grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck, which the day’s drive had coated with dust and grime in the June heat. He was born to this land, so he supposed he should be used to the often explicit nature of the men’s exchanges. But for reasons he preferred not to identify, Sheriff Brody’s commentary didn’t sit well with him.
“Too bad she’s already got one,” another of the ranch hands said.
Trace squinted into the bright orange ball that was the setting sun, watching Jo talk to her sometimes boyfriend, who had just pulled up on his Harley outside the stables. She was some two hundred yards away, so Trace could make out little more than her silhouette, but oh, what a silhouette it was. Legs that went on forever, full breasts and long, flowing dark hair. Jo was one of the ranch foreman’s more recent hires. She’d started six or seven months ago, and had become the guys’ favorite topic around this time of day, if only because of the absence of any other female on the ranch, and Jo’s lack of response to their interest.
Trace turned away and leaned against the porch railing of the modern bunkhouse, ignoring his own desire to watch her. He told himself he wasn’t like the other men, but in the end he was no different. Despite Jo’s considerable talents as a wrangler—she bested a lot of the guys on a bad day, and on a good day bested them all—he caught himself staring after her more times than he’d care to admit.
“I don’t think you came all the way out here to drool after one of my ranch hands, did you, Sheriff?” he said quietly, taking a couple of beers from the nearby cooler, which had been set out with the barbecue dinner for the two dozen cowboys. He handed the older man a bottle.
“Hell no.”
Trace found his gaze wandering back to Jo, his gut tightening at the sight of the biker reaching out for her, and her swatting his arm away. She’d never given Trace cause to think she needed protection from anyone. On the contrary, she went out of her way to prove she was capable of taking care of herself.
He rubbed his chin, hiding his grin as he recalled his exchange with her earlier in the day. They’d been four hours on the range when he’d found his steed steering toward hers. He knew a few details about her. Some were on the form the ranch required all hands to fill out, others the result of an official background check they ran as a matter of course. She was from Beaumont, an only child. She’d had a few run-ins with the law in her teens—assaulting an officer, disturbing the peace and public intoxication—but her record had been clean since.
She had also been a U.S. Marine for six years, honorably discharged the month before she came to work on Wildewood Ranch.
This morning, he’d watched as she took her hat off, piled her black hair on top of her head and put the hat back on, the result making her look not one bit less feminine.
“In the service…where’d you serve?” he’d asked her.
Her blue eyes had registered surprise. But only for a split second, before she recovered her trademark grimace. One of the guys had said she always looked as if she’d just gone for a dump behind a tree and had used poison ivy for cleanup because there was nothing else around.
“He speaks,” she’d said, rather than answering his question.
Trace had grinned. “Fair enough.”
He hadn’t said more than a handful of words to her since she’d hired on, and he remembered all of them—“Welcome” and “See you back at the ranch” the most prominent. His reticence was partly because the other hands had been within earshot, but mostly because he was attracted to her in an awful way.
And it seemed like that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. In fact, it was worsening. Just last night he’d woken up with a hard-on the size of Texas…and she had been the dream girl responsible.
Which meant he needed to try another tactic to battle the attraction. It wouldn’t stand for him to demonstrate anything but professional courtesy to their only female ranch hand. Forget sexual harassment; it just plain wasn’t smart.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
She’d given him a small smile, her full lips turning up at the corners. “No, I didn’t, did I?”
They’d ridden in silence for a couple of minutes, Jo darting out to force a couple of wayward steers back into the herd, then returning to his side.
“My brother, Eric, is in Iraq now,” he said. “A member of your family as much as mine.”
She’d looked at him from under the rim of her hat. “I met him briefly when I hired on here six months ago. He was home on leave.”
Trace had figured she might have. “He’s being honorably discharged this week.”
She’d nodded. “I heard that.”
He hadn’t been surprised. There wasn’t much else to do on these long drives except gossip and wait for the sun to set. Besides, there was a big welcome-home barbecue planned for Eric. Most of the hands were looking forward to it.
Trace had squinted at Jo, thinking that she wouldn’t be one of them. She didn’t strike him as a party girl.
“What made you sign up for the military?” he found himself asking.
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, then asked quietly, “What made you not?”
He’d shifted his weight in the saddle. Then shifted again as she took off her shirt and tied it around her waist, revealing the snug white cotton tank she wore underneath. It scooped low on her tanned skin and clung to her breasts and narrow waist. Trace leisurely drank his fill of her fine form, then looked up to meet her gaze, finding a knowing look in her eyes even as she pulled her nicely toned shoulders back and readjusted her gloved hands on the reins.
“Look,” she said, “I appreciate your effort to be cordial, but if you think you understand anything about me because I was a marine, you’re driving your truck down the wrong road.”
“I didn’t realize I was driving down any road.”
She gave him a long look, her eyes raking down his torso and then back up again. She seemed to know exactly where he wanted to put his truck. And for a moment he got the feeling she might open the gate for him to pass.
Instead, she dug her spurs into her horse’s sides and galloped ahead.
He hadn’t had another opportunity to speak to her since.
Oh, yes. Miss JoEllen Sue Atchison presented what his father might have called a quandary. She had to rate among the most beautiful, sexiest women Trace had ever come across. And was stubbornly determined to prove herself more than the sum of her comely parts.
He focused on her again now, watching as her boyfriend rocked his Harley up onto the stand and climbed off, following her into the stables.
“There she goes again,” a ranch hand said.
Trace frowned, took off his hat and then dragged his bandanna out of a back pocket and across his forehead. There she goes again, indeed.
He had the feeling this was going to be another long, sweaty night imagining what exactly she did in that stable whenever her guy visited.
Trace
