Cowboy Up

Stupid thinking, too. How could he have sexual feelings for a woman who continued to bleed her hardworking father for money while sneering at that good man’s lifestyle? A woman like that shouldn’t interest Clay in the least and definitely shouldn’t stir his animal instincts. Ah, but she did. Damn it, she did.

Maybe she presented a challenge to his male ego and all he really wanted to do was take her down a peg. He was far more confident around women now than he had been ten years ago, and he realized that they found him attractive. Could be he’d like to prove to Miss Emily that a shit-kicking cowboy could ring her chimes better than any city boy.

He wouldn’t follow up on that urge, though. Emmett had been like family. The guy was his idol. That meant Clay wasn’t going to mess with Emily. End of story.

“CLAY WHITAKER SEEMS to have turned out okay.” Emily congratulated herself on sounding vaguely interested, when inside a wild woman shouted Take me, you bad boy! Take me, now!

She watched Clay walk across the open area between the horse barn and the tractor barn. A girl could get used to that view—tight buns in faded jeans and shoulders broad enough to easily support a large canister of horse semen. Horse semen, of all things!

She was dying to know how that process worked. Biology had been her favorite subject in high school, but her mother, a buyer for Chico’s, had steered her into fashion design. Unfortunately, she had no talent for it.

Collecting horse semen—now that would be interesting. Apparently it was a sweaty job. The back of Clay’s shirt clung to his sexy torso and the dark hair curling from under his hat made him look as if he’d stuck his head beneath a faucet. The guy was hot in more ways than one, and pheromones had been coming off him in waves.

He must have had those same deep brown eyes when he was eighteen; but, if so, they hadn’t registered with her. Today was a different story. Looking into his gorgeous eyes had produced an effect on her libido that was off the Richter scale. Either Clay had acquired a boatload of sexual chemistry over the years, or she’d been a stupid seventeen-year-old who hadn’t recognized his potential.

She wondered if she’d been rude to him back then. At the time she’d been full of herself and full of her mother’s prejudices against cowboys. If she had been rude, she hoped he’d forgotten it by now. He probably had, after not seeing her for so long.

“Clay’s developed into a top hand.” Emmett studied her as if trying to guess what was going on in her head.

“That’s good to hear.” She didn’t want him to figure out what she was thinking, either. “I know you’re fond of him.” In fact, she’d been a little jealous over the years when he’d bragged about Clay, although she’d never admit that to her dad. On the other hand, knowing Emmett had Clay had eased her conscience about not visiting more often.

“He’s a good guy,” Emmett said. “So, do you still want that coffee? ”

“What? Oh, right! Yes. Absolutely.” At home she’d developed a midmorning Starbucks habit, something she’d confessed to Emmett during their tour of the barn when she realized she was running low on energy. But the encounter with Clay had boosted her spirits without the benefit of caffeine. Still, coffee was always welcome. She fell into step beside her father as they continued on to the house.

“I don’t know if I told you that Clay got his degree in animal science this spring.”

“I don’t think you mentioned that.” She knew he wasn’t comparing Clay to her, but still, she’d dropped out of college because she couldn’t see wasting the money when she didn’t know what she wanted to study.

Her mother kept pushing retail, preferably involving fashion. Emily’s heart wasn’t in it, and finally she’d told her mother so. She’d briefly considered marine biology and had volunteered in the field, but that hadn’t felt quite right.

Her current receptionist job couldn’t be called a career decision, either. She sighed. “When I see somebody like Clay, who has his act together, I feel like a slacker.”

Emmett shook his head. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. Some people take longer than others to figure out what they want to do.”

“Maybe so, but Clay’s had so many obstacles to overcome …”

“We all have obstacles.”

“I suppose, but you told me he spent his childhood going from one foster home to the next. That’s major trauma.”

“You haven’t had a bed of roses, either, what with no father around.”

“That wasn’t your fault, Dad.” She hated that he still felt guilty about the divorce, nearly twenty-five years after the fact. Before she’d been old enough to think for herself, she’d accepted her mother’s assessment that Emmett was to blame for the divorce. Gradually she’d come to see that it had been a bad match that was doomed from the start.

“It was partly my fault,” Emmett said. “First off I let your mother take you to California, and then I only came over to visit two or three times.”

“Yes, but Santa Barbara isn’t your kind of place.” They’d reached the steps going up to the porch and her dad’s boots hit the wood with a solid sound she’d missed hearing. She’d missed other things, too, like the way his gray hair curled a little at the nape of his neck, and how his face creased in a smile and his blue eyes grew warm and crinkly with love when he looked at her.

She hadn’t always appreciated how handsome he was because she’d been so influenced by her mother’s assessment of cowboys as unsophisticated hicks who went around with a piece of straw clenched in their teeth. Her dad did that sometimes, but he also moved with fluid grace, and he was as lean and muscled as a man half his age.

He blew out a breath, which made his mustache flutter a bit. “Doesn’t matter if it’s my kind of place or not. I should’ve visited more often.” He paused with one hand on the brass doorknob. “I’m sorry for that, Emily. More sorry than I can say.”

“It’s okay.” Bracing her hands on his warm shoulder, she rose on tiptoe and leaned in under the brim of his hat to give him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ve always known you love me.”

“More than anything.” His voice was rough with emotion. “Which is why we both need to get some coffee in us before we turn into blubbering fools and embarrass ourselves.”

“And a Sterling never turns into a blubbering fool.”

“That’s exactly right.” Clearing his throat, Emmett opened the door and ushered her inside.

Although the main house didn’t have air conditioning, the thick log walls kept the rooms cool even in the heat of summer. The second story helped, too. Emily adored the winding staircase that, according to her dad, had been expertly crafted more than thirty years ago by the Chance boys’ grandpa Archie.

Emmett had told her that Archie had been a master carpenter who’d designed every aspect of this massive home for both beauty and practicality. Even Emily’s mother, who pretty much despised anything to do with ranching, had once confessed that she found the house to be spectacular.

A huge rock fireplace dominated the living room, and although no fire burned there, the scent of cedar smoke had worked its way into the brown leather armchairs and sofa gathered in front of the hearth. No doubt the large Navajo rugs hanging on the walls had absorbed the smell of the fire, too. Its woodsy fragrance combined with that of lemon oil furniture polish would always be connected in Emily’s mind to the Last Chance.

She’d assumed salt air and ocean waves were her favorite backdrop; but walking into this living room late last night had felt a bit like coming home. Because her dad’s little cabin was small, Emily stayed upstairs in the main house when she visited. She hadn’t thought she was particularly attached to the place, but last night she’d realized that wasn’t true. She loved it here.

Her dad caught her looking around the living room. “Maybe if I’d provided your mother with a house like this,” he began, “then she—”

“She still wouldn’t have been happy. Face it, Dad. She isn’t content unless she’s living by the ocean near some really good shopping.”

“I discovered that too late.”

“So did she.” And Jeri had never remarried, which told Emily that her mother had loved her dad and probably still did. Although Emma might be the feminine version of the name Emmett, Emily was darned close. “She married you without stopping to think that she finds horses and dogs exceedingly smelly.”

Emmett laughed. “And she’s right, they are. But I happen to love that about them.”

“Believe it or not, I kind of do, too.”

He thumbed back his hat to look at her. “I had a feeling you did.”

“All along I’ve pretended that taking barn tours and riding was a drag, but the truth is, I’ve always looked forward to being around the animals.”

“You’d better not let your mother hear you say that.”

“I know. I suppose I thought it would be disloyal to her if I said I liked them.” She gazed at him for several seconds. All her life she’d been told that ranching was nothing but dust, horse poop and endless drudgery. Because of that she’d told herself her visits were only an obligation to maintain a connection with her father.

She’d let three years go by since the last time, and she might not have made the trip this summer except that her father was turning sixty. To her surprise, she was really glad to be here. And she’d finally admitted to her dad that barns and horses appealed to her.

In fact, she had the urge to spend more time hanging out at the barn and getting to know the horses. Of course, that could have something to do with Clay Whitaker. Clearly if she wanted to see more of Clay she’d need to become involved with the animals he tended.

She turned toward her father. “Do you think we could take a ride this afternoon? ”

“I might be able to work that out. I need to pick up some supplies today, and maybe we could stretch that into a little shopping trip in Jackson.” He brightened. “I could ask Pam to come along so you could meet her. You two could shop while I warm a bench outside.”

“That sounds great, Dad.” Actually, it didn’t. He’d told her last night about Pam Mulholland, who owned the Bunk & Grub, a bed-and-breakfast inn down the road. It seemed her father had a girlfriend, and Emily wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “But I meant a horseback ride.”