A Cowboy in Disguise

by Victoria Ashe

  Alexandra spotted an entire orchard covered in snow, frosty signs pointing to an enormous vegetable garden, and a pond with an icicle-ornamented creek flowing through it. She could imagine how the place must look in the springtime with wildflowers covering the hillsides and fresh green grass lining the banks of the pond. The place was a fantasy world all its own.

  Alexandra looked at Scott as the colors of the sunset fell across his face. “So this is where all your extra money goes.” She had never admired him so much as she did right then. To think she’d ever listened to Sarah’s ridiculous stories, or compared this beautiful man to someone like D— Bleh. She couldn’t even finish her name in her head. It gave her the shivers to think how badly she’d misjudged him at first.

  He nodded. “This is where the money goes. No investment like it in the world.”

  She held his gaze with hers as he leaned closer to her, close enough to be dangerous, close enough to shatter the co-worker boundaries she’d been so careful to rebuild this near to the presentation day ahead. Just as his lips threatened to take hers in another kiss, the sound of a door opening jolted them apart.

  “Scott? What on earth are you doing here? We weren’t expecting you for another couple weeks.” Scott’s father, followed by the rest of the family, ran down the porch stairs and over to the car.

  “Look, Mr. Antisocial has a girlfriend with him,” one of them said. It sent a little rush of warmth through Alexandra to hear Scott called that. And to hear herself called that.

  Scott greeted them with bear hugs. “Joe,” he said to the one who had made the girlfriend comment, “this is Alexandra. She’s a colleague from work.”

  “Sure she is,” Joe said knowingly while shaking Alexandra’s hand. She was surprised how closely he resembled Scott, though his brown eyes and carefree demeanor set him completely apart from his older brother. “Craig’s standing up to his knees in snow, but he’s got some BBQ going in the backyard for dinner. And Emma’s got some killer peach pie to go with it. You’re just in time.”

  Scott introduced her to the rest of the family and then walked with her up to the guestroom.

  “Joe’s been staying with Craig. I just finished repainting his room,” his father called out up the stairs after them. “One of you can have the guestroom and the other gets Joe’s old room here. Just don’t touch the walls.”

  Scott smiled at her sweetly. “Does this arrangement work for you? I know I promised to keep a lot of space between our sleeping arrangements.”

  “It’s wonderful. This place seems like paradise compared to where I live now. And I’m sure we’ll somehow find a way to control ourselves.”

  He ignored her sarcasm. “This place sure knocks all the rumors about Paris, movie stars and princesses right out of the water, doesn’t it?” he asked.

  “As if I ever believed any of that.”

  With snow still on the ground around the barbecue grill, Craig brought the meal inside to eat at the kitchen table. They were a lively, happy bunch who laughed, ate and then headed for bed as soon as the light was gone. Everything seemed very straightforward with none of the insane competition and constant looking over the shoulder that happened so persistently in big business. Alexandra smiled and helped herself to a piece of pie.

  “Got to get up and feed the cattle early,” a very pregnant Emma explained as they all left the kitchen.

  Alexandra followed their example and went upstairs with Scott leading the way. She took a hot bath and fell asleep the second her head hit the soft pillow. She had traveled too many hours and felt completely safe on the ranch with Scott and his family. The combination lulled her to sleep immediately. She smiled as she thought of Scott in the next room. Maybe she’d resisted something very special for all the wrong reasons. Maybe Scott had been right about acting on their feelings all along. After the presentation …

  In the middle of the night, Alexandra awoke and felt her way to the bathroom. There were no streetlights, no nightlights, and not even a sliver of moonlight coming through the closed curtains to guide the way. This far in the country, nighttime was really and truly dark. All she could see outside through a distant window down the hall was a blanket of endless stars sparkling against a black backdrop of sky.

  She may as well have been walking with her eyes shut as she made her way back to her room. Running her hand along the wall, she finally found the doorknob and slid into her nice, warm bed.

  •

  Alexandra awoke under a stream of sunshine the next morning. She covered her head with a pillow. There was no point in denying it. She was hopelessly, stupidly, unquestionably falling in love with Scott Falconer.

  “You idiot,” Alexandra said out loud to herself. “Whatever happened to ‘never date a colleague’ and ‘listen to your head not your heart’?” Mary had been right all along in her suspicions. After the presentation, she’d tell Scott how she felt. She could trust him. She knew she could. And if she ever had a doubt, she’d simply keep her promise to give him a chance to prove himself to her.

  Scott knocked on her door, interrupting a good solid stretch. “Are you decent?” he whispered loudly.

  “No.” She laughed.

  He opened the door and walked into the room. He had already showered and shaved, and already had his first morning cup of coffee in his hand. He looked less like a colleague and more like a part of her life with each passing day.

  “What’s this about the head and heart?”

  “Eavesdropper.”

  He shrugged. “It always seemed to me that when people know in their heads that someone is wrong for them, but get carried away by their hearts, they end up in trouble. And when they go for someone who looks right on paper—in their heads—but the emotion isn’t there in the heart, that’s just as bad.”

  “So you’re saying don’t get involved unless the head and the heart line up?”

  “Exactly.”

  Alexandra smiled at him brightly through tufts of disheveled hair. Why hadn’t she realized it this solidly before? All the while, he had stood in front of her professing his feelings while she had held him away at a safe, business-like distance. Never once had she realized that she couldn’t imagine going back to her life or to her office without him there. And never once had she realized he’d meant what he’d said to her. How could she have ever thought a woman like the sub-zero Mac Stevens could hold his heart? She loved the corporate version of Scott Falconer, and she loved the cowboy she’d just discovered in him.

  “All right, then,” he said with a perplexed look on his face, “get dressed. We’ve got cows to feed.”

  •

  As the tractor bounced slowly over lumps in the frozen field, Alexandra knew she had the easy part of the job. She sat bundled up in the heated cab of the tractor with Scott’s father and watched the herd trot expectantly toward the wagon full of hay that they pulled behind. She couldn’t imagine a situation any further from her tailored suits and leather executive chair.

  Every once in a while, she caught sight of a pile of hay flying off to the side of the wagon, but the stack rose too high for Alexandra to see anything but hay bales out the back window. She wished she could watch Scott pull the bales down, cut the twine and feed the hay off the edge of the wagon. She remembered the long underwear top he’d worn in the cabin as he tossed wood onto the fire. He must be wearing that underneath his heavy coat, she mused. She couldn’t see him, no matter which way she turned the mirror.

  Scott’s father smiled at Alexandra as the tractor crept along the field. He slowly brought the vehicle to a stop and turned to her.

  From far back on the wagon, Scott banged on something metal. “What’s going on?” he called.

  Mr. Falconer nodded toward the door of the tractor. “Go on,” he told Alexandra, “get out and climb up on the wagon. Looks like you’re dyin’ to.”

  Alexandra didn’t have to be told twice. Scott’s smile shot a sensation through to her toes as his gloved hand caught hers and pull
ed her up onto the wagon with him. Hay dust coated his long eyelashes, and somehow made his blue eyes bluer.

  “Here,” he said as he kicked over a pile of orange twine, “you can untangle and roll this stuff up as I cut it off the bales.”

  Scott smiled again when Alexandra didn’t so much as flinch at the dirt and the hay around her, and immediately started rolling the twine up neatly. She bet Mackenzie wouldn’t have gone near a hay wagon.

  “Giving the city girl something productive to do, huh?” Up until now, Alexandra had assumed this way of life was either long gone or something just told about in stories. But here it was, alive in Scott Falconer. He really hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he was a cowboy.

  Alexandra’s laughing voice pulled Scott from his thoughts and he swung a pile of hay wide out into the field. “What do you think David or Sarah would say if they could see us now?” He laughed and his breath was frosty in the morning air.

  “I think they’d believe we’re a couple,” Alexandra said quietly. “Mary does.”

  Scott paused for a moment and watched Alexandra’s face turn red. “Or that we just want very, very much to be,” he whispered.

  Alexandra’s heart pounded under her layers of clothing. The intensity in Scott’s eyes, the scent of his body mingled with the fresh hay, the pure masculinity he exuded as he lifted each hundred-pound bale with ease—these things wore very effectively on her self-restraint.

  “I’m sorry,” she began. “I’m not being very professional here.”

  “It’s about time,” he answered with a grin.

  “I’m curious what David plans to do with all the information we dug up,” Alexandra said, trying to steer the conversation back to safer territory.

  Scott kicked the last bit of hay over the side of the wagon and sat down next to her. “Do you really want to talk business, Alex?”

  “Until after the presentation, that’s the only subject for us. It’s too important.”

  She gripped the bundle of baler twine as tightly now as she had the surprise cabin arrangements during their flight to Colorado.

  “So what happens after the presentation, Alex?”

  “I guess you’ll have to wait and see,” she teased. She hadn’t truly known what she would say to him after the presentation until just that morning. Now her intentions had changed. She wanted to be with this man even if it took all her courage. She drew in a shaky breath.

  Scott laughed out loud. “Who would have thought there was a blatant flirt hidden behind the businesswoman exterior?”

  “Probably the same person who would have thought there was a bona fide cattle rancher lurking under those three-thousand-dollar suits.”

  Scott’s father rolled the tractor up into the yard and jumped out. “Craig and Joe can reload the wagon for tomorrow’s feeding. I’ll be doin’ some woodworking in the shed if you need me. Don’t catch cold.” The older man gave the two of them a knowing glance before walking away, not that they ever looked away from each other long enough to notice.

  They walked into the house and a few minutes later, Alexandra sat cross-legged in front of the fireplace, pulling first one photo album and then another into her lap. Scott’s whole life was open to her as she saw picture after picture of the baby becoming a boy, and the boy becoming a man.

  Scott emerged from the kitchen with two steaming mugs of hot chocolate. “Oh, no.” He winced visibly. “Bare bottoms and bear skin rugs.”

  “I was thinking of swiping a couple of these for the break room bulletin board.”

  Alexandra’s hair cascaded loosely down her back, glowing warmly in the firelight. Scott could imagine her with him like this forever. She fit so naturally into his life without even trying. Alexandra challenged him in the office and complemented him in this place so far removed from it. He ached for her. He’d never ached for anyone before.

  “I wish I could have met your mother while she was alive,” she said, “She must have been an amazing person.”

  “She was.”

  “And I can’t believe how cute you were as a child. The girls must have run wild after you in school.” She flipped another page over.

  Alexandra looked up from the photo album when Scott didn’t say anything. The bare desire in his eyes reached her immediately and she drew in a quick breath as his mere expression uncoiled her own desire deep within her.

  Scott set down the hot chocolate and closed the distance between him and Alexandra in a single step. He dropped on his knees to the floor and twined his hands into her hair.

  She rose to her own knees, pressing closer to him as he kissed her softly.

  “What have you done to me?” Scott ran his hands violently through his own dark hair and gave a little laugh. Frustration glittered somewhere in his eyes. “I had more control when I was the walking teenage hormone you saw in those pictures.”

  With a trembling hand, Alexandra picked up the photo album she had been begun looking through. As she moved to put it back in its place, a single photo slid from its pages and dropped to the floor. She knew its subject all too well and it froze her.

  Scott took the picture from her shaking fingers and saw the image of his own smiling face and his arm around Mac Stevens. He didn’t even remember where they’d taken that picture, nor did he care.

  Alexandra whispered the first thing she thought. “What do you feel when you see Mac Stevens?”

  “Nothing good. Nothing at all really.” He flung the picture into the fire and watched the flames curl around the paper and obliterate the memory captured there. “Nothing like what I feel when I see you.”

  His blue eyes were dark with emotion and Alexandra put her fingers up to his lips.

  “That was not a sign,” he said.

  “But, we keep coming back to the same issue. We’re colleagues working together on an important presentation. I admit everything has changed, but I really think we ought to wait and talk about this subject after the presentation when there isn’t so much money at stake for so many people. We just need to focus a little bit longer.”

  “I hate this, you know.”

  “Me, too.”

  Chapter Nine

  Alexandra awoke the next morning with a long, cat-like stretch and looked at the clock. Why hadn’t anyone gotten her up in time to help feed the cattle? Not that she’d been much help the last time, but she couldn’t let a chance to sit on the back of a hay wagon with Scott pass her by. She jumped out of bed, took a quick shower and ran downstairs. From the silence in the house, she knew she was already too late.

  Scott sat in the kitchen with a pile of business magazines and paperwork scattered out on the table. “Hi.” He smiled broadly.

  “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  “I thought I’d let you sleep in. We have hired hands come help out a few times a week, and they took care of feeding today. Dad and the rest of the gang left for town a few minutes ago. I have the distinct impression they’re trying to give us some privacy.” He smiled at her over his cup of coffee.

  At least she hadn’t missed anything. Alexandra poured her own cup and sat down next to him. He hadn’t shaven again, she noticed. She hadn’t seen him like that since they were stuck in the cabin together. Scott seemed so potently male with his stubble and denim shirt. She noticed his well-manicured hands and perfectly trimmed hair, which somehow seemed to complement his rugged look instead of clashing with it. He was a contradiction sometimes—one she couldn’t stop trying to figure out.

  “What are you working on?” she finally asked.

  He looked up from his spreadsheets to her face, fresh and bright with the morning. This was an Alexandra Hunter he would have hardly recognized not long ago. She was well-rested, relaxed, and looking at him with an expression of open interest in her eyes.

  “I’m thinking about putting together a business plan,” he answered. “There’s a thousand-acre chunk of land that backs up to our fence line just over the hill.”

  “You need mo
re land?” The ranch already seemed huge to her as it was.

  “We might.” Scott looked at her for a moment as if debating letting her in on a secret mission. “See, Elliot and his wife are thinking of coming back from New York. They don’t want to raise a family in the city. Can’t say that I blame them.”

  “So he wants to expand the ranch?”

  “Well, we don’t have enough rangeland to run enough additional cattle—we wouldn’t even with that new piece. But, if Elliot gives up his cushy, six-figure job to move back, we’ll need to come up with some other way to generate a lot of extra income here.” He held up a handful of flyers and a spreadsheet filled with pencil marks.

  Alexandra loved watching him work his magic with numbers as he added up columns in his head. A calculator sat on the edge of the table, but he never seemed to think to reach for it.

  “So what have you come up with?” she asked.

  “A working dude ranch.” He grinned. “I think we can make it pay off.”

  Alexandra laughed. “Okay, Tom Sawyer.”

  Scott shot her an intrigued look.

  “It’s like the white-washed fence story,” she said. “People will actually pay you to come out and experience ranch life because it’s a novelty for them. They’ll pay you while you ‘let’ them do your chores. And they’ll get a huge kick out of doing them.” She shook her head and took a sip of coffee. “You’ll make money hand over fist.”

  “Then it must be a good idea, huh?” He stacked the papers neatly into a single pile and dropped his pencil on top.

  Alexandra nodded. “I think it’s brilliant.” She propped herself up on her elbow and smiled at him again. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so good in the morning. “The land is so amazing, how could anyone pass up seeing it—even if only for a week or two? So what would you build on the extra thousand acres?”

  “There’s a pretty little meadow right on the edge of it. We could build five or six small log cabins there. It’s mostly timberland up behind the meadow, so we could mark out horse riding trails, hiking trails—who knows? We could even put in a fishing pond or another swimming hole or something. And barbecue pits to go with the picnic area. Craig would never let me hear the end of it if we didn’t barbecue something for the visitors.”