The Hard-to-Get Cowboy

She would take her knocks, because using a pageant title to make a statement about inner beauty was loaded with irony, and not everyone was going to get it.

It was just another idea some of the townsfolk probably wouldn’t take seriously from her.

Just then, another man came to the front of the stage—a guy who wasn’t as familiar to Laila, even though she knew darn well who he was.

Who didn’t?

Tall, lean and roguish in his jeans, boots and black Western shirt, Jackson Traub was new in town—one of the Texans who’d come to Thunder Canyon to develop his family’s oil shale business.

And he was also known to be a troublemaker who’d caused a wild ruckus at his own brother’s wedding reception several months ago.

Was he about to stir things up here, too, just for the heck of it?

Just because rumor had it that he enjoyed raising Cain?

Laila should’ve been sending him a “Don’t you dare do it” glare, but…

But just look at him.

She was too busy taking in a deep breath, feeling a burst of tingles as they rolled through every single inch of her while he grinned up at her on the stage.

Lord help her, but a bad-boy reputation did something to a girl who’d spent her life doing everything right.

He swept off his hat and held it over his heart while raising his own voice over the crowd’s. “Neither of these boys is worthy. I’m going to marry the lovely Laila!”

Something primal hit her in the belly, and hard.

But it had nothing to do with the ridiculous proposal. Nothing at all.

It was only that his brown hair had been tousled so carelessly by the removal of his hat, and even from the stage, Laila could see the glint in his dust-devil brown gaze as he looked up at her and grinned even wider.

In spite of everything, she grinned right back, though hers was of the sweet/sarcastic variety. No one was going to make a complete mockery out of this night.

And no one—not even a slick Texan—was going to make it all better with a naughty smile and a joke, either.

Jackson Traub lifted an eyebrow, as if appreciating her feisty look.

As if challenged by it.

It took some effort to drag her gaze away from him—my, did it ever—but she turned her attention back to the audience while their laughter died down.

“See?” she said. “Here’s proof that life really doesn’t end after your twenties, girls. Everything improves with age, including the amount of attention.”

As cheers erupted, she waited for silence before continuing.

“But you all know that my heart belongs to Thunder Canyon. And, for all you fellas out there who’d planned to offer more proposals, you know I adore every last one of you, but I must tell you once and for all that I. Am. Never. Getting. Married. Life’s too short!”

As the place went nuts, she winked at the crowd, then smiled at the Pritchett brothers, telling them that there were no hard feelings about their ill-timed shenanigans.

Dean was glancing at his brother, as if to gauge Cade’s reaction.

And what Laila saw in Cade almost chipped away at her heart.

It seemed as if he’d just been kicked in the gut, his face ruddy, his hands fisted at his sides.

Oh, God. Had he been serious about proposing?

No way—not when she’d been very clear over the years how she felt about settling down. Not Cade Pritchett—a man who never impulsively shouted out things like proposals in front of a hundred other people.

Without a word, he turned to leave, his shoulders stiff, and Dean followed him, leaving the third suitor behind.

As Laila met the amused gaze of Jackson Traub, the last man standing, he put his hat back on, then touched the brim. The gesture might’ve been a touché from someone who clearly appreciated her firm stance on singlehood. Word had it that he’d even caused that scene at his brother’s reception because he was the ultimate bachelor, and he was intent on swearing off matrimony himself. It was just that he hadn’t exactly been speaking to a sympathetic audience at a wedding, for heaven’s sake.

Before he turned around and disappeared into the crowd, he sent Laila one last wicked grin.

Then he was gone, leaving her with a burning yen to see him again, for better…

Or for worse.

Chapter One

Nearly a week later, Laila sat at a corner table in the bar section at the Hitching Post, keeping her eye on the entrance as she traced the sweat off the mug of a lemonade she hadn’t touched.

She’d been playing phone tag with Cade, and they’d finally agreed to meet here tonight, among the after-work crowd enjoying Happy Hour in this rumored former house of ill repute that’d been turned into a bar and grill.

She tried to ignore the line of ranch hands at the bar—the men who kept glancing over and peering at her from beneath the shade of their hats. One in particular, Duncan Brooks, who worked on Mayor Bo Clifton’s spread, was trying to catch Laila’s attention.

Then again, he always was, and she wished he wouldn’t do that. The mustached, stocky cowboy was forever looking at her with that moony gaze men sometimes got when they were around Laila—that struck-by-a-beauty-queen gander that made her wish she had set out to clear up everyone’s perceptions of her from the very first time she’d been old enough to date.

With a polite nod to Duncan—nothing more, nothing to encourage him—she took a sip of her lemonade and shifted her attention to the painting over the bar. It featured the Shady Lady herself, Lily Divine, draped in diaphanous material, wearing a mysterious smile. Long before Thunder Canyon had experienced its recent gold rush and the place had moved from a sleepy spot on the map to a boomtown with a resort that attracted the rich and adventurous alike, and long before the town had undergone an economic fall that they were still recovering from, Lily had been a woman of questionable morals. A supposed heartbreaker.

Was that what Cade thought about Laila now, after she’d shot him down at the pageant?

Was that why he hadn’t been returning her calls?

She would soon see, because he was just now walking through the entrance, pausing to glance around for Laila.

She waved a tentative hello, and his hands fisted by his sides, just as they had the night of the pageant. He walked toward her in his sheepskin jacket—a necessity now that the weather had finally turned from Indian summer to October cool.

Laila held back a frown. It was tough to see Cade Pritchett in such a state. He was a hardy man, a local hero who’d played down his part in rescuing a young girl from drowning in Silver Stallion Lake about a year ago. Naturally, he’d refused any accolades.

He was the best of guys. The best of friends—until recently.

She’d already ordered a soda for him, and as he doffed his jacket, tossed it over the back of a chair, then sat, she pushed the beverage toward him as if it were a peace offering.

“I wasn’t so sure you’d come here tonight,” she said.

Cade didn’t utter a word. After years of dating him—never serious enough to have gotten totally intimate with him, though—Laila nevertheless knew enough about Cade to realize that he was weighing whatever he was thinking carefully before saying it.