“We need men on the Diamond Bar K to help with the harvest.”
“The ranch where I was kicked off?”
“Father’s quick-tempered, but he’s square. I’ll talk with him about you—”
“Why waste your time?” he mocked mordantly. “I’ll not impose on him a good-for-nothing loafer, a worthless rotten-to-the-core hobo, a slacker, a wastrel who ought to be on a rock-pile.”
“Dad didn’t mean all that. He was angry. But if you don’t want to work for him, perhaps you’d work for me. I own a ranch, too.”
He looked up the road into the dancing heat waves. She was wasting pity on him, was she? No doubt she would like to reform him. A dull resentment burned in him. His sulky eyes looked into hers.
“No,” he said shortly.
“But if you’re looking for work,” she persisted.
“I’m particular about who I work for,” he told her brutally.
She winced, but the soft dark eyes were still maternally tender for him. He had fought for her, had saved her from a situation that held at least degradation and perhaps horrible despair. Moreover, young though he was, she knew that life had mauled him fearfully.