To Tyler Jacobs, the hot arid southeastern Arizona landscape still seemed about as welcoming as Mars, even after six weeks of working on the Double R dude ranch near Tombstone.

He was restless and vaguely depressed. He’d taken a day off to fly to Jacobsville for his sister, Shelby’s, wedding to Justin Ballenger, a man she’d refused to marry years ago. Tyler was still puzzled by the courtship. They hadn’t looked the picture of a happy couple, and he knew that Justin had been bitter toward Shelby for breaking their earlier engagement.

But it wasn’t any of his business; he had to keep that in mind. And better to see Shelby married to Justin, who was old-fashioned enough to keep his marriage vows, than to see her mixed up with the local playboy attorney she worked for. Maybe things would work out for them. If the way Shelby had looked at Justin was any indication, they had to work out. She was obviously still deeply in love with him.

Abby and Calhoun had been at the wedding, too, and Tyler was relieved to find that his brief infatuation with Abby was over. He’d been ready to settle down and was unconsciously looking for the right kind of woman. Abby had fit the bill in every respect, but he wasn’t nursing a broken heart. His eyes narrowed in thought. He wondered if he was capable of loving a woman. Sometimes he felt that he was impervious to anything more than surface interest. Of course, there was always the woman who could hit a man hard before he knew it. A woman like Nell Regan, with her unexpected vulnerabilities and compassion…

Even as the unwelcome thought touched his mind, his pale green eyes narrowed on a rider approaching from the direction of the ranch house.

He sighed, glaring through the endless creosote bushes. They dominated the landscape all the way to the Dragoon Mountains, one of Cochise’s old strongholds back in the mid-1800s. The “monsoon season” had almost passed. Today it was on the verge of a hundred degrees, and damn what they said about the dry heat not being hot. Sweat was pouring down his dark olive complexion from the sweatband of his gray Stetson, soaking his Western-cut chambray shirt. He took his hat from his jet-black hair and drew his forearm over the wetness while he got his bearings. Out here one stretch of valley looked much like any other, and the mountain ranges went on forever. If elbowroom was what a man wanted, he could sure get it in Arizona.

He’d been out in the brush trying to round up some stray Hereford calves, while his worn leather chaps were treated to the double jeopardy of cholla and prickly pear cactus where the creosote wasn’t so thick. Nothing grew around creosote. Having smelled the green bush, especially in the rain, he could understand why.

Before the rider got much closer, Tyler realized that it was Nell. And something was wrong, because she usually kept the length of the ranch between them. Their relationship had become strained unexpectedly, and that saddened him. It had seemed as though he and Nell would be friends at their first meeting, when she’d picked him up at the Tucson airport. But all too soon something had sent Nell running from him.

Perhaps that was for the best. He was earning a living, but not much more, and all his wealth was gone. He had nothing to offer a woman like Nell. All the same, he felt guilty if he’d hurt her, even inadvertently. She didn’t talk about the past, and neither did anyone else. But Tyler knew that something had happened to make her wary and distrustful of men. She deliberately downplayed the few attractions she had, as if she was determined not to do anything that would catch a man’s eye. Tyler had gotten close to her at first, because he’d thought of her as a cute little kid. She’d been so anxious to make him comfortable, sneaking him feather pillows and all kinds of little things from the house to make him feel at home. He’d flirted with her gently, teased her, delighted in her shy company. And then, like lightning, the housekeeper had made him see that the child he was playing with was really a twenty-four-year-old woman who was misinterpreting his teasing. From that night on, he and Nell had somehow become strangers. She avoided him, except at the obligatory square dance with guests twice a month.

Nell did seem to find him useful in one respect. She still hid behind him at those every-other-Saturday-night barn dances. The way she clung to him was the only crumb left of their easy first acquaintance. But it was vaguely insulting, too. She didn’t consider him a threat in any sexual way, or she’d have run screaming from his presence. He’d made some hard remarks about Nell to his sister, Shelby, but he hadn’t really meant them. He hadn’t wanted anyone to realize how Nell was getting to him.

He sighed, watching her approach. Well, she wasn’t dressed to fan a man’s ardor, in those baggy jeans and blouse and slouch hat, and that was a good thing. He found her shyness and his odd sense of empathy for her disturbing enough without the added complication of an exquisite figure. He frowned, wondering what she looked like under that baggy camouflage. As if he’d ever find out, he thought, laughing bitterly. He’d already scared her off.

He wasn’t a conceited man, but he was used to women. His money had always attracted the beautiful ones, and whatever he wanted, he got. And so, being snubbed by the stone girl stung his pride.

“Have you found those strays yet?” Nell asked with faint nervousness as she reined in beside him.

“I’ve only gone through five thousand miles,” he murmured with soft antagonism. “Wherever they are, they’re probably enjoying the luxury of enough water to drink. God knows, except in the monsoon season, they’d need a divining rod or second sight in this barren wasteland to find any.”

Nell searched his hard face quietly. “You don’t like Arizona, do you?”

“It’s foreign.” He turned his gaze toward the horizon, where jagged mountains seemed to change color as the sun shifted, first dark,

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Tyler Diana Palmer

Contents

Chapter One

Tyler

Diana Palmer