He wasn’t imagining a thing. But she didn’t have to tell him that.

“Do you think I can’t keep my hands off you?” She kept her tone light and teasing, even though nervous energy was churning its way through her stomach. “Is your ego really that big?”

His jaw snapped tight, and he stepped back, abruptly slamming the car door.

Katrina let out a breath of relief.

He yanked open the driver’s door, dropped into the seat, started the engine and peeled out of the driveway, leaving a rooster tail of dust and small stones.

Katrina rocked against the passenger door, then flew upright. She grappled with her seat belt, fastening it tight and low across her hips.

Neither of them spoke for a good half hour as they wound their way along the rutted dirt-and-grass road up through the trees to where the pastures fanned out on the higher rangelands. Reed shifted the truck into four-wheel drive, and Katrina hung on as they traversed a shallow creek.

“Is this going to be a long, silent ride?” she finally asked.

“This was always going to be a long silent ride. I expected to be alone.”

“Well, good news,” she announced brightly. “I can make small talk and entertain you.”

He shifted to a lower gear, pointing the truck up a steep, muddy rise. “I guess the cocktail-party circuit had to come in handy at some point.”

“That’s where you want to go? Insulting me?”

“I don’t want to go anywhere. And it was an observation, not an insult.”

“You’re lying.”

“Okay,” he allowed. “It was a joke.”

“It wasn’t funny.”

He quirked a half smile. “I thought it was.”

“You’re not a very nice man, Reed Terrell.”

He looked her way for a long moment.

She glanced to the rutted road, to Reed, and back again. There was a curve coming up. She waited for him to turn his attention to driving. “Uh, Reed.”

“I’m not a nice man,” he confirmed softly. “And you should remember that.” Then he glanced out the windshield and made an abrupt left turn.