“Business any better today?” Harlan asked only after he was apparently satisfied that her tea was fixed up the way she wanted it.

Rather than answering, Janet took a slow, refreshing sip of the cool drink. It felt heavenly after the hot, dusty drive. Her car’s air-conditioning had quit that morning on her way back to town and she hadn’t yet figured out where to go to have it fixed. The sole mechanic in Los Piños, a man with the unlikely name of Mule Masters, was apparently on vacation. Had been for months, according to Mabel Hastings over at the drugstore.

“My, but this tastes good,” she said, sighing with pure pleasure. “It’s hotter than blazes today. I thought I’d swelter before I got back out here.”

“What’s wrong with your car? No air-conditioning?”

“It quit on me this morning.”

“I’ll have Cody take a look at it when he comes in,” he offered. “He’s a whiz with stuff like that.”

“That’s too much trouble,” she protested automatically. For a change, though, she did it without much energy. It seemed foolish to put up too much of a fuss just to declare her independence. That was a habit she’d gotten into around her ex-husband. Weighing her independence against air-conditioning in this heat, there was no real contest. Air-conditioning would win every time.

“Nonsense,” Harlan said, dismissing her objections anyway. “It’ll give Cody a chance to snoop. He’s dying to get a closer look at you, so he can tell his brothers that I’ve gone and lost my marbles.”

Startled, she simply stared at him. “Why would he think a thing like that?”

His gaze drifted over her slowly and with unmistakable intent. “Because I’m just crazy enough to think about courting a woman like you.”

Janet swallowed hard at the blunt response. She could feel his eyes burning into her as he waited patiently for a reaction.

“Harlan, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here,” she said eventually.

It was a namby-pamby response if ever she’d heard one, but she’d never been very good at fending off the few men bold enough to ignore all the warning signals she tried to send out. She’d ended up married to Barry Randall because he’d been persistent and attentive...until the challenge wore off.

With that lesson behind her, she should be shooting down a man like Harlan Adams with both barrels. Suggesting he might be getting the wrong idea hardly constituted a whimper of protest.

He reached over and patted her hand consolingly, then winked. “Darlin’, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the ideas I have. You’ll have to trust me on that.”