“You sound as though you’re leaving Dr. Wallaby. Are you?”
Apparently she wasn’t going to tell him anything more about the child and possible father, he realized. “The salary he paid was steady, but it wasn’t a lot. It’s time for me to move on to better jobs, better money.”
“What sort of work do you do?”
Accustomed to keeping to himself from a very early age, he felt ill at ease with her rapid-fire queries. “Why all the questions, Miss Worth?”
She arched her brow at him. “Why the hesitation to answer them?”
“Are you doing that psychology thing on me again?”
She laughed.
Her laughter danced through the woods, Roman thought. As if someone were playing it on a musical instrument.
He relented. “I’ve built homes and barns and even a church up near Yost Creek. I’ve cleared forest for farmland, then plowed and planted. I’ve dug wells and driven cattle. And there’s nothing I can’t do with a horse. I work with my hands, Miss Worth,” he explained, his gaze penetrating hers. “With muscle and sweat, and sometimes, if the situation is a dangerous one, with blood.”
His description of the work he did conjured up vivid images in her mind. She pictured him chopping down a large tree. Plowing fields. Building, and training horses. He labored beneath the hot sun and wore nothing but his pants and boots. Sweat glistened on his well-muscled back, shoulders, and chest, and his long black hair swayed sensuously with each of his movements.
She imagined him with his guns, too, those heavy revolvers he wore as casually as he wore his hat. His long dark fingers were wrapped around the butts. He held them steady; they looked so right in his hands.
He’d said blood was sometimes a part of his work, which meant he knew how to use those lethal weapons. She envisioned him facing danger, but it didn’t bother him because he was more dangerous than the peril he confronted.
No other man she knew had ever created and held fast the fascination she felt now. Only a man like Roman could. A man who worked with his hands, sweat, muscle, and guns.
Her heart beat so forcefully, she could hear it hammering in her ears. “It’s happening again, Mr. Montana.”
One look at her flushed cheeks told him what she meant. He grinned. “The hot tickle strikes again, huh? Do you think we should do something about it?”
His question deepened her desire. “Ignore it,” she whispered.
His grin broadened. “It might not go away.”
“It will if I think of something else,” she decided aloud. “What are your plans for the future?” She watched as her query turned his amused expression into one of deep contemplation. “Mr. Montana?”
He never talked about his dreams. His stepmother had been only the first person to scoff. He’d learned long ago that the only person in the world who had faith in him was himself.
Theodosia saw his hesitation. “Is there something wrong with your plans for the future?”
He slid his gaze over her face. “There’s nothing wrong with them.”
“I see. Well, I’m sorry you aren’t happy about them. That you aren’t proud of them.”
How dare she think that! he fumed. “I’m pretty damned thrilled with them, woman! You would be too if you’d worked for them as hard and long as I have!”
She feigned a hurt look. “Mr. Montana, are you saying I don’t understand how it feels to work for something I desire to have?”
He sat up, brought his knees to his chest, and laid his arms across them. “What have you ever had to work for? Some good grades on your schoolwork, maybe? How would you like to work for twenty-five thousand acres of prime grassland? Do you even know the price of that much land? It’s costing me over two thousand dollars, Miss Worth, and I’m only five hundred dollars away from owning it. I’ve been working for ten years to earn that much money, and if I have to, I’ll work ten more to get the rest!”
“Is it your intention to grow corn?” She knew full well he would not be growing corn. He was too impatient to tend to plants, but she suspected her question would lead him to reveal more of what she knew he was trying to conceal. “You could grow quite a lot of corn on twenty-five thousand acres.”
“Corn?”he shouted. “The only use for corn I’ll have is for feed! I don’t plan on being some squatting farmer, for God’s sake! I’m going to raise horses!”
Theodosia’s eyes widened with pleasure. “Horses! Why, my father happened to—”
“Yes, horses, Miss Worth. Got that?Horses.On the finest prairie you’ve ever set eyes on. The grass grows waist-high there. When the wind blows across it, it looks like a green sea. And the spring-fed streams and creeks flow with the clearest, sweetest water you’ve ever tasted.”
She watched his horse paw the ground nearby. Moonlight coated the stallion’s gray coat with shining silver, and Theodosia thought him a beautiful sight to behold. “You’ve a magnificent mount, Mr. Montana. How do you call him?”
