His Forever Valentine

Less than a minute later, Val saw that they were not just running from something, they were running toward something. Directly up ahead was a long stretch of wire fencing.

“Will that keep him from trampling us?” she managed to ask as she continued running alongside of Rafe for all she was worth.

“It damn well better,” was all he allowed himself to say.

There was no point in telling her that he had a plan B. That if worse had come to worst and Valentine had frozen with fear, he’d been prepared to divert the beast, to get the bull’s attention so that it would run after him rather than attack the woman who had turned up on his property unannounced like this. Rafe hadn’t been raised to subscribe to the “every man for himself” school of thought. His father would have never allowed it.

But luckily, the woman with the improbable first name was not only sexy as hell, she was fit, which in this case meant that she was capable of keeping up with him and—for now—keeping ahead of Jasper, the whimsical name that Alma had awarded the bull that they had bought a year ago to breed with some of their cattle.

Reaching the fence less than a minute ahead of the charging bull, Rafe quickly pushed his uninvited guest up and over the fence. The next second, he dove over it himself. Rafe managed to clear it—all except for his left boot, the tip of which got caught on the very edge of the fence.

What began as a clean execution became less so as he found himself falling short of his intended mark.

Rather than hitting the grass, Rafe landed on top of Val, who was just in the process of turning around. Instead of gaining her feet, she gained added weight. Enough weight to push the air right out of her.

A startled cry, comprised of protest and surprise, echoed through the morning air, riding on the air he had knocked out of her.

As for him, Rafe was acutely aware that what he was on top of bore no resemblance to either the ground or the grass. It was soft, warm, enticingly fragrant and damn stirring. His body absorbed the sensations before his mind could even frame them.

Banking down the major part of his reaction, he allowed his concern to come to the foreground. Though he’d attempted to buffer his weight, he had come down rather hard on her.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Right now she couldn’t help thinking she was really far from all right, but not in the sense he meant it. Generally warm and outgoing, Val still kept a part of herself in reserve. The part that had, at the age of nineteen, run off with Scott Walters, a ruggedly handsome stuntman with the gift of always saying the right thing. He’d been her first love and she had loved him fiercely. Until, recklessly, he’d unintentionally broken her heart.

Since that day, she had carefully guarded her heart and kept a tight rein on her emotions. That went hand in hand with not trusting any physical reaction she might have to a good-looking man. Even a good-looking man who was trying to save her from being gored.

“I don’t think anything’s broken.” She saw him nod with relief, but other than that, he seemed to be making no attempt to get up. Was the man posing for a still life? “You can get off me now,” Val prompted.

The moment the words were out of her mouth, Rafe realized that he was not just partially on top of her, he was completely on top of her, the way a bodyguard might be with the person he was trying to protect at the very first sound of gunfire.

The imprint of her body was telegraphing itself to his torso in big, bold, capital letters. It took him a second to come to.

“Oh, yeah, right.” Rafe paused for half a beat to look over his shoulder and make sure that the bull had come to a stop and was still on his side of the fence.

Jasper was indeed there, and whatever pending rage had sent the animal charging right for them had clearly disappeared. The bull had stopped charging, stopped running and instead of pawing the ground as expected, the bull was now docilely examining what appeared to be a dandelion nestled in the midst of a light green carpet comprised of new shoots of grass.

Belatedly, Rafe replayed the woman’s words in his head and this time, he scrambled up to his feet, separating their two bodies despite the vast appeal of remaining pressed together for the duration of the morning.

Once up, he offered his hand to her.

Val looked at it for a moment, as if she was debating ignoring it and just bouncing up of her own accord. But this was no time to establish boundaries and if he wanted to help her up, she knew she should just accept it without making a fuss.

Val wrapped her fingers around the offered hand, trying not to dwell on the fact that her body was still tingling. It made her acutely aware of the fact that their two bodies had mingled as much as was physically possible, given the fact that their clothes had remained on and they weren’t engaging in any sort of a romantic liaison.

The moment she was up on her feet, Val quickly dusted herself off. She watched the bull warily out of the corner of her eye. As incredible as it seemed, the animal appeared to be almost subdued. Given his previous behavior, how was that even possible?

“You train him to do that?” she finally asked her so-called rescuer.

Rafe had no idea what she was talking about. “Excuse me?”

Val jerked a thumb in the bull’s direction. “Did you train him to come charging up out of nowhere like that?” she asked.

If he had trained the bull, there might be a position for this man on the set, she thought. They could never have too many animal trainers on board when they were filming this kind of movie.

Rafe looked at her uncertainly. He’d heard about Hollywood types, about how they lived in a world of their own making, but this was his first encounter with someone from that city and he was the type who always wanted to make sense of things, to understand them.

That caused him to ask, “Why would I do something like that?”

Val continued to brush bits and pieces of dirt and grass from her clothing and hair. “I would think that might be self-explanatory,” she told him, looking at Rafe pointedly.

Maybe she meant nothing by it. At any event, he supposed he should count himself lucky that she wasn’t screaming at him, or having a tantrum. So he laughed, shaking his head.

“I’m not an animal whisperer, if that’s what you’re getting at,” he assured her. “Jasper is his own bull and does whatever he wants to. My father bought him not that long ago for breeding purposes. So far, he’s shown more of an interest in playing poker than in mating with any of the candidates we’ve paraded in front of him. To tell the truth, this is the most alive I’ve seen Jasper since his former owner dropped him off.”

The bull, from what she could see, was now wandering off again. Feeling a little safer, her heart stopped beating wildly.

“Maybe he’d behave a little more macho if you changed his name to Bruce,” she suggested, watching the animal retreat.

Rafe grinned at the proposal. He sincerely doubted that the bull understood English. “A bull by any other name...” His voice trailed off as his grin grew in size.

She cocked an eyebrow at the attempted quotation. “Shakespeare?”

“Paraphrased,” Rafe allowed good-naturedly. “Anyway, I don’t think his name has very much—if anything—to do with his behavior.” The grin faded slightly as he became serious. “You sure you didn’t hurt anything?” His eyes swept over her.

She could almost feel them passing right over her body. This man, she had a feeling, would have fit right in with the men back in Hollywood. Something about him stirred the imagination—as well as her blood.

“Just my pride,” she answered.

His brow furrowed slightly. Pausing, Rafe bent down to pick up his Stetson and dusted it off. “I don’t think I understand. What does your pride have to do with anything?”

“I’m not exactly accustomed to being tossed over a fence and landing on my butt,” she replied, nodding at the fence.

From where he stood, there was nothing to be embarrassed about. Survival came first. “My guess is that you’re probably not accustomed to running from a charging bull, either.”

She laughed. “Can’t say I am,” Val admitted.

The woman was being an awfully good sport about this, Rafe thought, feeling magnanimous toward her. “You want to come up to the house?”

“To talk to your father?” she asked a little uncertainly.

Having grown up in the world that she had, acting and masking her thoughts were second nature to her. Otherwise, her uneasiness at the invitation might have been evident. She did want to meet with whoever it was that could give her permission to use this property for the film, but how did she know for certain that there’d be anyone there? The prospect of being alone with a man she found more than a little attractive made her feel somewhat nervous.

Val didn’t consider herself a timid woman by any means, but she wasn’t a foolish one, either, and in her book, that meant not taking any undue chances or going off to meetings on her own with complete strangers. Even good-looking ones.

Especially good-looking ones, she amended.

“That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?” Rafe asked her. Then, before she could answer, he added, “I feel as if I owe you, seeing as how you weren’t expecting to go for an impromptu run when you came out here. For a Hollywood girl, you can certainly run.”

The comment made her wonder what sort of stereotypical image he had of Hollywood women. “I didn’t want to wind up on his trophy wall,” she told him, nodding in the direction that the bull had taken.

“I wouldn’t have let that happen.” He wasn’t bragging; he just wanted her to be reassured that while she was here, she was safe.

Her eyes swept over him as if she was looking for something. “What were you planning on doing, whipping out your bullfighting cape and distract him away from me?” she asked.

There was laughter in her eyes, Rafe noticed. She probably thought he was trying to make himself appear important after the fact—not that he could really fault her for that.

“No, but I would have run in another direction, after distracting Jasper and getting him to follow me.”

The humor slowly faded from her eyes, replaced by a look of fascination. “You’re actually serious,” she realized.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Rafe asked. “We don’t get too many people passing through Forever, and getting one of them trampled by a bull wouldn’t exactly look very friendly on the tourist website,” he answered tongue-in-cheek.

The humor returned to her bright blue eyes. “I guess it wouldn’t at that.” She glanced back at the bull, who had apparently lost interest in both of them and was now ambling back to wherever he had initially come from. “Is he just trying to lure us into a trap by giving us a false sense of security?”

Rafe laughed. “You’re giving Jasper way too much credit. He doesn’t have any unusual powers of deduction. He just lost interest in us, you know, out of sight, out of mind.”

She nodded knowingly at the information. “In other words, he’s a typical male.”

“Ouch.” Rafe pretended to wince as if the words carried with them a physical blow. “What sort of men have you been encountering?”

Val deliberately blocked out any thoughts of Scott. That was way too sensitive a subject for her to discuss with a stranger. As for the other men she’d encountered, well, they were far more concerned with having a good time and moving on. For the most part, they were as shallow as puddles.

“The kind that like to sweet-talk women into things, then be on their merry way,” she answered. The way she raised her chin and tossed her hair over her shoulder made Rafe feel that they were not just talking in vague generalities.

He also had the feeling that there would be no specifics forthcoming at this juncture—they didn’t know each other nearly well enough for her to be capable of sharing something of importance with him.

Of course, if she stuck around, there was always that possibility that they would grow to know each other better. The idea had more than a little appeal for him.

“For the sake of argument,” he began.

A never-flagging sense of curiosity had always been a shortcoming of hers—or at least she viewed it as a shortcoming. That still didn’t keep her from wanting to know things. Everything.

“Yes?”

Rafe tried to sound nonchalant as he asked his question, but he had a feeling that he wasn’t quite successful. “If my father and the rest of us agree to having your boss film this movie on our ranch, would you be here for the duration of the filming?”

“If my boss doesn’t need me to find any other locations for the film, then yes, I get to stick around.” She posed a question of her own. “Why?”

Rafe shrugged just a wee bit too casually. “No reason,” he answered. “Just wanted to get all my facts straight before I bring you up to the house—in case my father wants to know something after you leave.”

She watched him carefully as she asked, “Then you were serious about letting me talk to your father?” Val did her best not to appear too excited, but unlike her mother, she had never been a very good poker player.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know you yet,” she said truthfully. “I thought maybe you got your kicks out of leading outsiders on.”

“I don’t,” he assured her. The way he said it made her think he meant it. Or maybe she just wanted to believe that people in a place like this were really the salt of the earth. Uncomplicated and kind hearted. She could use that sort of thing about now.

Rafe saw her looking around uneasily. “Something the matter?”

“I’m just wondering if another bull is going to come galloping out of nowhere if I start to head toward my car.”

“Nothing to worry about,” he answered. “Jasper’s our only bull right now. Leon passed on.”

“Leon,” she repeated. These people definitely did not give their bulls normal names. “Another non-functioning bull?” was her first guess.

The thought made Rafe laugh. “On the contrary, Leon functioned all too well for his own good. I think the poor guy wore himself out and spread himself a little too thin among the ladies.” He grinned. “My dad said that he would rather romance the ladies than eat.”

“Are we still talking about the bull?” she deadpanned. “Or have we moved on to your father?”

This time Rafe laughed heartily for a couple of minutes. When he finally stopped, he said, “I think my dad’s going to like you, Valentine Jones.”

If that’s what it took to secure filming rights, she was ready to be downright adorable. “Well, for the sake of Cowboys and India, I certainly hope so.”

He looked at her, a little bemused. “Cowboys and India?” he asked. What was that?

She nodded. “I guess I didn’t mention it. That’s the name of the movie we’re making. It’s about a dude ranch,” she explained, adding, perhaps in hindsight unnecessarily. “It’s a romantic comedy.” Because he said nothing, she felt compelled to tell him, “I read the script. It’s really pretty good.”

“Are you required to do that?” he asked, curious.

“To read the script?” she guessed. “No, not really. But I like to so I can get a feel for the kind of setting I’m looking for. It helps me when I’m scouting out locations.”

That wasn’t what he was referring to. Rafe shook his head. “No, I mean are you required to say that the script is pretty good?”

Did he think she was just a puppet for the front office? Someone whose true calling was just to rubber-stamp everything? To say whatever was expedient just to get things to move along in the direction that the production department wanted it to move? She couldn’t think of a more awful, colorless way to earn a living.

“Why would you think that?” she asked. “I’m not selling tickets to it.”

“No, what I thought was that you might think that would help convince someone to give you access to their property.”

She laughed. “That’s not what does the convincing,” she told him. “The money that the studio is willing to pay for the use of the property is supposed to do all the convincing on that level,” she told him.

“Money’s nice,” he readily agreed. “But it’s not at the top of my dad’s list.”

She laughed softly and to herself. “Money’s at the top of everyone’s list.”

If his father was going to have them shoot the movie here, she’d learn otherwise, Rafe thought.

For now, he decided to say nothing.

Chapter Three

Restless, Miguel Rodriguez was getting ready to drive out to the west end of his property to see if his son had had any luck in finding the break in the fence. It’d been a while since Rafe had driven out to try to locate the break—if there actually was one. One way or another, by Miguel’s calculations his son should have either called on that cell thing he liked to carry around in his pocket, or driven back by now.

The alternative was that someone was stealing their cattle, an explanation he would rather not entertain. Granted, cattle rustling was not entirely unheard of in this day and age, but he liked his neighbors and there hadn’t been a case of rustling in the area for quite some time.

The other alternative was that there were coyotes in the vicinity, hungry ones that could attack a cow and make short work of it. As a boy, he’d once seen a pack of coyotes bring down a full-grown head of cattle and systematically tear the flesh off the poor animal until there were only bones left. The bones were scattered to the extent that it would appear as if the cow had just vanished. Later, he realized that had he not been looking down on the scene taking place in a gulley, he might have served as the coyotes’ dessert.

Checking his pockets for the keys to his truck, Miguel thought he heard the front door open and close again. Miguel Jr. and Ramon were over at Eli’s, lending him a hand with the new quarter horses and, as far as he knew, Gabe and Alma were working in town as usual, so that only left one son unaccounted for.

“About time you got back, Raphael,” he called out, making his way to front of the house. “I was all set to call the sheriff’s office and have Alma send out a search party for you. Did you find the break?” Miguel asked as he walked into the living room.

Anything else he was about to say faded away as Miguel stopped in his tracks. Unless his eyes were playing tricks on him, his son was not alone. There was a very pretty redhead standing beside him.

“No,” Rafe answered. “I didn’t find the break yet.” Damn, he thought. Once he’d stumbled across Valentine and started talking to her, he’d forgotten all about the break in the fence that he was supposed to be looking for. He flashed his father a semi-apologetic smile. “But I found her.”

Miguel nodded as he made eye contact with the young woman. He knew the faces of all the people who lived around here and she definitely was not from around here—although, now that he looked closer, there was something vaguely familiar about her.

“I see. And she is much more interesting than a break in the fence,” Miguel agreed.

In his early sixties, Miguel Rodriguez was still a virile, powerful man, one who had been extremely handsome in his youth. People told him he still had humor in his dark eyes as well as a certain charm when he smiled.

And he was doing that right now.

Pausing a moment, Miguel glanced toward his son, then back at the attractive young woman he’d brought in with him.

“Since my son seems to have forgotten his manners, let me introduce myself. I am Miguel Rodriguez.” He took her hand in his. “Welcome to my humble home,” he said just before he bowed from the waist and ever so lightly kissed the hand he was holding, as was the custom of his forefathers. Still bowed, he raised his eyes to hers and asked, “And you are?”

Intrigued, Val couldn’t help thinking. She’d been born and raised in the land of make believe, accustomed to charm that oozed from the pores of exceptionally handsome men looking to make a name for themselves—or to seduce her for the space of a satisfying liaison or two. Handsome men whose charm—and subsequent nature—was as deep as a puddle on a sidewalk after a light spring shower.

But this Miguel Rodriguez’s charm seemed to come as naturally as breathing. Val smiled at the still dark-haired man. He was somewhat shorter than his son, but he appeared to be every bit as powerfully built. Muscles, no doubt, that had come from hard work. She had huge respect for someone like that. Her usual wariness, brought on by years of having to deal with plastic people out only for their own interests and advancement, slipped away like a feather gliding on an unexpected breeze.

“Valentine Jones,” she told Rafe’s father with a smile.

Miguel’s eyes shone with appreciation as they slid over her.

Val caught herself thinking, Like father, like son while Miguel told her, “Con mucho gusto. That means—”

“I know a little Spanish,” she responded. “I know what that means.”

“Excellent.” Miguel nodded his approval. Slowly releasing her hand, he stepped back. “May I get you something to drink? Perhaps something to eat?”

She liked his generosity. The man was extending his hospitality to her and he had no idea what she was doing there yet.

“No, thank you, Mr. Rodriguez,” Val began.

Rafe knew how carried away his father could get, exuding Latin charm from every pore. He came to Val’s rescue.

“Val’s here on business, Dad,” Rafe interrupted before his father could get rolling.

The interested look in Miguel’s eyes only grew. “Oh?” His eyes shifted back to the young woman, taking quiet measure of her. “And what business would that be? You cannot be with the bank because all the payments are up to date,” he stated just in case this lovely creature with the sharp blue eyes was with the establishment that held the mortgage to his property. That would explain why he didn’t recognize her. She had to be from out of town. Somewhere up north would be his guess.

“I’m not with the bank,” Val confirmed. “I’m in the business of making movies, sir.”

Miguel’s smile broadened. He slanted a glance toward his son. “Ah, so you have brought me a movie star, Raphael,” he said to his son.

Val was quick to correct his mistake—if he’d actually made it. This one, she sensed, was a born flatterer. “I’m not a movie star, Mr. Rodriguez. I work behind the scenes.”

Smooth, she couldn’t help thinking. And still every bit of a charmer. She had a feeling that in his day, Miguel Rodriguez had been a force to be reckoned with and that no woman could resist him.

“That is a shame,” Miguel told her with genuine feeling. “You should be in front of the camera, not behind one. Come, sit,” he encouraged, gesturing toward the oversize tan leather sofa in his living room.

“Thank you.”

Walking in front of the older man, Val took a seat on the sofa. Rather than sit beside her, the man she had come to see took a seat on the matching armchair that was positioned kitty-corner to the larger piece of furniture. Looking at him, Val thought of him as a ruler, holding court.

Rafe sat down on the sofa beside her—just close enough to make her aware of his presence even if she wasn’t looking directly at him.

“Now then, what can I do for you, Miss—I’m sorry,” he apologized, leaning in toward her and creating a very personal space between them. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Valentine Jones,” Val repeated. Taking a business card out of the pocket of her jeans, she handed it to the older man.

Miguel glanced at the card, then raised his eyes to hers. She could feel him scrutinizing her. But it wasn’t the kind of scrutiny that made her want to squirm. On the contrary, though she wasn’t sure just what he was thinking, he made her feel welcomed and right at home. Because of the nature of her work, Val had the ability to adjust to almost any surroundings, but inside, there was always this wariness.