Cowboy Lessons. Pamela Britton

is it with the animals on this ranch, anyway?”

      Amanda ignored him, still huffing. “Go away, Harry.” She waved a hand at the bull, too winded to straighten just yet.

      “Harry?” Scott said. “The thing’s name is Harry?”

      The bull turned, his muscles and veins enlarged, tail still ringing. When it caught sight of the suitcase again, it turned around, put its head down and charged.

      A glance up revealed the helicopter still hovering above.

      “Are you okay?” she finally decided to ask. Fact is, she felt a little angry. What kind of a fool tells his pilot to land in a field full of bulls?

      Scott looked up at her, his arms straight out as if he were about to make a snow angel in the thick green grass he lay on. She noted he’d dressed differently, less like a character from a B movie and more like a real rancher. Denim shirt. Wranglers. His glasses—knocked from his head—lay near his right elbow, and his hair was spiked out around his head as if he’d been electrocuted. The hat had disappeared. She had a feeling it was beneath him. Smooshed.

      “It chased me,” he repeated.

      Amanda waved at the pilot, telling him without words that Scott was fine. If he could complain, he was fine. The pilot waved back—she thought she saw him grinning beneath his insectlike goggles—then he angled the helicopter away and flew off.

      Gradually, silence descended. Well, silence punctuated by her bull’s goring of Scott’s luggage. She had a feeling there wouldn’t be many of his clothes left when all was said and done.

      “I had no idea that thing would come after me with the helicopter hovering so near.”

      Man, her legs ached. And she had a side ache. And her damn feet ached.

      “Lesson one, Mr. Beringer,” she said as she slowly straightened. “A bull doesn’t care if you’re holding an Uzi or a flame thrower. When it’s mad, it’ll do whatever it wants.”

      Scott sat up on his elbows. “Uh-oh,” he said.

      Amanda’s heart resumed it’s double-time beat. “What? Is something broken?”

      “I landed on something.”

      “Your hat,” she theorized.

      He winced. Concern turned into amusement when he leaned forward and she spied the crushed straw hat.

      “Hope that wasn’t new.”

      “It was,” he grumbled, slowly coming to his feet as he smoothed his hair back. The hat lay on the ground like a discarded corn husk. Amanda was about to tell him that he didn’t need it, but as she met his gaze, the words just sort of lodged in her throat.

      Clark Kent looked good without his glasses. Very cute. And entirely too boyish to own a billion-dollar empire.

      Lord, she couldn’t imagine having a billion dollars.

      One billion dollars, she repeated to herself like Dr. Evil.

      “Are you hurt?” she asked again.

      “Nothing but my pride.” He repeated the same words as last week, and that had her remembering why he was here, and all of a sudden the depression returned with a vengeance. Even if she could convince him ranching wasn’t his thing, how was she going to afford to pay him back? And if she couldn’t pay him back, then what? Where would she go? Where would her father go? How many cattle ranchers would hire a woman, even if she did have a degree?

      He tested a leg, then the other one, then moved his arms. The sound of her bull head-butting his suitcase faded. She looked up only to realize Harry had gotten the case open.

      “Hey,” Scott yelled, taking a step toward the rail, obviously not completely blind without his glasses.

      “Forget it,” Amanda advised, clutching his arm, only to immediately drop her hand. He had surprisingly large muscles. “If there’s anything left, we’ll pick it up later.”

      “What’ll I use for clothes?”

      “Why do you need clothes? You’re not staying, are you?”

      He looked up at her sharply, his glasses like a crooked hanger. “I told your father when I called last night that I’d be staying.”

      He’d called? And her father hadn’t mentioned it?

      Suddenly, the reason why her father had departed for parts unknown made sense. Typical Dad. Coward.

      “He didn’t tell me.”

      Scott’s eyes slid over her. Amanda suddenly felt ridiculous, and self-conscious, even though the blue-and-white-checkered flannel gown couldn’t be called revealing. Most of her lower legs were covered by her rubber boots, the kind with a wide red ring around the top, and they were mud-spattered and stained. She’d hardly noticed how beat-up they were. At least not before he took to staring at them.

      “I’m going to kill him,” she grumbled.

      “Who?”

      “My father.”

      “As long as it’s not me.”

      “Tempting, but no.”

      SCOTT TOLD HIMSELF to be encouraged by that. She didn’t want him dead, unlike her father. He looked past her to the house, wondering where the old coot had gotten to, but the moment his gaze rested on Amanda, his thoughts jammed like the keys of an old-fashioned typewriter. She looked even more adorable than he remembered.

      You’re losin’ it, buddy, if you find a woman in black rubber boots sexy.

      Odd thing, though: he did. “Hey, thanks for agreeing to do this. I’m really excited.”

      “Yeah, well, wait until your first day is over before getting too worked up.”

      Hmm. She was still sore over the loss of the ranch. Well, he supposed he couldn’t blame her. “Well, I’d still like to thank you, anyway.”

      “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said by way of acceptance.

      Well, the apology thing didn’t work.

      She turned away without a backward glance, saying, “Follow me.”

      He did, stepping in behind her. The back of her was even more charming than the front. He wasn’t usually a body-parts man. That he left to beer-swilling football fanatics. But he found himself liking Amanda Johnson’s parts. Rounded bottom, shapely legs, at least what he could see above the boots. Nice smell, too, even this early in the morning. It wafted back to him on the early morning breeze. Natural. Earthy and yet wholly feminine in a way that most of the women he’d dated had never been.

      The house she led him toward was a one-story rectangle with a wide wraparound porch, old-fashioned windows with real wood frames and five creaking steps that led to the front door. To the left of the house was a large brown barn with big brown double doors. To the right was another barn—brown, too—this one a single-story affair that had doors off the back that opened into individual pens. Horse pens. And he would bet there were four more matching doors and pens on the other side. A horse barn—though it looked ancient and not at all like the fancy affairs one could see off of I-280 when he drove around Silicon Valley.

      “I feel like I’m on the set of Bonanza.”

      “Yeah, well, welcome to my home, Little Scott.”

      “Hey, you watched Bonanza, too?”

      “Yeah.”

      Her answer sounded more like “What of it?” and Scott tried not to feel wounded. “Where’s your dad?”

      “Away, apparently.” And the way she said that didn’t invite more small talk.

      She held a heavy oak door open and stepped aside. She smelled even nicer close up. Better