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motel? She flushed a little, embarrassed at the memories that flooded her mind.
She still ached pleasantly from the experience. But perhaps it was different for a man, if he didn't love
a woman he slept with. Connal had wanted her with a raging passion, she couldn't have mistaken that.
But afterward he might have regretted his loss of control, the lapse that had turned an accidental
marriage into a real one. He might be having second thoughts about Edie even now.
He looked odd, too. Very taciturn and quiet. Pepi knew that mood very well. It was the one that caused
the men to keep well away from him, because when he got broody, he got quick-tempered, too. Pepi
hoped he wasn't spoiling for a fight with her.
"I always wanted a sister," Evan murmured dryly. "What I got was Connal and Donald and. . . him," he
shuddered as he glanced at Harden.
Harden kept eating, totally impervious to the insult.
"You won't get through his hide with insults," Theodora told her son. "I tend to think he thrives on
them."
"You should know," Harden told her, his blue eyes as cold as the smile he bent on her.
"Not now," she told him firmly. "We have guests."
"Family," Evan corrected.
"Yours, not mine," Harden said with a pointed glare at his mother. "No offense," he added to Connal.
"You plan to carry the vendetta to your grave, I gather,"
Theodora muttered.
"I've got to get back to work," Harden said, rising. "I'll see you tonight, Connal."
He walked out, lean and lithe and arrow-straight, without a backward glance.
"Now that the company has improved, what do you think of our quaint little place?" Evan asked Pepi.
She replied automatically, her mind on the awkward conversation that had gone before. If this was any
indication of how things were going to go for the duration of her visit, she wasn't at all sure she
wanted to stay.
But it got better, without Harden's difficult presence.
Evan took her in hand before Connal could protest and drove off with her in the ranch Jeep.
"What about Connal. . . ?" she asked uneasily, glancing back to where he stood with Theodora glaring
after them.
"Now, now, all I have in mind is a little brotherly chat,"
Evan replied, and the teasing was abruptly gone. As he glanced at her without smiling, she saw in
Evan the same steely character that had intimidated her first in C.C. and then in Harden.
He pulled the Jeep off on the side of the ranch road when they were out of sight of the house, and cut
the engine.
"Edie called here this morning, looking for Connal," he said without preamble.
"Oh. I see." She studied the broad, leonine features quietly. He and Connal looked alike. Although
Evan's hair was more brown than black, he had the same piercing, unsmiling sternness as his brother.
"I don't think you do," Evan replied. "Edie isn't the kind of woman to take a rebuff lying down. She
didn't believe him when he told her he was married. She thought he was being tricked by a fake
license, and she told me so."
She sighed heavily. "Well, it's easy enough to check, you know," she said.
"Undoubtedly. I did, when Connal showed us the license." He smiled ruefully at her glare. "No
offense, child, but he stands to inherit a hell of a fortune when Mother passes on. He's not exactly a
poverty case now, and I didn't know you from a peanut when he came storming in here waving that
damned license and cursing at the top of his lungs."
"But Connal said it was you who changed his mind about staying married to me," she faltered.
He leaned back against the Jeep door, big and elegant-looking for a cattleman, his Stetson pushed
back over his broad forehead. "Sure I did," he mused. "One of these days I'll let you read what my
private detective said about you.
You're the kind of woman mothers dream about finding for their sons. A walking, talking little elf
with domestic skills and a gentle heart. In this oversexed, undercompassionate generation, you're a
miracle. I told Connal so. Eventually he began to realize that he could do a lot worse."
"I wonder." She sighed.
"Edie doesn't seem to agree, so watch out," he cautioned sternly. "Don't let her spring any surprises on
you.
Forewarned is forearmed, right?"
"Right. Thanks, Evan."
"Connal deserves a little happiness," he said tersely. "He never had much with Marsha, and she
couldn't bear to have him out of her sight five seconds. It's time he stopped beating himself to death."
"I think so, too," she said gently. "I'll take good care of him, Evan." If I get to, she added silently.
He smiled almost tenderly. "I gather that you've been doing that very well for the past three years," he
said, his deep voice warm with affection. "We'd better get back. I thought you ought to know what the
competition was up to so there wouldn't be any unexpected surprises."
"I'll watch my back," she promised.
Evan drove her around the ranch and pointed out herd sires along the way. He seemed to have a
phenomenal memory for their names, because he never seemed to draw a blank. He was in a jovial
mood for the rest of the way home.
But Connal was in a furious one when they got there. He gave his brother a glare that would have
fried a de-fenseless egg, and the one he bent on Pepi made her feel like backing away.
Theodora pretended not to notice the tension. She herded them into her four-by-four and they drove
into Jacobsville to get some more supplies for roundup.
She seemed to know everyone. Pepi lost her nervousness as she was introduced to several people at [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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