Cowboys And Cradles. Sharon Swan

a flash as his frown deepened. Obviously, it would take more than a formidable surprise, even one as plainly unwelcome as this, to really shake this man. “Would you mind telling me why you rode straight in front of my Jeep?”

      He stiffened. “You headed straight toward me. Do you always drive down dry gullies like a bat out of hell?”

      She’d never driven down a gully before in her life. The Jeep was less than a week old, a last-minute purchase in Dallas, and she’d been testing the four-wheel drive and her ability to handle it. And she had handled it. She’d actually been enjoying the bumpy ride, with the canvas top down and a warm breeze ruffling what there was to ruffle of her dark-blond hair. Until he’d shown up out of nowhere, racing down one steep side of the gully. She’d stopped in the nick of time to avoid a crash.

      “You scared the bejeezus out of Lucky,” he added when she didn’t respond to his terse question.

      Lucky? He had to be referring to the caramel-colored stallion he’d brought to a swift standstill. It was the biggest horse she’d ever seen. Not that she’d seen all that many from a distance of less than a yard, of course. City life didn’t lend much opportunity for close encounters with horses. Nevertheless, she knew it was male. There was no missing a certain portion of its anatomy. And it was a huge animal. If they had collided, the Jeep would probably have come out the loser.

      “I think Lucky can take care of himself,” she said dryly, tapping a finger tipped with red on the steering wheel. “Now, I suggest you get back to work. That is, if you work for this ranch and aren’t just trespassing.”

      “I work for it, all right,” he muttered. He didn’t seem any happier about that fact than her earlier claim of ownership.

      Great. Just what she needed: another disgruntled employee. The ranch cook she’d met yesterday afternoon upon her arrival could give lessons in how to be a grouch. Yes, she’d shown up unexpectedly, but she hadn’t meant to. Signals had gotten crossed somehow, and her lawyer in Dallas hadn’t contacted the broker in Tucson who had handled the sale. Letting the people here know she was coming would have been the courteous thing to do. Still, whether they liked it or not, she was the boss, and she had to make it crystal clear that she wouldn’t take any guff from anyone.

      Especially when they discovered her plans for the Creedence Creek Ranch.

      Eve shifted into reverse. “Well, I’ll leave you to do…whatever you were doing.” With that, she shot back a few feet, then made a swift U-turn and headed back the way she’d come. She thought about looking in the rearview mirror to see if he watched her departure. Or maybe to get another look at him, Eve, something inside her said. She didn’t look, didn’t so much as glance. Bad-tempered cowboys were not on her agenda—no matter how good a sight they made.

      The man she’d left in a rush stared after her, squinting into the brilliant sunshine seldom absent for long periods in southern Arizona. A trailing cloud of dust faithfully followed the Jeep until it and the dust disappeared, leaving a view of flat desert and rolling hills, with the jagged-peaked Santa Catalina Mountains looming in the distance. Some would call it a picture-postcard setting. He called it home.

      She’d taken him for one of the ranch hands. Which was hardly amazing, he told himself. After all, he’d put on his oldest pair of jeans and an equally beat-up denim shirt when he’d given in to the urge yesterday morning to do something he hadn’t done in years. Checking fences, as tiresome as it could be, meant miles of open spaces and some solitary time to decide what he’d do next.

      Stay or go?

      Even after a wakeful night stretched out on a narrow bedroll under a wide sky crowded with stars, he hadn’t come up with a firm answer. Reason told him to get on with his life and leave behind what fate, or maybe sheer bad luck, had placed out of his reach. Yet a stubborn streak in him that had nothing to do with reason said stay, anyway.

      The outcome of that inner war remained in doubt. But one thing was dead certain: the ranch’s new owner was in for a surprise. Those smoke-gray eyes, as big as they’d seemed, could well get bigger. Those elegantly arched eyebrows, dark in contrast to burnished-gold hair worn in a mannish cut shorter than his own, just might take a hike up a silky smooth forehead. Those full lips, shaded a soft red, might even drop open.

      He could only hope. Leaning forward, he gave the stallion a brief pat on the neck. “We’ll at least stick around long enough to enjoy the moment, friend.”

      Snorting, Lucky nodded his agreement.

      HANK SWENSON didn’t look like one of the most successful real estate brokers in the Southwest, Eve decided, viewing him across a large knotty-pine desk that took up a major portion of the ranch’s modest-size office. A small man, he was inches shorter and probably pounds lighter than she was. Yet beneath that deceptively slight frame, she knew, lurked a huge dose of business savvy.

      “Sorry about the mix-up, Hank.” They had already progressed to first names. “You should have been told I was coming.”

      He nodded a balding head rimmed with gray and settled back in a scuffed leather chair. Like most of the office furnishings, it had seen better days. Only a personal computer and other business machines set up against one wall could be considered even close to new.

      “No problem,” Hank replied mildly, “although I have to admit I was a little surprised when you didn’t come to look things over before the final papers were signed.”

      Eve’s lips quirked in a faint smile. “I didn’t need to. Several years ago I visited this area and saw the ranch from the main road. By the time I learned it was for sale, I was already certain I wanted to buy the place.”

      She could still recall her first sight of the house, its large adobe exterior stark white against a backdrop of desert green and sandy beige, its wide terra-cotta tile roof warmed to a glaze of orange by the sun, high overheard. Far from being new and firmly linked with the present, it was old and rooted to the past…and somehow that made it perfect in her eyes.

      But the desire to own the ranch was only one of the results of that brief visit. In many ways it had been a life-altering experience.

      “You could have made a better deal by bargaining with Amos Cutter’s heirs,” Hank commented.

      Her smile widened. “If that’s a diplomatic way of telling me I paid too much, I’m well aware of what the property is actually worth.”

      The figure she named sparked a gleam of respect in Hank’s shrewd gaze. “Which is almost exactly what Ryder Quinn offered.”

      Eve leaned forward, propped her elbows on the desk. “But he didn’t get it. I did.”

      “True, but can you run it without him?”

      “No,” she admitted bluntly. “Or at least not without someone like him. Do you think he’ll leave?”

      Hank’s expression turned thoughtful. “Maybe. I’ve known him on a casual basis for a long time, ever since Amos hired him on as a lanky ranch hand. He filled out over the years, took on the job of foreman when it opened up, then went to college nights and became a surprisingly shrewd business manager when Amos’s health started to fail. During all that time, he never made any secret of the fact that he’d be interested in buying if Amos ever chose to sell. More than interested, it always seemed to me. I believe Quinn wanted this property very badly. Why, I couldn’t tell you.”

      “Hmm.” Eve absorbed that information. “And Amos Cutter never chose to sell?”

      “I think he was seriously considering it toward the end, before that last stroke took him suddenly. Under the terms of a will he’d made out as a young man, his only living relatives—two daughters back East—got everything. Amos hadn’t seen them since his wife left him and took the kids with her nearly forty years ago. They had no interest in the ranch and didn’t waste any time contacting me to put it up for sale.”

      “And how did Ryder Quinn feel about it being sold to someone else?”

      Hank