WHEN THE TRUCK ACTUALLY HELD TOGETHER FOR FIVE FULL miles, Diana relaxed enough to take note of the scenery. This was a part of Texas she rarely saw but that everyone who watched westerns automatically identified with the state. Behind miles of fencing that separated vast pastures from winding county roads, newborn calves frolicked beside their mothers and gangly foals with flying tails scampered in short bursts on unsteady legs while watchful mares looked on.

She could imagine how it would look in springtime, when the bluebonnets and buttercups and Indian paintbrush would burst into bloom, spreading their blossoms like a fluffy patchwork quilt over the rumpled hills and shallow valleys.

She had to stop once at a filling station to make certain she hadn't passed the turnoff to Cal's house, because the addresses were usually painted on rural mailboxes that were partially covered by tall grass.

Up ahead, she saw what had to be the right place, and she gingerly slowed the truck, praying it wouldn't die when she navigated the turn. It backfired when she slowed down, and the gears screeched horribly when she tried to shift into a different gear, but she made the turn. Once she had done that, she was confronted with a new series of problems in the form of a hilly gravel drive a mile long that twisted in and out among trees that no one had wanted to cut down apparently, and then rose sharply again.

"She should be here any minute," Cole told Cal, glancing at his watch. "If she's not, I'm going to go look for her." He'd called his office, learned that Diana was on her way, armed only with Cal's address, and he'd phoned the airfield immediately. The woman who worked there said Diana had arrived and gotten a ride with a local man who, she assured Cole, was "pretty respectable."

"You should have gone after her," Cal told him worriedly. "You can't have a wife wandering over the countryside, lost and alone. That's no way to treat a wife."

"If I knew which road the man she's with had taken, I would try to intercept her," Cole explained patiently, surprised by the signs of unprecedented nervousness his uncle had been exhibiting ever since he realized Diana was on her way.

Cal's next words were interrupted by a loud boom that cracked like thunder from the direction of the driveway. "What the hell is that?" he said, following quickly after Cole, who was already heading for the front porch.

"I assume it's Diana's ride," Cole said, staring in disbelief at an orange pickup truck with a loose bumper and a drooping headlight that was slowly lurching its way toward them, accompanied by the rhythmic screech of grinding gears and deafening backfires.

Cal watched for a moment, but he was more concerned with making a good first impression on his new niece. He smoothed his hair back carefully at the temples with both hands, squared his shoulders, and checked his tie. "Cole," he said with a strange hesitation in his voice, "do you think Diana will like me?"

Surprised and touched by his uncle's unprecedented nervous uncertainty, Cole said with absolute certainty, "Diana will love you."

Satisfied, Cal directed his attention to the approaching vehicle just as it gave one more earsplitting screech and then shot forward in a burst of speed. "Looks like he finally found second gear." Squinting, he added, "Can you tell if Diana's with him?"

Cole was younger and his eyes were better. As the truck reached the level spot that led directly to the front door, Cole stared with widened eyes at the face of his wife. "It's Diana," he uttered, hurrying down the porch steps to the drive with Cal right at his heels.

When they stepped out in front of her, Diana was so glad to see them that she mixed up the clutch with the brake and stepped down on the accelerator.

"Look out!" Cole shouted, jumping out of her path and dragging Cal with him. The truck missed them by inches, rolled to a stop, backfired, and died.

Shaking with fear at having nearly run over both men, Diana dropped her forehead on the steering wheel while Cole ran around the truck to help her out. She straightened just as he grabbed the handle to open her door. "Who owns this pile of sh—junk?" Cole demanded. The door handle came off in his hand, and he reached through the open window, groping for the handle on the interior.

He got hold of it, yanked the door open, and held his hand out to Diana to help her down. Like the elegant young woman she was, his wife accepted his hand, daintily removed her derriere from a tear in the vinyl seat as deep as a canyon, and then gracefully alighted.

Pausing for a brief moment to brush the dirt off her clothes, she flashed a warm smile at Cal, who was standing at Cole's elbow; then she looked at Cole with a sheepish smile. "We do."

Cal gave a sharp bark of laughter.

"This is my house," Cal explained, ushering her in the front door and insisting that she sit on his chair because it was the most comfortable; then he rushed off to the kitchen to get her a glass of fresh lemonade. Neat stacks of magazines and books on a vast array of topics were everywhere, and on the coffee table, in plain view, he had carefully placed the latest copy of Foster's Beautiful Living.

Diana could hardly believe that the gallant, endearing man who beamed at her as if she were the sunshine of his life was the same ferociously determined man who had forced his powerful nephew into marriage by blackmailing him with half of his own corporation—albeit for "Cole's own good."

"We'll just stay here for a little while," he explained, handing her a glass of lemonade and then standing in front of her as if she might need help drinking it. Finally, apparently satisfied that she could handle it, he sat down across from her on the sofa beside Cole and continued with the schedule for the day. "In a little bit, we'll go over to the other house. We'll eat supper there, and then you and Cole will stay there and I'll come back here."

Diana had come to adore him in less than five minutes. "Oh, but I thought we were going to stay with you," she said, shooting a confused look at Cole, "so we could get to know each other while I'm here."

"The other house is right here on the ranch," Cal assured her, positively beaming with pleasure that she wanted to see more of him.

After showing her around his home, he decreed that it was time to leave.

Cal's house was on flat ground in a wide clearing, situated for convenience not the view, but the other house, a mile further down the road and around a sharp bend, was positioned for view and setting, and it had both. "How beautiful!" Diana exclaimed as she slid out of Cole's station wagon.

Perched on the edge of a wooded hilltop that faced out across a shallow valley was a cozy house of stone and rough-cut cedar surrounded on three sides by a huge cantilevered deck that hung suspended in midair over the edge of the hill. Inside, it was rustic, with a huge fireplace at one end and rows of sliding doors at the other that opened onto the deck. Two large bedrooms opened off the living room, and the kitchen looked out over the hills in the opposite direction from Cal's house.

"This is Letty," Cole said fondly, leading a plump woman with her hair pulled back in a bun out of the kitchen and into the living room. Letty seemed almost as happy to know Diana as Cal was.

"Supper will be at six," she said, already retreating back into the kitchen. "It is nothing fancy. And nothing like the beautiful pictures in your magazine, either."

"I'm not much of a cook," Diana admitted.

"Good," she replied with a twinkle in her eyes.

Diana turned around and through the doorway saw Cole putting her suitcases at the foot of a king-size bed. He turned and caught her watching him, and a bolt of electricity seemed to shoot from his body straight into hers. He'd put his arm around her shoulders in a casually possessive gesture when he'd introduced her to Cal. But nothing in that gesture, or anything else he'd done, indicated what he felt about whether this was going to be a honeymoon or not.

She wasn't certain if that meant he took for granted that it was, or that he wasn't overly concerned one way or another.

All that began to change when dinner was over.