The Cowgirl's Man. Ruth Jean Dale

I won’t tell you,” Dani said smugly, “but it’s a big deal, whether you want to admit it or not.”

      “I’m too busy.” With a quick wave toward the reporter, Niki shrugged as if she had no choice, then turned toward the bar. “I’ll get those sodas right away.”

      “Coward!” Toni called after her fleeing sister.

      Niki ignored that unjust comment.

      THE SALOON was so dim that with his dark glasses firmly in place, Clay could barely see to make his way across the room between crowded tables and thick log supports. He’d spotted an empty table behind one of the broad beams near where the Keene sisters sat. If he could just reach it before someone else spotted it—

      Stepping around the log barrier, he came face-to-face with a cowboy who looked equally startled.

      “Sorry,” Clay said, “but I’m after that—”

      Table. The one at which the young cowboy now sat, smiling up ingenuously.

      “No problem,” the cowboy said. He stuck out his hand. “Name’s Dylan Sawyer. You lookin’ for a place to sit?”

      No, Clay was tempted to snap back, I just enjoy dashing across crowded rooms. Instead he said, “Yeah, and I almost had one.” He shook the other man’s hand. “Call me Clay.”

      Dylan Sawyer nodded. “Will do. I’m expectin’ a few friends, but you’re welcome to join us.” He indicated an empty chair.

      Clay didn’t have to be asked twice. Sitting down, he put his hat, brim up, on the table. “You work around here?” he inquired.

      Dylan nodded. “At the Bar-K.”

      Clay’s scalp prickled. “I…think I’ve heard of it.”

      “Belongs to the Keene triplets. You a stranger?”

      “Just passing through.”

      “You still might’a seen Niki Keene earlier when they tried to give her that Cowgirl prize, whatever it was.”

      “Queen of the Cowgirls. Yeah, I saw. But… I thought she was just a finalist.”

      Dylan laughed incredulously. “Same difference. I figure it’s in the bag. That is, if anybody can get her to change her mind about pullin’ out of the contest.”

      Civic pride accounted for the young cowboy’s confidence, Clay figured. Curiosity made him add, “Think she’ll go for it?”

      “Who knows.” Dylan shrugged. “But if she does, she’ll win and I’d put money on that. I mean, did you ever see a better-lookin’ woman in your entire life?” Twisting around in his chair, he stared pointedly at the bar where Niki was picking up another tray of drinks. “She’s real nice, too.”

      “She’s a looker, all right,” Clay conceded softly.

      And just at that very moment she looked up and her gaze locked with his.

      THE STRANGER’S bold stare shot through Niki like a jolt of electricity and she caught her breath. It was the man she’d seen before, only she’d seen him from the back. He’d been looking at her pictures and now he was looking at her with an intensity that made her pulse pound. Questions arose.

      Why in the world was a cowboy wearing dark glasses in a dim bar?

      And why was he sitting at a table with Dylan Sawyer as if they were old friends?

      “Niki, table nine’s waitin’ for those drinks.”

      “Sorry, Ken.” Flustered, she picked up the tray and tried to ignore the stranger. She was sure she couldn’t actually feel his gaze pinned between her shoulder blades but it certainly seemed as if she could. Every hair on her head prickled with awareness.

      And she was going to have to walk up to that table and take his order. Sure, she could get Tracy to do it but that would be cowardly. Niki was no coward.

      Beers delivered, she straightened her shoulders and pasted a smile on her lips. For a moment she was tempted to find that reporter and subject herself to the unavoidable newspaper interview, but that would only delay the inevitable.

      Chin up, she approached the two men. The closer she got, the better the stranger looked—except she couldn’t see his eyes. She could see the hard jaw that contrasted so strikingly with a full and sexy mouth, though. When he smiled his teeth were an even white flash against dark skin.

      “Dylan.” She acknowledged the young rider for the Bar-K with a dip of her head. Her gaze swept over to include his companion. “You gentlemen ready to name your poison?”

      “I’ll have a draft,” Dylan said. “Clay?”

      For a moment the stranger named Clay hesitated. Then he rose slowly, strong hands braced on the tabletop and sunglass-shaded gaze boring holes in her. “I guess there’s nothing here I really want,” he said, softly and politely. Picking up his hat, he nodded, turned and walked out of the saloon.

      Niki stared after him, lips parted in astonishment. She couldn’t believe what had just happened.

      The man hadn’t been talking about a drink at all. He’d had something entirely different on his mind and she didn’t think she liked the possibilities that presented.

      “Beer coming up,” she snapped at Dylan, as if it were his fault. And for the rest of the day she brooded about the good-looking stranger who might have been putting her down…or maybe not.

      2

      CLAY CLIMBED INTO his dusty black pickup truck and drove out of Hard Knox, Texas, in a blue funk. Hell, no wonder Niki Keene declined to compete. She didn’t have to. Her friends and family would do it for her.

      Thinking dark thoughts, he headed east. Eventually he’d hit Highway 35 and then it was a straight shot north to Dallas. It wouldn’t take him more than five, six hours at the most.

      That was five or six hours to brood over the delectable but elusive Niki Keene. Jeez!

      By the time she’d reached his table at the Sorry Bastard, he’d been tight as a drum and jumpy as a mustang with a burr under its saddle. The way people in that town talked, she was some kind of goddess or something. That didn’t sit too well with Clay since he was the one accustomed to such adulation, not the other way around.

      Of course, in all fairness he had to remind himself that none of that came from her. Her only crime appeared to be a reluctance to be judged…how had she put it? Like a Holstein cow.

      That brought a reluctant grin. So, she had a sense of humor. Big deal.

      She also had a whole pack of other titles judging from what he’d seen on the back wall of the Sorry Bastard. She’d been named every Miss-Whoever-That-Came-Down-The-Pike. She was on a roll, gathering in every beauty title around. So what was Queen of the Cowgirls, chopped liver?

      Brooding mile after mile, he hit the highway just north of Austin and turned north. By then he’d just about convinced himself that:

      One, Niki Keene wasn’t as good-looking as he’d at first thought.

      Two, if she didn’t want to compete for the title, he, for one, wouldn’t try to force it on her.

      And three, she must not be too bright because if she had the sense God gave a goose, she’d see what a great opportunity this was.

      But damn! She’d been wearing Mother Hubbard’s Wild West Duds and she filled them out real good.

      CLAY SLEPT late the next morning in the small but luxurious apartment Mother Hubbard herself had provided for a home base while he ran her errands. Although he rarely used it and considered his uncle’s spread in Oklahoma an uneasy home, it had turned out to be a handy pied-a-terre, as Mother called it.

      “Ped-a-what?”