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“Nobody ever wanted me….” She lay back against the pillows, looking ten years older than she was. “Please go away, Dane. I’m too tired to fight anymore.”
    Why hadn’t he known how she felt? After all these years, he still knew next to nothing about her. Of course she’d felt rejected when her father left her with her grandmother; more so because of all his affairs. And then he’d planned to marry Dane’s mother, further iso-lating her. She’d wanted someone to love, and she’d had the mis-fortune to pick a man who didn’t even know what it was, who’d known nothing but resentment and dislike all his life, a man with a failed marriage behind him and a crippled body to boot.
    He grimaced at the defeated expression on her face. He felt responsible for her anguish, as if he’d caused it. Certainly he’d added to it. “Do you like horses?” he asked. “I’m afraid of them.”
    “Only because you don’t know much about them. When you’re up to it, I’ll teach you to ride.”
    Her eyes met his. “Don’t do this to me,” she said unsteadily. “Please don’t. I don’t need pity.”
    He started to speak, but he didn’t know what words to use. He drew in a long breath. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Try to rest.”
    She nodded. Her eyes closed, blocking him out. She wasn’t going to let him get to her again. No matter what she had to do to protect herself, he wasn’t getting a second shot at her!
     
    Chapter Three The Lassiter Bar-D was a working cattle ranch. Besides Jose Dom-inguez and Hardy, who were horse wrangler and cook, respectively, Dane employed a ranch manager, Beryl’s husband Dan, and half a dozen cowhands and other assorted personnel necessary to keep the place running. One man did nothing but look after the purebred bulls. Another took care of the tanks used to water the cattle. Still another was a mechanic.
    Tess hadn’t really wanted to let Dane spirit her out of the hospital and down to his ranch, but she hadn’t been strong enough to fight him. He’d cleared it with the doctor, had had her bags-packed by Helen-already in the car, and the minute she was released, had headed straight down to Branntville.
    Tess was uneasy about the prospect of several days in Dane’s company. He was acting strangely, and she was nervous-much more so than usual.
    He’d never been much of a talker unless he had to socialize as part of his job, so the trip down to Branntville was undertaken in silence. Tess stared out the window, buried in her own thoughts and occupied with the twinges of pain she was still feeling from the wound in her arm.
    “Is that a ranch?” she asked when they reached the outskirts of Branntville, her eyes on a huge white-fenced property with a black silhouette of a spur for a logo. “Yes. Cole Everett and the Big Spur are known all over the state.

40
    Diana Palmer
     
    Cole married his stepsister, Heather Shaw. They have three boys, all teenagers now.” “It’s very big, isn’t it?” she asked.
    “Except for the Brannt Ranch, it’s the biggest north of the King Ranch.”
    “Brannt Ranch? Is Branntville named for the people who live there?”
    He nodded and indicated a ranch house far in the distance. “King Brannt owns the spread now. Talk about a hard case,” he murmured. “King makes up his own rules as he goes along. He married a beautiful young girl, a model named Shelby Kane, daughter of the movie star Maria Kane. Nobody thought he’d ever marry. He says Shelby came up on his blind side.” He smiled mockingly. “He’d do anything for her.” “Did she take to ranch life?” Tess asked curiously.
    “Like a duck to water. She and King have a son and a daughter. The daughter, I understand, is sweet on one of the Everett boys.” “What a merger that would be,” Tess said.
    “They’re young yet. And marriage isn’t always the end of the rainbow,” he added with faint bitterness.
    “I guess it has to have common ground, doesn’t it?” Tess asked