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“Right.”
    “Are you back to showing me how strong you are?”
    She glanced at him. “I don’t know. Are you going to tell me who babysits your cows?”
    “You’re basing how you react to me on the fact that I didn’t tell you I have a partner?”
    “I’m basing how I treat you on how you treat me. You’ll help with my card game because you’re bored, but you won’t tell me about your life—even the insignificant fact that you have a partner—because you don’t trust me. And since you don’t trust me, that makes you suspicious. People are typically suspicious of other people because they aren’t trustworthy themselves…. So…” She shrugged. “I didn’t think it wise to let you rummage through my stuff.”
    He stared at her. “Are you kidding me? You think I’m some kind of criminal because I won’t tell you about myself?”
    She shrugged. “No, I just don’t think you’re trustworthy.”
    “I’m one of the most trustworthy people on the face of the earth!”
    “Yeah. Right. That’s why you’re so suspicious.”
    “I’m not suspicious. I’m simply not much of a people person.”
    She didn’t answer, only staredat him until he couldn’t take it anymore and said, “What?”
    “I’m waiting for you to tell me why you’re not a people person.”
    He laughed. “Why should I?”
    “Oh, come on. We’re here in the middle of a snowstorm. Nine chances out of ten when we get out of here Monday, we’ll never see each other again. This is like a fantasy or something. It’s our one chance to pour our hearts out to a member of the opposite sex and get some answers.”
    He stared at her. “That is your fantasy.”
    She was silent for a minute, then she said, “Well, I never actually thought of it as a fantasy, per se. But I have thought that just once I would like to sit a man down and ask him some pointed questions so I can figure out what the hell makes your gender tick.”
    “Well, honey, I’ve got a fantasy, too. And it also involves being stranded with a member of the opposite sex. And we communicate, too. Except we don’t talk. We communicate on that extraspecial level that doesn’t require talking. You know what I’m saying?”
    Her eyes narrowed. “You want me to have sex with you?”
    He smiled.
    “A stranger?” she said, horrified.
    “Women.” He laughed and shook his head. “Look, honey, it’s every bit as preposterous for me to pour my heart out to someone I don’t know as it is for you to have sex with someone you don’t know.” He shoved his chair away from the table and started toward the kitchen. “I’m going to make another pot of coffee,” he said, but he stopped suddenly because something she’d said had finally penetrated his thick brain. They really wouldn’t see each other after the snowplow went through. Monday morning when they parted company, it would be as if they had never met. He could tell her every damned tidbit and morsel about his life and it wouldn’t matter.
    In fact, it was beginningto sound like a nice compromise. And why shouldn’t it? She wanted to talk. He wanted to spend the weekend engaged in a more pleasurable pursuit.
    They could both get what they wanted.
    He faced her. “You know what? I really would like for you to think about my offer. No. Let’s call it a proposition. If you agree to spend Daphne’s next nap having no-strings-attached sex with me, I’ll talk your ear off. I’ll tell you absolutely everything you want to know.” He stopped and grinned. “And here’s a teaser. I haven’t spoken with my brothers in eight years. They recently bought the mortgage to my ranch and they are foreclosing.”
    Zoe blinked at him.
    “The story behind all this is rich and juicy…” He smiled again. “Curious?”

Chapter Three
    G od help her, she was curious. But not curiousenough to have sex with a stranger. That was simply a ridiculous suggestion, even if she had experienced a zing of sexual awareness when he’d said