A Cowboy's Wish Upon A Star. Caro Carson

first year he’d landed a job here as a ranch hand, he’d learned real quick to leave the barn through the door that faced the house. Mrs. MacDowell was as likely as not to open her kitchen door and call over passing ranch hands to see if they’d help her finish off something she’d baked. She was forever baking Bundt cakes and what not, then insisting she couldn’t eat them before they went stale. Since her sons had all gone off to medical school to become doctors, Travis suspected she just didn’t know how to stop feeding young men. As a twenty-five-year-old living in the bunkhouse on canned pork-n-beans, he’d been happy to help her not let anything get stale.

      Travis grinned at the memory. From the vantage point of his horse’s back, he looked down into the kitchen as he passed its window and saw another woman there. Blond hair, black clothes...curled up on the floor. Weeping.

      “Whoa,” he said softly, and the mare stopped.

      He could tell in a glance Sophia Jackson wasn’t hurt, the same way he could tell in a glance if a cowboy who’d been thrown from a horse was hurt. She could obviously breathe if she could cry. She was hugging her knees to her chest in a way that proved she didn’t have any broken bones. As he watched, she shook that silver and gold hair back and got to her feet, her back to him. She could move just fine. There was nothing he needed to fix.

      She was emotional, but Travis couldn’t fix that. There wasn’t a lot of weeping on a cattle ranch. If a youngster got homesick out on a roundup or a heartbroken cowboy shed a tear over a Dear John letter after a mail call, Travis generally kept an eye on them from a distance. Once they’d regained their composure, he’d find some reason to check in with them, asking about their saddle or if they’d noticed the creek was low. If they cared to talk, they were welcome to bring it up. Some did. Most didn’t.

      He’d give Sophia Jackson her space, then. Whatever was making her sad, it was hers to cry over. Tomorrow night would be soon enough to check in with her.

      Just as he nudged his horse back into a walk, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, Sophia dashing her cheek on her shoulder. He tried to put it out of his mind once he was in the barn, but it nagged at him as he haltered his mare and washed off her bit. Sophia had touched her cheek to her shoulder just like that when he’d first approached her on the road this afternoon. Had she been crying when she’d hung on to that heifer?

      He rubbed his jaw. In the car, she’d been all clenched fists and anxiously bouncing knee. A woman on the edge, that was what he’d thought. Looked like she’d gone over that edge this evening.

      People did. Not his problem. There were limits to what a foreman was expected to handle, damn it.

      But the way she’d been turning the lights off and on was odd. What did that have to do with being sad?

      His mare nudged him in the shoulder, unhappy with the way he was standing still.

      “I know, I know. I have to go check on her.” He turned the mare into the paddock so she could enjoy the last of the twilight without a saddle on her back, then turned himself toward the house. It was only about a hundred yards from barn to kitchen door, an easy walk over hard-packed earth to a wide flagstone patio that held a couple of wooden picnic tables. The kitchen door was protected by its original small back porch and an awning.

      A hundred yards was far enough to give Travis time to think about how long he’d been in the saddle today, how long he’d be in the saddle tomorrow, and how he was hungry enough to eat his hat.

      He took his hat off and knocked at the back door.

      No answer.

      He knocked again. His stomach growled.

      “Go away.” The movie star didn’t sound particularly sad.

      He leaned his hand on the door jamb. “You got the lights fixed in there, ma’am?”

      “Yes. Go away.”

      Fine by him. Just hearing her voice made his heart speed up a tick, and he didn’t like it. He’d turned away and put his hat back on when he heard the door open.

      “Wait. Do you know anything about refrigerators?”

      He glanced back and did a double take. She was standing there with a dish towel on her head, its blue and white cotton covering her face. “What in the Sam Hill are you—”

      “I don’t want you to see me. Can you fix a refrigerator?”

      “Probably.” He took his hat off as he stepped back under the awning, but she didn’t back up to let him in. “Can you see through that thing?”

      She held up a hand to stop him, but her palm wasn’t quite directed his way. “Wait. Do you have a camera?”

      “No.”

      “How about a cell phone?”

      “Of course.”

      “Set it on the ground, right here.” She pointed at her feet. “No pictures.”

      He fought for patience. This woman was out of her mind with her dish towel and her demands. He had a horse to stable for the night and eight more to feed before he could go home and scarf down something himself. “Do you want me to look at your fridge or not?”

      “No one sets foot in this house with a cell phone. No one gets photos of me for free. If you don’t like it, too bad. You’ll just have to leave.”

      Travis put his hat back on his head and left. He didn’t take to being told what to do with his personal property. He’d crossed the flagstone and stepped onto the hard-packed dirt path to the barn when she called after him.

      “That’s it? You’re really leaving?”

      He took his time turning around. She’d come out to the edge of the porch, and was holding up the towel just far enough to peek out from under it. He clenched his jaw against the sight of her bare stomach framed by that tight black clothing. She hadn’t gotten that outfit at any Western-wear-and-feed store. The thigh-high boots were gone. Instead, she was all legs. Long, bare legs.

      Damn it. He was already hungry for food. He didn’t need to be hungry for anything else.

      “That’s it,” he said, and turned back to the barn.

      “Wait. Okay, I’ll make an exception, but just this one time. You have to keep your phone in your pocket when you’re around me.”

      He kept walking.

      “Don’t leave me. Just...don’t leave. Please.”

      He shouldn’t have looked back, but he did. There was something a little bit lost about her stance, something just unsure enough in the way she lifted that towel off one eye that made him pause. The way she was tracking him reminded him of a fox that had gotten tangled in a fence and wasn’t sure if she should bite him or let him free her.

      Cursing himself every step of the way, he returned to the porch and slammed the heel of his boot in the cast iron boot jack that had a permanent place by the door.

      “What are you doing?” Her head was bowed under the towel as she watched him step out of one boot, then the other.

      “You’re worried about the wrong thing. The cell phone isn’t a problem. A man coming from a barn into your house with his boots on? That could be a problem. Mrs. MacDowell wouldn’t allow it.” And then, because he remembered the sister’s distress over the extremes to which the paparazzi had apparently gone in the past, he dropped his cell phone in one boot. “There. Now take that towel off your head.”

      He brushed past her and walked into the kitchen, hanging his hat on one of the hooks by the door. He opened the fridge, but the appliance clearly was dead. “You already checked the fuse, I take it.”

      “Yes.”

      Of course she had. That had been why the lights had gone on and off.

      She walked up to him with her hands full of plastic triangles. “These wedges