Rugged Cowboys (Western Romance Collection)

by Amy Faye

  The voices on the other end of the line don't respond right away.

  "Any thoughts or objections?"

  "None on my end," comes the first response. Nobody counters it with objections of their own. Perfect.

  "Now, if that's all for the new business, I'd like to bring your attention to our other locations, which you'll be more familiar with. I'm confident that there aren't going to be any surprises for any of you here, but let's go through some of these reports together…"

  She turns the page on her notes.

  The good news was that she couldn't have done any better than that. The bad news was, now she'd promised the Callahan ranch, and she had no way to be sure she could deliver on that.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Glen always has a big smile on his face. It's not the least bit genuine, but then again, nobody who knows the man expects it to be. He's never been genuine in his entire life.

  Everything he's ever done has been a con masked behind a friendly smile and a pretty face. It's not that he's hard to read. He's easy to read, as long as you believe his act that he likes everything and is always happy with the results you're showing.

  He's brought along a couple of guys. It's hard to know for sure how they're going to respond to the Black, especially with how wild he is. He should've been trained by now. But the physical pieces of a champion thoroughbred are all there.

  They introduce themselves with names that immediately leave Philip's mind, in one ear and straight out the other.

  The scout is short-ish and has a penetrating sort of look to him, while the guy there to look through the documentation is taller and wears a suit with arms that are way too short for him.

  "Morning," he says. The weather is good. If it had started raining, all that Philip knows for sure is, he would've been pissed. Because sight-unseen would spell the death of this sale, and because now he needs to get the money a hell of a lot faster than he did before. "The horse is through here."

  They head through the stable entrance. There's an animal smell in the air, but it's the same one that they're all used to in the first place.

  "He's a big one," Callahan offers as they stop in front of the stall. The stallion isn't being quite as rowdy as he usually is. They might not even get bit this time, if he's feeling particularly generous.

  Then again, maybe he's not feeling particularly generous. Philip's hand shouldn't have been reaching into the stall, but the positioning, leaning in like that… it had just seemed fine at the time.

  "He's an ornery bastard, ain't he?" Glen offers that one. The same smile. As if that were perfect. And, to an extent, it is. You want to have an ornery son of a gun if you want a good horse. A horse that can't stand to lose.

  "Sure, but you get yourself a solid trainer, and you can work that out."

  "He's had his shots? All up on that?"

  "Sure. I should've had you in here a year back, but fact is that—"

  "Don't mention it," Glen says. He's still smiling. "We understand just fine, Phil. How's he run?"

  "Like the damn wind. And if you don't have a place for him on a race track, he bucks like a son of a bitch, too."

  Glen looks in at the horse. His fingers are carefully placed just out of reach of the horse's teeth, and the Black is watching to make sure that they stay there. Or, more likely, to make sure that if they don't, he'll be ready.

  "Do we get to see him out of the stall?"

  "Would you like to?"

  "Yeah, sure. Let's see him."

  "Well, I'll warn you—he ain't too good with a saddle. We got him to stay still, more or less, but that's about as far as it goes."

  "It'll have to do. Go on, now. I don't make deals on horses I ain't barely even seen yet."

  The trainer comes in and helps with saddling the horse up. The boys would probably be a little annoyed they aren't there to see how quick it goes. That's how it works when you let a pro do his work, rather than a couple twenty-year-olds with fantasies of being rodeo stars.

  They guide the stallion out. He pulls at the reins, but that's to be expected. He's still not used to the bit, still not used to any of it. But in the end, he comes along. He'd have to, in the end, but he realizes it before they have to drag him out.

  The trainer gets up on the horse, and the black immediately starts in with his rodeo routine, trying to throw the man off. He sticks on. It doesn't take near as long as the last time for the black to get the notion that the man ain't coming off.

  That's less on account of any special skill—though the man does seem to get the horse calm admirably well—as the black's last experience with the saddle starting to sink in. There's no way out of it, so he might as well just learn to deal with it.

  The trainer takes him for a lap around. The horse takes commands surprisingly well, considering his demeanor. And then he gets the horse going faster, faster still. It's rough going, of course.

  There's no reason that the horse should know anything about what it's supposed to be doing. It's been trained exactly not at all. Barely saddle-broken. But the way that the tall man, his suit jacket left hanging in the stables, has that big black monster running around—

  It's still hard to say what Glen is thinking. The smile on his face might be wider, but it might be the same. It's always hard to tell. Philip throws away the idea of trying to get a read on Glen. A read on the trainer—well, that can come, after he gets off the horse.

  But the scout's taking notes, either way. Philip knows better than to look at them. He writes something else down a second later, looks back up at the horse.

  Phil Callahan lets out a long breath. Easy pickings. No problem. He can handle these guys. Now he's just got to make sure that nothing else can go wrong. Because if it can, it will, and with a horse this mean-spirited, it's bound to happen sooner than later.

  Almost in spite of his worries, the horse draws up to a stop, and the trainer jumps off. He confers with Glen in whispers over the fence. Philip does his best not to listen.

  That doesn't change the fact that he can see Glen's smile dip, just a little. He's thinking about something. The first read of the day. A serious thought. If he was just going to walk away from the horse, then he wouldn't think about much.

  Now the only question is, can Callahan get the money he needs, or is this meeting going to end with him needing to make another round of calls?

  Chapter Eighteen

  At this point, it was hard to say what Morgan wanted more—to get drunk, or to have sex. Neither was going to happen. Not if she had her way. But that didn't mean that she wasn't thinking about it, because she absolutely was thinking about it.

  The week had been a long one. No doubt about that. And as she wanted, well, whatever the hell it was that she wanted, one thought kept occurring to her.

  Bubbling up out of her chest. Nothing she could to stop it, in spite of her best efforts. She didn't know how it would go in either case. She'd fucked up badly enough the first time she'd had dinner with him.

  She'd been afraid to talk to Phil Callahan since the night that they got too intimate for any business relationship. But now, she was too tired for business, and the fact was, she'd promised to get the property in far too public a way to back off now.

  She takes a deep breath and gets the phone out, dials a number. Callahan's number.

  To her surprise he answers. "Yes?"

  "Hello, um." She shouldn't have called. Stupid. "This is Morgan Lowe. This is Mr. Callahan, yes?"

  "Speaking. What can I do for you, Miss Lowe?"

  "I just thought—" I just thought I'd like to go out with you for a bit. Get some drinks. Maybe go back to your place. Or mine. Doesn't matter. "—Maybe we could, I don't know. Get some dinner. Maybe we could talk about your property."

  He lets out a long breath. "Alright. Sure. I'm not saying I'm selling, but fine. We'll talk about it."

  He lets out a breath again. He's not happy about it, but he's considering it, which is a big change from before. Whatev
er happened, Morgan's gut tells her that he needs the money.

  She should be happier. She should be practically god damned ecstatic. A single crack in the armor means that she's seventy-five percent of the way there. The hardest part is getting them to admit that they might sell.

  Once you've got that, it's like untying a knot. You just pick at the parts you can see until you get something solid, and then you get it to come apart. Piece by piece.

  Before that, you just have a big ball of nothing, and you have to hope to hell that it turns into something.

  "Dinner, then?"

  "Sure."

  She's been in town just about long enough to know her options. She offers a steakhouse, and he accepts. Which is progress for her. Real progress. Nervous energy surges through her.

  She should be happy. She should be ecstatic. Instead, she's got a stomach that's twisting itself in knots and more worrying than it's worth. Why the sudden change of heart?

  Is there something wrong? And if there is something wrong—which there almost certainly is—then is it alright to exploit someone's personal problems for her own gain?

  The answer is more or less obvious. Whether it's alright or not, she's going to god damn do it. Because this isn't about doing the right thing, it's about doing what will help her business succeed.

  The little thought in the back of her mind, the worry that Callahan's in trouble—it's got nothing to do with business. It's got everything to do with her, and her feelings.

  Feelings that she shouldn't be having.

  So she's going to treat this like a business dinner. She's going to think of it as a business dinner. No doubt, he will too.

  She'd told him that's what it was. After all, he wasn't going to come if she said that she wanted to go out socially. She'd come off as weird, too. No doubt about it.

  He wouldn't be interested in a woman like her. He probably thought she was a conniving bitch, just out to steal his land.

  She didn't want him to think that way about her. She wanted him to look at her as a woman.

  Morgan's mind races with possibilities. What is she supposed to wear? What is she supposed to do? What if things get… friendly, like they did last time? What if—

  A thousand what-ifs. And above it all, a little voice in her head repeats, over and over. Don't get involved, because he's not for you. It's just a temporary thing.

  Don't get too excited and don't get too involved. Because if you do, all you're really going to get is hurt.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It's been a long time since Philip had any real reason to dress up. Church on Sundays. He'd even worn that stupid shirt for the meeting at the Lowe build site. Should've known that he'd be better suited to wearing the same clothes he wore on the ranch.

  The place was there to do hard work. Just like everything that he was used to. So in a sense, he shouldn't have been surprised to find that Morgan Lowe was a worker. She was surrounded by hard-working men all day. How long would it stand if she couldn't pull her weight?

  But a dinner—that's a different story. A little voice in the back of his mind tells him that it's just a business meeting. They're meeting to talk about what happens if the deal with Glen falls through.

  What if he needs a bunch of money, and he needs it right on the spot—how much can he hope for. That's what they're going to dinner to talk about.

  But when a man and a woman go to eat dinner together, well… it's got certain cultural connotations, doesn't it? It's hard not to think of it as a date. It's very hard.

  Which is why, in spite of it just being a business meeting, a chance to talk numbers, he's wearing this stupid damn monkey suit. A tie, even.

  Callahan feels out of place, dressed like he is. He looks like a damn idiot. He shouldn't even be here, not really. But he is, for reasons he doesn't even want to think about trying to unpack right now. There's plenty of other bigger problems than whether or not he's at a dinner with a woman.

  Or why. Or how he feels about it. Or why he feels that way.

  Instead, he just takes a deep breath and pushes the door open. No problems. No reason to concern himself with how much he must stand out. As long as he doesn't bring it up, nobody else will say anything.

  A familiar voice greets him from the corner as he walks in.

  "Mr. Callahan?"

  He turns. She looks damn good. The dress must have cost a pretty penny, but it was worth every cent. The neck-line plunges just enough to give a tantalizing glance, the hem of the skirt just high enough to imply that the legs keep going.

  It's conservative enough to be taken out to a business dinner in a pinch, but fancy enough—and, Callahan thinks to himself, sexy enough—to serve as evening wear. In his gray suit and his best tie, an embarrassingly plain blue-on-blue, he looks like an idiot next to her.

  "You look good," she says. Her eyes linger on the clothes for a minute, looking him up and down. A little fire inside Callahan lights. That a woman could be looking at him so intently seems impossible. He's past that age.

  "I should be the one saying that. You look incredible, Miss Lowe."

  "Please. Morgan."

  "Well, my point stands—Morgan."

  "Thank you." She smiles and a little tinge of red reaches her cheeks. She looks good when she smiles. Even better than when she scowls, and that expression alone would have brought stronger men than Philip Callahan to her knees.

  "You talk to the lady at the front?"

  "Ten minutes," she says. She flips her wrist over to check a watch face. "As of five minutes ago. So who knows."

  He settles in beside her. How long are they supposed to make small talk, before they get down to business? He'd rather just keep talking to her. Keep her in his mind as a woman, not as a potential future business partner. Not as the woman who's planning on buying up his land at the first opportunity, and skipping town the next moment after that.

  But if that's the reality of the situation—and, whether he likes it or not, it is—then at some point they're going to have to get down to business.

  She's the expert, though, and she doesn't start talking about business just yet.

  Phil smiles and settles into the seat, waiting for the meeting to start. Waiting to be called to their table. The table that they'll share, just the two of them. He shouldn't be letting himself get any ideas. It's far too late for that now, though.

  The ideas are already there, and he's already having them.

  It's a little bit late to start worrying now about whether or not he's going to be able to stop them. Especially when, every time he closes his eyes, all he can think about is what she'd look like if she wasn't wearing those clothes.

  Especially when the last time they'd sat down to eat like this, he'd had every chance in the world to find out.

  Chapter Twenty

  Morgan knows what she's done, and what she's done specifically is drink more than what might have been altogether wise. The bigger part of her really doesn't mind, because it makes this next part quite a bit easier.

  Her lips are sensitive. In fact, her entire body aches. And yet, something calls out to her, some need that she can't begin to name. Something between desire and something else entirely.

  "Aren't you going to ask me back to the ranch?"

  Phil Callahan's face is a little worried, about what she doesn't know. But she knows that she sees, underneath the worry, the arousal in his eyes. She knows that he wants her, and she definitely wants him.

  He probably thinks that she's drunk. That she's gotten off-task. But she hasn't. Not really. And she might be drunk, but… not that drunk, really.

  No, she knows exactly what she's doing. She's just not sure how she's supposed to go about the next part.

  His mouth opens to answer her. He licks his lips. "Are you saying you'd like me to?"

  "That's exactly what I'm saying," Morgan purrs. She leans into him, pressing her body against his. Letting him know exactly how she plans on all of this going. She can feel h
im getting the message from the hardness at his hip.

  His lips open again. He's unsure. Which is completely understandable. After all, she's hardly any more sure than he is. But there's an electricity coursing through the both of them, one that won't be denied.

  Not by her, and if the other night was any indicator, not likely by him, either. He closes his eyes. "You can follow me."

  She presses her lips into his neck and tastes his salty skin, feels the stubble pressing back into her lips. "You won't regret it."

  His body is stiff, with doubt and arousal. Then he steps up into that big truck of his and she goes back to get her own car.

  He goes slow at first. Time enough for her to catch up. And then the chase begins. It's not close, and it was never going to be. His car begins to rumble and accelerate away.

  She's caught him within a quarter-mile, the sports car's engine screaming with a peculiar fury at the thought that a truck was going to beat it in a race. Once she'd settled into the front, the engine quieted down, obviously satisfied that it wasn't badly beaten.

  Her skin is too sensitive, her desire just a little bit too strong. The pressure, the need, is already building up inside her even as she pulls the hand brake and opens her car door. And the only thing that can fix it, she knows, is to have someone release that pressure.

  Someone big and strong and everything she wants. Philip Callahan. She's practically pulling him down out of the cab of the truck only seconds after he pulls up behind her. She doesn't have the patience to wait to get inside.

  It's dark already out here, and warm enough to keep from getting a chill, so the jacket that had impressed so well on him gets shoved off his shoulders, his shirt unbuttoned as she fights to get all the clothes off that she can before either one of them have a chance to think.

  His lips taste her neck, his teeth biting in just enough to draw a gasp. Her breasts fill his hands, the soft pressure enough to send her hyper-sensitive nipples wild, her skin tightening and nipples hardening and someone becoming even more sensitive.