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standard-quality denim, but on Matthew Gerrity they became something else.
    She thought of the men she’d known who wouldn’t be caught wearing common pants from a store shelf, men who had their riding clothes made by tailors who measured and sewed each seam with precision. None of them could hold a candle to this man, she decided.
    There was about him a sureness, a quality of masculine perfection that defied description. He wore a cotton shirt that tucked neatly into his pants, a bandanna tied casually about his throat, his belt snug about his waist—below his waist, really, she amended with a silent chuckle. The pants rode the top of his hips as he walked, she remembered, and her face flushed as she recalled that walk.
    That slim-hipped, flat-bottomed stroll that had caught her openmouthed as she watched. The masculine body that began with broad shoulders and long arms, arms that were thick beneath the shirtsleeves he rolled to within inches of his elbows. Hands that were wide, and fingers that were long and tapered and strong.
    “Emmaline?” The voice was close to her ear, and she jerked as it brought her from her thoughts.
    “Have you made up your mind? Are you planning the wedding?”
    She shook her head. “Not yet.”
    His look was cynical. “Begging off already?”
    “I told you I’d do anything I had to, didn’t I?”
    “Is it so bad? Marrying the ranch foreman?” His tone was clipped and cold.
    “You won’t be the foreman if I marry you. You’ll own the place.”
    “Half of it. Your name will be on the title, too. That ought to make your folks happy, you bein’ a landowner.”
    She shrugged and eyed the darkened horizon, loath to look in his direction. “It’s still not what my grandparents planned for me. Certainly not what my mother had in mind for her only child.”
    “In other words, you could do better back in Lexington,” he said tonelessly.
    “Could you? Could you do better?” she asked, and then dared the question she’d been mulling over. “Was there someone else in the picture before I arrived?”
    He was silent, and she ventured to cast a quick look at him. His jaw was taut, and his eyes were narrowed. Certainly not an approachable man, she thought. He gave no indication of his thoughts, and she’d begun to regret her question when he shifted toward her.
    “No one that should matter to you,” he answered shortly.
    “Will you break her heart? Or is there more than one?”
    He shook his head in a slow movement, his eyes on her. “Hardly. I don’t have time to chase after women.”
    “Maria seems to think you don’t have to do much chasing.”
    “Maria talks too much.” His grin was cocky.
    “You didn’t answer my question. Are you going to break some woman’s heart if we marry?” She tilted her chin and waited for his answer.
    It was enigmatic, as was the look he sent from beneath lowered brows. “Most women don’t have hearts that are broken so easily.”
    She sighed, wondering how long it would take to get a straight answer. “Will you give her up?”
    His smile tilted one corner of his mouth disdainfully. “Does it matter?”
    Her cheeks were pink as she considered him. “There isn’t any hurry, is there?” she asked finally. “We don’t have to be married right away. Because if you’re having second thoughts, or if you’re planning on—”
    “You didn’t answer me, Emmaline.” His lips twisted into another half smile that taunted her, even as it eased the harsh lines of his face, and her eyes were drawn to the movement.
    Was his mouth hard, she wondered, or would it soften when it touched the flesh of a woman’s lips? Would he be gentle with his caresses, or would those hard hands be rough against tender skin? Thoughts of those forbidden secrets, things that happened between men and women, flooded her mind, and she blinked in confusion.
    “Yes...yes, it matters,” she whispered.
    “Even cowhands have honor,” he said roughly. “I won’t be