Dream's End by Diana Palmer Page B

forgotten between his fingers. He was so unfamiliar like this, she thought. The old days of friendly banter seemed to be gone forever, leaving only cold silence or anger between him and Eleanor.
    She stared at the lush green pastures stretching to the horizon. The river wasjust visible in rare glimpses through the hardwoods that ran along its banks. Both of the truck’s windows were rolled down because Curry didn’t bother with air-conditioning options in work trucks, and it was blazing hot. She missed the ribbon that would have kept her hair out of her face, and blushed when she remembered how she’d lost it.
    Curry unknotted the bandanna around his throat and handed it to her. “Tie your hair back with that,” he said, as if he’d read the thought in her mind. “It’s hot as hell out here.”
    â€œThanks,” she murmured. She drew the weight of her hair behind her neck and tied it with a double knot, letting the ends stream down. The bandanna smelled of Curry’s tart after-shave, and she knew she’d never give it back. It would go into her jewelry box with all the other tiny mementos of him that she’d accumulated over the years; things to be taken out only rarely in the future and looked at throughtears while she tried to get used to a world that he wasn’t in.
    â€œWe’ll pick up the horses on the way,” he said as he lit a cigarette. “Sure you’re up to this, baby?” he added with a half smile. “It isn’t pretty.”
    â€œI’m not a satin doll, Mr. Matherson,” she replied, stung by the sarcasm in his deep voice. “It won’t be the first time I’ve seen cattle branded and castrated.”
    â€œNo, it won’t, will it?” He frowned thoughtfully, handling the pickup easily with one hand as he took it over the rocky pasture and Eleanor bumped and bounced in her seat as it absorbed the rough terrain on its shocks.
    â€œWere you hoping I’d pass out from the heat?” she asked, peeking at him from her long eyelashes.
    His eyes flashed over her young face. “Flirting with me, Miss Perrie?” he mused.
    She shifted pertly in her seat and looked out the window, her heart throbbing. “Me? I wouldn’t dream of such a thing, Mr. Matherson,” she replied in her best businesslike tone.
    He laughed softly. “Brat.”
    â€œMale chauvinist,” she countered, loving the easy atmosphere that was reminiscent of earlier, more companionable times.
    â€œMe?” Both dark eyebrows went up as he glanced at her. “Honey, I’m one hundred percent in favor of women’s liberation.”
    â€œYou are?” she asked suspiciously.
    He took a long draw from the cigarette. “Dead right. I think we ought to liberate women from housework so they’ll have more time to wait on us.”
    â€œIncorrigible man!”
    His eyes glittered over her soft curves with a familiarity that raised her blood pressure two points.
    She moved restlessly. “Would you mind not looking at me like that?” she asked uneasily.
    â€œYes, I would.”
    â€œCurry!” she groaned, his name slipping from her tongue as if she’d always used it.
    â€œThat’s the first time you’ve ever said that,” he remarked with a quick glance into her eyes. “I like the sound of it.”
    â€œIt slipped out,” she replied tightly.
    â€œMy God, do we really need the postmortems?” he growled. “You make me feel sixty when you call me ‘Mr. Matherson.’ I’m not that much older than you are.”
    â€œFourteen years,” she reminded him.
    He stopped the truck in the middle of a rise and let it idle, turning toward her with one long, lean arm across the back of the seat while he studied her thoughtfully. “Does it bother you that much?” he asked.
    The look in his silvery eyes did, but she couldn’t give him the satisfaction of