Her Leading Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

independence
and ability to take care of herself, she also knew that women were both
physically and politically weaker than men. It helped to have someone with a
reputation for hardheadedness, not to say a nasty disposition, on her
side.
    Christina loved Gran and appreciated her willingness to chaperone her.
Gran might be small, and she might be old, but she was an expert at
making people —particularly men—keep their distance.
Men didn’t
like being humiliated by little old ladies. And, while Christina
understood their point of view in a way, she also considered the ones who ran
away—and that
included all of them so far—cowardly for not fighting back.
    Martin smiled winningly at her grandmother as he took the chair
across from her. “At least this place does have a fair number of electrical
fans, Mrs. Mayhew. They help stir the air.”
    “ They don’t cool it,” Gran pointed out
emphatically, as if Martin had just said something stupid.
    “ True enough. Maybe by the time the pictures
start to talk, somebody will have invented a way to cool air, even in the
summertime.”
    “ I doubt
it,” Gran said bitterly.
    Christina looked at Martin in frank curiosity.. “Do you really think the
pictures will ever talk, Martin? Honestly?”
    “ Yes, I do. One of these days, one of the
great minds who works on such things will invent a quiet camera and a way to
project sound.” He shrugged. “Actually, the Edison group has already invented
a way to
project sound. We only have to be able to hear it above the cranking of the
cameras. But since I started working in the business, cameras have come a long way, too.
We’re using a close-up camera for some of the scenes in this picture, in
fact. I’m sure sound is right around the corner.”
    Made sense to Christina. She smiled at him in
appreciation because he hadn’t yet been cowed into keeping his opinions to himself
by Gran.
    After eyeing him sharply in what might or might not have been
disapproval—it was sometimes hard to tell with her—Gran said “Heh”
again.
    Christina watched her with interest. Her grandmother seldom
fell back on one of her “hehs” unless she felt she’d lost an argument.
Transferring her gaze from Gran to Martin, she noted that his benign
smile hadn’t
wavered.
    Good heavens, he reminded her of her father! Could Martin Tafft
be such a one as Benjamin Arm strong Mayhew, the most perfect human male in the entire world? She
told herself not to be silly. She’d only just met Martin. She couldn’t yet
know if he was worth getting her hopes up for or not.
    Not to mention the fact that this wasn’t the time for her to be
entertaining hopes of any sort, no matter how marvelous or disgusting Martin
Tafft turned out to be.
    An internal compulsion seemed to be guiding her today, however, and
she couldn’t seem to help herself. She cleared her throat. “I read somewhere
that people are experimenting with ice-cooled air. It seems that it’s possible to
keep ice frozen for a long time using some sort of electrical process and some
sort of gas, and that air fanned across ice can cool air quite
well.”
    “ I read
about that, too,” Martin said.
    He’d been scanning the menu, which was a piece of paper on which
had been written, in very bad calligraphy, some dining selections. It looked
to Christina
as if the Desert Palm Resort was trying perhaps too hard to appear stylish.
They’d probably have to do a lot more than make up a fancy menu in order to impress
Martin Tafft.
    Even as she thought it, however, she took note of Martin’s cordial
expression. He evidently wasn’t one to disparage the local populace, no matter
how rich and
important he was.
    Interesting. Especially when she compared Martin’s behavior to Pablo
Orozco’s. Orozco walked around looking as if he’d had his sneer permanently
affixed to
his face and watching the locals as if he considered them
vermin.
    She told herself not to get too encouraged. For all she knew,