Men to Trust: Boss Man / The Last Good Man in Texas / Lonetree Ranchers: Brant

The older woman sat very still. “Grandchildren. Why…I hadn’t thought…” She glanced at Violet. “Does he want children, then?”

“Of course,” Violet said, smiling.

“He must have changed his mind,” Mrs. Hardy mused to herself.

Violet felt a sinking sensation. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s just something he mentioned that day he came over to talk to me, dear,” she said, sipping more soup. “He said that he’d never have a child.”

Violet felt sick. “Did he?”

Her mother hadn’t noticed Violet’s sudden lack of color and enthusiasm. She was thinking. “Men often think like that, until they have a child. But he was rather emphatic about it, just the same.”

“I wonder why,” Violet murmured aloud, uncomfortable.

Her mother glanced at her worriedly. “You mustn’t let on that I told you,” she said.

“Told me what, Mother?”

Mrs. Hardy grimaced. “Mr. Kemp is a very upright man these days, but he was young and irresponsible once. I’d heard something about the Culbertson girl, from a nurse I know. I asked him about it. He was shocked enough to tell me the truth about her. She was pregnant when she died. It was his child. He hadn’t known about it, although he would have married her sooner if he had. The coroner covered up her pregnancy, to spare her parents the embarrassment. But it affected him terribly. He lost not only his fiancée, but his child as well. He said that just the thought of a child gave him nightmares now, brought it all back to haunt him.”

Violet sat down, hard. It was worse than she’d imagined. Blake didn’t want children. She’d pushed him off balance and they’d had unprotected sex. He was making the best of things, but he’d never said that he loved her and he’d intimated that if she turned up pregnant, they’d have to make arrangements. Could that mean that he didn’t want a child, ever, after what had happened with his fiancée?

She felt sick to her soul. What was she going to do?

“Dear, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Hardy asked with a frown.

Violet forced a smile. “Nothing. I shouldn’t be jealous of a dead woman, should I?” she added, leading her mother right into the false conclusion that she was thinking about Shannon.

Mrs. Hardy relaxed. “Yes, dear. You shouldn’t.”

Violet changed the subject. But she didn’t sleep very much that night. She was sick with worry. How could she have been so blind and stupid? She was going to pay a high price for her one hour of passion. She’d thought it was worth anything at the time. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

She went to work Monday morning with uncertain feelings. She dreaded and anticipated seeing Blake again, both at once. Duke Wright smiled at her as he put her to work on new herd records, and he looked as if he might have known something about her day at Blake Kemp’s house. But he didn’t say anything.

Curt did. He grinned at her as he paused beside her desk. “I hear you were out at Kemp’s place over the weekend,” he murmured.

She gasped. “How…?”

“Jacobsville is a small town,” he said pleasantly. “Kemp’s driveway faces a major highway. Your car would stick out in a parking lot.”

She grimaced. “I didn’t think about that.”

“Stop looking so tragic,” he said gently. “You’re both free and single. Nobody’s going to make snide remarks to either of you about spending an afternoon together. Is it true about the cats?” he added quickly.

“What…about the cats?”

“That they’re so jealous of Kemp that visitors can’t get near him,” he replied.

“They weren’t so bad,” she confided. “Well, I did sort of get scratched by one of them. But it was just a little scratch.”

“The rumor is that the more Kemp likes someone, the worse the cats are,” he told her. “In which case, you’d better wear body armor if you go over there very much.”

“Siamese do tend to be temperamental, I guess,” she said, wondering how many people had seen her car at Kemp’s house.

“We had a dog once that hated Libby’s boyfriend, when she was about fourteen,” he recalled. “The dog sat and growled at him the whole time he was in the house. Then one day the boy brought him a beef bone. The next time he came over, the dog met him at the door and licked him half to death.”

She pursed her lips and smiled mischievously. “I wonder if Siamese like beef bones?”

He chuckled and went on out to work.

Violet had halfway hoped that she might hear from Blake during the day. After all, they’d been lovers. But he didn’t call. It was a disappointment, and her self-confidence took a nosedive. All her hopes began to drown in doubt. She went through her normal routine, answering the phone and taking messages, and typing letters for Duke Wright after he dictated them. It was a normal day. Nothing out of the ordinary. She could have cried.

Once, she almost picked up the phone and called his office. But that would never do. She couldn’t look as if she were chasing him. Perhaps he just needed breathing space, in order to get used to the changed relationship between them. Surely, it was just that.

By the end of the day, she was feeling dismal. She wondered if perhaps Blake had phoned while she was briefly out of the office, because she had to run to town for Duke Wright and pick up a special delivery letter he was expecting, at the post office.

She had the opportunity to ask him as she gathered her purse and sweater to go home. He walked in with a sealed letter that needed a stamp.

“Could you drop that by the post office for me on your way home, Violet?” he asked.

“Certainly.” She put on the stamp and gave him a shy glance. “Uh, there weren’t any, uh, messages for me while I was gone earlier…?” she faltered.

He cocked an eyebrow and grinned. “From your ex-boss, you mean?”

She flushed. “Well…”

“There’s a hard case, if ever there was one,” he said. “You’re taking a chance, Violet. A big one.”

“Sir?”

“We all know you were out at his house,” he replied easily. “News travels like wildfire around here. We’ve heard that those cats don’t like company at all.”

“They’re sort of antagonistic,” she confessed, without mentioning her scratches.

“Kemp took another lawyer home for supper one day and the man had to go to the emergency room. He was allergic to cat scratches.”

She cleared her throat. “They are sort of possessive,” she replied. “But I’m no threat. We’re just friends,” Violet said firmly. “He wanted to introduce me to his cats.”

“That explains everything,” Duke mused, grinning. “It’s the cats who are interested in you, then?”

Curt Collins poked his head in the door, shamelessly eavesdropping. “And of course, Kemp loves his cats, so he brings home strangers that he thinks they’ll like,” he added.

“You two!” Violet exclaimed, laughing at the absurdity of it all. “I’m leaving. See you tomorrow.”

They said their goodbyes and watched her go out the door.

She knew what they meant about the cats.