Best of Cowboys Bundle

by Vicki Lewis Thompson, Barbara White Daille, Judy Christenberry, Christine Wenger, Shirley Rogers, Crystal Green, Nina Bruhns, Candance Schuler, Carole Mortimer

  “I see.” She was quiet until he crested the top of the stairs. Her fingers drew small circles on his bare skin. “Is this you getting creative, Mr. Jackson?”

  He might be dead tired, but he wasn’t dead. He recalled exactly the bit of this afternoon’s conversation she was referring to. Suddenly he felt a lot less exhausted.

  “Don’t tempt me,” he muttered and swung her onto his bed. He stood there for a moment, bent over her, arms still clutching her body. Just to catch his breath.

  She gazed up at him, her hands splayed against his chest. “Where are you going to sleep?” she whispered.

  He had the strangest feeling if he said, “With you,” she might just have slid over to make room for him.

  Crazy.

  “Couch,” he answered, pulled his arms from under her and backed away. “I’ll just grab a shirt.”

  By the time he’d whipped socks and a clean work shirt from a dresser drawer she’d fallen asleep again. Thank God.

  That was one choice he didn’t want to have to make. Enemy or no, she was far too tempting lying there in his own bed with her wild red hair, her long sexy legs and her sassy attitude. There was nothing he’d like better at the moment than to tame all three. Which they’d no doubt both regret in the morning.

  Him, especially. He didn’t want to give her the idea he’d like her to stick around. For any reason. He’d worked his butt off for over a decade on this ranch with the understanding that someday it would be his. He didn’t need some usurping niece who didn’t know the first thing about Irish Heaven to come and take it from him.

  Sex was a fleeting pleasure. The only thing that really mattered in his life was Irish Heaven. This land had become so much a part of him, he would feel its loss down to the last fiber of his being.

  He couldn’t let it happen. And he wouldn’t.

  Even if it meant ten cold showers a day.

  Too late for that tonight, so he went downstairs and tossed and turned for a while before finally falling into an uneasy oblivion.

  He woke at his usual time. Rising with the dawn had been ingrained in him for enough years to kick him out of even the soundest sleep. Aside from the lumpy, unfamiliar place he’d spent the night. He stared at the ceiling for a second, feeling as if he’d gotten maybe three minutes of sleep, max.

  All was quiet, so he went to the kitchen to start the pot of coffee he’d forgotten to set the timer on before retiring. Slipping on his boots from the porch, he strolled toward the barn to feed the animals and see to the horses, the bull and the injured steer.

  It was a beautiful morning. The scents of warming sage and juniper filled the air, along with the soft hum of waking insects and the soaring calls of birds of prey. The rising sun turned the whole landscape into a kaleidoscope of brilliant reds and yellows and greens, outlined with the long shadows of piñons and the nearby cliffs.

  It was his favorite time of day, filled with promise, not yet marred by the dulling hardships of reality.

  Turning the corner around the barn, he saw her. Rhiannon. She was sitting on a barrel, feeding the chickens. About a dozen or so surrounded her, flapping their wings, others pecked animatedly at the grain she scattered about with an elegant toss of the hand.

  She blended into the morning so perfectly, with her flowing red-gold hair and her laughing face, he was forced to stop and take a deep breath.

  “Good morrow, Mr. Jackson,” she called with a smile when she spotted him. “I hope you slept well?”

  “Hawk,” he said, suddenly surly at being taken by surprise like this. She had no right being out here doing his chores, looking radiant as an angel from heaven. “And no, I slept rotten.”

  “I’ll take the sofa tonight,” she said lightly, rising from the barrel and wiping the grain dust from her hand on her plain brown skirt. The same one she’d worn yesterday.

  “Not a chance. Besides, I’m up before you, anyway.”

  “I can see that,” she said brightly.

  He pressed his lips together. “You’re our guest. Guests don’t sleep on the couch at Irish Heaven.”

  Gazing at him, she held the feed bucket’s handle in both hands, letting it dangle in front of her as her smile faded.

  “No, Mr. Jackson. I’m family. And the sooner you accept that the easier it will be for both of us.”

  So there it was. Out in the open. Her challenge. And he had nothing to fight it with. Nothing but eleven years of blisters and the word of a senile old man.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said roughly. “But I don’t care who you are, you’re still sleeping in my bed.”

  He turned on a heel and headed for the barn. Hell, that hadn’t come out the way he’d intended. His words had sounded…possessive. Not his meaning at all. Not in a million years.

  Because she was family. And he wasn’t.

  He stopped short when he got to the barn door. It was wide-open, sunshine pouring into the cavernous space behind it, including the stall where the steer stood munching fresh straw. She’d mucked the stalls.

  Not that there was much mucking this time of year. Fitz’s stud bull, Lucky Charm, and his own three horses, Tonopah, Jasper and Crimson, preferred being outside in the corral except during the worst months of winter. Still.

  “How long have you been up?” he asked as she approached behind him.

  “Maybe an hour.”

  “How did you know to do all this?”

  “Farms are pretty much the same the world over. Yesterday you mentioned pitching in.”

  “You didn’t have to do everything.” He couldn’t believe she’d even dared to approach the bull’s stall. He was a pussycat, but with his thick neck and long horns, he looked like a real mean sumbitch.

  “I didn’t. I left you the pig.” He turned to glare at her impish grin. “No statement implied,” she added with a wayward lilt to her voice. “I’ve just never had a pig.”

  He passed his tongue over his lower lip. Never in his life had he wanted anything as much as he wanted to take her over his knee right now.

  “Nothin’ to it,” he ground out. “Just don’t let him get too friendly. You’ll end up on your butt in the mud with him.”

  “What does he eat?” she asked, peering over at the pen where Fitz’s fat Christmas pig was living out his short but exceedingly comfy life.

  “Anything you give him.”

  Hawk stalked off, wondering vaguely what had gotten him so riled up so quickly.

  Sexual frustration, he decided. He hadn’t been to Jake’s Saloon in a couple of months, which was where most of his friends hung out on Saturday nights—including those of the female variety. He’d have to make a point of going this week, even if he had to knock off early to do it. Rhiannon O’Brannoch wouldn’t look nearly as good the morning after a long night of dancing with the local beauties, and whatever else might follow.

  He fed the pig and afterward spent an hour on a shady bench behind the barn mending a pile of tack that had been growing higher and higher over the past months. As Fitz did less around the ranch, Redhawk had less time to devote to such nonessential tasks. He missed it. He liked working with the leather and latigo that smelled of horses and felt like thick butter between his fingers. A guilty pleasure.

  When he finished, he reluctantly went into the house and joined the others for a hearty breakfast.

  “Here he is,” said Fitz as soon as Redhawk walked into the kitchen. “I was telling Rhiannon she could use my old Jeep.”

  “If it still runs.” Hawk went to the sink to wash his hands before sitting down. “Smells great. What’s cooking?”

  “Rhiannon made scones. Wait’ll you taste one. Melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Say, where’s the strawberry jam that pretty little schoolteacher made for you, lad?”

  He cringed. Apparently there was nothing wrong with the old man’s memory today. “No idea,” he muttered.

  Rhiannon gave him a knowing grin. “Making jam for you, is she? Popular with the ladies, Mr. Jackson?”
<
br />   “Some more than others,” he mumbled. That pretty little schoolteacher had been cute, but overly tenacious. Even when it became obvious they had nothing in common but the night in question.

  “About the Jeep,” he said, wanting to steer the conversation away from the topic of his pathetic love life. “You know how to drive a stick shift?”

  Rhiannon poured coffee for him. “Is there any other kind?”

  Figured she’d know. He had yet to hit on anything she didn’t know how to do. It was kind of annoying.

  “I was wondering,” she said, taking her seat across from him. “Is the hired car still stuck in the sand?”

  He nodded, digging into breakfast. “Didn’t have time to pull it out yesterday.”

  “Ah.” She gazed at her plate, looking uncomfortable.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It’s just…I need to return it today before noon or I’ll be charged for another day. I don’t have enough money to cover that.”

  He paused with his coffee cup halfway to his lips, mentally rearranging his morning. For the third time since getting up.

  “We can pull it out with the Jeep, and I’ll follow you into town. There are some things I can pick up while we’re there.”

  “All right,” she said with a smile, and passed him the plate of scones.

  Naturally they were delicious. Even without the jam.

  Rhiannon tried not to stare while Redhawk was hooking the hired car to the Jeep’s front winch. Honestly she did. Why would she stare? The man hadn’t even taken off his shirt.

  Not that he had to. The stretchy fabric of his white T-shirt molded perfectly to every contour of his broad back and muscular biceps. Almost as nicely as his tight blue jeans hugged his slim hips and thighs.

  If it hadn’t been for Uncle Fitz chatting on about the townsfolk he expected to run into, who he wanted to avoid, who might buy him a beer at Jake’s, necessitating the occasional nod of agreement and eye contact, she’d probably just give up and ogle Hawk’s posterior and not care who caught her.

  Which there was little danger of Redhawk doing. The man seemed determined to avoid looking at her, or even speaking to her. What had she done to make him dislike her so?

  Maybe taking his bed had made him angry. Well, it hadn’t been her idea. She’d be fine on the sofa. Hadn’t she slept for years on a futon in the living room at the farm? Besides, his dislike for her had started well before that.

  “Watch out for Burton Grant,” Fitz was saying. He leaned in conspiratorially. “He’s a sheriff’s deputy. Bloody sympat’izer. Turn his own grandmother in for the reward, he would.”

  “You don’t need to worry about rewards here, old man. You’re not in the IRA anymore,” Redhawk said calmly, making the final adjustments to the towline. “And I doubt Burton Grant works for the British Army.” He glanced at her and shook his head infinitesimally.

  She ignored him, too shocked by this bit of news to let it pass unnoted. She hated the IRA. “You, too, Uncle Fitz?” she demanded. “You were in it, along with my father?”

  She supported a free Ireland more than most, having been brought up Catholic in Belfast during the Troubles. But she hated the violence, and wanted nothing to do with the organization responsible for her father spending most of his life in prison. In fact, she hated the IRA so much she’d left her former fiancé, Robbie Trevalian, the same day she’d found out he’d been lying to her for years about being one of them.

  Uncle Fitz put his finger to his lips and whispered, “Shhh, there’s ears everywhere. Y’don’t want to be talkin’ too loudly, love.”

  Rhiannon marshaled her temper and glanced around at the stunted trees and stark landscape surrounding them. “I doubt anyone’s hiding out here, Uncle.”

  She eased out a long breath. No sense being angry with Fitz. Whatever he was talking about resided far in the past. Dredging it up or getting upset over it would do nobody any good.

  She turned back to Redhawk, who was about to flip the switch on the winch and pull the car back onto the road.

  “What’s that?” she asked, seeing something long and yellowish sticking out of the sand next to his boot.

  He frowned and knelt down, brushing dirt and bits of vegetation away from the object. “Aw, hell,” he said, sweeping aside more sand.

  Both she and Fitz pressed in to see better.

  “What is it?” Fitz asked.

  Hawk sat back on his heels and swiped a hand over his eyes. “Perfect,” he said. “This is just what I need right now.”

  “Tell us,” Rhiannon urged, starting to worry over his reaction.

  “It’s a bone,” he answered, his voice composed though he was clearly upset.

  “Another steer?” she asked with dismay, thinking immediately of the rustlers. “Did they actually kill one?”

  “No, not a steer,” Redhawk said, and looked up at her, his expression guarded. “Miz O’Brannoch, you just found yourself a human skeleton.”

  Chapter 3

  R hiannon jumped back in horror. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Human?”

  Hawk got to his feet. “Don’t worry, it’s probably just an old Indian burial. They turn up every now and then. I’ll call the state archaeologist when we get to town.”

  She stared at him incredulously. “You’re just going to leave it here?”

  “It’s against the law to disturb archaeological remains. The last thing I need is to get slapped with a fine. We’ll mark the location, but leave it exactly where it is.”

  First dead cows, now dead humans. Rhiannon swallowed her dread and got into the hired car as Redhawk instructed. She steered as he put the Jeep into four-wheel drive and pulled her clear of the sandy verge. Fitz jumped in with her and they followed the Jeep down the fifteen dusty miles to the highway, then the twenty more to Windmill Junction, the nearest town where she could turn in the car.

  Windmill Junction was no bigger today than it had been yesterday when she’d stopped at the lone petrol station to ask for directions to Irish Heaven. The highway was the main street in town. Along it were strung out a small assortment of sleepy storefronts, a seedy-looking motel, a run-down grocery store and an old log cabin set in the middle of a dirt parking lot behind a faded sign that declared it to be Pete’s Gem and Mineral Emporium and Indian Trading Post.

  “This is where I get off,” Fitz said, motioning her to pull over in front of a place a bit further down called Jake’s Saloon. This was where they’d arranged to meet Hawk after they’d all done their errands. Fitz’s errand consisted of having a pint and catching up with the locals.

  “You’re sure you’ll be all right on your own?” she asked.

  Hawk had already assured her everyone who frequented Jake’s knew each other, and that someone would keep an eye on her uncle if he had one of his spells of forgetfulness. But she still worried. He’d already called her Janet once that morning. What if he forgot they were picking him up?

  “I’ll be fine, love. See you in an hour or so.”

  She watched him walk in through the swinging saloon doors and shook her head at the image.

  Human skeletons and swinging saloon doors.

  Welcome to the wild, wild West.

  After dropping off the hired car, she started walking back toward Jake’s. Maybe she could find a place to buy an inexpensive pair of blue jeans along the way. Very inexpensive.

  They’d retrieved her suitcase from the rental car and it was now loaded into the Jeep. But everything in it was madly inappropriate for Arizona, her tweeds and woolens too hot and itchy for the ninety-plus temperatures. Perhaps the store advertising boots and western wear in the window across the street might have something on sale.

  “I’m sure we’ve got just what you need,” said the girl behind the cash register, and led Rhiannon to the rear of the store.

  She stood and gaped. The back wall was literally covered with shelves containing stacks and stacks of nothing but blue jeans. She looked at the girl with a touch of aw
e. “I think I’ll need help.”

  Half an hour later she stood in front of the mirror and admired the ones she’d finally decided on that were on sale. What would Redhawk’s reaction be when he saw her in them? Maybe it would wipe the scowl from his face. For a second, anyway.

  “Good choice,” the sales girl said. “Sexy but practical. Should last you five years of hard ropin’ and ridin’.” The girl shot her a wink. “Long as you keep off your knees, if you know what I mean. Now, how ’bout some boots?”

  Rhiannon glanced regretfully at the long shelves filled with rows of western boots, then down at the sturdy brown shoes on her feet beneath the jeans she’d decided to keep on. “I wish I could. But not today.” She’d seen the price tags. She was doing well to afford the jeans.

  “You might try the consignment store down the street. Sometimes they have some real nice boots there. And they’re a lot cheaper than new.”

  “Thanks,” Rhiannon said, and decided to give it a try. She had almost no money left, but if she was going to do any real work on the ranch she’d need boots.

  To her delight she found a perfect pair, pleasantly broken in but still in great shape. The fact that they were bright pink had driven the price down to the point where she could not only afford them but actually have a few dollars left over. Apparently, real cowgirls didn’t wear pink.

  At the cash register, a display of bandannas caught her eye. There was even a pink one.

  The saleslady saw her looking and said, “What you really need is one of those.” She pointed at a mannequin wearing a much larger bandanna as a top, folded like an envelope over the front and tied in the back.

  Rhiannon blinked. “Oh, I could never—”

  “See? You can even tie it this way.” The sales lady picked up one of the patterned squares, looped it around her back then forward over her breasts, crossing in front Greek style and tying the ends behind her neck. “But only wear it this way if you’re with a guy you really like.” She waggled her eyebrows.

  Complete exposure would be only a flick of the fabric away. Rhiannon was scandalized.

  And intrigued.