The Cowboy Who Broke The Mold. Cathleen Galitz

was slightly older than she had first thought. Per- haps it was his lean body that had initially duped her into thinking him to be less than ten years older than she. Or maybe those incredibly tight-fitting jeans had deceived her. Was it merely the unusual combination of blue eyes set against such dark skin that made the man so phenomenally attractive? Or the sense that no woman would ever be able to tame him?

      When her eyes fell upon that all-knowing smile of his, Carrie quickly diverted her gaze to a whimsicallooking creature hanging upon the wall. It was a rabbit with a set of horns growing from its head.

      

      Judson’s eyes twinkled with devilment, and a wicked thought played with the corners of his mouth. A harm- less little practical joke would illustrate far more elo- quently than he himself could the need to send the new teacher back where she belonged.

      “It’s a jackalope,” he offered in explanation.

      Ignoring the tug at his conscience, Judson quickly reminded himself that this delicate woman was simply not the right person for this job. It was a damned shame that Ted Cadenas had been forced into early retirement by a heart attack. With school starting in less than a week, the board members had jumped on the only ap- plication they had received like a trout upon the first mayfly of the season. They’d summarily dismissed Judson’s concern that a city-bred girl would be unable to handle the elements and the isolation of the job.

      “They’re thick around here—and mean,” he contin- ued, warming to his subject. “If you see any around the schoolyard, just get out your shotgun and blast ’em. They’ve been known to gore children if they happen to come between a mama and her bunnylopes.”

      If Judson noticed her skepticism, he didn’t show it. He was too busy cursing himself for falling headlong into eyes the color of a mountain meadow. Hotly he told himself that his desire to see Ms. Raben on an airplane heading in the opposite direction had less to do with the pooling of desire in his loins than the certainty that, with typical Anglo obstinacy, she would force her urban prejudices onto his children.

      “They can carry tularemia—a nasty, contagious disease that you nor your schoolchildren would care to contract. First you bloat up and then—”

      Not wanting to hear all the gruesome details, Carrie cut him off. “Surely blasting the little creatures is a little harsh?” she questioned, envisioning herself point- ing a shotgun out a window and blowing a chunk out of the hillside.

      “Oh, well, if you’re squeamish…” Judson rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I guess I could show you how to trap the little buggers if you’d like. That way you won’t ruin the fur, and if you skin ’em, you can collect a bounty for the pelts.”

      The expression on Carrie’s face indicated that option was not exactly palatable, either.

      “You really…think it’s…necessary to kill them?” she asked.

      “I sure do,” he said, leaning forward and taking one of her hands into his.

      A jolt surged through Carrie at his touch. The man’s hands were rugged and callused and big. And when they enveloped hers, a sweet pain unlike any she had ever known before rushed through her. She could liken it only to grabbing hold of a live electrical wire and being unable to let go. Carrie couldn’t help but wonder if a woman would feel the need to struggle beneath such rough hands…

      Pushing himself away from the table, Judson picked up the bill and ambled over to the cash register. As she cast a lingering look around the ancient mercantile, Car- rie heard Judson tell the cashier to throw in a length of rope for trapping jackalopes.

      His sudden kindness left her feeling beholden, and she felt a rush of gratitude for his concern.

      Opening the door into the bright sunshine, Judson Horn warned gruffly, “Remember, I warned you. Har- mony ain’t near so fancy.”

       Chapter Two

      Carrie’s first impression of her new home was that it was a picture-perfect postcard. Nestled into the fringe of an aspen grove, the school overlooked a meadow speckled with purple lupine and enough wild sunflowers to give the impression that the entire countryside was dotted with butter. Threading its way though the meadow like a silver ribbon was the magnificent Popo Agie River.

      A world unto itself, the tiny school district of Har- mony, Wyoming, combined the old and the new. It con- sisted of a little white schoolhouse, complete with a bell in the steeple, which looked like it was taken straight out of a historical novel. A dirt field beside the buildings served as a playground providing two slides, swings, a merry-go-round and a wobbly basketball hoop nailed onto a pole. Beside the playground, a trailer house was set on a concrete foundation, and there, glistening be- neath the sun in front of the two buildings, sat a shiny, new black-and-red Chevy pickup.

      Eager to inspect it all for herself, Carrie flung the door open and hopped out of the dilapidated Ford pickup before it even rolled to a stop. She hurried up the weathered steps of the schoolhouse to impatiently jiggle the doorknob. It seemed to her that Judson Horn was taking his own sweet time getting out of the pickup.

      Joining her at last on the narrow stoop, he drawled, “You’re sure in a big hurry to be disappointed.”

      Carrie’s resentment flared at the gloomy prediction. “I’ll be the judge of how I feel, thank you.”

      Tapping her foot upon the smoothly worn wood, she added in a rush, “Now would you please be so kind as to open this door and let me in?”

      His long, drawn-out sigh made it clear that he pre- ferred to keep her locked out indefinitely. Carrie watched in shameless fascination while he fished the depths of his jeans’ front pocket for the key. The blood throbbing inside her veins began to simmer, heightening the warm flush on her cheeks. This man was so utterly, so totally, sensual that she had little doubt he was aware of the effect he had upon her, on all women for that matter. The only difference being that Carrie was de- termined to resist him. She had no intention of becom- ing another in what was likely a long, long line of con- quests. Besides, only a couple of months ago she had sworn off all men—especially good-looking ones with attitudes as big as their ten-gallon hats.

      “Here you go,” Judson said, handing over a silver ring linking four tarnished keys and a tacky plastic tab faintly marked with the school district’s emblem.

      Fervently Carrie hoped that they were keys that would lock out the heartache of the past as well as open the doors to the future. Not unlike a child on Christmas morning, she slipped the key into the lock and opened the schoolhouse door.

      Had Judson Horn, the indomitable curmudgeon, not been there beside her she would have rushed to the front of the room and spun around in her excitement. Instead Carrie stood silently beside him in the doorway and wrapped her arms around herself.

      It was like turning a page in a history book. Though the dozen desks were fairly new and there was a com- puter in the back of the room, Carrie felt exactly as if she had walked back into the nineteenth century. All the desks faced front, toward an old oak desk that ap- peared as immovable as history itself. On top of it rested an old battered school bell that had undoubtedly called to generations of children. Directly behind the teacher’s desk was an expanse of antique slate board. Portraits of Washington and Lincoln graced the side walls as patri- otically as they had. throughout the century, and an American flag hung limply in the stillness of time. A potbellied stove dominated the back of the room. The fat potentate seemingly awaiting the time its fiery tem- perament would once again be stoked.

      The deep timber of Judson’s voice pulled her back into the twentieth century. “Well?”

      Expecting a list of grievances as long as a trail drive, he braced himself against the door frame.

      “It’s perfect,” she murmured. “Absolutely perfect!”

      A flash of derision