by JoAnn Ross
“I can understand that.” She’d certainly been more emotional than usual since arriving here.
“There was this one Sunday, back when my wife Josie was still alive, that she invited the new reverend over for Sunday dinner. Now, you have to understand that he was a nice young man, but he was a city fella, and this was his first time east of Boston. Which meant that he’d never seen a working ranch before.”
He took some strips of bacon from the warming oven, put them on a plate beside the stack of golden silver dollar pancakes, then placed the plate in front of her, along with a pitcher of maple syrup.
“Well, he was sittin’ at that very table, looking out the window at the fields of grass and meadows,” he continued. “‘My goodness,’ I recollect him saying, ‘you O’Neills and the good Lord have certainly created a lovely place up here.’
“Well, I couldn’t help myself. I told him, ‘Yeah, but it sure took a lot of our hard work to make the good Lord’s land fit for ranching.”’ He chuckled as Jude laughed. “Josie dang near killed me for that one.”
“I can see why she might be a bit peeved,” Jude said. “Since he was a guest, and the new minister, at that But it’s still a great story.”
“What’s a great story?” a deep, familiar voice behind her asked. Jude glanced back over her shoulder and saw Lucky standing in the doorway, looking as if he’d just stepped out of the movie Silverado in his black rain duster.
“Buck was telling me about the time the minister came to dinner.”
“That is a fair-to-middlin’ story.” He pulled up a chair, turned it around and straddled it. “So, did he tell you the ending?”
“There’s no point in boring the gal,” Buck said quickly. Too quickly, Jude thought.
“Actually, I’ve always thought that was the funniest part.” Lucky plucked a piece of the bacon from her plate.
“You always did have a cockeyed sense of humor,” the older man grumbled. “Never have figgered out where it came from. You sure as shootin’ didn’t get it from me.”
“So, how did it end?” Jude asked.
“With Buck spendin’ that night sleepin’ out in the bunkhouse with the hands. He also felt obliged to put a new roof on the church housing the reverend had just moved into.”
“The old one leaked like a rusty sieve,” Buck grumbled.
“And had every time it rained for the two years prior to that, yet you’d never felt moved to make such a generous donation before.” Lucky’s eyes danced with the easy humor that Jude found so appealing.
“Your grandmother could be a hard woman, sometimes,” Buck said. “But there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t thank God for putting her on this green earth.”
“That’s so sweet.”
Heaven help her, Jude was beginning to feel all weepy again. She really was going to have to take a long vacation once she’d put the Hunk special issue to bed. Perhaps somewhere warm and tropical, where she could spend her days lying on a beach beside a tropical lagoon, being waited on hand and foot by handsome beach boys who lived only to please.
“I’ve always thought so.” Lucky’s eyes narrowed as they settled on her face. “The O’Neill men have always had good taste in land, horseflesh and women.”
When she felt the now familiar sensation of color rising in her cheeks, Jude turned her attention to her breakfast and didn’t answer.
THEY BEGAN SHOOTING that afternoon, once Zach proclaimed the golden light that had been washed by the rain perfect. The waving fields of grass, the leaves of the rosebushes planted next to the front door, the fences, even the horses grazing in the pasture all seemed washed by that shimmering soft glow.
“That hat’s all wrong,” Jude complained as she went over to adjust the felt brim of Lucky’s gray Stetson lower over his eyes.
“Pull that down any further and you’re going to start casting shadows,” Zach warned.
“It’s a ridiculous idea anyway,” Lucky grumbled from the stock tank he was sitting in. Although they’d let him keep on his underwear, he couldn’t recall a time he’d felt more foolish. “Though a cowboy might be forced to take a bath in a stock tank—perhaps if he’d been out on the trail for a long time—I guarantee you, he wouldn’t be wearing his dress Sunday hat.”
“Creative license,” Jude argued wearily.
“It’s damn ridiculous,” Lucky repeated.
“Stop sulking and it’ll be over sooner.” She leaned forward and adjusted his pose. As her hair brushed against his cheek, Lucky inhaled her sunshine scent, and immediately felt himself turn as rigid as the trunk of a jack pine. Suddenly he was grateful for the silly froth of bubbles she’d insisted on.
“I’m not sulking.” But of course that was exactly what he was doing. “And if you think it’s so damn easy, why don’t you just climb on in here with me?”
“Perhaps I’ll take a rain check,” she said instead. He smiled—with those wonderful lips she imagined she could still taste and his warm dark eyes. “Perhaps I’ll just hold you to that,” he murmured in a way that made desire thrum through her.
As if they both remembered their reasons for wanting the business side of their relationship over with as soon as possible, Lucky quit arguing over every little thing and began following instructions. He showed a flair that, while not exactly professional, only made him more appealing. And he certainly came off as more real than any pretend cowboy could have, Jude considered as she looked at him, lying back in the sun-dappled hayloft, using his saddle for a pillow, a stick of straw stuck in the corner of his mouth. He was wearing his jeans, the flashy championship buckle, boots, and this time a black hat that gave him a rakish, dangerous look.
“Do you want me to airbrush those scars out?” Zach asked after she’d adjusted the silver screens he was using to bounce the light off Lucky’s chest in a way Jude knew would make every subscriber’s mouth water.
“No.” The white lines bisecting his shoulder, and cutting across his rib cage—additional trophies of his rodeo days, she guessed—only added to his cowboy appeal. “Leave them in.”
He grinned. “Good call.”
She smiled back. “Thanks.”
That was, after all, why she was managing editor of Hunk of the Month. At least for now. And from the dynamite shots they’d gotten so far, she knew that the job would be hers for as long as she wanted.
By the time the late summer sun had set, Zach had shot Lucky in the stock tank, the hayloft and astride his mare, his bare chest gleaming with fake sweat that was a combination of baby oil, glycerin and water. They’d also photographed him lying in the pasture, his straw Resitol over his face, appearing to be dozing in a field of blue lupines and yellow-faced daisies that made him seem even more ruggedly masculine by comparison. As she watched Zach snap the shots, Jude came up with the caption: Dreaming of that special cowgirl.
And what woman wouldn’t give up manicures and salon cuts for the rest of her life to play that role?
“Thank you,” she told Lucky as he used a hose and a bar of Lava soap to get rid of the baby oil, before going back into the house for supper.
Since Zach was losing the light, they’d decided to shoot the rest of the layout tomorrow, weather permitting. Jude still wanted to get him in the creek—wet, of course—and she thought a shot of him striding across the paddock carrying a bale of hay on his shoulder might be nice, as well. Along with perhaps another one of him pretending to work on the green John Deere tractor.
“You were a good sport.”
He shrugged. “So far it hasn’t been as bad as I thought it was going to be. Although I sure hate to think what’ll happen if Buck ever gets a hold of a copy of that magazine.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know.” He took the towel she handed him and began drying his chest in a way that had her almost swallowing her tongue. The photo shoot, designed to stimulate female fantasies, had definitely stirred her own erotic imagination. “Maybe I can tell him
that the X-ray machine at the airport ruined the film.”
“That would be a lie.” She remembered, all too well, his reaction when he’d learned his sister had lied.
“Nothing like having to eat your own words,” he muttered, revealing that they were, once again, thinking the same thing. “They tend to go down hard and dry. Like balls of sawdust.”
She’d been so wrapped up in her own concerns—saving the issue, topping Tycoon Mary—that Jude honestly hadn’t taken time to consider exactly how all this might impact on Lucky’s life. Cremation Creek was a small, isolated community. But she suspected that he wouldn’t be able to keep his layout a secret.
Someone—perhaps Dixie or her sister Lila—would undoubtedly run across a copy of the magazine while shopping at the Wal-Mart in Cheyenne and pretty soon he would end up being razzed by his own cowhands. Not to mention having every woman in western Wyoming showing up at the Double Ought. Which might not be a negative to him, but certainly didn’t please her.
“I’m sorry.” Her eyes backed up the sincerity in her quiet voice. “I should have thought about the attention this will undoubtedly get you.” Most men would be flattered to be chosen to be featured as a hunk in her magazine. Even the Philadelphia pipe fitter had ended up signing with a Madison Avenue agency. Jude realized that in this, too, Lucky was an exception.
“It’ll blow over.”
But in the meantime, Jude thought with a sinking heart, when the issue came out, Lucky was going to feel as if he were riding a whirlwind.
She continued to feel guilty all during supper. And still later, when Lucky went outside to feed the horses. She was upstairs in the pink-and-white wedding cake of a bedroom, working on some papers that Kate had sent via courier, when a tap on the door frame had her looking up to see Lucky standing there.
“I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“You’re not.” For the first time in her life she realized that the old expression about a heart having wings was absolutely true. “I was just working on ‘the proposal of the month’ column.”
“Proposal?” He entered the room with that lazy walk that never failed to turn her on. If she’d thought the contrast between the wildflowers and this man was riveting, seeing him here amidst this excess of femininity was enough to make her go so weak at the knees she was grateful she was already sitting on the canopied bed.
“I told you Hunk of the Month has more than just beefcake photos. Every month we feature a guest column written by one of our readers...an essay about various topics—the most romantic date, vacation, proposal.” She held up the sheets of paper Kate had forwarded. “This one’s a proposal.
“So, I guess you have a lot of work to catch up on, having been away from the office, and all.”
She was literally drowning in it. There were still at least half a dozen manila folders she hadn’t even opened yet. “Not that much.”
His lips quirked in a ghost of a smile that told her he knew she was lying. “It’s a gorgeous night,” he said. “I thought maybe you might like to go for a ride.”
“It sounds wonderful, but isn’t it kind of dark for horseback riding?”
“I was thinking in my truck. Admittedly, it’s not so romantic as a horseback ride, but I figured we could look at some stars and swap life stories like we were talking about doing.”
“That sounds perfect.” She put away the papers without a second thought.
As she walked with Lucky down the stairs and out of the house, it occurred to Jude that turning her back on work was something the pre-Wyoming, control-addicted managing editor never would have been able to do.
Was it possible for someone to change so much in so short a time? she wondered, vowing to think about this later.
Right now, she was going to enjoy the cool stillness of the Wyoming night. And the company.
11
IT WAS THE KIND of night, Jude thought fancifully, that brought to mind the scene in all the old black-and-white movies in which the handsome cowboy would croon a romantic ballad to a cowgirl. As he drove along the back roads of the ranch, they could have been the only two people in Wyoming. In the world.
“I could get used to this,” she murmured, not realizing she’d said the unbidden thought out loud until he glanced over at her.
“Moonlight drives?”
“No. Well, actually, it’s nice, too. But I was thinking about the solitude.”
“I would have guessed you’d be dying to get back to the hustle and bustle of the city. The bright lights, the fast pace, the crowds, the subway—”
“Not that,” she said with a faint, self-conscious laugh, wishing she hadn’t brought the subject up. It was difficult to explain what she couldn’t quite understand herself. “When I first saw it, from the plane, I thought this looked like about the loneliest place in the world. But I’m beginning to understand how a person can feel separated. But not isolated. Alone, without really being lonely.”
He pulled up alongside the creek and cut the engine. When he’d unfastened his seat belt, he draped his wrists over the steering wheel and gave her another long look.
“That’s the way I’ve always felt,” he admitted. “But then again, I was born right here on the ranch. I grew up on this land, so what others might find a remote life-style just seems normal to me.”
“Did you always feel that way?” She unfastened her own belt, which allowed her to turn sideways so she could look directly up at him. “As if you belonged here?”
“Absolutely. By the time I was five, I’d learned the lesson that Buck—and my daddy—tried to teach me, that the land doesn’t belong to us, we belong to the land. And each generation of O’Neills doesn’t really inherit the Double Ought, we merely hold it in trust for our grandchildren.”
“I like that.” She pictured children—a boy and a girl—with their father’s Bambi brown eyes and thick dark hair streaked by the unrelenting western sun. “So, there wasn’t ever any question about you working on the ranch?”
“Not a one. But not because I felt pressure. If I’d had a yen for city life, no one would have tried to hold me back,” he said firmly, making Jude once again wonder if Kate ever regretted her decision to move east. “But I always knew, deep in the bone, I was born to be a cowboy. And a rancher.” He looked out over the rolling land that his family had worked and tended for so many generations. “I never, not once, thought of anything else in all my life. I was driving that old John Deere tractor you want to photograph me fixin’ by the time I was six.
“Buck and my mama and daddy taught me how to live right, not to get into fights with our neighbors, and the importance of hard work.”
He shook his head and turned toward her. “I feel sorry for the man who has to spend his life doing something he doesn’t love. A man who loves his job never has to go to work. At least that’s the way I see it.”
His somewhat sheepish smile flashed white in the well of darkness surrounding them. “How about you? Did you always want to be a hotshot publishing whiz?”
“I always wanted to publish a magazine. There’s something exciting about being in a diner, or the airport, or the subway, and seeing someone enjoying what you do.”
“Women read Hunk of the Month on the subway?” Right out in public, where anyone can see them? Jude heard his unspoken question.
“Some women. You have to remember, New York’s more anonymous than Cremation Creek. No one is going to rush home and tell your mother that you were ogling naked men.”
“Near-naked men.”
“Near-naked,” she agreed with a faint, reminiscent smile as his correction brought back the little skirmish they’d had today over whether or not to photograph him from the back clad solely in his fringed leather chaps. It had been one battle Jude had reluctantly let him win.
“Of course I didn’t imagine that I’d edit a magazine exactly like Hunk of the Month back when I was a little girl—”
“That was probably a relief to your mom.” He’d no
sooner said the words than Lucky wished he could recall them. “Hell,” he muttered, “I’m sorry, Jude. I forgot about you losing your mother.”
“That’s all right. It was a long time ago. I’ve gotten over it.” Except when I hear a siren, she thought. Or catch a whiff of smoke.
“How did it happen? Was she sick? Or did she have an accident?”
“It was Christmas Eve.” Jude had never told the story to anyone. Her father, who believed in the power of inner strength, had encouraged her to swallow her grief and fear and move on. And she mostly had, except for those occasional flashes of memory that still possessed the power to chill her blood and make her feel five years old again. “We’d all gone to bed, but I’d sneaked downstairs again and was hiding behind my father’s chair, hoping to catch a glimpse of Santa Claus.”
“I can remember doin’ the same thing,” Lucky told her. “But I camped out on the roof.”
“In December?” It was a wonder he hadn’t frozen to death.
He slipped an arm around her in that same easy gesture he had that first night. Just as it had when they’d been sitting on the swing out on the front porch, the light touch of his hand on her shoulder caused her heart to skip a beat.
“I didn’t say I stayed out there very long,” he said with a quick grin that gave her a very good idea of what this man must have looked like when he was five years old.
It was amazing that he’d grown up to be so responsible, since Jude knew that she, for one, would have difficulty disciplining a child who possessed such a winning smile. The kind of smile designed to coax females of all ages out of warm cookies or the keys to the truck. And, in later years, she had no doubt he used the sensual talent to coax women into bed.
“So.” His voice broke into her thoughts, which were threatening to turn erotic on her yet again. “You were telling me about the night you lost your mama.”
It was too beautiful a night for this. Tailor-made for romance, not sad memories. “I don’t understand what this has to do with what we’re doing out here.”