Tyler

“I do wish you’d let me fix your face and help you buy some new clothes,” Margie grumbled at the breakfast table. She glared at Nell’s usual attire. “And you might as well wear a gunnysack as that old outfit. You’d get just as much notice from the men, anyway.”

“I don’t want the men to notice me,” Nell replied tersely.

“Well, you should,” she said stubbornly. “That incident was a long time ago, Nell,” she added with a fixed stare, “and not really as traumatic as you’ve made it out to be. And don’t argue,” she added when Nell bristled. “You were just a child, at a very impressionable age, and you’d had a crush on Darren. I’m not saying that you invited it, because we both know you didn’t. But it’s time you faced what a relationship really is between a man and a woman. You can’t be a little girl forever.”

“I’m not a little girl,” Nell said through her teeth. She knew her cheeks were scarlet. “And I know what relationships are. I don’t happen to want one.”

“You should. You’re going to wind up an old maid, and it’s a pitiful waste.” Margie folded her arms over the low bodice of her white peasant dress with its graceful flounces and ruffles. “Look, honey,” she began, her voice softening, “I know it was mostly my fault. I’m sorry. But you can’t let it ruin your whole life. You’ve never talked to me or to Bella. I wish you had, because we could have helped you.”

“I don’t need help,” Nell said icily.

“Yes, you do,” Margie persisted. “You’ve got to stop hiding from life—”

“There you are,” Tyler said, interrupting Margie’s tirade. “Your offspring have cornered a bull snake out in the yard. Curt says you won’t mind if he keeps it for a pet.”

Margie looked up, horrified.

Tyler chuckled at the expression on her face. “Okay. I’ll make him turn it loose.” He glanced at Nell, noticing the way she averted her eyes and toyed nervously with her coffee cup. “Some of the guests are going to services. I thought I’d drive them. I’m partial to a good sermon.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Nell said, ignoring Margie’s obvious surprise.

“Did you think I was the walking image of sin?” Tyler asked the prettier woman. “Sorry to put a stick in your spokes, but I’m still just a country boy from Texas, despite the life-style I used to boast.”

“My, my.” Margie shook her head amusedly. “The mind boggles.” She darted a glance at Nell, sitting like a rock. “You ought to take Nell along. She and her hair shirt would probably enjoy it.”

“I don’t wear a hair shirt, and I can drive myself to church later.” Nell got up and left the room, her stiff back saying more than words.

She did go to church, to the late morning service, in a plain gray dress that did nothing for her, with no makeup on and her honey-brown hair in a neat bun. She looked as she lived—plainly. Bella had driven her to town and was going to pick her up when the service was over. It would have been the last straw to go earlier with Tyler’s group, especially after Margie’s infuriating invitation at Tyler’s expense.

So the last person she expected to find waiting for her was Tyler, in a neat gray suit, lounging against the ranch station wagon at the front of the church when services were over.

“Where’s Bella?” Nell asked bluntly.

Tyler raised a dark eyebrow. “Now, now,” he chided gently. “It’s Sunday. And I’d hate to let you walk back to the ranch.”

“Bella was supposed to pick me up,” she said, refusing to move.

“No sense in letting her come all this way when I had to come back to town anyway, was there?” he asked reasonably.

She eyed him warily. “Why did you have to make two trips to town on Sunday?”

“To pick you up, of course. Get in.”

It wasn’t as if she had a choice. He escorted her to the passenger side and put her in like so much laundry, closing the door gently behind her.

“You’re killing my ego,” he remarked as he pulled out onto the road.

Her nervous hands twisted her soft gray leather purse. “You don’t have an ego,” she replied, glancing out at the expanse of open country and jagged mountains.

“Thank you,” he replied, smiling faintly. “That’s the first nice thing you’ve said to me in weeks.”

She let out a quiet breath and stared at the purse in her hands. “I don’t mean to be like this,” she confessed. “It’s just—” her shoulders lifted and fell “—I don’t want you to think that I’m running after you.” She grimaced. “After all, I guess I was pretty obnoxious those first days you were here.”

He pulled the station wagon onto a pasture trail that led beyond a locked gate, and cut off the engine. His green eyes lanced over her while he lit a cigarette with slow, steady hands.

“Okay, let’s put our cards on the table,” he said quietly. “I’m flat busted. I work for your uncle because what I have left in the bank wouldn’t support me for a week, and I can’t save a lot. I’ve got debts that I’m trying to pay off. That makes me a bad prospect for a woman. I’m not looking for involvement….”

She groaned, torn by embarrassment, and fumbled her way out of the car, scarlet with humiliated pride.

He was one step behind, and before she could get away he was in front of her, the threat of his tall, fit body holding her back against the station wagon.

“Please, you don’t have to explain anything to me,” she said brokenly. “I’m sorry, I never meant to—”

“Nell.”

The sound of her name in that deep, slow drawl brought her hurt eyes up to his. Through a mist of gathering tears she saw his face harden, then his eyes begin to glitter again, as they had once before when he’d come close to her.

“You’re all too vulnerable,” he said, and there was something solemn and very adult in his look. “I’m trying to tell you that I never thought you were chasing me. You aren’t the type.”

She could have laughed at that statement. He didn’t know that years ago she’d run shamelessly after Darren McAnders and almost begged for his love. But she didn’t speak. Her eyes fell to the quick rise and fall of his broad chest under the well-fitting suit, and she wondered why he seemed so breathless. Her own breathing was much too quick, because he was close enough that she could feel his warmth, smell the expensive cologne that clung to him.

“I’m nervous around men,” she said without looking up. “You were the first one who ever paid me any real attention. I guess I was so flattered that I went overboard, trying to make you happy here.” She smiled faintly, glancing up and then down again. “But I never really thought it was anything except friendship on your part, you know. I’m not at all like Margie.”

“What do you mean by that crack?” he asked sharply.

She shivered at his tone. “She’s like the people in your world, that’s all. She’s poised and sophisticated and beautiful…”

“There are many different kinds of beauty, Nell,” he said, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it. With surprised pleasure she felt the touch of his lean fingers on her chin as he lifted her face up to his eyes. “It goes a lot deeper than makeup.”

Her lips parted and she found that she couldn’t quite drag her eyes away from his. He was watching her in a way that made her knees weak.

“We’d better go…hadn’t we?” she asked in a husky whisper.

The timbre of her soft voice sent ripples down his spine. He searched her dark eyes slowly, finding secrets there, unvoiced longings. He could almost feel the loneliness in her, the hidden need.

And all at once, he felt a need spark within him to erase that pain from her soft eyes.

He dropped his cigarette absently to the ground and put it out with a sharp movement of his boot. His lean hands slid against her high cheekbones and past her ears.