To Court A Cowgirl

“I’m up to my neck in student loans!”

“If you used that eighty-acre parcel on the far side of the creek as collateral... Not that you’d need collateral. I have some savings to use to make payments until I land a job.”

“Oooh, no...” Allie shook her head. “Uh-uh. I’m not attaching the ranch to a loan.” She’d taken great pains not to do that while funding her education.

“Only part of—”

“No.” At any minute she expected Kyle’s heart-rate monitor to top out. If she’d been attached to a monitor, it would already be there. “I’m sorry about your predicament.” But it was not her predicament, no matter how guilty she felt saying no. “The ranch belongs to all of us. I couldn’t make a decision like that alone if I wanted to.”

“Will you talk to your sisters?”

“I have to go, Kyle.”

Allie turned and left the room, walking to her car in a haze of anger. She hated not helping people, but Kyle was asking too much.

Yet, she still felt jabbing guilt beneath her anger. Why? What was wrong with her? She’d spent five years of her life supporting this guy, believing in him, and she’d been let down every single time. Wasn’t that enough?

* * *

AFTER ALLIE HAD driven away, Jason finished dismantling the roof and then took a break before starting on the main structure, which was going to take some time. A couple weeks, maybe, working by hand. He was glad. As Max got healthier, he got more cantankerous and controlling, reminding Jason of a little kid pushing boundaries.

He sat on the tailgate of his truck, drinking from his water bottle and studying the barn wreckage, debating where to start. He honestly did need a hard hat for this part of the job. Part of the structure was still intact and several beams were attached to the top of a standing wall, although their opposite ends rested on the ground. Potential for trouble there. He had no idea how well the upper ends of the beams were attached, or what it would take to bring the standing wall down. He’d find out soon enough.

After stowing his water bottle back in the cooler, he approached his project. In the rubble, he could see old hand tools and gardening implements that had been stored in the building. A beat-up saddle lay in the jumble between two wooden barrels, one of which was now smashed. Dismantling this part of the building was going to feel like a treasure hunt. He wondered how much of the stuff was useful and how much had been stored instead of being thrown away. That was how a lot of valuable antiques had survived until present day, but none of the stuff he could see looked particularly valuable...except for the old bit-and-brace drill sitting just under a fallen beam. He loved bit-and-brace drills—had spent a lot of time as a kid drilling holes in boards his grandfather had given him to keep him busy. Rather than wait the day or two until he’d got to that area by knocking things down, he carefully started picking his way across fallen boards.

Oh, yeah. He bent and picked up the drill. He’d never worked in the construction trade, but his dad collected old tools and he knew a good one when he saw it. The knob at the top was black walnut if he wasn’t mistaken. He started back toward safety, the drill in one hand. He’d ask Allie if she wanted to sell it and he’d also let her know that it was worth something before she made the decision.

He was just about to step off the two-by-six he’d been using as a balance beam onto a sturdier-looking fallen beam when he heard an ominous crack. Before he could save himself, the board snapped and his leg plunged down into the jumble of debris, shoving up his pant leg as his shin skidded down the rough surface of a broken board. Shit.

He grimaced as he pulled his leg out of the hole. It stung. Gingerly he made his way to his truck, trying to remember the last time he’d skinned himself up good. When he was a kid on his bike maybe?

Blood had seeped through his jeans by the time he got there. He’d had a lot of injuries over the years, but few of them bled much, if you didn’t count getting cleated, or that one time his nose had gotten broken. He was just working his pant leg up over the scrape when he heard the car coming down the road.

Allie. He pushed the pant leg back into place and stood next to his truck, hoping she’d keep going past him. No such luck. She pulled up beside him and rolled down her window.

“Done with the roof I see.”

“Just finished.” He picked up the drill, noticed the blood on his fingers and hoped she didn’t. “I found this in the main part of the building.”

“How?”

“Wasn’t easy.” Not only that, it’d hurt. He nodded at the tool. “It’s got some value to it and I was wondering, if you don’t have a sentimental attachment because it was your dad’s or something, if I could buy it for my old man.”

“I don’t see why not.”

He started to smile, but it stalled out as her gaze dropped and then fixed on his lower leg, where the blood was gluing his pants to his skin. When she brought her gaze back up to his, there was a question in it, and he could see that she didn’t expect to have to ask that question out loud.

“I had a mishap while getting the drill.”

“You’re the second beat-up guy I’ve dealt with today.”

“Who was the other?” And were you responsible?

“My ex. He got into a car wreck.”

“Nothing too serious, I hope.”

“Broken ribs, black eyes. He’s hurting, but nothing life-threatening. He was lucky.” She said the words in a way that did not invite further comment. “Do you want to go to the house and clean up your leg, or what?”

Well, yeah, he did. “I don’t want to bleed all over your place.”

“Won’t be the first time,” she said. She jerked her head toward the passenger side of her car, but he shook his head.

“I can walk a hundred yards.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Walking is easier than getting into your car.”

“Oh.” Her eyebrows lifted as she considered his size compared to the space available in her tiny passenger seat. “I guess so. And here I thought that you were going all macho on me.”

“I know,” he said with a half smile. She did tend to think the worst of him and he might have to do something about that.

She waited for him at the gate and then he followed her into the house. She gestured for him to wait in the living room and then walked through the kitchen into the adjoining mudroom. She came back with a plastic bucket of neatly folded terry-cloth towels with gauze pads and athletic tape resting on top. She held out the pail with a small shrug. “Vet bucket. All the towels are clean and bleached. You can get them as bloody as you want.”

“Thanks.”

“I hope you don’t mind using the same towels used for animal emergencies, but like I said, they’re clean.”

He raised his hand. “No. Honest. I’m good with it. Glad I don’t have to make do with wet paper towels.”

‘That was kind of what I was thinking. I usually use duct tape with the animals, but I thought you might be more comfortable with athletic tape.”

A joke. Cool.

She pointed the way to the bathroom and Jason headed down the hall, bucket in hand. He casually glanced back before he opened the door. Allie hadn’t moved, but her chin jerked up as he met her gaze. He lifted an eyebrow and then walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Allie Brody had been staring at his ass.

CHAPTER SIX

WELL, THAT WAS the very first time ever she’d been caught ogling a guy’s ass and it had happened in her living room.

Allie scrubbed her hands over her cheeks. That’s what she got for giving in to temptation. What was it with this guy? Why was he her Kryptonite?

Okay. No big deal. Surely she wasn’t the only woman he’d ever caught staring at him, but...this was different. She was his employer. He was her employee. Temporarily, but all the same.

But what it really came down to was that it was Jason Hudson, whom she’d thought of as an arrogant jock and who was turning out to be much more together and pleasant than she’d ever expected.

And attractive. Don’t forget attractive.

How could she? He was right there. Being attractive.

She wasn’t comfortable being attracted to him because that wasn’t part of her go-it-alone-and-be-secure plan. She’d had enough heartache over the past several years. Being alone equaled no more heartache.

Being attracted meant being tempted to not be alone, which in turn tempted heartache.

Allie lifted her chin and headed off for the kitchen, where she went to the sink and poured herself a glass of water. Maybe if she hydrated, she could gain control of her hormones. She took a long drink.

Yes. Better.

Or maybe it was the fact that there were now a couple of walls and a healthy distance between herself and the guy with the great ass.

Allie emptied the glass, then opened the dishwasher and started putting the dishes into the cupboard, resolutely pulling her thoughts away from Jason until she heard the bathroom door open and her nerves jumped. Jason’s tread was heavy on her old wood floors and each step made her heart rate speed up just a tiny bit more.

Then the steps stopped.

Allie froze, wondering what he was doing, until he started moving again and she busied herself arranging glasses in the cupboard. Unaware. Unaffected. Yes. That was her.

“I didn’t know you painted,” Jason said as he came into the kitchen, carrying the bucket in one hand and the soiled towels in the other. His pant leg was soaked from the knee down, where he’d washed the blood out of it. Just looking at it made Allie feel a little clammy. Wet jeans were never comfortable.

Nor was facing the guy who’d caught her checking him out.

“I don’t paint,” she said matter-of-factly. “Not anymore. It was just a...phase.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her in an expression that said he’d like to know more, but wasn’t going to ask—probably because of her forbidding expression. “I only used one towel, but I did a number on it. Where should I put it?”

She gestured toward the mudroom and he followed her to the washing machine. She lifted the lid and he dropped the wet, bloody towel inside.

“I’m sure there’ll be more to follow,” she said as she closed the lid again.

“Do you have a lot of injuries here?”

“No, but when you have this many animals, stuff happens. If not blood, then mud. Trust me—that washer will have a load in no time.”

“Huh.” He flexed his knee as if testing whether or not his administrations would hold. “Well. I’m good as I’ll be. I guess I’ll head on back and try not to get hurt.” He pointed to the back door. “Can I go out this way?”

“Of course.”

He paused, his hand on the door handle. “Are you going to dock my pay for this?”

“Not if you don’t sue me for having an attractive nuisance on my property.”

“I recall signing a paper releasing you from indemnity if I got hurt.”

“Good call on my part.”

“Looks like it.” He held her gaze and when she didn’t say anything more, he turned and headed out the door. After he was safely out of the house, Allie moved to the window to watch him walk to his truck, free to watch his ass all she’d like. She let out a breath as she let the curtain drop.

The house felt empty and as she started toward the kitchen, it seemed to echo alone, alone, alone in time with her footsteps.

Alone had been her natural state for the past year, but not one that she particularly welcomed, even though she wasn’t certain how to change that without jeopardizing the fragile sense of control she had over her life right now. It was crazy, but even when she was with people she felt alone—probably a holdover from all those years that she pretended everything was okay with her and Kyle when they were not. She’d been the great pretender, with her sisters and her mother. With herself. She’d protected her deep secret, the fact that she was barely holding herself together in the face of the disintegration of both her marriage and the ranch, by erecting barriers. Not letting conversations get too deep, or herself get too close to others. Her sisters had been off in distant places, living their own lives. And she’d been here on the ranch, lying about hers. Lying hadn’t turned out well in any respect, so she was determined to be honest with herself this time around.

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