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  “What does she plan to do?” Cort asked. “Spend her time knitting and reading romance novels?”

  That attitude made Bart want to throw something at him. But it was Mina’s secret, not his.

  “Cooking and homemaking,” Cort muttered. “Who the hell does that anymore? I’ve never dated a woman who wanted to spend any time in a kitchen.”

  “The women you date wouldn’t know what a kitchen was,” Bart teased. “They’re more fit for bedrooms.”

  Cort chuckled. “I guess so. I’ve had my fill of them, though. After a while, they all taste alike, feel alike, sound alike.” He sighed. “I guess I’m jaded.”

  “Too much success too soon in life,” Bart said philosophically.

  “You’re probably right,” Cort admitted. “I grew up rich. My dad taught me that women were a permissible pleasure and I never forgot it. He went through them like a knife through butter, even while our mother was still alive, from what my older brothers said. He went wild after he found our stepmother in bed with his best friend. He said modern women had no morals, no sense of justice, and they only had one use. He taught us what it was.”

  “That’s a shame,” Bart said. “There are some nice women in the world.”

  “Like your friend,” he chided.

  “She’s very nice,” Bart replied. “She isn’t sophisticated or rich or spoiled. She’s just like the girl next door.”

  “Deliver me from that sort,” Cort chuckled. “I have no wish to be herded into marriage because a woman got careless in bed with me.”

  “Practical solution is to carry protection with you.”

  He shrugged. “I used to. But these days the majority of women are on the pill or the shot or whatever the hell they use these days. I never met a single one who wasn’t a fanatic about birth control. They all had careers in mind, even the models.”

  “That was to your advantage.”

  “It was. No worries about unexpected surprises,” he returned. He glanced at Bart. “You really are a Neanderthal, you know.”

  Bart laughed. “I guess so. I’d never fit in those exalted circles you swim in. And honestly, Cort, I wouldn’t want to. I like small-town life. You don’t. We’re worlds apart.”

  “I’d still die for you, cousin,” Cort said gently.

  Bart smiled. “I’d die for you, too.”

  “So much for philosophy. How about a beer and a ball game?”

  “Done!”

  * * *

  BART AND CORT were up very early the day of the production sale. So was Mina, nicely dressed in slacks and boots and a pearly gray sweater with buttons that ran from below her waist up to her throat. They were all buttoned and Cort kept getting uncomfortable urges to unbutton them. She had a nice figure and pert, firm little breasts that made him hungry. It bothered him that he was attracted to her. She was completely the wrong sort of woman for him, and he knew it, but he seemed to have no willpower at all. He couldn’t get the taste of her out of his mind. And always, there was the threat of Jake McGuire. The man wasn’t as rich as Cort, but Mina wouldn’t know that.

  He noticed that she was shy with the out-of-town buyers. Bart was staying close to her, but as more people came in for the sale, she found herself deserted, and with a cattleman she didn’t know who had a roaming eye and, quite suddenly, a roaming hand as he slid his arm around her shoulders.

  Mina had been trying to move away from the visiting cattleman in a nice way, without starting trouble. The man was big and overpowering, like Henry had been. He had the same coloring. She felt isolated and frightened. She should say something about that roaming hand. She already would have, to any other man. This one scared her. Even so, she was girding herself for a confrontation when help came from an unexpected quarter.

  Cort noticed her hunted expression and the cattleman’s unwanted familiarity, and he saw red. He walked up to the cattleman and removed the offending arm before Mina got her mouth open.

  “We’re selling cattle. Not women,” Cort said. He smiled. But it wasn’t a nice smile, and his pale brown eyes had sparks in them.

  The man glared at him. “Isn’t the young lady the one who should be speaking to me if I offended her?” he asked haughtily, his eyes on Cort’s unimpressive cowboy duds.

  Cort cocked his head. His chin lifted. The smile was replaced by a cold glare and glittering eyes. This time, the visiting cattleman got the message and moved off with a huffy sound. He went toward his car instead of the cattle.

  “We’ve lost a sale,” Mina said softly. But she wasn’t complaining. She looked up at Cort with a smile. “Thanks. I was about to protest, but you beat me to it.” She sighed. “He was a pain. But he might have bought one of our bulls.”

  Cort glanced toward the man’s automobile. “Unlikely. He’s driving a three-year-old Lincoln with a bald tire,” he said. “He was wearing a suit off the sale rack at a men’s store and boots he probably got from Walmart. He’d be lucky to afford a steak, much less prime beef like you’re selling here.”

  She was surprised at the way he sized up the other man. She hadn’t noticed those things. Well, she still didn’t know much about fancy clothes or fancy cars.

  “How did you know how old the car was?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “Boss’s foreman drives one just like it,” he said.

  “Oh!” She laughed. “Well, thanks for saving me.”

  “I beat you to it by a few seconds,” he said easily, and he smiled down at her. “I could see the storm clouds gathering on your face.”

  She wrapped her arms around her. “I’m not sure about that,” she confessed. “He looked a lot like Henry,” she added, alluding to her mother’s old boyfriend. “Same build, same coloring... I guess I got inhibited.”

  He felt protective. It wasn’t a feeling he associated with women at all. Not the women in his life, at least.

  “The past doesn’t really die. Even when the main character in a movie advises the heroine to let it,” he added facetiously.

  Mina laughed. “Star Wars,” she said at once.

  He nodded. “I’ve seen both of the new ones. I’m looking forward to the next.”

  “So am I,” she said.

  “We seem to share a common taste for medieval television series and science fiction movies,” he noted.

  She grinned. “I love science fiction. I’m rather fond of war movies, too.”

  “War movies.” He was surprised.

  “But documentaries on the great battles are my favorites,” she sighed. “I love anything on Alexander the Great and Hannibal.”

  He shook his head. “Knitting, romance novels and war. An odd combination of hobbies,” he noted with a smile.

  He didn’t know the half of it. Her memory was full of first-person accounts of some of the bloodiest conflicts in modern knowledge, from men who fought them. And not only soldiers. Her collection of battles included those of men and women from various law enforcement careers.

  “It fascinates me, the innovations men have found to win battles.”

  He nodded. “Me, too.”

  She recalled that he was a combat veteran with some horrible memories. “Sorry,” she said belatedly. “I don’t imagine it’s a pleasant subject to you.”

  He cocked his head. “I don’t like remembering the Middle East,” he returned. “But I’m rather partial to military history.”

  She smiled. “So am I.”

  Bart had noticed the cattleman leaving in a hurry. He finished talking to a potential buyer and came to see what had happened.

  “One of the customers got out of line with Mina,” Cort said quietly. “I sent him on his way.”

  “Good for you,” Bart replied. “That was Myron Settles,” he added. “He’s a second-rate buyer for a feedlot over in Oklahoma. Nobody likes him. Got fresh with Ned Taylor’s wife, and Ned l
aid him out on the ground, over at the stockyards in Billings.” He chuckled. “It was a sensation. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to have made a lasting impression on him,” he added, the smile fading. “Sorry about that, Mina.”

  “It’s okay. We can’t pick and choose buyers,” she added.

  “We’d better circulate. But if you have any more issues...” Bart began.

  “I can handle most of them,” she said with a shy glance at Cort. “This one looked a little too much like Henry. Thanks,” she added, her voice soft as she spoke to Cort. She flushed and turned away before he could answer.

  “Insolent polecat,” Cort muttered after she left, looking toward the highway where the offending buyer had vanished. “He’d have to pay a woman to go to bed with him in the first place. I should have decked him. He frightened Mina.”

  Bart had to hide a smile. It amused him to see his worldly cousin defending the very woman he’d complained about for days on end when he’d first come to Catelow.

  “She likes military history,” Cort mused. “And science fiction movies. She’s a conundrum.”

  “Lots of women like those things,” Bart replied.

  “Not in my world, they don’t,” Cort told him. He shook his head. “I don’t think half the women I’ve dated would even know who Alexander was.”

  “That would be a good guess.”

  “Know any of these other buyers well?” Cort added, glancing around to make sure Mina wasn’t getting hassled.

  “Not all of them,” Bart said.

  “I’ll stroll around and keep an eye on your friend over there. Just in case,” Cort said, and sauntered away, with his hands in his jean pockets.

  Bart just grinned to himself and went to speak to another buyer.

  * * *

  THEY SOLD ALL their combined bull calves. Some of them would be used for breeding. Others would be sent to a feedlot, under contract from a buyer who’d shown up late. Mina was all too aware of Cort’s scrutiny, and grateful for it. He was close by when she spoke to prospective buyers, courteous and friendly, but watchful.

  After the barbecue had been eaten, and the guests were filing out, she paused to thank him.

  “I don’t usually need looking after,” she said, smiling, “but thanks for keeping an eye on me. It’s hard being a woman rancher sometimes.”

  “It’s hard being a male cowboy sometimes,” he teased. “I get my share of propositions and ‘feely’ women.”

  Her lips fell apart. “Really?” she asked, and seemed genuinely curious.

  He chuckled. “You aren’t worldly, are you?” he asked softly.

  A little color heightened her cheekbones. She shrugged self-consciously. “I grew up in Catelow. We’ve got, what, a thousand souls living here? It’s like growing up in a goldfish bowl.” She sighed. “Everybody knew my mother and what she was. But a few people believed the lies she told about me. It’s been hard, from time to time, living down those lies.”

  “My dad’s pretty much the same way,” he said quietly. “He was running around on my mother when she was dying.” His face hardened. “He’s never really stayed with one woman for long.”

  “How old were you when your mother died?” she asked gently.

  “I was five,” he said. “Not really old enough to understand that death was permanent. They said Mom went to live with the angels, and I thought that meant she was coming back to visit.”

  She got a sad picture of his life. He hadn’t really known his mother, but he’d ended up with a stepmother that apparently none of the sons liked, and a father who cheated even on her. “You haven’t had it much better than I did,” she said absently.

  He almost said that wealth made up for some of it, but that would be a mistake. He liked having her think he was just a cowboy. She was the first woman who’d ever liked the man instead of the wallet.

  She wasn’t pretty, but there was a quality about her that drew him, like a moth to a flame. Ida was beautiful and fun and exciting. Mina was quiet and shy, but with hidden depths. He wanted to know what those depths were. She intrigued him.

  “Since you have such a bad opinion of cowboys, I guess you wouldn’t want to date one of us,” he mused, watching the flush on her cheeks grow.

  She drew in a breath. “You asking me out?” she said. It was pure bravado. She was going to cringe into a corner later.

  He chuckled. “Yeah.”

  Her eyes widened. She looked up at him with absolute wonder. “Really?”

  “Why are you so surprised?”

  “Well, I’m not pretty,” she said, stammering. “I’m not rich. I smell like cow manure a lot of the time...”

  He laughed out loud. “You’re describing me, too, except the pretty part,” he returned.

  She grinned. “In that case, yes. I’d go out with you.”

  His heart jumped. He didn’t pause to consider the implications of that reaction. “Great. What do you want to do?”

  “There’s not a lot to do in Catelow,” she began.

  “There is in Lander,” he mused. “There’s a casino. It’s on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Plenty to see and do there, including tours of the area round it. Arts and crafts. Walking trails...”

  “It sounds lovely,” she said. “I’ve never been inside a casino in my life. Although I’d really love to see the reservation.”

  “I read up on it,” he said. And he had, during a business event nearby. “It’s home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes. Lots of history there.”

  “I suppose it’s too early for any of the pow wows,” she said wistfully.

  “Afraid so. They come later in the year.”

  “When?” she asked huskily.

  “Well, tomorrow’s Easter,” he began.

  She nodded. “I go to church on Easter.”

  He didn’t, but he wasn’t going to make an issue of it. “How about next Saturday?” he asked. He hesitated and his face tautened. “If you don’t have anything going with Jake McGuire that day.”

  “I don’t,” she said quickly. It was much later that Jake was flying her to New York, but she wasn’t mentioning that. It was flattering to have Cort pay her any attention at all, especially since it was common knowledge that he was taking Ida Merridan around. “Ida won’t mind...?” she blurted out.

  He chuckled. “We’re friends. Just friends. So. Next Saturday?”

  She grinned. “Okay.”

  “I’ll pick you up about nine in the morning and we’ll make a day of it. How’s that?”

  She just nodded, her face almost glowing with delight. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. No woman had ever looked at him in that particular way. It made him glow inside. He smiled and couldn’t stop.

  “Okay, then. It’s a date.”

  * * *

  “WELL, YOU ARE BEAMING,” Bart teased as she was getting ready to drive home.

  “Your cousin is taking me over to the Wind River Reservation next Saturday,” she said.

  He frowned. “Mina, I don’t want to interfere. But Cort, well, he’s something of a rounder.”

  “I know,” she said gently. She made an awkward gesture with her shoulder. “I know he is. But it’s been so long since...well, I’ve never had a real date.”

  “You went out with Jake McGuire,” he reminded her with a smile. “Twice, in fact.”

  “Yes, but I don’t... I’m not...he isn’t...” She scrambled for words.

  “But you aren’t attracted to Jake, and you are to Cort,” he translated.

  She went scarlet, aware that Cort was glancing in their direction and smiling at her. She was visibly disconcerted.

  “Just take it easy, okay?” he asked, and he smiled. “He’s a good man. But he likes woman a tad too much.”

  She laughed. “I like him a lot. But I’m not blind.”
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  He laughed, too, but without humor. He had to hide how worried he really was. Cort was dangerous to a green girl, and that’s what Mina was. Well, if worse came to worst, at least he’d be there to pick up the pieces.

  * * *

  MINA WENT TO church the next morning and sat next to Bill McAllister and her new full-time hire, Jerry Fender. They stood talking to the minister when she walked out, but they left him to join her as she went to her car.

  “Bart says you’re going to that casino with his cousin next Saturday,” Bill began.

  She flushed and glared at both of them. “I’m twenty-four years old. I’ve only ever really dated one man up until now. Cort isn’t likely to put me out on the side of the road with a note in my mouth and leave me there.”

  Fender sighed. “It’s your life, boss lady,” he said gently. “But the man has a bad reputation locally. Sometimes people who get notorious like that can give you a bad one just by being seen with them.”

  “I don’t believe you two,” she said, exasperated.

  “We worry,” Bill said gently.

  Fender just nodded.

  She glowered. But after a minute, when she realized how genuinely concerned they were, she backed down.

  “I’m not going into any dark rooms with him alone,” she said in a stage whisper. “And I won’t have a single drink in the bar. We’re going to tour the reservation, not participate in any orgies.”

  They laughed. It was outrageous, the way she said it.

  She grinned at them. “But thanks for the concern,” she added, and meant it. “You guys are pretty cool.”

  They thanked her, tipped their hats and went off to Fender’s truck, where his big dog, Sagebrush, was occupying the passenger seat. They spoke for a minute or two before Bill went to his own car. By the time Mina got into her little car, they were both long gone.

  * * *

  SHE DEBATED FOR the rest of the week about her decision to go out with Cort. Yes, he was a rounder. Yes, he was dating a notorious local woman. Yes, it might damage her reputation to be seen with him.