Luke's Proposal

“We can try.” Charlie grinned, white teeth flashing against tanned skin. His eyes twinkled as he winked at her. “You’d better be fast girl, ’cause he’s smart.”

Her mother’s chuckle joined Rachel’s laughter as Charlie and Judith swung up on their horses. Rachel opened the gate for them, then walked quickly around the outer perimeter of the corral to reach the loading chute and the horse trailer. At barely 8:00 a.m. the temperature was a comfortable seventy degrees, but the morning sun already promised sweltering heat later in the day. She glanced across the graveled expanse between barn and house and was struck anew with a wave of possessive pride that the ranch, shabby though it was, belonged to her.

Rachel’s new home was known as Section Ten of the Kerrigan Conglomerate. The old but comfortable house was part of a cluster of buildings built on a ranch that Marcus Kerrigan had bought and added to his vast holdings. Since Marcus already had an impressive home, which was now Harlan’s, the Section Ten buildings had been used over the years to house various employees. Her inheritance from her grandfather consisted of several thousand acres of pasture and rich farmland, the two-story house, a barn, machine shed, corrals and several smaller outbuildings. The pastures were nearly empty, with only a few dozen head of cattle, several older saddle horses, Ransom, and a rangy ten-year-old Appaloosa gelding named Ajax. The horse belonged to Zach, and several years earlier, when he could no longer visit Wolf Creek on a regular basis, he’d given the Appaloosa to Rachel. She’d stabled Ajax at a small ranch outside Helena and ridden him on weekends, trailering him home with her for a few weeks each year when she returned to Wolf Creek to visit her mother. During those vacations, Ajax had been cared for by Charlie, the bowlegged horseman who had worked for her grandfather for as long as Rachel could remember.

The day Rachel told him Marcus had split the ranch and given her Section Ten, Charlie declared he was staying on. She told him she couldn’t afford his wages but he said he didn’t care. He offered to work for room and board and a promise of future pay when the ranch was in the black. Charlie had taught Rachel and Zach to ride, and they’d both spent many long hours with him as children on their grandfather’s huge ranch. Charlie was more like family to Rachel, her mother and brother than their own relatives.

Charlie moved from the ranch house into a small apartment over the tack room in the barn, and Rachel shifted her furniture into the mainhouse. Fortunately, the old bachelor cowboy was neat as a pin and the place was scrupulously clean. Her own feminine, modern furnishings were in stark contrast to the Spartan fifties interior, but Rachel had plans to spruce up the solidly built home when she could afford renovations.

But first we have to get him in the trailer, she thought, forcing her attention back to the corral and Ransom.

Loading the stallion turned out to be far more difficult and time consuming than she’d anticipated. The stallion balked, reared, evaded and generally fought until everyone was equally frustrated.

Rachel wanted to deliver Ransom’s Mist to Luke’s ranch by 9:00 a.m., but the hands on her watch pointed to ten-thirty when she finally turned off the highway. She drove slowly down the winding gravel road to the house and the cluster of barns, corrals and outbuildings that made up McCloud Enterprises Property #6.

On the seat beside her, carefully tucked into a folder, was the agreement signed by her mother.

Now, if Luke will just sign it, too, she thought. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and sucked in a deep breath as she slowed, parking the borrowed truck and horse trailer in front of the house.

The long, low rambler was neat and tidy, freshly painted white with black shutters at the windows. Sprinklers whirled lazily, the arc of water turning the green grass damp and leaving drops glittering on the old lilac bush at the far-left corner of the house. Two tall maples stretched long branches toward the eaves, their leaves shading the roof from the hot sun. The oasis of green lawn was fenced with low wrought-iron posts and rails.

The ranch buildings were located at the end of a valley and beyond the lush garden stretched pastures dotted with gray-green sagebrush, rolling upward to meet the flat-topped buttes that stood in a semicircle behind the house. In the other direction, white-painted board fences marched in neat, straight lines away from the horse barn and corrals. Farther out, fields of oats and rye waved as a breeze rippled the green stalks.

Rachel switched off the truck engine and slid out of the cab. The latch on the gate gave easily beneath her hand, and she passed through, turning to fasten it behind her. She’d heard about Chase McCloud’s talent as a blacksmith, especially with iron lace work, and guessed that Luke’s brother was the one responsible for the graceful curves and artistic lines of the unique gate.

Artistic wasn’t a word she would normally have associated with Chase McCloud, Rachel thought. She hadn’t seen him since his grandfather’s funeral fifteen years earlier but the local rumor mill still buzzed with tales of his exploits as a bounty hunter in the years after he was released from jail at age nineteen. The gossip implied he was a dangerous man who’d never forgiven his neighbors for the conviction that had delivered him to Montana’s juvenile correction system.

She hoped that didn’t mean he would convince Luke not to train Ransom.

She followed the brick sidewalk, climbed two shallow steps and reached the shade of the porch that extended the length of the house.

The screen door was closed but the inner one stood open, allowing her to see down the dim hallway. Somewhere inside the murmur of a radio announcer was followed by the twang of guitars and low growl of Toby Keith and Willie Nelson singing ‘Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses.’

The music ceased abruptly the moment she knocked on the door. Boots thudded on wood flooring, and a man walked down the passage to push open the screen door. Rachel took a step back, then retreated two more as he stepped out onto the porch.

Chase McCloud hadn’t just grown older. He was bigger, harder and colder than the boy she remembered seeing at his grandfather’s graveside. The McClouds were all big men, and she found Luke’s height intimidating, but Chase wasn’t just tall and broad. He seemed hard as granite, his features remote and bordering on menacing.

Rachel realized he was watching her, waiting for her to speak.

“I’m looking for Luke. Is he here?”

“Down at the barn.” He looked past her at the truck and horse trailer parked at the gate before his gaze returned to hers. He didn’t say anything further, his expression unreadable.

“Well… I’ll drive down there then.”

When he didn’t respond, she nodded abruptly, spun on her heels, descended the porch steps, marched down the sidewalk, through the gate and climbed into the truck cab. When she glanced back at the house, Chase had disappeared.

Rachel sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. “That man is scary,” she muttered as she twisted the ignition key. She shifted into gear and drove past the house and down the gravel lane to park at the barn and corrals.

The big sliding door stood open, and just as Rachel rounded the hood of the truck to search for him, Luke stepped from the barn’s dim interior into the bright sunlight. Her stride faltered and she reached out blindly, steadying herself with a hand on the truck’s hood.

Like Chase, Luke’s sheer size was intimidating, but unlike his brother, he was dangerous to Rachel in so many other ways. Just looking at him made her heart beat faster and heat move through her veins. Her skin seemed more sensitive to the touch of the hot sun and the brush of the faint breeze that lifted the ends of her hair and stroked her body.

There was no question he was the sexiest man she’d ever met. Nevertheless, Rachel was determined to ignore her physical reaction and focus on business.

I need him as a business partner, that’s all, she reminded herself. There won’t be anything else between us, regardless of how much my stupid hormones shriek.

Sunlight highlighted the supple flex of tanned biceps below the short sleeves of his white T-shirt. Faded Levi’s rode low on his hips. Torn at the knee, the snug denim faithfully followed the length of powerful, muscled thighs and long legs to end just above the heels of scuffed black cowboy boots.

A straw cowboy hat was tilted over his brow, shading his face. But nothing could conceal the narrow-eyed assessment that rivaled his brother’s in intensity.

His ice blue stare snapped her back to reality, and she realized that she was standing still, gazing at him like a star-struck teenager. Annoyed, she tucked her hands into her jeans pockets and stepped forward.

“Hello, Luke.”

“‘Mornin’.” He nodded his head in greeting, his gaze lowering in a swift scan from her hair to her boots and back again.

A lick of fire followed where his gaze touched. Rachel willed herself not to react when his eyes met hers and she read the heat there. She resisted the urge to smooth a hand over the pale yellow T-shirt tucked into the belted waistband of her worn Levi’s. Repeated washings had faded and shrunk the denim until the jeans were soft and snug, and Rachel suddenly wished she’d given more thought to getting dressed this morning. Maybe she should buy new jeans that were not quite so close fitting.

On the other hand, she thought, perhaps she should ignore him. It was downright irritating that she caught herself wondering fleetingly if he liked what he saw.

“Ransom’s in the trailer.” She turned and walked toward the tailgate. As she passed the back of the truck, Luke fell in beside her, his long easy strides carrying him past her. Inside the trailer, the stallion was enclosed in the front section of the four-horse carrier, but he wasn’t tied and he moved restlessly from one side to the other, clearly stressed. By the time Rachel joined Luke, he’d unlocked and opened the tailgate.

Ransom looked over his shoulder and across the divider at them, his nostrils flaring, eyes widening until a ring of white rimmed the brown. He spun in the narrow space, setting the trailer rattling and swaying, aggression in every flex and bunch of muscles in his powerful body.

“Easy,” Luke crooned. “Easy, boy.” He eyed the nervous dance of unshod hooves against wood flooring and the small white scars scattered over Ransom’s glossy black hide before turning to look at Rachel. “Did he get those scars from the barb wire?”

“Yes.”

His jaw tightened, his expression grim as he studied Ransom once more. “He isn’t haltered. How much trouble did he give you when you loaded him this morning?”

Rachel thought about lying but decided not to— Luke would find out soon enough just how much Ransom hated to board the trailer. “Some,” she admitted, deciding to be as noncommittal as possible.

“Hmm.” He considered her for a moment, then closed and latched the gate.