“It’s going to be a long year for a lot of livestock producers and farmers,” he predicted.

“I know. The weather is crazy.”

“You said you’d never been in a casino. Didn’t McGuire take you to one?”

She laughed. “No. We just went to restaurants. He really does know how to find the best food in the world.”

“And you look like you never eat,” he remarked, glancing at her trim figure.

She sighed. “I do eat, but I have to eat carefully. I tend to gain weight around Easter.”

He frowned. “Why?”

She turned her head toward him. “Easter eggs? Chocolate Easter eggs? Chocolate bunnies?”

“Oh!” He burst out laughing. “I get it.”

“Don’t you like chocolate?”

He shook his head. “It’s one of my triggers.”

“Excuse me?”

“I get migraine headaches,” he said. “Doctors say there’s always more than one thing that sets them off, but chocolate and nuts and red wine will do it to me in a heartbeat. I avoid all three. And I love damned red wine,” he added on a sigh.

“I get headaches, but not those.” She winced. “My grandmother used to get them. She went to an herbalist who gave her valerian root for it.”

“I tried the herbal methods. They didn’t work.”

“There are preventatives now, aren’t there?”

He smiled sadly. “Yes, but I’m allergic to the oldest type, and I want to see some more tests on the new ones before I’ll take them.”

“You’re very cautious.”

“My grandmother died of a stroke,” he said. “I’m cautious because migraines predispose you to strokes.” He glanced at her obvious concern. “Not at my age,” he said, and smiled at her blush. “But thanks for the concern.”

“They can do all sorts of DNA tests now, to see what sort of ailments run in your genetic makeup. I’ve thought of doing one,” she added. “I don’t know anything about my father’s health or about his family at all.”

“Your cousin said you should talk to him when he was in Billings, didn’t he?” he asked, because Rogan had told Bart, who told Cort.

She didn’t wonder how he knew that. He was right, and the memory still bothered her. She turned her eyes to the passing landscape. “My father tossed me headfirst into hell and ran like a scalded dog. I don’t want to talk to him.”

Impulsively, his hand reached for hers and linked into it, comforting and strong. “Let the past die,” he said in a mock Star Wars tone.

She burst out laughing, although she curled her fingers into his trustingly and felt her whole body glow. “Okay,” she said. “But if you pull out a lightsaber, I’m jumping out the window.”

“No chance of that,” he said. He might have made a vulgar joke about the lightsaber with an experienced woman. But not with this one, who was like a daisy in a meadow, pretty and sweet and removed from the glitz and glitter of his world. He smiled at her and felt her small hand jump in his big one. He was going in headfirst, and he didn’t care. It was addictive. He wasn’t going to think past today.