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  His dark brows snapped together. Not too difficult to figure out what she was thinking. “I’m not going to attack you with them,” he scolded.

  Her brown eyes widened fractionally. “So you say.”

  He shot her a look that told her not to be an idiot, and reverently unwrapped the instruments. He picked up a scalpel and examined it.

  “You didn’t get these from Niebaur.”

  Funny he’d know such a thing, Grace mused nervously. “No. I bought his vet box, but I got these as a gift from my folks when I graduated from vet school.”

  Another little grunt. “They look pretty new.”

  Nastily said, she thought. That cleared her head, got her back up a little. “They’ve been used. I’ve been out of school for almost two years.”

  “Two years, huh?” He put down the set of hide clamps he’d been absently weighing in his hand and looked at her, surprised all over again at how her eyes met level with his. She was slim, but not skinny the way so many tall women tended to be. Nice, wide hips, a nipped-in waist, high, heavy breasts on a gorgeous chest. He glared at her in a rush of lust and annoyance. “This your first practice then?”

  “My first on my own,” she conceded.

  “It’s a big job for a new vet.”

  “I’m not new,” she repeated slowly. “As I said, I’ve been practicing veterinary medicine for two years, mostly large animal work, which is what the bulk of Dr. Niebaur’s practice consists of. I’m good.”

  “I’m not saying you’re not. I’m saying you’re young. What are you, twenty-five? I’m saying this is a big area for one vet, much less one just out of W.A.S.U.”

  Oh, so he knew where she’d studied, did he? Niebaur must have told him. He’d used the slang term for Washington State University, pronounced “wazoo,” where she’d received her veterinary medicine degree. It made her mad, but because she was accustomed to men making her mad, she just smiled.

  “I think I can handle it. And my age is really of no relevance.” He’d underbid her age by a couple years, pleasing her in spite of herself.

  He made a sound with his teeth and cheek, and nodded dubiously.

  Oh, he was hostile, all right. She didn’t know why, but she could guess. Some men, especially these rangy, manly types, automatically went into full browbeat mode the minute they got a look at her. They were used to walking tall in their little towns, and women such as her unmanned them. Well, tough.

  Grace straightened her spine and lifted her chin to give herself every inch and advantage. She watched his Adam’s apple move in his throat as she did. Probably in irritation.

  “You want to see my diploma?” she challenged.

  Daniel almost drooled. Her neck was long, like a swan’s, like Audrey Hepburn’s, for crying out loud. And when she got huffy her shoulders seemed to widen until he wanted to take them between his hands and measure their width, dig his fingers in a little, test their resilience. Lord, she was one long, cool drink of water. He was suddenly parched.

  “No. Niebaur would have been careful with his practice.” He’d wanted to say yes, just to needle her a little.

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, good.” Naturally good-natured and easily mollified, she tried a closemouthed smile on him, a dismissal and peace offering in one. She didn’t like his attitude, but she also wasn’t in any position to alienate a potential client. She couldn’t remember seeing his name on Niebaur’s client list, but he might have a cat he needed spayed someday.

  She looked at his sharp face, his vast size, and decided no. No cats for this one. And certainly not anything spayed. This man would have a dog, a wolfhound or something, blissfully un-neutered so as not to offend his manly sensibilities.

  “I should probably get busy in here, Mr. Cash. If you would excuse me.”

  “It’s Daniel. Where are you living?”

  She stared at him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Where are you living?” he repeated, ignoring her ruffled feathers. He knew he was being rude. He knew why, of course. She was in his building, with the practice that should have been his, would have been his if not for fate and a horrible lie he’d never been able to disprove. What he didn’t know was why he was so reluctant to slink out and leave her to her unpacking. He hoped it was because he was small and petty and bitter, all manageable, if not particularly honorable, emotions. And not because she was just so damn tall and because he could vividly picture where she’d fit if he shoved her up against that newly painted wall she seemed to like and wedged his knee between her thighs. That was not manageable. Not manageable at all.

  “Where am I living?” she echoed. She thought of a million reasons he shouldn’t know, all big-city, woman-alone reasons. But what difference did it make, really? She was this town’s vet now, the only one in a hundred square miles. She’d have to post her home phone and address for her patient’s owners anyway, sooner or later. “I’ve rented a house.”

  “Here in town?”

  “What—what—” Now she was stuttering. Wonderful. She wondered if punching Daniel Cash, landlord and probably Noble County scion, her first day in town would lose her many customers. “Why do you want to know, Mr. Cash?”

  “Daniel.” He corrected her again. “I have some other properties here in town. Just curious.”

  She doubted that. “On Fourth.”

  “Mrs. Hensen’s old house? Did she get those front steps fixed?”

  “I don’t know. Also sight unseen.”

  “You have plans for dinner tonight?”

  She almost laughed. “No.”

  “Want some?”

  Her eyes went wide. “With you? I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  She cocked her head, looked him up and down. She’d been right about the length of his legs, but she ignored the tiny buzz of interest in them. She put her hands on her hips and gave him her most confident glare. “Because you seem a little unbalanced, frankly. What’s the matter with you?”

  He frowned at her. “‘Unbalanced’?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Unbalanced. You nab my box of meds without introducing yourself, play with those surgical instruments like some kind of serial killer, grill me on my credentials and my qualifications and then ask me where I live? Not to mention I met you all of three minutes ago. And I’m supposed to go out to dinner with you?”

  “Oh, I thought you meant unbalanced because I was asking you to dinner.” He flashed a quick grin at her, making that sharp face go gorgeous. “Like maybe you don’t get many dinner invitations.”

  She flushed, because she didn’t, because she knew he was baiting her. “I get thousands. I need to hire a secretary just to handle them all.”

  He gave her the long look this time, his head tilted to match hers. “I’ll bet. So what about it?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He narrowed his eyes on her. She was spoiling his plans. He wanted to know what kind of vet Niebaur had sold his damn practice to, and interrogating her over some fried chicken at the café was as good a way of finding out as any. The fact that he was very nearly aroused to the point of discomfort just standing next to her had nothing to do with it.

  “Just a Welcome-to-Nobel dinner. I can give you my folks’ phone number. They’ll vouch for me.”

  “Parents never know. Besides, I have a million things to do. I haven’t even been to my house yet.”

  “Okay.” He could count on one hand the number of times a woman had turned down a dinner invitation from him. But he supposed a girl such as this, with those legs and that wit and a face like a Klimt painting, was turning them away by the truckload. He shrugged, took one last lingering look at both the legs and the veterinary supplies he wanted to get his hands on. “Welcome to Nobel, anyway, Dr. McKenna. I’ll see you around.”

  “Yes. All right. And thank you for the help. My office will be open for business Monday, if you have animals that need tending.”

  He considered for a moment. “I have a couple. I’l
l be in touch.”

  He pushed out the front door and strode across the street without giving so much as a glance around for potential traffic. Grace watched him go with a dead even mix of relief and disappointment.

  He’d pronounced it “noble,” the name of his town. She’d been calling it “no-bell,” like the prize. She’d remember that. It was always important, when you were doomed to make a bad first impression, to remember what you could to make a decent second one.

  Chapter 2

  He walked into his mother’s kitchen late in the afternoon, not surprised to find it empty. Ever since he and his brother had taken over the running of the family cattle ranch at the base of the hills that shadowed Nobel, his mother and father had run amok.

  He poked his head into the refrigerator, looking for a little fuel to keep him until dinner, an hour away and nothing much to look forward to anyhow, since he’d be having it alone.

  “Mom?” he shouted, just to give general warning he was here and in her refrigerator. “Dad?”

  They were probably out playing an afternoon rubber of bridge or something equally goofy and unproductive. They seemed to have taken to the goofy and unproductive since they retired, and he couldn’t have been happier for them. They’d worked like dogs every minute he’d known them, with the cattle and the hay and the occasional field of potatoes or sweet corn or wheat when the futures looked good. Had worked even harder to help him through college and then vet school. They deserved a break. He was more than happy to give it to them.

  He pulled out a beer, twisted off the top, pinched the cap between his thumb and middle finger and flicked it across the kitchen, where it rebounded off the wall and landed in the trash.

  Of course, he’d planned it all differently. They’d have still had their retirement, but Frank would have had the ranch on his own now, with Lisa helping full-time, and he’d have been in that cinder-block building instead of Grace McKenna, living in town with his wife and the life they’d planned together.

  His wife. The phrase left a bitter taste in his mouth and he took a slow pull off his beer to wash it away. Julie had left him to face his disgrace and his failure alone. They’d only been married seven months when his life had started to come apart, so he supposed it was unfair of him to have expected her to ride out the trouble. But he had expected it. And he’d found, during the three years since she’d left, that it was as hard to forgive her betrayal as it was to face his own failure.

  Today, standing in the office he’d always thought would someday be his, had brought it all back to him. Not that he ever forgot it, really. It was always there, haunting his days, tainting his nights. But he could back-burner it most of the time. Not today. Not watching Grace McKenna drive through town with his vet box bolted in the back of her truck, opening his office as the official new vet of Nobel County, Idaho.

  He didn’t blame the woman for having his life. That would be deranged and foolish. He didn’t blame her.

  He leaned back against the kitchen counter, his mossy eyes going dark and flat. Oh, hell, he blamed her a little.

  Grace McKenna. Damn her. He took a long swallow of beer, his head tipped back. He wondered if when her mama named her she knew she’d grow into the kind of woman who needed a bigger name. Grace was a name for a petite blond woman with tiny feet and dainty hands. A blue-eyes belle, who never did anything nastier with those hands than pour afternoon tea for her garden club.

  He could think of a dozen better names for Grace McKenna. Strong, mythic names, such as Hera, Diana, Minerva. He smirked into his beer. Okay, not Minerva. But a name for a woman with power and height, and that cap of dark curly hair that looked so soft, as though it belonged on a baby.

  He knew what Grace McKenna did with her hands. For nearly twenty years he’d trained to do the same thing. She pushed her hands into the back ends of sick or pregnant cattle. She made stud colts into geldings. He’d bet she did not belong to a garden club or pour tea for anyone.

  Quite suddenly and against his will, he started to wonder what else Grace McKenna might be capable of doing with those hands. More than a few ideas popped up in full color right in front of his glassy eyes.

  He dug his thumb and forefinger into his eye sockets. Oh, jeez, where had that stuff come from? The last thing he needed was to start his feeble mind down that particular road with this particular woman.

  “Danny!”

  He jumped and almost bobbled his beer, feeling as if his mother had caught him looking at dirty pictures up in his room. Again.

  “Mom!” He gave her a kiss as she went past, her hands full of grocery bags. “Any more outside?”

  “Your dad’s getting them, sugar. What are you doing here?”

  What was he doing here? He’d been pissed off and feeling sorry for himself all day, ever since he’d awakened and realized this was the day the new vet came to town. He’d tried to fight it out with the person in question, then tried to sweat it out all day working the herd. Neither tack had taken. Now he wanted a little comfort. And this was the place he’d always come for that.

  “Nothing. Just checking in on you guys. Wanted to make sure you hadn’t taken up golf yet or anything.”

  His mother laughed. “Not yet. Put them on the counter, Howard.”

  Daniel’s father came in, loaded down. “I know where to put groceries, Liz. I’ve been bringing in your groceries for a hundred years. Hi, Danny.”

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You know, I could name fifty people right now who would kill to get a visit from their son.”

  “Not a son who drinks the good beer.” He pulled one out for himself. “I keep the cheap stuff in the can for you and Frank.”

  Daniel grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Do that. You see the new vet?”

  Daniel’s green eyes went flat again. “Yeah, I saw her.”

  “Figured you had. Just saw Pat down to the grocery store and he said you’d been staring out the window of the Early Bird for pert near an hour this morning before she showed up.”

  Daniel moved his ax-handle shoulders. “I just wanted to make sure she got settled in.”

  Howard tossed his wife a glance. “Right. Did she?”

  “She was getting there. She already had Doc Niebaur’s vet box bolted into the back of her truck, but she hadn’t even been to her new house, so I guess she’s got her priorities set.” He took another slug of beer, to wash the acid taste of animosity down his throat.

  “Where’s she living?”

  “The little house of Fourth. The one I tried to buy from Mrs. Hensen last year.”

  “I hope she fixed that front stoop, the old skinflint.”

  “She did. I went by to check on it.”

  Howard and his wife exchanged another apprehensive look. Daniel watched his father take in a deep breath, knew from experience a lecture was coming. “Now, son—” he began.

  Daniel warded him off with a raised hand. “It’s okay, Dad. I was just being neighborly.” They were both looking at him, his father’s arm slung across his mother’s plump shoulders, united in their love and concern for him. He smiled. “Really. She seems like a nice person. I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to go through her front porch on her first day, is all.”

  His mother eyed him. “Sugar, I think you need to just let the whole thing go.”

  “I know, Mom. I’m getting there.”

  “Well, I hear she’s a big gal,” Howard said his booming voice emphasizing the “big.” “Pat said she was six foot if she was an inch.”

  Daniel smiled. “More like six-two or three. Tall, but not skinny. She looks pretty good, actually.” He took another drink, dropped the bomb. “I asked her out to dinner.”

  His parents goggled at him.

  “Now, honey—” his mother began.

  “Hell, boy—” his father said at the same time.

  Daniel put both hands up this time, the long fingers
of one stretched around the neck of his beer bottle. “She said no anyhow, but I didn’t ask her out because I’m interested in her. She could have been a troll for all I care, or a man. I was just going to grill her about her plans for my practice.”

  “Oh, Danny,” his mother said. She shook her head at him. “It would have been better if you had asked her out because she’s good-looking.”

  He grinned at her, to make that worry line between her brows disappear. Dammit, he hadn’t meant to say “my” practice. It had just slipped out. “I make it a policy to not date women who can take me in an arm wrestle.”

  “Bad policy,” his father said under his breath, making Daniel laugh.

  “I won’t have you harassing the girl,” his mother warned.

  “I wasn’t harassing her. Exactly. Anyway, she caught me at it and made some nasty comment about my mental health.” Which, somehow, had both stung a little and made him want to laugh. He couldn’t figure it. “And she told me she wouldn’t have dinner with me, so I came to ask you guys if you want to go out. My treat. We can call Frank if you want to. Lisa, too, if she’s not doing anything.”

  “I don’t think I can take an evening with Frank tonight,” Liz said, sighing. She put the last of the groceries away. “Besides, we have a canasta game.”

  “Which we can cancel,” Howard countered. “You know I hate to play with the O’Sullivans, anyway. Harry cheats at cards like a lying dog.”

  “Ha,” Liz said. “When it comes to cards, I wouldn’t talk about lying dogs if I were you.”

  “I don’t cheat at cards!”

  “Ha again! I’ve played poker with you, buddy boy. I know a cheater when I see a cheater.”

  “Just at strip poker, Liz.” He leered at her stupidly, making her laugh.

  Daniel smiled, threw his arms around them both. “I’ll get you back in time for your canasta game.” He headed them out the kitchen door. “I’d hate for you to miss anything as goofy as that.”

  Grace’s day had turned out plenty goofy. First of all, there had been people everywhere. Not under her feet exactly, but close enough. They’d started coming by the minute Daniel Cash and his splendid body and Neanderthal brain had loped, flat-footed, back to whatever cave he’d come from.