Winning the Cowboy's Heart

He accelerated as soon as he was out of the safety zone, then made a conscious effort to slow down. With only a couple hours of troubled sleep, he wasn’t as alert as he should be.

Couple of hours? Probably more like thirtyminutes. He’d finally dozed off just before the alarm rang. And then he’d been instantly awake and the worries had come crashing down on him.

Why the hell was Brett back?

It had been more than ten years since he’d last seen Brett and it had not been a happy parting. In fact, someone had had to call the sheriff and Will had barely escaped a night in jail. Brett had not.

They hadn’t spoken since that night. Brett had left town the next morning and that had been the last Will had seen or heard of his brother.

Now he was back. Why?

The thing that really set Will on edge was that he wasn’t quite sure about the legalities of his situation. He might be better off if he did know, but looking into those things meant opening a can of worms he was inclined to leave firmly closed. He wouldn’t do it—not unless he absolutely had to. Brett was a good eighty miles away at the moment and he’d better stay eighty miles away. If he didn’t, he’d be a sorry man.

REGAN PARKED in the only available staff space, some distance from the back door. She grabbed her work bag off the passenger seat and made a dash for the teachers’ entrance just as the bell rang. Flinging the door open, she ran smack into Pete.

“Ah, Miss Flynn,” he said, looking a bit like a satisfied bullfrog.

“Sorry I’m late.” She tried to speak calmly, even though she was winded from her sprint. “I had a problem this morning.” As in, an enormous elm branch on top of her new fence had stretched the wire and popped the staples; another large branch lay across her driveway, too big for her to do anything about. It had taken her almost fifteen minutes to work the first leafy monster free of the drooping fence wire. Even then she could have made it to work on time by driving around the branch that was blocking her drive, if her mother hadn’t called just as she was walking out the door. Claire she could put off, but not her mother.

“You do know it’s district policy to phone when you’re going to be late?”

Regan nodded and refrained from telling him she had called, but Mrs. Serrano had been away from her desk. No sense having Pete jump all over the secretary, too.

He gave Regan a stern look, then abruptly turned and stalked off on his standard morning hunt for marauding pranksters. Regan secretly wished the pranksters success as she unlocked her classroom.

It might have been the aftermath of the squid inquisition, or it might have been that the students were hoping for the appearance of new slimy specimens to use for various nefarious purposes, but, whatever the reason, they paid close attention to Regan’s lesson on classification. And she’d wisely opted to use an utterly benign material for this lab: leaves.

At first the kids seemed disappointed, but as the lab progressed the general mood became lighter—to the point where Regan began to wonder if Pete was going to find his car full of foliage when he left work that day. Once the thought had occurred to her, she issued a stern warning about the misuse of lab materials. The kids looked as if they were listening and a few even nodded after she spoke, but she’d taught for long enough to know that kids could look as if they were listening attentively and still not hear a word she said. All she could do at this point was hope for the best.

“Regan, what are you doing?” Tanya asked as she walked into the teachers’ lounge several hours later.

“Watching Pete’s car.”

“Do I want to know why?”

Regan turned back to the copy machine, which was happily churning out ninth-grade history work sheets.

“I’m trying to avoid trouble not of my own making.”

“I knew I didn’t want to know.” Tanya, a one-woman cleaning machine, went to the sink and started rinsing and drying coffee cups. “So why were you late this morning?”

“The wind blew a branch down on my fence and I had to get it off.”

“It couldn’t wait?”

“I needed to call the fence man, if it was damaged. He’s kind of a slow worker and I want to get Toffee home this weekend.”

“Was there that much damage?”

“Yes. I can’t tighten the stretched wire myself, so I called him. He’s going to try to get out there before the weekend.” She tightened one corner of her mouth. “Emphasis on try.”

Tanya gave her a sympathetic look just as Karlene, the girls’ PE teacher, came in and flopped down in a chair, blowing a few of her short brown curls off her forehead. “Ever have the feeling that you wanted to kill your boss?”

“Shh.” Tanya said. Pauline Johnson walked into the room just then, her high heels clicking on the tiles with metronomelike precision, the hem of her skirt hitting exactly midknee and her pale hair carefully lacquered into a French twist. She gave her colleagues a professional smile and went to check her mail. After sorting it, she marched over to the copy machine.

“Do you have many more?” she asked, indicating the masters Regan held in her hand.

“Two more sets.”

“We really need to have a schedule for this machine.”

“We pretty much have one,” Tanya pointed out. “We’re supposed to use it during our prep periods.”

“I’m talking about before and after school.” She gave a sniff as Regan positioned another master copy in the machine. “I’ll talk to Pete about this. I think it’s important.”

Regan stubbornly went on with her copying, in spite of Pauline’s impatient gaze boring into her back. Every school seemed to have a Pauline on its staff and Regan had plenty of practice dealing with them—her last school had had no fewer than three. One Pauline was no problem at all.

WILL DIDN’T GET ANY SLEEP that afternoon, though he’d promised himself he would. The day was simply too jam-packed. He put in an hour on each of the horses he was starting and he got the biggest branches piled up and ready to burn, the smaller ones left for Kylie to stack after school. Then Will got his inspection book out and headed to the Taylor ranch.

The Taylors had sold yet another overpriced horse, this time to a first-time horse buyer from Elko. The buyer seemed pleased as punch to pay double what the animal probably was worth. Will silently documented his inspection, noting the horse’s brand, sex, age, color and markings. He handed the book to Todd Taylor to sign, then peeled off the copies.

At least the animal was well trained, so the new owner wasn’t buying trouble. Todd paid the inspection fee, grumbling about the recent increase, which amounted to about one fifth of a percent of the purchase price. Will felt bad for him. Especially when he watched Mrs. Taylor drive up in her gleaming new SUV, waving as she eased the big machine into a three-car garage.

“So, how does Kylie like her teachers?” Todd asked after the garage door had closed.

“So far, so good.”

“Great.” Todd smiled. He continued to smile until Will gritted his teeth and asked the question he knew Todd wanted him to ask. “How’s Zach doing in football?”

Todd launched into a ten-minute spiel. Will nodded. A lot. And then finally managed to sidestep his way to his truck and reach for the door handle.

“Oh, you probably have to be going. Well, anyway, be sure to go to the game next Friday. Zach will be starting and I think you’ll see what I’ve been talking about.”

Will gave a noncommittal nod and got into his truck.

On the way home he took the loop, even though it added a couple miles to the trip, passing by Regan Flynn’s house to see what havoc the windstorm had wrought, wondering if she had a hole in her roof or other major damage that had caused her to be late that morning.

He didn’t see much wind damage—just a few scattered branches—and then he wondered just what the hell he was doing driving by her house in the first place.

Looking at the wind damage. Right.

He was curious about Regan Flynn.

Shit. As if he didn’t have enough trouble without adding to it in a way he’d promised himself he wouldn’t—at least not while Kylie was still living at home.

REGAN LIKED WORKING in Madison’s arena, even if it was a little pricey. It was well kept and in addition to the large covered arena there were several paneled work areas outside. Today she chose to work inside, since the wind was starting to blow again. She’d managed to drag the big branch off the drive before she left and was hoping there wouldn’t be another branch in its place by the time she got home.

“That’s quite an improvement,” Madison called almost an hour later, after Regan finished her last training pass of the day.