The Curvy Vet and the Billionaire Cowboy (He Wanted Me Pregnant!)

by Wessex, Victoria

  My mind was spinning. Spending all the money to fly me out to his ranch was crazy enough, but to do all that for a horse he didn’t even own? “Why?” I asked at last.

  He looked straight at me. “Because she’s beautiful. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I saw her, and I knew I had to have her, whatever it took.”

  I saw that look in his eyes again, as he gazed at me. Which made no sense at all.

  “You want me to go out there with you,” I said slowly, working it through in my mind, “into the mountains?”

  “A day to get out to where I saw her. Then as long as you need to treat her. A day to get back. I’ve cleared it with your boss at the CDC. And I’ll pay you an extra fee—say a thousand dollars a day?”

  I could feel the hot rage start to build inside me. Who did this guy think he was? First he talks my boss into borrowing me, as if I was just a piece of equipment. He puts me through the worst journey of my life, neglects to mention the four hour car trip that’s waiting for me when I arrive, and now he expects me to go on a backwoods safari, with rattlesnakes and cougars and God knows what, and presumably camping—with him…but it’s okay because he’ll pay me?

  Maybe he was like all the billionaires I’d read about, combined with the arrogance of an old-school cowboy. I looked at his face, all smooth charm and rugged good looks. He was used to getting whatever he wanted—I could see that, now.

  Well, I wasn’t going to be bought. I stood up. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But no. Find yourself a local vet. Going out into the wilds isn’t what I do.”

  He grabbed my arm, his grip like iron. Yet when I looked at his face, he wasn’t angry, exactly. More frustrated—scared of losing something. His face seemed to soften, just for a second. “Wait,” he said. “Let me tell you about her. She has a coat that looks brown until it catches the light, and then it shines almost red. She’s got a patch of white, right here”—he tapped his forehead, between his heavy brows—“in the shape of a diamond. She looks to be young, healthy enough until the Triple E hit her. I saw her run, when she was spooked by something. She’s built for speed, smooth muscles and strong legs.” He paused, and there was real pain in his eyes. “Give it another few days, though, and she’ll start to weaken. She won’t be able to walk, or to drink. She’ll—”

  “Stop!” I stared at him for a moment. “Okay,” I said at last. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  He relaxed his grip on my arm and, within a second, that confident charm was back. As he paid the bill, I hit me that I might have just been played. Maybe he’d told me just what I needed to hear. He used to do oil deals for a living, after all—he certainly had the silver tongue. But it didn’t feel like that. It felt like, for a second there, I’d seen through his armor.

  Chapter 3

  “We’ll have to…camp?” I said in a small voice as we drove back.

  “Four or five nights,” he told me. I saw his knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. “Unless we’re not in time.”

  Four or five nights. Just the two of us. It wasn’t as if I thought he’d be the slightest bit interested in me, but that amount of enforced intimacy was still scary. I’d barely dated since college, burying myself in my work instead. I’ve never found it easy, with men. I never know what to say, and wind up talking about science or something, instead of going all giggly and cute and batting my eyelashes like I’m supposed to. I couldn’t even act normal around a normal man. What hope did I have with a billionaire?

  I thought of carrying five days’ worth of camping gear, plus my medical supplies. “We’re going to be pretty loaded down,” I said, half to myself.

  Russ turned and smiled at me. “We’re not walking!” he said. And pulled up next to where two beautiful stallions were being saddled.

  Oh.

  I climbed nervously out of the pick-up truck and ran a hand over the neck of the nearest horse. “Meet Caesar,” said Russ, patting the black one, “and Constantine.” He stroked the white one. “You’ll be on Constantine. He won’t give you any trouble.”

  “Oh,” I said, my voice quavering. “I wouldn’t speak too soon.”

  Russ looked at me. “You can ride, right?”

  I stiffened a little. OK, sure, I was a vet. And yes, I specialized in equine viruses. But just because I was around horses all day, didn’t mean I actually got much of a chance to ride them. I tried to remember when I last sat in a saddle. I remembered leaning forward and whispered in the horse’s ear that I knew it was magic, and wanted it to fly me away to the fairy castle. So that was a clue.

  “Of course I can ride,” I said.

  He looked at me as if he didn’t quite believe me, but nodded. “You might want to….” He indicated my suit.

  I went off to change. When I came back, I was wearing the best I could cobble together from my suitcase: jeans, a white tank top, and boots. The only problem was that I had nothing to keep the sun off my skin. When I’d packed, I’d figured I’d be sitting indoors giving advice around a table, or at most treating an animal in a stable. Being outdoors for days at a time hadn’t entered my head.

  I transferred my medical gear into saddle bags, opened up my suitcase and started to pack my own things. I was panicking, and not just from the idea of riding a horse for the first time in years. I like to prepare for things. It had taken me about two hours just to pack my carry-on case for the trip, organizing everything into piles and then fitting them in neatly, triple-checking I’d got everything. That was just how I did things. But this guy was paying me a thousand dollars a day, and I wasn’t going to keep him waiting, so I was having to rush. And when I rush, I panic.

  “Everything okay?” asked Russ gently. He was already in his saddle, gazing down at me.

  “Yes!” I said, trying not to snap at him. “I’m just trying to…” I stared at a pile of neatly-folded sweaters. Do I need sweaters? Will it be cold at night? “…make sure I…” I gazed at two tank tops. Black or white? “…have everything—”

  “Amanda.”

  I jerked my head up.

  Russ was leaning forward on his horse, smiling down at me. “Sorry—do you mind if I call you Amanda?”

  I swallowed. There was something about hearing him say my name that made me go light and fluttery inside. “Of course not,” I squeaked.

  “Relax. Take a breath. This is the country. We slow down out here.”

  If someone back in Atlanta had noticed me panicking, they would have poked fun at me and I would have felt like a complete idiot. Weirdly, though, Russ sounded genuinely concerned. So I actually did take a breath, a long one…and felt better. Then, moving more slowly, I took what I actually needed out of my case and loaded it. “Okay,” I said. “Done.”

  Now all I needed to do was mount up. I put one foot in the stirrup and prepared to hoist myself up into the saddle. Okay, Amanda, I thought. You’ve done this before. Plenty of power, so you get momentum and don’t come straight back down again. One, two three, PUSH!

  I heaved down on that foot, powering myself up and swinging my leg over the horse. I felt my ass land neatly on the saddle and grinned. Done it!

  Except…the world seemed to be sliding sideways. I’m still moving…. I felt for the other stirrup with my foot, but I couldn’t find it. Already, I could feel my ass lifting out of the saddle again. I was going to fall straight off the other side and land on my head—

  Strong hands caught my waist and upper arm. Russ had ridden up beside me and was sitting there, supporting me. “You okay?” he asked softly.

  I nodded quickly and tried to tell myself that the rush of heat, the flutter in my belly was the adrenaline from nearly falling off. I let him push me slowly back to vertical, and this time I got my feet into the stirrups properly and settled myself. Russ’s hands slowly retreated and, immediately, I felt coldness—a sense of loss—where they’d touched me.

  “Ready?” he asked, looking towards the mountains.

  A lot of things went through my head. I was about
to head off into the wilderness for close to a week, with a guy I barely knew, sleeping on the ground while vicious animals and dangerous insects tried their best to eat me. All so that I could try to treat a horse who might be past saving already. Ready? No, I wasn’t ready!

  “Yup,” I said.

  And we set off.

  Chapter 4

  People send postcards of the Wyoming countryside and, in particular, the mountains. That’s cute, in the same way a paperweight of the Eiffel Tower or the Pyramids is cute. And about as comparable.

  Flat, grassy plains stretching out to the scrub and trees. Then a carpet of lush green foliage, the shadows so cool and dark they were almost blue. Arcs of forest stretching like fingers up the gray rock and then, high above, snow caps gleaming white against a crisp blue sky.

  For the first half hour or so I just sat in my saddle and let Constantine follow along behind Russ’s horse, Caesar, just…drinking it in. I’d seen pictures on the internet, and seen it again through the window of the SUV. But it’s different on a horse. On a horse you’re part of the landscape, not just moving past it. On a horse, you’re there.

  There was something else I couldn’t stop looking at, too. Him.

  Riding behind him, I was free to feast my eyes without him knowing. Now that I could take a really good look at him, I realized that it wasn’t just his height, or even the width of his shoulders that made him seem big. He was solid. Solid like an engine block is solid. He didn’t seem to have any fat on him, but he was…weighty. Almost as if floorboards would creak under his feet. As if his boots would leave a deeper impression than anyone else’s. His upper arms, with their biceps that looked as big as my head, were hard as iron and, like the thick branch of some ancient oak tree, I could imagine a kid swinging happily from that arm not just for a minute but for hour after hour. There was a sense of permanence there I’d never seen in any man, as if he’d still be there in a thousand years. I wondered what he’d been like when he’d been in the oil world. I couldn’t imagine him in a suit…not that he wouldn’t have looked very good on him, but I couldn’t imagine him wearing one, and making conference calls, and chairing meetings. He just seemed so right for this world, for the horse and the jeans and the big sky. Maybe he’d just found his place, like I had in the lab.

  I wished I was back there now. It wasn’t the riding. So far, Constantine seemed to be the most sedate, quiet ride imaginable—the horse equivalent of a Cadillac—although being so high off the ground still terrified me. It was the isolation. Every step took us farther and farther from civilization. I felt like an astronaut floating helplessly off into space. I wanted my nice, smooth roads and Netflix and air conditioning. Somehow I’d been dragged, in the space of twenty four hours, from a nice safe environment I understood to…this. And it was all thanks to him. This sexy, muscled man, sitting there all naked and distracting on his horse.

  Okay, he wasn’t actually naked. But I was thinking so hard about his body under his clothes that he might as well have been. I wasn’t a virgin, of course, but it had been a while since I’d last dated or even hung around bars and things. Maybe my friends in Atlanta were right. Maybe I was burying myself in my work. Certainly, I wasn’t used to being alone with a guy like this. With his jeans stretched over his lean, hard ass, and those strong forearms gripping the reins, just like they’d grip my wrists as he stared down into my eyes and thrust—

  My eyes bulged, heat rising in my face. Where had that come from?

  I looked quickly away from Russ, staring at the horizon. Okay, I definitely needed to get out more. When I got home from this crazy trip, I was going to give in and let my friend Shelly drag me to some bars and meet some men. I’d obviously got way too much pent-up sexual frustration in me.

  “You need to relax.” Russ’s voice.

  I blinked guiltily. “What?” He doesn’t know what I was thinking. He can’t know!

  “You need to loosen up in the saddle. You’re sitting there like a mannequin, all stiff. A couple of hours of riding will destroy you.”

  I knew immediately he was right. As soon as I relaxed a little, I could feel how tight all my back muscles were. I’d been so worried about slipping out of the saddle again, I’d tensed up. But I wasn’t going to let him know that. I felt enough of a klutz already. “I feel fine,” I said.

  “That’s because we’ve been walking. I was hoping you’d loosen up as we went, but you’ve gotten worse. And we need to start moving a little faster.”

  I flushed. “How do you know? You’re in front of me.”

  Now he looked momentarily guilty. “I’ve been checking, now and again.”

  I looked at him blankly. Checking? Had he really been glancing back at me, without me noticing? Even if he had, why would he feel guilty about it?

  “C’mon,” he said. “Ride alongside.”

  I nudged Constantine forward. He didn’t need a lot of coaxing. In fact, he turned his head and gave me a look, as if to say, I’m doing it, already. Keep your panties on.

  “Okay,” said Russ. “Just come alongside, and—”

  He suddenly swung himself out of his saddle…and onto my horse, right behind me.

  “What are you doing?” I squeaked.

  “Reminding you how to ride,” he told me. He settled himself a little closer and suddenly his chest was pushing against my back, his body hot through the thin cloth of his shirt.

  “M—Mr Tyler?” My voice was querulous.

  “Russ,” he said. His fingers were suddenly on my waist. They seemed to burn through the thin material of my shirt and tank top, straight through to the skin beneath. “Let’s start here. Stop hunching up.” His fingertips glided up my sides, and it was as if they were skimming along the surface of water, sending ripples outward through my body. “Nice and relaxed, but draw yourself up from your head.”

  I did it. I sat up straight and tall in my saddle and my reward was that the fingers skimmed even higher. They reached a point level with my breasts and I swallowed, wondering if he was about to slide them around to the front. But he just drew them gently over the soft skin at the side of my breasts and continued on to my shoulders. “Relax these,” he said, tapping them gently. “Or you’ll be aching in an hour. Nice and relaxed.” His voice was so soft and melodious that it was like listening to a hypnosis tape. I wanted to slide into a warm bath filled with that voice. My shoulders unclenched and lowered.

  “Good. Now….” His fingers started to skim down the length of my arms, tracing all the way down to my hands. His huge palms surrounded my slender fingers. “Firm but easy grip on the reins. Use your strength when you need to, but mostly just communicate.” He eased the reins left a little, and Constantine obediently turned that way. “See?”

  I did see. But with his chest pressed up against my back and his arms alongside mine, he was basically hugging me from behind, and that made it very difficult to think. The back of the saddle meant that his groin wasn’t snugged right up against my ass, which meant I couldn’t tell if he was hard or not. Was he as turned on as I was? Or was he sitting there just giving a lesson to some stupid city girl, and he had no idea?

  “Okay?” asked Russ, and I realized I’d been sitting like that, with his body wrapped around me, for a while.

  “Yes.” I nodded quickly and felt my long hair brush his chin. That alone made me giddy. “Yep. Got it. It’s all coming back to me now. Thank you,” I babbled.

  He chuckled and made a noise in his throat to call for Caesar. When the horse was alongside again, he swung himself back into his own saddle. Immediately, I felt the loss of his presence. My mind was whirling. What had that been? Was I reading too much into it—had it been completely innocent?

  Russ indicated the mountains ahead of us. “We’re going to have to go slow when we start climbing. We should speed up and make up some time now, if you’re okay with it.”

  I nodded, hoping I didn’t look as terrified as I felt. “Absolutely!”

  He urged Caesar in
to a trot and I did the same with Constantine. At first, the extra speed made me cling on for dear life with my legs. But as the horse proved to be just as predictable and gentle at speed, I began to relax…and to enjoy myself. It was eerily quiet, after being used to the noise of the city. Just the sound of hooves thumping against the grass and the jingle of buckles and reins. Eerie…but sort of peaceful.

  “Here,” said Russ. “I’ve got something for you.” And he reached into a saddle bag and pulled out a blue and white check shirt. “To keep the sun off your arms,” he told me, tossing it across.

  I thanked him and slowly put it on. Right at the collar, I caught the scent of his citrus cologne. It smelled good.

  “So who’s in Atlanta?” Russ asked.

  “Wh—What?” I asked, thrown.

  He nodded at my hand. “No ring on your finger. Boyfriend?”

  I swallowed. It was an innocent enough question. He was just killing the time. So why had I suddenly gone hot inside. “No.”

  “No boyfriend?!”

  Yeah, try to act surprised. The big girl doesn’t have men all over her. He’d done a good job of pretending, though. He’d managed to sound genuinely astonished. “No.” We lapsed into silence. “You?”

  “No. Wasn’t much time for anything romantic, in the oil business. One of the reasons I quit.”

  He’d moved ahead of me again so I felt I could look at him without fear of discovery. My eyes took in his wide shoulders and trim waist. The powerful legs, hard with muscle. The firm, toned ass. How the hell, I wondered, is he still single? It was a dangerous thought to have, because it started to curl black tendrils around my brain and tease ideas into life. He’s single. I’m single. We’re all alone out here.

  I gritted my teeth. Except this is me. He’s not interested in me, or any girl my size. What do you want—to get rejected and humiliated? It’s not even like you can just go home, once you’re out in the sticks with him.