of another cowboy. Unwanted memories carrying a pain that was connected with her grandfather. She hadn’t thought about Hank Barrie in ages, and she didn’t want to think about him now. She had put all that suffering behind her long ago, and she meant to keep it in the past.
No, she wasn’t going there. And she was going to forget all about Roark Hawke and how he had made her pulse accelerate. But when Samantha turned resolutely away from the railing, her eye fell on the business card he’d left on the table.
You never know.
But she did know. She had absolutely no intention of ever calling the number on that card.
WHAT THE HELL had he been thinking? Roark asked himself as he moved swiftly along the River Walk, needing to vent his anger with some form of action, even if it was no more than stretching his legs among the tourists.
Racing down here from Purgatory like that! Storming into the restaurant and cornering Samantha Howard in order to—what?
Throw her over his shoulder and haul her shapely little backside all the way to Colorado and that cattle drive?
Okay, so he’d been tempted to do just that and instead had tried to convince her to change her mind. Which was bad enough. Why hadn’t he anticipated that maybe Joe Walker’s granddaughter wouldn’t want his protection? And why hadn’t he just dropped the whole thing when the lawyer had informed him of her refusal?
Because she was right. She didn’t need his services. Samantha was in no more danger from some unknown enemy than Joe had been. Who would want to harm her, particularly when she intended to surrender all claim to her grandfather’s estate?
Roark didn’t know the answers to any of those questions. Not why he had so explosively charged into the restaurant or, even worse than that, why he had actually come on to the woman.
Well, yeah, he guessed he did know the answer to the last question. She’d been dynamite waiting for a match in that sexy little power suit. The abbreviated skirt had afforded him a clear view of long legs in heels and a tantalizing glimpse of silken thighs.
There were also the attractions of a luscious mouth, a pair of beguiling brown eyes, and a mass of gleaming chestnut hair—not to mention the sparks they’d rubbed off each other throughout their whole brief encounter, all of which would have meant trouble for him on a cattle drive.
Passing under one of the bridges, Roark unconsciously slowed his steps. He paid no attention to the street player strumming his guitar for the benefit of the tourists. He was far too occupied with the heat that gripped him over the image of Samantha Howard’s lush body.
Damn, what was he doing? She had turned him down. He was off the hook. He should be congratulating himself that she was no longer his problem, that he could concentrate now on his own troubling issue.
Right. Let it go.
Determined to do exactly that, Roark swung around and headed toward the city garage where he had parked his truck.
Except he couldn’t let it go. There was still his promise to a dying old man who had trusted him. It nagged at him all the way back to his pickup.
Chapter Two
“Tell me they absolutely loved it,” Gail pleaded. “Tell me they’ve already made an offer on it.”
Samantha, cell phone pressed to her ear, hesitated before answering. What could she report to her anxious officer manager about the high-rise condo she had just finished showing? What could she say to Gail that wouldn’t sound too dismal?
“They said they would think about it.”
What the elderly couple had actually told her was that they wanted to shop around a bit more before deciding, which meant they weren’t interested. Samantha didn’t blame them. The price on the condo was too high, and it was in need of updating.
“Well, that’s encouraging,” Gail said brightly. “Isn’t that encouraging?”
“I’m hopeful,” Samantha lied, wondering how in a span of less than twenty-four hours everything that had been so promising could end up being so bleak.
Yet it had, starting with yesterday afternoon when her buyer for the mansion in the King William District had backed out of the sale. Something about a deal going sour on him and his software company being in trouble. Okay, so she had lost that one, but she still had the hot property on the River Walk. Only, she didn’t. The owner had called this morning to tell her he was listing with her chief rival, the Van Nugent Agency.
She hated this! All right, so she hadn’t gone into the business to become rich. She’d opened her agency primarily for the joy of putting people into their dream houses. But she had expected to make a living out of it and to provide decent incomes for her employees. Like Gail, a widow in her fifties supporting an ailing mother. And the young woman who worked for her part-time and needed her salary to pay for the college degree she was earning. And her other agent, a handicapped father raising two kids. The job market wasn’t good for any of them. They were depending on Samantha. As was the bank, who expected regular payments on that business loan she had secured from them last month.
Bad, but she wasn’t sunk yet. Another potential buyer for the mansion had surfaced this morning, which was why she was calling her office manager at the agency.
“Where are you?” Gail asked.
“In my car and ready to head over to King William. I’m just checking in to make sure this guy hasn’t canceled the appointment. Please tell me he hasn’t canceled.” The way things were going, it wouldn’t have surprised her.
“He hasn’t canceled.”
“Then there still is a real estate fairy. Tell me the name again. Is it Mulroony or Mulroney? I don’t want to risk any errors on this.”
“Mulroney.”
“Anything else you can tell me about him that would help?”
“Just what you already know, that his wife will be accompanying him and they prefer to meet you at the property. Like I said earlier, I didn’t meet him. He made the appointment by phone after seeing our ad.”
Samantha didn’t like going blind into a showing, but it couldn’t be helped. “Keep your fingers crossed.”
“If it helps, I’ll cross my toes as well.”
Samantha rang off and eased out into the flow of traffic, passing the Tower of the Americas in Hemisfair Plaza as she headed away from the downtown area. The soaring structure, along with the more famous Alamo, was the pride of San Antonio.
Samantha seldom failed to take pleasure in her city. Only, not today. Today her attention was focused on saving her agency.
There is a solution, you know. It’s right there in front of you, waiting to solve all your problems. All you have to do is—
No! Tempting though that inheritance from her grandfather was, really tempting now, she was going to make it on her own. She wasn’t going to play Joe Walker’s game. If she could nail this sale, the commission would be enough to keep her going until—what? Something else came along? Yes, why not.
There
