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  He waited on the back stoop for her to open the door. “What do you do with this much milk?”

  “Most of it goes back to the animals in their feed,” she admitted. “I churn it for butter, drink some of it, use it in cooking.”

  “One cow would do.”

  “With two cows I get two calves a year that are butchered as yearlings. You had some of the beef in the soup you ate the other day. And this way, if one of the cows dies, I still have milk.” She wrestled the churn out and tied the straining cloth over it. “I don’t guess one cow more or less matters much to you.”

  “Not when I have a couple thousand heads of beef on the range.” He tipped one of the buckets and slowly poured the milk through the straining cloth, then emptied the other bucket.

  Dee picked up the coffeepot and shook it. “There’s more coffee left. Would you like a cup?”

  Lucas was too smart to push her this early in their acquaintance, but being around her was fraying his patience, and he decided not to linger. “Not today. I need to get on to town, then back to the ranch. Thanks for the offer, though.”

  “You’re welcome,” she replied gravely. “And thank you for your help. I promise not to tell anyone you milked my cow.”

  He looked sharply at her, and though her expression was bland he could see a gleam of laughter in her eyes. “You’d better not.”

  She actually smiled then, and his body responded immediately. Damn, she was something when she smiled!

  She walked out on the porch with him and leaned against a post while he returned to the barn, then walked out leading his horse. She watched him mount, noting the play of muscles in his arms and shoulders and the way his pants pulled tight on his buttocks and thighs. The brim of his hat shadowed his face, but she could still see the intense blue of his eyes.

  “See you,” he said, and he rode off without looking back.

  She tried, but she couldn’t stop thinking about him as she went about the rest of her morning chores. She knew plain enough why he’d come over the first time, since he’d been honest about wanting to buy the land, but why had he ridden so far out of his way this morning? At first she had been expecting him to make a grab for her, but he hadn’t said or done anything the least suggestive, and she admitted to herself that she was just a tad disappointed.

  Not that she would have let him kiss her. After all, the man was intending to marry Olivia. But Olivia didn’t want him. Dee knew how much her friend wanted to fall in love and have a family, that she was worried she would never have the chance. And Olivia wasn’t even certain Lucas had any intentions of marrying her. After meeting him the second time Dee was certain that he wasn’t the man for her gentle friend.

  It had been nothing less than the truth that she couldn’t afford for anyone to think she was available, and it was likewise true that she wasn’t interested in marrying anyone. None of that, however, negated a third truth: She was human, and she was a woman. She had liked talking to him this morning, liked his company. He talked to her as an equal, giving her a subtle but delicious sense of freedom because she didn’t have to censor her words or behavior for him. Most men would have strongly disapproved of the things she had said, but Lucas had seemed to enjoy the frankness of their conversation. And despite herself she had responded to him as a woman, her skin growing warmer, her breath coming quicker. If he had reached for her, would she truly have pushed him away? She was honest enough with herself to admit that the temptation was there.

  She was a bit embarrassed by her own duplicity. No matter that she had told him she wasn’t interested in men, no matter that she told herself she neither needed nor wanted his admiration of her as a woman; she was very much aware of him as a man, and it hurt her ego a bit that he didn’t seem the least bit attracted to her. Then again, why should he? He was Lucas Cochran; he could have any single woman in town, and probably quite a few of the married ones. He was not only very good-looking, he was almost overwhelmingly male, tough and strong and sure of himself, mentally as well as physically. She could read plainly in his eyes that he could be ruthless, and that a person had to be either reckless or a fool to stand in his way.

  She, on the other hand, wasn’t anything special. She saw it in her mirror every morning when she washed her face. She was a woman who worked hard, and who was more inclined to spend any extra money on books than to buy clothes or luxuries for herself. There was nothing refined or delicate about her, though she did suppose she was fairly intelligent and better educated than most, the latter point due to her mother having been a teacher and instilling a love of books in her early in life. They were two characteristics that equipped her well to manage her own life but made her particularly ill-suited to be content under anyone else’s rule.

  There was nothing in her for a man like Cochran to desire, and it was foolish of her to wish it were different.

  Lucas never deliberately sought out Olivia except at social functions where they would have met anyway, for he saw no reason to solidify any relationship between them when it would be at least a year before he had any real time to devote to courting and marriage. Nor did he ever feel any great need for her company; she was pretty and pleasant, but she didn’t fire his senses. As he rode into town that morning after leaving Dee, however, he not only made no effort to see Olivia, he was downright reluctant to meet her even by accident.

  He liked Olivia; she was sweet and kind, a true lady. He could even imagine taking a great deal of pleasure in bedding her. What he couldn’t imagine, however, was ever feeling aroused to the point of madness with her. When he thought of heated sex, of sweat and twisted sheets and fingernails digging into his back while he reveled in a female body beneath him, that body was Dee’s, the face was Dee’s, and it was long black hair that lay tangled on his pillow. Dee would never docilely accept him; she would fight against his domination, her hips thrusting back at him. She would claw and twist and fiercely seize her own pleasure. And afterward, lying exhausted, she would watch him with those enigmatic green eyes, daring him to take her again.

  He couldn’t even think of Olivia with those images of Dee burning in his mind. He wanted her with an urgency that surprised him. He had desired women before, some passionately, but the mere thought of a woman had never made him feel as if he were on fire. And he hadn’t even so much as touched her hand yet! But he would, and soon. He couldn’t wait months to have her, or even very many weeks.

  He gritted his teeth against a hard surge of arousal. The way he felt now, the time remaining to Dee’s chastity could be measured in days, and even that was too long. He wanted her now; he was as hard and fractious as a stallion ready to mount a mare in heat.

  Instinctively he knew that Dee was a virgin, even though she had lived alone for five years. Her innocence both hindered and helped. She would not immediately recognize the seriousness of his seduction and wouldn’t know how to control her responses to him, which certainly gave him an advantage. But her innocence also meant he would have to restrain himself, to make certain she had been pleasured even before he entered her, and his control was already under a great deal of strain. Once he had her naked in his arms he would be near madness with the need to penetrate and find his ease within her. If he lost control and gave her only pain, she would fight like a wildcat the next time he tried to touch her.

  No, no one in his right mind would ever categorize Dee as docile. She was a wildfire, while Olivia was as cool and contained as a mountain lake.

  He stopped in at the saloon even though it was earlier than he liked to drink; maybe a beer would dull the ache in his groin. At that hour the saloon was almost empty, with only one other customer, who sat slumped sipping a whiskey with his back to the batwing doors as if the light hurt his eyes. Lucas recognized the signs of a hangover and left the man alone.

  The bartender was polishing glasses, not paying any attention to him after serving him a beer. The two saloon girls were playing cards together in a half-bored, half-lazy fashion, spending more