Lauren’s runaway heart stumbled. “N-no!” And she was stammering like a schoolgirl. “Of course not.” It was not a lie; her mind was completely blank. For the moment she could think of nothing but the hypnotic fire of those eyes. And heat-as though she’d ventured too close to an inferno.

Bronco shrugged and looked away. And she could once again feel the air moving through her lungs, sweat welling up in her pores, a cooling breath of wind on her cheeks. Her heartbeat steadied and her brain cleared, and she cursed herself ten different ways for being such an idiot.

Something on your mind? What a question-as if there weren’t at least a dozen things she’d wanted to ask him!

She didn’t know what on earth had gotten into her, to freeze up, fumble around like a tongue-tied child. Especially since even as a child Lauren had never been one to find herself at a loss for words. It was Ethan who had been the shy one-though her little brother had proven to have unexpected reservoirs of courage…

At the very least, she thought with regret, I could have asked him about his mother.

Bronco said no more for a time. He held his head high as he walked and gazed with narrow-eyed intensity across the meadow, but there was a heavy feeling inside him-like a lead weight lying in the pit of his belly. He’d seen the look of fear in her eyes-couldn’t mistake that for anything else.

Seeing that look had shocked him, first because he couldn’t think what he’d done to deserve it. Strange as it might have seemed under the circumstances, he felt un justly accused, not to mention tried and convicted. After he’d bent over backward to go easy on the woman, to help her out, make her as comfortable as he possibly could, given his own impossible situation. What had he done to make her suddenly look at him as if he’d turned into a witch before her eyes?

That was the first reason for the shock Bronco felt when he saw the fear in Lauren Brown’s eyes. The second was the realization that he didn’t like it.

For the rest of the way down the slope to the corrals, he tried to think of something to say to her, some casual conversational tidbit that would restore the broken thread of communication between them. He no longer felt comfortable with her silence. Now it gnawed at him, like a mouse hidden away somewhere inside the walls of his consciousness, doing untold damage while he was helpless to do anything to stop it. But making small talk-if you didn’t count flirting with pretty women-had never been one of Bronco’s talents.

Cochise Red bugled a greeting-or a challenge-as they drew near. The stallion and both mares were standing at the old split-log corral fence in its sun-dappled clearing, like eager children waiting in line at an amusement-park ride, tossing their heads and muttering their impatience at being kept waiting.

Lauren gave a glad little cry when she saw the horses and made a beeline for them, while Bronco went to get the feed bags out of the log storehouse nearby. He watched her without seeming to while he dipped grain from the barrels, pocketed brush and currycomb, looped lead ropes over his shoulder, approving of the quiet way she went to them, her hands reaching through the fence to find the favorite scratching places under their jaws. He liked the gentle way she slid her hands along their necks, massaging beneath the heavy fall of manes-no slapping, he noticed. He liked the way she laughed, unperturbed when the stallion nipped im patiently at her shirtsleeve. Watching all this, Bronco felt the tensions inside him ease, the knots of regret and confusion loosen.

“Here-make yourself useful,” he said, tossing her the brush and currycomb while he went to untie the gate. And he didn’t miss the tiny catch in her breathing when she bent to pick them up out of the dust.

Then he was angry with himself for forgetting about her sores, and angry with himself even more for being angry. What was the big deal? Saddle sores were common as dirt in this part of the country. What was she to him, after all, but a job and a responsibility and an unwanted pain in the neck, one that was threatening the cover it had taken him years to establish? Nobody ever said he had to be so tuned in to her needs that he noticed every little thing. From now on, he promised himself, he was going to quit doing so much thinking about her. He’d try to tune her out-well, at least turn down the volume. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have anything else on his mind.

To Lauren’s way of thinking, there was nothing in this world quite as soothing as grooming horses. She loved the sun burning hot on her shoulders, the busy crunchcrunch-crunch from muzzles buried deep in feed bags, the lazy swish of tails, the feel of firm muscle and warm hide, dust and burrs disappearing and coats turning glossy beneath her fingers, her mind free to wander. Normally she was quite content to go wherever it wanted to take her, and often under those circumstances, problems that had perplexed her found solutions, complicated events got planned, scheduling difficulties ironed themselves out.

Today, though, with all the usual relaxing elements in place, for some reason that liberation didn’t come. Her mind stuck with her with the annoying tenacity of a shy child clinging to its mother’s legs. She blamed this on Bronco.

Of course it was his fault. Impossible to ignore him when he was right there with her every minute, moving around, sometimes within her range of vision, sometimes just beyond it. But in or out of range, she was always aware of him. She could feel him there, sense his every movement. Her body could sense it, too, and responded, whenever he came too close, with all the usual preparations for flight or defense: quickened heartbeat, skin prickles, dry mouth and shallow breathing. Why? It did no good to tell herself there was no danger, that by his own assurances she was safe as houses with Johnny Bronco; her body wouldn’t listen.

Furious at what she considered a double betrayal-a mind that wouldn’t take flight and a body that wouldn’t listen to reason-Lauren worked with even fiercer concentration than usual, brushing the hide of the little gray mare until it gleamed like pewter.

She started on the rangy chestnut mare and was acutely aware when Bronco picked up the currycomb and began working on the animal, too, on the opposite side. To cover her edginess, she scolded the mare roundly for rolling in the dirt, and to her confusion, was both warmed and annoyed when she heard Bronco chuckle. But she wouldn’t meet his eyes across the mare’s sunbaked back. Instead, she leaned over and worked her way down the flanks and across the belly, while her overzealous heart pumped more heat into her cheeks.

Then only the stallion remained. Lauren moved cautiously to the beautiful bay horse’s side, her heart thumping wildly against the walls of her chest. Cochise Red-what a magnificent animal he was. So much power, that incredible vitality. She could feel it surging just beneath that sleek red hide of his. She began to brush it with long smooth strokes, while the stallion whickered his appreciation and turned his head to nibble at her shoulder.

Ever notice how horses do with each other? They just nuzzle with their lips real gently, like this…

The voice was no more than a murmur in her mind, like the lazy hum of a hot summer day, but it seemed to fill her up, blotting out everything else. She was unaware that she’d leaned closer to the stallion’s body until she felt his heat and vitality envelop her. Eyes closed, she moved her hands along his neck, under the fall of mane, and beneath her fingers the warm hide became human skin, copper-brown and slick with sweat, and the coarse black mane cascading over her arms was human hair, a man’s hair, sun-warmed and fragrant with the smell of green herbal soap.

“You about done there?” Bronco stood at the stallion’s shoulder, holding a coil of rope in one hand as he gently scratched under the horse’s jaw with the other.

Lauren nodded, too dazed and dry in the mouth for speech. Keeping her face averted so he wouldn’t see and wonder about her scarlet cheeks, she turned away from the stallion and let the brush drop to the ground beside the corral fence. When she dared to look at the man and horse again, Bronco had tied the lead around the stallion’s neck. He handed her the rope and nudged the gate open with his hip, motioning with his head for her to take the horse on through.

Though he knew it probably wasn’t necessary, Bronco put leads on the two mares, as well. When he came up even with Lauren just as they reached the edge of the meadow, she gave him a quick edgy look. But at least this time he didn’t see any fear in her eyes.

He looked at the sky where the day’s thunderheads were already beginning to gather into billowing white mounds.

“We’ll get ’em watered,” he said, “then turn ’em loose. Let ’em graze awhile.”

He could feel Lauren’s eyes turn toward him. “Won’t they run away?”

He met her glance and smiled. “They’ll run, but how they gonna get away? This whole place is fenced.” All five thousand acres of it. Which had always seemed a shame to Bronco.

“What if you want to catch them?”

He shrugged. “They’ll come to me.” He could feel Lauren looking at him like she found that unbelievable, but it was the simple truth, not bragging. Horses came to him-it was a fact. They always had.

“Gil told me you were the best horse wrangler there ever was,” she said after a moment as if she’d heard his thoughts. “Is that true?”

Again he shrugged. He didn’t consider it a question that needed answering.

They walked a ways in silence, listening to the swish of grass against the legs of their jeans, watching grasshoppers jump up out of their way and go skimming across the meadow ahead of them. Then Lauren said in a musing tone, “Gil told me he hired you after you got…discharged from the service.”