High Country Hideout. Elle James

door. He paused and waited for her to lead the horse inside. In that moment, Reggie got a really good look at the man.

      Dark hair, darker eyes and a chiseled jaw with the hint of stubble shadowing his skin. He certainly was handsome, in a rugged way. He sported dark smudges beneath his eyes and fine lines at the corners.

      Yeah, he was handsome, but then, handsome wasn’t always a good thing. She’d learned that most handsome men were too full of themselves to think of others. Angus would have to prove himself in other ways. Looks weren’t everything. Honesty, loyalty and hard work were much more important in Reggie’s books. It took a real man to make a cowboy, not just a cowboy hat.

      She tied Jake’s reins to a post and stepped into the tack room for a currycomb and brush. When she returned, Angus was loosening the girth on her saddle.

      “I can do this,” she said.

      “I don’t mind. It’s my job.”

      “I can take care of my own horse,” she insisted.

      “Never said you couldn’t. You take care of the horse. I’ll take care of the saddle.” He hefted the saddle and blanket and carried it to the saddletree in the tack room.

      Having fended for herself over the past year, Reggie wasn’t used to someone else taking charge. She tried to be ahead of CW as much as possible to spare him the additional work.

      She couldn’t lie; it was nice to have someone else carry her saddle to the tack room. After a long day out in the cold air and rocky hills, she was ready for a shower and sleep.

      She’d be glad when her brother returned from his trip to Denver. The ranch was a lot of work. When he was there, it took some of the burden off her shoulders. Too bad he wasn’t living there. Then again, she couldn’t expect Will to spend all his time on a ranch he’d never own. As a Realtor, he needed to continue to build his clientele so that he could increase his sales and income. He’d been spending a lot of time with one of the Realtors in the firm he worked for. He’d gone with her to Denver for a seminar. Reggie suspected Will was falling for the woman. She’d met her once and hadn’t really liked the woman, but then she might not have given her the benefit of the doubt.

      Reggie brushed Jake from nose to tail, pausing to check his legs and hooves. The front leg had a long scrape on it, probably from when he’d reared.

      Returning to the tack room, Reggie grabbed a tube of antiseptic cream, a clean rag and filled a bucket with fresh water. In a few short minutes she’d cleaned the scrape and applied the cream to the horse’s leg. Then she took the time to work the tangles out of his tail.

      Angus was outside for longer than she would have expected. When he didn’t come back in for the last bale, she went looking for him.

      As she stepped into the back doorway, he appeared, carrying what appeared to be a snake.

      It rattled and Reggie jumped back.

      Jake neighed and danced around, tugging at the reins tied to the post, his eyes rolling back in his head.

      “What the hell?” Reggie demanded.

      “Don’t worry, it’s not real. When I couldn’t find an injury on your horse, I checked the ground where you fell.” He turned it over and showed her the switch on the back that disengaged the rattling sound. “It makes the rattle noise when it senses movement.”

      “It’s a toy?”

      “Some toy.” He glanced at the horse. “Do you have a bag we can put this in? Your horse has had enough trauma for the night.”

      Reggie retrieved a burlap sack from the tack room and helped Angus stuff the toy inside.

      “You said you have a son?” he queried.

      “I do. But that’s not one of his toys.”

      Angus’s lips tightened. “Is there anyone on the ranch who likes playing cruel practical jokes?”

      She shook her head. “No. It’s just CW, Jo, Tad and me. Sometimes my brother stays out here, but he’d never pull something like that.”

      “It’s not a joke when someone almost got killed.”

      She frowned. “I wouldn’t go that far. I was fine. I wouldn’t have been killed.”

      “CW tells me there have been some unfortunate events around here lately.”

      Reggie shrugged. “CW is an old hen. He worries too much.”

      Angus tilted his head. “Could it be you worry too little?”

      “What? So now you’re an expert on what’s going on at the Last Chance Ranch?” She glanced at her watch. “You’ve been here all of a couple hours and you’re lecturing me.” Reggie shook her head. “Unbelievable.”

      He stared at her for a long moment and then smiled. “You’re absolutely right. Please accept my apologies.” He set the bag with the snake aside, along with the previous conversation. “What do you feed the horse?”

      Reggie accepted his retreat at face value and responded. “Sweet feed. It’s in that container in the corner. Two coffee cans full.”

      Jake danced around the post she’d tied him to, his eyes wide, his ears pinned back. Reggie smoothed her hand down his nose in an attempt to calm the big animal.

      When he settled, she led him to his stall, removed his bridle and hung it on a hook beside the stall door.

      “Excuse me.” Angus squeezed past her, accidentally brushing his body up against hers in the process. A bolt of electricity shot through her, leaving her fingers, toes and other odd places tingling.

      At least, it appeared to be that the contact was an accident of the confined space. Surely the cowboy wasn’t trying to get close to her on purpose. After she’d pretty much told him off, what man would flirt with her? And for that matter would she know if a man was flirting with her? She hadn’t been on a date since high school, when she’d had what she’d thought was her last first kiss with her high school sweetheart, Ted. They’d been together all those years.

      Angus dumped the feed cans into the trough and exited the stall, brushing against her again.

      The sudden electrical surge powered through her body again and she hurried out of the way. Her husband had only been dead for a year. Surely that wasn’t enough time to forget. Ted had been her world up until the day he’d slipped at the edge of a crevasse and fallen more than three hundred feet to his death. A year ago she’d been living the dream, working with her husband at her side, her son growing up in the most beautiful place in the world. One careless misstep and Ted was gone.

      The past year had been an eye-opener. Sure, she’d helped a considerable amount while he was alive, but she’d also taken the time to be a mother to her young son. Tad had been four years old when his father died. He barely remembered the man, which grieved Reggie.

      Her husband, Theodore Alan Davis Sr., had been a good man, and she’d loved him with all her heart. From high school in the small town of Fool’s Fortune, they’d attended the same college in Denver and returned to help out on his father’s ranch. When Ted’s dad died, his mother followed soon after. They’d barely met their grandson, and Tad had never really gotten to know his grandparents.

      The pain had faded, but the loss still left a hole in her life. Until she moved on, it would remain.

      Seeing the new ranch hand move around the barn as though he knew what he was doing didn’t help. This was Ted’s barn, Ted’s ranch, and Ted had been the love of her life. Why then, was she attracted to a man who’d knocked her on her face in the mud? Angry at herself, she turned away from the man who’d stirred in her something she wasn’t ready to acknowledge. And all because of an accidental bumping of bodies.

      “I’m going to the house for a shower,” she said and left the barn. Better to step away than to continue to stare at the man. She’d have a word