Corporate Cowboy. Pamela Bauer

      Dinner was served in the dining room. The atmosphere was a bit subdued, but in a good way. Kacy sat with several members of her team, but noticed that her sister chose to sit next to Austin.

      The younger woman flirted shamelessly with the CEO. As hard as Kacy tried not to notice their light-hearted banter, she couldn’t keep her eyes off the two of them. It irked Kacy that Suzy was being so friendly to the guy when he was completely ignoring the efforts of everyone involved with the program. She wanted everyone at the ranch to shun the man.

      Although there was no planned activity for that evening, one of the assignments was to fill out a questionnaire which was a leadership pretest. Kacy didn’t expect Austin to answer any questions. While everyone else sat with pencil and paper in hand, he disappeared. She guessed he had gone back to his room, since it was where he spent most of his time. Kacy sat in the lounge watching as one by the one the guests finished with the test and handed her their papers. When she had collected everyone’s but Austin’s, she decided to pay him a visit.

      At first she thought he wasn’t in his room, for no one answered her knock. However, as she was about to leave, the door opened. Standing with only a towel around his waist, his hair dripping with water, he looked as surprised as she felt.

      The sight of his bare chest had her shifting from one foot to the other. Of their own volition, her eyes traveled down the length of torso, following the fuzzy light trail of hair extending from his belly button down to…She jerked her eyes upward. What was she thinking? Looking down as if she were curious about what was beneath the towel.

      She must have stood there speechless for several seconds because he said a bit impatiently, “Well?”

      She waved the stack of papers in the air. “I need yours.”

      “My what? I take it it’s not an evaluation form otherwise you wouldn’t be asking me for it,” he drawled.

      “It’s called a pretest. You fill it out this evening and we go over the answers tomorrow. It’s a way for you to assess what you know about leadership.” He stood there giving her a blank look. “I don’t have yours.”

      “Because I didn’t do it.” His voice was flat and disinterested.

      “I know.” He smelled like soap and something else…maybe a designer shaving cream. It was a combination that had the awareness hairs prickling on Kacy’s skin.

      “So?”

      “So would you please get yours done?”

      He sighed. “I really don’t have the time.”

      “It’s a simple little exercise that we’ll be using tomorrow at the meeting. It’ll take you fifteen minutes max.”

      He shoved his hands to his hips. “What’s the point?”

      “The point is we’re going to use them tomorrow. You can at least attend a meeting that’s held by the pool, can’t you?”

      Again he sighed. “Where is this paper?”

      “They were passed out at dinner.”

      “I must have left it in the dining room.”

      “No problem. I have an extra.” She flipped through the stack only to discover she didn’t have an extra. “I guess I don’t have one. I’ll tell you what. I’ll read you the questions and you can give me your answers. I’ll mark them on a blank sheet of paper and transfer them to a form when I get back to the office.”