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don’t say out loud?”
    â€œCowboy, if you knew what I was really thinking, you wouldn’t have let me anywhere near your bed.”
    He glanced over his shoulder and gave her a wary look.
    She grinned. “I’m just pullin’ your leg.”
    He settled his head down on the pillow and closed his eyes.
    â€œAnd the answer to your question is no. I pretty much say whatever’s on my mind. A lot of people don’t appreciate that. They say it’s not ladylike.”
    â€œDoes that bother you?”
    â€œNot really. I was born this way. If people don’t like it, tough. I’m not out to impress anyone.” She smoothed her hands over his skin. “What are all these marks on your back from?”
    â€œBurn scars. I was a little too close to a building when it exploded.”
    â€œNo kidding. And what about this one on your shoulder?” she asked, skimming her fingertips over it.
    â€œBullet wound.”
    â€œIt looks recent.”
    â€œIt was.”
    â€œSome covert mission you can’t talk about, I’m assuming.”
    â€œYep.” He was fighting to stay awake, but he could feel himself beginning to fade, feel sleep overwhelming him. What the woman could do with her hands. He felt as if he were melting into the mattress.
    She worked her hands lower, where he was the most sore.
    â€œHmm, feels good,” he mumbled. So relaxed.
    Nita dug her thumbs into the knots in his lower back. She was sure his backside was aching pretty good, too,and wondered what his reaction would be if she touched him there. She sure wouldn’t mind. He had a body that wouldn’t quit—wide shoulders and arms the size of tree trunks. A thick, muscular chest that tapered down into a firm torso and slim hips. And she could just imagine the equipment he was packing under those jeans.
    Even though he was now technically her employee, she wasn’t immune to all that strapping muscle and tanned skin. Not that a man being her employee had ever stopped her before. In fact, that made it all the more exciting. The stolen moments in the stable when no one was around. A quick roll in the field at sunset. Nights on a blanket under the stars after everyone else had gone to bed.
    A little shiver of excitement passed through her when she thought of taking a tumble with Connor.
    Those relationships—if you could even call them relationships—were always brief and uncomplicated. That was all men seemed to want from her, which worked out just fine since she’d never wanted to get married. She didn’t even want to settle down. Not that she wouldn’t enjoy the companionship. She might have thought about kids someday way in the future, someone to take over the farm someday. But in her mind, to have kids you ought to be married, and marriage meant compromise, losing your identity. She wasn’t going to do that for anyone. Not after knowing what it had done to her momma.
    Katherine had been from a wealthy Dallas family—a city girl. But when she’d met Will Windcroft she’d fallen desperately in love with him. She’d married him after only three months of courting and left the excitement of the big city for a simpler life on the horse-breeding farm. According to what Nita had been told, as happy as they appeared on the outside, deep down her momma missed her life in Dallas and never quite adjusted to the harsh conditions of the farm. But she knew Rose and Nita were happy there, and she loved Will too much to leave him. Not one to cause a fuss, she’d never told her husband how she felt, and tried to keep up the facade of the happy wife.
    Nita sometimes wondered if the cancer had only been a symptom, and what her momma really died of was a broken heart. She would probably never know. What information she did have came from her sister and her mother’s old friends. Her daddy, all these years later, still wouldn’t talk about it. She knew there