Joshua and the Cowgirl

by Sherryl Woods

  After one strictly business visit to the uncivilized wilds of Wyoming, globetrotting financial wizard Joshua Ames swore he’d never go west again. Yet, here he was, back on a sprawling ranch deep in snowy cattle country, confronted with the one woman he hadn’t been able to forget–a mischievous, irresistible cowgirl who both maddened and aroused him. But when it came to love and commitment, she was as mule-headed as they come!

  For Traci, it was lust–plain and simple. Still, the fiercely independent cowgirl and single mother of a precocious adolescent daughter knew from past experience just how dangerous unbridled passion could be. But that was before this outrageously attractive city slicker tenderly lassoed her wild, wary heart….

  Previously published.

  Joshua and the Cowgirl

  Sherryl Woods

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter One

  When he stepped out of his car, placed his three-hundred-dollar Italian loafers into a foot of fresh snow and found himself face-to-face with an inquisitive cow, Joshua knew deep in his gut that Wyoming was not going to be one bit better this time around. The sophisticated world of international financial consultant Joshua Ames did not include cows. At the globe-trotting pace he lived, it didn’t even include tame little kittens or rambunctious puppies.

  Admittedly his life had taken a certain predictable turn these last few years, but he found comfort in that. He lived in a world of fast sports cars, like the flashy red convertible he’d rented at the airport in Cheyenne before he’d realized that Indian summer was not a concept with which Wyoming weather was acquainted. With so much of his life spent in five-star hotels, he felt settled only in the luxury of exclusive skyscrapers—like the oceanfront tower he’d reluctantly left behind in Florida or the cozy pied-;aga-terre he kept that overlooked Central Park in New York. Joshua’s life, even on the rare occasions when he bothered with breakfast, even included thick cream for his fresh raspberries. However, in all of his thirty-seven eventful years his world had never, ever included a face-to-face encounter with the source of that cream.

  Until now.

  The creature had ambled close enough that he could feel its hot breath. Images of the pageantry and violence of the bullrings in Spain flashed through his mind with untimely clarity. His own breath caught in his throat. Good Lord, surely this was a gentle milk cow, not a bull! He nervously checked for some sign of ferocity and impending threat in its limpid brown eyes, but saw only vague curiosity. He wasn’t about to get intimate enough to investigate for more positive identification of its gender.

  Joshua took a cautious step backward, butted into a strand of barbed wire, yelped and muttered a string of colorful obscenities, most of them directed at his client and best friend, Cal Rivers. Scratch that. Former best friend. Joshua was never going to forgive him for this or any of his other myriad sins, which seemed to be stacking up like old newspapers now that marriage had turned Cal’s previously razor-sharp brain to lovesick mush.

  Retaliation held a certain rapidly growing appeal. Maybe he’d just bungle Cal’s corporate books so thoroughly that an entire team of accountants working around the clock wouldn’t be able to untangle them by tax time. Maybe he’d help him choose a few highly questionable junk bonds for his steadfastly risk-free portfolio. Maybe he’d triple his usual fees and take that long-delayed vacation in Paris at Cal’s expense.

  Or maybe he’d just shoot him. Yeah, that was it, Joshua decided with enthusiasm. There had to be a shotgun someplace on this godforsaken ranch. He would load it and then track down his former best friend. When he found Cal, he’d blow him to smithereens for dragging him away from civilization for the second time in the year and a half since Cal had been reunited with his family. To think that he had actually encouraged the reconciliation! Joshua should have known better. He should have realized that sooner or later a happily settled Cal would insist that he come back to this place that reminded him all too vividly of a time in his life he’d spent years trying to forget.

  Not that Joshua hadn’t tried to protect himself from such an eventuality. Joshua had warned Cal way back then that he would not ever set foot on this desolate ranch again. He had sworn to die first. He was not interested in dust. He did not appreciate wide open spaces. The sunsets in Florida were quite enough, not that he paid much attention to them. Joshua had clients far less intractable than Mrs. Caroline Whitfield McDonald, Cal’s maternal grandmother. He was not a bookkeeper, which was what Mrs. McDonald sorely needed. Those were all good reasons, solid, self-protective reasons.

  Joshua had rarely admitted, even to himself, that the real reasons went much deeper. Behind the excuses were the memories. Dredged up from the depths of the past, the memories recalled the scared, overprotected boy he had once been; a boy who had been thoroughly, painfully out of his element in a rough-and-tumble environment much like this.

  Now that he was standing up to his ankles in snow, he realized he should have mentioned that, as well. Snow was meant for ski slopes in winter. There wasn’t a mountain in sight in this empty, dreary part of Wyoming. To top it off, it was barely September. He’d left ninety-degree temperatures back home. He shivered in the harsh, blustery air and wondered if he’d be taking his life in his hands to try maneuvering around the cow to reach the jacket in the car. Since it was only a suit jacket, he decided it wasn’t worth it. He’d still be freezing his butt off.

  Okay. Cal had made a mistake in not mentioning the snow. But Joshua was sure he had stated emphatically that he absolutely, positively was not interested in getting up close and personal with livestock unless he was betting a financial bundle on cattle futures.

  Cal, damn him, had laughed at each and every protest. Hooted, in fact. He’d bided his time, then lured Joshua out here by reminding him of their years of friendship, their long business association. He’d thrown in a healthy suggestion of desperation. Right now, with that cow staring him in the face, Joshua knew all about desperation. As far as he could tell, Wyoming was fraught with it.

  “I see you’ve met Jezebel,” a husky feminine voice, threaded with all-too-familiar gloating laughter, said just when he was contemplating the precise details of murder and mayhem. Desperation took a new twist as his thoughts veered dramatically and predictably.

  Garrett. Traci Maureen Garrett, to be precise—and Joshua was the kind of man who insisted on being precise. Working with numbers—huge numbers—required it. Surviving around Garrett, he’d discovered, also demanded a similar degree of attentiveness.

  Traci Maureen Garrett had very nearly driven him nuts when they’d met nearly a year and a half ago. Her smug attitude, sharp tongue and sly humor had stung. If the slam-bang, ready-for-combat pace of his heartbeat right this second was any indication, she was going to do it again. He considered it yet another black mark against Cal. A mere eighteen months ago he had been a serene, contented man. Now he was one inch from another jab of barbed wire, six inches from a fire-breathing cow and laughing distance from a know-it-all female who was obviously delighting in his fix.

  Above all, though, Joshua Ames was a proud man. No cow—or cowgirl—was going to see even the faintest hint that he was intimidated. He mustered his most confident smile and turned slowly, never letting that creature out of his line of visio
n.

  “Jezebel?” he said. “Is there much room for wickedness in the bovine world?”

  “Let’s just say that Jezebel always manages to find trouble.”

  A fascinating, dimpled smile, that also meant trouble, met his gaze. That never forgotten, daring, tempting smile kept him from lingering too long on the thick braid of sunlight-blond hair, blue velvet eyes and long—endlessly long—slender legs encased in snug denim. Not trendy denim, he noticed with a faint sigh of regret, but faded, hard-working jeans meant to withstand life on a cattle ranch.

  His gaze settled on her smile, the curve of generous lips, and stayed there—reluctantly. The punch-in-the-belly impact of that smile hadn’t diminished one bit. Unfortunately. It had been yet another reason to steer as far away from this ranch as possible. Traci Maureen Garrett, who had a spark of sheer mischief in her eyes, was not the woman of his dreams. She couldn’t be. Surely God wouldn’t be cruel enough to let him fall for a woman who managed a cattle ranch!

  “I see,” he said, adopting what he hoped was suitable nonchalance for a man who felt as if he’d been pole-axed for the second time in his life. The first time had been a year and a half earlier. The unlikely, impossible Garrett had figured heavily in both incidents.

  “Is she a family pet?” he inquired.

  “Nope. Actually she’s about one step away from being sent to market. My personal hunch is that she knows it and is trying to ingratiate herself around the house.”

  The concept of this cow being someone’s dinner appealed to Joshua in a perverse way that told him a lot about his overall mood with regards to this latest assignment. From the indulgent expression in Garrett’s eyes, however, he decided he’d best keep his bloodthirsty opinion to himself. She was obviously fond of this cow, which made her contradictory willingness to send it off to slaughter a little chilling.

  That was part of what troubled him about Garrett. One minute he was totally and completely enthralled by her careless, untamed beauty and captivated by her quick mind. Then, in less time than it took to saddle a horse, he was reminded that she was tough as nails, and as uncompromising and mule-headed as one of those self-made millionaires with whom he occasionally had to tangle over financial policy. Maybe this time, if he could catch his breath around her, he’d be able to figure her out.

  Maybe, if he was very, very lucky, he’d be able to get her out of his system. To his regret, all these months and the clever efforts of innumerable beautiful, sophisticated women hadn’t accomplished it. Maybe proximity would…if it didn’t get him into a hell of a lot of trouble first.

  * * *

  Garrett was not proud of herself. She knew she was enjoying Joshua Ames’s discomfort a little too much. A kind, generous woman would take pity on him and send the perfectly harmless Jezebel fleeing back to the pasture the cow had escaped from. Unfortunately some crazy quirk in her psyche kept her from feeling much pity for this city slicker who obviously felt so much disdain for her beloved world of blue skies and wide open spaces.

  The man’s attitude was the pits. Only her fondness for her boss, Mrs. Caroline Whitfield McDonald, had kept her from telling him exactly what she thought of him the last time he’d breezed in here with his slightly crooked nose poked in the air. Mrs. Mac, as she was known around the ranch, obviously needed him—or thought she did. It was Garrett’s personal opinion that Mrs. Mac had run the ranch quite capably and successfully without interference from a know-it-all financial genius from the east. Her grandson, however, had thought otherwise. He’d appeared out of the blue, taken one look at the admittedly haphazardly kept books and sent for the cavalry. No doubt he feared for his inheritance. Garrett hadn’t quite dared to suggest as much to Mrs. Mac.

  “I’m surprised you came back,” Garrett said, taking a no-trespassing stance that worked especially well on the cowboys around town.

  “No more than I am,” Joshua admitted with disarming candor.

  “Why did you? Surely you have more important things to do than balance the accounts around here. Isn’t your forte spending other people’s money?”

  “Actually, it’s increasing their money,” he said, amusement lurking in the depths of his eyes. There was no hint of false modesty, no suggestion that he ever dared to lose any of their cash.

  “Since I doubt that Mrs. Mac lets you near her capital, why are you here?”

  “Cal insisted.”

  “And everyone jumps to do his bidding, don’t they?” Garrett couldn’t keep the resentful note out of her voice.

  “Friends do,” Joshua said softly. “What’s Cal asked you to do?”

  “I don’t take orders from him.”

  “I can imagine,” he said, grinning suddenly. “I don’t suppose that’s kept Cal from giving them. Has he been throwing his weight around? Asking impertinent questions? Stepping on your managerial toes?”

  She shrugged. “Cal can make all the suggestions he wants to Mrs. Mac. It’s his ranch or will be soon enough.”

  Joshua’s gaze narrowed. “And that really infuriates you, doesn’t it? Were you hoping to get it for yourself?”

  The too-close-to-the-mark dig irritated her. “Not the way you mean. I was hoping for a chance to buy into it,” she said.

  His features instantly softened with apparent understanding. The suggestion of pity only angered her.

  “I’m sure Cal would work a deal with you,” Joshua said. “I don’t think he’s interested in keeping the place for himself. Cal’s got enough on his hands with that horse farm down in Florida. Now that he’s won a couple of races, he’s more convinced than ever that raising Thoroughbreds is the life for him.”

  Joshua’s aggrieved tone told her what he thought of that idea. If he’d meant to reassure her, though, he’d missed the mark. Cal’s disinterest wouldn’t help her situation a bit. Mrs. Mac had her mind set on giving this place to her grandson. Her legacy, she said. His birthright. She’d been trying her damnedest to manipulate him into accepting it. Knowing Mrs. Mac, sooner or later she’d have her way. Then, even if Cal were willing to sell someday, Garrett wasn’t likely to have the kind of cash it would take to impress him.

  “It’ll be years before I can pay Cal what it’s worth,” she told Joshua honestly. “He’ll probably sell it off long before that.” She hoped Joshua Ames couldn’t tell just how much that hurt. Garrett had been so darned close for the first time in her life to getting what she wanted, and now it was slipping away. It was all but certain the ranch was going to a man who didn’t give a damn about it and was likely to sell it to strangers at the first opportunity.

  “Maybe I could talk to him.”

  The offer sounded so sincere and was so totally unexpected that Garrett found herself staring at him in astonishment. “Why would you do that?”

  “Beats me,” Joshua said. “Maybe it’s your charming personality.”

  Garrett flushed, taking the pointed barb square on the chin. The man hadn’t been here five minutes and she was taking out all of her anger and frustration on him. It wasn’t Joshua’s fault she was going to lose her dream. It wasn’t even his fault that he was a greenhorn. She surveyed the thick blond hair, the stubborn chin, the wreck of a nose that ruined the perfection of his face but created interest. Everything about Joshua Ames shouted money and glamour, except that nose. It spoke of street-tough masculinity. She wondered who had dared to bloody it and under what circumstances. Then, perversely, Garrett wondered why she cared.

  She was still wondering that when he said, “Do you suppose we could get inside before I freeze to death?”

  Snug in the warmth of her sheepskin jacket, she couldn’t resist taunting him. “It’s mild out here. You should be here in January.”

  He shuddered visibly. “God forbid!”

  Garrett grinned. “Go on in. Mrs. Mac’s waiting for you.”

  “And Cal?”

  “He’s flown back to Florida,” she said, enjoying the quick blaze of fury that swept into his eyes before he could discreetly m
ask it.

  “He’s gone where?” Joshua bellowed so loudly that Jezebel took flight and headed back to the pasture.

  “Left just as the snow started. Should be landing back there about now,” she confirmed cheerfully.

  “I’m going to kill him.”

  “Seems to me you’re going to have to catch up with him first.”

  He appeared torn between the desire to flee and resignation. “You don’t have to enjoy this so damned much,” he muttered.

  “Why not? We get so little entertainment out here in the boondocks.”

  Joshua winced, but his guilt was apparently fleeting. Then a wicked, dangerous gleam filled his eyes. That glint, hot enough to melt snow, warmed her as no sheepskin jacket ever had. His gaze raked over her from head to toe. Very slowly. “Perhaps I can find other ways to change that.”

  Garrett’s cheeks flamed at the deliberate taunt. She knew how to handle the straightforward passes thrown by hopeful cowboys. She was less sure how to deal with sly, flirtatious comments meant to rattle her. Garrett knew instinctively, though, that she couldn’t allow Joshua to see that his seductive remark bothered her in the slightest. Poking her hands into her pockets, she looked him straight in the eye and declared with bold impudence, “I doubt you’re man enough.”

  Instead of the stunned outrage she’d expected, the insult merely drew one of his devastating killer smiles. “I guess we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?” Joshua challenged, running a finger along the line of her jaw. Deep inside her something responded to that deliberate touch, something that scared the daylights out of her.

  “When hell freezes over!” she retorted, swiping his hand away and trying to ignore the spine-tingling effect of his low chuckle of amusement.

  He glanced around meaningfully at the endless snow-covered vistas and smiled. A distressingly masculine expression of smug satisfaction spread slowly across his face, finally reaching his eyes. Those sexy, fascinating blue-green eyes, Garrett decided, were going to be her undoing. His gaze locked on hers and no matter how hard she willed it, she couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away.