The Texan's Tennessee Romance / The Rancher & the Reluctant Princess: The Texan's Tennessee Romance / The Rancher & the Reluctant Princess

“I’m on that, Ms. Lofton. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got what you’re looking for, okay?”

She would have liked to push him more, but a tapping on her door let her know that Casey had arrived. Telling Beecham she expected to hear from him soon, she disconnected, completely dissatisfied with the conversation.

Trying to smooth the frown from her face, she moved to open the door.

Casey wore jeans, a denim jacket over a gray pullover and sneakers. “Whoa,” he said when she opened the door to him. “You look great. Very hiker chic.”

He could make her smile, even when she was still stinging from the way she’d behaved the night before, and still brooding over her less-than-satisfactory conversation with Beecham. “Thank you. Actually, I haven’t been hiking in years. I bought this outfit last year when I was planning a vacation that fell through. It’s nice to have a chance to wear it.”

“How long has it been since you’ve been on a vacation?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Longer than I like to admit.”

Chuckling, he made a motion toward his truck. “Then let’s go have some fun.”

She snatched up the small nylon backpack she’d prepared for the hike. “I brought a very light lunch in case we get hungry,” she told him, slinging the bag over her shoulder.

He grinned as they fell in step toward his truck. “We won’t go hungry. I’ve got a pack with some granola bars and bottles of water. I wasn’t sure what else to bring.”

He opened the passenger door of his truck for her, and she climbed in, reaching for the seat belt when he closed the door. He loped around the front of the truck, slid behind the wheel and fastened himself in before starting the engine. “Do you have a favorite trail?”

“I looked up a few online last night. Tommy’s favorite was the Ramsey Cascades Trail. He took me on that one a couple of times when I was a kid, and the cascades at the end of the graded trail are spectacular. The hiking guides list it as ‘moderate to strenuous’ in difficulty. It’s pretty steep, rising more than two thousand feet in four miles. The guidebook said it’s an eight mile roundtrip, about a five-hour hike on average. Or there’s an easier trail…”

“That one sounds nice,” he said, putting the truck in Reverse. “I’ve got a few extra hours today. I’d like to see the cascades.”

She nodded. The memories of that trail were bittersweet, but she would like to see the falls again. She remembered thinking they had to be the most beautiful place on earth. She could use some natural beauty today.

“Which way do I turn?” Casey asked, pausing at the end of the driveway.

“Left,” she said, and sat back in her seat.

He was right, she decided. She needed to forget about her problems and have fun today. She deserved that, darn it.

Looking at his attractive profile from beneath her lashes, she decided she had chosen exactly the right companion for a day of determinedly carefree fun.

Casey couldn’t decide which was more beautiful—the stunning mountain scenery on the trail, or Natalie. He finally decided it was almost a tie, with her having just a slight edge, at least as far as he was concerned.

The trail began as an old gravel logging road through the forest running alongside a tumbling stream that Natalie called “The Ramsey Prong” of the Little Pigeon River. In the summer, Casey imagined the trail would be shady and very green. As it was, there was still some color in the leaves that rained down on them with every cool breeze.

The gravel road was surrounded by mossy fallen tree trunks and enormous boulders, but not particularly steep yet. She had warned him that it got much steeper when the old road ended and the trail became a worn footpath.

“In the summer there are wildflowers through here,” she said, gesturing toward the leaf-strewn forest floor, her thin digital camera in her other hand. “Little violets and irises and other things I never learned to identify.”

“There are probably more hikers in the summer, too,” he commented, and though he spoke quietly, his voice sounded almost loud in the hushed forest. It felt as if he and Natalie were the only ones on the mountain, but he’d seen a couple other cars in the lot when they’d parked.

“Oh, yes, especially during the weekends. This is nice, isn’t it? Having the trail pretty much to ourselves?”

He put a hand lightly at the small of her back, ostensibly to help her around a boulder, mostly just because he wanted to touch her. “Yeah. It’s very nice.”

It pleased him that she made no effort to move away from his hand as they continued to walk, stepping ahead only when the path grew too narrow to navigate side by side.

He lifted an eyebrow when they came to a footbridge over the stream. The bridge was a long, somewhat bouncy-looking, narrow log with a single handrail. Water tumbled noisily over boulders beneath the bridge—and the water looked cold.

Lowering her camera after taking a shot of the bridge, Natalie looked back at him. “Problem?”

“No. Just hoping the traction on these shoes is all the ads claim it to be.”

She laughed. “Come on. I promise not to push you in. As long as you behave.”

Was that a hint for him to keep his hands to himself? Watching her delicately crossing the bridge, he told himself it might be worth a cold dunking to touch her again.

“Smile,” she said from the other side of the prong.

Posing in the middle of the bridge, he grinned as she snapped his picture.

“Man, these trees are huge,” he commented a few minutes later as the trail wound between massive trunks. Gnarled roots snaked across the worn path, waiting to snag a carelessly placed foot or twist an ankle. Patches of moss added to the challenge, which was why, he supposed, the guidebooks rated this hike as strenuous. That, and the increase in altitude.

Natalie placed her hand on the rough bark of a tree that had to be twelve feet in diameter. “Yellow poplars. This is virgin forest. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Frowning at some initials clumsily carved into the bark of another massive tree, he nodded. “Wonder why some people can’t appreciate nature’s beauty without making their own marks on it.”

“Or leaving their trash behind,” she agreed with a look of distaste. “Nothing makes me madder than to see a beautiful place soiled with beer bottles and aluminum cans.”

They pulled water bottles out of their packs and took a few sips while they looked around. “How far do you think we’ve walked?” he asked, guessing at a couple of miles.

“About two and a half miles, I think,” she hazarded, confirming his own guess. “A little over halfway.”

Capping her water bottle, she returned it to her pack, then raised the camera and focused on a tangle of roots with wild fern growing among them. He’d noticed that she had a flair for photography; she’d taken some interesting shots during their walk so far. He would have to ask for copies.

“Natalie.” He nudged her arm and pointed to where two wild turkeys strutted across the path.

She swung the camera in that direction, snapping a couple of shots before the big birds fluttered into the woods. “Cool,” she said, lowering the camera with a smile.

He took the camera from her hand and stepped back. “Stand in front of those two black cherry trees,” he instructed. “Right between them. Yes, there.”

He took the picture, then glanced at the screen on the back of the camera. “Nice. Now move over there, by the water.”

She shook her head, but obliged, anyway. “I didn’t bring the camera so I’d have a lot of pictures of me.”

“I don’t know why not. You’ve been taking shots of natural beauty all day.”

She groaned and snatched the camera away from him, leaving him grinning as they started walking again. He was almost sure she’d had to struggle not to smile in response to his corny quip.

They crossed another log bridge and walked between two more large poplars, where they encountered a doe quietly foraging for vegetation. She looked up at them, waited politely for Natalie to snap her picture, then bounded away in graceful leaps, leaving her human admirers smiling. A squirrel barked in a tree above them, and Casey looked up to see it watching them and twitching its tail. “The wildlife out here is certainly accustomed to people.”

“Considering how many thousands take this hike every year, it’s no wonder,” Natalie replied. She zipped the front of her bright red vest. “It’s getting cooler as we climb higher, isn’t it?”

“Are you cold? You can wear my jacket.”