingers fumbling with the staple he’d just pressed to the post. “One, but she’s not so little anymore,” he murmured. “She’s sixteen.”

“Does she baby-sit? Mama was saying just this morning that she was going to need to find a babysitter for us when she starts working.”

Harley had to close his eyes against the pain. Even after ten years, it still hurt to think about his daughter and son and all that he’d missed in their lives. “I don’t think so, sweetheart. She doesn’t live with me. She lives in San Antonio with her mother.”

“You’re divorced?” she asked, cocking her head.

“Yeah. For about ten years now.”

“My mama and daddy are divorced, too. My daddy lives in Houston, but Mama didn’t want us living there anymore because it’s so dangerous.” She leaned back on her elbows and stretched her legs out, pointing the tips of her tennis shoes toward the sky while she balanced the sack of staples on her stomach. “Jimmy got beat up on his way home from school and Mama cried. She said she couldn’t take it anymore, so she moved us here.”

Harley wanted to ask, “What couldn’t she take anymore? Houston? Jimmy getting beat up? Or living in the same city as her ex-husband?” But he decided it wouldn’t be right to press the child for information. “I’d imagine that’d be tough,” he said vaguely.

Stephie sighed again. “Yeah. I heard my mama’s friends talking, and they said guilt is what drove Mama to move.”

“Guilt?” Harley said before he could stop himself.

“Yeah. When Mama and Daddy were married, she didn’t have to work and she could stay at home with us. She told her friends that if she hadn’t divorced Daddy and had been at home like she was before, Jimmy wouldn’t have gotten beat up.”

Though Harley had his own opinions, bitter as they were, about divorce and its ramifications, he only shook his head. “Some things you just can’t prevent.”

Stephie pressed her lips together and nodded her agreement. “That’s what Mama’s friends said. But Mama wouldn’t listen. So she moved us here to Aunt Harriet’s house so we’ll be safe.” She stared off into the distance at the two-story frame house that was now her home. “Jimmy says our house should be condemned, but Mama says it’ll look prettier when we get it all fixed up.”

Harley followed the line of her gaze, taking in the peeling paint, the rotten boards and the choking weeds. “I’m sure it will,” he murmured, but his mind wasn’t on the condition of the house. He was busy replaying that scene in front of the feed store when he’d peeled the child’s mother off his back—and maybe understanding a little better the reason behind Mary Claire Reynolds’s attack.

“Hi, Mama! I’ve been helping Harley mend fences.”

Mary Claire looked up and saw Stephie skipping across the overgrown lawn. She bit back a groan when she saw that Harley followed a few steps behind.

“You have?” she asked, forcing a smile for Stephie’s benefit.

Stephie skipped to a stop in front of her mother. “Yeah, and he said I was the best help he’d ever had.” Stephie beamed a smile at Harley over her shoulder. “Didn’t you, Harley?”

He stopped behind Stephie, laying a hand on her shoulder, and grinned down at her. “Without a doubt.”

He glanced Mary Claire’s way just as she pushed to her feet, and he had to lock his knees to keep from falling over backward. There ought to be a law, he swore silently. A woman shouldn’t be allowed to walk around half-dressed like that. Wearing the same cutoffs she’d worn the day he’d caught her washing windows, she exposed a mile of tanned shapely legs. To make matters worse, instead of the T-shirt she’d had on then, she now wore a little crop top that barely covered her stomach.

Her mane of red hair was pulled up under a baseball cap whose curved bill shaded her eyes, but he could see the distrust in their green depths as she shifted her gaze to the hand he’d rested on Stephie’s shoulder. From what Stephie had told him, he supposed he could understand her wariness, but he wasn’t about to move his hand. He wasn’t a threat to the little girl, and the woman might as well learn that now.

He tore his gaze from hers, finding it a lot easier on his system to look at the fence than confront all that bare flesh. “Looks like you’ve been doing some fence mending of your own.”

Mary Claire glanced at the distance she’d covered. that morning and let out a weary sigh. “Three hours and less than forty feet. At this rate it’ll take me a year to finish,”

Harley chuckled. “Once you develop a rhythm, the work’ll go faster.” He glanced Jimmy’s way. The boy was busy ripping off rotten boards with a crowbar. “Appears you’ve got some pretty good help of your own.”

Mary Claire smiled proudly as she looked at her son, knowing she couldn’t have accomplished half of what she’d done without his assistance. “He’s that all right.”

“Could you use some more muscle?” Harley asked, then wondered where the offer had come from. He certainly had enough chores at his own place without taking on Mary Claire’s.

She looked at him in surprise. “Oh, I couldn’t ask you to take time away from your own work to help us.”

“You didn’t ask. I offered.” He gave Stephie’s shoulder a squeeze before he pulled his hammer from the carpenter’s belt strapped low on his hips. “Me and my partner here work pretty cheap.”

Without waiting for a reply, he caught Stephie by the hand, winning a smile from her, and headed down to the next section of fencing. Before Mary Claire could think of an argument, he had Jimmy toting a bundle of new pickets to him and Stephie passing him nails.

Mary Claire knew that inviting Harley to eat lunch with them was the least she could do, considering he had entertained Stephie all morning, then spent another two hours working on her fence. But knowing it and liking it were two entirely different balls of wax. For some reason, the man made her uncomfortable.

With Stephie and Jimmy upstairs washing up, she laid out cold cuts and cheeses on a platter—and kept a watchful eye on Harley as he did his own washing at the kitchen sink.

He stood, one leg cocked, one hip shot higher than the other as he lathered soap between wide tanned hands. She fought back a shudder, remembering all too-well the strength encased in those hands. With his sleeves rolled to his elbows, long ropes of muscles played beneath the healthy smattering of dark hair as he rubbed the lather up one forearm and down the next.

Sunlight gleaming through the window above the sink caught the bubbles that jumped to life from his brisk rubbing and turned them into hundreds of tiny rainbows. Mesmerized by the iridescent bubbles and the sheer manliness of the act, Mary Claire watched in growing fascination as he rotated his arms beneath the water to rinse off the soap. Cupping his hands, he dipped his face low over the sink and splashed water over his face and neck, then growled liked a bear, shaking droplets from his head as he groped blindly for a towel. The feral sound sent a quiver of sensation shooting through Mary Claire’s abdomen.

The cold cuts forgotten, she snagged the towel and pressed it into his hand. The thick terry cloth muffled his thanks as he dragged it down his face, across the back of his neck. He turned, but stilled; his hands locked on the ends of the towel, when he found her watching him.

Something electrical passed between them as their eyes met, something charged with so much force that it shocked every nerve in Harley’s body to life.

Before he could decide whether to stand or run, Mary Claire caught the corner of the towel and wiped at a stray droplet that clung to his mustache, her nervous movements as fleeting as those of a moth at a flame. But the brush of her fingers across his lips did something to his insides, making his heart do a slow somersault while his blood warmed in his veins. It had been a long time since a woman had touched him in such a way. He’d forgotten the tenderness, the comfort rendered in so simple a gesture.

On a sigh, he closed his eyes and caught her wrist in his hand. He held her palm against his cheek, absorbing the softness of her skin against his. Slowly, the thundering of her pulse trapped beneath his fingers registered in his muddled mind. Opening his eyes, his gaze settled on lips slightly parted and eyes filled with... Was it longing? Drawn by that look, he gathered her fingers in his and pressed them to his lips. He watched as her eyes widened, then darkened to a smoldering green, and his lungs burned with the need to pull her into his arms.

“Hey! What’s for lunch!” Stephie called as she skipped into the kitchen.

At the sound of Stephie’s voice, Harley dropped Mary Claire’s hand faster than he would a hot branding iron. He tore his gaze from hers and whirled to face the sink once again, his chest heaving as he grabbed for much-needed air. Mary Claire did her own job of covering up their actions by snatching up the platter of cold cuts. But Harley saw the tremble of her fingers on the plate’s edge and knew she was just as shaken as he by what had just transpired between them.

It seemed like an eternity, but he was sure it was only seconds before Mary Claire turned to greet her daughter, a smile on her face. “We’re having sandwiches, and no complaints,” she warned. “It’s too hot to cook.”

Stephie pulled out a chair and plopped into it. “That’s okay. I like sandwiches.” She patted the seat of the chair next to her. “You can sit by me, Harley,” she said shyly.

Harley wasn’t sure how he did it, but somehow he made it to the chair without his knees buckling beneath him.

“How’s your new neighbor getting along?”

Harley hunched his shoulders to his ears, already regretting the impulse to stop at the End of the Road for a beer. He didn’t want to talk about Mary Claire Reynolds. In fact he’d stopped at the bar hoping to drown her image in beer. “How would I know?” he replied sourly.

Cody bit back a smile. “I thought since you’d leased that land of hers, you might’ve seen her around.”

Harley frowned. In a town the size of Temptation, everyone knew everyone else’s business, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out how that bit of news had leaked out so fast. “How’d you know I’d leased the land?”

“June, over at the bank. She said the Reynolds woman made a deposit the other day. A nice fat check written on your account I just put two and two together and figured you’d talked her into that lease.”

Harley twisted his head around just far enough to scowl at Cody. “You’re a genius, Cody. A bona fide genius. It’s no wonder you’re the sheriff.”

Cody laughed good-naturedly and pounded Harley on the back. “Did you hear that, Hank?” he called out to the man behind the bar. “Harley here thinks I’m a genius. I think that calls for a beer.”

“Reason enough for me.” Grinning, Hank stuck a mug under the tap and pulled the lever, then decided, what the hell, and plucked up another to fill. Business was slow in the afternoon, and it was a rare moment when he had the opportunity to share a beer with his two friends. After topping off the mugs, he hooked a finger through both handles and rounded the bar. He slid one in front of Cody before hitching a hip on the nearest stool. He lifted his mug and tapped Cody’s before taking a long drink.

On a satisfied sigh, he set the mug down and leaned around Cody to peer at Harley. “Would you look at that face?” he said to Cody with a woeful shake of his head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the man had woman troubles.”

Harley’s scowl deepened and he snatched up his beer. Hank hooted and gave Cody a poke in the ribs with his elbow. “I believe the man does have woman troubles.” Ready to give his friend a hard time, he puckered his forehead thoughtfully and pulled at his chin. “Now let’s see. Who could it be?” he teased. “Widow Brown,” he decided, while he tried his damnedest to keep a straight face. “She’s had her eye on him for years.”

The widow Brown was pushing eighty and only had about four teeth left in her head, but Cody was enjoying watching Harley squirm, so he decided to play along. “Nah,” he argued. “Widow Brown gave up on Harley years ago. I heard she was flirting with Duffy Smith at bingo last Saturday night. But there is that new neighbor of his,” he said, talking as if Harley weren’t even there. “A divorcée by the name of Mary Claire Reynolds.”

Hank let out a low whistle. “Whooee! That is one fine-looking woman. I saw her the other day over at the Mercantile.” He cupped his hands out in front of his chest. “She’s got boobs out to—”

Harley’s mug hit the bar with a thump, sloshing beer across the scarred wood as he bolted to his feet. “If you two don’t have anything better to do than sit around and gossip like a couple of old ladies,” he growled, “I sure as hell do!” He scraped his hat off the bar, jammed it on his head, then dug a couple of dollars from his pocket and tossed them next to his mug. He stomped out, slamming the door behind him.




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