No Ordinary Cowboy. Mary Sullivan

Why not let her in and get it over with?”

      Hank shrugged. “Just can’t let her in there.”

      “Don’t forget, you catch more flies with honey.” Willie laughed. “Sweeten her up.”

      Hank smiled and it felt strained. He knew kids. He didn’t much know women.

      Time to learn.

      Fast.

      He stepped into the sun-drenched yard and spotted the children in the field on the other side of the corral. He joined them there.

      “Kids,” he said as they swarmed him, clutching his arms, sitting on his feet, wrapping arms around his waist. “I got to give y’all an apology. I shouldn’t have yelled at that lady like that.”

      Cheryl’s solemn gaze disconcerted him. She was the most fragile of the group and the wisest—an old woman in a child’s body. She raised her arms to be lifted.

      He picked her up and settled her against his chest.

      “Don’t be mad,” she whispered.

      “I’m not mad, darlin’, not anymore,” he said.

      Nope, not mad. Determined.

      AS AMY WALKED across the yard, she watched Hank talk to the girl with the haunting eyes. Looked like there was some kind of bond between them.

      She wouldn’t let sentiment overcome her resolve, though.

      “We need to talk,” she said as she approached. She nodded her head toward the children, who watched her warily. “Privately.”

      Hank put down the girl. She and the other children ran to the counselors in the field.

      “I’d like to see the office,” Amy said.

      Hank cracked the knuckles of his left hand. He frowned intensely, like he was thinking hard about something, then his face lit up.

      “Hungry Hollow!” he shouted, then lowered his voice. “You need to see the neighboring ranch.”

      “Later. I really think—”

      “It’s the working part of this property.”

      That stopped her even more than the cunning look in his eye. The working part would be important. She had to get to those books, though.

      “But—”

      “It brings in a good income,” he said.

      Okay, she would need to know how Hank supported this whole operation. She nodded. “I should check it out.”

      “Yeah, we can ride over.”

      “Ride? On a horse?” She placed a hand against her chest, then dropped it the second she realized it drew his eyes to her body.

      “I’ll drive over,” she said, “and meet you there.”

      “No need. We can take the pickup truck if you don’t want to ride.”

      “No,” she said, her voice shaky. “I’d rather not ride.” Not on your life.

      Half an hour later, Amy sat in Hank’s dusty black pickup, checking out the details of this man’s life. A crack in the upholstery had been repaired with duct tape, gray against the black. In contrast, a top-of-the-line CD player shone through a coat of dust on the dashboard.

      Amy noticed the cover of an audio book on the dashboard: Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. Wow, heavy reading. Amy had tried it once and hadn’t had the patience for it.

      A rancher listening to Hawking? Hank?

      Okay, Amy, back off on the prejudices.

      As the truck bumped along, Amy felt like a sack of turnips, tossed around by the ruts of Hungry Hollow’s driveway.

      Hank’s hand on the gearshift brushed her knee. The man radiated heat like an oven. Her fingers hurt from gripping the door handle to stay on her side of the truck, and still she could feel his heat.

      It felt too good.

      “I need to apologize to you for yelling,” Hank said above the noise of the truck as he geared down. “I don’t normally do that.”

      “So Willie led me to believe.” Amy knew she sounded cool but didn’t care. The man had been unreasonable.

      Hank nodded.

      A bag of candy in the cup holder caught her eye and she picked it up. “Humbugs,” she cried.

      “Yep. They’re my favorite.” Hank looked her way. “You like them?”

      “I love them, but I don’t see them very often.”

      “Help yourself. I get them in Ordinary, in a shop called Sweet Talk.” Hank steered the truck onto a dirt road with a house in the distance.

      “You should take a drive into Ordinary,” he said. “It’s a real sweet little town, the lifeline for all of us ranchers in the district.”

      Amy doubted she’d make it into town during this short visit. It had nothing to do with her job here.

      After circling into the yard of a big old brick farmhouse, they pulled up in front of a corral teeming with men, horses and dust.

      Amy felt the truck dip and lift as Hank stepped out, yelling, “Hey, Angus. What’s up?”

      Angus, a dark-haired, fortysomething man with enough character in his face to make it more than handsome, shook Hank’s hand and swatted him on the arm loudly enough for Amy to hear from the open passenger window. Hank didn’t budge an inch. He tapped Angus on the shoulder, raising a cloud of dust from his shirt.

      “The boys are practicing for the rodeo,” Angus said. “You here to do some bronc-bustin’?”

      “Naw, not today. I’m just showing my guest around.”

      Amy stepped out of the truck with her notebook in hand.

      “Amy,” Hank said, “this is my neighbor, Angus Kinsey, from the Circle K on the other side of the Sheltering Arms. Angus, this is Amy Graves.”

      Angus had a good, strong handshake, and a set of admiring eyes. They felt good on her. Amy smiled.

      She wandered with the two men to the corral fence.

      Hank leaned his arms across the top as more men congregated outside the corral, leaving a couple of men inside standing beside a small horse. None of them seemed to notice Amy, which was fine with her. She was here to observe them and the way things were done around here.

      “So,” she asked, “you raise horses at Hungry Hollow?”

      Hank turned her way. “Everyone around here owns and raises horses.” He shrugged. “They’re part of the ranching life.”

      “Are they like cows? You raise them for their meat?”

      Both Angus and Hank looked at her strangely. Amy wondered about the crafty gleam in Hank’s eye.

      “No, we don’t sell horses for meat—” Angus would have said more, but Hank cut him off.

      “We raise them for glue.”

      Glue, my rear end, she thought. You’re making fun of the city slicker. Two can play that game. She flipped open her notebook and retrieved a pen from her pocket.

      “How much do you get per horse? Do you sell them by the pound? What part produces glue?” She shivered—it was a gory subject—but if Hank wanted to make a mockery of this visit, she’d accommodate him.

      It was Hank’s turn to stare at her with his jaw gaping. His dark brown eyes widened.

      She grinned, meanly, and said, “Gotcha.”

      Angus laughed and slapped Hank’s back.