The Humbug Man by Diana Palmer

and kept the ranch going when nothing else could. His progeny are still well-known in cattle circles.”
    “I wish I knew more about ranching.”
    “Plenty of time to learn,” he said, his eyes twinkling as they met hers.
    She loved to look at him. It became a habit as the day wore on. Maggie cooked supper, grilling steaks on the big expensive range in the kitchen. She made creamed potatoes and cooked some frozen beans and even made bread to go with it.
    Tate was fascinated with the bread. “I didn’t know women still made it,” he confessed as he finished his third buttered slice.
    “Mom loves to cook,” Blake grinned.
    “Mostly out of laziness,” she confessed. “I hate eating out.”
    He laughed gently. “So do I.” He glanced at Blake’s sudden grimace. “How about something else for that leg?” he asked the boy.
    “I don’t really need it,” Blake said.
    Tate turned his chair around, staring at the boy. “I broke my leg once. Got backed up on by one of my bulls. I learned that pain hurts, and that if you don’t overdo pain medication, it gets you over the bad spots. You don’t have to prove anything to me,” he added with a quizzical smile. “You kept your head eye to eye with a wolf. That told me all I needed to know about you.”
    Blake actually flushed with pleasure. “It wasn’t so bad,” he mumbled.
    “Now how about that capsule?” Tate persisted.
    Blake sighed. “OK.”
    Tate waved Maggie back down when she got up to get it. Instead, he rose and brought back the bottle. “Have one, then I’ll teach you how to play chess. Or do you already know?”
    “I can play checkers, but nobody ever taught me chess.”
    “No time like the present to learn,” Tate said and smiled at the boy.
    Maggie did the dishes and then curled up on the sofa to watch the game. Tate was patient in a way she’d never expected him to be, going over and over the moves with Blake until he understood. Her first impression of him had been that he never stopped or slowed down for anybody. But all those first impressions were undergoing change. She found that he had a dry sense of humor, that he wasn’t really a bear at all and that he was rather a lonely kind of man. There was nothing in this elegant house to indicate that he was wealthy, except for the sheer size of the ranch around it. He didn’t put on airs, but she imagined that he could have if it pleased him.
    “It must get lonely,” Maggie said absently, smoothing one of the Indian blankets that lay over the back of the sofa.
    Tate looked up from the chessboard while Blake frowned in concentration over his next move. “It does,” he answered her. “Especially for a woman.”
    She blinked, averting her eyes.
    “I guess loneliness is pretty portable, though,” he added, watching her. “Because I’ve known people who could be alone in a crowd.”
    “That’s true enough,” she conceded, trailing her finger over the design in the blanket while the fire roared like a fiery lullaby in the hearth. She was oddly sleepy. That was new, because she’d been a little jumpy at the cabin, even with Blake nearby. But here, in Tate’s house, she felt safe. She smiled secretively and closed her eyes.
    Tate’s dark eyes wandered slowly over her face, aware of that dreamy expression on it as he tried to reconcile his misgivings with a new and staggering hunger.
    Blake caught the look on the man’s face before he could erase it, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from smiling. So far, so good, he thought.

Chapter Four
    B lake went to sleep during a chess move, and Tate lifted him carefully, cast and all, and carried him into his room.
    “Get me his pajamas,” he called over his shoulder, “and I’ll get him into them.”
    “It will take a miracle to get them over that cast,” she sighed.
    He smiled at her gently. “Good point. Well, get his jacket anyway, and I’ll loan him a pair of my bottoms.”
    “I can see him now with the legs tied around his