A Real Cowboy

Pain shot through him. He remembered all too well what it was like to be alone, to be lost. He’d found a home here with eleven “brothers” and Cass years ago. Now at thirty-one years old, he didn’t want to have to start all over again.

Hopefully he was wrong. Maybe Cassandra would be thrilled with the inheritance of the ranch and want to work it as her aunt had and continue to build on Cass’s dreams.

It would be great if that happened, if she wanted to keep the ranch, live here and work it with the men who had helped to build it into the success it was now.

He straightened as he saw the faint dust rising up on the long dirt lane that led to the ranch. A dark sedan slowly approached, and Lucas’s gut tightened when he realized it probably held the new boss.

The car turned into the ornate black gates with the overhead sign that read The Holiday Ranch. As the car got closer, Lucas could see that there was more than one person in it.

The vehicle, a rental car, pulled up in front of the house and came to a halt. He could see the blonde behind the wheel and realized there wasn’t just another person in the passenger seat, but what looked like a kid in the backseat.

Maybe she wouldn’t be in such a hurry to sell the place after all. Maybe she intended to stay and raise her kid here in the wide-open space of the ranch and the nearby small town of Bitterroot.

The driver door opened, and the minute he caught sight of the bright red high heel that hit the ground, he knew there was no way she would stay. A woman who wore those kinds of la-di-da shoes would never be happy on a big ranch in the middle of nowhere.

The high heel belonged to a short, slender woman who had the same blond hair and bright blue eyes as Cass, but that was the only characteristic she shared with her aunt. She was a pretty thing, but looked fragile and nervous.

Lucas made no move to greet her until the passenger stepped out of the car, along with a little dark-haired boy about six years old. The taller dark-haired woman with eyes the color of new spring grass smiled at him, and an instant wave of heat suffused him.

Cassandra Peterson might be pretty, but the woman she’d brought with her was the stuff of Lucas’s dreams. Long dark hair waved and curled loosely down her shoulders and framed a heart-shaped face with delicate features and those amazing green eyes.

“Mr. Benson?” Cassandra asked.

“No, Adam went into town this evening,” Lucas replied.

“Oh, I understood that he was the foreman here,” she said.

“He is, but all the men went into town and I volunteered to stay behind and get you settled in. I’m Lucas Taylor.” He didn’t bother to attempt to shake her hand, but he did tip his hat. “And you must be Cassandra Peterson.”

“I am.” She turned to the woman and little boy who had joined her. “And this is my friend Nicolette Kendall and her son, Sammy.”

“Nice to meet you all,” Lucas said. He might find Nicolette hot as hell, but she had the slick of the big city on her, too.

The little boy, Sammy, left his mother’s side and stepped up in front of Lucas with a suspicious stare. “Are you a real cowboy?” he asked.

Lucas smiled down at him. “I’m a real cowboy,” he replied.

Sammy looked him over from his head to his toe, and then met Lucas’s gaze with a faint disdain. “My mommy says real cowboys spit and smell like cow poop and never take baths.”

“Is that a fact?” Lucas shot a quick glance at Nicolette, whose cheeks flamed with color. If he had any question about how the two women would fare on the ranch, Sammy’s words confirmed that they were clueless about real cowboys and working ranches.

“The only time I spit is if I get a bug in my mouth, and as far as I know I’ve never smelled like cow poop. But cowboys do only have to take a bath once a week.” Lucas felt a sense of satisfaction wing through him as he watched Sammy slowly process what he’d said.

“Mom, did you hear that?” He ran back to his mother’s side. “Cowboys only take baths once a week. I think I want to be a cowboy.”

“Maybe we should get unloaded and settled in before it gets too dark,” Cassandra suggested. She leaned into the driver door and popped the trunk open.

Although Lucas would have liked to see the two women struggle inside by carrying the mounds of suitcases and tote bags without his help, he knew that would only confirm their misconceptions. Besides, Cass would turn over in her grave if he didn’t do the gentlemanly thing.

He moved to the trunk and grabbed two massive suitcases. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you around the house.” They each grabbed a duffle bag and Sammy carried a smaller overnight case and together the four of them walked up the porch stairs and into a small formal living room.

“This room is where Cass would talk to one of us if we did something she didn’t like,” he said. “She didn’t use it for much of anything else.” He dropped the suitcases at the foot of the staircase that led up to the bedrooms and then guided them on through and into the huge great room with the attached large and airy kitchen.

“It’s much nicer than I thought it would be,” Cassandra said.

“Yeah, we’ve even got running water,” he replied drily. He returned to the foot of the stairs and once again picked up the two suitcases. Without waiting to see if they followed, he headed up the stairs.

He heard their footsteps behind him and when he reached the first of the four bedrooms, he turned and immediately found himself face-to-face with Nicolette.

Up close she was even prettier than he’d initially thought, and she smelled like a flowery orchard of apples and pears and a touch of spice that made him want to taste her.

Instead he took two steps backward and motioned toward the bedroom. “This is the smallest and has the two twins. There are two more bedrooms with queen-size beds and the master that has a king. Two baths up here and two downstairs.”

He dropped the suitcases, figuring they could decide bed assignments without his help. “The house was cleaned yesterday and all the bedding is fresh. The kitchen is fully stocked, and now I guess I’ll leave you all to get settled.”

“Mr. Taylor? The other cowboys? When would be a good chance for me to meet with all of them?” Cassandra asked.

“If you step out the back door and look in the distance, you’ll see a building that looks something like a small motel. That’s our bunks and at the back of the building is a dining-room area. That’s usually where Cass talked to us if she had something specific to say. We eat breakfast around six each morning.”

Cassandra blinked, as if she’d had no idea that there were two six o’clocks in a day. “Even on Sundays?”

“Even on Sundays,” he replied.

“Then would you let them know that I intend to meet with them in the morning?”

Lucas nodded. “I’ll let them all know. And now I’ll just tell you all good-night.”

The scent of Nicolette seemed to chase him down the stairs and finally dissipated from his senses as he stepped out into the now darkening night.

As he headed to the bunkhouses in the distance, he tried to shove all thoughts of Nicolette Kendall out of his head. The last thing he needed was to entertain any thoughts about a woman who held such low opinions of cowboys.

In any case, Lucas had no desire for any lasting relationship in his life. There were a couple of women in town he saw occasionally, women who knew he was not in it for the long term and were just fine with that.

Knowing it would be some time before the men started straggling in from town, Lucas headed for his own unit. When Cass had built the bunkhouse, she’d made it work like a motel. Each cowboy had his own room with a bed, a dresser and a bath.

It was their private space to decorate as they pleased and to entertain whomever they wanted. For Lucas it was just a place to be alone.

The dining area behind the private rooms held not only tables and benches for eating, but also a stone fireplace, two sofas, a couple of easy chairs and a television that was rarely turned on. The meals were prepared by an old cowhand nicknamed Cookie who had worked as the ranch cook for all of the nearly fifteen years that Lucas had been at Cass’s place.

Lucas unlocked the door to his unit and stepped inside. He sat on the edge of the double-sized bed. Other than the clothes that hung on a small rod and the toiletries beneath the small sink, the room held nothing else personal.

He stretched out on his back and stared up at the ceiling and wondered what Cassandra would have to say to the men the next morning. Was this the beginning of a new era or was she the beginning of their end?

He’d had a faint sick feeling in his stomach since the moment he’d seen that red high heel step out of the car. He’d already lost the woman who had transformed his life. Now he feared that they were all about to lose their jobs and the place that had been, for some, their only real home.

It would be the end of family, the end of life as they all knew it. Cass’s death had already been a devastating blow to them all, and he had a feeling the bad times weren’t over yet.

* * *