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Killer Cowboy Charm
Vicki Lewis Thompson


TV talk-show host Meg Delaney needs a surefire way to boost ratings. Her solution? To introduce her viewers to "The Hottest Cowboy in the West"–once she finds him, that is. Luckily, after one trip to the Circle W Ranch,Meg finds her man…because they don't come any hotter than rancher Clint Walker! Only, before sharing him with her audience,Meg can't resist keeping this lean, hard cowboy all to herself for a while….There's no way Clint is going to strut his stuff on national television–even for a gorgeous woman like Meg. Still, he'd be a fool not to park his boots beside her bed for a few nights…. After all,Meg isn't the first woman to fall for his killer cowboy charm. But she's about to be the last….









“So…will you put on your cowboy duds for me?”


Meg reached to stroke Clint’s cheek.

“But you said you wouldn’t know what to do with a real cowboy.” He brought her hand to his mouth and placed a string of kisses there.

“I didn’t think I did.” Her voice grew husky. “But you’ve changed my mind.”

He looked into her eyes, and desire hit him hard. “I didn’t think I’d know what to do with a TV star, either.”

“But you do. Trust me, you do.”

Clint wanted her so much, he had to fight not to grab her. He stood up suddenly. “Had enough of this dinner for a while?”

“If that’s an invitation to visit your bedroom, I accept.”

His heart beat loud and fast. “It was a solid-gold, engraved invitation.”

Meg got out of her chair and held out her hand. “Then let’s go get it on, cowboy.”


Dear Reader,

Eighteen months ago my career got a huge boost from the “Reading with Ripa” Book Club. But before Kelly Ripa, I was first and foremost a Harlequin Temptation author. My first published book in 1984 was a Temptation novel, and for years I dreamed of writing Harlequin Temptation’s 1000th book. This is that book.

Harlequin Temptation has grown, changed, evolved. And so have I. We’re still together after all these years. It seemed fitting to set this book in my home state of Arizona, and to give it a cowboy hero in tribute to all the cowboy heroes I’ve created and loved. But the heroine is a TV talk-show host from New York. You don’t have to look far to find my inspiration for that character!

It’s with great pleasure that I give you this book. It stands on the shoulders of 999 other terrific reads. I’m honored to be here.

Fondly,

Vicki Lewis Thompson




Killer Cowboy Charm

Vicki Lewis Thompson







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To all the fabulous Temptresses, past, present and future.

You’ve made Temptation what it is today,

and I couldn’t be in better company.




Contents


Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue




1


“HERE THEY ARE, your Meg and Mel in the Morning co-hosts, Meg Delancy and Mel Harrison!”

Beaming at the wildly applauding studio audience, Meg bounced onto the set followed by a suave and smiling Mel. Meg had to act as if she hadn’t seen the ratings and didn’t know their number-one rank was in danger.

Nobody seemed to know why, either.

But rumors flew, including the one implying that the chemistry wasn’t right between her and Mel. If a studio exec believed that for a minute, Meg would be the one to go. Mel had established the show eight years ago and nobody would be looking to replace silver-haired Mel Harrison.

She would not lose this job.

At a tender age, sitting spellbound by Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Rogers, she’d announced that someday she’d have her own television show. Her parents had laughed.

When she’d insisted on turning their Brooklyn living room into a studio and interviewing the neighbors in front of whatever audience she could drag in, her family had thought it was cute. But they’d never taken her seriously.

As she’d persisted in her goal through high school and even college, their indulgence had turned to alarm. Nobody they knew had ever succeeded in the entertainment field. They predicted she’d fail and suggested nursing, teaching, banking, anything but her crazy notion. Even her best friends had advised her to try something less ambitious. At their warnings, she’d become even more determined.

Then she’d landed a gofer job on what was then Marnie and Mel in the Morning. Working tirelessly, she’d eventually made it to the tech crew, but she considered it only a step on her way to the co-host chair. Marnie’s emergency appendectomy gave Meg a chance to substitute for the star, and Marnie’s decision to leave the show for a role in a feature film left the spot open. Meg convinced Mel to give it to her.

Her family and friends still didn’t quite believe it. Meg knew they expected her newfound fame to evaporate any minute. She’d be damned if she’d let that happen.

As the applause from the studio audience continued, pumped up off-camera by executive producer Sharon Dempsey, Meg and Mel settled into their cushy seats and picked up the mugs waiting for them on the low coffee table.

Mel took a sip from his mug of water colored to look like coffee and turned to Meg. “Great weekend in Manhattan, huh?” he said. By custom, he usually had the opening line of the show. “Halloween parties galore, and it was actually warm for a change. Here it is November first, and no snow. So, did you have a good weekend?”

“Friday night I went out with my girlfriends, but the fish weren’t biting, if you know what I mean.”

“Too bad. What about Saturday?”

“I watched my DVD of The Mummy. Alone.” She took a swallow of her watered-down diet cola, pretending to savor something that tasted like mouthwash. Her lack of a social life was a running gag on the show, but she was getting sick of it. She had no one to blame but herself, though. Focusing on this job had left no time for cultivating a relationship.

“I thought you watched that movie last weekend.”

“So I have a crush on Brendan Fraser.” But she would rather have spent the night with a guy who wasn’t an image on her TV screen. Ironically, now that she’d reached her goal, she’d discovered that being Mel’s co-host came with certain restrictions.

Despite the sexual banter they occasionally shared on the show, Mel was a conservative guy. A torrid affair that scorched the pages of The Enquirer could get her fired. To keep her girl-next-door image, she’d have to zoom from first date to safely married.

In truth, she didn’t want to marry anyone until she’d established herself as a TV personality, which could take several years. Only then might she be in the market. A husband and kids would be nice—if she could juggle a family and work. A husband would have to know going in that she wasn’t giving up her career.

Mel clucked his tongue and looked fatherly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with the eligible bachelors around here. A gorgeous redhead like you, they should be lined up outside your apartment door.”

“Maybe all the good ones are taken. I’m guessing you went to a Halloween party?” In contrast to Meg with her nonexistent social life, Mel and his wife never seemed to stay home.

“Evie and I went to a great costume party at the Starlight Room. And I have to tell you, the hit of the night was a guy who came as a cowboy, all duded up. He even did rope tricks. The women swooned.”

Meg put a hand to her heart and sighed. “I love cowboys, especially when they wear those tight jeans that show off their terrific…personalities.” She waggled her eyebrows and the audience laughed.

In truth she did have a real crush on cowboy types. Her dad had tuned in everything Western on TV, from reruns of Gunsmoke to all the Clint Eastwood spaghetti Westerns, and with only one TV set in the house, she’d watched with him. The heroes had seemed exotic and so removed from her life that they’d become a secret fantasy.

“Unfortunately, turns out this cowboy was gay.”

“You see? See what I mean? Taken or gay. At least that’s the way it seems in New York.” Meg decided to ad-lib. “Maybe I need to go out West and find myself a rope-twirling, spur-jingling, heterosexual-to-the-core cowboy.”

Mel shook his perfectly coifed head. “No such thing anymore. That’s all Hollywood stuff.”

“I don’t believe it. I’ll bet the West is still chock-full of sexy cowboys, swaggering around in snug denim with their thumbs hooked through their belt loops. Yum.”

“I’m afraid that dream cowboy is a myth,” Mel said. “But speaking of myths and cowboys, we have the perfect guest today. Lord of the Rings and Hidalgo star Viggo Mortensen is here to talk about his next project. Now there’s a fantasy cowboy for you, Meg. I assume you saw Viggo in Hidalgo?”

“Six times.”

“Thought so. We also have Snoop Dogg paying us a long-overdue visit, plus we’ve discovered a magician who’s performing street shows all over town. If you haven’t seen him yet, he’ll truly astound you. We’ll be back, right after this.”

The moment the commercial break started, Sharon hurried over clutching her earphones to her head as if she couldn’t believe the info coming through them. “You guys, the phones are lighting up! Everyone wants to see Meg go out West and look for her cowboy!”

Meg laughed. “Oh, sure, that’s gonna happen. It was just a joke. I’ve never been out West, and I have no intention of—”

“Think again,” Sharon said. “We need a shot in the arm, and this could be it!”

“You know, it’s not a bad idea,” Mel said. “Not bad at all.”

“It’s a great idea!” Sharon glowed with excitement. “How about this—we call it the search for the Hottest Cowboy in the West.”

Mel nodded. “I like it already.”

Meg wasn’t liking it at all. Leaving the studio was a bad idea. Temporary replacements could become permanent fixtures if you left. “I don’t know about this, Sharon. I think we should consider it more carefully.”

“We’ll iron out the details when we have more time, but I’m getting goose bumps, which means this is a dynamite concept. I can see you going remote with Jamie. You’ll find candidates, and then we bring them on the show and the audience votes for the winner. We’ll have a big cash prize and tons of promo. Is that awesome, or what?”

Meg didn’t hear much besides the phrase going remote. “But I can’t leave the show to run around looking for cowboys.”

“Sure you can,” Mel said. “For a few days. Shar’s right. This could be exactly what we need to boost the ratings.”

“But who would you get to co-host while I’m gone?” But she already knew. Mona Swift. She’d been the runner-up for the job a year ago, and she was hovering like a vulture waiting for Meg to fail. Mona even had the right first initial to slide right into the co-host’s chair. Before Meg could blink, it would be Mona and Mel in the Morning.

“We’d get Mona,” Shar said. “I’m sure she’d be happy to fill in for a little while.”

No kidding. She’d be shickled titless to take my job away permanently. “Listen, this will cost way too much money. Food, lodging—”

“No, it won’t,” Mel said. “We’ll get ranches to donate space to hold the competition. If we set it up alphabetically, we could even start with George’s ranch in Arizona. He’d love the publicity.”

Meg made one last appeal, focusing desperately on Mel. “It’ll really shake up the routine. You know how you hate change.”

“Yeah, I hate change, but I hate sagging ratings worse. The fact is, I agree totally with Sharon on this. You need to go out there, Meg.”

And that, Meg knew, was the end of that. Mel had spoken.



“ME AND MY big freakin’ mouth!” Meg stared out the window of the communications van she and Jamie had rented from an affiliate in Phoenix. They were now somewhere south of Tucson, going to George’s ranch. George, multi-millionaire and poker buddy of Mel, had bought the place as an investment and was sitting on it waiting for prices to go up. He rarely visited. Meg could understand why.

Jamie sighed and shook his head. “Are you gonna bitch for the entire two weeks? Because I can match you bitch for bitch. Alison and I are in a very tricky stage of our relationship. Anything could happen while I’m gone.”

“I know, I know. But which is more important, Alison giving in to the temptation to date somebody else, or Mona taking permanent possession of my co-host chair? I mean, you could make a play to get Alison back. I’m sure you could get Alison back.” She thought Jamie, short and wiry, was perfect for Alison, who was short and plump. They both had the same kind of curly dark hair and they’d produce adorable children someday.

“Thanks for assuming I’ll have to try and get her back. Thanks a hell of a lot. And for the record, I don’t think Mona can steal your job. You have a solid fan base. Besides, I predict the camera’s going to pick up on her insincerity. You’ve made it because you’re sincere.”

“Correction, I haven’t made it. Ratings are down. But I can tell you that I sincerely hate being here.” She waved a hand at the scenery. “Will you look at this countryside? There is nothing out here. No Bloomie’s, no Saks. Just mountains, hills and windmills.”

“Cowboy country.”

“Will you stop saying that? I like my cowboys in the middle of Madison Square Garden, not in the middle of nowhere. I’m never ad-libbing on the show again. Never. It was supposed to be a joke—me, the ultimate city girl, combing the boonies for a date.”

“It is a joke. That’s why it’s such a great idea. I just wish they’d assigned Dave or Wayne to this gig instead of me.”

Meg glanced at him, taking pity on the poor guy. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad they sent you. I don’t get along with Dave or Wayne anything like I do with you.”

“Hey, you’re all right, too, but I’m at risk of losing Alison while we trot around God’s country. Sharon might have fired me if I’d refused, though, so here I am.”

“Yeah, where are we, anyway?” Meg picked up the map from the floor of the van.

“We’re coming up on the bustling metropolis of Sonoita.”

“Where is it?” Meg squinted through the windshield as the late-afternoon sun cast a melon-colored glow over a crossroads with no stoplight. “There’re, like, five or six buildings at this intersection.”

“Behold Sonoita.”

“You’re kidding, right? There’s more to it down the road.”

“I don’t think so, Meg. This looks about the way they described it to me in Phoenix. At the intersection we go left about two miles, hang a right, and we’ll be at the Circle W.”

Meg let out a wail. “There’s no downtown! There’s not even a mall! Where am I supposed to get my lattes? I’m on the damned set of Gunsmoke!”

Jamie grinned. “Wish I had that on tape. The viewers would love it.”

Meg blew out a breath and flopped back against the seat. “The viewers are so not going to have the satisfaction of seeing me whine, Jamie Cranston, so forget about it.” She laid her head back. “But I would kill for a steaming mochaccino right now.”

“You never know. They might have all the amenities at the Circle W.”

Meg stared bleakly at the rolling brown hills. She’d seen enough Westerns on TV to know that was highly unlikely. “Don’t bet on it, Jamie, my boy. Don’t bet on it.”



CLINT HAD HOPED some hard labor followed by a hot shower would improve his mood, but he was still pissed. George Forester might own the Circle W now. He might pay Clint’s salary, plus the salaries of the other hands. But he had no right to turn the historic ranch into a media playground.

Good thing that Clint’s dad hadn’t lived to see this. And as for Clint’s great-grandfather, a self-made man who’d built the ranch from nothing to what had once been the finest spread in Sonoita—Clint didn’t even want to imagine what Clemson Walker would have had to say about this television stunt.

Clint didn’t have the power to stop it, but he planned to stay the hell out of the limelight. A little voice in his head kept whispering that there was a cash prize involved, and Clint needed cash if he ever expected to buy back the ranch. Then he’d think of what he’d have to do for a chance at that cash and his blood would run cold.

He’d received a letter outlining the whole procedure. Meg Delancy and her cameraman would visit seven Western states, beginning alphabetically with Arizona. Using a local ranch as a base, Meg would hold a competition open to any cowboy living in the state. She’d watch them rope and ride first and conduct personal interviews afterward. Three finalists from each state would appear on TV in New York, where the viewers would choose the winner.

Yeah, the cash prize would be a help to him, but it wouldn’t be enough to buy back the ranch. Considering that he’d have to parade himself in front of a TV camera in order to have a chance to win, the money didn’t seem nearly enough. Some guys said the prize would be only the beginning, that the winner would be able to parlay the TV appearance into something more, like commercials.

That concept really gave Clint the shakes. He’d rather ride a killer bull than speak lines in front of a television camera. Even worse would be carrying around the designation of Hottest Cowboy in the West. He’d die of embarrassment.

No, he’d have to stick to his current program and hope that Gabriel would finish in the money next year. Clint had scraped together the funds to buy him, believing the promising quarterhorse could eventually make him enough to buy back the Circle W. The plan would take time, because the amount needed was large, but it could work, especially if George grew tired of sitting on his investment.

Gabriel would run his first race in three months. This TV business would interfere with Gabriel’s training, which was another reason Clint resented the intrusion. He wanted nothing to do with the whole mess.

Yet he was worried he might somehow be dragged into it. Several of his neighbors had asked if he was competing, as if they expected him to. A couple of women had winked and said he’d be a natural. That made him wonder if Meg would put pressure on him and imply he was being a poor sport for staying out of it. He wanted to eliminate any chance of that.

Then, while mucking out stalls this morning, he’d had an inspiration. He’d play dumb, pretend he knew nothing about running a ranch and say his sixty-year-old foreman Tucker Benson was the expert. Tuck could take the heat and cater to this city woman’s whims.

Once Clint had been informed that the Arizona segment of the search would be held at the Circle W, which meant he would be housing Meg for two nights, he’d taken a look at the show. He’d sat there shaking his head at that smiling, silly woman who would soon be invading his precious ranch. She’d be more out of place than an eyelash curler on a trail ride.

Clint was vaguely familiar with eyelash curlers and all the other appliances that women used to improve on nature. He didn’t begrudge them those toys, but he became a little cranky if the primping got in the way of living. More than not, it seemed to. He was still looking for a woman who’d climb out of bed and join him for a breakfast ride without spending twenty minutes fixing her face.

His brief stint watching “Meg and Mel in the Morning” had convinced him that the woman coming to the Circle W was as far from his ideal as a person could get. So why had he showered in preparation for her arrival? Oh, yeah. To wash off the smell of manure, so she would think he was a greenhorn who didn’t even know how to sit a horse, let alone muck out a stall. Certainly not the ultimate cowboy.

As the plan gelled in his mind, he searched his closet and came up with a pair of pleated slacks he hadn’t worn since his dad’s funeral. He looked like a dude in those slacks, plus they had a really sad association tacked onto them. But wearing them might be just the trick, along with the narrow leather belt he’d bought to go with the outfit.

In fact, he should put on a dress shirt, too. And loafers. The loafers were buried under a pile of boots, but at last he located them. The loafers had been around for ten years, at least, because he’d had them in college. Looked like he’d be wearing them for the next two days. Finally, for good measure, he slicked back his dark hair.

The invasion could come at any minute, so he went in search of Tuck. He found the weathered foreman down by the round pen putting Gabriel through his paces. Tuck was a hell of a trainer, and if anyone could get Gabriel ready, this was the guy. Clint had known him all his life.

Tuck had been a good cowman in his day, too, but the Circle W had stopped running cattle several years ago. Clint’s dad had been mired in debt by the time he’d sold to George Forester, and the cash from the sale had all gone to pay off those debts. Now the ranch’s income came from boarding and training horses for all the folks who’d moved to the area recently. The Circle W also offered trail rides and cookouts for the tourists, and every year there were more tourists showing up in Sonoita.

In the beginning of his association with George, Clint had tried to interest him in quarterhorse racing, but George only cared about land values, so Clint had decided to pursue the racing angle on his own. He was lucky land values hadn’t skyrocketed, or the Circle W would already be subdivided and Clint would be out on his ass.

Or, put another way, if George got upset with Clint for some reason, any reason at all, he could be canned. Then no telling what would happen to Tuck, and José, the cook, and Jed and Denny, the ranch hands who helped take care of the place. George might sell all the horses and let the ranch go to seed. So Clint had to pretend that this TV thing was a good idea. For the first time, George had seemed pleased that the land had an actual ranch sitting on it.

“Hey, Tuck, I have some business to discuss with you.” Clint leaned against the top rail of the round pen and watched Tuck work Gabriel at the end of a lunge line.

“What’s that?” Tuck made a little chirping noise to keep the horse cantering in a circle. Then he took a look at Clint. “You sure are gussied up. You planning on getting hitched today?”

“No. The outfit’s part of my new plan. When this TV lady arrives, I’m going to tell her I’m not a cowboy, never have been a cowboy. I’m going to say I handle the business end of the ranch but you’re in charge of the physical running of the operation.”

“Good luck on putting over that whopper.” Tuck slowed Gabriel to a trot. “Even in those clothes, you look like a cowboy to me.”

“That’s because you know me. She doesn’t. She doesn’t know much of anything about anything, and I want to keep it that way. So how about it? Will you go along with whatever I tell her? And will you clue in the other guys?”

Tuck nodded as he watched Gabriel circling the pen. “It won’t work, but I’ll go along, and I’ll spread the word. So you’re definitely not entering her contest?”

Clint snorted, which startled Gabriel into breaking stride. “Nope.”

“Some people around here are real excited about this contest.” Tuck turned slowly with the motion of the horse. “They see it as the road to riches.”

“They couldn’t pay me enough to prance around on TV. I mean, would you do it?”

“Depends on the stakes, I guess. Anyhow, some vehicle’s kicking up a cloud of dust on the road, so I imagine that’s your TV people.”

Clint glanced over his shoulder. Oh, joy. He sighed and tried to cheer himself up with the thought that the whole episode would be over by the day after tomorrow. Then life at the Circle W could return to normal.

He walked toward the front of the ranch house, determined to be as gracious as possible without letting this TV woman take over. He got there as a white van pulled around the circular drive and parked in front of the house.

The woman who hopped down from the passenger side was shorter and skinnier than he’d imagined from watching her on TV. Mostly skinnier, anyway. Her breasts were quite impressive, not that it mattered to him one way or the other. Her outfit, though, was exactly what he might have expected.

She wore a rhinestone-studded denim shirt over a scoop-neck top that showed plenty of cleavage, a pair of tight cropped jeans also studded with rhinestones, and backless red shoes with pointed toes. The tooling on the red leather was probably supposed to make them look sort of like boots.

“Hi, there.” She walked toward him, her hand outstretched. “I’m Meg Delancy, from ‘Meg and Mel in the Morning’.”

He’d intended to be suave. He’d intended to be slightly nonchalant, as if he met TV celebrities every day and he couldn’t get very excited about this one. But her smile blinded him. He hadn’t been prepared for that smile to go right through him and make him weak in the knees.

Despite her ridiculous outfit, despite her plan to turn the noble Circle W into a media circus, despite his resentment of her intrusion into his peaceful way of life, he was dazzled. “I’m…uh…Clint…uh…Walker.”

“Now there’s a name right out of television Westerns. Wasn’t Clint Walker the star of Cheyenne?”

“My dad loved the show.” He shook her incredibly soft hand and cursed himself for acting like a teenager with a crush.

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Walker. I must say I expected jeans and a Stetson. You’d be right at home on Madison Avenue.”

“Well, I don’t…my foreman, Tucker Benson, he’s the cowboy around here. I’m a business-school major.” That last part was true. Unfortunately his shiny new degree had been no good when it had come to pulling the ranch out of the red.

“Not everyone’s cut out to be a cowboy, Mr. Walker.”

“You can call me Clint.” The words were out before he knew it. Sheesh. And he’d promised himself not to be overly friendly, just polite. Mr. Walker would have suited that plan perfectly.

“I’ll do that.” She hit him with The Smile again before gesturing to the small, wiry guy who climbed from the driver’s side of the van. “This is my cameraman, Jamie Cranston. Jamie, this is Clint Walker, our host.”

“Good to meet you.” Jamie’s handshake was firm. Then he glanced up at the sky. “We still have some daylight left, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to get footage of the ranch. Do you have a bunkhouse?”

“Yes. Behind the main house, over by the corrals.” Clint thought about the usual condition of the bunkhouse. “But the place isn’t very—”

“I’m not interested in a Hollywood bunkhouse,” Jamie said. “I want a real one. If you have a spare bed down there, I’d like to hang out with your ranch hands.”

Clint hadn’t figured on this at all. He’d made up both spare rooms in the main house, planning that she’d take one and her cameraman the other. If the cameraman slept in the bunkhouse, then he and Meg Delancy would be in the big house…alone.

“It’s the best way to get local color,” Jamie said.

Clint could hardly object on the grounds that he wanted Jamie around to chaperone. “Sure, I guess that would be okay.” Jed and Denny would be only too happy to have the cameraman there. They both planned on entering the competition, so hanging out with Jamie would seem like a good way to gain an advantage.

“Great,” Jamie said. “Meg, if you want to grab your suitcase and laptop, I’ll just drive the live truck around to the bunkhouse and unload my camera.”

“What live truck?” Clint glanced around, expecting God-knows-what to materialize.

“That’s what we call the van with all the communications gear in it,” Meg said.

“Oh. Right.” Clint acted as if he’d known that all along.

“We don’t have a whole lot of time here,” Jamie said, “so I want to make use of every minute.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Meg headed to the back of the van, where Jamie had already opened the doors.

Clint glanced inside and saw enough electronic equipment to choke a stable of horses. He supposed they’d need all that to beam stuff to New York, or whatever the plan was.

Meg pulled out a rolling suitcase the size of a hay bale and plunked it to the ground. Then she hooked the strap of a computer case over her shoulder. “I’m all set, Jamie. Take off.”

“Thanks, Meg. See you two later.”

Full-blown panic set in. Clint hadn’t pictured being stuck alone with Meg, especially not five minutes after she’d arrived. “Dinner’s at the main house at six,” he called after Jamie. But that left two incredibly long hours. What in hell’s name could he do with this big-city woman for two hours?

“I’ll be back at six.” With that, Jamie hopped in the van and drove around behind the house.

Clint watched the van until it was out of sight.

“Well, Clint. Here we are.”

Her voice tickled his eardrums in a most unsettling way. A sexual way. This was not good, not good at all. He was supposed to think of her as the enemy. Instead he was more fascinated by the minute.

He glanced down at her. “I guess we should…go on in.”

“I really appreciate you putting me up. I’m sure it’s an imposition.”

“No, not at all.” He reached for her suitcase and lifted it so it would clear the steps. The thing felt as if she’d packed it full of anvils, but he would have expected her to come loaded to the gills with fancy clothes. In fact, she was exactly as he’d pictured her. And instead of being repulsed, he was wildly attracted. It defied logic, but there was the truth of it.

“I’ll show you to your room.” As he trudged up the steps with her bulging suitcase, he pictured her sleeping in that room, then pictured how close her room was to his. Damned if that didn’t get him extremely excited.




2


THE LANDSCAPE DIDN’T provide much inspiration for Meg as she followed Clint into the house, but the view in the foreground was outstanding. She could look at buns like that all day. And those eyes of his—were they really that blue, or was it his tan that made them seem that way?

The tan had her speculating about his claim that he was only a business major and didn’t mess with ranch work. Unless he had tennis courts hidden away somewhere, she’d bet money he did some manual labor around this place. And he moved like a guy who was used to physical activity.

She’d known her share of desk jockeys, and Clint didn’t strike her as the desk-jockey type. He struck her as the yummy type, though. Interesting that he’d deny knowing anything about the very occupation she’d come out here to showcase. Very interesting.

“Here’s your room.” He carried her suitcase into an antiquey sort of place, with a brass bedstead, an old pine dresser and a braided rug on the wooden floor. Shoot, there was even a rocker in the corner. Homespun City.

She spied a door on the far wall. Laying her laptop on the bed, she gestured toward the door. “I imagine that’s the bathroom.”

“No, that’s the closet. The bathroom’s across the hall.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t walked across the hall to a bathroom since she’d lived at home with her family in Brooklyn. “Good thing I brought a bathrobe, huh?”

“Listen, if you’d be more comfortable, I could move you into my room.”

The opening was too obvious to resist. “With you still in it?”

To her surprise, he turned red and cleared his throat. “I meant I’d give you my room and I’d take this one. Mine has an attached bathroom.”

How adorable. He was blushing. This gig might turn out to be more fun than she’d thought back when she and Jamie had first headed down the dusty road to Nowheresville. At least the natives were extremely cute and un-spoiled.

Now that she thought about it, the ultra-sophisticated types she’d met in New York didn’t appeal to her all that much. This guy definitely did. Nothing could come of a fling with him, if she dared chance one, but he was the first man to flip her switches in some time. Then again, she’d been too busy for switch-flipping. And she was too busy now. But this attraction reminded her that she missed sex…a lot.

“I wouldn’t dream of putting you out of your room,” she said. “This room will be just fine.” Or sort of fine. She noticed there was no phone in it, and more important, no television.

“I’d be happy to give you my room. I should have thought of that. Let me take five minutes to change the sheets and move out some of my stuff.”

He really was sweet, and she didn’t want to be a problem child, but this back and forth across the hall business didn’t excite her. “Does your room have a TV?”

“No. The only TV is in the living room, and I need to warn you, the reception isn’t very reliable in Sonoita. Depends on how the wind’s blowing.”

She stared at him, unable to imagine unreliable TV reception. She’d begun to accept the lack of shopping options, but she needed TV reception, or life as she knew it would cease to exist.

Then she had a brainstorm. “So I bet you have a DVD player, for when the reception is bad.”

“Uh, no. I have an old VCR, but it’s cranky. I don’t use it much.”

“So how do you amuse yourself at night?”

“I go to bed.”

She tried not to laugh. She really tried hard, but the laugh popped out of her, anyway. God, he was adorable.

Apparently he figured out how his answer must have hit her, because he got even redder. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“That’s too bad. The conversation was getting really interesting.” She took pity on his discomfort and decided to ease up on him. After all, she made her living trading loaded remarks, but he didn’t.

The morning talk show was supposed to be spicy. That’s how viewers liked it. Throwing out saucy comments had become a habit, but here was a country guy, business degree notwithstanding, who wasn’t used to banter. She didn’t want to scare him off, because he just might be the temporary answer to her sexual frustration.

“I shouldn’t tease you,” she said. “As I said before, I appreciate your willingness to put up with me for a few days. This room will be fine. Thank you for allowing me to stay in it.”

“You’re welcome.” He edged toward the door. “Go ahead and get settled in. I’ll…go take care of some things.”

“I hate to be a royal pain, but I would love some coffee. I have a caffeine habit that won’t quit, and my gauge is on the low side.”

He looked relieved to have something he could provide. “I’ll make some coffee, then.”

“Great. You, uh, wouldn’t have a way to make espresso, by any chance?”

“No. Just plain coffee.”

“That’s fine. Great. Plain coffee is great.”

“Want me to bring it to you?”

“No, no. I’ll come and get it.” God, he must really think she was a princess. Maybe she was and hadn’t realized it. She’d never been in this kind of environment before, so she wasn’t sure how Annie Oakley would have handled things.

“I have a better idea. I’ll take it out to the porch.”

“Sounds good.” She vaguely remembered walking across a porch but she’d been concentrating on his tush at the time. As for sitting on a porch, she was a virgin. It sounded as boring as staring at a blank TV screen, but she had to take his presence into consideration. That, of course, was assuming he’d join her in this porch-sitting experience.

“Then I’ll see you in a few minutes.” He started down the hall and paused to glance back at her. “Do you take cream?”

“Nonfat milk.” Somehow she just knew he wouldn’t have it. “Uh, all I have is half-and-half.”

“Then I can drink it black.” She’d already blown her eating program with a fast-food hamburger for lunch. Most people didn’t appreciate how a TV personality had to monitor weight gain. Mona had a height advantage and was thin as a strip of linguini, besides. Being a short person, Meg showed any weight gain immediately. She couldn’t afford to look tubby compared to Mona.

“Then black it is.” Clint disappeared down the hall.

Once he was gone, Meg unzipped her suitcase and thought about her host as she started hanging up her clothes. This might be her chance to have a fling away from the hotbed of gossip that was New York City. When she’d dreamed of a career in television, she’d envisioned dating as part of it. She hadn’t realized how her visibility might hamper her social life, and sexual frustration was becoming a constant companion.

This guy might be the perfect solution, if he had any interest in her at all. But she’d have to find out more about him and assure herself that he could be discreet. Then again, he might have a girlfriend. A man who looked like Clint would likely have a girlfriend. Damn.

Sighing, she contemplated her wrinkled clothes. What she wouldn’t give for valet service. Or even a cleaners within five miles who could do a fast press job on these duds. But she knew enough not to ask about cleaners. If TV reception was dicey, a one-hour cleaning service would be out of the question. She hoped Clint owned an iron and ironing board.

It sure was quiet around here. She hadn’t noticed the silence so much while she’d been with Clint, because he’d claimed a fair amount of her attention. Now that he was out of the room, the stillness was spooky. Some little bird was tweeting outside the window, and she could faintly hear the sound of Clint making coffee in the kitchen, but other than that, nothing. No cars, no sirens, no machinery clanking away.

She looked around to see if the room had so much as a radio. No radio. But when she opened a dresser drawer to put her underwear away, the scent of cedar drifted up. Now that was nice. Cedar-lined drawers. She’d thought about doing that once in her apartment, but she wasn’t the Susie Homemaker type, so the thought had died quickly.

After hanging up as many clothes as she expected to need for this leg of the trip, she pulled out her cosmetics bag and walked over to explore the bathroom. The place was basic, but adequate. And sparkling clean. She wondered if Clint had a cleaning lady or if he was responsible for the condition of everything. In any event, someone had made an effort on her behalf, and she appreciated that.

She’d brought along a lighted makeup mirror, in case she’d need it. Pulling the chain that turned on the light beside the sink, she concluded that she’d need it. And as usual in old bathrooms, there was precious little counter space, although the counter was kind of pretty—tile in a bright flowered pattern that looked as though it had come from Mexico. She could handle this situation, so long as the hot water worked.

Automatic reflex made her glance in the mirror. Not surprisingly, her nose was shiny and her lipstick nearly gone. She reached for her cosmetics bag, another automatic reaction. Meg Delancy, television personality, always had to look good. But as she zipped open the bag, the aroma of coffee drifted down the hall.

To heck with repairing her makeup. She needed coffee, and Clint probably didn’t mind if her makeup was perfect or not. Men hardly ever noticed those things unless the problem was dramatic, like raccoon eyes. She also suspected that perfect makeup might be another signal that she was, in fact, a princess. She’d rather he didn’t think of her that way.

Realistically, she shouldn’t care how he perceived her. But she’d always cared about stuff like that, even when the person in question wasn’t a six-foot hunk of delicious manhood. Given that Clint fit that description, she had even more reason to want his good opinion. From the looks of things, Clint might be the only entertainment the place had to offer.

Back in the living room she took a minute to glance around. The TV was only a nineteen-inch. She’d bet that both the TV and the VCR had been sitting in that same spot when Clinton was elected.

Besides that, the TV was in a far corner of the room and none of the furniture faced in that direction. Instead, the worn leather sofa and chairs had a great view of an enormous stone fireplace. You could put a pretzel-vendor’s cart inside it.

The scent of wood smoke lingered in the air, and ashes under the grate told her Clint had used the fireplace recently, maybe last night. Horse-related books and magazines lay on the well-used pine coffee table.

Meg felt as if she’d landed on Mars. If Clint indeed had a girlfriend, then she’d be left with the games on her laptop. She couldn’t imagine an evening spent looking at a fire and/or reading about horses, probably with no sound except the popping of the wood. She’d go nuts.

Or maybe she was just cranky from lack of caffeine. The remedy for that was waiting for her out on the porch, so she opened the front door and stepped outside.

Clint had been sitting on one of the rustic wooden chairs but he got up when she appeared, his coffee mug in one hand. “Everything all right?”

“Fine.” The air was cooler than it had been before, but a hot cup of coffee should keep her from getting chilled. “The coffee smells great.” She walked over to the chair that was obviously meant for her, sat down and reached for the mug he’d set on a table between them.

Warm, fragrant vapor rose up as she lifted it to her lips. She took a sip. It was without doubt the strongest coffee she’d ever tasted in her life, and she’d had some mean espressos over the years. She tried not to choke.

“I make it strong,” he said.

“Yes, you do.” She swallowed and wondered if it would devour her stomach lining in five seconds flat. One thing was for sure, it would satisfy her caffeine craving.

“Sure you don’t want some of that half-and-half?”

“Oh, heck, why not? You only live once, right?” If she drank the whole mug of coffee without something to cut the motor-oil consistency, her days could be numbered.

“Be right back.” Clint left his mug on the small wooden table between their chairs and went inside.

After he left she peered into his cup to see if he’d diluted the coffee with half-and-half. He hadn’t. He must have a cast-iron stomach.

It was also a nice flat stomach. As a veteran guy-watcher, Meg paid attention to those things. From what she could see, everything about Clint Walker was premium-grade.

He returned with the carton of half-and-half and handed it to her. “I apologize if the coffee’s too strong. When you asked about espresso I figured I was safe to make it my normal way.”

“It’s a good, hefty brew, that’s for sure.” She poured a serious dollop of half-and-half into her mug, nearly causing it to overflow. “How many cups do you drink in a day?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe eight or ten.” He settled back in his chair.

“Eight or ten? I’m amazed you’re not jitterbugging across the porch!” Maybe he was so hopped up on caffeine that he didn’t notice how boring his life was. Yet he seemed steady as a rock, no tremors.

He shrugged. “I’m one of those people who’s not real susceptible to caffeine. And when you’ve grown up drinking chuckwagon…see, my dad drank strong coffee, too.”

“Your dad was a rancher?”

“The best.”

“But you didn’t follow in his footsteps?” She’d slipped into interview mode, another habit she couldn’t seem to break.

He looked away. “Pretty hard to do. Those days are disappearing.”

She knew an evasive answer when she heard one. On the show, people reacted that way when they were hiding something. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I made it out here before the cowboys are all gone.”

“Right.”

Interesting how much emotion could be packed into one word. She was used to reading inflections, gauging reactions. He didn’t like this contest, but why not? If he was the business major he claimed to be, then he should appreciate good old-fashioned marketing techniques.

She decided to hit the problem head-on. “You wish we weren’t doing this.”

His blue eyes became unreadable. “I’m happy to help out.”

“Bullshit! You don’t like this cowboy contest one bit, although I’m not sure why. You’re not a cowboy.”

His mouth twitched, as if he might be holding back a grin. “Right.”

“What’s so funny?”

“I’ll bet you don’t get to say bullshit on the air.” The grin began to peek through.

“No, I don’t, but you’re evading the issue.” And damned if that didn’t fascinate the hell out of her.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Why?”

His gaze was assessing. Finally he seemed to come to a decision about her. “George Forester owns the Circle W now. What he wants, he gets.”

Her heart softened. “He bought your family home out from under you, didn’t he?”

“That’s business. My dad couldn’t afford the place anymore.”

“And your dad…he’s…”

“Died five years ago. Mom a couple of years before that.”

“I’m sorry.” So this complicated guy had dealt with his share of sorrow. She was a sucker for a man who’d weathered pain.

“In some ways, it might be better. Their way of life was getting harder to maintain. Dad died shortly after he sold to George. I think losing Mom and then the ranch took the heart out of him.”

Meg cradled her coffee cup, getting all the warmth from it that she could. The lower the sun sank, the colder it became. But the coffee had surely taken care of her caffeine deficit. She was ready to tackle anything or anyone. Like this hottie, for instance. “I can imagine how hard it must be to work for something all your life and then lose it.”

“Yep.” He took a swallow of his coffee. “I’m sure you’ve paid your dues to get where you are.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Looks like you’re in good shape, though.”

She had a choice of turning his comment into something suggestive or taking it the way it was meant. Until she knew whether he had a girlfriend or not, she was safer with option two. “Not as good as it might seem. The woman who’s filling in for me on the show would love to steal my spot.”

“Do you think she can?”

“It depends on how she does while I’m gone.” She was grateful to him for taking her seriously instead of thinking she was paranoid. Maybe a guy who’d lost his family ranch understood that sometimes the worst really did happen. “The thing is…” She paused and considered how candid she wanted to be about the falling ratings and the rumors about lack of chemistry between her and Mel.

When she didn’t continue, Clint said nothing—didn’t ask her what she’d been about to say or prompt her to keep on talking. Instead he sipped his coffee and looked out across the valley.

That was the unique thing about those blue eyes of his, she realized now. They were the eyes of a man used to distance and open spaces. He seemed very comfortable with all that emptiness stretching out in front of him. He was comfortable with silence.

She tried seeing the landscape through his eyes, a view he’d known since he was born. There was a kind of peacefulness to looking out over miles and miles of uninhabited land. She wasn’t used to peacefulness, but a person would be used to it if he grew up that way.

And she could understand wanting to hang onto a place you were used to. Her parents didn’t want to leave their bungalow in Brooklyn, even though she now had extra money and could help them buy a nicer house. So the extra money she was earning had started piling up. That might be a good thing, because she could soon be unemployed.

“Those big mountains across the valley are the Santa Ritas,” Clint said.

She hadn’t asked, but it might be good to know for the broadcast. “How about the mountains in back of the ranch?”

“The Mustangs.”

“Perfect.” She was already composing her intro in her head. I’m talking to you from the historic Circle W Ranch, which is tucked right up against the Mustang Mountains.

She’d better check out the historic part, though. “How old is this place?”

“The ranch itself, or this house?”

“The ranch.”

“My great-grandfather, Clemson Walker, bought the land in nineteen-twenty.”

Definitely historic. “I can see why it’s rough to have it pass out of the family, then.”

“I’m adjusting.”

But not well, she’d bet. “Forgive me if this is too nosey, but wouldn’t it be less painful to get the heck out of here? I would think living on the ranch and knowing it belonged to some rich dude from New York would be a constant heartache.”

At first it seemed as if he wouldn’t answer. Then he sighed. “I’ve told myself that, but if I left, George might let the place fall apart. He’s only interested in subdividing when the land value’s high enough for him.”

“But if he’s going to subdivide eventually, then so what? Aren’t you only delaying the inevitable by staying on?” She’d always been the type who wanted a bandage yanked off fast and bad news delivered immediately. Her motto was to get the agony over with ASAP.

“You’re right, of course. Stupid as it sounds, I keep hoping for a miracle so I can buy it back before that happens.”

“Into lottery tickets, are you?”

“Yeah, I do that.”

She thought of George Forester, a paunchy guy she’d met once at a cocktail party. For him this ranch was mere financial speculation, a chance to increase his considerable fortune if he timed the sale correctly. But for Clint, this was about hanging onto his heritage. She wanted Clint to win the lottery.

“You getting cold?” he asked.

“Why?”

“You shivered.”

“I guess I am a bit chilly.” But sitting here talking with Clint, she’d ignored the cold so that they could stay on the porch a little longer. Purple and blue shadows crept over the valley, and even though she wouldn’t want to spend a whole lot of time looking at them, they were kind of pretty.

“Let’s go in. José will be starting supper any minute, and I need to get the fire ready.”

“José cooks on a wood stove?” If so, she should get Jamie up here on the double, to take footage of that happening.

Clint laughed. “Nope. My grandmother used to, but we’ve had electricity for a long time. Dinner and the fire aren’t connected, except that I like to have a fire in the evenings, and if I set it up now, all I have to do is light it later.”

“Oh.” She had the insane desire to hang around and watch him build the fire, maybe because the cowboys in her dad’s beloved Westerns were forever building fires. It seemed like such a manly chore. “Then maybe I’ll go in my room and start working on my script for tomorrow.”

“What time will you do the first broadcast?”

“Early. We have time on the bird at seven-thirty.”

He laughed. “That’s not early, but what in God’s name is time on the bird?”

She pointed skyward. “Satellite. We only get so long to beam up there from the live truck, or as Jamie loves to call it, the nest. We can’t miss that time, or we’re screwed. But we’ll try not to disturb you.”

“You won’t. I’m up by five.”

“Why? I thought your foreman ran things around here.”

He looked like a little boy with his hand in the cookie jar. “Uh, I’m just an early riser.”

Yes, he was definitely playing games with her and hiding significant information. Okay, girlfriend or no girlfriend, he deserved to get zinged for that. “I like that in a man,” she said. “Someone who’d be up and ready for anything.” Then she waited for him to blush, the way he had earlier.

Instead his eyes darkened, his nostrils flared, and his voice dropped to a sexy drawl. “You might want to be more careful how you use that tongue of yours. It could get you into trouble.”

Her pulse hammered. He was flirting with her! That might mean he didn’t have a girlfriend. That would be a very exciting discovery. She decided to push the envelope a little more. “Maybe I like a little trouble now and then.”

His smile was slow and full of meaning. “Lady, nothing around here qualifies as little.”

She gulped. Maybe she’d underestimated this guy. But she was determined to have the last word. “I’m delighted to hear it. I’m a girl who likes her thrills super-sized. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to do some work before dinner.” Then she whisked through the front door and hurried down the hall.

Back in her room, she closed the door and stood there breathing hard. Good grief. She’d imagined herself in control of the situation, and then wham! Tables turned. She’d better decide for sure how she wanted this to go between them before he stole the decision right from under her…on top of her…and behind her. Damn.




3


CLINT DIDN’T FOLLOW Meg into the house right away. He didn’t trust himself not to go down that hall after her. He shouldn’t have said what he had, but she brought out that side of him and made him think along dangerous lines. What a spitfire. An exciting, arousing bundle of woman. He wondered if she’d meant any of it, or if toying with guys was what she did for amusement.

Probably the latter. He’d be well advised to keep away from someone who had Manhattan by the tail. Hell, he’d seen her picture on the front of one of those celebrity magazines at the barber shop the other day. The last thing he wanted was to get mixed up with someone who had that kind of visibility.

He shouldn’t be fooled because she’d sat on the porch with him and shared some conversation over a cup of coffee. She didn’t have anything else to do at the moment. Still, she got his blood pumping more than any woman had in a long while.

She was also starting to see right through him. He didn’t know if she’d figure everything out before she left, but she already had a pretty good idea that a business degree wasn’t the whole story with him. He hadn’t counted on her being this sharp.

Apparently he’d made the mistake of watching her for five minutes on TV and thinking he had her pegged. She was more complicated than that, more fascinating in person than she had been as an image on a television screen. But no matter how attracted he was, he’d be better off leaving well enough alone.

He had enough troubles without making matters worse. No telling how George would react if he found out Clint had been fooling around with the TV lady. And that was assuming she’d allow any fooling around. She might have no intention of following through on any of her suggestive comments.

But he wasn’t sure about that, and it drove him crazy, wondering. Ah, to hell with it. This would all be over in two days, and he’d be back to helping Tuck with Gabriel, renting horses to greenhorns and buying lottery tickets every week. With that thought firmly in mind, he went around to the side of the house, gathered an armload of firewood, and took it in through the kitchen door.

José, a guy who clearly liked his own cooking way too much, was already slicing and dicing for what looked like his famous enchiladas. Hired when Clint’s mother couldn’t handle the job anymore, José had been in charge of the Circle W kitchen for enough years that he felt the kitchen was his to command.

He glanced up from the cutting board. “Where’s the TV lady?”

“In her room working on her script for tomorrow.”

José’s dark eyes shone with excitement. “Do I get to meet her?”

“Sure, you can meet her. I thought you’d be having dinner with us, like you always do.”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to do that. I know myself. I’d dump my food in my lap while I was busy staring at her.”

“Aw, no, you wouldn’t. She’s not that scary.”

“Boss, she was in People magazine. I’ve never come face-to-face with anyone who was in People. I wouldn’t know how to act. I’d embarrass myself, for sure. I’d—”

“You’d better stop chopping that tomato. It’s mushed into a pulp already.”

José glanced at the chopping board. “See? Just thinking about her I murdered this poor tomato. No, just introduce me before you start eating, and I’ll go back in the kitchen and quiver for ten minutes.”

Clint laughed. “Okay. Your decision. But I really don’t think—”

The kitchen door opened and Tuck poked in his head. “Jed and Denny have voted to eat down at the bunkhouse tonight instead of up here. So give us a call when the food’s ready and I’ll come get it.”

José nodded. “I’ll bet I know why. They’re all nervous about the TV lady and don’t think their manners are good enough.”

“I guess so.” Tuck shook his head. “Me, I couldn’t care less one way or the other, but they made me promise to stay down there with them and act like we do this all the time. They’re scared, but they don’t want her to know it.”

Clint was having trouble comprehending it. Jed, an accomplished steer wrestler, was a bull of a guy who’d never seemed afraid of anything. Redheaded Denny always had girls hanging around and he’d been the first to sign up for the contest. “Are you saying that José, Jed and Denny are all too nervous to be in the same room with her?”

“Seems like,” Tuck said. “Now, the cameraman, he’s a different story. They’re real tight with him already. He’s eating with them tonight, too, by the way.”

“So it’s only Meg and me having our meal here in the house?” Clint pictured the two of them at a table big enough for eight. He’d imagined all the hands there, as they usually were, along with Tuck, and the cameraman. Just two of them at that big table would look silly.

José gave him a pleading glance. “You can handle it, boss. You’ve been to college and everything. The rest of us are country boys.”

“But Jed and Denny are entering the contest! Don’t they want to get to know her better? They’d have a head start over the guys who won’t show up until tomorrow morning.”

“I tried to tell them that, too,” Tuck said. “They’re sure they’ll just ruin their chances. They’d rather wait until tomorrow, when they’ll be showing off their cowboying skills. They’re afraid to have a meal with her, where table manners and such would come into play.”

Clint groaned. “This is getting more ridiculous by the minute.”

“I know,” Tuck said. “But that’s the situation.”

Clint had a mental picture of him sitting at one end of the long dining table and Meg at the other. Even sitting across from each other width-wise would leave an awful lot of empty space. She’d want to know if he usually ate by himself at that table and he couldn’t explain without saying that his hands were too chicken to join her for dinner.

“Tell you what, José,” he said. “Meg and I will set up in front of the fireplace instead of the dining room.”

“Okay, boss. You want me to bring out the card table? It’s a little rickety, though.”

“No.” Clint was making this up as he went along. A rickety card table was not what he wanted, either. Somewhere in the past couple of hours he’d started worrying about Meg Delancy’s opinion. That wasn’t a good thing, but it was true.

“We’ll use the coffee table,” Clint said. “That round slab of oak will hold anything.” He’d stood on it a few times when he needed to reach something taller than he was.

“And you’ll make a royal mess,” José said. “It’s enchiladas tonight, don’t forget, and that’s a long way from the plate to your mouth. Not that you’re sloppy, boss, but I can see enchilada sauce all down your shirt if you’re sitting on the couch and eating off the coffee table.”

“Then sit on the floor,” Tuck said. “Take a couple of cushions off the couch and sit on the floor. Like they do at those ethnic restaurants.”

José grinned. “Good idea! Yeah, that’ll be real cozy.”

“I’ll help you set it up.” Tuck headed for the living room.

Clint had obviously lost control of the situation and didn’t know how to get it back. But cozy was way more intimate than he’d had in mind. Eating at the big table would have looked ridiculous, which was why he’d thought of eating in front of the fire. He hadn’t worked out the details, though, and all of a sudden he was stuck with cozy.

Although he could countermand Tuck’s idea, he wouldn’t. The guy had become a substitute father, and Clint had never felt like Tuck’s boss. He respected his foreman more than anyone he knew.

So, instead of objecting, he followed Tuck into the living room to supervise and make sure it wouldn’t be too damned cozy. He was already worried enough about how this shared lodging would work out and what the possible repercussions would be.

By the time Clint arrived in the living room and dumped his load of firewood on the hearth, Tuck had already moved the couch back from the coffee table. The little guy had amazing strength for his size.

“Okay, we’ll take this cushion, here, and put it right here.” Tuck pulled a square seat cushion from the couch and plopped it on the braided rug right behind the coffee table.

“Now it looks like we’re camping,” Clint said. “Maybe I should just invite her to the Steak Out and be done with it.”

“You can’t do that.” Tuck pulled another cushion from the couch and positioned it on the floor right next to the first cushion.

“Why not?” Clint leaned down and moved the second cushion so it was a good three feet from the first one.

“Because you would break José’s heart, that’s why. He’s been planning his specialty enchilada dinner ever since he found out the TV lady was coming. You know he’s mighty proud of his enchiladas.” Tuck moved the first cushion again so it was touching the second.

“I hadn’t realized he planned the menu just for her.” Clint moved his cushion around the table so it was another three feet away.

“Well, he did.” Tuck surveyed the arrangement and moved the first cushion up next to the second one again.

Clint moved his cushion again too. “Then it looks like we’ll eat here in front of the fire.”

“Looks like, although I can’t figure out what you’re doing with these two cushions.” Tuck moved his so it followed the other around the table. “We started out with them facing the fire, and now you’ll be sitting with your backs to it. I don’t get the point of that.”

Clint reached for both cushions, hauled them up and brought them back around behind the coffee table. “One of us is sitting here.” He dropped the cushion. “And the other one w-a-a-a-y over here.” He walked around the table and dropped the other cushion.

“Why? Does she smell bad?”

“I hope not.” Meg walked into the room. “I took a shower this morning, and my deodorant should still be working.”

Tuck turned scarlet. Clint had never seen his foreman blush before, and he was so fascinated that he forgot his manners.

Meg walked forward, hand outstretched, smile at the ready. “I’m Meg Delancy. Feel free to tell me if I need to hit the showers. I don’t get insulted easily.”

Tuck’s throat worked, but he was speechless.

Clint understood the reaction. Up close, she was damned impressive. A jolt of sexual awareness hit him every time she came near.

“You smell fine,” he said. Wonderful, in fact, he realized. He hadn’t thought about it earlier because he’d been too absorbed in how she looked, which was also wonderful. “Meg, this is Tucker Benson, my foreman.”

Tuck cleared his throat and shook her hand. “Meased to pleet you. Uh, what I mean is—”

“I’m pleased to meet you, too, Tucker.” She sailed right past his awkwardness. “Clint says you run the operation here at the Circle W. He made it very clear that he doesn’t know one end of a horse from the other.”

“Uh, yeah, well…I do my best.” Tuck glanced over at Clint.

Clint returned the look, silently warning Tuck not to get him into any trouble.

“And I’m sorry about the smart remark,” Tuck continued. “I was teasing Clint about the cushions.”

“Cushions?” Meg glanced over at the couch and then down at the floor. “Are you two looking for loose change or something?”

Clint sighed. He never should have suggested eating in front of the fire, because he didn’t have the right setup for it. If he could think of a logical explanation for the cushions on the floor, they could go back to the concept of eating at the huge dining table. It was the lesser of two stupidities.

“Clint thought it’d be nice for the two of you to eat in front of the fire,” Tuck said.

“Or maybe not,” Clint said. “Maybe the dining room is the best choice. Wherever you’d be the most comfortable.”

Meg looked confused. “I heard you tell Jamie dinner was at six. So I thought he’d—”

“Jamie’s having a great time down at the bunkhouse,” Clint said. “So he’s joining the rest of the boys down there tonight.”

“Oh.” Meg’s hesitation was so slight as to be almost unnoticeable. “Was there…anyone else you wanted to invite to dinner?”

Clint didn’t know if she’d asked because the setting was too dorky or because she was worried about spending more time alone with him. “Like who?”

“Um, maybe your girlfriend?”

Oh, God, did she want him to have a girlfriend? If so, she was out of luck. “No current girlfriend,” he said.

“Well, then, let’s eat in front of the fire. Sounds fabulous.”

Maybe he was projecting, but he thought she sounded nervous or something about the idea. After all, she’d been taunting him and now she might be worried that he’d expect her to follow through. He expected zip from her, but he couldn’t very well say that now.

Between José’s hopes for his enchiladas and the bunkhouse gang wimping out, it looked as if Clint would be eating in front of the fire tonight, alone with Meg. He would have to look and not touch. And he wanted to touch…everything. But he would behave himself, even if it killed him.



“IS THERE ANYTHING I can do to help?” Meg doubted it, but the manners her mother had drilled into her prompted her to ask. Meanwhile she was digesting the news that Clint had no girlfriend. Clear sailing. Her heart raced as she contemplated the possibilities.

“I think everything’s under control,” Clint said, though he didn’t look as if he really thought so. “I’ll clean out the old ashes before I build the fire.”

“Then I’ll, um, watch.” Meg felt a little shaky, so she settled down on the one remaining couch cushion.

“And I’ll get on out to the bunkhouse,” Tuck said. “I think the poker game’s about to start.”

“Just don’t keep Jamie up too late.” Meg had to remind herself of her purpose in being here. “We have to be on the bird at 7:30.”

“The what?” Tuck frowned in obvious confusion.

Clint interrupted his shoveling of the ashes. “The bird’s the TV satellite,” he said. “They rent time on it so they can do a remote broadcast from the live truck, which is that white van they came in.”

Meg suppressed a smile. Clint seemed quite proud of his newfound info. And he was about twenty times more appealing now that she knew he wasn’t involved with someone.

“Interesting.” Tucker acted as if he wanted to hang around a little longer. “So tomorrow, when you broadcast from here, are you planning to have anybody besides you on camera?”

Forcing herself to concentrate on her job instead of Clint, Meg made a spur-of-the-minute decision. “I would love to interview you for a couple of minutes, Tucker. Would you be willing to do that?” She’d originally planned to interview Clint, but he didn’t seem to own the right outfit for the broadcast. Tucker was too old to qualify for the contest, but he’d add some great color to the first segment.

The foreman looked quite pleased with the prospect. “You can call me Tuck, and I expect I could work that in. Just tell me what to do.”

“I’ll ask you a few questions about ranching, how you got into this line of work. I’m trusting Jamie to set up the shot and the lighting, so tell him I want to interview you and he’ll decide the best location. If you could be ready about seven, we can do a little practice run.”

“All right.” Tuck’s smile gleamed white against his tanned skin. “Sounds good. I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

After he left, Meg glanced toward the fireplace where Clint was shoveling the last of the ashes into a bucket near the fire. He looked terrific doing it, too. And he had no girlfriend. “I hope you don’t mind if I interview your foreman. Maybe I should have asked you before I suggested it to him.”

“That’s fine. Tuck’s the one to talk to about the ranch.” He tapped the last of the ashes from the shovel and replaced it in the holder with the rest of the fireplace tools. “Like I said, I’m no expert. He is.”

Something about this scenario didn’t add up. “I’m curious as to how you fill your time here, if you don’t spend it on ranch chores?”

He stood, but he didn’t turn around. His answer was a little slow in coming. “I keep the books. We run a boarding and training stable here. We also offer trail rides.”

“I see.” She couldn’t imagine an accounting system that would require a full-time effort. But she could imagine this man naked, and the concept made her drool.

He turned toward her. “And I, um, do a little consulting.”

“Oh, really? On what?” Maybe she could get him to consult with her on this little problem of sexual deprivation.

“Business. Business consulting, for the merchants around here.”

Considering the number of merchants she’d noticed on the way here, that wouldn’t occupy him for long, either. “Sounds like a nice relaxed life.”

“Yep. Relaxed, that’s me.” He stood and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops.

That stance was all it took for her to be convinced. Instantly she pictured him in jeans and a yoked Western shirt, boots and a worn Stetson. This man was a cowboy, her fantasy man. And he didn’t want her to know.

“You must even have time for hobbies,” she said.

“Some.”

“Such as?”

“Oh…birdwatching.”

If he was a birdwatcher she was Jay Leno. But she pretended to believe him. “I’ve always thought that would be fun, hiking in sensible shoes with a pair of binoculars around my neck. But I don’t have the time. What’s the most unusual bird you’ve ever spotted?”

He met her gaze. “I can’t believe you’re interested in birdwatching.”

“I can’t believe you are, either.” But she would be thrilled if he could be interested in her for the next couple of days.

“Maybe I made it up because I don’t want you to know I’m a lazy son-of-a-gun who whiles away the day on the front porch with a can of beer in his hand.”

“Try again.” She’d glimpsed great muscle definition under his white shirt. “You’re too fit for me to believe you lounge around drinking beer all day. I say you’re a working cowboy, and for some reason you don’t want me to know that. I’m assuming it has to do with the contest. Trust me, if you don’t want to be in it, I won’t coerce you. And I won’t sic George Forester on you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He stood there looking at her, his blue eyes giving away nothing. “I’d better go get the cook, José. He wanted to meet you.”

“You’re going to keep me guessing, aren’t you?”

“Yep.” Then he walked out of the room.

She felt like throwing something. She would smoke him out, though. On the job she was known for her ability to coax people into spilling their secrets. Clint was going to tell his, even if she had to seduce them out of him. And she could consider that option without guilt now…because he had no girlfriend.




4


AS CLINT WALKED through the dining room into the kitchen in search of José, he felt no sense of victory. She was winning this game of hide-and-seek, and they both knew it. When he’d planned to fool her, he’d forgotten that she interviewed people for a living. She was trained to dig until she found the truth.

If she hadn’t figured out that he was lying to her about his cowboying skills, she would know it very soon. And maybe it didn’t matter. His half-ass disguise succeeded in sending the message that he didn’t want to be part of her ridiculous contest without him having to say it out loud.

When he walked into the kitchen, José spun away from the oven where he’d been checking his enchiladas. “She’s out there, huh?”

“Yep, she’s out there.” Really out there. He’d never known a woman this bold and sassy. He liked it too much. “Ready to go meet her?”

José gulped. “Now?”

“Why not?”

“Okay, but I need…a mission. I can’t parade out there without a reason.”

Clint heaved a sigh. “She’s just a woman.”

“That’s like saying my triple-chocolate layer cake is just a dessert. If she’s half as gorgeous in person as she is on TV, then—”

“You’ve watched the show?” Although Clint had seen it once, for research purposes, he wouldn’t have thought anybody else on the Circle W had bothered.

“Are you kidding? Every weekday morning! That woman is hot. I watch it live. The other guys watch the tape.”

Clint stared at his cook and waited for him to start laughing at the little joke he was playing on his boss. “You’re making this up.”

“Nope. I watch it here or down in the bunkhouse, wherever I happen to be. I’m usually the one that sets up the VCR down there for the other guys, and sometimes I go down at night so I can see it again. We don’t pay much attention to the program. Just her. Do you think her red hair is real or dyed?”

Clint shook his head in wonder. He had a bunkhouse full of groupies. “I have no idea.”

“Jed thinks yes, but Denny, who considers himself the expert on redheads because he is one, says it’s not real because she has brown eyes. Not too many true redheads have brown eyes. Me, I wouldn’t care either way.”

“I think the red’s real.” The words were out before Clint could stop them. His brain had quickly assessed her fair skin and the trace of freckles under her professionally applied makeup and had come up with the true-redhead verdict, which had then popped out of his mouth with no warning whatsoever.

“I think you’re right,” José said. “And no boyfriend. What a waste.”

“How do you know there’s no boyfriend?”

“She’s always talking on the show about not having dates. Me and the guys, we’ve joked about taking up a collection so one of us could fly up there and ask her out. Not that she would go. She probably doesn’t have dates because she’s picky.”

“I can’t believe she doesn’t have dates.” Clint pictured a new guy every week, who was then discarded like food gone stale in her refrigerator.

José shrugged. “That’s what she says on the show. Mel’s always teasing her about it. Maybe it’s because guys are afraid to ask her out. That’s what Denny thinks.”

“Well, yeah. Who wants to end up in the tabloids?”

“That’s what Denny says. She got famous so quick, and any guy who dates her has to know it wouldn’t be a private deal for very long.”

Clint gazed out the kitchen window and thought about that. For all Meg’s taunting comments about liking to get into trouble, she hadn’t gotten into much trouble at all since becoming a celebrity. If she had, it would be all over the rags in the grocery-store checkout line.

Maybe she’d been too focused on her career to bother with dating. He’d caught a whiff of naked ambition during their conversation on the front porch. But he wondered if she also might be a little bit lonely, a little bit frustrated. Now there was a stimulating thought.

And he needed to avoid that kind of thinking, considering they’d be alone in the house tonight.

“Uh, boss?” José waved a hand in front of Clint’s eyes. “Is it still okay if I go out and meet her?”

Clint snapped out of his daze. “Of course it’s okay. I specifically came back here to get you and bring you out there.”

“I know, but when I asked you just now, you just stared off into space and didn’t say anything, so I wondered if you’d changed your mind. Don’t worry. I promise not to do anything stupid like ask her out.” José looked suddenly shy. “But I sure would like her autograph.”

“Then you’d better take something for her to write on.”

“I have something.” José held up a pot holder that looked fresh out of the box. “Bought it at the convenience store today.”

“Why a pot holder?”

“Because it’ll prove she ate my food. I can hang it up in the kitchen.” He looked like a kid on Christmas morning as he described his plan.

Clint hated to admit he understood how José felt. Come to think of it, after watching her once on TV, he’d had to fight the urge to do it again the next morning. Just because she was here for an idiotic reason didn’t cancel out her sex appeal, although he’d worked hard to stay immune. The immunity was wearing off fast, unfortunately.

“Then let’s go,” he said.

“Let me get the place settings. That’s what I thought of while we were talking. I’ll take out place mats, napkins and silverware for the coffee table. Then I have a reason for going out there.”

Clint waited for José to grab a couple of straw place mats, knives, forks, spoons and two red cloth napkins. They hadn’t used cloth napkins since before his mother died, but he guessed this was occasion enough.

He wondered what his folks would have thought of Meg. To his surprise, he decided they would have liked her. In spite of coming from an entirely different background, she obviously had the same strong work ethic his parents had valued. She wouldn’t be where she was without that.

“All set.” José tucked the place mats and napkins under his arm, clutched the silverware in one hand and the pot holder and pen in the other. He took a deep breath, and his dark eyes sparkled. “Lead the way, boss.”

Clint headed for the living room, followed by José. Their discussion in the kitchen had given him a whole new perspective on Meg’s presence here. He hadn’t realized he was giving his employees the thrill of a lifetime. He’d only been concerned about turning his beloved ranch into a joke. He still didn’t like that part of it, but maybe some good would come out of this episode, after all.



MEG COULDN’T IMAGINE why it was taking Clint so long to bring his cook out of the kitchen to meet her. She’d picked up a copy of Western Horseman lying on the coffee table and was pretending to read it as she strained to hear what the two men were saying, but they kept their voices low. At one point she heard the word hot very distinctly, but without context she didn’t know if they were talking about food or her.

She couldn’t assume they were talking about her. That was a very self-centered view of life, and she’d promised herself from the beginning that if she ever made it, she wouldn’t become self-centered. But realistically, what else would they be talking about, especially in such hushed tones?

And if the word hot had been in reference to her, then they were in there debating her babe status. At least Clint wasn’t laughing hysterically at the idea that she was hot. That meant she wouldn’t embarrass herself if she decided to make a move on him.




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