The Cowboy Meets His Match

Hazel laughed at the alarm that must have flickered in Jacquelyn’s eyes.

“Dear, relax. It’s just an old saying. Means a man is clear about what he wants and how to get it. Tell me…is it your skin you’re fretting about?”

“My…skin?”

“I’ve always been told you Southern women take special pride in your beautiful complexions. You’re living proof of that.”

“Thank you,” she said politely, but it was obvious that Hazel was only jabbering like this to head off any more objections about her wild idea.

She was on the verge of demanding why it was so important that she make this mountain trek. But just then a two-tone chime sounded within the parlor. Nervous fear made her heart speed up for the next few beats.

“That will be A.J.,” Hazel announced with evident satisfaction. “Donna will let him in.”

The tap of solid boot heels reached their ears as the new arrival moved through the kitchen and dining room. Jacquelyn’s trapped-deer desperation didn’t seem to escape Hazel’s notice—or her sympathy.

“Everything will be just fine, dear, I promise. I won’t sugarcoat the dangers of those mountains. But with a guide like A. J. Clayburn, you’ll be fine.”

“But I really don’t understand why this is necessary. You said you liked my articles—that they were authentic,” Jacquelyn whispered in a rush to beat the footsteps. “Why is this so important? Why?”

Something secret and mysterious glinted in Hazel’s eyes—something born of great ambition, great determination and great love. But her evasive answer only further frustrated Jacquelyn.

“Be patient. Making this journey will change your life, I assure you. Very few have taken it. Well, would you look who’s here, Jacquelyn! Timely, yet! Well, my land, A.J., don’t just stand there gawking, come on in. She doesn’t bite!”

Three

Jacquelyn paid scant attention as Hazel went through the formalities of introducing her to Mystery’s leading rodeo celebrity.

Besides feeling confused, trapped and manipulated, she was almost indignant. Somehow she felt she was being hazed, as cowboys called it when they forced cattle to move where they wanted them to go.

Or more like it, Jacquelyn punned wryly to herself, she was being Hazeled.

“Personally,” Hazel nattered while Jacquelyn gathered her composure a bit, “I’ve become a dyed-in-the-wool home-body in my old age. I subscribe to the theory that a gal should never leave her time zone. But then, if some of us didn’t travel, we wouldn’t have Jacquelyn here summering with us in Mystery, would we, A.J.?”

“I guess that’s so,” the cowboy agreed reluctantly. His tone made it clear he could survive that contingency just fine.

He sat across from the two women in a leather wing chair, an immaculate gray Stetson balanced on his left knee. He wore clean range clothes and a neckerchief. Long, muscular, blue-jeans-clad legs were tucked into hand-stitched, high-heeled boots so pointy they looked like weapons. A. J. Clayburn, Jacquelyn noted reluctantly in a brief appraisal, was every bit as handsome as the photo of him in Hazel’s album.

But, in person, he also projected a sense of…physical readiness—even danger. That was undeniable even though he walked a bit stiff-legged from his recent injury.

Also undeniable was his smug awareness of his own abilities. He certainly would not shine among the old, genteel social circles back in Atlanta’s Peachtree Park, where subtlety and nuance opened doors of opportunity. But Jacquelyn had to grudgingly admit he was the kind of man she would want nearby in a crisis. Though, God knows, she’d want him gone after the trouble was over. Immediately after.

“If you youngsters will excuse me,” Hazel said, rising spryly from her chair, “I need to go upstairs and find some old letters that Jacquelyn requested for her series. You two will want to get acquainted, of course, and discuss your arrangements. I’ll try not to be too long.”

Again Jacquelyn felt dismay pulsing in her temples. Arrangements? Hazel was simply taking over her life, to hell with permission. And now came the lame pretext—she was leaving Jacquelyn virtually trapped with this arrogant, self-inflated rube.

A.J. rose politely while Hazel stood and left the parlor. So far, while Hazel was present, he had spared Jacquelyn the force of those penetrating eyes of his. Indeed, each time his gunmetal gaze touched her it slid quickly away.

As if he resented her presence.

Now that they were alone, however, all that changed. Jacquelyn felt his eyes on her, so probing and intense she felt violated by them.

“Is there a fly on my nose?” she finally asked, heat flooding into her face.

“Nope. Just looking.”

“It’s just looking, maybe, for the first few seconds. But eventually it becomes staring.”

His sardonic mouth twisted into a grin. “’At’s funny.”

“It is?”

“You don’t look like a book. But you sure-god talk like one.”

“Pardon me.” She commented, “I’ll try to sound more obtuse so you won’t feel challenged.”

Her acerbic tone didn’t daunt him at all; probably because he didn’t get the insult. She ached to dismiss him, but beneath his continued scrutiny she felt a flush heat her skin. Nervously she stood up and quickly smoothed her black matte jersey skirt over her thighs. Then she crossed to the wall behind her, covered with paintings and photographs. She could still feel the almost physical force of his stare.

“Mr. Clayburn, Hazel has told me her plan, but I’m afraid I’m not a camper, nor a horse packer. It seems she thinks I’m the best one to write about McCallum Trace, but there’s a fine young college boy interning at the office, and I think he’d be a much more appropriate choice for your—”

“You don’t have to convince me. I’m Mohammed. I can come to the mountain myself.” He jerked his head toward the door where Hazel had gone. “It’s the mountain you got to worry about moving.”

Jacquelyn looked at the empty doorway. The sinking feeling betrayed her cold bravado. The cowboy was, unfortunately, right; truer words and all that. Hazel was the mountain, and Jacquelyn Rousseaux might have an Ivy League education and a trust fund which she eschewed in order to make her own money and be her own woman, but she did not possess a backhoe.

So in the end her battle was with Hazel, not the man stuck in the room with her. Her innate Southern politeness finally won out.

“So…I understand you’re a rodeo champ,” she said, going back to her seat to wait for Hazel.

“That’s old news around here. Heard anything more interesting?”

His insolent, taunting tone made her want to spar with him. Worse was the strange feeling she had whenever his gaze raked over her. She realized she must have been far too long without male companionship because his every glance, his every stare was making her feel exposed and strangely flustered.

“You writing about cowboys, too?” he asked.

In spite of her better judgment, she retorted, “Actually I was thinking about it.” Archly she said, “In researching my articles on Jake McCallum, I read something about Montana cowboys. Is it true y’all are defensive because you’re just imitations of the true Texas cowboys?”

“’Y’all?”’ he repeated, raising one eyebrow.

To her chagrin he was unruffled. Then, to her surprise, he had managed to turn the question to her.

And Hazel seriously thought Jacquelyn would spend five days—not to mention nights—alone with this insulting, boorish hick?

There was no use in continuing the small talk. She turned her attention to an old, nineteenth-century tintype photo of Hazel’s grandmother, Mystery McCallum. Mystery wore a swag-fronted, bustled gown and a tight-laced corset to give her the wasp waist that had been fashionable then.

When A.J. spoke, his voice was so close to her ear that Jacquelyn almost flinched.

“I’ve heard that all those tight lacings sometimes kindled ‘impure desires.’ You being female and all, tell me—is that possible, you think?”

She spun around to face him, stepping back away from his invasion of her personal space. But not before she caught the scent of him—a decidedly masculine aroma of good leather and bay rum aftershave. The smell made her stomach quiver, as if it had some kind of hormonal effect on her, as if it kind of…kind of…turned her on.