Read The Humbug Man for Free Online Page A

with his free hand. “Come on,” he said when she hesitated. “I guess you need a good cry.”
    It seemed strange, letting him hold her when they’d been strangers. But he didn’t feel like a stranger anymore. He’d saved Blake and taken care of everything, and she felt safer with him than she’d ever felt with anyone. She sighed, giving way to the tears while he held her, one lean hand smoothing her hair, his deep voice quiet and comforting at her temple.
    “I’m sorry,” she said after a little, embarrassed at her lack of composure. “It frightened me.”
    “It should have. Don’t let the boy wander off like that again,” he said, his tone firm and commanding. “This isn’t downtown Tucson. There are wolves around here and even a few bears.”
    “He isn’t likely to go far with a broken leg,” she reminded him, her gray eyes meeting his.
    “No, I guess not.” He was looking into those silvery pools and forgot what he was going to say. He couldn’t seem to look away. His body tautened and his breathing seemed to go haywire. God, she was pretty! His face hardened. He didn’t want or need this…!
    Maggie was having problems of her own. Her heart was going wild from that look. She felt like a young girl with her first beau. Involuntarily, her eyes dropped to his mouth under the thick black mustache, to the beautifully cut lines of his hard lips, and she wanted to kiss him.
    “Oh, no,” he said suddenly, and his lean hand contracted in her hair, tugging her face up to his. “No, you don’t, lady. I’m not going that route again in one lifetime.” He let go of her all at once and opened the door.
    Maggie felt nerveless. She didn’t understand what he’d said, unless he was insinuating that he’d loved his wife and didn’t want to risk his heart twice. She even understood. But she hadn’t been trying to tempt him…or had she?
    She watched him get Blake out of the Bronco and thanked him tersely as he laid the boy on the bed in his room and went back out again.
    “I’ll bring the Bronco back later, when I get one of my men to ride with me,” he said coldly. “Is there anything you need?”
    He was as icy as the wind. She wouldn’t have asked him for a crumb if she’d been starving. “No, thank you, Mr. Hollister,” she said with remarkable calm, considering how churned up she felt. She even managed to smile faintly. “Thank you for all you’ve done.”
    He searched her face with eyes that didn’t want to see the pain he’d just caused with his remoteness. He turned to the door. “No problem,” he said curtly and left without a backward glance.

Chapter Three
    B lake rested fairly well that night, thanks to the medicine the doctor had prescribed for him. But Maggie was wakeful and restless. Her mind kept going back to Hollister, to a day that was going to live forever in her memory, like the man who was such a part of it.
    She hadn’t wanted this complication in her life. For years she’d kept men at a safe distance. She’d dated, but with the careful stipulation that she was searching only for friendship. Once or twice she’d had to ask to be taken home because some of her dates had been quite sophisticated and certain that they had the perfect cure for her reserved attitude about sex. But Maggie wasn’t interested in cures or even in men. Her brief marriage had left her unsatisfied and a little embarrassed at her own sexuality. She didn’t understand the restlessness she’d been feeling lately or her rather frightening attraction to Tate Hollister. She knew so little about men and intimacy. Far too little to handle a violent emotional upheaval in her life. All she wanted now, she told herself, was her job and her son. Or she had. The trouble was that Tate Hollister was suddenly coloring her world.
    It was the longest night in recent memory. She didn’t sleep until the wee hours of the morning and woke to freezing cold. Dragging herself out of bed in her blue flannel pajamas,