Stranded with the Rancher. Janice Maynard

base of the thing was pretty flat. Given its weight, there was little chance it would roll over unless the driver made a reckless turn.

      The customer smiled at him. “Thanks for your help.” Unlike Beth’s sunshiny curls, this woman’s straight blond hair was so fair it was almost white. Her skin was pale as well. Despite her advanced pregnancy, she was thin, almost frail.

      He dusted his hands on his pants. “No problem. Get someone to help you lift that thing when you get home.”

      “I will.” She paused, one handing resting protectively on her rounded abdomen. “I always loved Halloween as a kid. I thought it would be fun this year to carve a jack-o’-lantern for my daughter and put pictures of it in her baby book.”

      Beth glanced at the woman’s belly. “Are you due that soon?”

      “No. I have another eight or nine weeks to go. But she’s already a person to me. I talk to her all the time. I guess that sounds crazy.”

      “Not at all.”

      Beth’s smile struck Drew as wistful. Maybe if her biological clock ticked loud enough, she’d meet some guy and move away. Then Drew could buy the land she had stolen from him. Oddly, that notion was not as appealing as it should have been.

      Beth spoke up again. “Who’s your master carver? The baby’s dad?”

      A flash of anguish darkened the woman’s eyes, but it was gone so quickly Drew thought he might have imagined it. “I’m going to do it. I’m trained in graphic design, so this is right up my alley. I should go,” she said, as if suddenly realizing that the weather was going downhill fast. “Don’t want to get caught in the rain.”

      Drew stood shoulder to shoulder with Beth as they watched the car disappear into the distance. “Did she look familiar to you?” he asked, frowning.

      “Maybe. Why?”

      “I don’t know. Just an odd feeling that I might have seen her before.”

      At that moment, a strong gust of wind snatched the plastic banner and ripped it off the top of Beth’s produce stand. The bright green lettering spelled out GREEN ACRES. Drew seldom had time to watch TV, but even he got the reference to the old sitcom where the wealthy Manhattan couple moved to the country and bought a farm. It was easy to imagine Beth wearing an evening gown and heels. She was tall for a woman, at least five seven. But Drew had half a dozen inches or more on her.

      He helped her capture the surprisingly heavy sign and roll it up. “You might as well put it away for now,” he said. “The wind is not going to die down anytime soon.”

      When they had stashed the sign beneath a plywood counter, Beth shook her head and stared at him. “I’d be happy to sell you a pumpkin, Drew, but somehow, I don’t think that’s why you’re here.”

      The derision in her voice made it sound as if he were the most boring guy on the planet. “I decorate the ranch for fall,” he said, wincing inwardly when he heard the defensive note in his voice.

      “Correction. You have people who do that for you. It’s not the same thing at all, Drew.”

      He’d grown accustomed to her barbs. In fact, if he were honest, he occasionally enjoyed their heated spats. Beth gave as good as she got. He liked that in a woman. Now, when he didn’t shoot back immediately with a retort, she watched him with a wary gaze, her arms wrapped around her waist in a cautious posture.

      The tint of her green eyes was nothing as simple as grass or emerald. They were an unusual mix of shades, shot through with tinges of amber and gold. The color reminded him of a prize marble he’d had as a kid. He still kept the little ball of glass as a good luck charm in his dresser. Perhaps that was why he had so much trouble getting Beth out of his head. Every day when he reached in the drawer to grab a pair of socks, he saw that beautiful marble.

      “Earth to Drew. If you’re not buying anything, please leave.”

      Every time she pursed her lips in that disapproving schoolmarm fashion, he wanted to kiss her. Even when he was mad as hell. Today was no different. But today he was determined to get a few things ironed out.

      Glaring at her with his best intimidating frown, he spoke firmly. “You have to relocate your produce stand. The traffic jams spook my horses, block the road and besides....” He pulled up short, about to voice something best left unsaid.

      Beth’s shoulder-length hair danced in the breeze, the curls swirling and tangling. It gave her a just-out-of-bed look that was not helping him in his determination to be businesslike and resolute.

      “Besides what?” she asked sharply. “Spit it out.”

      He hesitated. But what the hell... He and Beth shared the road. She might as well know where he was coming from. “My clientele is high-end. When they come to Willowbrook Farms to drop several million dollars on a thoroughbred that might have a shot at the Triple Crown, your little set-up here gives the wrong impression. It’s like having a lemonade stand on the steps of a major banking institution. Your business is frivolous, mine is not.”

      * * *

      Beth absorbed his words with a pang of regret. Virtually everybody in town liked Drew Farrell and thought of him as a decent down-to-earth guy. He was an important member of the Texas Cattleman’s Club. Membership in the TCC—an elite enclave where the wealthy ranchers of Royal met to broker deals, kick back, relax and count their millions—was a privilege and a lifelong commitment. Not that Beth really knew what went on behind those hallowed doors, but she could imagine. Which meant that Beth, who saw Drew as arrogant and self-important, was out of step with the rest of the county. For whatever reason, she and Drew were the proverbial oil and water.

      But he’d just exposed the root of the matter. His lineage was impeccable. He was blue-blooded old money, while she came from near-poverty, part of a family line that was crooked on its best days.

      “If the traffic is such a big deal to you, put a road in somewhere else.”

      “There is nowhere else,” he said, his jaw carved in stone. “My plan two years ago was to buy this land we’re standing on and put a beautiful white fence along both sides of the road. A Kentucky horse farm look, minus the bluegrass. But you stole it out from under me.”

      “I didn’t steal anything,” she said patiently, hiding her glee that for once in her life she had staged a coup. “You lowballed the guy because you thought nobody else wanted it. I merely had the good sense to make a reasonable offer. He accepted. End of story. I might point out that you’re trespassing.”

      The wind had really kicked up now. Even so, the heat was oppressive. The sky changed colors in rapid succession...one moment angry gray, the next a sickly green.

      Beth glanced toward Drew’s property, feeling her skin tighten with unease. “Have you listened to a weather forecast?” she asked. It wasn’t a deliberate attempt to change the subject. She was concerned. Normally, she would keep the shed open until four-thirty at least, but today she wanted to batten down the hatches and be tucked up in her cozy two-bedroom bungalow before the first raindrop fell.

      In the time since she purchased the farm, she had updated the inside of the cute little house and made it her own. If Drew had bought the property, he probably would have bulldozed the place. The farmhouse was old, but Beth loved it. Not only was it a wonderful home, it was concrete proof that she had made something of her life.

      She had a knack for growing things. The Texas soil was rich and fertile. She wasn’t going to let a self-important billionaire push her around. Drew had been born into money, but his horse breeding enterprise had added to the coffers substantially.

      Now Drew’s gaze scanned the sky as well. “The radio said we have a tornado watch, but I doubt it will be too bad. We’re a little bit out of the usual path for storms like that. Haven’t had one in years. Even when we do, the ones that do the damage tend to happen in the spring, not the fall. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”