A Cowboy's Angel

It was that damn red hair of hers. And the freckles. He turned away before she caught a glimpse of what he was thinking in his eyes.

“Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I promise, you won’t regret this.”

Actually, he already did.

Chapter Two

Mariah was as anxious as a cat in a room full of dogs as she drove down a lonely country road three hours later. Low-lying hills long since turned brown by the hot summer sun surrounded her. It was a view she usually enjoyed. Not today.

He’d agreed to see her.

Okay, okay, so there was the little matter of dinner. Any other owner and it’d be no big deal. Any other owner was at least sixty years old and could have easily been her dad. Zach Johnson couldn’t be much older than her twenty-six years and was, gosh darn it all, good-looking.

Thank God he had no clue how much he affected her.

She bashed her hand against the steering wheel of her ancient Honda Civic. She hated the fact that every time she spotted him at the racetrack, she found herself first noticing his tight jeans—and the nicely sculpted rear beneath—before she took note of the horses he schooled from the rail. The man was a bona fide hottie. She’d had that very conversation with her fellow CEASE members more than once, their discussion always ending with too bad he was a racehorse owner. It drove them crazy that anyone with the dark good looks of a soap opera star could race horses for a living. Not just race them but breed them and raise them, too. In some ways he was worse because he was one of the people responsible for the skyrocketing number of unwanted horses, those horses that would never be raced and that would ultimately end their days in the back of a makeshift horse trailer, transported to Mexico, where they would suffer at the hands of a meat processor.

Her stomach twisted.

Not if she could help it.

Up ahead the sign for the Triple J Ranch came into view. It was nestled in the heart of Via Del Caballo, California, and the land alone was worth millions. The residents of the area called it horsey central—with good reason. Farms were everywhere, their white fences intersecting the landscape as if God played an aerial game of tic-tac-toe. And what wasn’t horse farms was vineyards. The Triple J was right in the middle of it all. She’d looked them up on the internet once upon a time, back when she’d first spotted Zach Johnson at Golden Downs and been told who he was. Second-generation racehorse breeder. Quarter horses, not Thoroughbreds, which meant he specialized in sprinters. The fastest animal in a quarter mile, their breeders often touted. That wasn’t exactly true, but it made for great PR.

Her tires lost purchase on the gravel near the entrance to the ranch as she slammed on the brakes, nearly missing the turn. She cursed inwardly. Not paying attention. Too distracted by thoughts of Mr. Magnificent.

White fence rails guided her down a long straight road, one with trees on either side. To her left and right were pastures with emerald-colored grass clipped down by grazing horses. The two pastures were at least twenty acres apiece. Up ahead, perched atop a small knoll, was the main house, a huge behemoth of a structure whose windows caught the sun’s last rays turning them gold. Originally it’d been a single A-frame, but his parents had completely renovated the place by the early ’90s. Some said the remodel had caused Zach’s parents’ divorce.

That last part was track gossip, but she believed it because she’d heard from a number of sources that Samantha Johnson had damn near bankrupted the ranch after having the place overhauled, and then she’d run off with the general contractor, leaving James Johnson to raise his son. When he’d died two years ago, Zach had inherited the two-hundred-acre ranch, the racing operation and a pile of debt. More track gossip, only this time she wasn’t certain if it was true.

The place was stunning. Certainly well kempt. At the end of a drive sat a horseshoe turnaround. A sign pointed her to the right, the word Office painted in gold against a red backdrop. She followed the directions. A parking area had been set up straight ahead. A single-story barn stood to the left, and to her right, a flat-roofed building, the office, she presumed. She pulled up next to a golf cart already parked in a spot between the two structures. Another white fence stretched between the two buildings, yet another pasture on the other side. On the top rail someone had posted a reserved sign where the golf cart had been parked.

“Here we go,” she muttered, then took a deep breath, wondering if she should have driven up to the house and parked there. Great. He was probably watching her from his dining room window wondering what the hell she’d been thinking to park down at his barn. She almost backed out of the spot, but movement caught her eye.

Zach Johnson.

Her breath caught. He stood at the entrance to the barn, a straw cowboy hat on his head, his eyes shielded by the brim, but not his lower jaw. Its strong outline could be seen clearly, as could his mouth, razor stubble growing above and around it. He was one of those men who always seemed to have a five-o’clock shadow, no matter if it was seven in the morning or eight at night. Dark hair. Dark eyes. She’d always thought them brown until she’d noticed today they were a dark, dark blue, made darker by the thick black lashes that surrounded them.

Lord help her.

“Glad you didn’t go up to the house,” he said as she slowly stepped out of her car, the black short-sleeved shirt he wore revealing tan arms. “I’m in the middle of feeding. You want to tag along?”

Good-looking, friendly and willing to talk to her about how they might save unwanted racehorses’ lives.

“Oh, um...” Not really. “Sure,” she called back, hoping he didn’t see the way she wilted against the side of her car.

Maybe having dinner with him was a bad idea.

Go on. Move. He’s not going to bite.

No, but she wished he would bite the side of her neck, maybe suckle it—

Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it.

Why, oh why, did the man have this kind of effect on her? It was crazy how every time she saw him, her heart would beat like the skin of a drum. Her palms would grow sweaty. And her body would buzz and warm in places it had no business buzzing and warming. None at all.

“Come on. We’ll use the golf cart. I already fed the barn.”

He walked toward her. All she could do was nod and then push away from the side of her car.

Get a grip.

Sexual attraction. Inconvenient, inconceivable, stupid sexual attraction. In college she’d had the hots for one of her professors. Eventually it’d worn off. Hopefully, this would, too.

“Um, nice place.” She ducked beneath the canvas roof of the cart as she climbed in next to him and he smelled... Oh, he smelled sooooo nice. Like sage and sawdust with a hint of sweat.

“Thanks.” He started the engine, the reverse gear popping into place with a jerk, something that seemed to be universal to golf carts the world over. “My parents built the barns and the fencing, but the house is original to the property.”

Should she admit she knew that? Wouldn’t he find that stalkerlike? “I read about that on your website.”

He glanced at her quickly. Yup. Definitely thought her stalkerlike.

“I research all the racehorse owners.”

Beneath his straw hat, a mixture of amusement and devilry shone in his skyline-colored eyes. “Oh, I’m sure. I bet you have dossiers on all of us.”

He shifted the cart into first gear, and she had a feeling he looked away only because he’d been about to laugh.

“It’s nothing personal.”

Why are you defending yourself? Geez, get a grip.

Because it was personal with him, she admitted, and all because of this damn ridiculous physical attraction. She’d known it from the start too. Usually, she went online to find out more about a racing stable’s operations—the number of stallions they had, if they bred their own broodmares, how many foals dropped in a year, that kind of thing. She’d be lying, though, if she didn’t admit to clicking around on the Triple J Ranch’s website looking for more information about Zach. What had he called himself? Small-time? Something like that, and they were. The Triple J Ranch could easily house dozens of racehorses, but she’d only counted four broodies out front. They didn’t have a stallion at stud, either. She’d heard they’d had to put him down a couple years ago, but she couldn’t deny that all that information had been secondary to finding out if he had a wife or kids or a girlfriend.

She was such an idiot.

“Sorry about your horse,” she blurted, because there she went blushing again. They were driving toward a shed, one that served as cover for the pasture animals on one side and looked to be some kind of storage facility on the other side. “Bad luck.”

“You have no idea.”

A soft breeze wafted across her face. It blew the smell of him away from her and allowed her to focus more on what she was at the Triple J to do.

Thank God.

“If Doc Miller suggests a fasciotomy, don’t do it.”

She felt him glance over at her. She was trying to keep her eyes straight ahead, but it was hard to resist the urge to turn and meet his gaze.

“It’s an unproven procedure that might end up doing more harm than good.”