The Camden Cowboy

Lacey did as he instructed without telling him that she’d done much the same thing the day before in her search for him. But when she reached the garage she refused his offer of access to one of the bays. “It’s easier if I just park alongside of it—my hands and arms are usually full when I’m coming and when I’m going, and it’s enough to maneuver the car door without dealing with a garage door, too.”

“Sure,” he said, as if that didn’t surprise him, either. “But if you change your mind …”

“Thanks.”

The man seemed so easygoing and laid-back. Where was that ruthlessness and relentlessness that her college professor had said marked the Camdens? That had given them such success? This guy seemed to take everything in stride.

Lacey parked and popped the trunk, and she and Seth got out of the car. It took multiple trips to unload her suitcases and two laptop computers, as well as a printer, a fax machine and several cardboard file boxes.

Seth volunteered to make the last trip alone for what remained of the file boxes while Lacey took her suitcases into the bedroom.

It was every bit as nice as the rest of the guesthouse; it had its own set of French doors that swung out onto the private patio, which was completely secluded by well-tended hedges and more shade trees.

After opening those doors to let in the cooler evening air, she went back into the living room just as Seth returned with the file boxes. He held his powerful arms straight out in front of him, biceps cut and bulging as they bore the weight of the boxes. The sight made Lacey’s mouth go dry.

“Just set them down with the others. I’ll organize at some point,” she instructed in a quiet voice, as she tried to focus on the task and not the man performing it.

“I shut your trunk and locked your car doors—although there isn’t really a need around here,” he informed her as he set the boxes atop some others. Then he faced her and slid a hand into one of his front jean pockets, and Lacey’s gaze just followed without thinking about where her eyes would end up.

When she realized that she was basically looking at his crotch, she yanked her head up in a hurry.

“You left these in the ignition,” he said, pulling her car keys from his pocket.

He was being nice and considerate and thoughtful and conscientious, and her mind was in the gutter.

Even as she silently chastised herself, Lacey did a frantic search for something safe and bland to say to distract herself and make sure he didn’t know she was thinking about him inappropriately. She settled on “So how is it that a Camden is a cowboy?”

Had that sounded sort of disapproving? She hadn’t meant it that way.

Seth Camden arched one eyebrow. “Because the only jobs that matter are jobs that require suits and ties?”

So it had sounded disapproving.

“No!” Lacey was quick to respond. “It’s just that the Camdens are … you know—big business. One of the biggest names in business—I even learned about your great-grandfather and grandfather in college. So I was surprised when my father said you had property in a place as small as Northbridge. And then to find you working the way you were yesterday …”

All sweaty and sun-drenched and sexy …

Lacey curbed those wandering thoughts, too. “I just didn’t know that any of the Camdens didn’t wear suits and ties on the job.”

“Oh, it happens,” he said, as if she were being shortsighted. But then he seemed to shrug off any offense he might have taken and answered her initial question. “We have old ties to Northbridge—”

“I remember that this is where your great-grandfather started out—”

“And where my grandmother was born and raised, where she and my grandfather met—”

“Really? Your grandmother was from Northbridge?”

“So was my mother—she met my father when he was here after he graduated high school. My grandmother converted pretty well to city girl, but my mother never did. She liked it here better, so when she was alive—and my father was busy working, which was most of the time—she would bring us kids to stay here. I guess country life just got into my blood. After we lost our folks, my grandmother would only bring us all here periodically, but it was still where I felt the most at home. So when I was old enough to make the choice, this was the life I opted for.”

“Are you the hermit of the family?”

He laughed. Lacey wasn’t sure whether she was relieved to hear it or if it was the sound of his laugh alone that she liked so much. But either way, she reveled in it.

“I’m not a hermit, no,” he answered. “I just like country life, working the land, working with the animals. But we own over thirty farms, ranches and dairies across the country, and they’re all my responsibility. I have managers at each place who report to me every day—sometimes more than once a day. I oversee things from here, then travel a few times a year for a closer look at what’s going on. I keep a small plane on a strip at the Billings airport so I can get anywhere I need to be in a matter of hours if there’s a problem.”

Of course whatever a Camden had a hand in had to be on a grand scale. Lacey didn’t know why she’d thought otherwise. Seth Camden might look like a cowboy, he might run a ranch and do the work of a cowboy, he might even have the cowboy’s sense of decorum that had prompted him to help her move in, but she should have guessed that there would be more to him and to what he did than merely running a simple small-town ranch.

Before Lacey responded to what he’d said, he changed the subject.

“I think I can get out to your construction site tomorrow to take a look at what was left there. It probably won’t be until late in the afternoon, so there won’t be time to clear anything out, but it’ll give me an idea of what’s there and if I’ll be able to do it all myself or if I’ll need help or a dolly or a trailer or what.”

“I’m not sure what you’ll need, either. I do know that there’s some sort of farm equipment thingy—”

He laughed. “Farm equipment thingy?”

“I don’t know what else to call it—it’s behind the barn and it looks like it hooks up to a tractor or something. But I couldn’t begin to tell you what it is or what it does. So you’re right that you probably need to get an idea of what there is to move before you try to do the moving.”

“And tomorrow is okay?”

So she knew for sure that she’d get to see him again tomorrow …

She reminded herself once more that she shouldn’t be thinking about such things.

“Tomorrow is fine,” she said, as if it had no impact on her whatsoever. “Late afternoon is actually better for me because my meetings are all in the morning and early afternoon, and once the crew has left for the day I switch over to office work and that’s the easiest for me to interrupt …”

That hadn’t sounded good either …

“Not that you’ll be an interruption. I just mean that’s the best time for me to get away …”

Of course if she couldn’t get away personally, there were other people who could show him what he needed to move. But somehow Lacey didn’t want anyone else to do it …

“About four-thirty or five?” Seth said, not appearing to notice that she was flustered.

“Four-thirty or five is great,” she agreed, deciding it might be better if she said less because every time she said more she seemed to put her foot in her mouth.

He headed for the door. “There’s a landline on the wall in the kitchen—” He pointed to it. “My cell phone number and the number for my house are on a notepad next to the phone. If you need anything, just call. Try my cell first—that’s the likeliest way to reach me.”

“You don’t have a housekeeper or staff who’s over there even when you’re not?” Her father had an assistant at work and a housekeeper at home who always knew how to reach him. It just seemed likely that a Camden would have at least that, too.

But something about the question made Seth Camden chuckle. “I have a lady who comes in once a week and cleans up the rooms I use. If family is due in for some reason she brings two of her friends to spruce up the whole place, but other than that everybody who works here works on the land.”

Lacey nodded, realizing that again what she’d expected of him and the reality were two different things.

Seeing that his hand was on the doorknob, she said, “Thanks for the help tonight.”

“Don’t mention it.” He opened the door to leave.

And for absolutely no reason, Lacey felt the urge to say something—anything—to keep him there even a moment longer.

So she said, “You know how to get to the site tomorrow?”

Dumb. There wasn’t a single dumber thing she could have said.

Seth paused with his hand still on the doorknob to grin at her. “Uh … I do. I used to own the place, remember?”

Lacey grimaced. “Force of habit—I can’t keep straight who’s local and who’s not, so I just automatically ask if anybody coming out to the site knows the way.”

“Well, I do.”

“Sure. Of course you do. I’ll just see you tomorrow then.”

“Right.”

He stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

There was a big picture window not far from where Lacey was standing, and she instantly looked through it to watch Seth Camden walk around the pool and back to the main house.

With a cowboy’s swagger that made her mouth go dry again.

Which was cause for her to command herself to look away, to put the image and every thought of the man out of her mind.

But still she went on watching until he disappeared inside the French door they’d come out of.

And as for thoughts of the man?

Even out of sight, he wasn’t out of mind.

For the second night in a row.

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