Killer Cowboy Charm

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Walker. I must say I expected jeans and a Stetson. You’d be right at home on Madison Avenue.”

“Well, I don’t…my foreman, Tucker Benson, he’s the cowboy around here. I’m a business-school major.” That last part was true. Unfortunately his shiny new degree had been no good when it had come to pulling the ranch out of the red.

“Not everyone’s cut out to be a cowboy, Mr. Walker.”

“You can call me Clint.” The words were out before he knew it. Sheesh. And he’d promised himself not to be overly friendly, just polite. Mr. Walker would have suited that plan perfectly.

“I’ll do that.” She hit him with The Smile again before gesturing to the small, wiry guy who climbed from the driver’s side of the van. “This is my cameraman, Jamie Cranston. Jamie, this is Clint Walker, our host.”

“Good to meet you.” Jamie’s handshake was firm. Then he glanced up at the sky. “We still have some daylight left, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to get footage of the ranch. Do you have a bunkhouse?”

“Yes. Behind the main house, over by the corrals.” Clint thought about the usual condition of the bunkhouse. “But the place isn’t very—”

“I’m not interested in a Hollywood bunkhouse,” Jamie said. “I want a real one. If you have a spare bed down there, I’d like to hang out with your ranch hands.”

Clint hadn’t figured on this at all. He’d made up both spare rooms in the main house, planning that she’d take one and her cameraman the other. If the cameraman slept in the bunkhouse, then he and Meg Delancy would be in the big house…alone.

“It’s the best way to get local color,” Jamie said.

Clint could hardly object on the grounds that he wanted Jamie around to chaperone. “Sure, I guess that would be okay.” Jed and Denny would be only too happy to have the cameraman there. They both planned on entering the competition, so hanging out with Jamie would seem like a good way to gain an advantage.

“Great,” Jamie said. “Meg, if you want to grab your suitcase and laptop, I’ll just drive the live truck around to the bunkhouse and unload my camera.”

“What live truck?” Clint glanced around, expecting God-knows-what to materialize.

“That’s what we call the van with all the communications gear in it,” Meg said.

“Oh. Right.” Clint acted as if he’d known that all along.

“We don’t have a whole lot of time here,” Jamie said, “so I want to make use of every minute.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Meg headed to the back of the van, where Jamie had already opened the doors.

Clint glanced inside and saw enough electronic equipment to choke a stable of horses. He supposed they’d need all that to beam stuff to New York, or whatever the plan was.

Meg pulled out a rolling suitcase the size of a hay bale and plunked it to the ground. Then she hooked the strap of a computer case over her shoulder. “I’m all set, Jamie. Take off.”

“Thanks, Meg. See you two later.”

Full-blown panic set in. Clint hadn’t pictured being stuck alone with Meg, especially not five minutes after she’d arrived. “Dinner’s at the main house at six,” he called after Jamie. But that left two incredibly long hours. What in hell’s name could he do with this big-city woman for two hours?

“I’ll be back at six.” With that, Jamie hopped in the van and drove around behind the house.

Clint watched the van until it was out of sight.

“Well, Clint. Here we are.”

Her voice tickled his eardrums in a most unsettling way. A sexual way. This was not good, not good at all. He was supposed to think of her as the enemy. Instead he was more fascinated by the minute.

He glanced down at her. “I guess we should…go on in.”

“I really appreciate you putting me up. I’m sure it’s an imposition.”

“No, not at all.” He reached for her suitcase and lifted it so it would clear the steps. The thing felt as if she’d packed it full of anvils, but he would have expected her to come loaded to the gills with fancy clothes. In fact, she was exactly as he’d pictured her. And instead of being repulsed, he was wildly attracted. It defied logic, but there was the truth of it.

“I’ll show you to your room.” As he trudged up the steps with her bulging suitcase, he pictured her sleeping in that room, then pictured how close her room was to his. Damned if that didn’t get him extremely excited.

2

THE LANDSCAPE DIDN’T provide much inspiration for Meg as she followed Clint into the house, but the view in the foreground was outstanding. She could look at buns like that all day. And those eyes of his—were they really that blue, or was it his tan that made them seem that way?

The tan had her speculating about his claim that he was only a business major and didn’t mess with ranch work. Unless he had tennis courts hidden away somewhere, she’d bet money he did some manual labor around this place. And he moved like a guy who was used to physical activity.

She’d known her share of desk jockeys, and Clint didn’t strike her as the desk-jockey type. He struck her as the yummy type, though. Interesting that he’d deny knowing anything about the very occupation she’d come out here to showcase. Very interesting.

“Here’s your room.” He carried her suitcase into an antiquey sort of place, with a brass bedstead, an old pine dresser and a braided rug on the wooden floor. Shoot, there was even a rocker in the corner. Homespun City.

She spied a door on the far wall. Laying her laptop on the bed, she gestured toward the door. “I imagine that’s the bathroom.”

“No, that’s the closet. The bathroom’s across the hall.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t walked across the hall to a bathroom since she’d lived at home with her family in Brooklyn. “Good thing I brought a bathrobe, huh?”

“Listen, if you’d be more comfortable, I could move you into my room.”

The opening was too obvious to resist. “With you still in it?”

To her surprise, he turned red and cleared his throat. “I meant I’d give you my room and I’d take this one. Mine has an attached bathroom.”

How adorable. He was blushing. This gig might turn out to be more fun than she’d thought back when she and Jamie had first headed down the dusty road to Nowheresville. At least the natives were extremely cute and un-spoiled.

Now that she thought about it, the ultra-sophisticated types she’d met in New York didn’t appeal to her all that much. This guy definitely did. Nothing could come of a fling with him, if she dared chance one, but he was the first man to flip her switches in some time. Then again, she’d been too busy for switch-flipping. And she was too busy now. But this attraction reminded her that she missed sex…a lot.

“I wouldn’t dream of putting you out of your room,” she said. “This room will be just fine.” Or sort of fine. She noticed there was no phone in it, and more important, no television.

“I’d be happy to give you my room. I should have thought of that. Let me take five minutes to change the sheets and move out some of my stuff.”

He really was sweet, and she didn’t want to be a problem child, but this back and forth across the hall business didn’t excite her. “Does your room have a TV?”

“No. The only TV is in the living room, and I need to warn you, the reception isn’t very reliable in Sonoita. Depends on how the wind’s blowing.”

She stared at him, unable to imagine unreliable TV reception. She’d begun to accept the lack of shopping options, but she needed TV reception, or life as she knew it would cease to exist.

Then she had a brainstorm. “So I bet you have a DVD player, for when the reception is bad.”

“Uh, no. I have an old VCR, but it’s cranky. I don’t use it much.”

“So how do you amuse yourself at night?”