A Cowboy's Angel

Who was she trying to convince? Him? Or her?

He almost laughed. And she still wouldn’t look at him, and that was when he knew. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she found him attractive.

Well, well, well.

Little Miss Animal-Rights Activist was into him. He wasn’t sure if he should be flattered...or scared.

“Don’t worry,” he said softly, closing the distance between them and tipping her chin up.

She gasped.

He tried not to laugh. He had no idea why he did it except maybe he supposed it had something to do with the number of times she’d driven him insane with her actions and her comments and her innuendos and assumptions.

He pretended to examine her. “Your eyes aren’t dilated or glazed over, so no hypoglycemia.”

“That’s good,” she said softly.

“But if you fall down, I’ll catch you.”

He released her. She blinked. He smiled. She turned the same color as her hair.

Oh, yeah. She found him attractive, all right.

So what are you going to do about it?

Drive her crazy, he told himself. Completely and utterly crazy. Maybe then she’d leave him alone.

Chapter Three

She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Mariah ran back to her car while he finished up with the pasture horses. With any luck, she’d have gained control of her emotions by the time they met up again, at least she hoped so, anyway, as she pulled to a stop in front of his home. She found herself pausing for a moment after reaching between the passenger seat and driver’s seat and grabbing a brown bag with her hors d’oeuvres.

She peered out the front windshield in curiosity. His home was gorgeous. A real showplace. Absolutely nothing of the original ranch remained. The outside consisted of three A-frames that sat side by side, with the middle portion bigger than the rest. Redwood siding complemented the massive windows along the front. The landscaping alone had to have cost 100 grand.

When she opened the car door and stepped outside, she could smell the redwood mulch used to line the planters of the gardens.

At least she didn’t smell him anymore.

He’d told her to go on inside, but it still felt odd to open one of the double doors.

“Wow.”

Okay. There was nice, and then there was niiiice. Cavernous didn’t begin to describe the place. Huge beams supported the middle-section roofline—like the rib cage of a dinosaur. A parquet floor stretched from the fireplace on her right to the entertainment center on her left. Straight ahead a trio of windows overlooked the backside of the ranch with a stunning view of low-lying mountains outside.

“Must be nice,” she heard herself mutter, heading to the left, where she could see the gleam of state-of-the-art kitchen appliances. After vet school she’d inherited a pile of debt and a liability insurance policy the size of a mortgage. It was why she didn’t have her own practice. Not yet, anyway. By the time she made her student loan payment and paid the rent and insurance, not to mention a medical truck payment, she’d be lucky to clear five hundred dollars a month, not enough to live off, and certainly not enough to start her own business. Getting hired by an established vet—someone who could split expenses with her—was the first step toward that happening. And so she waited, and in the meantime she filled in for vacationing veterinarians whenever she could, which wasn’t nearly as often as she needed. Thus the old jalopy outside.

The kitchen was just as spacious and grandiose as the foyer. Stainless-steel everything, light brown countertops with spots like quail eggs, tile on the floor instead of parquet. She set the bag down on the island in the middle, almost afraid to make a mess. If this was being small-time, where did she sign up?

Five minutes later she had just finished stirring the Parmesan cheese into her spinach dip when she heard the front door open.

Oh, dear.

Two seconds later he walked into the kitchen, the smell of him reaching her before he did: it wasn’t shavings she’d smelled on him earlier, but some kind of fresh-cut grass and sweat and some sort of pine-scented aftershave that had caused her just as much discomfort inside as it had outside.

“Whatever that is, it looks delicious.” He cocked his cowboy hat back a bit and peered into the dish. “What is it?”

He was tall. She liked tall men. They made her feel feminine and secure and somehow safe.

He’s a racehorse owner, the sane part of her screamed. Heck, and a horse trainer, too.

But he’d agreed to let her help him. That meant something.

“It’s cheesy spinach dip.” She tried like heck not to edge away from him, but she could feel the heat radiate off of him, which, in turn, made her feel flush. “There’s enough calories in that to clog an artery or two.”

He leaned down close to her, so close she could see the dark blue ring around his eyes. “You trying to kill me, then?”

He could have no way of knowing how just being next to him was killing her. No way at all, but she could have sworn she saw the glimmer of something in his eyes, something that made her skin prickle.

“It’s really good.” She sounded like a timid little girl.

He had really white teeth and a smile that made it difficult to hold his gaze. “What do we dip?”

She pointed with her chin toward the brown bag. The moment he stepped away, the muscles in her shoulders collapsed. Her legs damn near did, too.

He found the pieces of the French loaf she’d cut up earlier, his look of pleasure as he dipped a fluffy piece of bread, lifted it to his mouth, then chewed doing strange things to her insides.

“Forget dinner. We should eat this.”

“That’s okay with me.”

He smiled. “Nah. I have something special planned. Braised short ribs with a port arsenic reduction.”

It took her a moment to follow his words, which just went to show how discombobulated she was. “Uh-huh.”

All right. So he made her feel all silly and tongue-tied and teenager-like inside. Oh, well. She’d get over it.

“Just kidding.”

He was? She straightened in embarrassment. How had she missed that?

You were too busy ogling him.

“Seriously,” he said. “I’m making fajitas. Simple.” He went to the fridge and began pulling out the ingredients—a package of beef, a bell pepper, an onion and grated cheddar cheese—and then set them on the island next to her brown bag. “Only takes a moment. Sit down while I brown the meat and onions. You can tell me your plans for Dasher.”

She told herself to focus on what she’d come to do, not how the light from a window along the front of the house cast a glow onto his face, highlighting the dusky outline of his whiskers. He had a chin right out of a comic book and the shoulders to match. Hours out of doors had turned his skin a deep mahogany that emphasized the cobalt of his eyes. He kept peeking at her as he unwrapped the meat and set it on a cutting board.

“Go on,” he encouraged.