LITMIR.BIZ

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driven the rental, he decided. Instead he’d listened to Jim’s warnings about dirt roads and confusing directions. Now he was beholden to prickly, intriguing Reba Grant in a way he didn’t like.

      “Lucas, you’re going to be real impressed with this place.”

      Jim offered the comment as he climbed into his vehicle. He roared out of the yard and back along the dirt track to the main road while Lucas was still, uncharacteristically, searching for the right reply. He really had no desire to hurt this woman, after the unthinking body blow he’d already delivered.

      “Well, I’d like coffee,” she said, on a slow, stubborn drawl.

      She turned on her heel and stalked toward the house, like a bad-tempered horse. Compared with the women he was used to, she didn’t walk with grace. Her movements were too angular, and too purposeful—blunt body language, surprisingly expressive.

      Attractive, even.

      Behind her, Lucas kept watching, for longer than he should.

      “Sounds good,” he told her.

      “So you’ll have to waste time on the house, after all,” she said sarcastically, over her shoulder.

      “Listen, Ms. Grant—”

      “You probably have no idea how it feels to care about a place like this, right?”

      “No, you’re right, I don’t,” he answered, his voice clipped and tight.

      “You probably think it’s only possible to care about a home with sixteen rooms and fifteen foot ceilings and priceless artwork on the walls.”

      “Actually there’s no home I care about in that way.”

      She stopped, turned fully, and stared at him for a moment. He stared back with narrowed eyes, masking the unexpected vulnerability he felt.

      “Oh, well.” She sounded less defiant now, and her eyes had softened a little, although the words themselves were still an attack. “Maybe over your coffee you can work out the best angle for the wrecking ball, or something.”

      He didn’t trouble to tell her that using a wrecking ball on this place would be like using a stonemason’s hammer on a thumb tack. In fact, they needn’t ’doze it at all. They could haul it to some less desirable position and use it as a bunkhouse for ranch hands or for the house staff Dad and Raine would require when they were in residence.

      Yep, definitely. Ideal. Practical. Inexpensive—it would come right off its footings, and onto a truck. There was no basement.

      Would moving it instead of wrecking it come as good news to Reba, after his initial blunt announcement? Lucas didn’t think so, somehow. This house looked as if it had grown in this spot, like lichen on a rock. She wouldn’t want it moved.

      Ahead of him, she reached the screen door. It opened into a screened-in porch that ran across the house’s narrow front and around to the side. Her backside rocked as she pushed on the door and stepped inside, and he had to pull his gaze away.

      There was something about her. You couldn’t call her pretty. And “beautiful” was such a loaded word. All the women he knew were beautiful. It didn’t fit her, either. But she definitely had something. A current of energy running in her veins, a kind of magnetism, and undeniable strength. Whatever report he gave his father about this place in the end, he knew he wasn’t going to be bored here today.

      Rebecca led him into a big farm kitchen and he saw furniture comfortably worn from use, and huge windows showcasing views of the mountains. On the bench top, a coffeemaker sent out the aroma of ground beans steeped in boiling water. She slung the dark liquid into two mugs like a waitress. She didn’t ask him if he wanted cream or sugar, just raised the waxed carton, the china bowl and her eyebrows.

      He shook his head. “Black, thanks.”

      Was it his imagination, or did she add generous quantities of both cream and sugar to her own mug with a big dollop of attitude at the same time?

      “There you go,” Reba said, as she slid the steaming beverage in Lucas Halliday’s direction.

      She was glad Mom and Dad weren’t here. She squeezed another token smile onto her face, then let it drop as soon as it had fulfilled its contractual obligations. She didn’t want to sell this place.

      If it wasn’t for her mother’s health, and the much easier life Mom would have down in Florida where her sister lived, it wouldn’t be happening. And if Reba hadn’t broken off her long-standing engagement to her ranching neighbor Gordie McConnell two months ago, it wouldn’t be happening, either. She and Gordie could have run the two ranches together, leaving Mom and Dad free to make their move, but she didn’t have the right skills to do it on her own.

      She had known that showing potential buyers around her home would be hard, and she’d dreaded it, but the reality was even harder.

      The reality was Lucas Halliday, corporate wheeler-dealer, heir to the family empire, dressed down in elastic-sided boots, jeans just old enough to fit right and a thin cotton sweater with a designer label subtly emblazoned on the left breast pocket.

      He unsettled her. The way he moved, like a man accustomed to his road through life paying out as smooth as ribbon in front of him. The way he looked.

      He wasn’t conventionally handsome. His top lip was fuller than the lower one, and his prominent cheekbones were slightly uneven. His nose had a bend in it, just below the bridge. His skin was a little rough, as if he’d had trouble with it in his teens. But he had amber brown eyes, a strong chin, hair the color of maple syrup with a handful of Atlantic sand tossed in and a body that could have sold gym equipment to any man in America.

      Let him buy the ranch, if he wanted it. She hoped he would make the decision quickly, and get out of her life, out of her space.

      He seemed to fill it too forcefully.

      After taking a gulp of her coffee, she went through to the cramped room beyond the kitchen that Dad used as an office. She grabbed the pile of papers he had prepared. There were surveyors’ maps of the property, marked with various details, sheets of figures on fodder yields and winter feed requirements and the inventory of farm machinery included in the sale.

      Piling all of it in front of Lucas at the kitchen table where he sat, she said, “Here. Maybe you’d like to take a look at some of this while you drink your coffee. So we don’t waste time.”

      She stressed the word “we” just a little. She could have been out with the hands today, refencing the stackyards or putting out salt. Instead, she had to spend her time with a man who planned to bulldoze her home and didn’t mind telling her so.

      Except that when she’d tried to attack back, she almost thought she’d seen a spark of something softer in him. Understanding. Or even a wistful kind of envy. It sparked an unwilling curiosity inside her, which smoldered slowly, the way a carelessly thrown cigarette butt smoldered in dry summer heat before setting a whole forest on fire.

      He took a mouthful of coffee, which left a film of the thin black liquid glistening on his lower lip. Then he sat back in his chair and twisted a little, to take in the view. He hadn’t looked at the papers she’d given him.

      “This is great,” he said. His big shoulder pushed to within a few inches of her hip. From this angle she could see the way his dark lashes silhouetted against his cheeks.

      “I hope you mean the coffee.” She took a step back, out of his space.

      “Actually I meant the whole—” He stopped.

      She glared at him, silently daring him to mention bulldozers again.

      You want to praise the vista from the windows of a house you’re planning to tear down, Mr. Halliday? I don’t think so!

      “Yes, I mean the coffee,” he agreed. “Great coffee.”

      His mouth closed firmly over the last word.

      No

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