Lone Heart Pass. Jodi Thomas

she grabbed a few things and ran past him and up the back stairs.

      “No problem,” he said to himself as he began picking up the boxes and moving them into the kitchen. He had no idea where the stuff would go, but inside seemed a better place than outside.

      Ten minutes later she emerged in gray slacks, low heels and a white silk sleeveless blouse that moved like cream over her slim body. If she hadn’t still been wearing that dumb knot on the back of her hair he might not have recognized her. She was tall and slim, but she was nicely curved in all the right places—if he’d been noticing, which of course he wasn’t.

      “I’m ready.” When he just stared, she added, “I know I’m not dressed to ranch, but this will have to do until I can wash my jeans.”

      “You look fine.” Charley was surprised how much he meant it. “We’ll be out all morning; you’ll need a hat and a jacket to cover those arms.”

      “I’ll be fine.” She picked up a tiny red purse and slung the gold chain strap over her shoulder.

      “Unless that’s a first aid kit, you won’t need it. We’re going to drive over your land, not go shopping.” Charley grinned. For the first time, she looked like the city girl he knew she was. All polish. No practical.

      “Right.” She didn’t drop her purse. “I’ll leave it in your pickup,” she said as she followed him out into the sunshine. “I never go anywhere without a purse.”

      When he opened the pickup door, she smiled at him. “Thanks for taking in the boxes.”

      “You’re welcome.” He liked the way she talked when she wasn’t yelling at him. She had a nice voice. The kind of low voice that a man wouldn’t get tired of listening to.

      For the next hour they drove every trail on her land. He tried to fill her in, but he had the feeling he was talking to himself most of the time.

      “This is good pastureland. With the natural spring you could run fifty head out here easily, maybe more. If you want I could buy a few calves. We might have to feed them until the grass greens, but it won’t be long.”

      “How much per head?”

      “Three hundred, this time of year. By the end of summer they’ll be worth a thousand or more.”

      She looked at him then. “That’s a great profit.”

      “Not as much as you think. We’ll need to supplement-feed some of them. Then there would be shots and tagging. That’ll cost you. We might lose a few before we sell them.”

      She was silent for a few minutes, then said, “Buy sixty head. If we lose five we’ll still make enough to buy a hundred next time and have a nice profit. Would this next pasture also hold a hundred head?”

      “It would over the warm months if we get plenty of rain.” He was surprised at her quick logic. The lady might not know ranching, but she understood numbers.

      “Then we go with the hundred. I’ve got enough to make the investment and I understand Levy has a ranch account with the bank.”

      Charley was impressed with her quick calculation. He had no idea what background she came from. “I’ll make the buy before the end of the week.”

      She nodded once and went back to silence.

      He continued talking, “You got a gravel pit over there across the road. Always a source of quick money if you need it, but once it’s gone, it’s gone. We might want to save it for emergency money. The flat few acres up ahead are good for farming, but it’s dry land.”

      The second question came, “What’s dry land mean exactly?”

      “It means without rain you don’t have a crop. Most years crops need irrigating, but it’s expensive to buy and maintain.”

      Again came the question of how much. If Charley hadn’t been saving every dime he could to realize his dream of owning his own ranch, he might not have been able to give accurate answers. As it was, he knew down to the penny every cost.

      Charley kept talking about what they could do with money or without. She must have enough money to pay him, but he doubted old Levy had left her much else. Maybe she was planning with her own money. The Lexus she’d parked near the house couldn’t have been more than a few years old and the clothes she wore now weren’t picked up at a dollar store. If the lady had money to invest, this ranch could be a great deal more than Levy ever planned.

      “You going to take notes?” he asked.

      “No,” she answered. “I’ll remember. I’ll set up my office tonight and make some charts. I like to see the progress.”

      “I agree.” This was what he’d studied to do. If he’d been able to do it on his family ranch he’d be counting cattle by the thousands. Here the numbers would be small, but for the first time since he’d left college, he could do what he loved, even if it was with someone else’s money.

      When they stopped near the edge of a narrow canyon that crawled along one side of her land, he asked her if she’d like to see the Lone Heart Pass that the ranch had been named after.

      The sun was getting warmer. He walked with her to within a hundred yards of a column of rocks maybe thirty feet high. “There is no easy way into the canyon for miles except for this pass. It’s like a rock hill split in two a few million years ago and left a passage. If we were on horseback we could go one at a time, slow and easy, through to the pass, but it spooks some horses to be all closed in by the walls.”

      She took a few steps on ground that suddenly turned rocky and uneven.

      His hand shot out to grip her arm to steady her. The feel of her skin beneath his fingers was hotter than he’d expected it to be. One touch made him aware of her as a woman. Before, he’d thought of her as lost, crazy, way out of her depth. Now, with the silk blouse clinging to her, Charley felt as if he was really seeing her for the first time.

      Like the land around her, there was a beauty about Jubilee that most people didn’t see at first glance. Not that he was interested, he reminded himself, but still, he could notice her.

      Looking toward the passage, she asked, “Can we walk in? I’d love to see the canyon on the other side.”

      Charley shook his head. “Not in those clothes or shoes. It’s beautiful, but it would take us an hour or so to walk through then get back to the truck.” He could see already that her bare arms were blistering and the climb just to get to the pass opening would ruin her slipper shoes.

      An instinct to protect her rose in Charley, surprising him, but she was no damsel in distress. The only way he could help her was to show her how to make this ranch grow.

      She turned to face him. “Take me to town, then. Show me the way. If you have things to do here, I’ll drive back in and buy what I need later, but I need to learn the road.” Her chocolate brown eyes met his and he saw determination in her gaze. “I want to be ready to start work tomorrow. It’s time we started making something of this place. I’ll need the right kind of clothes and shoes to do that.” She frowned as if suddenly fearing her own words. “Can you buy me a horse?”

      “I’ll make a few calls,” he answered. “Can you ride?”

      “Of course.”

      She’d answered too fast to be telling the truth. He grinned. “I’ve heard tell that brown eyes never lie,” he said.

      She faced him square with her lying brown eyes looking a bit angry. “I can ride.”

      She might be crazy, but nothing about Jubilee Hamilton was lazy.

      As they walked back to his truck, she added, “Mr. Collins, I’ll buy your lunch when we get to town. I’m starving. My breakfast seemed to have evaporated.”

      He wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not. The lady was hard to read. “I’ll accept the offer for lunch,