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with William. He’s ornery, but he’s never taken on anybody’s car before.”
    Callie wished she hadn’t been working all morning in the spring heat. She knew she was hot and sweaty and disheveled-looking in khaki shorts and a loose T-shirt. Matt eyed her speculatively, a muscle working in his jaw. Then he leaped gracefully out of the Corvette and grabbed her in a hug. She gasped out loud.
    “Callie Carmichael, only you could make me forget what that hooved little cuss just did to my car.” His voice caressed her senses long before his lips found hers.
    “Why?” she whispered throatily against his mouth.
    “Why what?” He moved his lips lightly over hers. He tasted of musky male allure and spring air. The smell of his fine cologne filled her, and little tremors rippled beneath her skin as her mouth opened beneath his touch.
    Callie tried to protest. Her legs began to tremble as her bones seemed to melt into the earth in a warm puddle of jelly. She reached out to support herself and caught the edge of his sleek belt, which only had the effect of pulling him against her.
    The sound of a horn stopped her from winding her arms around him. She felt Matt’s reluctance to let her go, and she lowered her gaze from the raw need she read in his face as she stepped away. Grabbing the fence behind her, she held on, breathing deeply for a moment as the ground steadied beneath her feet. A pickup truck drove by, and Callie waved weakly at the grinning woman behind the wheel, a friend of hers from the valley.
    “City men. I’d forgotten how impulsive and unpredictable you all are,” she quipped. “Why did you do that, Matt?”
    “Because I’m impulsive and unpredictable. And you enjoyed it.” He’d planned to flirt with her, to build up the passion to a sensual level so he could get even with her for all the torment she’d caused him the week before. But when he’d seen her standing by the car, looking up at him with huge, sorrowful eyes, his plan had deserted him. “It definitely wasn’t what I meant to do,” he added. “There’s something about you and that goat and this place that make me crazy.”
    He stopped and simply looked at her, and she felt the melting process begin again. Between the heat of the sun and Matt Holland’s gaze, she felt a little light-headed.
    “Come on the porch, Matt, out of the sun. I’ll get us something cold to drink.”
    “Good idea. I think we both need cooling off.”
    “You need to tell me why you won’t take no for an answer, sir. I thought I’d seen the end of you last week.”
    “I think you’ll give in. That’s why, ma’am.” He emphasized “ma’am” in the same way she’d emphasized “sir.”
    She laughed lightly. “I hardly know you. And I won’t sell Ruby, no matter what.”
    She left him sitting in a swing on the porch as she went straight for the refrigerator, opened the door, and leaned into its delicious coolness. She rested her forehead against the top of the refrigerator and closed her eyes.
    Matt was wealthy, and she knew what that kind of wealth meant. It meant family obligations and expectations. It also meant superficiality and arrogance, no matter how carefully concealed beneath a pleasing exterior.
    Her father was wealthy, and her mother was dead because of it. Even her ex-husband, sweet, gentle Tyler, had eventually been swayed by corporate interests and greed. It had destroyed their marriage.
    “Callie? Need any help?” Matt called.
    Heavens, yes, she mouthed, but against you—not from you.
    “I’m very sorry about William,” she began as shepushed open the screen door with her rear and backed onto the porch. She placed a tray with two glasses of iced tea on a wicker table. “I’ll pay for the repairs to the Corvette.”
    “How?” he asked, a little coldly.
    Callie looked up at him solemnly as he continued.
    “You don’t believe in making money, as I recall,” he said.
    “I’ll pay you back, Matt. Even if it takes years.”
    He