Iron Cowboy / Seduced by the Rich Man: Iron Cowboy

“After, if you don’t mind,” came the smiling reply. “I always try to avoid work if it’s at all possible.”

“Don’t we all? I’ve got the puppies out in the barn.” She led the way down the back steps, pausing at the sound of a horse approaching. Gil was still making happy baby sounds, cradled on his mother’s hip.

Harley Fowler was just riding into the yard. He spotted Sara with Lisa and smiled hugely. “Hi, Sara.”

“Hello, Harley. How’s the Spanish coming along?”

He glanced at Lisa, who grinned at him. He shrugged. “Well, I guess I’m learning some. But Juan is a better teacher than any book.”

“How’s your jaw?” Sara asked with twinkling eyes.

He fingered it. “Much better.” He smiled back.

“Uh oh, Mama,” Gil said, frowning. “Uh oh.” He squirmed.

“Uh oh means somebody needs a diaper change,” Lisa laughed. She glanced at Harley and, sensing something, concealed a smile. “Harley, if you’ve got a minute, would you mind showing Sara the pups while I change Gil? We’re working on potty training, but it’s early days yet,” she added on a laugh.

Harley beamed. “I’d be happy to!” He climbed down gracefully out of the saddle and held the reins, waiting for Sara. “Are you going to adopt one of the puppies?”

She blinked. “Well, I hadn’t thought about that. I have a cat, you know, and he really doesn’t like dogs much. I think one tried to eat him when he was younger. He’s got scars everywhere and even dogs barking on television upsets him.”

He frowned. “But you came to see the puppies…?”

She showed him her drawing pad. “I came to sketch the puppies,” she corrected, “for the children’s book I’m writing.”

“Someday she’s going to be famous, and we can all say we knew her back when,” Lisa teased. “I’ll have coffee ready when you’re done, Sara. I made a pound cake, too.”

“Thanks,” Sara called after her.

Lisa waved as she took the baby back into the house.

Harley tied his horse to the corral fence and walked into the dim confines of the barn with Sara. In a stall filled with fresh hay were five puppies and Bob the Collie. She was nursing the babies. In the stall beside hers was Puppy Dog, Lisa’s dog, no longer a puppy. He looked exactly like Tom Walker’s dog, Moose.

“A girl dog named Bob,” Sara mused.

“Boss said if Johnny Cash could have a boy named ‘Sue,’ he could have a girl dog named Bob.”

“She’s so pretty,” Sara said. “And the puppies are just precious!”

“Three males, two females,” he said. “Tom’s got first choice, since they’re Moose’s grandkids.” He shook his head. “He’s taking Moose’s loss hard. He loved that old dog, even though he was a disaster in the house.”

“Moose saved Tom’s daughter from a rattler,” Sara reminded him. “He was a real hero.”

“You want a chair?” he asked.

“This old stool will do fine. Thanks anyway.” She pulled up the rickety stool, opened her pad and took her pencils out of her hip pocket.

“Will it make you nervous if I watch?”

She grinned up at him. “Of course not.”

He lolled against the stall wall and folded his arms, concentrating on the way her hand flew over the page, the pencil quickly bringing the puppies to life on the off-white sheet. “You’re really good,” he said, surprised.

“Only thing I was ever good at in school,” she murmured while she drew. She was also noting the pattern of colors on the pups and shading her drawing to match. Then she wrote down the colors, so she wouldn’t forget them when she started doing the illustrations for her book in pastels.

“I can fix anything mechanical,” he said, “but I can’t draw a straight line.”

“We all have our talents, Harley,” she said. “It wouldn’t do for all of us to be good at the same thing.”

“No, it wouldn’t, I guess.”

She sketched some more in a personable silence.

“I wanted to ask you in the bookstore, but we got interrupted,” he began. “There’s going to be a concert at the high school this Saturday. They’re hosting a performance by the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra. I wondered if, well, if you’d like to go. With me,” he added.

She looked up, her soft eyes smiling. “Well, yes, I would,” she said. “I’d thought about it, because they’re doing Debussy, and he’s my favorite composer. But I didn’t have the nerve to go by myself.”

He chuckled, encouraged. “Then it’s a date. We could leave earlier and have supper at the Chinese place. If you like Chinese?”

“I love it. Thanks.”

“Then I’ll pick you up about five on Saturday. Okay?”

She smiled at him. He was really nice. “Okay.”

He glanced out of the barn at his horse, which was getting restless. “I’d better get back out to the pasture. We’re dipping cattle and the vet’s checking them over. I’ll see you Saturday.”

“Thanks, Harley.”

“Thank you.”

She watched him walk away. He was good-looking, local and pleasant to be around. What a difference from that complaining, bad-tempered rancher who hadn’t even sympathized with her when she’d almost drowned delivering his stupid books!

Now why had she thought about Jared Cameron? She forced herself to concentrate on the puppies.

Harley picked her up at five on Saturday in his aged, but clean, red pickup truck. He was wearing a suit, and he looked pretty good. Sara wore a simple black dress with her mother’s pearls and scuffed black high-heeled shoes that she hoped wouldn’t be noticed. She draped a lacy black mantilla around her shoulders.

“You look very nice,” Harley said. “I figure there will be people there in jeans and shorts, but I always feel you should dress up to go to a fancy concert.”

“So do I,” she agreed. “At least it isn’t raining,” she added.

“I wish it would,” he replied. “That nice shower we got last Saturday is long gone, and the crops are suffering. We’re still in drought conditions.”

“Don’t mention that shower,” she muttered. “I was out in it, sliding all over Jeff Bridges Road in my VW, bogged up to my knees in mud, just to deliver Jared Cameron’s books!”

He glanced at her. “Why didn’t he go to the store and get them himself?”

“He’s very busy.”