Her hand clenched the card, twisting the paper.
He must have seen it because she thought she saw his face lose some of its spark. Well, too bad. She’d find another way to get the place back, that she vowed. She crossed her arms in front of her, telling him with her eyes that he should just leave.
They stared at each other for a full ten seconds before he finally said. “Okay. Well, then. I guess I’ll be going.”
“Well then, see you later.”
“Bye.”
But he still didn’t leave right away. Instead he looked at her kind of strangely. As if he was memorizing her or something.
“Have a nice day,” he said.
Have a nice day? Was he playing a scene from Leave It to Beaver?
She watched him turn and walk away.
Scott Beringer wanted to be a cowboy.
She should teach him how to be one. And make sure he hated every moment of it.
He climbed into a brand-new Mercedes, which, by the looks of it, probably cost more than all the back taxes he must have paid. The thought depressed her. How could they possibly hope to pay the man back?
“What’d he say?”
Amanda turned to her father, a man nearly as tall as she was, but who seemed to be shrinking daily. His blue eyes had gone rheumy in recent years, but they were still bright. Beneath a cap of gray hair his face looked red, though whether caused by drink or disappointment, she couldn’t say. “He said you have a week to get out.”
“He what?” Roy Johnson asked, straightening his stooped frame, the belly he’d had since before she could remember hanging over a tarnished belt buckle he’d won back in his rodeo days.
“Kidding, Dad. But it’d serve you right if he did.”
Her father squinted his eyes at the departing car, his hands hooking into his leather belt. “He’s younger than I thought he’d be.”
“He wants cowboy lessons.”
“Cowboy lessons?”
She eyed the man she loved more than any person on Earth. Her only family, and yet a man who’d managed to disappoint her more times in life than she cared to admit. She added today’s fiasco to the list. “Yeah. Ranching lessons. Horse lessons. The whole bit.”
“Are you going to teach him?”
“I told him to find someone else.”
He blinked gray lashes, still staring at the car. “Humph. I wondered why he wanted to buy that horse.”
“That horse could have killed him.”
“Nah. He was safer than a tick on a deer.”
She shook her head in disgust. She almost left it at that; experience told her that trying to make her dad accept responsibility for anything was a task best left alone. But she couldn’t keep quiet.
“You should have told me what was going on, Dad.”
“I never wanted this life for you, Amanda,” he said, still not meeting her gaze. “You know that. It’s why I sent you to that fancy college.”
Fancy, in her dad’s opinion, was anything away from the small town they lived in. Los Molina was fifty minutes from the Bay Area, but you’d never know it. Nestled in a small valley, the town enjoyed mild winters and cool summers. Perfect ranching country with rolling green hills and shady oaks.
“Dad, I happen to like this life.”
“I think you could do better. Heck, I didn’t let you go off to Cal Poly and get a degree in business agriculture so you could come home and use it.”
“But I want to use that knowledge.” Even though that hadn’t always been the case. When she’d first realized she’d need to come home because of her father’s failing health, she’d been bitterly disappointed. She’d wanted to use her degree to find her dream job: working for a thoroughbred breeding farm. Instead she’d been forced to come back home. But that was ancient history. She’d learned to love this place in the past few years.
“It’s a hundred thousand dollars.”
“What?”
“You asked me earlier how much I owed. One hundred thousand dollars.”
She just about fell over. Lord, how the heck was she going to get the place back?
I want to learn to be a cowboy. The words bounced off the inside of her head as if she were in a drum. But she couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t.
Could she?
Chapter Two
She could. And a week later—a week during which she regretted agreeing to the ridiculous scheme the day after he’d proposed it—Amanda woke up to the buwap-wap-wap-wap of helicopter blades, which rattled her bedroom window and shook dust off her ceiling.
She knew immediately who it was.
“Give me a break,” she muttered, tossing back the antique-ivory lace cover her grandmother had made almost seventy years ago. Leave it to Scott “Mr. Billionaire” Beringer to arrive in a helicopter.
She’d been dreading this day for a week, and so she took her time crawling out of bed. The hardwood floor felt cold beneath her bare feet as she crossed to the window and looked up. Sure enough, a white-and-black helicopter glided into view, the Global Dynamics logo visible against the gray-and-red sky of an early morning dawn. Pique made her jerk the lace curtains back as she moved to turn away, but just as quickly, she moved back to the window.
It looked like—
“No.” She shook her head in disbelief. “No. Don’t land in the bull pasture,” she murmured. “Not the bulls.”
But the spring grass in the pasture had already compressed from the pressure of the helicopter blades.
She turned around—the chilly morning air smacking her hard—then quickly pulled on rubber boots. Her blue-and-white-checkered flannel nightgown barely hung past her knees, but she paid it no attention as she squeaked along the hallway’s hardwood floors…no, ran along the hallway.
“Not the bulls,” she murmured again.
The outside morning air was cold enough to make her eyes water, the door swinging wide just in time for her to see the helicopter drop a passenger, then begin to lift off again.
“Not the bulls,” she said, watching as Scott Beringer, wonder boy of the techno industry, did something incredibly stupid. He’d hopped out of the chopper into the middle of a field of bulls. Granted, they were cowering bulls right now. But not for long. Once that helicopter lifted off—
“Scott,” she screamed. But she might as well have been yelling at her shadow. The chopper drowned out any sound: Scott calmly walked toward the wide gate as if he had all the time in the world, toting a black piece of luggage in one hand and a cowboy hat in the other. In the corner of the pen, one of her brown-and-white Herefords lowered its head. And as the helicopter began to lift, it became apparent that that particular bull would take it upon himself to be the sole representative of his species in stomping down the lone human intruder.
“Scott,” she called again, panicked now.
The bull waited half a heartbeat before wringing its tail, a sure sign he was about to charge. He didn’t have horns, but it wouldn’t matter. When fifteen-hundred pounds of beef hit you broadside, you’d be lucky to walk away alive.
Oh, damn. She would succeed in killing him where her father had failed.
She waved her arms. Scott finally looked her way.
She pointed. Scott turned.
She yelled, “Run!”
And Scott Beringer, one of the wealthiest men in the United States, ran. Fast.
The suitcase got left behind, but not the hat. That he waved behind him as if shooing away a fly. Dumb, dumb, dumb. It only gained a bull’s attention. But then the big Hereford spied the suitcase. It changed its path like Wile E. Coyote. Amanda never, not in a million years, would have thought a bull could turn that fast, but it did, heading toward the suitcase with its head down, tail flicking. The suitcase never stood a chance. It sailed through the air like a carnival ride. Scott, still running, looked back. The bull—its Samsonite enemy now vanquished—turned to Scott and put his head down again.
“Run,” Amanda repeated. Not that he wasn’t running already. Her bloo
d thrust through her veins so fast it hurt her head. She began to wave her arms again, hoping to distract the bull. Didn’t help. Scott’s eyes looked panicked behind his thick glasses. “Stay.” She thought she heard him yell. “Stay.”
The bull charged. Scott wouldn’t make it.
She arrived at the fence; Scott was about three feet away on the other side, three feet that he seemed to jump, launching himself like a Harlem Globetrotter.
The bull hurled himself at Scott, and maybe it reached him in time to help propel him, or maybe it was pure adrenaline that allowed Scott to cover so much ground, but he landed across the top rail and a second later, the bull hit the rail right below where he dangled. Scott was thrust off the top rail like a bird from a perch. He landed on his back and, as coincidence would have it, right at her feet. The hollow thud he made caused Amanda to wince, but she was so winded, and so relieved that he’d survived, all she could do was lean over and clasp her knees. “You lucky bastard.”
The bull snorted its frustration from the other side of the fence.
“It attacked me,” he protested.
She sucked in breaths of air.
“What is it with the animals on this ranch, anyway?”
Amanda ignored him, still huffing. “Go away, Harry.” She waved a hand at the bull, too winded to straighten just yet.
“Harry?” Scott said. “The thing’s name is Harry?”
The bull turned, his muscles and veins enlarged, tail still ringing. When it caught sight of the suitcase again, it turned around, put its head down and charged.
A glance up revealed the helicopter still hovering above.
“Are you okay?” she finally decided to ask. Fact is, she felt a little angry. What kind of a fool tells his pilot to land in a field full of bulls?
Scott looked up at her, his arms straight out as if he were about to make a snow angel in the thick green grass he lay on. She noted he’d dressed differently, less like a character from a B movie and more like a real rancher. Denim shirt. Wranglers. His glasses—knocked from his head—lay near his right elbow, and his hair was spiked out around his head as if he’d been electrocuted. The hat had disappeared. She had a feeling it was beneath him. Smooshed.
“It chased me,” he repeated.
Amanda waved at the pilot, telling him without words that Scott was fine. If he could complain, he was fine. The pilot waved back—she thought she saw him grinning beneath his insectlike goggles—then he angled the helicopter away and flew off.
Gradually, silence descended. Well, silence punctuated by her bull’s goring of Scott’s luggage. She had a feeling there wouldn’t be many of his clothes left when all was said and done.
“I had no idea that thing would come after me with the helicopter hovering so near.”
Man, her legs ached. And she had a side ache. And her damn feet ached.
“Lesson one, Mr. Beringer,” she said as she slowly straightened. “A bull doesn’t care if you’re holding an Uzi or a flame thrower. When it’s mad, it’ll do whatever it wants.”
Scott sat up on his elbows. “Uh-oh,” he said.
Amanda’s heart resumed it’s double-time beat. “What? Is something broken?”
“I landed on something.”
“Your hat,” she theorized.
He winced. Concern turned into amusement when he leaned forward and she spied the crushed straw hat.
“Hope that wasn’t new.”
“It was,” he grumbled, slowly coming to his feet as he smoothed his hair back. The hat lay on the ground like a discarded corn husk. Amanda was about to tell him that he didn’t need it, but as she met his gaze, the words just sort of lodged in her throat.
Clark Kent looked good without his glasses. Very cute. And entirely too boyish to own a billion-dollar empire.
Lord, she couldn’t imagine having a billion dollars.
One billion dollars, she repeated to herself like Dr. Evil.
“Are you hurt?” she asked again.
“Nothing but my pride.” He repeated the same words as last week, and that had her remembering why he was here, and all of a sudden the depression returned with a vengeance. Even if she could convince him ranching wasn’t his thing, how was she going to afford to pay him back? And if she couldn’t pay him back, then what? Where would she go? Where would her father go? How many cattle ranchers would hire a woman, even if she did have a degree?
He tested a leg, then the other one, then moved his arms. The sound of her bull head-butting his suitcase faded. She looked up only to realize Harry had gotten the case open.
“Hey,” Scott yelled, taking a step toward the rail, obviously not completely blind without his glasses.
“Forget it,” Amanda advised, clutching his arm, only to immediately drop her hand. He had surprisingly large muscles. “If there’s anything left, we’ll pick it up later.”
“What’ll I use for clothes?”
“Why do you need clothes? You’re not staying, are you?”
He looked up at her sharply, his glasses like a crooked hanger. “I told your father when I called last night that I’d be staying.”
He’d called? And her father hadn’t mentioned it?
Suddenly, the reason why her father had departed for parts unknown made sense. Typical Dad. Coward.
“He didn’t tell me.”
Scott’s eyes slid over her. Amanda suddenly felt ridiculous, and self-conscious, even though the blue-and-white-checkered flannel gown couldn’t be called revealing. Most of her lower legs were covered by her rubber boots, the kind with a wide red ring around the top, and they were mud-spattered and stained. She’d hardly noticed how beat-up they were. At least not before he took to staring at them.
“I’m going to kill him,” she grumbled.
“Who?”
“My father.”
“As long as it’s not me.”
“Tempting, but no.”
SCOTT TOLD HIMSELF to be encouraged by that. She didn’t want him dead, unlike her father. He looked past her to the house, wondering where the old coot had gotten to, but the moment his gaze rested on Amanda, his thoughts jammed like the keys of an old-fashioned typewriter. She looked even more adorable than he remembered.
You’re losin’ it, buddy, if you find a woman in black rubber boots sexy.
Odd thing, though: he did. “Hey, thanks for agreeing to do this. I’m really excited.”
“Yeah, well, wait until your first day is over before getting too worked up.”
Hmm. She was still sore over the loss of the ranch. Well, he supposed he couldn’t blame her. “Well, I’d still like to thank you, anyway.”
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said by way of acceptance.
Well, the apology thing didn’t work.
She turned away without a backward glance, saying, “Follow me.”
He did, stepping in behind her. The back of her was even more charming than the front. He wasn’t usually a body-parts man. That he left to beer-swilling football fanatics. But he found himself liking Amanda Johnson’s parts. Rounded bottom, shapely legs, at least what he could see above the boots. Nice smell, too, even this early in the morning. It wafted back to him on the early morning breeze. Natural. Earthy and yet wholly feminine in a way that most of the women he’d dated had never been.
The house she led him toward was a one-story rectangle with a wide wraparound porch, old-fashioned windows with real wood frames and five creaking steps that led to the front door. To the left of the house was a large brown barn with big brown double doors. To the right was another barn—brown, too—this one a single-story affair that had doors off the back that opened into individual pens. Horse pens. And he would bet there were four more matching doors and pens on the other side. A horse barn—though it looked ancient and not at all like the fancy affairs one could see off of I-280 when he drove around Silicon Valley.
“I feel like I’m on the set of Bonanza.”
“Yeah, well, welcome to my home, Li
ttle Scott.”
“Hey, you watched Bonanza, too?”
“Yeah.”
Her answer sounded more like “What of it?” and Scott tried not to feel wounded. “Where’s your dad?”
“Away, apparently.” And the way she said that didn’t invite more small talk.
She held a heavy oak door open and stepped aside. She smelled even nicer close up. Better than him, probably, after his trek through cow poop.
The inside of the home was cozy. Surprisingly high ceilings. What looked to be bedrooms to his right, kitchen and family room to his left. She paused just inside the door and—holy moley—bent over to tug off her boots. Slowly, like a stripper. Not that he’d seen many strippers wearing rubber boots…or any strippers, period. But he imagined one would take off rubber boots slowly like she did, exposing one inch of flesh at a time.
Unbelievable. Who would have thought the sight of her slipping off latex boots would be sexy? But darned if it wasn’t.
She glanced up just then—saw that he was staring at her legs—and straightened abruptly.
A voice inside his head said, uh-oh.
“I’ll go find you a clean shirt.”
Scott was not a stupid man. He realized ogling a woman who would be responsible for his safekeeping in the coming week was likely not a wise thing to do. She looked as if she was fighting to hold on to her temper.
“Thanks.”
She pressed her lips together before she turned on her now bare—and might he add, adorable—feet to head back toward the bedrooms. She had nice ankles, he realized. Petite yet sturdy.
Sturdy?
What was she, a cow? And yet like a herd animal himself, he suddenly found himself following her. A bull. He was Ferdinand the Bull.
She turned. Their bodies connected. She jerked back, her hand splaying on his chest. “What are you doing?”
“Following you.”
“Don’t do that. I’ll bring you the shirt.”
“Where will I change? After all, I wouldn’t want you going all mushy on me when you catch sight of my hard body.”
Did she blush? Did she actually blush? Incredible.
“You want to get the shirt, fine. My father’s room is at the end of the hall. I’m going to get dressed.”
Cowboy Lessons (Harlequin American Romance) Page 2