entire career was resting on. She stopped the car and pulled her Nikon out of its case.
Planting her cowboy boots on the driver’s seat—she’d dressed Western for the occasion, at her editor’s orders—she leaned her legs against the headrest of the driver’s seat and aimed her camera at the cowboy. She quickly snapped several shots of him before reaching for the wide-angle lens to get some photos of the cattle drive, en masse. Her head was bent over her equipment when she heard a voice.
“Were you just taking pictures of me?”
The cowboy. She glanced up. He and his horse were about ten yards away. He hadn’t turned his head in her direction when she’d been snapping photos of him, so she’d assumed he hadn’t even noticed her. Which was ridiculous, she now realized. Her red Mustang didn’t exactly blend in with the surroundings.
Nor did she. Slowly he perused her showy Western boots, dress and belt—every single item brand-new. No doubt he was pegging her as city girl playing at country.
“Yes, I did, for an article I’m writing. Would you like me to send you copies?” Up close, she could tell the cowboy was in his early thirties. Bronzed skin, features sculpted from a beautifully balanced, square-jawed face, and eyes so blue she could see the color from here.
Just the sort of cowboy her editor wanted her to write about. A few close-ups would be perfect….
“No.”
He wasn’t even trying to be polite. She masked her discomfort with a smile. One of her brightest. “That would be a shame. They’re going to turn out beautifully. That’s a gorgeous horse you have there.”
A pretty gorgeous guy, too. If he would only smile. But the scowl on his face didn’t seem inclined to budge.
“You must be that journalist from Billings.” He made the word journalist sound like slimy bug.
Belatedly it occurred to her to check the brand on the cattle that were still moving briskly across the road. Sure enough, she spotted a BH on the black hide of one of the closest animals—Big Horn, the ranch she was staying at. At just that moment, the very same cow lifted her tail and a fat patty of excrement splattered to the road, right in front of her car.
“You work for the Big Horn Guest Ranch,” she said, stating the obvious.
“Correction. I own the Big Horn Guest Ranch.”
“I should have guessed. You obviously love working with people as well as animals.”
His eyes narrowed at the sarcasm. Then his jaw muscles tightened. “I hire staff to deal with the dude ranch. I told Naomi it was a bad idea to have a journalist on the property. But she convinced me I wouldn’t even notice you were here.”
Talk about making a paying guest feel welcome. Now she was the one getting annoyed. “Well, I wouldn’t have bothered you if your cows weren’t blocking the road.”
“Wouldn’t have been a problem if you’d taken the main approach from the north, the way our brochure tells you to do.”
Crap. He had her there. “Fine. My mistake. I’m sorry. Please feel free to go back to work while I sit here and wait for the road to be clear.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he replied. “Until you erase those pictures of me.”
Jason Dowcett just wanted to be left alone. Was that too much to ask? He owned a thousand acres of land—most of it wilderness. So how was it possible that, purely by chance, he would happen to be snagged by a journalist on assignment to write some damn article about why women loved cowboys?
When Naomi, the dude ranch manager, had told him about the writer from Montage magazine that was booked at the ranch—and why—he’d done his best to nix it.
“She’ll be too disruptive. Asking questions and getting in the way.”
“But think of the PR,” Naomi had coaxed.
He didn’t care, particularly about that part of the business. For the past year and a half the only company he could tolerate was that of his horse, Gold, and his cattle. The dude ranch was just a reminder of Lana and what used to be. He planned to shut it down as soon as he could figure out how to take care of his staff. But he hadn’t told anyone about that yet. And so, reluctantly, he’d let Naomi have her way.
“Just keep her out of my hair,” he’d said.
“I will,” Naomi had promised.
And now look what had happened. Callie Anderson hadn’t even handed over her credit card yet and she was already in his face. Dressed in the sort of duds that city folk liked to call “country chic“—a formfitting black dress with a silver-and-turquoise belt slung around her waist and black-and-brown boots that were obviously fresh out of the box.
Standing on the driver’s seat of her car, she appeared to be a tall woman, but she was still significantly shorter than he was astride Gold. He urged the Appaloosa closer, then held out his hand.
“The camera?” If she wasn’t going to erase the pictures, he would.
“Just look at them first. If you’re concerned about your privacy, you needn’t worry. Most of your face is hidden by your cowboy hat.”
When he said nothing, she reluctantly handed over the Nikon. He squinted at the screen, then scrolled through the photos. They looked innocuous enough. Maybe he should let her keep them. Now that she was here, he didn’t want to make the journalist mad.
He passed the camera back to her.
“Thank you.” She smiled at him again, and he had to look away. Damn, but she had a pretty smile. And nice legs, too. He felt guilty as hell for even noticing.
“Keep well back from the cattle,” he warned. “In another five minutes the road should be clear again. Don’t imagine I’ll see you again, but do me a favor and stick to the designated dude ranch areas from here on in.” He tipped his hat and turned away.
It actually took fifteen minutes, about a hundred head of cattle and two more cowboys before the road was clear. The cowboys bringing up the rear were a lot friendlier than the ranch owner had been. They both waved and came over to apologize for holding her up.
Too bad neither of them was as photogenic as their boss.
Anyway, Callie had already tucked away her camera, thankful that the Big Horn’s owner hadn’t insisted she erase the photos.
With the road finally empty, the Mustang made short work of the final few miles to the dude ranch, which was picturesque and welcoming. Someone other than the owner must have done the designing.
The main house—a Montana-style log home—sat on a rise to the right amid a grove of freshly budding aspen. The outbuildings were next, all white with green roofs. These
