ducked out from under the car and swung himself upright. “You know perfectly well why I never wanted to be a Logan. That hasn’t changed.”
Because of her, she heard it in his voice. “Everything else has,” she said, pushing away the confusing feelings the thought aroused.
“Everything but you.”
She shook her head. “I’ve grown up.”
“You think I haven’t noticed?”
She knew he had. The awareness was in every look he gave her.
“I know you don’t think much of me,” he said. Before she could issue an empty denial, he went on, “Blake has his crocodile farm, Tom got his wish to become a shire ranger and Cade’s photos are published all over the world. While I dropped out of school, drive a beat-up old car and work where and when I can.”
She lifted her shoulders and let them drop. “None of that matters to me.”
“It’s who you are inside that counts,” he quoted her father. “He also said even a saint has to be able to educate his kids and put food on his family’s table.”
At the thought of Ryan’s children, her knees softened and she rested a palm against the sun-heated metal to steady herself. “Are you sure you’ve got things the right way around?”
Although she’d thought about it often enough, she hadn’t meant to come out and say it. His eyes clouded as he asked, “What do you mean?”
Too late to wish she’d never opened her mouth. “Being a no-hoper is a good excuse to avoid settling down.”
“You think I live the way I do to avoid taking on responsibility?”
“Don’t you?”
He made a harshly dismissive sound deep in his throat. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”
She started to turn away. “You’re right, I don’t.” And if she were wise, she would keep it that way.
His fingers clamped around her wrist leaving a smear of oil like a handcuff. “Such slim wrists,” he said unexpectedly. “Beats me how you pack so much muscle into such a slight body.”
If looks could kill, he would have been ash where he stood. “Aren’t you afraid of snapping such fragile bones?”
At her sarcastic tone, his mouth tightened. “I know precisely how much pressure I’m applying.”
So did she. Her whole body quivered with the awareness of his touch. Trying to shake him off would only betray his effect on her, so she schooled herself to stillness. “I prefer wiry to slight.”
He eased his thumb over her pulse point, making her wish she could slow the frantic beat by willpower alone. “Wiry, then. I like a woman with good muscle tone,” he said.
As if she kept herself fit to please him. “You didn’t always have so much muscle of your own to throw around,” she snapped.
Cruel, she told herself when she saw his dark lashes veil those memorable eyes. “Malnutrition does that to you,” he said.
She placed her hand over the one holding her. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled-for. I shouldn’t have reminded you.”
He looked down at their joined hands and an odd light flickered over his rugged features. “You didn’t have to. Some things you never forget.”
Her sigh gusted between them. “Ryan, why do we strike such sparks off each other?”
“I’m not complaining, if the alternative is indifference.”
He could make her mad as hell, dizzy with laughter and aching with other things she refused to name. The one thing she could never be around him was indifferent. “Are you saying you like it when we fight?”
“It’s communication, isn’t it?”
Her nod conceded his point. “Not very constructive communication,” she observed.
He released her hand slowly, as if reluctant to do so. “I don’t know. We’re getting the transmission filter changed.”
Other things were changing between them, too, although they were harder to pinpoint. She fell back on the superficial. “At this rate, it will be dinnertime before the job’s done.”
In tacit agreement, he dropped to the ground and shimmied back under the car and she heard the sound of bolts being tightened. Anticipating what he’d need next, she hunted around for a long-necked funnel and the AFT fluid. By the time he stood up again and was ready to let the car down, she had them handy.
She watched as he fed fluid into the filler tubes. His moves were sure and capable. She’d also seen him handle a horse and rope cattle with the best of them. “Why haven’t you bought your own land?”
“Didn’t suit me.”
“To be tied down?”
Fluid slopped over the funnel, earning a muttered oath. “Have I ever questioned how you run your life?”
“Not for a long time.” She placed a hand on his arm. “I wasn’t criticizing. I care about what happens to you.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
She was glad his attention was on his task so that he didn’t see her recoil in distress. “What makes you think I don’t?”
He turned his head, his gaze sharpening. “If you did, you’d ask what’s going on in my life instead of constantly jumping to conclusions.”
“You could simply tell me.”
“I could.”
But he wouldn’t, she heard. Annoyed at being put on the defensive, she examined her conscience. Had she jumped to conclusions about him? Perhaps he had a million dollars stashed away and chose to knock around the outback for pleasure, like the American billionaire she remembered reading about. Getty? Rockefeller? One of them, anyway.
Somehow, she doubted it. “Ryan,” she said on impulse, “If you were really rich, would you use your money to help Dad save Diamond Downs?”
“He wouldn’t permit it,” he said, avoiding the question.
At his signal, she got into the driver’s seat and cranked the engine. “But you would be willing to try?”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
She pulled the gearshift down through each gear in turn, allowing the fresh fluid to circulate through the transmission. “You do know we have less than a month to either pay off Max Horvath or find Great-grandpa’s diamond mine?”
Ryan pulled out the transmission dipstick and inspected it critically. “According to Blake and Cade, Max is in financial trouble up to his neck and his creditors are pouring on the pressure. From what I’ve heard about Max’s character, he could
