structure perched alongside the gravel lane heading to the ranch house. The compact building looked as if it had sprung from the earth and, unless his eyes deceived him, it even had grass on the roof. He knew Pete had been getting a little eccentric in his later years, but he wouldn’t have built something this bizarre.
“That’s Ziggy’s place,” Abigail replied as Dylan pulled his pickup truck to a slow halt.
“Who the hell is Ziggy?”
“A friend of mine.”
“And you let him build that monstrosity on your land?”
“Ziggy is an artist.”
As if to accentuate that point, the sudden and unmistakable roar of a power saw filled the air, causing a jay sitting on a nearby cottonwood branch to go skittering across the sky in raucous disapproval.
The sound of horses’ hooves hitting the bottom of the horse trailer conveyed their nervous reaction to the unfamiliar loud noise.
“Get him to turn that damn thing off!” Dylan ordered her in a growl. “He’s upsetting the horses.”
“Wait a second, who’s the boss around here?” she demanded, but she was speaking to empty air since Dylan had hopped out of the pickup cab and gone around back. By the time she’d slid out of the truck, Dylan was already marching over to Ziggy’s place as if determined to shut him up himself.
Even though the day was sunny and warm, Ziggy was wearing his customary Swiss army cap. His shaggy white hair stuck out at wild angles from beneath it. Baggy overalls, a plaid lumberjack shirt and work boots completed his outfit. The middle-aged outdoorsman and wood-carver was described as unique by his friends, crazy by his enemies and talented by those who bought the sculptures he carved out of whole tree trunks. He was up to his ankles in sawdust and standing to one side of the weird dwelling he’d built.
Ziggy spoke English with an accent, but whenever he was upset he reverted to German and French curses mixed with a touch of Italian—a result of his Swiss heritage. When Dylan interrupted him, Ziggy glared and the international string of swear words filled the air instead of the sound of the power saw.
“How can I work when I am always interrupted?” Ziggy demanded of Abigail, his tone much aggrieved.
“Baaaaaaaah.”
“Now see what you are doing? You are upsetting Heidi und Gretel,” Ziggy stated.
“Who are they? Your kids?” Dylan asked.
“In a matter of speaking,” Abigail replied on Ziggy’s behalf. “Goat kids,” she added, pointing to the grass roof, where a trio of goats was munching on the grass.
To her surprise, the beginning of a rueful smile tugged at the corners of Dylan’s lips, making her realize what perfectly sculpted lips they were. As before, the brim from his hat shadowed much of his face from her view, but the sun shone full force on his mouth, accentuating the aesthetic curve of his upper lip and the sensual fullness of the lower one.
“Nice friends you’ve got here,” Dylan drawled.
“No kidding,” she replied with a grin of her own.
He groaned. “You didn’t say anything about bad puns being part of this job.”
“That bother you?” she inquired saucily.
“Do I look bothered?” he countered. Using the tip of his thumb, he angled his hat a little farther back on his head. The shape of the broad brim gave an added edge to his appearance. Aside from a red cardinal’s feather, there was nothing fancy about the rather dusty black Stetson, and there was nothing fancy about Dylan. She had a feeling that the L-shaped rip in the left leg of his jeans wasn’t a fashion statement, but was instead a sign of wear and tear.
Feeling her eyes on him, Dylan decided that turnabout was fair play. So he stared at her, his gaze appreciative and speculative, as he fantasized that he was touching her with more than just his eyes.
“Stop that, you two!” Ziggy commanded. “I can feel fire from here. All this emoting is too distracting for an artist like me.”
Dylan watched the pink blossom in Abigail’s cheeks and shook his head in amazement. “I thought blushing was a lost art,” he murmured.
“It’s sunburn,” she shot back. “We’re leaving now, Ziggy.”
“My name’s Dylan, by the way,” Dylan said, nodding at Ziggy by way of introduction. “You been working on this piece long?” he added, indicating the tree trunk Ziggy had been carving.
“Since early this morning,” Ziggy replied.
“Did you happen to see Abbie here go riding by while you were working?”
“My name is Abigail,” she inserted.
“I call you Abbie,” Ziggy commented.
“That’s because you’re my friend. Dylan is…”
“The new ranch foreman,” he said on his own behalf. “Temporarily.”
“You will be helping Abbie, then,” Ziggy noted with a wide smile. “That is good. She needs help. I can do some but not everything. I am good with horses, I was raised on a farm near the Jura Mountains. We had horses and many cows. Goats, too.”
“You’re good with horses?” Dylan asked.
Ziggy nodded but added, “I’m better artist than cowboy.”
“That’s okay, Dylan here is the cowboy,” Abigail said.
“Did you happen to visit the barn this morning?” Dylan asked Ziggy.
“I was here working on my sculpture all morning,” Ziggy stated.
“Yeah, well, horses don’t like loud noises, especially sudden ones. If you were raised on a farm, you should know that.”
“Swiss horses are much better behaved than American ones,” Ziggy maintained.
“Right. And I’m Buffalo Bill Cody,” Dylan scoffed. “Just watch out when you use the saw, make sure that you don’t make that racket when someone is riding nearby.”
“No one rides nearby here,” Ziggy declared. “They know I am working.”
“Dylan, I really do have to get back to the ranch house,” Abigail inserted, practically tapping her boot in impatience.
Once they were back on the road again and the sound of Ziggy’s power saw was a distant annoyance, Abigail began questioning Dylan. “Why were you interrogating Ziggy that way?”
“Just trying to get a lay for the land. Did you see Ziggy in the barn this morning when you were saddling your horse?”
“Of course not. He likes horses but he loves sculpting. It’s hard to drag him away from his work. Why the sudden curiosity?”
“Because
