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Dallas lingered a moment, half irritated that she had wasted her breath on him He had already been warned once She wasn’t sure why she had bothered to do it a second ti cowboy new to the area—who had obviously landed on his head a few too ood-looking ones, she thought wryly

But no a she had when she went back into the feed store When she started toward the co to be added to the inventory, her glance skipped to the dusty s, catching a glimpse of the cowboy on his way back into the warehouse

Her boss Holly Sykes was at his desk, his chair tilted at a precarious angle and the phone pressed to his ear As loud as the bell in the warehouse was set, Dallas knew she would have heard the ring of any incoated the phone call Dallas didn’t think she needed three guesses to figure out who that was It was bound to be either Max Rutledge or his son Boone

That old feeling of resentment left a bitter taste in her mouth when she sat down at the computer and reopened the inventory file Only half of her attention was on the work before her; the rest was tuned to the one-sided phone conversation

“He never blinked an eye when I told him the account was closed,” Holly Sykes declared “He just pulled out his wallet and said he’d pay cash for it” There was a lengthy pause while he listened “No, he didn’t give his na cash” Another pause followed “He looked like your ordinary cowboy—tall, dark-haired, on the young side Didn’t talk like he was from around here” The third pause was ured you’d want to know about this guy”

The desk chair screeched noisily as Sykes rocked his considerable bulk forward and hung up the phone The front door opened and Sykes de else you need?”

Quint paused inside the door “Do you know of anybody with hay for sale?”

“Not off the top of my head, but you’re welcome to post a notice on the board over there” Sykes waved a hand at the bulletin board on the wall by the door Its surface was already cluttered with athe stud services of local stallions and scraps of paper offering to sell anything froetables

Quint walked over to the counter “Do you have some paper I can use?”

“Get him some, Dallas,” Sykes ordered

Feeling oddly reluctant to face the stranger again, Dallas tore a page off the notepad on her desk, walked back to the counter, and handed it to him

“Thanks”

But there was a coolness in his look that stung Dallas supposed she deserved it after the things she’d said to hi the easy warray eyes all the previous tie on the paper, telling herself that the sooner he found out there was nobody around here he could trust, the better off he would be

Finished, he walked over to the bulletin board, posted his notice on it, and headed out the door In big, block letters, he had written: HAY WANTED Directly below it, he’d put the name of the ranch and its phone number

Beyond the s, dust swirled as the sedan reversed away frohway The minute it turned onto the road, Holly Sykes pushed out of his squeaky chair and walked over to the bulletin board, reain to his desk He dropped the handwritten e on the desktop and picked up the phone, punched a series of numbers from memory, and lifted the receiver to his ear