Hot Holiday Rancher. Catherine Mann

had concerned her as much as the rush of water rolling down the country Texas back road toward her low-slung Porsche.

      Rain sheeting against her windshield, Esme shifted into Reverse, willing her pulse to slow. Be calm. Take deep breaths. A quick three-point turn should have her ready to race out of harm’s way. It would be a tight maneuver since the road was narrow, bracketed by a ditch on one side and sycamore trees on the other. It was tough enough to make such a maneuver during the daytime, but after dark? In the middle of a storm?

      Not that she had a choice but to move. Flash floods were dangerous, especially in the country.

      But her V-8 engine could outrace just about anything. Perhaps the Porsche wasn’t the best choice for dirt roads, but she’d been excited about her early Christmas gift to herself.

      Two points into Esme’s three-point turn, the wave of rainwater slammed into the side of her vehicle. Her stomach clenched. She struggled to control the steering wheel as her car slid along the mud-slicked road. The Porsche’s back end fishtailed. Her foot slipped off the clutch, her spiky heel wedging under the brake. The heel snapped. But she didn’t have time to mourn the demise of her favorite leopard-print pumps. The Porsche lurched, then spun out, whipping the wheel from her clenched grip.

      Her heart rose into her throat with panic as she battled what felt like g-forces slamming her against the door. Worse yet, she couldn’t see due to vertigo and the rush of water over her candy apple–red hood. Was she close to the side of the road? How deep was the ditch? Where were the trees?

      And, oh God, were those headlights or lampposts?

      She braced. Struggled not to close her eyes. And prayed.

      The spinning stopped, her car halting with a jolt. But not a crash. She exhaled a shaky breath, her ears ringing so loudly it almost drowned out the rain pounding the roof and a Christmas carol flowing from the speaker.

       “Silent Night”?

      Hardly.

      But she was all right, in one piece, as was her car. With luck, she could still reach her destination before bedtime. She would have arrived earlier, but an accident on the interstate from Houston to Royal had delayed her arrival. At least she was close enough to her destination to walk. According to her GPS, the front gate to Jesse Stevens’s ranch should be less than a mile away.

      She pressed the clutch, threw the car into Neutral and pressed the ignition.

      The engine turned over. Then spluttered out.

      She tried again and…

      Nothing. Not even a catch.

      She’d bought the stick-shift model, a purist when it came to her sports cars. She liked the control of a manual transmission, a talent she’d learned when teaching herself to drive on one of her father’s older trucks on their Houston ranch. She’d been determined to perfect the skill, to win his approval.

      Not much had changed on that front, since she was here to please her dad, to bolster his image with the charter branch of the Texas Cattleman’s Club here in Royal, in hopes that he could be president of the new Houston branch.

      Her PR plan would start with a surprise visit to Royal’s own Jesse Stevens, an influential player at the TCC. If she could ever get there.

      She bit back a curse, weighing her options. The odds of a tow truck showing up out here in this weather were slim. Should she wait to see if the car started and risk getting hit by another wave? Or start walking? In her broken shoes. In the rain. And mud. Sighing in resignation, she angled to get her umbrella.

      Bracing, she opened the door, and rain sheeted inside. She wedged her umbrella through the opening, although it was fast becoming a moot point. Even her Prada trench was losing the fight against the deluge. Frigid water lapped around her ankles, soaking the hem of her slacks as she leaned into the wind, shivering. Still, she was determined to forge ahead, one step at a time.

      She couldn’t bear the thought of telling her father she needed to postpone the promotion trip. He’d put his trust in her, and even knowing a thirty-four-year-old woman shouldn’t care this much what her father thought, she couldn’t deny she was still trying to win his approval, to be something other than the often-forgotten middle child.

      In college, she’d found her niche with an aptitude for public relations. It was her chance to shine. When her father had taken note of her success after graduation, he’d hired her as PR executive for the family business, Perry Holdings.

      And if ever Sterling Perry had needed a promotional face-lift, it was now, when the new Houston Texas Cattleman’s Club was cranking up. Fledgling organizations hated nothing more than a scandal.

      And her father’s good name had taken quite a few blows, first with an arrest on charges of orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that nearly caused a collapse of one of his investment funds.

      No sooner had her father gotten out from under the weight of the fraud rumors than he was under suspicion for the murder of a Perry Holdings assistant. And, as if her father wasn’t already stressed enough, just last week a Currin Oil executive named Willem Inwood had been arrested under suspicion of being behind the Ponzi scheme. He wasn’t talking yet, but already people were coming forward saying he was the one who’d started those nasty rumors.

      Now, even though his innocence had been proven on the murder charge and Ponzi issue, he still needed a serious image makeover if he expected to win the club’s leadership spot.

      And she intended to give him that fresh start, with some help from Jesse Stevens. Wrestling her bedraggled umbrella, she trudged ahead another couple of steps.

      Were those lights flickering ahead? Hope and wariness jockeyed inside her. She was so very cold and soggy. But this also wasn’t Houston, with her high-rise condo secured by round-the-clock guards.

      She pulled one hand from the umbrella and reached inside her coat to her cross-body bag, fumbling for her can of Mace.

      The lights drew closer, grew stronger, until the glow focused into two beams. High off the ground. A truck. The driver’s-side door swung wide and a large, looming figure jumped out, ducking into the rain while holding his Stetson in place.

      She gripped her Mace harder. She’d taken self-defense classes in college, but she was seriously off-balance with one broken heel and the other spiked into the mud.

      “Ma’am, what are you doing out here tonight? Are you waiting for a tow truck?”

      That voice. It couldn’t be… But her ears told her it was. After all, she’d spent countless hours watching videos of Jesse Stevens giving interviews, memorized them, in fact, to decide the best tactic for approaching him. She tilted her head to catch sight of his face below the brim to confirm.

      And she gasped.

      No picture could do him justice. Even with the Stetson covering his blond hair, he bore the look of a cowboy Viking. An image she found difficult to let go of once it came to life in her mind.

      Spluttering on a mouthful of rain, she tucked her Mace can back into her purse, no longer needing protection.

      She should have suspected the truck could belong to Jesse Stevens. She was near his ranch, after all. But still, weren’t the odds higher it would be one of his employees rather than him at this hour, in the rain?

      Yet there was no doubting who this man was, even in the dark with just his headlights slicing through the night. She’d done her research on the man and his spread well before this excursion to meet him, persuade him.

      But she wasn’t ready to let him know who she was. Not just yet. She swallowed hard. “My car won’t start, and the cell reception is garbage out here in the middle of nowhere.”

      “Speaking as the landlord of the Middle of Nowhere, I’ve never had any trouble with mine.” Rain dripped from the brim of his hat as he towered over her. “You should check with your provider.”

      Was that irony or irritation