Harden

by Diana Palmer

Harden lifted an amused eyebrow. “Baby fever. Once Pepi gives birth, he’ll be back to normal.”

  “He paces, he smokes, he worries about something going wrong. What if they don’t recognize labor in time, what if the car won’t start when it’s time to go to the hospital!” He threw up his hands. “It’s enough to put a man off fatherhood.”

  Fatherhood. Harden remembered looking hungrily at Miranda’s waist and wondering how it would feel to father a child. Incredible thought, and he’d never had it before in his life, not even with the one woman he’d loved beyond bearing…or thought he’d loved. He scowled.

  He had a lot of new thoughts and feelings with Miranda. This wouldn’t do. They were strangers. He lived in Texas, she lived in Illinois. There was no future in it, even if she wasn’t still in mourning. He had to bite back a groan.

  “Something’s eating you up,” Evan said perceptively, narrowing one dark eye. “You never talk about things that bother you.”

  “What’s the use? They won’t go away.”

  “No, but bringing them out in the light helps to get them into perspective.” He pursed his lips. “It’s that woman, isn’t it? You saved her, now you feel responsible for her.”

  Harden whirled, his pale blue eyes glaring furiously at the other man.

  Evan held up both hands, grinning. “Okay, I get the message. She was a dish, though. You might try your luck. Donald and Connal and I can talk you through a date…and the other things you don’t know about.”

  Harden sighed. “Will you stop?”

  “It’s no crime to be innocent, even if you are a man,” Evan continued. “We all know you thought about becoming a minister.”

  Harden just shook his head and kept walking. Surely to God, Evan was a case. That assumption irritated him, but he wouldn’t lower himself enough to deny it.

  “No comment?” Evan asked.

  “No comment,” Harden said pleasantly. “Let’s go. The crowd’s already gathering.”

  Despite Harden’s preoccupation with Miranda, the workshop went well. He had a dry wit, which he used to his advantage to keep the audience’s attention while he lectured on the combinations of maternal and carcass breeds that had been so successful back home. Profit was the bottom line in any cattle operation, and the strains he was using in a limited crossbreeding had proven themselves financially.

  But his position on hormone implants wasn’t popular, and had resulted in some hot exchanges with other cattlemen. Cattle at the Tremayne ranch weren’t implanted, and Harden was fervently against the artificial means of beef growth.

  “Damn it, it’s like using steroids on a human,” he argued with the older cattleman. “And we still don’t know the long-range effects of consumption of implanted cattle on human beings!”

  “You’re talking a hell of a financial loss, all the same!” the other argued hotly. “Damn it, man, I’m operating in the red already! Those implants you’re against are the only thing keeping me in business. More weight means more money. That’s how it is!”

  “And what about the countries that won’t import American beef because of the implants?” Harden shot back. “What about moral responsibility for what may prove to be a dangerous and unwarranted risk to public health?”

  “We’re already getting heat for the pesticides we use leaching into the water table,” a deep, familiar voice interrupted. “And I won’t go into environmentalists claiming grazing is responsible for global warming or the animal rights people who think branding our cattle is cruel, or the government bailing out the dairy industry by dumping their tough, used-up cows on the market with our prime beef!”

  That did it. Before Harden could open his mouth, his workshop was shot to hell. He gave up trying to call for order and sat down to drink his coffee.

  Evan sat back down beside him, grinning. “Saved your beans, didn’t I, pard?” he asked.

  Harden gestured toward the crowd. “What about theirs?” he asked, indicating two cattlemen who were shoving each other and red in the face.

  “Their problem, not mine. I just didn’t want to have to save you from a lynch mob. Couldn’t you be a little less opinionated?”

  Harden shrugged. “Not my way.”

  “So I noticed.” Evan stood up. “Well, we might as well go and eat lunch. When we come back we can worry about how to dispose of the carnage.” He grimaced as a blow was struck nearby.

  Harden pursed his lips, his blue eyes narrowing amusedly. “And leave just when things are getting interesting?”

  “No.” Evan stood in front of him. “Now, look here…”

  It didn’t work. Harden walked around him and right into a furious big fist. He returned the punch with a hard laugh and waded right into the melee. Evan sighed. He took off his Stetson and his jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his white cotton shirt and loosened his tie. There was such a thing as family unity.

  Later, after the police came and spoiled all the fun, Harden and Evan had a quiet lunch in their suite while they patched up the cuts.

  “We could have been arrested,” Evan muttered between bites of his sandwiches.

  “No kidding.” Harden swallowed down the last of his coffee and poured another cup from the carafe. He had a bruise on one cheek and another, with a cut, lower on his jaw. Evan had fared almost as badly. Of course, the competition downstairs looked much worse.

  “You had a change of clothes,” Evan muttered, brushing at blood spots on his white shirt. “I have to fly home like this.”

  “The stewardesses will be fascinated by you. You’ll probably have to turn down dates all the way home.”

  Evan brightened. “Think so?”

  “You look wounded and macho,” Harden agreed. “Aren’t women supposed to love that?”

  “I’m not sure. I lost my perspective when they started carrying guns and bodybuilding. I think the ideal these days is a man who can cook and do housework and likes baby-sitting.” He shuddered. “Kids scare me to death!”

  “They wouldn’t if they were your own.”

  Evan sighed, and his dark eyes had a faraway look. “I’m too old to start a family.”

  “My God, you’re barely thirty-four!”

  “Anyway, I’d have to get married first. Nobody wants me.”

  “You scare women,” Harden replied. “You’re the original clown. All smiles and wit. Then something upsets you and you lose your temper and throw somebody over a fence.”

  Evan’s dark eyes narrowed, the real man showing through the facade as he remembered what had prompted that incident. “That yellow-bellied so-and-so put a quirt to my new filly and beat her bloody. He’s damned lucky I didn’t catch him until he got off the property in his truck.”

  “Any of us would have felt that way,” Harden agreed. “But you’re not exactly what you seem to be. I may scare people, but I’m always the same. You’re not.”

  Evan dropped his gaze to his coffee, the smile gone. “I got used to fighting when I was a kid. I had to take care of the rest of you, always picking on guys twice your size.”

  “I know.” Harden smiled involuntarily at the memories. “Don’t think we didn’t appreciate it, either.”

  Evan looked up. “But once I put a man in the hospital, remember? Never realized I’d hit him that hard. I haven’t liked to fight since.”

  “That was an accident,” Harden reminded him. “He fell the wrong way and hit his head. It could have happened to anyone.”

  “I guess. But my size encourages people to try me. Funny thing, it seems to intimidate women.” He shrugged. “I guess I’ll be a bachelor for life.”

  Harden opened his mouth to correct that impression, but the phone rang and claimed his attention. He picked it up and answered, listening with an amused face.

  “Sure. I’ll be down in ten minutes.”

  He hung up. “Imagine that. They want me to do another hour. My audience has been bragging that this was the best workshop they’d ever attended. Not boring, you see.”

 
Evan burst out laughing. “Well, you owe that to me.”

  Harden glared at him. “You can only come back if you promise to keep your mouth shut.”

  “Bull. You enjoyed it.” He stretched hugely. “Anyway, it got your mind off the woman, didn’t it?”

  Harden was actually lost for words. He just stared at the bigger man.

  “It’s the timing, isn’t it?” Evan asked seriously. “She’s newly widowed and you think she’s too susceptible. But if she was in that kind of condition, she sure as hell needs someone.”

  “It’s still the wrong time,” he replied quietly.

  Evan shrugged. “No harm in keeping the door open until it is the right time, is there?” he asked with a grin.

  Harden thought about what Evan had said for the rest of the afternoon, even after the other man had caught his flight back to Jacobsville. No, there wouldn’t really be any harm in keeping his door open. But was it what he wanted? A woman like Miranda wasn’t fit for ranch life, even if he went crazy and got serious about her. She was a city girl from Chicago with a terrible tragedy to put behind her. He was a loner who hated city life and was carrying around his own scars. It would never work.

  But his noble thoughts didn’t spare his body the anguish of remembering how it had been with Miranda that morning, how fiercely his ardor had affected both of them. All that silky softness against him, her warm, sweet mouth begging for his, her arms holding fast. He groaned aloud as he pictured that slender body naked on white sheets. As explosive as the passion between them was, a night with her would surpass his wildest dreams of ecstasy, he knew it would.

  It was the thought of afterward that disturbed him. He might not be able to let her go. That was what stopped him when he placed his hand hesitantly over the telephone and thought about finding her number in the directory and calling her. Once he’d known her intimately, would he be capable of walking away? He stared at the telephone for a long time before he turned away from it and went to bed. No, he told himself. He’d been right in the first place. The timing was all wrong, not only for Miranda, but for himself. He wasn’t ready for any kind of commitment.

  Miranda was thinking the same thing, back at her own apartment house. But she had the number of the Carlton Arms under her nervous fingers. She stared at it while she sat on her sofa in the lonely apartment, and she wanted so badly to phone, to ask for Harden Tremayne, to…

  To what? she asked herself. She knew she’d already been enough trouble to him. But she’d just finished giving her baby furniture to a charity group, and she was sick and depressed. Even though she wasn’t in love with Tim anymore, she grieved for the child she was carrying. It would have been so wonderful to have a baby of her own to love and care for.

  None of which was Harden’s problem. He’d been reluctantly kind, as he would have been to anybody in trouble. He’d said as much. But she was remembering the way they’d kissed each other, and the heat of passion that she’d never felt with anyone else. It made her so hungry. She’d expected love and forever from marriage. She’d had neither. Even sex, so mysterious and complicated, hadn’t been the wonderful experience she’d expected. It had been painful at first, and then just unpleasant. Bells didn’t ring and the earth didn’t move. In fact, she was only just able to admit to herself that she’d never felt any kind of physical attraction to Tim. She’d briefly imagined herself in love with him, but he’d been a stranger when they married. As she lived with him, she began to see the real man under the brash outgoing reporter, and it was a person she didn’t like very much. He was selfish and demanding and totally insensitive.

  Harden didn’t seem to be that kind of man at all. He was caring, even if he was scary and cold on the surface. Underneath, he was a smoldering volcano of emotion and she wanted to dig deeper, to see how consuming a fire they could create together. With him, intimacy would be a wondrous thing. She knew it. Probably he did, too, but he was keeping his distance tonight. Either he wasn’t interested or he thought it was too soon after her loss.

  He was right. It was too soon. She crumpled the piece of paper where she’d written the number of the hotel. She was still grieving and much too vulnerable for a quick love affair, which was probably all he’d be able to offer her. He’d said he was a loner and he didn’t seem in any hurry to marry. He’d been all too eager to get away from her, in fact. She put the paper in the trash can. It was just as well. She’d managed to get through work today without breaking down, and she’d manage the rest of her life the same way. It wasn’t really fair to involve another person in the mess her mind was in.

  She put on her nightgown and climbed under the covers. Finally she slept.

  Chapter 4

  Harden slept badly. When he woke, he only retained images of the torrid dreams that had made him so restless. But a vivid picture of Miranda danced in front of his eyes.

  He was due to go home today. The thought, so pleasantly entertained two days before, was unpalatable today. Texas was a long way from Illinois. He probably wouldn’t see Miranda again.

  He dragged himself out of bed, hitching up the navy-blue pajama trousers that hung low on his narrow hips. He rubbed a careless hand over his broad, hair-matted chest and stared out the window, scowling. Ridiculous, what he was thinking. There were responsibilities at home, and he’d already told himself how impossible it was to entertain ideas about her.

  Impossible. He repeated the word even as he turned and picked up the telephone directory. He didn’t know Miranda’s maiden name, which made phoning her brother to ask where she worked out of the question. His only chance was to call her apartment and catch her before she left.

  He found Tim Warren’s name in the new directory and dialed the number before he could change his mind.

  It rang once. Twice. Three times. He glanced at his watch on the bedside table. Eight o’clock. Perhaps she’d left for work. It rang four times. Then five. With a long sigh, he started to hang it up. Maybe it was fate, he thought with disappointment.

  Then, just as the receiver started down, her soft voice said, “Hello?”

  His hand reversed in midair. “Miranda?” he asked softly.

  Her breath caught audibly. “Harden!” she cried as if she couldn’t believe her ears.

  His chest expanded with involuntary pleasure, because she’d recognized his voice instantly. “Yes,” he replied. “How are you?”

  She sat down, overcome with excited pleasure. “I’m better. Much better, thank you. How are you?”

  “Bruised,” he murmured dryly. “My brother helped me into a free-for-all at the workshop yesterday.”

  “Somebody insulted Texas,” she guessed.

  “Not at all,” he replied. “We were discussing hormone implants and the ecology at the time.”

  “Really?”

  He laughed in spite of himself. “I’ll tell you all about it over lunch.”

  She caught her breath. It was more than she’d dared hope for. “You want to take me to lunch?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, I’d like that,” she said softly.

  He didn’t want to have to admit how much he’d like it himself. He put on his watch. “When should I pick you up? And where?”

  “At eleven-thirty,” she said. “I go early so that we won’t be all out of the office at the same time. It’s in the Brant building. Three blocks north of your hotel.” She gave him directions and the office number. “Can you find it?”

  “I’ll find it.”

  He hung up before she had time to reply. This was stupid, he told himself. But all the same, he had a delicious feeling of anticipation. He phoned the ranch to tell them he wouldn’t be home for another day or two.

  His mother, Theodora, answered the phone. “Harden?” she asked. “The car won’t start.”

  “Did you put it in Park before you tried to start it?” he asked irritably.

  There was a long pause. “Just because I did that once…!” she began defensively.r />
  “Six times.”

  “Whatever. Well, no, actually, I guess it’s in Drive.”

  “Put it in Park and it will start. Is Donald back?”

  “No, he won’t be home until next week.”

  “Then tell Evan he’ll have to manage. I’m going to be delayed for a few days.”

  There was another pause. “Evan’s got a split lip.”

  “I’ve got a black eye. So what? You have to expect a little spirit when you get a roomful of cattlemen.”

  “I do wish you wouldn’t encourage him to get into fights.”

  “For God’s sake, Theodora, he started it!” he raged.

  “Can’t you ever call me Mother?” she asked in an unconsciously wistful tone.

  “Will you give the message to Evan?” he replied stiffly.

  She sighed. “Yes, I’ll tell him. You wouldn’t like to explain what’s going on up there, I suppose?”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “I see. I don’t know why I keep hoping for the impossible from you, Harden,” she said dully. “When I know full well that you’ll never forgive me.”

  Her voice was sad. He felt guilty when he heard that note in her voice. Theodora was flighty, but she had a big heart and a sensitive spirit. Probably he hurt her every time he talked to her.

  “Evan can reach me here at the hotel if he needs me,” he said, refusing to give in to the impulse to talk—to really talk—to her.

  “All right. Goodbye, Son.”

  She hung up and he stared at the receiver, the dial tone loud in his ears. He’d never asked her about his father, or why she hadn’t thought of an abortion when she knew she was carrying him. Certainly it would have made her life easier. He wondered why that thought occurred to him now. He put down the receiver and got dressed.

  At eleven-thirty sharp, he walked into the law office where Miranda worked. He was wearing a tan suit, a subdued striped tie, a pearly Stetson and hand-tooled leather boots. He immediately drew the eyes of every woman in the office, and Miranda got up from her desk self-consciously. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him, either.