Free Rainsinger by Barbara Samuel, Ruth Wind Page A

might be, there were a good many reasons to avoid any further involvement with Daniel Lynch. They both wanted the ranch—fiercely. Winona didn’t want to think he might use sex appeal to get what he wanted, but he wouldn’t be the first man to seduce a woman to attain his ends.
    She narrowed her eyes. She didn’t
think
he was the kind of person who’d resort to such methods, but what did she really know of him? It was always best to proceed with caution.
    On the branch near her cheek, there were tiny, hard balls at the base of the flowers. Embryonic peaches. Fingering one, she sighed.
    It surprised her that Daniel seemed attracted to her at all. A man like that must have his choice of women. Why would he want Winona? It might just be proximity—she was, after all, the only woman around.
    But he also might be so desperate to keep his hold on the land that he would do whatever was necessary to get it.
    Winona wished she had more experience with men. Then she might be able to sort genuine attraction from a ploy. Unfortunately, Winona was practically a virgin.
    Daniel
seemed
attracted to her. There had been a look in his eye the other night that she didn’t know how to fake—but millions of women before her had been taken in by clever actors.
    No.
    The voice of protest came from her gut. There was one thing going against her seduction scenario—his loneliness. He had such wild, lost loneliness in him that it made her ache. It showed in little ways—the sudden distance that crept into his eyes sometimes, the longing way he looked after the pair of them when they left the house, the restless way he joined them in the kitchen in the evenings, as if he could not help it.
    Hearing her thoughts, she frowned again. She didn’t like feeling insecure, and it wasn’t really part of her nature. Early in life, she’d discovered a talent within herself to be comfortable anywhere, in any culture or situation. It was a matter of letting the situation, rather than any preconceived notions, guide her actions, and it had served her well in a wide array of places she’d traveled.
    The only time the ability broke down was in the company of men. No, that wasn’t exactly true. In the company of men who showed no interest in her sexually, she could be friendly and cheerful and work right next to them. It was only when a man showed signs of attraction that Winona became tongue-tied and gawky.
    She’d been very protected as a young girl. Her minister father was strict, and she had grown up expecting she would not have sex until she was married. And except for one time, with a Peace Corps doctor she had imagined she was going to marry, she had not. The experience had been more than a little disappointing. Winona had chosen not to repeat it.
    The trouble was, she was edging toward thirty, with no husband in sight, and sometimes there were certain signals from her body that she found more and more difficult to ignore. Like any healthy woman, she wanted to have sex. It was as bald and simple as that.
    She was stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place, she thought with a wicked grin. Men were not terribly attracted to her as a rule. She was too tall, too big, too strong. Men wanted dainty, slim, fragile women. Winona somehow threatened their maleness.
    Coupled with that sad fact was another. Her mother used to say Winona’s standards were too high.
    Winona shifted on the branch, lazily swinging a foot in the open air, and knew her mother had been right. She didn’t like a whole lot of men enough to let them that close. She wouldn’t tolerate bullies, or men who had to run with the boys every night. She liked intelligence. Humor.
    And, she had to admit it—sex appeal. No mild-mannered man need apply.
    In her whole life, no man had ever come as close to meeting her standards as Daniel Lynch. He was intelligent—maybe even a genius. He wasn’t arrogant or bullying. There was room in his heart for young girls with big problems.
    And