his trail guide. Halle was one of a kind—a skilled horsewoman, intelligent business owner and a compassionate, loyal human being. He loved how she was so dedicated to her family, as small as it’d been, and how she’d given up everything she’d worked for to honor her father’s legacy. How she accepted his legacy as her own without blinking. This was the kind of woman a man could take as a life partner. As a best friend. As a lover.
Yet he was only a client to her.
But he’d cease being a client once they were back at the ranch house tomorrow evening. Would she ever consider making an exception for him and let him take her out for dinner?
He snorted as hard as either of the horses. Dinner was the least of things he wanted from Halle. He suspected she knew it, too.
“What can I do to help you this last full day and night, Halle? I feel like I’ve been a bit of a lug, going along for the ride without doing any of the muscle work.”
“That’s what you’ve paid for. It’s not a big deal to me. I’ve done this dozens upon dozens of times. You feel more relaxed than you did when you arrived, don’t you?” Her head was cocked to the side, allowing him to see her creamy skin under the brim of her white cowboy hat. The stylish, top brand hat appeared to be her one concession to her femininity and perhaps her former corporate life. It accentuated her chestnut hair and highlighted the whiskey hue of her eyes.
“As long as I’m not looking at my stock portfolio, yes.”
She laughed and swung up onto Buttercup. God, his fingers itched to grasp her waist and spin her around, their bodies touching—
“Let’s get a move on, cowboy. We’ve got a river to ford.” Her lighthearted prompt shattered what would have become a very naughty cowboy daydream. Usually he’d think about a previous woman he’d dated when he was getting randy. Or the next one he’d ask out on a date. Alastair was an expert at fine dining, precious wine and pleasing the women he took to bed.
Halle was different. She was the kind of woman who put an end to a man’s casual dating life. Because she would be the one he’d always compare anyone else to.
* * *
Halle had to ignore the lump in her throat. Being alone with any off-limits single man she was attracted to, day and night for four days, would have been difficult. Make it a male like Alastair Buchanan and it was downright excruciating to be so near yet unable to even pretend there could be any hanky-panky. And they still had one more night to get through. Of course her hormones were humming. At least that’s what she told herself. It wasn’t that he was special. A man she could sink her teeth into, have a real relationship with.
Besides, even if he wasn’t a client, he lived the better part of five thousand miles away. She hadn’t been able to maintain a romance with a man she’d been dating in Austin once she moved to Shadow Creek, only thirty miles apart.
“Not happening,” she muttered to herself and Buttercup as they wound through a field of dead sunflowers on a narrow clay path.
“What was that?” Alastair’s brogue was lovely, even when he showed flashes of the vigilant CEO he must be to run such a lucrative business.
“I said we’re getting closer to the fun part of the day.” The low rumble they’d had in front of them for the past mile or so had turned into a loud roar. The river crossing was going to be interesting, but nothing she couldn’t manage. She navigated the narrow trail, passed through a field and onto a rise with the river in sight, where she waited for Alastair to fall in next to her.
“That looks no wider than a creek. It’s shallow, I take it?”
“Not sure, and make no mistake, this is a river. Shadow Creek River. With all the rain, it might be higher than usual. One thing about flowing water in the Western US is that it’s very deceptive. I’ve waded in my bare feet through it when I was a kid, and ridden across it on several different horses. But each time it’s different. I’ve had to turn around and come back before, when it was too deep or the current too strong.”
“Our lochs, or lakes, as you say—” he put emphasis on the vowels in “lake” and “say,” making them rhyme “—are the same. They drop off with no warning to unfathomable depths.”
“Well, you won’t see Nessie here, but we have to take our time crossing.” She hoped to relax him with the Loch Ness Monster reference. Halle wondered how much of a challenge the crossing would be but didn’t see a need to alarm him about it.
“I’m game for whatever.” The statement was bold and she thought his profile was a little stiff with arrogance.
“I know you’re a good horseman, Alastair, but you have to trust my judgment about the river. It’s not like a still loch in Scotland.”
“And you know so much about lochs?” The sun caught the flash of his grin and her gut tightened. He was so damned handsome. Too much.
“Haven’t I told you yet? I spent my junior year abroad in Glasgow. I traveled all over Scotland and the UK.” It had felt like a second home and she’d always wanted to return. But then life after college had her deep into her career, and then her father’s death, and now her life’s work at Bluewood got in the way.
“I’d love for you to see Scotland now, as an adult, without the baggage of a student budget.” His insight stilled her. It sounded as if he had a normal upbringing, not one of privilege.
“You sound as if you backpacked across Europe on a budget, too.”
“I did, in a sense. My father was very strict with my spending until I graduated and became fully employed with the company. Sure, I knew I had a fallback if I needed it, but I kept my spending to what he gave me. It taught me how to budget and where to save money.” He laughed and she loved the rolling sound. Easy and strong, like a Highland brook. “It’s crazy, I know, coming from someone like me, but I do appreciate frugality. Easy to say when I’ve never had to do without anything.” She liked how he was self-deprecating when it came to money. Alastair was in touch with how regular people lived, even though he had a billionaire’s life and all the sparkly things to go with it.
“Someday I’ll see Scotland again, and a lot of the rest of the world. For now, running Bluewood is enough for me.” She allowed herself to share his glance for a heart-stopping moment before refocusing on the river. “At the moment I’d say we’ve got a tough crossing on our hands.”
“No worries, Halle. Your word is my command.”
“Good. As I said, it’s important that you rely on my commands as we cross. I need you to stay right alongside me as we approach the water and hopefully get across without issue. Let’s see how deep it is.” When there were younger children on the tour she liked to ham it up a bit here, emphasizing how the personality of the river could change on a dime. With Alastair the last thing she wanted to do was add any drama to their time together. She had to focus on keeping any hormonal chaos she had going on to herself.
The horses’ hooves were leaving prints in the clay bank of the river, the water lapping impatiently at their powerful legs. Halle took it all in, but not before checking out Alastair’s profile. Satisfaction unfurled in her rib cage, knowing he was moved by the scenery. In this fleeting moment she knew she’d done her job. The strong breeze, the white rapids where the water raced around the bend, the quieter area farther downstream that would be too deep to cross—all played their part to showcase the spectrum
