The Cowboy's Cinderella. Carol Arens

the piano covered for the night, the lamps turned low and everyone abed but the lone sleeper, Travis decided to continue his restless night right here, with his butt snuggled into a plump brown chair and his feet up on a gold ottoman.

      For comfort, it beat the hell out of the cot he’d put up beside his horse on the main deck.

      He’d taken only a small amount of money on his quest to find Eleanor. The more he left behind for the ranch to keep going, the better.

      Since he was on his own, it would not be a problem to live frugally for a time. Even the little bit of gambling he’d done had been for the purpose of gaining information about Miss Magee. It sure hadn’t hurt that he’d won a few dollars.

      Hadn’t gained a thing by way of discovering anything about Miss Eleanor, though.

      At daylight, the boat was going to turn south. If the lady was not aboard, it would cause him all kinds of trouble. He only hoped the Pinkerton knew his business.

      If Travis didn’t come up with any information by nightfall, he’d try and get a moment of the captain’s time, not an easy thing to do, he’d discovered, with such a busy man. But if he couldn’t find out something about Eleanor from her own uncle, he despaired of finding it at all.

      That was a notion he couldn’t let his mind dwell on. Futures depended upon him bringing her home.

      Hell, what he did want to dwell on was the magical water nymph.

      Ivy. Even her name conjured up things fresh, green and growing with abandon, having no regard for rules.

      He closed his eyes, reliving the memory of her diving into the water, of her face as she surfaced, so full of the joy of just plain living.

      If only he could be more like her. Not that he wanted to run from his responsibilities, but if he could rise above them from time to time...

      When Ivy invited him to strip down and join her in the water, he’d felt ten years old again.

      He’d liked being ten. By then he was past the constant grief that his parents’ deaths had caused and had come to love his life on the Lucky Clover Ranch.

      For a few moments last night, he had been that boy again because looking at Ivy—and he didn’t just mean in appreciation of her lovely body, but her smile and the love of life that shone from her eyes—he’d felt fresh. Renewed.

      He’d come from the water full of hope and now he sat in this chair because the only way to hold on to that feeling was to hold her memory fresh. To keep her in his mind so that he could draw on that brief moment out of time.

      When life was not so fresh, he would remember Ivy.

      Too bad he would never see her again. No doubt by now she was back in Coulson doing whatever a free spirit like her did in the wee hours.

      Turning frogs into princes, coaxing butterflies from their cocoons, maybe even leading a symphony of light with fireflies as her instruments, that’s what he would like to think, even though he knew reality was certainly far different.

      Reality or not, he was good and sorry he would never see Miss Ivy again.

Chapter Two

      It was late the next afternoon when a storm swept in. The boat rocked erratically on the choppy water so the captain decided to set to shore and open the casino early.

      As far as Travis could tell, walking past the open saloon door, the weather didn’t dampen the gaiety of the games going on inside.

      He worried his horse might be skittish though, so he clasped his hat to his head, leaned into the wind and took the stairs down to the main deck to check on her.

      As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. Through the dim light he spotted someone, a young man if he guessed right, speaking to the horse and petting her neck.

      “Thank you,” he said when he entered the stall. “I appreciate—”

      “Howdy-doo, Travis. This sweet girl belong to you?”

      “Ivy?”

      The ethereal creature from the night before was still here? This earthy woman, wearing a huge floppy hat and dressed like a man was the same woman he’d fantasized over last night?

      “Glad I came across you,” she said. “I’ve been asking around and no one’s claiming to be your Eleanor.”

      “Are you traveling on the River Queen, Ivy? I thought you might be from Coulson.”

      She snorted...through her nose. The image of the water nymph dissolved and no matter how he tried, he could not get her back.

      “That snake pit? Why I’d just as soon live on the moon.”

      She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes squinting, judging him, he thought.

      “I reckon we became friends last night, so I can tell you.” She gave the horse one last squeeze about the neck then stepped closer to him. There was still something of the woman in the river after all—she smelled like cool fresh water. “I live here. I hope to pilot a boat someday.”

      She lived aboard and didn’t know anyone named Eleanor? This was not good news.

      All at once, the only thing he wanted to do was sit down in the straw and hang his head. So he did.

      It seemed that finding the heir was beyond him, but giving in to a moment of private gloom was within his control.

      Or not. The straw rustled beside him when Ivy sat down.

      “You know what she looks like? Maybe she goes by some other name?”

      “I don’t. She’s got a twin sister with red hair, green eyes, about as tall as you and about your age. They weren’t identical though.”

      “I always fancied having a sister.” In the subdued daylight he saw how blue her eyes really were. A sunny blond braid lay over her shoulder. “So much so that I dream of her sometimes. Why, when I was little I used to pretend to play with her. How’s that for fancy?”

      Ivy flopped back in the hay, stretched her arms over her head and sighed. “Ain’t this a fine way to pass a stormy afternoon? Tell me about this ranch of yours.”

      She patted the straw beside her, inviting him to join her in gazing at the rafters overhead.

      Ivy was disarming, and unlike any woman he had ever met. He thought perhaps he liked her, liked her very much.

      He lay down beside her. With his arms folded behind his head, he listened to the drum of rain hitting the deck several yards beyond the stall.

      “It’s not mine. Not in a legal sense. I started running the place a few years ago when my boss took ill. I kept on after he passed. I feel the responsibility for the ranch like it was mine.”

      “I’m right sorry, Travis. You loved him?”

      It was easy to hear the regret in her voice. Spoken so softly, he knew she meant it.

      “He became a father to me when I lost my folks. Gave me a home when I was a lost little boy.”

      “What a kind man he must have been.”

      “Kind, yes, and ambitious. It’s a big spread. The biggest in Laramie County...one of the largest in Wyoming.” He closed his eyes, picturing miles upon miles of grassland. How the scent was fresh and how the wind rolled over it in a whisper. “I swear, Ivy, it’s the prettiest piece of land on God’s green earth. You can ride all day long and not get from the east end to the west.”

      She eased up on her elbow, gazing down at him. “The land has your heart...just like the river has mine.”

      “The Lucky Clover is a special place.”

      “The Lucky Clover?”