nice. Series 4?”
She nodded.
“I always knew you’d make good,” he said, smiling. “You still in Dallas?”
“Yes. I manage a hotel there.”
His gaze raked over the car again. “Big, fancy hotel, I imagine.”
“You could say that. I, uh, I understand you’re head coach now.”
“Athletic director,” he corrected proudly.
She put on a smile. “Ah. Congratulations.”
“Thanks. How’s your dad? Heard he’s been ill.”
She nodded. “Undergoing chemotherapy.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear it.”
“I’ll tell him you asked about him.”
Lifting her arms, she swept her hair back with both hands, trying not to fidget beneath his stare.
“Is that an engagement ring I see, or have you taken to wearing a house on your finger?” he quipped.
Feeling rather smug about it, Ann straightened the cushion-cut diamond. “I am engaged, as a matter of fact.”
“Congratulations. Dallas boy?”
“Not a boy,” Ann said pointedly, “and not from Dallas, at least not originally. He’s actually from New Hampshire, though he’s moved around a lot. Right now he’s filling in for me while I’m here helping out.”
“So you’re coworkers, then.”
“Not exactly. He used to be my boss. Now he’s upper management in another area of the company.”
“So when you’re married you’ll be living where?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” she admitted. “Jordan is working that out with the company now.”
“Won’t be in War Bonnet, though, will it?”
“No. It won’t be in War Bonnet.”
Jack nodded. “Well, don’t be a stranger.”
The fuel pump clicked off. Ann turned away with a sense of satisfaction mingled with relief, saying, “I’ll try not to. I really need to get going now.”
He pushed away from the truck. “Important doings, huh?”
“Boot shopping.”
“Ah. Where you headed?”
“Duncan, I suppose.” Ann replaced the cap on the neck of the gas tank.
“Try the Western wear store on 81,” he advised.
“Okay.”
“Good seeing you,” he said, wandering back toward his vehicle.
Smiling, Ann climbed into the car, started up the engine and drove away, thinking how odd it was that the man who had so impacted her life would never know how he had changed things for her. Had she not overheard that conversation that day, she might well have finished school, come back to War Bonnet and...what? She’d had some vague notion of taking over the ranch at some point, but other than that...
For some reason, Dean Pryor’s face sprang up before her mind’s eye, so real in that instant that she gasped.
Heart pounding, she shook her head. Dean Paul Pryor was nothing to her. He could never be anything to her. Why, he didn’t even compare to Jordan.
She told herself that was because Jordan existed on an entirely different plane than the men in War Bonnet. He was suave, polished, always expertly groomed. She’d never seen him in anything other than a classically tailored suit. Jordan’s idea of casual wear was a suit without a tie, but even then he tended to favor silk T-shirts in place of his usual handmade dress shirts. She wondered if he even owned a pair of jeans. He must. They’d been friends for years, and she’d seen photos of him swimming and skiing. Surely he didn’t wade up out of the ocean or come down off the slopes only to relax in a nice three-piece, Italian wool suit. It was just that most of their interactions had taken place in more formal surroundings.
Truthfully, Ann didn’t have much of a life outside the hotel. Being on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week put a damper on a girl’s social life. That was why she and Jordan had become friends in the first place; she just didn’t have a lot of other options.
When Jordan had returned to Dallas to temporarily take over for her during her leave of absence so she could help her father through this health challenge, Jordan had immediately confessed that he’d formed feelings for her when he’d been her boss that had gone beyond friendship. He’d declared that he meant to sweep her off her feet, and then he’d done just that. In the three weeks they’d had to bring him up to speed on the current operations of the hotel before she’d left for Oklahoma, they’d become engaged.
Strangely, however, Jordan, Dallas and the hotel no longer seemed quite real. Instead, Dean Pryor, War Bonnet and the Straight Arrow were her current reality. Surely it was natural, then, to compare Jordan to Dean.
And yet, she could not bring herself to do it. She simply refused to compare her fiancé to Dean Pryor in any way. She didn’t even want to know why.
* * *
“Yep, those are boots, all right,” Dean pronounced, staring down at Ann’s feet on Friday morning. He was very glad that he’d kept his sunglasses on after she’d driven up and gotten out of the truck, for he feared that she’d have read in his eyes exactly what he thought of those pink-and-pearl-white, pointed-toe monstrosities.
Apparently he didn’t cover his opinion up well enough, because she brought her hands to her shapely hips and demanded, “What’s wrong with them?”
“Nothing!” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “They’ll protect your toes out here just fine.”
She frowned at the rounded toes of his scuffed, brown leather boots then tilted her head, obviously comparing her own footwear with his. Her boots were designed for riding, with toes so sharp that they almost curled upward at the tips. She had clearly chosen them based on color and style rather than function, but he wouldn’t embarrass her by saying so. Unfortunately, Cam wasn’t that circumspect.
One of the longtime hands at Straight Arrow Ranch, Cam had evidently known Ann from childhood. How else could he have gotten away with calling her pet names?
“You always did like fancy duds, Freckles,” Cam declared, strolling up to the harvester where Dean and Ann stood talking. “Oo-ee! You bought them boots right outta the window of the Western wear store up there in Duncan, didn’t you? Why, them things been there nigh on thirty years, I reckon.” He grinned at Dean, shaking his head. “Just goes to show that something’ll come back in style if you wait long enough, don’t it?”
Dean kept his jaw clamped and rubbed his nose, while Ann turned red. She lifted her chin and seemed about to turn on her heel when Donovan ran up behind her. He just
