One of them was glaring. That local divorcée, Ida Merridan. She was drop-dead gorgeous. Short, thick black hair, blue eyes, impossibly long eyelashes and a killer figure. The problem with her was that she collected men like dolls and tossed them aside when she’d had her fill. She was twice married, gossip said. Her first husband, the source of her great wealth, had been committed suicide. Nobody knew about the second husband, except that she’d divorced him. Cort Grier had dated her before he became entangled with Mina. He’d seen them on a dance floor, glued to each other at a party, and they left together. They’d dated often while he was in town. So presumably the cattle baron had a brief liaison with her. From what people said about her, she wasn’t picky about men. Anybody would do.

He didn’t like promiscuous women. That was probably hypocritical, he considered, because he’d sowed his own wild oats years ago. He averted his eyes from the divorcée’s blistering glare and sipped coffee.

* * *

But he glanced back at the widow, who was smiling at the clerk and paying for her take out. He didn’t like her. She knew it. He’d made his opinion of her quite clear at a party they’d both attended a week back. Their hostess had been match-making, and nudged them together onto the dance floor. He could do Latin dances. So could she. But this was a slow two-step and he hated the contact.

“I don’t have a fatal contagious disease,” Ida had said bitingly when he held her as if he had a stick of dynamite in his reluctant arms.

He lifted an eyebrow, his pale glittery silver eyes lancing down into her china blue ones. “Really? Have you had labwork to make sure?” he added, just to irritate her.

The glare grew hotter. “I don’t want to dance with you,” she said curtly. She was stiff even in the light embrace. Amazing, with her reputation, that she seemed to dislike him.

“They say any man will do, where you’re concerned,” he drawled. “I don’t appeal to you?”

She swallowed, hard, and glanced around, as if hoping the music would stop.

“And here I thought you’d come up with something trite, along the lines that you only dated men in your own species,” he taunted.

Another couple, spinning around, came a little too close and Jake pulled Ida abruptly closer and turned her to avoid a collision.

Her reaction was sudden and stark. She jerked away from him, almost shivering, her eyes lowered. “I can’t…” she began in a choked tone.

He’d glared at her. “Any man but me, is that how it goes?” he asked in a deep, biting whisper, viciously offended and not even sure why he was offended.

She hadn’t even looked at him. She’d turned and walked off the dance floor. Minutes later, she’d thanked her hostess for the invitation and driven her car away. Jake, standing by the punch bowl, was confounded by her behavior. She’d actually seemed afraid of him. And that was fanciful thinking when the whole town knew what she was.