The Reluctant Texas Rancher

Ignoring the knot of anxiety in her solar plexus, she shook her head. “I didn’t mean me. There have been rumors in the legal community that Travis Anderson lost his boy wonder status.”

Reba frowned. “That doesn’t sound like the Travis I recall. Or anyone with Lockhart and Anderson blood running through his veins. Most members of both families are incredibly successful.”

“I didn’t believe it, either,” Liz admitted with a shake of her head. “Until he showed up here today, looking for work. Now I’m beginning to think there might be something to it. Just as there’s more to his asking for work here, of all places.”

“Such as?” Tillie prodded.

Liz turned her glance to Travis. Currently, he was inspecting the broken-down, thirty-year-old tractor parked next to the barn.

She remembered him being tall and broad-shouldered. Athletic enough to make all the school teams he wanted. Smart enough to graduate with a whole passel of scholarships. But she didn’t remember him being that muscular, or so good at filling out a pair of jeans.

“What could he be up to?” Faye Elizabeth asked, inspecting the shucked corn for any stray strands of silk.

Travis turned. The bemused expression on his face said he knew they were watching him.

Thank heaven he didn’t know what Liz was thinking!

Eyebrows raised, he stared at her a long moment, then glanced away.

Aware that everyone was waiting for her to weigh in, Liz turned back to them, her pulse racing.

She pushed aside the desire welling up inside her. This was no time to be thinking about kissing Travis again.

“I don’t know.” She sighed. “Despite what he says, I can’t see him ever giving up the law to ranch.” Liz knew how hard Travis Anderson had worked for everything he’d earned, how deeply wedded he was to all his plans. “It wouldn’t matter what kind of professional disappointment he has weathered. He would still pick himself up, dust himself off and keep right on going toward his goal.” Whatever the latest one was.

Reba shrugged. “Sounds to me like Travis has finally come to his senses, in wanting to return to the ranching life he was born into.” She looked at her daughter. “You’d be lucky if you had an epiphany like that, too.”

Liz dropped her head in her hands and groaned. Would they never stop wishing she would give up everything to take over the ranch?

Getting back to business, Reba pushed on. “All those in favor of hiring Travis Anderson to ride, rope and wrangle for us, say aye.”

“Aye,” the three elder Cartwright women said in unison.

Trying not to think about how uncomfortable it would be for her to have Travis around all the time, Liz threw up her hands. “Fine.” She was so busy with her law practice, she wasn’t going to be here much, anyway.

Faye Elizabeth gathered up the shucked corn and took it into the kitchen to start dinner. Tillie headed back to the ranch books. Only Reba remained on the porch with Liz.

Her mother pointed to the fence, where Travis stood gazing out at the vast, rolling terrain of the ten-thousand-acre Four Winds. “Go get him, and show him to his quarters.”

Liz tore her gaze from his handsome profile. She hadn’t expected him to sleep on the property, too! Irritably, she demanded, “Which are going to be where?”

“The homestead, of course.”

Her mouth fell open. “Wait a minute.” Indignant, she angled a thumb at her chest. “I’m sleeping in the homestead.”

“You were. Now he will be. Unless …” Reba tossed her a speculative look “… you want Travis bunking in the main house with us?”

Her frustration mounting, Liz leaped to her feet. “Why does he have to be on the ranch at all before eight o’clock or after five?” The last thing she needed was a sexy guy she’d once had a crush on underfoot….

Reba winced and put a hand against her lower back. “Because it’s calving season, we barely have the funds to pay one ranch hand and we need someone around to do the heavy lifting at all hours of the day and night.”

Liz couldn’t argue the necessity of having someone to relieve her mother of the physical rigors of ranch work. However, she could disagree with his working conditions. “I know that, Mom, but he has to have time off,” she said reasonably.

Reba stretched to relieve the pain. “He can have time off after all the calves are born.”

As always, the Cartwright tunnel vision when it came to ranch matters superseded all else, including the needs of others. “Travis may not agree to this,” Liz warned.

Reba sent her a confident glance. “Then it’s up to you to convince him.”

TRAVIS HEARD BOOT STEPS crossing the rough ground, and turned as Liz approached.

The reluctant look on her pretty face told him all he needed to know. He had a temporary job. Likely over her objections.

“I’m ready to start anytime,” he drawled, eyeing her in a way it would have been unwise to do earlier, before he got the job.

Her rich auburn hair was just as thick and silky as he recalled. It was a little shorter now, falling only to her shoulders. But the classic cut and side-swept bangs suited her as much as the slight flush to her cheeks, the hint of temper in her pine-green eyes, and the determined set of her soft, bow-shaped lips.

His presence obviously flustered her, as it always had, in a way he found irresistible.

What was different was that he felt a little off his game around her, too.

As if his ordinary way of tackling people and problems wouldn’t work.

To get to know her, to understand the way she ticked, he would have to dig deeper, get past her resistance—as he hadn’t been able to do when they were teens.

And given what they needed to accomplish, the sooner he was able to do that the better.

“Tonight, if you want,” he continued.

Liz scowled, looking even less thrilled about that. “They figured as much.” She cocked her head sideways and sized him up with a wary glance. “You know they expect you to move out here, for as long as you choose to work for the Four Winds Ranch?”

Nodding, Travis ambled closer.

She might be struggling to handle her family, or contain him, but she was still sweet and sharp, with a way of beckoning him near that went far beyond simple chemistry.

Pushing the attraction away, he said, “The ad posted in the feed store said the position included room and board and being on call 24/7.” Which made it perfect for him … and his goals.

Liz huffed, clearly as annoyed by his accommodating attitude as she was by his presence. With only a cursory look at the cattle grazing in the pasture beyond, she wheeled around and took off in the opposite direction. “Don’t get too excited,” she said, tossing a mocking glance over her shoulder. “You haven’t seen your quarters yet.”

Travis admired the sway of her slender hips and the purposeful way her long legs ate up the ground. He caught up with her, so they were walking side by side. “Does this mean I’ll get the room next to yours?”

Liz shot him a drop-dead look and headed toward the one-room log cabin behind the barns. En route, they passed the main ranch house, an angular, U-shaped domicile made of rough-hewn timber and flat-cut stone, with wide porches on the front and back. “Actually, you’re getting my room. Or what was my room, once I clear my stuff out. You’ll be bunking in the old homestead.”

He was close enough to smell the jasmine scent of her perfume. Not a good thing, given what it did to his libido.

He eased back as they reached a field of knee-high grass, interspersed with Texas wildflowers. “Well, that’s exciting.”

“Not really.” Mirroring his ironic tone, Liz paused to open a gate in the weathered wood fence. “It’s very primitive.”