The Cowgirl Ropes a Billionaire

by Cora Seton

  This was different, she told herself. No one else was going to look for these geocaches—just her. Of course Madelyn would make it difficult by burying them.

  She spotted an area where the dirt looked different from the rest of the ground—like it had been disturbed recently—and started digging. Moments later she heard a satisfying thud and bent down to push the rest of the loose dirt away from the metal canister buried in the ground. She pulled it out triumphantly, unhooked the lid and dumped out a laminated card, a stuffed animal that vaguely resembled the marmot she photographed the previous day, and an energy bar.

  Hey now, if the geocaches all contained treats, she was on it!

  Bella stuffed the marmot in her daypack, programmed the new coordinates into her GPS and unwrapped the bar. This was going to be a cinch.

  * * * * *

  “Could you go any slower?” Chris said behind him.

  Evan turned around. “You’re not supposed to talk to me, remember?”

  “The camera’s off. So what gives?”

  “I twisted my ankle.” Hell, he’d made a huge production of it back there after he’d found his third geocache in the first half-hour of the day. He’d been limping ever since. Was this guy dense?

  “Twisted it, yeah. You’ll get an Emmy for sure for that bit of acting.”

  Anger tightened Evan’s jaw. “Look, I don’t need your…”

  “Fine, fine. Stop talking to the camera and get a move on,” Chris said.

  “You’re the one holding me up now,” Evan said, but he resumed his hike, going just a bit faster. Losing points today was going to be harder than he thought. How was he supposed to fake getting lost when the trail was so clearly marked and the GPS took him right to the caches?

  He wondered how Bella was faring. Surely she’d have to have found at least five or six by now. He was moving at a snail’s pace. If she was walking as fast as she normally did, she’d have a big lead on him.

  As long as Madelyn hadn’t stacked the odds against her in some way.

  Evan stopped in his tracks and Chris swore behind him. Could Madelyn be using their separation as a way to sabotage Bella? Was her hike longer, or her caches buried more deeply? What if Madelyn gave her the wrong coordinates and led her astray completely?

  He couldn’t think of any way to find out.

  Except….

  “I’m beginning to think you guys have it out for me,” he said out loud.

  “What do you mean?” Chris said. “You know you’re not supposed to talk to us, right?”

  “I mean, what’s with the tiny tents? What about the gondola? What’s next—a night in a cave? It’s obvious you guys know I’m claustrophobic, and you’re using it to make me lose the contest.”

  “You’re only losing by a couple of points,” Andrew pointed out. “If you hurried up a little bit, you’d make them up in no time.”

  “How? If Bella’s course is as easy as mine, she’ll get full points, too.”

  “Dude, if you don’t hurry up, you’re not going to get full points,” Chris said.

  “Dude, no matter how slow I go, I’m going to finish this course before noon. Obviously today isn’t the day you’re going to screw me over. But tomorrow…I bet tomorrow Madelyn’s got something up her sleeve that will totally mess with me.”

  Andrew snickered. “You’re not the one who needs to worry about that.”

  Chris elbowed him. “Shut up, man.”

  “Sorry.” Chastened, Andrew put a hand on his hip and addressed Evan. “If I were you, I’d just do my best to complete every challenge as quickly and carefully as I could. Don’t worry about Bella.”

  “Whatever.” As he resumed walking, Evan hoped his act fooled them, but he was worried about Bella. More worried than he’d been before, in fact. If Madelyn felt no compunction about using his worst fears against him, even though she wanted him to win, what might she do to Bella?

  What was Bella’s worst fear?

  And where was she now?

  * * * * *

  “This can’t be right,” Bella said for the twentieth time as she bushwhacked through thick underbrush, following the GPS directions to her next geocache. She’d found the first four easily enough, but her new coordinates took her right off the trail and into the woods.

  She should have known they wouldn’t all be that easy. The show wouldn’t expect viewers to watch two episodes of the contestants simply walking down a trail. Still, this was brutal; she needed a machete to get through this undergrowth.

  A half an hour later, she was hot, sweaty, and no closer to the cache if her GPS was to be believed. She shook the gadget, convinced something was wrong with it. Shouldn’t she have reached the next one by now? She squinted at the sun that was climbing higher in the sky by the minute, peeking out through billows of ever-thickening clouds. Evan was probably far ahead of her by now, even if his route was as rough as hers. He knew how to operate a GPS far better than she did, and she was beginning to think her earlier successes were simply luck.

  “Maybe you should stop for lunch,” Nita said, startling Bella. She’d become so used to the two silent crew members trailing her, she’d forgotten they could speak.

  “I wanted to find five caches before I stopped,” Bella said, but she longed for a break. “Ten more minutes. If I don’t find it, we’ll take a rest.”

  Another half-hour later, there was no cache in sight and Bella wanted to throw the GPS unit into the next creek they crossed. The thing was worthless. She should have found that cache five times over by now.

  “Eat something,” Nita said gently, pointing her to sit on a fallen log. “You’ll feel better and think better, too.”

  “You two aren’t supposed to talk,” Paul said.

  “Give her a break, can’t you?” Nita said. “She’s having a tough day.”

  Something about the way she said it made Bella look sharply at the camerawoman. What exactly did she mean by that?

  That you’re having a bad day, Miss I-Can’t-Use-a-GPS-To-Save-My-Life, she told herself. Surely there wasn’t anything more to it.

  She didn’t have a phobia of geocaches, after all. Madelyn had no way of knowing she’d be a failure at following directions. Now, if the challenge included riding horses, she’d know Madelyn had it in for her.

  No, today it was her own stupidity tripping her up. As usual.

  She’d always been the one who caused trouble in her family; the one who ruined everything. She’d been responsible for Caramel’s death, hadn’t she? Responsible for Cyclone’s death and the hard months that followed, ending in the sale of half her family’s ranch.

  Plus there was her fear of horses. Her refusal to go anywhere near them again despite her mother’s attempts to help her get over it. One day Sylvie had led her to the corral, where a sweet-tempered mare stood ready to be ridden. Bella’s protests hadn’t stopped her, but her father spotted them from the barn and he put an end to the session with a quick burst of words: Get her away from there! She’s got no business around horses. I can’t afford to lose her; she’s the only one I’ve got.

  His words had hit her like a slap to the face. He cared more about the mare than he did her and he thought she’d kill any horse she got near, for heaven’s sake. She’d run into the house and cried for an hour.

  After that, her mother kept her away from the ranch as much as possible. With no money for activities, she hit on the idea that Bella could make herself useful to elderly Maggie Silverton, the local pet veterinarian. Maggie, in turn, was grateful for any help she could get. A gray-haired, soft-spoken, gentle woman, she took Bella in every afternoon after school and all day on weekends. Bella wasn’t sure how she’d have survived her teenage years without her.

  Her father acted as if she had died along with Caramel and Cyclone. He focused on Craig as the worthy heir to his diminished kingdom. Together they plotted how someday they’d recoup the lost land and restore the Chathams to their former glory.

  Bella kept her hea
d down and learned to be invisible. While her parents scrimped and saved to make up any gap between Craig’s scholarships and grants and the cost of his education, she’d never once discussed the cost of hers with them. A top-notch student—all those afternoons working on her homework under Maggie’s gentle tutelage paid off—she’d still needed to take out loans to fund the final years of her veterinary education.

  At least she knew she had a job waiting for her with Maggie, and when Maggie had passed all too soon, she’d been shocked to find herself the sole beneficiary of her elderly friend’s will. Maggie was the only reason she had a clinic and shelter to run, and now she was losing it.

  She wasn’t worthy of the old woman’s trust. Wasn’t worthy of anyone’s love.

  She jerked to her feet, her lunch spilling to the ground. She had to win this thing.

  “Bella?” Nita reached out a hand, but Bella batted it away. Blinking back tears, she grabbed her pack and the GPS, leaving her lunch scattered on the ground. She had to move, had to walk and keep on walking, until she left those memories far behind.

  “Bella! Wait!”

  She didn’t slow down.

  She couldn’t.

  And if Madelyn tried to put her on a horse, she’d just crumple up and die.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “What are you doing here?”

  Evan, Chris and Andrew all swiveled to see Bella crash through the brush at the side of the trail, followed closely by Nita and Paul, who didn’t look at all happy. Bella’s hair was tumbling down around her shoulders, and a smudge of dirt streaked her forehead. She looked like she’d been crying, or maybe fighting hard not to cry. Evan’s stomach squeezed. Evidently, while he’d been taking it easy, she’d been working hard.

  On what? These geocaches couldn’t be any easier to find.

  “Damn it, we missed the shot!” Chris said, and he and Andrew raced to get their equipment set up again and rolling as a drizzling mist of rain began to fall.

  Bella faced Evan down. “Why are you on my trail?” Her voice was thin and high, and he thought she might break down into tears any second. What the hell had happened to her out there? He wanted to pull her into his arms, but now was not the time.

  “This is my trail,” he said, holding up his GPS. “You sure you know how to work that thing?”

  She scowled down at hers fiercely. “I think mine’s broken. It keeps blinking on and off and giving me new directions.”

  “Let me see that.” He swiped it from her hand along with her laminated card and went to work pressing buttons and checking the coordinates she’d put into it.

  “Hey! Give it to me! I don’t need your help.” She made a grab for it, but Evan turned his back on her, engaged in figuring out what she’d done. He ignored her when she shoved him—he was quite a bit heavier than she was; she couldn’t budge him and she obviously needed his help. “Give it!” She whacked his arm this time. Evan held fast. “I said, give it!”

  She locked her hands around his wrist and pulled hard. Evan pulled back, aware she was nearing the breaking point, but wanting one more minute to look over the GPS. If he could just help her, everything would be fine. “Hey, I almost figured it out…”

  “Let go!” Bella dug her heels into the now-slick dirt track and pulled with all her might. Suddenly, Evan caught sight of the camera crew, all four of them ranged in front of him, their expressions blank with shock, the heavy mist dampening their hair and clothes. He realized how all of this must look—like he was helping Bella against her will. Which of course he was, but the viewing public—and Madelyn—weren’t supposed to know that.

  He let go.

  Bella slipped and landed on her butt with a yelp of pain, and the GPS flew from her hands, landing with a harsh crack that spelled the end of her search for her geocaches.

  For one long moment, silence reigned as the rain began to patter down in larger drops. Then Bella leaped to her feet and charged him. “Where is it? Where’d you put it?”

  Mortified by what he’d just done, Evan had no idea what she was talking about, and he stumbled backwards as her hands searched his jacket pockets, patted down his clothing and finally delved into his pants pockets, uncomfortably close to his groin.

  “Hey!”

  But she already had his GPS in hand.

  “Bella—wait. Don’t….”

  She hurled it against the closest rock where it smashed with a satisfying crack.

  “Turnabout is fair play, right?” she demanded. “Right?” She glared at him through the damp tendrils that framed her face, waterdroplets dripping from their ends.

  Damn, she was furious. Did she think he’d broken hers on purpose?

  “Madelyn’s going to be pissed, you know.” He swiped a hand through his own wet hair to push it back from his face.

  “That’s not my fault!” She met his gaze, eyes wide, and he knew she was picturing the director’s reaction to this chain of events.

  “Think about it. The GPS maker has to be a sponsor of the show.”

  With a wild groan, she covered her face with her hands. “Shit.”

  Chris cleared his throat. “I’ll give Madelyn a call. See what she wants us to do.” He stepped away down the trail a bit and the rest of the crew trailed after him, forming a semicircle around him as he pulled out his cell phone and hunched his shoulders to keep it safe from the rain. Evan sat down on a nearby boulder, ignoring the dampness that soaked through his pants, and motioned Bella to join him. She did so, slowly, her reluctance evident on her face.

  “What do you think she’s going to do?” she asked.

  “Oh, I bet she’s got a hundred more GPS’s with her. We’ll probably have to start all over again. Tell me,” he said, then leaned back and peered down at her as a raindrop slid down the bridge of his nose, “what’s with you not being able to take the slightest bit of help from me?”

  She snorted and folded her arms across her chest. “Help? Like you weren’t going to mess my GPS all up and program the wrong coordinates in it? Right—you’re such a saint you were going to help me win those millions.”

  “I could beat you handily, even if I did show you how to work the GPS, you know,” he said. She was close enough she brushed his arm when she shifted her weight, and the touch reminded him of her earlier onslaught, the way she’d searched his pockets as if he belonged to her.

  He’d like to belong to her.

  He shrugged that errant thought away, but as he searched for something else to say, he couldn’t help reaching out and wiping a drop of rain from her face.

  She turned in surprise. “What are you doing?”

  A glance down the trail told him the crew were still occupied, Chris gesticulating as he talked into his cell phone. “This.” He leaned down and brushed his lips over hers. He’d wanted to do that for twenty-four hours. Her small cry of surprise made desire surge within him, and he laced an arm around her, pulling her in close as he kissed her again.

  She didn’t fight him. It was as if for one second she acquiesced in his attempt to forget the show, the crew, the rain, and their separate lives, and decided to enjoy the moment. He deepened the kiss and her lips parted, allowing him entry. She snaked a hand up to his shoulder and encircled his neck, pulled him down and matched his hunger with her own.

  A silence behind him alerted Evan that the crew must have seen them, and he pulled away. Bella sucked in a breath at his sudden removal.

  “Sorry,” he whispered. “They’re watching, aren’t they?”

  She glanced over his shoulder. “Just setting up their cameras.”

  As if in silent accord, they leaped apart, Evan to pace the trail and Bella to retie her damp shoelaces. A muttered curse from Andrew told him the crew hadn’t managed to film them. He caught Bella’s eye and winked. When she smiled back reluctantly, he thought the sun must have just dawned.

  * * * * *

  Five million dollars was slipping through her fingers and she was smiling like a fool because her enemy
had kissed her.

  Bella turned back to her hiking boots and tied the wet laces with shaking fingers. Thank goodness the crew hadn’t captured that searing kiss on camera. Was it the long days in the fresh air, or the disturbing nights in the cramped tent with Evan, then alone when he made his break for wide-open spaces, that made her feel so off-balance?

  I’m tired and at the end of my rope, and he took advantage of me, she told herself. If he wins this contest, he’ll get the right to take advantage of me for an entire year. Her smile vanished and her throat constricted. She would not think of the sexual implications of that statement. Bad enough she’d lose her veterinary practice and all the animals in her shelter if she didn’t win. Not to mention the fact she’d have to move to some city where she knew no one, and be at Evan’s beck and call for a year. What would she do when he didn’t need her? Just sit at home with her hands folded in her lap, waiting for his phone call? Who would care for the rest of Chance Creek’s pets and strays? Suddenly, she understood what Evan’s claustrophobia must feel like. She dropped her head in her hands and waited for the rushing sensation to ebb away.

  “You okay?”

  Evan dropped a hand on her shoulder and she flinched away. “I’m fine.” But she wasn’t. This was her chance to get a lock on the lead, and so far she’d proven an idiot at using her GPS. What would she do when Madelyn unleashed the big guns at her? It was obvious the woman somehow knew about Evan’s claustrophobia—how else to explain the tiny tents and gondola ride? Did she know about Bella’s terror of horses? Would she exploit it?

  Just the thought made her stomach roil.

  “Need some water? You don’t look so hot.” He crouched beside her and lifted a hand as if to check her temperature. Bella surged to her feet.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Okay. All right—just trying to help.” He stood up, too, and backed away, hands held out to placate her.