by Caro Carson
The horse snuffled some more of her hair, clearly approving of her even if her owner didn’t. “What’s this horse’s name?”
“No bare feet in the barn.” The cowboy indicated the door with a jerk of his strong chin—his very strong chin, which fit his square jaw. A lighting director couldn’t ask for better angles to illuminate. The camera would love him.
Travis Chalmers. He’d tipped his hat to her this afternoon as he’d sat on his horse. Her heart had tripped a little then. It tripped a little now.
She’d already brought her ankles together and bent one knee, so very casually, she set one hand on her hip. It made her body look its best. The public always checked out her body, her clothing, her makeup, her hair. God forbid anything failed to meet their movie star expectations. They’d rip her apart on every social media platform.
Travis had already seen her looking her worst, but if he hoped she’d crack into more pieces, he was in for a disappointment.
Sophia shook her hair back, knowing it would shine even in the low light of the barn. “What’s the horse’s name? She and I have the same taste in shampoo.”
“He’s a gelding, not a girl. You can’t come into the barn without boots or shoes. It’s not safe. Is that clear?”
Sophia rolled her eyes in a playful way, as if she were lighthearted tonight. “If it’s a boy horse, then what’s his name? He likes me.”
The cowboy scoffed at that. “You seem to think all of my stock like you.”
“They do. All of them except you.”
Travis’s expression didn’t change, not one bit, even though she’d tossed off her line with the perfect combination of sassy confidence and pretty pout. He simply wasn’t impressed.
It hurt. He was the only person out here, her only possible defense against being swallowed by the loneliness, and yet he was the one person on earth who didn’t seem thrilled to meet a celebrity.
Supposedly. He was still watching her.
The audition wasn’t over. She could still win him over.
The anxiety to do so was familiar. Survival in Hollywood depended on winning people over. She’d had to win over every casting director who’d judged her, who’d watched her as impassively as this cowboy did while she tried to be enchanting. Indifference had to be overcome, or she wouldn’t get the job and she couldn’t pay the bills.
With the anxiety came the adrenaline that had helped her survive. She needed to win over Travis Chalmers, or she’d have no one to talk to at all. Ever.
So she smiled, and she took a step closer.
His eyes narrowed a fraction as his gaze dropped down her bare legs. She felt another little thrill of adrenaline. This would be easy.
“You’re bleeding,” he said.
“I’m—” She tilted her head but kept her smile in place. “What?”
But he was impatient, walking past her to glare at the floor behind her. “What did you cut yourself on?”
She turned around to see little round, red smears where she’d stopped to greet each horse. “It must have been a rock outside. I stepped on a couple of rocks pretty hard.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
He glanced at her and had the grace to look the tiniest bit embarrassed. “Good that it wasn’t anything sharp in the barn. If it had been a nail or something that had cut you, then it could cut a horse, too.”
“Thanks for your concern.” She said it with a smile and a little shake of her chandelier earrings. “Nice to know the horses are more valuable than I am.”
“Like I said earlier, it’s my job to take care of every beast on this ranch. You’re not a beast. You should know to wear shoes.”
She wasn’t sure how to answer that. She couldn’t exactly insist she was a valuable beast that needed taken care of, and she certainly wasn’t going to admit she’d run outside in a panic. Actors who panicked didn’t get hired.
“Come on. I’ll get you something for the bleeding.”
He walked away. Just turned his back on her and walked away. Again.
After a moment, she followed, but she hadn’t taken two steps when he told her to stop. “Don’t keep bleeding on the floor.”
“What do you want me to do?” She put both hands on her hips and faced him squarely. Who cared if it didn’t show off her figure? She’d lost this audition already.
“Can’t you hop on one foot?”
This had to be a test, another trick to see if she was a dumb blonde. But Travis turned into a side room that was the size of another stall, one fitted out with a deep utility sink and kitchen-style cabinets.
He wasn’t watching her to see what she’d do, so maybe it wasn’t a joke. After a moment of indecision, she started hopping on her good foot. The cut one hurt, anyway, and it was only a few hops to reach the sink.
Travis opened one of the cabinets. It looked like a pharmacy inside, stocked with extra-large pill bottles. He got out a box of bandages, the adhesive kind that came in individual paper wrappers. The kind her mother had put on her scrapes and cuts when she was little.
I am not going to cry in front of this man. Not ever again.
He tapped the counter by the sink. “Hop up. Wash your foot off in the sink.”
“Why don’t you come here and give me a little boost?”
He stilled, with good reason. She’d said it with a purr, an unmistakably sexual invitation for him to put his hands on her.
She hadn’t meant to. It had just popped out that way, her way to distance herself from the nostalgia. Maybe a way to gain some control over him. He was giving her commands, but she could get him to obey a sexual command of her own if she really turned on the charm.
Whatever had made her say that, she had to brave it out now. Sultry was better than sad. Anything was better than sad.
She tossed her hair back, her earrings jingling like a belly dancer’s costume. She turned so that she was slightly sideways to him, her bustline a curvy contrast to her flat stomach.
“The counter’s too high for me. Give me a hand...or two.”
Come and touch me. Her invitation sounded welcoming. She realized it was. He was nothing like the sleek actors or the crazy DJs she’d known, but apparently, rugged outdoorsman appealed to her in a big way. You’ve got a big green light here, Mr. Cowboy.
“Too high for you,” he repeated, without a flicker of sexual awareness in his voice. Instead, he sounded impatient as he cut through her helpless-damsel act. “I already watched you hop up on Mrs. MacDowell’s counter tonight.”
Of course the counter height had been a flimsy excuse; it had been an invitation. She refused to blush at having it rejected. Instead, she backed up to the counter and braced her hands behind herself, letting her crop top ride high. With the kind of slow control that would have made her personal yoga instructor beam with approval, she used biceps and triceps and abs, and lifted herself slowly onto the counter with a smooth flex of her toned body. People would pay money to see a certain junior officer do that in a faraway galaxy.
Travis Chalmers made a lousy audience. He only turned on the water and handed her a bar of soap.
She worked the bar into a lather as she pouted. Even Deezee wouldn’t have passed up the chance to touch her. Actually, that was all Deezee had ever wanted to do: touch her. If it wasn’t going to end in sex, he wasn’t into it. She’d texted him ten times more often than he’d texted her between dates. His idea of a date had meant they’d go somewhere to party in the public eye or drink among VIPs for a couple of hours before they went to bed together. There’d been no hanging out for the sake of spending time together.
Sophia held her foot still as the water rinsed off the suds. She’d mistaken sex for friendship, hadn’t she?
“It’s not a deep cut. You should heal pretty quickly.” Travis dabbed th
e sole of her foot dry with a wad of clean paper towels, which he then handed to her. Before she could ask what she was supposed to do with damp paper towels, he’d torn the paper wrapper off a bandage and placed it over the cut. He pressed the adhesive firmly into her skin with his thumb. There was nothing sexual in his touch, but it wasn’t unkind. It was almost...paternal.
“Do you have kids?” she asked.
For once, he paused at something she’d said. “No.”
You ought to. There was something about his unruffled, unhurried manner...
Dear God, she wasn’t going to start missing her father, too. She couldn’t think about parents and sister any longer. Not tonight.
She snatched her foot away and jumped lightly off the counter, landing on the foot that hadn’t been cut. She held up the wad of damp towels. “Where’s the trash?”
“You need those paper towels to wipe up the blood on your way out. I’ll get you something to wear on your feet.”
On her way out. She was dismissed, and she had to go back to the empty house in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t want Travis to fetch her boots; she wanted him to carry her. He was a man who rode horseback all day. A cowboy who stood tall, with broad shoulders and strong hands. He could carry her weight, and God knew Sophia was tired of carrying everything herself.
She wanted his arms around her.
But she’d failed this audition. He wasn’t interested in her when she was either bossy or cute. He wasn’t fazed by her sultry tone, and he didn’t care about her hard-earned, perfect body. He wasn’t impressed with her in any way.
She gingerly stepped into the center aisle to see where he’d gone. Across from the medical room was another stall-sized space where it seemed saddles got parked on wooden sawhorses. The next room was enclosed with proper walls and a door, with a big glass window in the wall that looked into the rest of the barn. She could see a desk and bookcase and all the usual stuff for an office inside. She felt so dumb; she hadn’t known barns had offices and medical clinics inside.
Travis came in from the door at the far end of the aisle from the door she’d used. He dropped a pair of utilitarian rubber rain boots at her feet. “These will get you back to the house. Return them tomorrow, before sundown.”
“So specific. Bossy much?” She could hear the snotty teenager in her voice. Whatever. She hated feeling dumb.
“Whoever brings the horses in tomorrow might want to wear them when they hose down a horse, so have them back by then.”
It was a patient explanation, but she hated that he could tell she didn’t know squat about how a ranch was run. “Someone else is coming? You’re not going to be here tomorrow night?”
“We take turns during roundup. One of the other hands will have a chance to come in and shower and sleep in a bed. Someone’s usually here before sundown.”
“But I can’t let anyone else see me.”
He shrugged. “Then don’t come into the barn at sundown.”
Then turn the car around. Then go to the grocery store. As if life were that simple.
“If you do come into the barn, wear boots. Dish towels are optional. Good night.” He walked back into the medical stall, closing cabinet doors and shutting off the light.
Dish towels are optional. The man thought she was a big joke. With as much dignity as she’d once been forced to muster each time a casting director had said Don’t call us, we’ll call you, Sophia stepped into the galoshes and headed for the door, bending over to wipe up little red circles as she went.
* * *
Travis returned to the center aisle in time to watch the most beautiful woman in the world stomp out of his barn like a goddess in galoshes. She slid the barn door closed behind herself with what he was certain was a deliberate bang.
Samson, his favorite gelding and apparent lover of women’s shampoo, kept his head toward the door, ears pointed toward the spot where the woman had disappeared. Travis realized he and the horse were both motionless for a moment too long.
“You can stop staring at the door. She’s not coming back.”
The horse shifted, stamping his foot.
“All right, damn it, you’re right. Her hair smelled amazing. Don’t get used to it. We’ve got work tomorrow. It’d take more than a pretty woman to change our ways.”
Chapter Five
Three days, he stayed away.
The days were easy, filled with dirt and lassos as the animals were rounded up, counted, doctored. Calves bawled for their mamas until the cowboys released them and let them run back to the waiting herd. Travis had to change his mount every few hours to give the horses a rest, so the additional challenge of controlling different mounts with their unique personalities kept his attention focused where it ought to be.
But for three nights...
He’d stretch out on his bedroll and stare at the stars while thinking of one in particular, the star that had fallen onto his ranch. Insomnia wasn’t a problem after a day of physical work, but when his tired body forced his mind to shut down, he continued thinking about Sophia Jackson in his sleep. Sophia got flirty, she got angry, she was strong and she was weak, but she was always, always tempting in every dream version of her that his brain could concoct. For three nights, he dreamed of nothing else.
It was damned annoying.
In the afternoon of the fourth day, he rode in with Clay Cooper, the hand who was next up for a night off. As foreman, Travis had to get to his office to keep up with the never-ending paperwork that went with running any business. That was reason enough for him to leave camp for the night. Not one cowboy was surprised when he left with Clay and the string of horses that were due for a day’s rest and extra oats in the barn.
But Travis knew the real reason he was going in was to check on the famous Sophia Jackson. He was tired of fighting that nagging feeling that he needed to keep an eye on her, a feeling that hadn’t gone away since the moment he’d met her in the road.
The house came into view. Travis’s horse perked up. Travis had worked with horses too long for him not to understand what drove their behavior. The horse had perked up with anticipation because the rider had perked up with anticipation.
Travis rolled his shoulders. Took off his hat and smacked the dust off his thigh. Relaxed into the saddle.
There was nothing to anticipate. He was going to see Sophia Jackson soon. No big deal. Sophia was a movie star, but he wasn’t starstruck.
The horse walked on while Travis turned that thought over once or twice. It felt true. Sure, he’d seen her in Space Maze. It would be hard to find someone who hadn’t seen that movie. But from the tantrum she’d thrown about being stared at, and from her sister’s fear of the paparazzi, he didn’t think the Hollywood lifestyle was very attractive. It would have been better if she hadn’t been a movie star.
Better for what?
Just easier all around. He put his hat on his head and turned back to check the string of horses following Clay. All was well.
As the foreman, he was riding in to check on the new person renting the MacDowells’ house, same as he’d check on any new cowboy who came to the ranch. Hell, he’d check on any new filly or fence post. Once he was sure the MacDowells’ guest had gotten her groceries and her fridge was still running, he’d mentally cross her off his to-do list and move on to the next item: he needed to order more barb wire before they got down to the last spool.
He and Clay rode past the house. Travis had planned to help Clay put up the horses first at the bunkhouse’s stable before checking on Sophia, but he noticed that Clay didn’t even toss a glance toward the house. It hit Travis that none of the hands who’d come and gone from camp seemed to be aware anyone was living in Mrs. MacDowell’s house. Travis would’ve told them there was a guest staying there. No big deal. But no one had mentioned seeing any signs of life fo
r the past three nights.
There were no signs of life now. No lights on. No curtains open to take in the evening sunset. No rocking chair on the porch out of place. Sophia was keeping herself hidden pretty well, then. Or...
Or Sophia Jackson had left the River Mack ranch.
I don’t want to be here, anyway, she’d said, hand poised over the car’s steering wheel.
It was the most likely explanation. He’d wanted her to leave when he’d first met her, so he ought to be relieved. Instead, that nagging need to see her intensified. He had to know if she was still on his land or not.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said to Clay. He let his horse feel his hurry to reach Mrs. MacDowell’s kitchen door until he stopped her at the edge of the flagstone patio. There, stretched out on one of the wooden picnic tables, was Sophia. She was laid out like she was the meal, her clothing white like a tablecloth, her body delectable, but her eyes were closed and her hand was open and relaxed as she slept.
He dismounted and looped the horse’s reins loosely around the old hitching post. His horse tossed her head with a jangle of tack and the heels of Travis’s boots made a hard noise with each step as he crossed the flagstone, but Sophia remained fast asleep.
He ought to be thinking of Sleeping Beauty, he supposed. Sophia was as beautiful as a princess in her innocent white clothing, if a princess wore shorts and a shirt.
Instead, he couldn’t get the idea of a feast out of his head. Here was a woman who’d be a banquet for the senses. Old college memories came back, Humanities 101 and its dry textbook descriptions of Roman emperors who’d held feasts where the sex was part of the meal. The image of a fairy tale princess battled briefly with the Roman feast, but Travis’s body clearly clamored for Rome.
He stopped at her side. Looked down at her, but didn’t touch. “Sophia.”
She didn’t stir. He said her name again and waited, wondering how a shirt and shorts could look so sexy. Finally, he shook her arm. “Sophia, wake up. It’s Travis.”
She jerked awake, then jerked away from him, like an animal instinctively afraid of attack.
