The Cowgirl's Man. Ruth Dale Jean

not up to us anyway. Dani, I’m going back to the ranch now. If you and Jack would like to stay and help Toni and Simon herd our dudes, I’ll take the children with me.”

      “Jack?” Dani deferred to her husband.

      “Sounds good. We can drop by the Sorry Bastard and try to talk some sense into our stubborn beauty queen.”

      “‘Try’ is the word, all right.” She turned to the other couple. “Okay with you guys?”

      While they made their plans, Clay drifted away. He really ought to hit the road for Dallas. It was going to be late before he got there as it was.

      Still—

      What was Niki Keene doing at a saloon? He’d noticed the Sorry Bastard on his arrival in town hours earlier. Was she a closet drinker or did she work there? Unbidden, her image flashed again across his mind’s eye and he shook it off. No way she could be as good-looking as he remembered.

      Nevertheless, he might just trail along to the Sorry Bastard out of simple curiosity—and to take one more look.

      WHEN NIKI SAW her sisters walk through the door to the Sorry Bastard, she was ready for them. They’d be on her case, no doubt about it. They’d nagged her into accepting the Miss Elk Tooth title back in Montana, even though she’d never entered the contest; they’d nagged her into taking the Miss Texas Barmaid title and the Cowboys’ Dream Girl title and all the rest.

      But Queen of the Cowgirls? That was going much too far. What about truth in advertising?

      Niki turned toward the bar, stifling a smile. She wasn’t a cowgirl, had never been a cowgirl, didn’t want to be a cowgirl. The fact that her family owned a dude ranch hadn’t changed her mind about that one iota. Let them saddle the horses and guide the trail rides and herd the cows. Niki was perfectly content cleaning cabins and peeling potatoes.

      “Two draft beers, Ken,” she said to the mustachioed bartender. While she waited, she surveyed the room with detached interest. The large barroom with its hardwood floors and broad log pillars boasted a good-size crowd, many of them strangers in town for just a day or two for the annual festivities. Then there were always the dudes, who came and went so regularly that—

      Her restless gaze stopped short on the broad back of a man standing before that god-awful display Rosie and Cleavon had made of Niki’s past exploits. It was an utter embarrassment to her that her pictures took up the entire back wall: Niki as beauty queen with satin ribbons across her chest and insincere smiles on her lips. They said it was good for business and maybe it was, but she felt funny about it just the same.

      But who was the man lingering before the display? A stranger, she knew instantly, without even seeing his face. Not a dude, judging by the way he wore his jeans and western shirt, and the way he’d removed his hat and held it in front of him as he perused the wall with care.

      Slim hipped and broad shouldered, long legged and narrow waisted… As she watched, he moved slightly and a beam of light from the dusty window touched his hair, turning it from dark to golden-brown. Thick hair, worn stylishly shaggy—

      “Beers are ready, Nik.”

      Ken’s voice snapped her out of her examination of the stranger and, gratefully, she turned. She didn’t like to be distracted that way. She wouldn’t say she was exactly down on men, but she wasn’t exactly “up” on them, either.

      She delivered the beer, then bowed to the inevitable and made her way to her sisters’ table. They gave her such ingratiating grins that she knew she was in for it.

      “Where’s the rest of the family?” she inquired, trying to head them off at the pass.

      “Granny took the kids home and the men are rounding up dudes,” Dani said. “Toni and I thought we’d drop by and say hello to the next Queen of the Cowgirls.” Her brown eyes sparkled with amusement.

      “Ha-ha, very funny.” Niki dredged up a resentful smile. Suddenly she straightened beneath the impact of a new thought. “Did you two enter me in that contest?” It was more accusation than question. “Because if you did, I swear I’ll—”

      “Not me!” Dani threw up her hands and looked at Toni.

      “Not me, either, although obviously somebody did. But now that it’s happened…” She fixed Niki with an assessing stare. “You might have been a bit hasty, Nik. This is a biggie.”

      “Oh, really!”

      “Don’t scoff, this contest is national. The winner gets a modeling contract and a year’s worth of public appearances for that clothing company. What’s the name…?”

      “Mother Hubbard.” Niki looked down at herself. “As luck would have it, I wear a lot of clothes from that label.”

      “It’s fate,” Toni declared. “The winner also gets a great Mother Hubbard wardrobe.”

      Niki groaned. “Like I care? I can afford to buy my own clothes. Look, we’re really busy around here. Can I get you something or did you just drop by to torment me?”

      “I’ll have a diet anything,” Dani said.

      “Me, too,” Toni agreed. “But seriously, Niki, you should think this over more carefully. If you were Queen of the Cowgirls, it’d be great for the town, and the ranch, too.”

      Niki didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that comment. “Antoinette Keene, you bite your tongue! I’m not even a cowgirl, let alone queen. They could get me for fraud.”

      “Don’t be silly.” Dani waved a hand airily. “It’s just a name. They don’t care if you’re really a cowgirl, they just care if you look good in their clothes. And you do, so what’s the problem?”

      “The problem, Sister dear, is that I’d feel like a fraud whether anyone else thought so or not. Plus I don’t want to be a model—” She shuddered. “—and I sure don’t want to get tied up for an entire year.”

      “But the town! The ranch!”

      “Are doing very well, thank you very much.” Niki glanced around restlessly. “Look, I’m perfectly happy with my life as it is. I don’t need any new complications.”

      “Maybe you won’t win,” Toni suggested hopefully. “I mean, silly as that seems, there are eleven other finalists according to what I read in some magazine or other. The winner will be chosen in Dallas, I think it is. So you could just take the publicity for being a finalist—for the good of the town, of course—and hope you’d lose.”

      Nikki shivered. “Do you have any idea how much I would detest standing up with eleven other contestants to be judged like a Holstein cow? If I was ever in doubt—and I wasn’t!—you just made the decision for me, Toni. No, no, a thousand times no. End of conversation.”

      “But—”

      “Hey, Niki!”

      Niki turned toward the voice automatically, then grimaced. “Oh, good lord, there’s the reporter from the Hard Knox Hard Times. Don’t tell me she wants to talk about this cowgirl nonsense!”

      “Then 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