Rough Diamonds: Wyoming Tough / Diamond in the Rough

“Me, too.” He motioned to the waitress. “At least we both like one thing,” he mused.

WHEN THEY GOT READY to leave, Mallory Kirk watched them through narrowed eyes. He got up while Morie was paying the bill and motioned Clark to one side.

Clark gave him a nervous look. “Mr. Kirk,” he said pleasantly enough.

Mallory’s dark eyes narrowed. “She’s not young enough to be my daughter, but I’m responsible for her. If you do anything she doesn’t like,” he added with the coldest smile Clark had ever seen, “I’ll pay you a visit.”

“You can’t threaten people,” Clark began, flushed.

“Oh, it’s no threat, son,” Mallory said. His jaw tautened. “It’s an ironclad, gold-edged promise.”

He turned and walked off, pausing at his table to leave a tip and help Gelly to her feet.

Clark escorted an oblivious Morie out to his car. He was flushed from the wine and angry that one of the Kirk brothers had threatened him.

“I should call the police,” he muttered as he started the car and roared off out of the parking lot.

“What for?” Morie asked, curious.

“Your boss made a threat,” he said stiffly.

“My boss? What are you talking about?”

He started to tell her and then thought better of it. She was pretty and he liked her; he didn’t want her to think there was a reason for her boss to warn him off.

He shrugged. “He just said I’d better look after you,” he amended.

Her dark eyebrows arched. “Why in the world would he say something like that?” she asked, and tried not to look as flattered as she felt. No man interfered in a woman’s life unless he liked her.

“Beats me.” He glanced at her. “He’s not stuck on you, is he?”

She burst out laughing. “Oh, sure, he likes me because I’ve got millions in a trust fund and I know all the best people,” she said drily.

He laughed, too. He was out of his mind. She wasn’t the sort of woman a cattle baron would want to marry. The Kirks had fabulous parties with all sorts of famous people attending them to sell those cattle she talked about. They had some incredibly well-known friends, apparently. But Morie dressed in old clothes, even for a date. She was clueless. He was overreacting. Maybe Mal-lory really did feel responsible for her. Maybe he knew her folks. He might be afraid of a lawsuit. It wasn’t anything personal. Just good business.

“Well, I loved the movie,” she said. “Thanks.”

“Thank you. I don’t get out as much as I’d like to,” he added. “But we could see a movie once in a while and have dinner out, if you like.”

She smiled. “I’ll think about that.”

He’d planned to take her to an overlook that doubled as the local lover’s lane. But after Mal-lory’s blunt speech, he wasn’t keen to push the man. So instead, he drove her back to the ranch. He even turned off the engine and walked her to the door of the bunkhouse.

“You live in there with all those men?” he asked curiously.

“I have my own room,” she explained. “They’re nice men.”

“If you say so.”

“Well, thanks again,” she said, hesitating.

He smiled. He liked that little nervous laugh, the way her lips turned up at the corners, the faint dimple beside her mouth.

He bent and drew his lips gently against hers.

She tolerated the kiss. But she didn’t react to it. She felt nothing. Nothing at all.

He noticed that. They were too different to settle in together. But she was cute and he liked company on a night out.

“We’ll do it again soon,” he said.

She smiled. “Sure.”

She turned around and went into the bunkhouse. Darby was sitting by the door, his eyebrows arching as she walked in and closed the door behind her.

“Have fun?” he asked in a hushed tone, so he didn’t wake the cowboys down the hall.

“Yes. I guess.”

He tilted his head. “You guess?”

“Boss showed up at the restaurant,” she said, and looked puzzled. “I didn’t know he liked Chinese food.”

Darby’s eyes almost popped. “He hates it.”

She hesitated. “Well, he had Ms. Bruner with him. Maybe she likes it.”

“Maybe.”

“You sleep good, Darby.”

“You, too,” he said gently.

“The heifers doing okay?” she asked.

“Doing fine. We’ll just hope and pray that that the weatherman’s wrong on that snow forecast.”

“I’ll agree with that. Good night.”

“’Nite.”

She went into her room and closed the door. Darby had seemed shocked that the boss went to the restaurant where Morie was eating. She was shocked, too, but also pleased and flattered and thrilled to death.

She slept, finally. And her dreams were sweet.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE LAST THING MORIE EXPECTED the next day was to find a seething Gelly Bruner on her doorstep. Well, at the bunkhouse when she went in for lunch.