Cowboy With A Secret. Pamela Browning

main hobby consisted of daydreaming about growing the hardscrabble ranch left to Justin by his daddy into a spread whose name could actually be uttered in the same breath with the word prosperous.

      That time, however, still seemed mighty far in the future. So far, in fact, that maybe by the time she could afford decent clothes and makeup again, she wouldn’t have the face or the figure to show off anymore.

      But I’m only thirty years old! Out of sheer desperation, she reminded herself of this often. Most of the time she felt much older; the responsibility of the ranch weighed heavily on her shoulders. With no family of her own, distanced from her friends in Wichita by a life that they couldn’t begin to understand, she often felt so alone.

      These thoughts were abruptly ended by the unmistakable clomp of cowboy boots on the wide wooden boards of the back porch. A wild glance at the clock confirmed that it was only six-thirty, too early for Frisco and certainly too early for Colt McClure. And Mott Findley usually didn’t swagger onto her porch at this ungodly hour.

      She edged a cautious eye around the bravely starched curtain hanging at the window. It wasn’t even properly light outside.

      “Ma’am?” Colt McClure peered back at her, and her coffee sloshed over the rim of her mug before she dumped it in the sink with a clatter. She was suddenly mindful that she wore nothing under her old chenille bathrobe but bare skin. Backing away from the window, she clutched the two sides of fabric together. “I told you seven o’clock,” she said sharply.

      He cleared his throat. “No offense, ma’am, but I’m here to work. I don’t mind gettin’ an early start.”

      “Well,” she said. Her robe had never seemed so skimpy, and she wondered if it revealed anything she didn’t want him to see. A sneaky peek at her reflection in the black plastic door of the microwave oven reassured her. Faded yellow chenille was not exactly titillating stuff.

      She flicked off the radio. “Come in,” she said. She kept her back to the door, hitched the belt of her robe even tighter and busied herself pouring him a mug of coffee until he was inside. Well, actually it oozed more than poured—she brewed her coffee strong.

      When she turned around, Colt McClure, all six feet and more of him, stood to one side of the kitchen table crushing the brim of his worn black Stetson brushpopper in his enormous hands. He smelled of soap and leather and clean blue denim, and he’d slicked his dark hair back behind his ears. Today he looked much less fierce; he’d shaved the beard stubble to reveal a square, lean jaw. His eyes gleamed above the planes and hollows of his face, and she searched them for a hint of the insolence she’d noticed yesterday. If it was there, he’d concealed it.

      He wasn’t drop-dead handsome; far from it. The scar bisecting one cheek took care of that. But he gave off a rugged strength, and he was certainly an imposing figure, with shoulders way out to El Paso, stomach flat as the west Texas plains, and long, long legs. His jeans were well-worn and so soft that they clung all the way down. His thighs—but she had no business thinking about his thighs. Or any of the rest of him.

      “Sit down, please,” she said briskly, attempting a brief and impersonal smile. “Sugar? Cream?”

      “Black,” he said. He lowered himself onto one of the kitchen chairs, the woven cane seat creaking under his weight. Even sitting, he blocked a good deal of light from the door.

      She slid the coffee in front of him and clapped a spoon down on the table beside it. He kept his eyelids lowered, which she found respectful until she realized that he was staring at her bare feet. Her toes curled unwittingly, and she felt a slow heat work its way up from her chest to her neck to her cheeks.

      She turned away in embarrassment, so fast that the bottom part of her robe flipped open. In exasperation, she yanked it closed. She’d give anything to be able to stuff the fabric between her knees and clamp it in place with her kneecaps, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to appear undignified.

      She’d intended for the new hand to take her seriously, which was perhaps a futile hope at this point. Nevertheless, she tried.

      “I believe your ad said that you’ve worked on a ranch before,” she ventured primly as she assembled eggs, flour, milk and bacon on the counter beside the stove.

      “Yes, ma’am,” he said in that grating voice of his, rusty as an old door hinge.

      If she wanted more information, obviously she’d have to dig.

      “What kind of work?”

      “Everything.”

      “Could you be more specific?”

      “Ropin’, brandin’, workin’ cattle. Fences, barn repair, cleanin’ out ditches. Balin’ hay, trainin’ horses—”

      “Are you good at it?” She slapped cold bacon into the warming skillet.

      “At which, ma’am?”

      “Breaking horses.”

      “I think so.”

      “What’s your philosophy about it?” she shot back. She began to cut out biscuits with the top of a jelly glass the way Dita, Frisco’s wife, had showed her years ago when Bethany had arrived at the ranch with no more idea of how to bake biscuits than how to rope or brand or ride fences.

      He watched her punching out floury circles of dough, narrowing his eyes as if he suspected a trick question. Which it wasn’t. “Philosophy, ma’am?”

      “Please don’t call me ma’am. You can call me Mrs. Burke. Or Bethany, if you prefer.”

      He didn’t say anything.

      “I asked your philosophy about breaking horses,” she reminded him.

      He paused before answering. “I don’t like to think of it as breakin’. I like to think of it as buildin’. I think if you’ve got a horse to train, it’s like bringin’ up a kid. Your future relationship with the horse depends on how well you do it.”

      She was surprised at this easy, unexpected flow of words and risked a quick look at him out of the corners of her eyes. “You’ve trained a lot of horses?”

      “A fair number. Even some tough ones.”

      She turned around and studied him. His deep-set gray eyes were thoughtful and clear, with silvery motes swimming in their depths.

      “And how do you go about training a horse that doesn’t cooperate?” She was thinking of Sidewinder, the two-year-old quarter horse who had, of late, appointed himself the bane of her existence. Or so it seemed.

      Colt’s eyes, those marvelous eyes, met hers with a crinkle of amusement. There was nothing hard about them now. “You have to train an uncooperative horse like porcupines make love. Very gently, ma’am—Mrs. Burke.”

      She whipped back around, not wanting him to see that she was charmed as well as embarrassed. She shoved the biscuits into the oven and slammed the oven door. The noise it made reverberated into an awkward silence. Well, perhaps it was only awkward for her. She didn’t dare look at him.

      “Mr. McClure, how many eggs can you eat, and how do you like them cooked?” she blurted.

      “You better call me Colt. And I can eat five eggs. Or six. Sunny-side up.”

      “I don’t usually cook for the help. From now on, you’ll eat with the ranch foreman at his house.” She was setting boundaries now; she discouraged familiarity with the hands.

      “That’s fine.”

      She drew a deep stabilizing breath. “Maybe I’d better explain things. Frisco’s my foreman, and he’s been here since my late husband was a boy. Dita’s his wife, a hard worker. She does the work of a man around here. Eddie’s their nineteen-year-old son, and he cooks, handles odd jobs and works in the garden.” She didn’t tell him the rest about Eddie; Colt would figure that out for himself.

      “This Dita—you mean