Betting on the Cowboy

He had to laugh at his own wishful thinking. No, it was not even remotely possible she’d forgotten. But perhaps she would want to pretend she had. Her whole bearing announced that she had more than her share of pride.

“I’m so sorry we kept you waiting.” She took a step forward, putting one foot onto the porch, which surprised him. They were going out, not in?

Suddenly, from somewhere in the house behind her, a strange, high-pitched noise rang out. He glanced over her shoulder, wondering what on earth could have made such a sound. But her face remained utterly impassive, not even a twitch revealing that she’d heard it.

Man, she was good. He wouldn’t want to have to play poker with her. Their gazes locked, and he blinked first. After a couple of seconds, he actually began to wonder whether he had imagined the sound.

She stepped across the threshold, pulling the door shut behind her, and gave him another smile. “Rowena is running a bit late for the interview, so she asked me to show you around the ranch. We’re all very excited about the plans for Bell River, and we think you will be, too.”

She didn’t wait for him to agree, but moved on down the stairs without looking back, taking his cooperation for granted—which made sense, of course. After all, she was the boss lady and he was just a hired hand, assuming he got the job.

Mr. Minimum Wage. Still, Gray wasn’t complaining. The view he got while she walked ahead of him was pretty spectacular. It made him think like a college kid...it made the phrase “Boss Lady and the Hired Hand” suggest all kinds of interesting, if idiotic, possibilities.

God, what a sleazeball that made him sound like! Good thing she couldn’t read his mind. He had to laugh at himself, proving his grandfather right about how unprofessional and self-indulgent he was.

“One day, son, you’ll learn that real life is not all about games and girls.” Gray’s grandfather’s face, as he stood in Gray’s college dorm on Gray’s nineteenth birthday, had been rigid with fury. He’d just realized that Gray wasn’t going to cave in to his demands to come home for the summer, not even at the risk of losing the Harper Quarry millions.

The old man never had been able to tolerate being thwarted. He’d run his cold eyes over Gray’s expensive suit, and then over the equally expensive red dress Gray’s girlfriend was almost wearing.

“If you honestly believe you can make your own way, without the safety net of the Harper name, you’re going to have to do a hell of a lot of growing up.”

Gray had yawned and gone back to knotting his tie. He and Carla had reservations at nine, and she was eyeing him appraisingly, obviously wondering if he had the starch to stand up to the old tyrant.

So Gray had met his grandfather’s gaze in the mirror and grinned. “Oh, dear. Will I have to become like you?”

His grandfather’s mouth had tightened. “You couldn’t be like me if you tried, you insolent whelp. But, like it or not, if you’re going to be poor, you will have to get serious. You will have to get focused. And by God, for once in your spoiled life, you will have to get dirty.”

Well, the old man hadn’t been lying about that, as Gray had soon discovered. But he’d been wrong to assume that getting dirty would bother him. He’d thrived on it, actually, and kept himself so focused that it had been a very, very long time since Gray had found any female special enough to take his mind off “real life.”

The subtle stirring of interest Bree Wright had just set in motion...well, frankly, it felt darn nice.

Still, she was talking, and he should be listening. He caught up with her and kept his eyes sensibly on the path as they made their way toward the stables. He tried to pay attention as she detailed the ranch’s horsemanship program.

They had built fifty stalls, she explained, because, though they had only twenty horses at the moment, the plan was to increase to fifty head within a year. They also had three ponies for young riders and a “bring your own mount” option for guests who preferred a familiar seat.

“Nice,” he said appreciatively as they entered the large, well-designed stables and heard the soft nickering of the animals. He gazed down the wide, clean walk between the stalls. Half a dozen horses poked their heads out, and his practiced eye evaluated them quickly. All excellent specimens, as far as he could see.

Bree didn’t seem inclined to take him in any farther, though he was itching to get a closer look. Apparently this was only the nickel tour, skimming the high points until she could turn him over to Rowena.

Or else she simply wasn’t a fan of horses. He allowed himself a quick up and down while she was consulting her watch. That hairdo wouldn’t survive five minutes on horseback, and those high heels had definitely not been bought with the thought of tramping through sawdust and hay. Maybe more than a decade on the East Coast had eradicated her inner cowgirl completely.

After a few seconds, he realized he was still staring at her impossibly long legs, so he yanked his gaze up where it belonged and said the first thing that came into his mind. “Are you a good rider?”

She glanced at him, as if surprised by the question, and lowered her arm, letting her watch fall over the back of her hand.

“I haven’t ridden in years, but I used to be all right,” she said, but she touched her earring when she said it, and he had already learned that the gesture was her tell. The question had made her uncomfortable. “I was nothing compared to Ro, of course. She was the horsey one.”

He winced, hearing in her voice that she still accepted the childhood labels without question. Big mistake. Labels, he knew all too well, had a way of being self-fulfilling. He had been “the spoiled brat.”

“Really.” He tilted his head. “And which ‘one’ were you?”

Her eyebrows drew together gently. Then she smiled. “I was the prissy one. The ice queen. I thought you might remember that.”

Well, that brought the elephant out and plopped it on the table, didn’t it? He admired the cool aplomb that allowed her to mention it first. Maybe the episode really didn’t bother her as much as it bothered him. Maybe it was easier to live with the memory of having looked foolish than to live with the memory of having been cruel.

“I do remember,” he said flatly, without any attempt to make light of it all. Yes, they’d been kids. But even ninth graders bled when they were cut. “I remember that I was an insensitive jackass. You deserved better, and I knew it, even then. It may be sixteen years too late, but I want you to know I’m sorry.”

When he had started his speech, she had already begun to exit the stables. At his final word, sorry, she stopped walking and gazed placidly back at him, her elegant, symmetrical features half in shadow, half in sunlight.

“Thanks,” she said, but he didn’t know her well enough to guess whether the simple word was sardonic or sincere.

Truth was, “jackass” might be an understatement. He and his friends had always made fun of girls like her, the ones who were so bloody virtuous and civic-minded, always on committees to organize this and decorate that. But then, that January, just a month or so before her mother’s death, she had ratted on his best friend for smoking behind the bleachers.

Irked, Gray had decided she needed to be taken down a peg.

So, inspired by the instructions on one of his grandfather’s housekeeper’s frozen foods, he had printed out bold red letters on a piece of plain white paper. Then he’d recruited the girl who sat behind Bree in biology to surreptitiously tape it to the back of her shirt.

Caution: Contents Are Frozen. Thaw Before Eating.

She’d worn it for two whole class periods, in which apparently she had no allies. Finally, after school, one of her buddies saw it and yanked it off. By that time, the joke had made its way around the building like a virus, becoming more vulgar by the minute. Even Gray had felt naive when he realized some of the nasty interpretations that could be applied—though of course he pretended to have meant them all along.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, though,” she added with a smile. “You had good reason to be rebellious. What happened to your parents...it was so unfair. I didn’t understand anything about it that day, of course, but I found out soon enough. When you’re furious with life, with fate, with everything, it can make you...” She seemed to search for the right way to express herself. “Less than kind.”

He nodded. “True. Although in some ways isn’t that just a cop-out? People still have choices about how they’ll express their anger.” He appreciated her generosity, though. “I have to say,” he added, “that tragedy doesn’t seem to have had a similar effect on you.”

Flushing, she rolled the pearl of her earring between two fingers and laughed softly. “That’s nice to hear. But then, you’ve known me all of...ten minutes? I suspect that the people who know me better would emphatically disagree.”

People who knew her better... He wondered whom she meant by that. A husband...an ex-husband? A lover?

Or...he glanced toward the pine-dappled path they’d taken to the stables, and saw Rowena striding briskly toward them, her black hair blowing out behind her in the breeze.

Or a sister?

“Gray!” Rowena met them at the stable door and held out her hand. “Gosh, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? But you haven’t changed a bit! I would have known you anywhere.”

He accepted her warm, welcoming handshake. He would have recognized her, too, of course. Those eyes. Those cheekbones. But he couldn’t say she hadn’t changed. Though she had been in the eleventh grade the last time they met, and she was now probably nearly thirty-two, a married stepmother juggling family and business, she didn’t look a day older. Instead, she seemed, paradoxically, to have grown younger. Softer.

Was that what marriage to Dallas had done for her? Had love really erased all that dangerous tension that had once tightened the muscles in her face and in her body, until she had seemed a hairsbreadth away from exploding?

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” she went on. “You’ve seen the stables, then? I hope Bree has been persuasive. Her mission was to convince you that Bell River Dude Ranch is the perfect place to work.”

Bree frowned, as if this was the first she’d heard of such a mission, but Gray spoke up quickly. “Absolutely. She’s made it sound terrific. I’d want to work here even if you weren’t the only place in town willing to hire me.”

Rowena laughed, but Bree’s deepening furrow told Gray that she hadn’t been brought in on the joke. When Gray and Rowena had spoken on the phone yesterday, he’d laid everything out frankly, black sheep to black sheep, and asked for her help. In the strictest sense, this meeting wasn’t even really an interview, because she’d already offered him the job.

“I was just about to show him where the Phase Two construction will start,” Bree said, obviously treading carefully. She pointed west. “We’ll be adding a pool and a lodge, just over there. Both of them will allow us to offer many more activities. Your position would be greatly expanded during Phase Two, I’m sure, and—”

Rowena laughed again, reaching out to touch Bree’s upper arm gently. “I don’t think Gray really cares much about Phase Two,” she said. “He’ll be long gone by then.”