dishrag and hung it to dry over the edge of the sink, then she set the dishes to soak in soapy water. Closing her eyes, just for a moment, she took a breath and, turning toward him, motioned to the door.
“I’ve got a heap of work to do, Mr. Devereaux. I need to be up and at it.” She’d given him a bed and meals to boot. Roan Devereaux or not, Charlie’s friend notwithstanding, she didn’t need the strangely disturbing presence of this stranger here. Now to move him on his way, out of her house and on down the road.
“Katherine.” His voice reproved her gently.
Her mouth tightened at his reluctance. The sense of unease he inspired within her had to do with that husky inflection in his voice as he spoke her name, she thought. As if he knew all there was to know about Katherine Cassidy and found her lacking. As if he sought to peel away the stark surface she wore like a coat of mail, seeking the softness of the woman beneath the brown drabness. The same warmth she’d felt at the touch of his hand on her flesh earlier reappeared as she listened to the sound of her name on his tongue. He’d rolled it within his mouth, making it appear a many-syllabled word. Not like Pa, who’d more often than not called her Kate or sometimes Katie, when his eyes regarded her with tenderness.
“Katherine,” Roan repeated, rousing her from her wandering thoughts. “Can we talk about a horse now?”
She pursed her mouth and frowned at him, disturbed by her meanderings. “Like I said before, I don’t have any stock ready to sell.”
He shrugged and tipped the sturdy chair back to balance on the back legs. “Can I take a look?”
She shook her head at his persistence. “It wouldn’t do you any good. They’re all halterbroken, of course, but I’ve only put a saddle on two of them. They’ve not been ridden yet.” Her pause was significant before she added her final words on the subject, as if to emphasize their import.
“And you can’t have my mare.”
He shrugged off the edict with a casual grin. “Where’s your pa’s stud?” he asked lazily, watching her hands bury themselves in the pockets of her apron.
She flushed and her eyes shifted from his gaze. “I had to sell him.” The admission was painful, and her mouth tightened.
“You don’t have any stock breeding now?”
“Maybe my mare.”
He frowned, considering. “I didn’t notice.”
“If she took, she won’t drop her foal till March,” Katherine said shortly. “She was in season when I had to let the stud go, so I let him in with her just before…before I sold him.”
He drew in a breath, shaking his head. She was really something, this small woman who spoke of the breeding of horses as if it were not fraught with danger. “You’re not big enough to handle a stallion like your pa’s,” he said. “You’re lucky you got it done without getting hurt.”
She shrugged, dismissing his words with the lifting of her shoulders. “You do what you have to. He was strong and a good size, and he’d carried my pa to war and back. I wanted another colt from him before I let him go.”
“Could be a filly,” he reminded her.
Her gaze was fiercely determined and she shook her head, negating the idea. “No, I need a stud. And I’ll have one, give him a couple of years.”
“How many are you running in your pasture?” he asked. “Thought I saw a yearling or two.”
“Three, actually,” she admitted. “The results of last year’s breeding. My father had great hopes for them.”
“You make it sound sorta dismal, Katherine. Surely the dreams didn’t die with Charlie, did they?”
She shrugged off his taunt. “I’m not made of the same stuff my father was, Mr. Devereaux. Someone had to be practical, and Charlie Cassidy was somewhat of a dreamer.”
“That’s not all to the bad.” He dropped the front legs of his chair to the floor with a thump. To his way of thinking, Katherine Cassidy looked like she could use a little dreaming to brighten up her life. As a matter of fact, he decided with a long look at her stiff demeanor, the woman in front of him looked like she’d had all of her dreams shattered. From the top of her smoothly scraped-back hair to the scuffed toes of the shoes showing beneath her dark dress, she looked like a woman who’d buried more than her pa. She was about at the end of her rope, Roan thought. What am I gonna do, Charlie?
Rising from the chair purposefully, he reached for his hat, hanging on a peg just inside the door. Easing it into place, he settled it with a final tilt of the brim His fingers slid into the pockets of his denim pants, thumbs hooked over his belt and his elbows thrust behind him.
All he needed was a gun belt and he’d look like a gunslinger for sure, Katherine thought, her eyes ranging over the man who was thoroughly upsetting her equilibrium this morning. She struggled against the tension that had gripped her upon his arrival yesterday and had remained deeply seated in the depths of her being. His touch had not eased her disquiet any, either, she reflected grimly. Whether it was a natural reaction to a stranger or some individual sense of danger attached to this particular man was the problem.
The former she could handle. The latter, which was more likely to be true, could create a situation she’d gone to great lengths to steer clear of over the years.
His eyes pinned her in place, taking a leisurely journey over the dowdy length of her, and she began to bristle instinctively. He had no right, she thought with rising indignation. No right at all to come in here and make himself at home and then question her about her livestock as if he could pick and choose.
His next words only added to her turmoil. “What are you gonna do with the three mares out in the corral?” he asked mildly, as if he sought to salve her obvious tension.
Her reply was abrupt, snapped off irritably. “Work with them.”
“I’ll take one off your hands,” he offered easily. “Give me a few days to get in the saddle and I’ll be out of your way.”
“My four-year-old is too small. In fact, I don’t have anything big enough for you. Just a three-year-old and she’s…” Her eyes softened as she hesitated.
“Doesn’t pay to make pets of animals you’re bound to sell off, Katherine,” he said gently.
Once more her chin tilted as she glared at him. “She’s not a pet. But she sure isn’t ready to have a saddle thrown on her back and a two-hundred-pound man digging his heels in her sides.”
“She’s a horse,” he said bluntly. “She was bred to be ridden.”
“Said like a man,” she returned with icy disdain, anxious to be rid of this reminder of her own frailty.
“Any man in particular, Katherine?”
She glanced at him quickly, assessing the question.
He pushed for an answer. “Who made you so prickly?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe,
