Cort noticed her hunted expression and the cattleman’s unwanted familiarity, and he saw red. He walked up to the cattleman and removed the offending arm before Mina got her mouth open.

“We’re selling cattle. Not women,” Cort said. He smiled. But it wasn’t a nice smile, and his pale brown eyes had sparks in them.

The man glared at him. “Isn’t the young lady the one who should be speaking to me if I offended her?” he asked haughtily, his eyes on Cort’s unimpressive cowboy duds.

Cort cocked his head. His chin lifted. The smile was replaced by a cold glare and glittering eyes. This time, the visiting cattleman got the message and moved off with a huffy sound. He went toward his car instead of the cattle.

“We’ve lost a sale,” Mina said softly. But she wasn’t complaining. She looked up at Cort with a smile. “Thanks. I was about to protest, but you beat me to it.” She sighed. “He was a pain. But he might have bought one of our bulls.”

Cort glanced toward the man’s automobile. “Unlikely. He’s driving a three-year-old Lincoln with a bald tire,” he said. “He was wearing a suit off the sale rack at a men’s store and boots he probably got from Walmart. He’d be lucky to afford a steak, much less prime beef like you’re selling here.”

She was surprised at the way he sized up the other man. She hadn’t noticed those things. Well, she still didn’t know much about fancy clothes or fancy cars.

“How did you know how old the car was?” she asked.

He chuckled. “Boss’s foreman drives one just like it,” he said.

“Oh!” She laughed. “Well, thanks for saving me.”

“I beat you to it by a few seconds,” he said easily, and he smiled down at her. “I could see the storm clouds gathering on your face.”

She wrapped her arms around her. “I’m not sure about that,” she confessed. “He looked a lot like Henry,” she added, alluding to her mother’s old boyfriend. “Same build, same coloring… I guess I got inhibited.”

He felt protective. It wasn’t a feeling he associated with women at all. Not the women in his life, at least.

“The past doesn’t really die. Even when the main character in a movie advises the heroine to let it,” he added facetiously.

Mina laughed. “Star Wars,” she said at once.

He nodded. “I’ve seen both of the new ones. I’m looking forward to the next.”

“So am I,” she said.

“We seem to share a common taste for medieval television series and science fiction movies,” he noted.

She grinned. “I love science fiction. I’m rather fond of war movies, too.”

“War movies.” He was surprised.

“But documentaries on the great battles are my favorites,” she sighed. “I love anything on Alexander the Great and Hannibal.”

He shook his head. “Knitting, romance novels and war. An odd combination of hobbies,” he noted with a smile.

He didn’t know the half of it. Her memory was full of first-person accounts of some of the bloodiest conflicts in modern knowledge, from men who fought them. And not only soldiers. Her collection of battles included those of men and women from various law enforcement careers.