LITMIR.BIZ

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hat in one hand, he placed the other under her elbow to escort her out. She gracefully eased away and retrieved her purse from the bottom desk drawer. She settled the strap over her shoulder and slipped the file folder into a soft-sided briefcase. Thus armed, she nodded that she was ready.

      He stepped back and allowed her to precede him out of the office. She told her secretary where they would be and reiterated it to Kurt Peters, another full-time attorney with Baxter Development, when they encountered him in the quiet, cool hallway of the executive floor. With Collin observing every detail of the place, she was suddenly pleased with the show of Baxter wealth. While it didn’t match that of the Kincaids, it wasn’t something to be ignored, either.

      “Shall I join you?” Kurt asked, his light blue eyes expressionless as he glanced at Collin.

      Hope knew Kurt had absorbed her father’s dislike of the Kincaids, which bordered on the obsessive.

      A flicker of guilt shot through her at the disloyal thought. At eighteen, her father had been cheated of his birthright as the promised heir to the Baxter ranch, which was owned by his uncle, Cameron Baxter, at that time.

      Jeremiah Kincaid, former owner of the Kincaid ranch and a cousin to the present Kincaids who were trying to buy the place from Jenny’s trustees, had pulled strings to get the bank notes on the Baxter land called, thus forcing Cameron to sell or go into bankruptcy. Jeremiah had then bought the place for a song.

      “This is a private conversation,” Collin said to Kurt before she could reply, taking her arm again and leading her past the other lawyer.

      “I’ll talk to you later,” she called over her shoulder to Kurt. “Don’t push me around,” she said when she and Collin were out of hearing.

      “I wouldn’t think of it,” he returned smoothly and, opening the door, ushered her out into the August heat.

      At his truck, Collin considered helping Hope inside with the simple expedient of putting his hands on her waist and lifting her, but thought better of it.

      Admiration hit him as she solved the problem of the high step by reaching down and unfastening the bottom button of her dress. Then she grabbed the handhold inside the door, stepped up with her left foot and swung neatly inside, her shapely behind plopping gracefully onto the leather seat.

      His libido stampeded all over his self-control.

      He closed the door and went around to the driver’s side. The heat was suffocating. He cranked up the engine and flipped the air conditioner on high. They were silent on the short drive to the main street of town. He pulled over to the curb on a side street beside the town park. She climbed out before he could get around to help her.

      At the Hip Hop Café, they were directed to a table for two by the window where they could look out on the busy street or beyond to the hilly terrain east of town. Ranchers called out greetings as they wound their way through the busy diner. He noted their quick speculative glances at Hope and their equally quick nods.

      Outsiders were viewed with suspicion in these parts. Her father had been buying up land in the county for years, even before he moved back here, which caused resentment among the old-timers. Collin noted the lift of her chin and the way she smiled at one and all. He mentally grinned. This woman had spirit. She wouldn’t be intimidated by a bunch of clannish ranchers.

      A new waitress had replaced Emma Stover, nee Baxter, who was now his sister-in-law by virtue of marrying Brandon Harper, one of his newly discovered half-brothers. The lives of the Kincaid brothers were getting complicated.

      The Baxters seemed to be at the heart of the complications, largely because of the controversy over the ranch and the lawsuit, which threatened to drag on forever. And of course, there was the matter of the new wives and babies being added to the Kincaid family at an awesome rate.

      He felt a hitch in the vicinity of his heart. His granddad had made it plain that he expected Collin to marry and populate their ranch in Elk Springs, Montana, with a new generation of Kincaids. The sooner, the better. Seeing the domestic bliss of his half brothers brought the same thought to his mind. Now all he needed was a willing woman.

      His gaze was drawn to his companion who was studying the menu with the grave seriousness she apparently brought to everything she did.

      He frowned and peered at the menu he held. Getting mixed up with a woman whose father was a sworn enemy of the family would be stupid beyond belief. But, he had to admit, something about her fascinated him, this beautiful enemy who was as aware of him as he was of her.

      “Are you ready to order?” the pretty young waitress inquired, her pad and pencil ready.

      “Hmm, it’s Tuesday,” he recalled. “The blue plate special is elk hash, isn’t it?”

      “Yes, sir.” She read the day’s special, which was written on a chalkboard near the cash register, as if he couldn’t read or maybe couldn’t see that far.

      He frowned. The young woman evidently thought he was ancient. Catching the brief curving of Hope’s mouth before she sternly disciplined the mirth at his expense, he grinned and winked at her before ordering the special and a glass of raspberry iced tea.

      “I’ll have the same,” she said, handing the menu to the teenage waitress and settling back in the chair, her eyes on the traffic moving slowly along the street. “Superior court is in session,” she noted.

      “Mmm-hmm. I see Judge Kate Randall Walker in a booth with the local psychic. Wonder where Lily Mae Wheeler is. She’s usually holding court here in the Hip Hop at noon everyday.”

      This time Hope did smile. She even laughed, a tiny gurgle of sound that enchanted him. She was a mystery, this woman, one he would like very much to unravel. He backed off from the thought. She had pretty much made it clear that she, like her father, wouldn’t give a Kincaid the time of day if she could avoid it.

      “I’m glad Emma was cleared of that murder charge,” Hope murmured. “It’s so odd to find a new relative, to learn my father and Emma’s mother are first cousins, after all these years of thinking there was no one else.”

      “The notorious Lexine Baxter,” Collin said, referring to Emma’s mother, who evidently killed anyone who stood in the way of her ambitions, including a former partner, a husband, and finally Jeremiah Kincaid, her father-in-law. The woman was now in prison for her crimes.

      A blush highlighted the porcelain skin of his dining companion as if she was embarrassed at the mention of her infamous relative. Collin couldn’t look away.

      Hope Baxter was a natural blonde. Her eyes were large and of a soft blue-gray with a hint of vulnerability buried deep in them that was at odds with her cool, professional manner. Sometimes he thought he detected a hint of sadness in her. It made him wonder about her life.

      With divorced parents and a profligate father he could never depend on, Collin knew how a person’s family could cause wounds that were hard to heal, if they ever did. His grandfather, Garrett Kincaid, had taken him in hand when he was fourteen and probably saved him from a senseless life of dissipation similar to his father’s.

      “Sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to pull your family skeletons out of the closet.”

      “I never knew Lexine. My father never mentioned her. So she doesn’t really seem like family.” She paused and looked troubled. “I would like to know Emma, though. I always wanted a sister. It’s lonely, growing up with no relatives. My father was always so busy—”

      She stopped abruptly, looking surprised and irritated with herself, as if she’d given away family secrets. She was very protective of her father. Collin had seen that in the brief meetings with the older men present, meetings that more than once had ended in anger and a shouting match between her father and his granddad.

      Collin mentally shook his head. He didn’t have much hope of doing any better than his grandfather, but he had promised he would try. If only he could find a way to breach the barriers he sensed in

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