Everyone on the ranch knew John Carey’s love of practical jokes. So Zach fixed the younger man with a questioning stare. “Before you left her at the lunch site, you did tell her that everybody takes a turn on the chuck wagon?”
“Sort of slipped my mind.”
“Slipped your mind?” Zach asked, pronouncing each word distinctly as he thumbed the reins. “Has anything else slipped your mind?”
John shifted in his saddle, cocked his hat back a notch, and grinned broadly. “Don’t think so, but I was kind of rushing her, since she was a day late and all. Of course, those poky old mules know the range better than I do.”
Suppressing a groan as he wheeled his horse around, Zach said, “Stay here. Mules don’t like thunder any better than cattle. I’ll go and see if there’s anything left of our New York columnist.”
“She’s pretty, too,” John called after Zach.
Pretty? The word rang in Zach’s head like an alarm—it always would. How many pretty women had his father dragged to the ranch over the years? Too many. And without exception they had all worried more about chipping their manicures than enjoying the scenery. A beautiful woman was a different matter. True beauty went clear through to the bone and didn’t peel away with the nail polish. Zach had a sinking feeling that the journalist was going to be pretty.
As he rode he kept his head down as much as possible to shelter his face from the stinging slap of the rain. After he crossed the highway that ran through the range, the downpour finally eased, and he lifted his face to a sprinkle of sweet water, full of wilderness perfume. The scent of rain on the foothills was something he’d never forgotten, not even during the grayest of boarding-school winters.
Turning east, he spurred his horse to a canter and went in search of the chuck wagon. According to plan, it should be over the next rise, nestled next to a stand of Cottonwood trees on the far side of the meadow, coffee simmering on the camp stove. Plan. Zach grinned. Nothing had gone according to plan today.
He topped the rise. The stand of cottonwoods was just as he pictured, but everything else was wrong. The wagon sat a full two hundred yards from the trees, its rear wheels up to their hubs in mud. A woman stood with her back to him, a neon pink rain slicker thrown on the ground beside her and her hands on her hips. Zach watched in amazement as the woman spoke to the wagon.
“Don’t you dare think you’ve won. I haven’t given up. I’m only resting. And plotting,” she warned ominously.
Tucking her hands in the back pockets of sopping-wet, mud-splattered jeans, she rocked back and forth for a few moments. Suddenly she straightened and marched toward the wagon. A thick braid of dark hair hung past the small of her back and swayed as she walked. As soon as she grabbed for the long plank normally used as an impromptu buffet table, Zach eased his horse forward.
“Need some help, Cookie?” he asked quietly.
“What?” Niki’s heart skipped a beat, and her question was more a gasp than a word. As she whirled to face the man with the deep, slow voice, Niki’s right boot heel sank into the soft ground. Tilting backward, she windmilled her arms to restore her balance, lost the battle, and landed rump first in the mud.
“Well, spit!”
“Excuse me?”
By the time Niki looked up, mirth struggled with exasperation, and when she realized that the cowboy in front of her thought she wanted him to spit, she dissolved into laughter. The opening line for a column popped into her mind. The Western version of “out of the frying pan and into the fire” is “out of the chuck wagon and into the mud.”
Finally she pulled herself together. Between hiccups of laughter, Niki studied the man. Against the silvery backdrop of the sky, the man sat his dapple gray horse easily, leaning on the pommel of his saddle. The brim of his Stetson shadowed his face, but Niki was positive his features would be as cleanly chiseled as any of the hard-edged cowboys depicted in western art collections. When he spoke, his voice chased a slow shiver down her spine.
“Are you okay?”
Niki raised an eyebrow. “I’m sitting in mud. But nothing’s broken, so I guess I’m all right.”
“You sure are all right. I give you an eight for style. You’d have scored nine out of ten points, but I had to penalize you a point for landing on your braid,” Zach drawled, enjoying the look of astonishment on her face as his last words registered.
A curse exploded from Niki as she snatched the braid out from under her and scrambled to her feet. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“Considering what the rest of you looks like, I didn’t think it mattered.”
“What?” Niki asked. Then she looked down and grimaced. “I look like hell.”
“Exactly,” Zach agreed, hiding a smile as he dismounted. Rain and mud destroyed any claim she might have had to fashion. Her purple T-shirt hung four inches lower on the right side than the left, and the dampness plastered the thin cotton to her curves. But it was the gaping tear in her jeans that captured Zach’s attention. The provocative slit bared the smooth flesh of her thigh almost to the hip.
“Eli’s paying for these jeans,” Niki announced disgustedly as she surveyed the damage. “Do you have any idea what a good pair of acid-washed jeans costs? Forget about that.” She flipped the muddy braid over her shoulder and sighed. “Do you know how long I’ve been breaking in this pair of jeans?”
As soon as she lifted moss green eyes to his, Zach decided to explain the difference between beautiful and pretty to John Carey. Eyelashes still wet from the rain glittered, and a generous smudge of mud graced one creamy cheek, but it was her voice that tipped the scale to beautiful. It was rich, full of confidence, smooth and sexy. Zach suspected people fell into intimate conversations with this woman without remembering she was a stranger.
“Why should Eli pay?” Zach asked, intrigued by her logic. He had expected her to ask the ranch for reimbursement.
“Because he’s my idiot editor, and he sent me here thinking this experience would be good for a few laughs and a few columns. Of course, the joke’s on me,” Niki explained patiently as she tried to blow a few incorrigible strands of hair from her face. Giving up, she looked back at the cowboy, scrubbed one hand against her shirt, and held it out. “I’m Niki Devlin—slave to editorial whims.”
Zach laughed and took her hand, noticing that despite the cool day, her hand was warm, like her eyes. He hesitated a moment before saying, “Call me Zach. So the cattle drive wasn’t your idea?”
“Do I look like I belong here? Do I look like I like the outdoors?”
With a straight face, Zach wondered aloud, “Is it that you don’t like the outdoors or that the outdoors doesn’t like you?”
“At the moment, it’s a mutual dislike,” she said easily. “Now that we’ve settled that, do you think you can help me get this wagon out of the mud?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Zach answered soberly, pulling leather gloves out of his back pocket. He was unaccountably pleased that she’d included herself in the solution to the problem. And he was worried about being pleased—but not as much as he was worried about purposely omitting his last name during the introductions.
A split second before he introduced himself, Zach knew he wanted to put off the inevitable moment of recognition as long as possible. People had a habit of pulling away from political candidates, or worse, they clung to them like leeches, grabbing for the limelight. He realized it was the height of conceit to believe a woman from New York would recognize him as a candidate for the Wyoming state senate, but even if she didn’t connect the Weston name with politics, she’d know he was more than a cowhand. She’d come to the Weston Ranch to research cattle-drive vacations, and he didn’t want her to start pumping him with questions for her column.
Right now all he wanted was to be Zach. Not the rising young political star, not a Weston of Weston Industries, not Z. P. Weston the rancher and commercial cattleman, not even Zach Weston the trail boss. He wanted to leave all the baggage attached to his nam
e in the closet. And he wanted to enjoy Niki Devlin’s slapdash approach to life.
“Well, New York, you had the right idea when you reached for the plank.”
A smile of pure pleasure crossed Niki’s face as she gave the wagon a superior look. “I knew it!”
Zach chuckled and led his horse to the back of the wagon to tie the reins. When he turned, he saw Niki struggling with the plank. “Whoa, your balance is off. You’ll land in the soup again.”
“Right,” Niki agreed instantly. “Here, you take it. Better you than me anyway.”
As he came up beside her and took the board, Niki noticed his eyes were gunmetal gray and serious, almost guarded. Only the wrinkles around them gave evidence that he had a sense of humor. And she’d been right about the face, all gorgeous planes and angles, rugged and handsome. Perfect column material. Stepping away from him, she made a mental note to get his story.
“Niki, go around to the other side and help me move this plank into position,” Zach ordered as thunder boomed behind them, unleashing a torrent of rain.
This time Niki savored the drenching, letting the water wash the mud away, knowing it would be days before she’d see a real bath again. She grasped the plank firmly, helping Zach work it carefully under the leading edge of the rear wheels.
“That ought to help,” Zach said, satisfied with the job. “I’ll get my horse, then you give it a try.”
Niki retrieved her raincoat and tossed it onto the wagon seat before climbing up. When she unwrapped the leads and slipped the brake, she asked Zach, atop his horse, “You ready?”
“Do it.”
Niki snapped and clucked exactly as she had been taught, willing the wagon to move. This time it did. She focused on the stand of cottonwoods and didn’t look back until she’d reached them. Slowing the mules, she recognized a silly feeling of accomplishment for having made it to her destination. Zach rode up beside her as she set the brake, and Niki grinned at him, inviting his congratulations.
“Okay, Cookie, it’s New York 1, Wyoming 0,” he acknowledged and wondered if she knew her smile could pull the weary right out of a man’s bones. “You’re ahead. For now. But where’s the warm fire, coffee, and lunch?”
Niki’s eyes narrowed at his cavalier praise of her accomplishment. “I’m not your Cookie, and as to your coffee, ask your boss. He’s the one who assigned me to the chuck wagon without bothering to find out if I could chuck!”
“You can’t chuck?” Zach asked.
“I couldn’t boil water with a blow torch,” Niki said dryly. “Any suggestions?”
“Meals with Three Ingredients.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a cookbook. Even a city girl could follow it.”
“That lets me out,” Niki said, jumping down from the wagon. “I’m not a city girl. I was born, and raised in a small town. So get off your horse and show me how to make coffee for cowboys.”
“You’re serious?” asked Zach, throwing a leg over his saddle and sliding to the ground in a fluid movement.
Niki nodded and put her hands on her hips, not looking the least bit embarrassed. “Yes, I’m serious, unless you happen to have a coffeemaker and an electrical outlet handy. Why? Don’t you know how to make fifty cups of coffee either?”
Zach knew a challenge when he heard one. His eyes slid over her, tracing a path from the tips of her boots all the way to the swell of her breasts, then to the curve of her mouth. “Actually, I can manage a mean bucket of coffee when called upon, but I’m better at intimate dinners for two.”
“Is that an invitation?” Niki asked right on cue in an unconsciously husky voice. When Zach moved closer, her stomach did an unplanned flip. He was too tall, too confident, and too close.
“If it were, would you accept?” Zach asked softly, dropping his gaze to the soaked purple T-shirt, which left everything and nothing to his imagination. Anticipation curled in his belly, and he branded her with his gaze, knowing he would rather have pulled her into his arms and branded her with his lips. Suddenly the air of friendly camaraderie was replaced by a tension that Zach could not explain. Nor could he explain why her eyes darkened in alarm before regaining their sparkle.
Niki panicked as she remembered she had both feet firmly planted on Wyoming soil, the one place in which she had to maintain perfect control. Your feet might be planted firmly, but everything else is a bit shaky. What are you doing, Niki? You’re flirting in the rain. It might not mean anything in New York, but in Cutter’s Creek it does. At least it does if you do it, so cut it out. Keep it light. Otherwise, this cowboy’ll gobble you up for dinner.
“I don’t care for the strong, silent cowboy type. No offense. However, considering my present circumstances, I’d date an ax murderer if I thought he’d give me a recipe. So are you going to help me or not?”
“Sure,” Zach said, stepping back immediately and nodding toward the wagon. “Let’s get out of the rain.” And we’ll both pretend this sticky little moment didn’t happen.
First he showed her how to stake the special awning attached to the back of the wagon. Then he set up the camp stove beneath it, and explained how to control the gas flame. For the life of her, Niki couldn’t understand why she forgot to breathe every time he looked her way to see if she understood his instructions. But she did forget. Of course, Zach didn’t just happen to flick a glance her way and then look away. No, he made instant eye contact and stopped her heart as he held the contact a few seconds longer than necessary. When he shucked his gray rain slicker and climbed the drop steps into the wagon to give her the guided tour of the amenities, Niki took several deep breaths and wondered why she felt as if she’d just been thrown to the lions.
As soon as she followed him inside, Zach knew the guided tour was a mistake. The closeness inside the wagon conspired to make him more conscious of her than when they’d been standing toe-to-toe in the rain. He found himself wondering what shade of brown her hair would be when it dried, and whether she ever wore it loose. If she’d been wearing perfume, the fragrance was gone, replaced by the crisp scent of rain and meadow grasses.
She didn’t say a word when he leaned across to flip open one of the built-in cabinets, accidentally pressing against her, and he didn’t think he could have said anything if he’d tried. The electric hum that pulsed through his veins at the contact startled him. Their wet T-shirts were little more than second skins, and the shock of feeling her softness against him robbed him of words.
By the time he’d managed to list the food stocked in the wagon, he knew he was fighting a losing battle. Every time he moved, he touched her, but he’d be damned if he was going to apologize for the size of the wagon! Abruptly, Zach slammed the cabinet and moved away.
“If you need it, just look for it. Chances are it’s in here somewhere.” He stepped down to the ground and added, “Use the water in the big barrels strapped to the sides of the wagon.”
The intimacy of the wagon had been torture on Niki’s nerves. Trying to pretend nonchalance when she could almost feel the beating of his heart against hers had been impossible, and she exhaled a sigh of relief when he left. The rain had stopped, Niki noted as she watched him through the oval opening in the canvas. He struggled with the knot he’d tied in the reins. Obviously, the intimacy had effected him too. Good. She was secretly glad to see a chink in his armor.
As she leaned out of the wagon he looked up and asked, “Any questions?”
“Only two.”
“Shoot.”
“Who does the dishes?”
Zach pointed at her. “Next question.”
“You do work for the ranch, don’t you? I mean, you’re not a cattle rustler?”
Zach, who was leading his horse, did a double take. “A what?”
“A cattle rustler. One who rustles cows and chuck wagons.” Shrugging her shoulders, Niki said, “I thought I ought to ask.”
“I work for the ranch,” he assured her, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
/>
“What do you do?”
“Whatever needs to be done. Like going back for the buffet table we left on the ground.” He walked his horse a few more feet and then mounted in a swift, practiced motion. Once he was in the saddle, he looked back at her and said, “I’d hurry up with those sandwiches if I were you. First shift’s going to be here any time now.”
“What about the coffee?”
“I’ll be back.”
That’s what worries me, Niki admitted silently. Inside the wagon she found a bucket-sized jar of peanut butter, a quart of grape jelly, and two loaves of whole wheat bread. Rain pattered against the canvas while she smeared peanut butter and jelly on slice after slice of bread and reminded herself to keep her distance from Zach. That was one man she had no business encouraging. She tried to tell herself that part of her attraction to him was the cowboy mystique that she and every other young girl had been spoon-fed from infancy.
Unfortunately, Niki couldn’t convince herself. New York had its share of urban cowboys with expensive alligator boots, ten-gallon hats, and tight, button-fly jeans. She’d never been remotely attracted to them, which meant her attraction to Zach had nothing to do with cowboy mystique.
Quirky hormones. That was her problem. Her brain and her libido couldn’t seem to agree on the right time and the right place, much less the right man. They never had and, she suspected, they never would.
She was here to gather material for her syndicated column “Heartbeat.” Nothing else. Especially if the else was Cowboy Zach from Cutter’s Creek. What was his last name? Had she forgotten it already? She didn’t remember his perfect profile from high school, which meant he had to be a newcomer. He must have moved to Cutter’s Creek sometime during the past eight years.
Why anyone would want to move to a small town like Cutter’s Creek, full of narrow-minded, mean-spirited people, was beyond Niki’s imagination. She’d spent the last year of high school dreaming of nothing but getting out … getting away from the hushed conversations and painfully understanding stares. Niki smiled grimly to herself as she cut the sandwiches into triangles. There’s nothing like a painful past to shape a better future. She had no intention of allowing herself to become involved with a hometown cowboy, despite quirky hormones.