A Cowboy's Wish Upon A Star (Texas Rescue Book 5)

by Caro Carson

  Fanciful notions from college studies evaporated in an instant. “Whoa. It’s just me.”

  She rolled off the table, off the far side, so that she stood with the table between them. It was a seriously skittish move.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “This is my ranch.”

  “Ha. You don’t spend a lot of time on it.” She pushed her hair back with both hands, pausing to squeeze her temples with her palms as she looked around the horizon. “Crap. Is it already sunset?”

  “Clay’s already taken the horses to the stable.”

  She looked toward the barn, alarmed. “Did this Clay guy see me?”

  Travis didn’t envy her Hollywood life at all. She seemed to be on edge all the time.

  She wasn’t wearing a shirt and shorts, after all. It was all one piece, almost like a child’s pajamas. Maybe she was embarrassed to be caught outside in her pajamas. “Don’t worry. You’re looking at the barn, not what we call the stables around here. The stables are on the far side of the horse pasture. You can’t see it from the house.”

  He paused. He didn’t have a reason to tell her more, except that it might buy her some time to ease into being awake. “The stables are close to the bunkhouse. Cowboys living there keep their horses in the stables.”

  But judging by the way she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, she’d tuned him out after Clay can’t see you. “I have to go inside. It’s sunset.”

  “No one else is due in tonight.” His words fell on deaf ears. Sophia stepped up on the little porch and disappeared into the house.

  Travis caught himself staring at the closed door like Samson had the other night. He cursed under his breath and went to untie his horse. He had his answer: Sophia Jackson was still here. She looked fine, better than fine. She looked healthy as all get-out. It was time to move on and order that barb wire.

  He led his horse to the barn. Caring for the mare was a familiar routine, one that should have let him unwind, but he had to work to ignore a lingering uneasiness. He unsaddled the mare, stored the tack, then took her outside to rinse the sweat marks from her coat with a garden hose.

  The galoshes were sitting neatly by the hose, pushing his thoughts right back to Sophia.

  Her presence in the barn that night had been unsettling in general. So had been one of her questions in particular: Do you have kids?

  For just for a second, he’d thought he’d like to be able to answer yes. He was thirty-one and settled. He’d stood there with Sophia Jackson’s perfectly arched foot in his hand and pictured himself married with a couple of little ones that he’d have to keep out of trouble. It would be good to be a dad, he’d thought for that flash of a second.

  In reality, he didn’t see himself getting married, and in his world, having children meant being married. He had nothing against the institution; he could understand why men did marry. Many a rancher’s wife provided dinner every evening and clothes mended with love. They baked cakes and grew tomatoes in the garden, like Mrs. MacDowell.

  Or there were wives who were partners in handling cattle. Travis hired the same husband and wife team every fall when it came time to move the cattle to auction. The two of them seemed happy roping and riding together, and they worked smoothly in sync.

  But Travis was fine as a bachelor. He liked his own cooking well enough. Working alone never bothered him. He was where he wanted to be, doing what he wanted to do. In order to even consider upending a perfectly good life, he’d have to meet a woman who was damned near irresistible.

  Like Sophia Jackson.

  Not anything like her. He’d need to find a woman who was irresistible but not crazy enough to wear a dish towel on her head and spike-heeled boots on a dirt road.

  Unless that’s what makes her irresistible.

  He turned the hose back on and stuck his head in the stream of water.

  Listen to yourself. A rancher’s wife and a movie star are two different creatures. Too different.

  This woman slept on top of a picnic table in the middle of the day. Crazy. A man did not marry crazy. A man didn’t want crazy to be the mother of his children. Irresistible had nothing to do with it.

  He shook the water out of his too-long hair as he unbuttoned his sweat-soaked plaid shirt and peeled it off. He had to lean over pretty far to keep the water off his jeans and boots, but the hose was good for taking off the first layer of trail dirt from his arms and chest.

  Feeling a hundred times more clearheaded, he shut off the water and turned the mare loose in the paddock. His office was inside the barn. He kept a stack of clean T-shirts there. While he was at his desk, he’d order a dozen spools of quality barb wire, so he wouldn’t have to give it a second thought for the rest of the year. Barb wire would be ordered—check. The MacDowells’ houseguest was doing fine—check. He’d move on to the next item on his list.

  He shoved the galoshes aside with the edge of his boot and left the darkening sky before the stars could come out and taunt his resolve.

  It was useless. As he strode into the barn, he heard a distinctively feminine gasp. In the twilight of the barn’s interior, Sophia practically glowed, all silver-blond hair and short, white pajamas. A star, right here in his barn. There was no list; there was nothing else to think about.

  She dropped her gaze first.

  Slowly.

  She took him in deliberately, her gaze roaming over his wet skin, from his left shoulder to his right. To his bare chest. Lower.

  I’m not the only one around here who’s hungry, then.

  The knowledge blinded him for a moment. To hell with the kind of woman he ought to want. Sophia was the woman he did want. Full stop. And he wanted her badly.

  She came a step closer.

  As water drops rolled down his skin, blood pounded through his veins, his desire for her ferocious in a way that was unfamiliar, as if he’d never really wanted a woman before.

  She was about to say something, but as her lips parted, her gaze flicked from his chest back up to his eyes. Whatever she saw in his expression made her own eyes open wider. Whatever she’d been about to say turned into a little whoosh of “oh.”

  He couldn’t remember feeling this power before, not for any of the women who’d been so likely to be right for him. After dating for weeks or months or, once, a whole year, none had turned out to be right after all. Yet Sophia had only to exhale an oh, and the years of friends and lovers blurred into nothing. This woman was the one he’d been starving for.

  Hunger caused problems on a ranch. Stallions kicked out stalls. Bulls destroyed fences.

  “Why are you here?” he demanded. Why you? Why now?

  She took a step closer, and a part of him—too much of him—didn’t give a damn about the answers to his own questions. He just wanted her to keep coming.

  She hesitated.

  Then she took that next step closer, but it was too late. Her split-second pause, the widening of her eyes by a fraction of an inch, had betrayed the tiniest little bit of...fear? Perhaps fear of this power between them. Perhaps fear of him, personally. He was the bigger one, the stronger one, the one with an admittedly fresh surge of testosterone coursing through his body.

  But he was no animal, no common beast, just as he’d told her she wasn’t. He knew what was in his heart and mind and soul, and she didn’t need to fear him.

  She couldn’t know that yet, not for certain. They barely knew one another. Travis didn’t have any kind of minimum time limit in mind for how long he ought to know a woman before taking her to bed, but he did know this: she had to be one-hundred-percent certain of what she wanted. Sophia Jackson did not know what she wanted.

  Travis stepped back.

  Her frown of confusion was fleeting, replaced by a new look of determination. She sauntered up to him, nice and c
lose. Then she looked down his body again, her feminine eyelashes shading her blue eyes, turning him on as she ran one fingertip over his damp forearm.

  “I came out here because it’s lonely in that house. Very lonely.”

  God, that purr of hers...

  It was an act. She was a good actress, but he’d seen that moment of fear or uncertainty or whatever it had been. Hunger couldn’t be ignored forever, but it wouldn’t kill a man to wait. Travis didn’t intend to act on it or even talk about it in his barn just because he’d been caught out half-naked by a woman in skimpy pajamas.

  He balled up his plaid shirt and used it to wipe the water off one arm, then the other. He pitched it through his open office door to land on his chair. No feast today, Princess.

  “Did you need something before I go home?” he asked.

  Her sexy act flipped to a more authentic anger pretty quickly. Apparently, she didn’t take rejection well. “I don’t need anything from you. I didn’t even want you to be here. I came to see the horses.”

  “Is that so? In your pajamas and bare feet?” He turned his back on her and went into his office. He grabbed a T-shirt off the stack he kept on a bookcase. When he turned back, he nearly plowed her over; she’d followed him into his office, all indignation.

  “I’m wearing sandals, and these aren’t pajamas. You wish you could see me in my pajamas. You wish.”

  Her attempt at a set down was so childish, it sounded almost cute. Travis had to hide his smile by pulling his T-shirt over his head. No harm in letting her think she’d scored a point against him.

  “This is a romper,” she huffed. “Straight from the runway. By a designer in Milan whom I wouldn’t expect you to know. My stylist snatched it right out from under Kim K’s nose. She probably died when I wore it first.”

  He stood with his hands on his hips, looking down at her, wondering what a guy like him was supposed to do with a girl like her. “I don’t know Kim, but it looks real nice on you.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Apparently, she didn’t believe his compliment. She turned her back on him and left the office, her designer clothes all in a white flutter.

  Travis scrubbed his face with both hands. Then he shut off the lights and left the office, closing the door firmly. The barb wire could wait until tomorrow.

  Sophia was nuzzling the spotted nose of a nice Appaloosa Travis had borrowed from the neighboring ranch for roundup. Travis watched her for a minute. The horse was loving the attention. You’re getting more action than I am, buddy.

  Still, Travis had to appreciate a person who had a natural affinity for horses. Her talent had to be natural and not learned, because he didn’t think Sophia had ever set foot in a barn in her life before this week. She was wearing flip-flops, for crying out loud.

  “Where’s my horse?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the Appaloosa.

  “Your horse?” He didn’t like her wording. She had no idea what it meant to own a horse. To train, to groom, to feed, to care for without fail, to rely on when there was nobody for miles around.

  “The boy horse whose name you won’t tell me. You left, and you took him with you. You took all of them. I came out here to say hello to the horses, and they were gone. Every single one.”

  Damn if she didn’t sound like she was going to burst into tears.

  “They aren’t pets. They work.”

  “I returned the galoshes, just like you wanted, but you took the horses away. Without those horses, I’ve got no one to talk to. You’re not interested in talking to me...or doing anything else with me.”

  Travis was good at picking up on animal behavior, not a woman’s, but he could read her well enough. She felt betrayed. Lonely. Hell, she’d curled up into a ball and cried on a kitchen floor just days ago.

  He’d have no peace of mind until he figured her out.

  “Okay. You want to talk? Let’s talk.”

  Chapter Six

  The cowboy wanted to talk.

  Sophia wasn’t sure if he was kidding. She combed her fingers through the spotted horse’s mane and peeked at big, bad Travis Chalmers. He looked pretty serious. Then again, that was his default expression. He grinned a little now and then, but otherwise, he was a serious guy.

  Not a guy. A man.

  A serious man who walked around here like he ran the place. Which she supposed he did, but still...

  Travis took some kind of rope-and-leather thing that was hanging over an empty stall door and coiled it up. Tied it off. Tossed it into the room where the saddles were. It landed in a crate. It seemed that being in charge meant keeping everything in order.

  Deezee would have dumped the crate out, flipped it upside down, and stood on it like it was his stage, whooping and hollering and making sure no one else could talk while he was around.

  Travis glanced down the row of stalls to the neat stack of perfectly square hay bales, then leaned back against a support post and gave her his full attention. Apparently nothing else was out of place—except her. “What did you want to talk about?”

  She wasn’t about to unburden herself to this man. She could pour out her regrets to the horses tomorrow morning. She didn’t want Travis to know what an idiot she’d been. What an idiot she’d thrown away her career for.

  Yet she’d just complained that she didn’t have anyone to talk to, and Travis had called her on it. She had to come up with something to say. “What’s this horse’s name?”

  Travis dipped his chin toward the horse, as matter-of-fact as if her question wasn’t childish. “That’s Arizona. He was named for the state. Texas isn’t really known for Appaloosas. He was bought in Arizona as a wedding gift.”

  Oh, no. Please don’t be married.

  Dumb reaction. The man looked hot when he was shirtless. So what? That didn’t mean she wanted to have a relationship with him. It didn’t matter if he was married or not. Still...

  “Not a gift for your wedding?” She tried to sound unconcerned.

  “Trey Waterson’s wedding. His brother gave him the horse. They own the ranch just west of us.”

  But Travis had that little bit of a grin about his mouth; he knew exactly why she’d asked. Her acting skills must be getting rusty already. She wished she hadn’t run her finger down that muscled forearm, chasing a water droplet. She wished she hadn’t made that stupid comment about being lonely.

  She wished he hadn’t rejected her.

  “I’m not married,” he said, making things perfectly clear. “Never been.”

  The horse, Arizona, shook his mane like Sophia wanted to. That’s right, horse. We don’t care, do we?

  “So you don’t own these horses, then. You’re just the babysitter.” She sneered the word babysitter.

  She wished it back as soon as she said it. It was so rude. When had she started responding to everything as if she needed to insult someone before they could insult her?

  But the answer was easy: when she’d spent too much time with Deezee and his buddies. Their ribbing and one-upmanship had been constant. At first, it had been a novelty to be treated like one of the guys instead of a flawless movie star, but she’d soon figured out that if she gave them an inch, they took a mile.

  So maybe I’ve thrown up a few walls to protect myself. That’s normal.

  “Some horses are mine. Some are the ranch’s.” Travis patted Arizona’s spotted neck. “Some I borrow.”

  His voice was so even. He couldn’t care less about her nasty little dig. Did nothing irritate him? Or did he just not show it?

  Judging by Travis Chalmers, it seemed the great actors in the movie industry, legends like Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, had acted their cowboy roles with more accuracy than Sophia had realized. They delivered their dialogue in an almost monotone way—never too excited, never shouting. Like Travis. Nothing like Deez
ee.

  It was hard to imagine Travis jumping from a church pew to a communion railing and yelling Yo, where’s the ho?

  Deezee had meant her. Sophia had been standing in the vestibule of the Caribbean chapel, trying not to sweat through her white dress, waiting for the church music to start so she could walk down the center aisle to promise her life to him. He’d meant it as a joke, just another outrageous zinger for his posse’s amusement. He hadn’t bothered to change into a clean T-shirt. It was just a spontaneous elopement. No need to go to any trouble.

  No crying in front of the cowboy.

  “What’s my horse’s name?” she demanded. “And where is he?”

  “Samson. He’s still at camp. And he’s my horse, not yours.”

  “Why did you ride that other horse today, then, if Samson belongs to you?”

  “Because that other horse is mine, too. I own four right now, but you could say I babysit the rest.”

  Thank goodness the man’s only facial expressions were somber and barely-a-grin. She’d insinuated that he owned nothing. If he laughed at her for how far she’d missed the mark, she might go all crazy diva on him. She couldn’t stand to be laughed at.

  “Four? For one man?” But her sarcasm was stupid, and she knew it.

  “You can’t ride just one horse all day, every day during roundup. That’s why Arizona comes to work with me during roundup, see? So I have more horses to rotate. But Samson, he’s a real special cow horse. I save him for when I’m actually cutting cattle out of the herd. It’s a waste of talent to use him just to ride in from camp.”

  “You sound like a coach with a sports team.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way. It’s like setting up your batting order in baseball, now that you mention it. Samson’s my star player. Don’t tell Arizona that, though. He’s been doing a great job pinch-hitting all week.” Travis winked at Sophia, and he smiled. Not a grin, but a real smile that reached all the way to his eyes, a smile like she was in on the joke and part of his team.

  Good Lord. The man was beautiful. She’d thought he looked hot the moment she’d spotted him riding toward her that first day on the road. Kind of stern and remote, but so masculine on horseback that he’d cut through her haze of misery. Today, shirtless and dripping wet, he’d looked like an athlete, a man in his prime, serious and strong. But when he smiled—oh, why would the women of Texas keep a man like this out here in the middle of nowhere?