The Ultimate Texas Bachelor

Lainey ignored Brad—who looked unbearably attractive in jeans, boots and an old chambray shirt—and spoke directly to her real boss, or at least the only person she planned to take any orders from. “I wouldn’t ask if an old friend of mine weren’t in Dallas today, on business.” With me. “I haven’t seen Sybil in a couple of years and she has enough time to have lunch with me. I’d really like to go.”

Clearly aware he was annoying her, Brad looked her over, taking in the fit of her pale yellow, linen sheath dress, matching cardigan and shoes, before returning ever so slowly to her face. “Must be nice to be a dilettante,” Brad mumbled under his breath, just loud enough for Lainey to hear.

“Better than a smart-mouth any day of the week,” she muttered right back.

Lewis stepped between them. He looked annoyed at Brad, too. “Will you leave her alone before she quits on us?” Lewis demanded.

“So what?” Brad finished the second half of his orange juice in a single gulp. He set the glass down on the counter with a thud, as determined to rile Lainey as ever. He shrugged indifferently. “Then we’ll simply hire someone else who will work more than one day in a row.”

“Keep it up,” Lainey told Brad, walking around Lewis to confront him, “and I’ll be tempted to kick you in the shin.” It would serve him right for kissing her the way he had, when she knew he hadn’t meant it. And she, unfortunately for her, had.

“Not going to hurt much with those fancy sandals you’re wearing,” he said in a tone sexy enough to make her want to kiss him all over again. “And speaking of footwear…” He pretended to study her carefully. “This being a ranch—with free-roaming wildlife and all—”

Oh, brother. Like she was going to fall for that again. “Not to mention one very big and ornery beast,” Lainey added sweetly, hoping to shame him into behaving.

“—don’t you think it’s time for you to start dressing a little more practically?”

Lainey had been thinking about it—until he mentioned it, anyway. Clothes that were just right in Dallas seemed a little too fancy here. Lainey had been dressing the way Chip had expected her to for so long, she had no idea how she would dress if it were up to her. Deciding she did not like the presumption in Brad’s eyes, she said, “I suppose you’d like to see me in boots and jeans?” The question was, what would she like to see herself in?

“Depends on how much leg you intend to keep flashing. Yesterday, for instance, when you were climbing up on that kitchen counter, I could see…”

The heat of a self-conscious blush warming her face, Lainey headed for the door before she was tempted to smack Brad McCabe’s ornery face. She couldn’t believe he had kissed her, and she had kissed him back. What in the world had she been thinking, even letting him come to her rescue?

“When are you coming back?” Lewis asked hopefully, as he followed her to the back porch.

Lainey turned around and smiled at Lewis. He at least was truly one of the nicest guys she had ever met. “Later tonight. And don’t worry. Beast or no—” she glared over Lewis’s shoulder, at Brad “—I’ll be here working the rest of the week.”

LAINEY JOINED HER OLD FRIEND Sybil for lunch at The Mansion on Turtle Creek, and typically Sybil got right to the point. “Were you able to find out where Brad McCabe is right now?” she asked as soon as their iced teas had been served.

Lainey knew it would serve the Texas cowboy right if she were to put the most tenacious magazine editor in the country on his tail, but Lainey couldn’t do it. And not just because of the way Annie and Travis’s crew—and Brad and Lewis, too—had pitched in to help her begin the task of organizing the Lazy M Ranch and guest houses the previous afternoon.

Pure and simple, ratting out Brad would be the wrong thing to do. Even if doing so would help her old friend and former college roommate. “I have to tell you, Sybil, from what I learned, Brad McCabe is in no mood to be interviewed.”

“So?” Sybil ran a hand through her short jet-black curls. “Be persuasive. Change his mind. You’re a pretty single woman. He’s supposed to love pretty single women.”

One would certainly think so, given the way Brad had been portrayed on the reality TV show. “Even if I were able to get an interview with him—a feat which it is doubtful I’ll be able to perform—I can almost guarantee you that he wouldn’t answer a single question about what happened on Bachelor Bliss. Nor is he likely to agree to be photographed for Personalities Magazine.”

Sybil frowned, disappointed but not defeated. She leaned across the table, looking as lithe and trendy as ever in her designer pantsuit. “I need that cover story, ‘America’s Most Loathed Bachelor,’ if I am going to prove myself worthy of the editor-in-chief position.”

Lainey knew Sybil was in hot competition with another senior editor for the post. The July first edition of the bimonthly celebrity magazine was Sybil’s chance to prove herself. Her competition was working on the June fifteenth edition. Whoever had the highest sales would win the post. Lainey wanted Sybil to win, but she did not want to sacrifice the privacy of her family and friends to make it happen.

Even though, Lainey added sarcastically to herself, it would almost serve Brad right if she did expose his whereabouts. Where had he gotten off thinking he could haul her into his arms and kiss her as if there were no tomorrow? She wasn’t one of the babes who had lined up to win his heart on the show!

“His family won’t tell anyone where he is,” Lainey said, sticking to what she could—in good conscience—reveal. “And the citizens of Laramie are just as protective of him.” Had she not stumbled across him, and been hired to organize the Lazy M, she still wouldn’t know where he was currently residing.

“Maybe they’ll change their minds,” Sybil said as the waiter returned with two bowls of tortilla soup.

“I doubt it. Brad is very well loved in his hometown. More than one person told me they didn’t know who that was on the reality show, but it sure as heck wasn’t the Brad they knew, before or since.”

“So they think he was screwed by the producers.”

Lainey nodded, savoring the spicy mixture of flavorful broth, tender chicken, crisp tortillas, creamy avocado and cheddar cheese. “At the very least, portrayed in a deliberately unflattering light.”

“Except that doesn’t make sense, since the producers very much want their bachelors to be extraordinarily heroic.”

And Brad had been portrayed as the world’s biggest cad.

“Viewers won’t watch if they don’t like the bachelor,” Sybil continued between spoonfuls.

Except they had watched, in record numbers, if only to see the handsome lothario get what was coming to him.

“Look, you knew him as a kid, right?”

Lainey made a seesawing motion with her hand. “Sort of. He and his family moved to Laramie when Brad was sixteen, a few years after their mother died.”

Sybil leaned forward impatiently. “My point is, you have an insight into this guy—a personal connection—that none of my other reporters have. If you can find him, you have the ability to get close to him.”

At least in theory, Lainey thought. Right now Brad was so prickly she couldn’t see anyone getting close to him, man or woman. Even his beloved younger brother Lewis was giving him wide berth.

“This could be your big break, Lainey. A cover story that could catapult you into the big time and erase all those years when you didn’t work as a writer. Getting this story for me would make your lack of journalism degree a moot point. And if I’m hired as editor-in-chief, largely because you got the story of the summer, I promise you a job as a staff writer.”

The waiter cleared their plates and returned with warm lobster tacos for Sybil and Texas crab cakes for Lainey. “I told you—I don’t want to live in New York City. I want Petey to grow up in Texas, the way I did. Maybe even in Laramie.”

Sybil rolled her eyes. “Two weeks out in the sticks and I guarantee you will change your mind about that and go running back to Dallas.”

Maybe, and maybe not, Lainey thought. She had already been there a few days, and already she felt calmer, more relaxed, more in touch with her true self than she had in years.

Being back—even temporarily—was like having a fresh start in her life.

Sybil sat back in her chair. “How many times have you said to me, on the phone or in e-mail, that you wished you’d had the chance to work for a while before you got married, to see if you had what it takes?”

Lainey sighed. “Hundreds.” Whenever Chip or his family had made her feel small and inconsequential, she had wished she had more of a sense of herself, more inner strength. She had wished she had a life apart from her husband and son. Something to call her very own.

“If you don’t want to leave Texas, that’s fine. You could work for Personalities Magazine as our southwest stringer.”

Sybil didn’t know how tempting that sounded. “That would still mean travel.” Lainey forced herself to be practical.

“Day flights. You could hop on a plane in the morning, interview someone and be home in time to cook Petey dinner. I promise.”

Which would make the situation workable, Lainey knew. And the job would fulfill Lainey’s long-held dreams of being a reporter and challenge her in ways she hadn’t been challenged in a long time. Certainly, being a staff reporter for Personalities Magazine would be a lot better than trying to make it as a freelance reporter, selling stories here and there.

“The point is, Lainey, you and I both know that the story the producers presented to the viewing public was not the whole story. If Brad McCabe is the wonderful guy at heart that his family and the entire citizenry of Laramie, Texas, think he is, then other stuff must have happened behind the scenes that maybe only Brad—and the woman he ended up first choosing and then unceremoniously dumping at the end—know about.” She took a sip of water. “And you’ve read the stuff Yvonne Rathbone’s been spouting. That he was a Jekyll and Hyde, her heart was shattered all to pieces…and she will never ever get over what happened in a million years.”

“I saw her on one of the morning news shows, after it happened,” Lainey admitted reluctantly. Yvonne had been crying her eyes out. “She appeared credible.”

Sybil looked cynical. “You and I have both known women who are capable of twisting the truth. It’s up to you to discover what really occurred and write it up, so everyone knows what happened, instead of the lies and the half-truths Yvonne and the producers are putting out. In the meantime, I’ve got some standard contracts and releases for you to sign.”

She handed them over. Lainey perused them while they waited for their dessert and coffee. The documents were fairly straightforward. Until Lainey got to the amount being offered for the article. She glanced up. “You’re willing to pay me five thousand dollars for one three-thousand-word article?”