by Nancy Martin
“Herbs?” Carly asked.
Becky said, “Hank planned the herb garden himself, and his suggestions for seasonings are—well—uh—”
Hank opened the refrigerator. “Beer, anyone?”
“Why not?” Carly asked, wondering why Becky had faltered. She accepted a steaming plate of biscuits and stew from her as Hank got out the beer. There was enough food on Carly’s plate to feed an entire family in L.A.
Becky prepared another plate for her brother. “I’ve got some phone calls to make if I’m going to round up enough men to help tomorrow. You two mind eating without me?”
“Not at all,” Carly said, secretly pleased to have Hank all to herself for a while.
Hank seemed to hesitate for a split second. “You have to eat, Becky.”
“I will,” his sister promised. “In a few minutes. You go ahead. Entertain Carly for a while, all right? Tell her some stories about life on the ranch, why don’t you? I’m sure she’d be interested in—Ouch!”
“Did I step on your foot?” Hank asked innocently. “Sorry, sis. This way, Miss Cortazzo. Let’s eat on the porch, shall we?”
Carrying her plate, a bottle of beer and a napkin that Becky had thrust into the crook of her elbow, Carly followed Hank through the house and out onto the front porch. Besides two wooden rocking chairs and a porch swing suspended by chains from the rafters, there was a small painted table placed in one corner between a couple of old wicker chairs. Someone had already set the table with silverware and plaid place mats. A flickering yellow candle in a jar made the table look surprisingly romantic.
“Alfresco,” Carly said. “How nice to be dining outside tonight.”
“Unless the mosquitoes show up. Have a seat.”
“Thank you.” Carly set her plate on the table and made herself comfortable in the wicker chair. Then she noticed Hank wasn’t following her example. He stood over her, as if undecided about joining Carly at all. She smiled up at him, one eyebrow raised. “I hope you don’t feel as if you’re having dinner with the enemy.”
“The enemy?”
“Me.” She gestured for him to sit down, which he finally did. “I’m your enemy because I’m pushing you to pose for my calendar.”
“Trust me. If you were really my enemy, we wouldn’t be so civilized, Miss Cortazzo.”
“Carly,” she corrected automatically, picking up a fork. “I detect a chill in the air, nevertheless. Or don’t you go for city girls?”
“I go for all kinds of girls,” he retorted, slugging his beer as if to steel himself for a difficult conversation.
“All kinds of girls? Care to tell me about some of them?”
He regarded her warily over the glowing candle. “Well, we don’t get many unattached women in these parts.”
“What about attached ones?”
“Married women? No, I don’t go in for that stuff. Too messy. I like to get in and out of relationships as cleanly as possible.”
“I gather you don’t go in for the lasting kind of relationships, either.” Carly sampled the stew and found it warm and savory.
“I haven’t been lucky in love.”
“You certainly are the quintessential cowboy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Carly glanced up, surprised by the heat in his voice. “Why, nothing really. You must fall in love with horses, not women.”
He snorted. “That’s a laugh.”
“Then you do have a girlfriend?”
“Look, I don’t know why we’re talking about me,” he began irritably, looking surprisingly uncomfortable.
“I like to get to know my subjects, that’s all.”
He leveled her a suspicious stare. “Really?”
Carly sipped from her own beer bottle to give herself time to think. “To tell the truth, no. But you—well, I’ve never met a real cowboy before. I just—I want to know what your life’s like. Call it professional curiosity. For example, do you and your sister run this ranch all by yourselves?”
“Um, well, we have a hired hand, of course, to help out. But usually, it’s just a one—er, two-person operation.”
“That must mean a lot of hard work.”
He shrugged. “If you love it, it’s not really work.”
“You love it, then?”
He took a huge forkful of stew into his mouth and took forever to chew it. “This stew is great, isn’t it?” he asked, after swallowing.
“Yes, it’s delicious.”
“Becky has been adjusting the recipe again. I like the sage. And not too much onion.” He thoughtfully selected a carrot with his fork. “The touch of jalapeno is just right. Not overwhelming, but definitely a statement.”
Delighted, Carly laughed. “You’re a cowboy foodie!”
He looked up at her as if startled out of his thoughts. “A foodie?”
“Someone who appreciates good food.”
He bristled. “I’m not a gourmet. I hate pretentious stuff—”
“Like snooty French restaurants?”
“I do like French cuisine,” he said cautiously, “if it’s done well. But not an overly rich menu and a wine list that’s past its prime.”
“Provençal food, though?”
He nodded. “Simple, but elegant.”
Carly leaned forward, glad to see him relaxing at last. “What’s the best restaurant you’ve ever visited?”
Hank hesitated only for an instant. “There’s a diner in Cheyenne that’s top-notch. The best homemade sausage this side of the Mississippi.” He looked cautious again. “Why are you asking?”
“No special reason. Conversation, I guess. And I like food myself. I keep a scrapbook of my favorite restaurants.”
He looked surprised. “Yeah? What’s in the. scrapbook?”
“Well, I’m not exactly an expert,” Carly admitted modestly. “I enjoy atmosphere as much as the food. I hke to travel, so I’ve collected menus from restaurants in other countries. There’s a small café in Vienna I loved—it just dripped with Italian color. But for food, I’d have to say a wonderful Chinese restaurant in Mexico City of all places—”
“Don Ho’s!”
Carly couldn’t hide her astonishment. “You’ve been there?”
Hank suddenly began to choke and reached for his bottle of beer. After a calming swallow, he shook his head. “Uh, no, I’ve never been there. I must have read about it in a magazine, I guess.”
Carly studied him for a moment. “I don’t suppose there are many restaurants around here.”
“Not many, no.”
“You’re lucky Becky cooks so well.”
“Becky’s very talented,” he agreed. “Of course, during the winters here she has lots of time to practice. She loves it, though.”
Carly rested both her elbows on the table and leaned toward him. “Tell me what you love to do.”
“Me?”
“Sure. What keeps you here at this ranch?”
“Um, well, the horses are—they’re exciting, I guess.”
“Exciting?”
“And cows. I’ve always...liked cows.” Preferably medium rare, Hank almost added. He had begun to sweat beneath his flannel shirt.
“I see,” Carly said, looking puzzled.
You’re about to crash and burn, Hank thought to himself. The whole restaurant discussion nearly gave you away. Now you just sound like an idiot.
Determined to change the subject before he got into big trouble, he said, “Why are we talking about me again?”
Carly blinked at him over the flickering candle, her brows knit delicately. She appeared to be wrestling with exactly who the man across the table from her was.
Suddenly Hank could hardly choke down his food. His insides were knotted with tension. How was he supposed to keep up this charade?
I hate this ranch, he wanted to blurt out. Give me a dirty old city with a few coffee shops, a good barber and tickets to an occasional basketball game, and I’ll be happy as a clam. Let me c
limb Mount McKinley-just don’t make me talk about ranching anymore.
He couldn’t tell the truth, though. Not until the damned photographs were snapped and printed in some ridiculous calendar that Hank could only pray never found its way into the sight of anyone he knew.
Obviously, however, he wasn’t good at lying about the Fowler ranch. He had to come up with something else to talk about.
What had Becky advised? A distraction. Frantically, he remembered, Maybe you’ll have time to cloud her vision before she sees too much.
He leaned on one elbow and said, “Why don’t we talk about you, Carly.”
“Me?”
“Sure. What are you really after when you chase down men and take their pictures?”
To Hank’s immediate satisfaction, Carly Cortazzo blushed.
“I...it’s my job, that’s all.”
“Your chosen profession,” he reminded her. “You must enjoy what you do.”
“Well, I—”
He met her uncertain gaze and held it with a long, slow smolder that caused Carly to gulp. Aha, you’ve got her on the run.
“Tell me, Carly,” Hank went on, deepening his voice with shameless seductiveness. “Who’s the sexiest man you’ve ever photographed?”
Her stunned expression told Hank that she definitely hadn’t planned on having the tables turned.
“Well, they’re not necessarily sexy to me,” she finally blurted out.
“Surely one of them stands out in your mind, though?” he asked.
“Not one in particular, no.”
“Are you saying you’re impervious to the men you photograph for calendars?”
“Of course not,” she said quickly, bristling at his unspoken suggestion that she didn’t care for men at all. “They’re usually not my type, that’s all.”
“What is your type?”
Fortunately for Carly their conversation was interrupted at that moment by a distant howl that sounded far off in the darkness. The eerie cry broke the still night with nerve-shattering results.
Carly jumped and looked out into the darkness beyond the porch. “What was that?”
“I haven’t got the faintest—I mean, it was probably a wolf.”
“A wolf!”
“Sure, we get them around here once in a while.”
Her blue eyes were very wide as she stared into the dark night. “Are they dangerous?”
“Sure,” Hank drawled. “All wolves are dangerous.”
“Even lone wolves like you?” she asked, turning to gaze directly into his eyes.
“I’m not a loner—not exactly.”
“But you keep things simple where women are concerned.”
“Simple has its advantages,” Hank replied with a smile.
Three
Fresh air gave Carly headaches. At least, that’s what she told herself when she awoke the next morning and decided that a twinge in her forehead was probably the first sign of a major thumper.
Certainly her headache had nothing to do with a poor night’s sleep thanks to an overactive imagination.
Dreaming about cowboys and wild horses hadn’t given Carly her usual night’s rest. She had tossed and turned for hours, sweating profusely when she woke up with thoughts of Hank Fowler dancing in her unconscious mind. She had envisioned him strolling into her bedroom, scooping her up out of the covers and striding off into the wilderness with her naked body in his strong arms. After all, isn’t that what cowboys did with their women?
“He’s gorgeous,” she murmured to herself on a sigh, snuggling contentedly into the bedclothes. Those shoulders, that delicious mustache and his smoldery blue eyes!
Last night they’d talked for more than an hour on the porch, listening to the lone wolf howling in the distance. By candlelight, Hank’s rough-hewn features had looked as devastating as any Hollywood hunk’s, and Carly had gone to bed more infatuated than ever.
After that, her subconscious took over, and the resulting dreams had been deliciously erotic.
Too bad Hank hadn’t tried to kiss her last night.
If he had, Carly might have hog-tied the man and dragged him up to her bed.
But no such luck.
The fragrance of hot coffee penetrated Carly’s fogged brain at last, and she crawled out of the bed to check her wristwatch. Nine-thirty, California time. She had no clue what time it was in South Dakota, but the sun that streamed through the thin calico curtains seemed dazzlingly bright.
Groping on the nightstand, Carly discovered that her last pack of cigarettes was still empty. “Oh, damn.”
She fell back into the pillows and groaned. “Why did I come all the way out here just to frustrate myself? It’s obvious Hank Fowler thinks more about his horse than women—and now—no cigarettes!”
Grumbling, Carly climbed out of her bed and into her ancient pair of faded blue jeans. She added sneakers and a crisp white shirt purchased at an exorbitant price from a Western-style shop on Rodeo Drive. She fluffed her hair in the bathroom mirror and applied a light version of her usual cosmetic routine before grabbing a sweater and descending the narrow staircase of the Fowler house.
Today she left her red bandanna upstairs. She had a feeling it looked silly.
In the kitchen she found a note propped by the coffeepot. “If you’re awake before noon, join us outside.”
Smart mouth.
The note was signed in an illegible, but unmistakably confident scrawl that Carly assumed was Hank’s mark.
“If I’m awake before noon,” she muttered grumpily, her pnde stung. “What’s he trying to do? Challenge me to get up with the chickens?”
She poured a mug of coffee for herself and made a cursory search of the various kitchen drawers in hopes that the clean-living Fowler family might have stashed some cigarettes someplace. No luck. With a sigh she strolled out onto the porch to sip her coffee.
The sunlight was so blazingly clear that she fumbled in her shirt pocket for her sunglasses and put them on. The coffee, thick and strong, evaporated her headache at once.
The ranch was a hive of activity. Carly could see Becky riding a large black horse around the corral, separating cows that fled before her like frightened wrens. A handful of men stood around a battered horse trailer, laughing as they unloaded their saddled horses. Clearly, they had been hired for a hard day’s work, and they didn’t mind a bit.
Hank detached himself from the group of men and sauntered across the dusty yard to Carly.
“’Morning,” he drawled, coming to a halt and propping one boot on the bottom porch step. He was a vision of manliness in jeans and a red flannel shirt under a tight-fitting denim jacket. His gaze was clear beneath the brim of his hat. “You finally decide to join the land of the living?”
“I have a touch of jet lag,” she replied, trying to sound calm despite the sudden acceleration in her pulse. The man was just as gorgeous by daylight as he had been the night before. The morning sun filled his blue eyes with a devilish gleam, and the rough denim jacket clung to his broad shoulders like a second skin.
“Sleep well?” he asked.
Had he guessed the subject of her dreams by the guilty flush that rose to her cheeks? Carly hoped not. “Yes, very well,” she lied. “How about you, Mr. Fowler?”
“I think you could call me Hank by now. And we’ve known each other almost a whole day, right, Carly?”
She liked the way he said her name—half teasing, half caressing. “Right,” she said briskly. “And we’re going to get to know each other much better before it’s all over, Hank. I just need a few minutes to load my cameras, then we can get started on the test shots for—”
“Sorry. Today’s a bad day for me. As you can see, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Carly tried to hide her disappointment, then heard herself asking rashly, “Is there anything I can do?”
“You know anything about cattle?”
“I prefer filet mignon to strip steaks, if that’s what you mean.”
>
With a laugh he said, “But can you ride a horse?”
“Of course.” Then, realizing she might have just put her life in danger, Carly added slowly, “That is, if the real thing’s not too different from a carousel ride.”
Amused, Hank motioned her down the steps, then strolled beside Carly as they headed toward the corral. “It’s not very different, as a matter of fact. You just sit still and enjoy the rhythm.”
“Sounds easy enough,” she said lightly, wondering if he had a double entendre in mind. “Do you have a nice, quiet horse I could try?”
“You’re serious?”
Carly tossed caution to the winds. “Why not?”
“I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Oh, I’m tougher than I look,” she assured him. “I’d like to help today. Really, I would.”
“But—”
At that moment Becky rode up to the fence and reined her sweating horse to a stop. It was the same stallion Hank had been riding when he’d first appeared before Carly. A cloud of dust rose up and nearly engulfed Carly. She heard Hank cough.
“Hi,” said a perky-sounding Becky. “Sorry we can’t do the photos today, Carly.”
“No problem.”
Effortlessly Becky controlled her horse, which proceeded to snort and lunge against the reins. “Did I overhear you say you’d like to help today?”
“I’d love it!” Carly said.
Actually, she couldn’t imagine gallivanting around on a horse in all this dreadful dust and fresh air, but Carly didn’t want to let Hank Fowler out of her sight, now that she’d finally laid eyes on him.
Brightly she suggested, “Maybe Hank could look after me so I don’t cause any trouble?”
“Sure,” Becky answered, then suddenly faltered. “I mean—well, Hank’s going to ride out to look for strays today. Maybe you’d better stick around the corral just to—”
“Oh, I’d love to go looking for strays!”
“But—” Becky and Hank began almost in unison.
“Oh, I’ll be perfectly safe,” Carly interrupted before either of them could voice their objections. “Hank can take care of me, right?”
“Well,” Becky said, hesitantly glancing at her brother.
“I don’t know.” Hank exchanged looks with Becky. “I’m going to be pretty busy today.”