Cattleman's Courtship

“I’m sorry, Victoria,” Nikki said earnestly. “Me and my big mouth—I shouldn’t have told him you’re an attorney. I was so surprised to see him with you that I didn’t think…” Nikki’s shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug, and she turned to Lonna with a silent plea for help.

“Why would he care if I’m an attorney?” Victoria felt as if she’d started reading a mystery in the middle of the book.

“You’re female and a lawyer,” Lonna interjected. “And that means that you, Victoria Denning, are a leading candidate for Quinn’s least favorite person.”

“He doesn’t like women lawyers? Why?”

“Because his stepmother hired a hotshot woman attorney from Helena to contest the will when his father died,” Nikki said. “Local gossip claims that when Charlie Bowdrie passed away two years ago, he left the bulk of his estate to Quinn and Cully. His sons got most of the financial assets, including the machinery and livestock. Eileen got the house in town and a comfortable trust fund, but she was furious that the boys received more. So she took them to court. The case finally went to trial three months ago and the judge made a decision last week. I’m not sure what happened, exactly, but both Quinn and Cully hate Eileen Bowdrie’s attorney. Gossip says she behaved like a real barracuda, raking up the illegitimacy of the boys, the scrapes they got into when they were kids…all sorts of things that didn’t seem to have a lot of direct connection to the case. Cully said that Quinn was more furious with the attorney than with his stepmother. And of course,” she added, “Quinn doesn’t have a lot to do with women in general.”

“He doesn’t?” Victoria was dumbfounded. The man that made her bones melt when he smiled didn’t like women? And when he’d kissed her… She shivered and pulled her wayward concentration back to Lonna and Nikki. “A bad experience like that might have soured him on women attorneys, but that doesn’t explain why he doesn’t like women in general.”

Lonna sighed. “Unfortunately, his stepmother is probably the reason for that, too.” She paused a moment before continuing. “I don’t like to repeat gossip, Victoria, but Eileen Bowdrie is a mean, spiteful woman. She and Charlie Bowdrie never had children—I don’t know if they simply couldn’t, or she wouldn’t, but Charlie wanted sons. He had a liaison with a young woman in the next county that scandalized Colson and fathered two sons. No one knows what happened, but one day Charlie brought Quinn and Cully home with him and told Eileen that he was going to raise them on the ranch, whether she liked it or not. She’s resented Quinn and Cully ever since, and rumor says she made their lives hell when they were growing up.”

“How old were the boys when they went to live with their father?”

“I think Quinn was about eight, which would make Cully four or five.”

Appalled, Victoria shook her head. “That’s terrible—they were so young. What happened to their mother?”

“No one knows. My mother told me that she simply disappeared. No one’s seen her in all the years since.” Lonna spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Quinn keeps to himself and rarely dates. I don’t know that it’s accurate to say that he doesn’t like women. I think it’s more that he’s very cautious and keeps a lot of distance between him and any interested women. As a matter of fact, I haven’t heard of him taking a woman out since he was in high school.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Although it’s no secret that he’s visited several willing women in neighboring counties over the years, I’ve never heard of him actually dating anyone.” She glanced at Nikki for confirmation. “Have you?”

“No, never. He’s always polite to me,” she added. “But he’s quiet. I certainly don’t know him as well as I know Cully—and I can’t claim to be really close to Cully.” She smiled wryly. “Much as I wish I were. The truth is, there’s something a little dangerous about the Bowdrie boys.”

A small shiver of awareness raced up Victoria’s spine.

“Dangerous?” she asked carefully. “What do you mean, exactly?”

“It’s hard to explain.” Nikki paused, a small frown creasing her brow. “Not only is there just something you feel when you’re around them, but there’s always some story circulating about them.”

“She’s right,” Lonna agreed. “Though I’m skeptical about most of the stories. The last one I heard was a year or so ago when rumors said Quinn got a local girl pregnant and then paid her to leave town.”

Victoria recoiled inwardly. “Was it true?”

“I doubt it.”

“I don’t believe a word of it.” Nikki firmly echoed Lonna. “Cully and Quinn have always refused to deny rumors. They hate gossip. But if either of them knew that they’d fathered a child, they would have insisted on marrying the woman and raising the baby.”

“The only part of the story that’s confirmed is that Angie Patterson left town. The rest is pure speculation,” Lonna added. “Personally, I think Quinn is a far better man than either he or his stepmother think he is. He and Cully grew up knowing they were illegitimate and so did everyone else in Colson. That set them apart. It’s tough to be different in a town as small as Colson. Of course,” she added with a twinkle, “it didn’t help their reputations that they were both pretty wild when they were teenagers.”

“That’s true,” Nikki agreed. “My favorite story is the one about Cully climbing the water tower and spraypainting it with red, white and blue stripes on the Fourth of July.”

Victoria had a quick mental image of the town’s medium-size water tower. “The whole thing?”

“Almost. The mayor caught him before he finished. But the mayor was afraid of heights and wouldn’t climb the ladder, so Cully ignored him and just kept painting until the sheriff arrived and went up to get him. I think he was about twelve at the time, and his dad had to bail him out of jail.”

Lonna laughed. “I’ll never forget the time they drove a herd of cattle through the middle of town. The merchants were furious, but Quinn told them his dad told him to move old man Johnson’s cattle from his pasture outside town to the rodeo grounds on the other side of Colson. The shortest route was down Main Street. Since it was the merchants who’d asked Johnson to move the cattle, they couldn’t convince the sheriff to charge Quinn and Cully with anything.

“And then there was the time Quinn broke his arm at the rodeo in the afternoon and that night, he rode again and won the bronc-riding competition.”

“With a broken arm?” Victoria asked in disbelief.

“Yes—I suspect he’d numbed the pain with whiskey, but nonetheless, it must have hurt.”

“No wonder the Bowdries have reputations for being wild,” Victoria commented dryly. “They are wild.”

“No question that they certainly were when they were teenagers,” Lonna agreed. “They dated the girls with the worst reputations and were the first boys questioned when anything crazy happened. But after their mid-twenties, they settled down.”

“That’s true,” Nikki confirmed. “But they’re still considered dangerous. Any woman who goes out with one of them is automatically on the top of everyone’s gossip list.” She shifted her red hair back over her shoulder, tucking it behind her ear with an absentminded gesture. “In spite of the rumors and gossip, though, the Bowdrie brothers are still the most eligible bachelors in the county—and the least likely to wed.”

“I don’t imagine that’s surprising, given their background.” Victoria frowned at the bottle of beer Lonna handed her. Her own life as a well-loved daughter had been quiet and safe. She’d been an intense, focused child who’d known from the time she was eight years old that she would become an attorney. Boys and dating hadn’t been an important issue, and she’d never known anyone quite like Quinn Bowdrie. She wasn’t sure what she wanted from Quinn, but to have him reject her before she had a chance to decide, and for reasons that had nothing to do with her personally, was frustrating. “So much for cowboys—I should have known better,” she raised the bottle, swallowed with an unladylike gulp and choked. “Yuk! What is this stuff?”

Lonna laughed, her eyes twinkling at the look of disgust on Victoria’s face. “Beer—would you rather have wine?”

“No,” Victoria said with grim resolve. “I’m stuck in Montana for the next year—I’ll learn to drink beer. Straight from the bottle.” She closed her eyes, took another sip, and shuddered.

“I think it may take awhile.” Nikki said dryly.

Lonna nodded. “I think you’re right.”

Chapter Two

O ver the next two weeks, Victoria threw herself into a frenzy of activity transforming the apartment she had rented in the old Victorian house next door to Nikki’s home into a welcoming nest. In the end, she was well satisfied with her home.

The activity focused her, gave her a purpose to fill her days and kept her too busy to fret over her problems. Her life as a child, teen and a young adult had been goal-oriented. She’d known from the day her uncle John had taken her and Lonna to the courthouse to watch his friend Hank Foslund plead a case that she would be a lawyer when she grew up. During her childhood, Victoria’s father had driven his family from Seattle to his brother’s home in Colson to spend their three-week summer vacation. She and Lonna were as close as sisters, and Victoria’s parents often gave in to the girls’ pleas to allow Victoria to spend an extra month with her cousin after they returned to Seattle. Many warm evenings had found the cousins challenging the widowed attorney to checker marathons on the screened porch. Those long summer evenings had cemented their friendship and her own resolve to practice law.

Now her health and her doctor’s edict had taken away her career. Granted, it was a temporary situation, but still she felt cut adrift, anchorless and without purpose.

Victoria didn’t like it, and she was determined to get her life back on track. The hiatus from her work was frustrating. So she threw herself into working on the apartment, clerking at her uncle John’s pharmacy and filling in for Hank. Business at the law office was slow, for all of his clients knew that Hank had left on a much-needed vacation. Fortunately for Victoria, however, Hank’s files were a disaster. She discovered that there was apparently no rhyme nor reason to his filing system, in fact, she couldn’t decipher any system at all. Satisfied that here was a project that would test even her fierce need for involvement, she dived into the years of files and documents that filled the cabinets in Hank’s office.

Busy though she was, however, she found thoughts of Quinn Bowdrie intruding all too often. Irritated to find herself remembering the handsome rancher and the kiss they’d shared, she determinedly pushed the memory aside. Still, she found she couldn’t banish him from her dreams.

Just after lunch one afternoon, Victoria bent from the waist and ran a feather duster over a bottom shelf in the cosmetics section. Dennings Pharmacy was enjoying a pleasant lull after a busy morning. The early afternoon sun poured through the plate-glass windows at the front of the store, glittering off the decorative glassware, bottles, and colored jars displayed in the deep window embrasures. Victoria had already dusted and efficiently reorganized the display before moving on to the aisle counters.

Humming along with the country music playing softly on the radio, she brushed the feather duster over a jewel-toned collection of bottles filled with nail polish. The store was quiet except for the low murmur of voices as a customer chatted with her uncle John at the pharmacy counter in the back of the store.

The jingle of bells that hung on the front door interrupted the soft music and Victoria stood, glancing across the store at the entrance. The small drugstore boasted only six aisles, the displays and shelves low enough for her to see over the top and across the width and length of the store from front to back.

That’s odd. I’m certain I heard someone come in.

Her tennis shoes made no sound on the waxed tile floor as she walked to the end of the aisle. She rounded the end display and stopped in midstride. Her pulse accelerated and irritation warred with attraction before distraction won.

Quinn Bowdrie was halfway down the aisle, talking to an adorable, wide-eyed toddler. He sat on his heels, one knee touching the floor, his forearm resting on the other bent knee. A grey Stetson was pushed back off his forehead, revealing thick black hair. A pair of sunglasses crowded a pocket of his blue chambray work shirt, and faded jeans, worn white at stress points, molded the heavy muscles of his thighs.

“I got a car,” the little boy announced importantly, and he held out one chubby hand, palm up.

“So you do.” Quinn took the miniature red metal car from the little hand and balanced it on his palm. “That’s a pretty nice set of wheels. Do you know what kind it is?”

“Yup—it’s a ’Far-ee.”

Quinn turned the die-cast metal car over and read the imprint.

“You’re absolutely right,” he said. “Ferrari—that’s what it says.”

“Where?”

The little boy stepped closer, stumbling over Quinn’s boot, and he moved quickly to steady the small body, his hand splayed across the child’s back.

Unnoticed by either of the two males, Victoria watched a rare, gentle smile break across Quinn’s hard face as he looked at the child.

“Careful, partner.” His voice was a deep-throated murmur, his big hand gently patting the small back reassuringly before he gravely inspected the little boy’s offering.

The child peered at the car in Quinn’s hand, studying the imprinted letters. “Right there?” He asked, tracing the upraised letters. “That says ’Far-ee?”

“Uh-huh. How did you know this car is a Ferrari?” Quinn asked him.

“My daddy told me.” The little boy said, nodding emphatically. “It’s my favorite car—see, it’s red.”

“Ah.” Quinn nodded sagely. “I see.”

This is the tough rancher who has no heart? Victoria thought with amazement. Watching the big man with the small boy brought a lump to her throat. She stood motionless, silently observing the two dark-haired heads bent together over the miniature car until Quinn glanced up. His green eyes darkened, an unnamed emotion flitting briefly across his hard features before his expression turned unreadable.

He slipped an arm under the little boy’s denim-clad bottom and stood in one smooth motion, the child seated safely on his arm.

He didn’t say anything. Victoria considered turning her back and walking away from him but thought better of the impulse.

“Hello.”

“Hello.” Quinn knew the moment he looked up and saw Victoria that he’d been lying to himself. He hadn’t been able to forget her, nor the kiss they’d shared on the shadowy dance floor, despite the fact that he’d never met an attorney he liked. And he downright detested pushy, aggressive female lawyers. He’d been moody, irritable and restless for the last two weeks. His gaze flicked down her body, noting the blue smock with Dennings Pharmacy embroidered over the upper swell of her left breast. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here.” Victoria’s memory of black hair, green eyes, tanned skin and a muscled, broad body wasn’t exaggerated. If anything, Quinn Bowdrie was even more blatantly male than she’d remembered. And judging by the irritation on his handsome face, the anger that had blazed in his eyes at the Crossroads Bar hadn’t diminished.

“You’re a salesclerk? Isn’t that a big step down from practicing law?” Quinn shifted the little boy on his arm. Her voice was frostily reserved, and the soft smile that had dazed him while they danced was noticeably absent.

“Some people might say so. However, I’m also handling Hank Foslund’s emergency calls and doing some other work for him for the next month or so. I happen to believe that work is work, regardless of the occupation. While I have a law degree and practicing law is my profession, it’s not the sum total of my existence,” she said pointedly, her gaze narrowing over the shift in his expression as he registered her words. His jaw firmed, his eyes narrowed. She could swear he grew taller as he stiffened. “My doctor ordered me to stay away from stress for at least six months. So—” she gestured at the store around her, wielding the colored collection of feathers “—I’m a clerk.”

“Six months? Do you really believe that you can keep from meddling in other people’s lives for six months?”

“I don’t meddle in people’s lives.”

“You’re an attorney,” Quinn said flatly. “Meddling in people’s lives is how you make your living.”

“You’re entitled to your opinion.” Victoria held on to her temper with an effort. “But a lot of people, myself included, wouldn’t agree with you. In fact, Mr. Bowdrie, a lot of people, myself included, might argue that your opinion is suspect because you’re clearly prejudiced against attorneys.”

“Damned straight,” he shot back.

“Bobby? Where are you?” The female voice interrupted Quinn.

“Uh-oh.” The little boy in Quinn’s arms patted his face, demanding his attention. “That’s my mama.”

A young woman in her early twenties rounded the end of the aisle, her harassed expression quickly changing to relief and exasperation as she spied them.

“Bobby! There you are.” She walked down the aisle toward them and held out her arms.

Quinn handed the little boy to his mother, and she settled him against her hip with practiced ease.

“He wasn’t a bother.”

The young mother’s guarded gaze flicked from Quinn to Victoria before she smiled at her son. “I thought he was right behind me, playing with his car, while I talked to Mr. Denning. Then I turned around and he was gone.” She smoothed a lock of black hair from the little boy’s forehead.

“Thanks.” Her quick glance included both Quinn and Victoria before she hurried away down the aisle, the bells on the front door ringing melodically as the pair disappeared outside.

Quinn turned back to Victoria.

“I’d better be going, too.”

The cowboy who had smiled gently at the toddler was gone, replaced by a remote, hard-faced stranger. This Quinn was the man that had walked away from her at the Crossroads Bar and Grill after kissing her nearly senseless. She’d neither forgotten nor forgiven how easily he’d turned off the heat while she still felt singed. Besides, she was angry enough with Quinn’s unreasonable prejudice against her occupation that the urge to needle him was irresistible.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

A faint frown creased his brow. “Not that I know of.”

Victoria gestured at his empty hands. “Didn’t you come in here to buy something, or were you just browsing?”

“No, I didn’t stop to browse.” He slipped his fingers into his shirt pocket and removed a folded paper. “A neighbor asked me to drop off this prescription.”

She took the slip of paper and unfolded it, frowning slightly as she struggled to decipher the scribbled words.

Quinn took advantage of her distraction to study her unobserved. The blue pharmacy smock she wore was hip length; unbuttoned, it hung open from throat to hem. Beneath it, she wore a scoop-necked white T-shirt tucked neatly into belted khaki shorts that hit her at midthigh. Below the narrow hem of the shorts, her legs were long, curvy and lightly tanned. White socks with neatly folded down tops and tennis shoes covered her small feet. Her hair was a smooth fall of silvery silk that brushed her shoulders, only the bangs were faintly ruffled where she’d sifted her fingers through them as she talked. She reminded him of a well-cared-for, sleek little blue-eyed cat. And he wanted to cuddle her, stroke and pet her just to see if he could make her purr.

It irritated the hell out of him that he couldn’t seem to stop wanting to touch her.

“…don’t you think?”

Quinn realized that he’d missed the question, whatever it was.

“I, uh…”

Victoria glanced up from the prescription to find him staring at her. His gaze lingered on her breasts before stroking upward to focus intently on her mouth. Her heartbeat thudded faster, and she caught her breath, awareness flaring between them.

“If you weren’t so prejudiced against lawyers,” she murmured, “I’d ask you over for dinner.”

Quinn went completely still. His eyes went hot, and he stared at her for a long moment.

“But I am, and even if I weren’t, I don’t think seeing you is a good idea.” His deep voice was quiet, undertones of tension humming beneath the simple refusal.

“But…”

Too late. Even as Victoria started to protest and ask him to explain, he was gone. His long strides carried him swiftly down the aisle to the front of the store, the bells tinkling as he pulled the plate-glass door open and disappeared through it.

She stared at the empty doorway, regret mixed with irritation.

Men. Who can understand them? And cowboys seem to make less sense than general, run-of-the-mill guys. Maybe working outside in all that fresh air affects their brains!

She shook her head and returned to her dusting, determined not to spend another minute thinking about Quinn Bowdrie.

Unfortunately, Victoria discovered over the next week that commanding herself not to waste brain power thinking about the handsome rancher and actually accomplishing it were two very different things.

Saturday morning found her seated cross-legged on the floor of Hank Foslund’s office, a pile of file folders on her lap. Behind her, the top drawer of a low filing cabinet stood open, the files that had crammed its now-empty space surrounding her in a circle of neatly labeled stacks. She’d been pulling and organizing files for two hours, finishing the A’s and moving on to the B’s.

She scanned the last three remaining folders and shifted them off her lap, placing them in the proper alphabetical stack.

“Hank,” she muttered to herself with a fond shake of her head. “You may be a great attorney, but you’re terrible at organization. You should have hired another file clerk when Shirley retired.”

She pushed the top drawer closed and pulled open the bottom one. Like its mate, it too was crowded full of files, loose papers jammed haphazardly to hang half-in, half-out of folders.

The first file was so thick that she had to slide both hands beneath it to lift it from the drawer. The sides bulged and when she set the folder on the floor, it popped open, papers slithering loose to slide across the carpet.

Exasperated, Victoria shuffled the papers together before settling cross-legged once again to attach loose pages and reorganize the file. One look at the heading on the topmost document, however, had her mouth dropping open.

She hadn’t known that Hank Foslund represented the Bowdries.

But I should have, she realized. He’s the only attorney in town, and he’s represented most of the ranchers for years.

Feeling almost guilty, Victoria tried to deal with the file in an objective, professional manner. But she had to read at least a portion of each document in order to determine in which section of the big file the paper should be placed.

It became quickly obvious that the contents related to Eileen’s attempt to break Charlie Bowdrie’s will. It was also clear that Eileen had alleged that her husband had been mentally incompetent after suffering a stroke. Her attorney had used the public forum to villify Quinn and Cully, contending that Charlie was clearly not of sound mind or he would not have left his valuable property to two such unworthy recipients.

Victoria frowned and flipped through the pages to the original document. Her frown deepened as she read the allegations and double-checked the date of the will against the date of Charlie’s illness and subsequent death.

He made the will years before he suffered the stroke that eventually killed him. She shook her head, considering the significance of the dates. The attorney representing Eileen Bowdrie must have known there was little basis for filing this lawsuit, she mused. No wonder Quinn dislikes attorneys. It seems clear that the only reason this suit was filed was malice.