Cowboy for Hire. Marie Ferrarella

mouth had gone bone-dry. She went on watching.

      He didn’t seem to be aware of the fact that he was under scrutiny. The worker turned his back to her and went on doing whatever it was that he was doing. She couldn’t quite make it out, but it had something to do with construction because there were tools on the ground, surrounding an empty tool chest.

      As she continued observing him, Connie saw that the man appeared as if he not only knew his way around tools, but he also definitely seemed comfortable working with his hands.

      It came to her then.

      He was just the man she was looking for to be her foreman, to act as her go-between with whatever men she wound up hiring to do the actual work. Watching him, she couldn’t help wondering how well someone who looked like that would take instructions from a woman.

      Or was he the type who didn’t care who issued the orders as long as there was a guaranteed paycheck at the end of the week?

      Enough thinking, start doing, she silently ordered herself.

      The next moment, she turned her vehicle toward the cowboy and drove straight toward him.

Chapter Two

      He’d been aware of the slow-moving, blindingly white sports car for some time now. It was a beauty—much like the woman who was driving it.

      But unlike the woman behind the wheel, the vehicle, because of its make and model, stuck out like a sore thumb. Regardless of the season, Forever and its outlining area didn’t see much through traffic. Every so often, there was the occasional lost traveler, but on the whole, that was a rare occurrence. Forever was not on the beaten path to anywhere of interest, except perhaps for the reservation and a couple of other tiny towns that had sprung up in the area. On its way to being a ghost town more than once, the town stubbornly survived despite all odds. Like a prickly-pear cactus, Forever, a few of the much older residents maintained, was just too ornery to die.

      The owner of the sports car, Finn decided, had to be lost. Nobody driving that sort of a vehicle could possibly have any business being in or around Forever. Even Dan, the doctor who had initially come to town out of a sense of obligation mixed with a heavy dose of guilt, hadn’t been driving a car nearly that flashy and unsuitable for this terrain when he’d arrived.

      As the vehicle came closer, Finn tossed down his hammer and approached the car. The woman, he couldn’t help noticing, was even better-looking close up than she was at a distance.

      “You lost?” he asked her, fully expecting her to sigh with relief and answer “Yes.”

      She didn’t.

      Instead, she shook her head and said, “No, I don’t think so.”

      Finn regarded her thoughtfully. “In my experience, a person’s either lost or they’re not. There is no gray area.”

      The woman smiled at him. “Didn’t think I’d find a philosopher all the way out here.”

      “It’s not philosophy, it’s just plain common sense,” Finn told her.

      To him, so-called philosophers referred to the gaggle of retired old men who got together every morning and sat on the sun-bleached bench in front of the general store, watching the rest of the town go through its paces and commenting on life when the spirit moved them. He was far too busy to indulge in that sort of thing.

      “Well, if you don’t need directions, then I’ll get back to my work,” he told her. The woman was clearly out of her element, but if she didn’t want to talk about what she was doing out here, he wasn’t about to prod her. Lost or not, it was strictly her business.

      “I don’t need directions, but I do have a question.” She raised her voice as if to get his attention before he began hammering again.

      Finn turned back to face her. She looked rather fair. He could see a sunburn in her near future if she didn’t at least put the top up on her car. Skin that fair was ripe for burning.

      “Which is?” he asked casually.

      “Did you build this yourself?” The woman got out of her car and crossed to the freshly rebuilt front steps of the house.

      Thanks to Brett, honesty had always been at the core of his behavior. His older brother expected and accepted nothing less than that. Anyone can lie, Brett maintained, but it took a real man to tell the truth each and every time, even when it wasn’t easy.

      “No,” Finn replied. “The ranch house was already here. I just changed things around a little, replaced what needed replacing, added a little here, a little there—that kind of thing,” he told her simply.

      He made it sound as if he’d hammered down a few loose boards, but one look at the exterior told her that the man with the impossibly appealing physique had done a great deal more than just that. The structure looked brand-new. She knew for a fact that this part of the state was hard on its buildings and its terrain. Summers could be brutal, and they left their mark on practically everything, especially structures. The ranch house she was looking at had been resurfaced, replaced and renovated—and recently.

      Connie couldn’t help wondering if that craftsmanship extended to the inside of the building, as well.

      There was only one way to find out.

      “Could you take me on a tour of the inside of the house?” she asked brightly.

      “I could,” the cowboy answered but made no effort to follow through on her request.

      “But?” she asked.

      She made him think of a stick of dynamite about to go off. He was about ten inches taller than she was, but a stick of dynamite didn’t have to be very big to make a sizable impression.

      Just who was this woman, and what was she doing here? “But I don’t even know who you are.”

      “I’m not dangerous, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she told him.

      Like he believed that.

      Finn’s mouth curved ever so slightly, the left side more than the right. He wondered just how many men this woman had brought to their knees with that killer smile of hers.

      “There’s dangerous, and then there’s dangerous,” he replied, his eyes never leaving hers.

      She raised her chin just a little, doing her best to generate an air of innocence as she assured him, “I’m neither.”

      The cowboy continued looking at her. The image of a human lie detector flashed through her mind for an instant. She discovered that breathing took a bit of concentration on her part.

      “I don’t know about that,” he said. But the next moment, he seemed to shrug away his assessment of her and said, “Okay, why not? Don’t lean against anything,” he warned before going up the porch steps. “The paint’s still fresh in places.”

      She had no intentions of taking away any part of this house on her person. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she told him.

      Connie waited for her tour guide to open the front door. If the inside looked nearly as good as the outside, she was ready to be blown away.

      “After you,” the cowboy told her once he’d opened the front door.

      Connie crossed the threshold, taking it all in at once.

      She hadn’t missed her guess. The inside of the house was simplistic and all the more captivating for that. It was a house that emphasized all things Western, with just the right touch of modern thrown in to keep the decor from being completely entrenched in the past.

      There were only a few pieces of furniture. For the most part, the house was empty, but then, she hadn’t asked to come in just to see the furniture. She was looking to take stock of the workmanship firsthand.

      She