Bachelor Cowboy

Luke didn’t release her jaw. Instead his touch lingered. His eyes studied her face. One corner of his mouth tilted upward, but it wasn’t a smile. “Beautiful,” he said, his voice rough. “You’re too damned beautiful.”

The way he said it was an insult. Shannon snapped her head out of his grasp and nearly sent herself into another swoon. She turned, plucked the keys from her pocket and scrabbled for the truck’s door handle. He was there ahead of her.

“You’re in no shape to do this.” He rapped the words out. “I’ll drive you back to town.”

“Absolutely not,” she responded, her eyes flashing as she turned to him. “You’ve done quite enough.”

“No, I haven’t.” He snagged the keys from her hand. “I’ll be right back.”

Shannon watched in impotent fury as he took the horses to the barn, unsaddled them and turned them into the corral. She wanted to run after him and demand the return of the keys. Unfortunately, he was right. She was in no shape to drive or to go tearing around after him.

But he didn’t have to be so high-handed about it.

Accepting defeat, she climbed into the truck and sat behind the wheel, arms folded and lips drawn into an angry line as she waited for him to return with the keys. He was back within a few minutes and didn’t even pause when he saw her. He scooted her aside and took her place behind the steering wheel.

“I guess it won’t do any good to point out that this vehicle belongs to the agency and only its employees are allowed to drive it?” she asked.

“You’re right. It won’t do any good at all. Fasten your seat belt.”

“How will you get home?”

Luke stuck his right thumb in the air. “I’ll hitchhike.”

Shannon turned in her seat to examine his grim profile, the hard set of his jaw. With his face shadowed beneath the brim of his black hat, he reminded her of a gunslinger of the old west. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “There’ll be any number of people willing to pick you up.”

“I bet you’d be surprised.”

“Not today,” she said wearily. “Nothing about you would surprise me.”

He stopped at the highway to wait for traffic and shaved a look in her direction. “You don’t have this whole diplomacy thing down too firmly, do you, Miss Kelleher?”

“I thought I did until I met you, Mr. Farraday.”

That brought another of those gritty laughs.

Shannon didn’t respond. She wasn’t accustomed to feeling unsettled, infuriated and powerless all at the same time. She’d never been around any man who was so determined to have his own way, who was so convinced his own way was right.

Turning her head, she stared at the scenery they passed. Cattle grazing in the lush grass in a field belonging to the McAdam family gave way to a field of prairie flax waving its lavender blossoms in the breeze. Two years ago, their fields had been as badly overgrazed as Luke’s, but they’d prospered with a little help from her and lots of good management by the McAdams. She wouldn’t waste her breath telling Luke that, though.

She told herself it was none of her business. She had tried and failed, but it galled her.

“Sulking won’t make me change my mind,” Luke said, giving her a sideways glance.

She crossed her arms over her chest.

“You could also stick your bottom lip out and start crying, but that won’t make me change my mind, either.”

Chin in the air, she said, “Even if I thought it would, I wouldn’t resort to that. I’m a professional.”

He didn’t answer, but she saw his face twitch. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was fighting a grin.

They reached Tarrant within twenty minutes, and she directed him to the agency’s office building. It was a small redbrick structure, and the windows of Wiley’s office faced the parking lot. Shannon noticed a shadow behind the miniblinds and knew that her boss lurked there, watching her arrival. He would have something to say to her about letting Luke drive her back to the office. That was okay, though. She had plenty to say to him.

Luke parked the truck, stepped out and hurried around to help her out before she could gather her clipboard and reach for the door handle. When she opened her mouth to speak, he held up his hand. “Don’t bother to thank me. I know you wouldn’t mean it.”

“No,” she responded, exasperated. “I wouldn’t.”

His long, callused fingers touched the brim of his hat. “Then let’s don’t be hypocritical by wishing each other a good day. It hasn’t been a good day for either of us.” With that, he turned and strode toward the street, his long legs and easy stride covering the distance in seconds.

Watching him go, Shannon slumped against the side of the truck and shook her head. “Who was that masked man?” she whispered with a silent laugh. She felt as if she’d spent three hours in his company and knew little more than she had when she’d stood on the floor of his barn and appreciated the sight of his backside.

In that time, she had gone through almost every emotion a person could feel, from appreciation to happiness to fury and indignation. No wonder she was dizzy.

Luke strode around the corner, then stopped and stepped back to see if Shannon was all right. She was just disappearing inside the building. Good. She was safely in her office, at her job, in her own life. She wouldn’t be coming to his place again. He’d made sure of that, though he knew he should be ashamed of his rudeness.

He resumed walking down the wide sidewalk of Tarrant’s main street. If he’d been capable of it, he would have stopped to appreciate what a pretty little town it was, but he hadn’t chosen the area for the beauty of its county seat. He’d bought the Crescent Ranch because he could afford it and he could own it outright. No sharing. Never again would he be in a position to let someone have a say in his place. Not financially. Not agriculturally.

Not even a beautiful range management specialist with midnight blue eyes and black hair was going to tell him how to run his place. Unconsciously, Luke’s hand went to the pocket where he’d tucked her card. Yeah, he’d kept it, though he didn’t know why. He’d never use it.

What he had told her was true. She was too damned beautiful. She was also too damned disturbing. He didn’t need that. He had work to do. Alone. He liked it that way.

He crossed to the side of the street where the traffic was heading east, toward home, and stuck out his thumb. The irony of thinking such thoughts, then begging for a ride wasn’t lost on him, but he wasn’t going to make a practice of asking for things from his neighbors, not even rides. The fewer things he asked for, the fewer obligations he had, the less he would be disappointed. Hurt.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that there was something in Shannon Kelleher’s big eyes and sweet mouth that could disappoint and hurt a man. He didn’t need that.

But her card was in his pocket, and he left it there.

Wiley pounced as soon as she walked in the door. “Who was that guy? And what was he doing driving my truck?”

Shannon lifted an eyebrow as she skirted around him and headed for her small office. “When did the agency sign the truck over to be your personal vehicle?”

“You know what I mean.” He dogged her steps.

In a cool tone, Shannon explained what had happened. Typically, Wiley didn’t express any concern for her welfare. She wasn’t surprised. Her boss was a secretive man whose main interest was himself.

“I know you lied to me when you said no one had contacted him.” She pointed a finger at him. “You tried to call him on the phone last week, and when he wouldn’t talk to you, you sent me out there. How I got back is my own business.”

Wiley’s ferocious frown told her he didn’t care that she knew he’d lied. “Did you do any good out there? Get him to sign on for the project?”

Shannon locked her shoulder bag in her desk drawer and sat down to go through her mail. “Not yet. But I will.” She wished she felt the confidence she put into her voice.

“Humph,” he said, turning to leave her office. “You can’t do this job. They should have hired a man for it.”

Shannon wanted to respond that they should have hired a man for Wiley’s job, too, but that would surely get her into hot water. She was growing weary of the constant struggles with him, and lately his animosity was tinged with an undercurrent she couldn’t quite put her finger on. He watched everything she did almost jealously, but she concluded it was because he had wanted his nephew to get her job. She could only think that he couldn’t seem to forgive her for being better qualified for the job—or for being a woman. Her only consolation was the knowledge that it was his problem, not hers.

As she cleared her desk, Shannon came across the paperwork she’d begun to get Ben and Timmy started on the lengthy grant awards process. They would have needed government money to fix up the Crescent Ranch. Except for their names and the date of purchase, she had filled in all the necessary information. It was true that she wanted to help her cousins, but it was part of her job. She would have done the same thing for a total stranger like Luke Farraday. Maybe she still could. She would hold on to these. He might change his mind. With a wry smile, Shannon told herself she was being ridiculously optimistic. She dropped the forms into a drawer and closed it.

She propped her elbows on her desk and pressed her fingertips to her lips as she wondered if there was any way to get him to change his mind. He’d told her that he didn’t want anyone telling him how to run his place, but she thought there was more to it than that. She didn’t know any rancher who liked government interference, but most of them were willing to work with her for the betterment of their land and cattle. She would have to think about the situation with Luke and see if she could come up with a better approach—just as soon as she stopped dwelling on what a disturbingly attractive man he was.