A Cowboy's Wish Upon A Star (Texas Rescue Book 5)

by Caro Carson

  The possibilities sent a sizzle of sexual energy through her.

  She slid open the barn door, using chest muscles that still felt strong despite weeks of laziness. Every LA personal trainer emphasized pectoral tone to keep the breasts high. Having good breasts was part of her job.

  She’d only had to reveal them once in her career, during a love scene in a serious crime drama. Her male costar’s bare buttocks had been in the frame as well. As makeup artists had dabbed foundation on his butt cheeks and brushed shadow into her cleavage, the two of them had attempted awkward jokes until the director had called for quiet on the set. For hours, her costar kept popping some kind of bubblegum-flavored mints that smelled grossly sweeter with each take. There had been nothing sexy about filming that scene, but the director had known what he was doing, and the final cut had looked scorching hot on the big screen.

  The movie had only gotten modest box office distribution, but Travis might have seen it. Had he found it arousing? He must have. One couldn’t be human and not find the finished scene arousing.

  She shut the door behind herself. The interior of the barn was dim after the blinding sun. She took a moment to let her eyes adjust, leaning against the same post Travis had leaned against last night. He’d given her his time and attention, willing to talk. Only to talk.

  Not willing to be seduced. Not even by a movie star.

  That sizzle died. When she’d reached out to touch him, he’d pulled on a shirt and left her standing in his office. Unemployed or not, she still looked like a movie star. What had she done that had made it so easy for him to resist her?

  She walked slowly down the aisle, evaluating her posture and carriage, working on it as an actor. If she saw herself on film now, what kind of character traits would she be relaying to the audience?

  She hadn’t been very convincing in the role of seductress last night. She didn’t believe she was still a movie star, so she wasn’t acting like a movie star. That had to be the problem. Deezee’s infidelity had shaken her confidence. The publicity had been humiliating, so now Sophia must be giving off some kind of insecure ex-girlfriend vibe.

  Guys hated that. If she could turn back time to the person she’d been before Deezee, she would have Travis eating out of the palm of her hand. He’d be grateful if she chased a water droplet over his skin with the tip of her finger, because the sexy and smart Sophia Jackson would be the one doing the chasing, not the depressed and lonely creature she’d turned into. Travis couldn’t resist a movie star.

  Could he?

  He already had. When they’d met on the road, she’d seen the precise moment on his face when he’d first realized who she was, but he hadn’t exactly fallen all over himself to get her autograph. He’d told her to get behind the wheel and drive herself off his ranch, actually.

  Don’t call us; we’ll call you.

  She paused at his office window. There was nothing in that functional space that implied he was enchanted by Hollywood or its stars. For the first time in her life, it occurred to her that being a celebrity could be a disadvantage.

  She’d just have to make him want her, anyway.

  Men had wanted her long before she was famous. Really, that was why she’d become famous. People of both sexes had always noticed her. Charisma, Grace called it. An aura. Whatever it was, it was the reason Sophia had been put in films. The public might think movie stars were noticeable because they were already famous, but that wasn’t how it worked. The charisma came first. They were noticed first. Stardom came second.

  Where did Travis fit in?

  The refrigerator was in the medical room. She headed for it while fretting over sex appeal and stardom, wondering if she could stand rejection from a cowboy any better than from a producer, and nearly stepped on the proof that everything she worried about, all of it, was insignificant.

  At her feet, curled into a little ball in front of the fridge, was the kitten.

  Sophia picked him up gingerly. It was humbling to hold a complete living being in her hand. He was still alive for now, but he couldn’t survive on his own. The weight of his impending mortality should have been heavy. It seemed wrong that he was little more than a fluffy feather in her palm.

  Travis had said the kitten was weak to start with, and Sophia knew next to nothing about kittens. She was going to lose this battle. It was a pattern she knew too well. Losing her sister, losing her lover, losing her career, failing auditions, failing to keep her scholarship...

  Failing. She hated to fail.

  She studied the newborn’s face. “I’m not a very good mother, either, but I’m going to try, okay?”

  Then she slipped the kitten inside her shirt.

  Chapter Nine

  Travis was not obsessed with Sophia Jackson.

  He just couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  He’d left the milk in the fridge this morning with no intention of returning for the rest of the week, but as the morning had turned into afternoon, he’d already started convincing himself that he should head back to his office this evening. There were too many things on his to-do list that he hadn’t touched last night.

  He’d touched Sophia’s scars instead.

  Why had she let him into her personal life like that?

  I’m not a crazy recluse.

  She wanted to be understood, that much was clear to him. He just didn’t know how much to read into the fact that she wanted him to understand her.

  A pickup truck pulled up to the fencing they’d built for this year’s roundup. Travis recognized the pickup as belonging to one of the MacDowell brothers who was coming to work these last few days of branding and doctoring. Travis was grateful for the distraction. He left the calf pen to greet Braden.

  Braden MacDowell, like his brothers, was a physician in Austin. He’d taken over the reins at the hospital his father had founded, but he valued his family’s ranching legacy as well, so it wasn’t unusual to see him here. At least one MacDowell was sure to lend a hand during the busy months, if not all three brothers.

  Travis respected the MacDowells. They visited their mama. They knew how to rope and ride. And they’d been wise enough to hire him.

  Not to get too full of himself, but it said a lot that they’d asked him to keep the River Mack thriving as a cow-calf operation. They could’ve just rented the land out to a corporate operation that maintained its headquarters in another state. Travis wouldn’t have stayed on the River Mack in that case. He preferred to work with a family that knew how to keep their saddles oiled and their guns greased, as the saying went.

  “I just got away from the office,” Braden said as Travis walked up to him and shook hands. “I trust there’s still plenty of fun to be had?”

  “Talk to me tomorrow about how fun it feels. You leave your necktie and briefcase at home?”

  The ribbing was good-natured. Braden was in shape, but there was still a big difference between bench-pressing weights in a gym and hauling around a hundred-pound calf who didn’t appreciate being picked up.

  “I’ve got aspirin in the glove box.” Braden dropped the tailgate and thumped an oversized cooler. “I brought supplies.”

  Travis helped him carry the cooler full of sports drinks closer to the working crew and then helped himself to one. He drank while Patch, one of the best cow dogs in Texas, greeted Braden.

  They kept sports drinks in the barn fridge, too. When Sophia got the milk, she’d see them. Travis hoped she knew she was welcome to take whatever she needed. He should have told her that in the note, maybe, and damn it all to hell, he was thinking about her again. Would he go five minutes without thinking of her today?

  “All right, back to work with you,” Braden said to the dog, but to Travis’s surprise, Braden didn’t head for the work area himself. “How’s Sophia Jackson treating my house?”
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  Travis forced himself to swallow his drink around the surprise of hearing her name spoken. She was a big secret he’d been keeping from everyone, but it made sense that Braden knew. Of course he knew; he must have signed the lease.

  “The house looks the same as always. You can’t tell there’s anyone’s living there.”

  “No sounds of breaking glass coming from inside? She hasn’t set the couch on fire or gone rockstar and destroyed it yet?”

  Travis frowned at the expectation that she might. The closest thing he’d seen to any wild behavior had been when Sophia had dropped the plastic wedges on the kitchen floor. No harm there. “I’m not one to spy on your houseguests, but there’s been nothing like that.”

  She cries a lot. She sleeps a lot. Those insights were his. He didn’t care to share them. It felt like it would be betraying Sophia. She didn’t want to be stared at. She didn’t want to be talked about. Fair enough.

  “She’s not my houseguest,” Braden said, his tone tight. “She’s my tenant.”

  Travis turned to look over the milling herd and the distant horizon, waiting.

  Braden studied the horizon, too. “I was against renting the house to her, but one of the ER docs, Alex Gregory, is engaged to her sister. Alex seems to think she’s salvageable. He offered to cosign the lease. If she destroys the place, he’s good for it, but if my mother comes back from her year in Africa and finds her grandmother’s antiques destroyed, money won’t make it right.”

  Travis kept a sharp eye on the calm herd. There was no reason to believe they would suddenly stampede—but they could. “You got a reason for assuming she’d bust furniture?”

  “You don’t keep up with celebrity news,” Braden said.

  “I’m surprised you do.” That was putting it mildly.

  “Only when it affects me. Twice, Texas Rescue invited her to make an appearance to help raise awareness of their work. Twice, she blew their event. My wife and I were going to one of them. I was expecting this elegant actress. My wife was excited to meet her. Instead, this banshee ruined the ball before it even got started. I should have read the gossip earlier. She’d been trashing hotel rooms and blowing off events for months. Now she’s living in my home. I don’t like it.”

  It was incredible that MacDowell thought Sophia would destroy someone’s family heirlooms, but Travis had known the MacDowells for the past six years. He’d known Sophia six days.

  Travis killed the rest of his bottle in long, slow gulps. It took only twenty ounces for him to decide to trust his gut. Sophia didn’t mean anyone any harm. He’d seen the physical evidence of the harm others had done to her, and he’d seen her crying her heart out when she thought she was alone. She was a woman who’d been pushed to the edge, but she wasn’t going to destroy someone else’s lifetime of memories. She just wouldn’t.

  “She’s serious about hiding,” Travis repeated. “She’s not going to do anything to attract attention to herself. Your stuff is safe.”

  Braden was silent for a moment. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

  Travis turned his head slowly, very slowly, and met the man’s stare. “We weren’t discussing Sophia’s looks. If you think my judgment is so easily clouded, we’d best come to an understanding on that.”

  He and Braden gauged one another for a long moment, until, inexplicably, Braden started to grin. “I trust you on horses and I trust you on cattle. I’ve known you to have a sixth sense about the weather. Maybe you don’t find women any harder to read than that, but as a married man, I’m not going to put any money down on that bet. It puts my mind at ease a bit to hear that you don’t think Miss Jackson is going to fly off the handle, but I’m still going to stop by and pick up a few breakables before I go.”

  Travis saw his opportunity and took it. “She won’t answer the door if she doesn’t know you. I’ll go in with you. I’ve got work at my desk I can knock out while you’re gathering up your breakables. If we take the truck, we can be done and back here inside two hours.”

  * * *

  “I’m locked out of my own house, technically.” Braden sounded disgusted. “Landlords can’t just walk into the property once it’s been rented out.”

  Travis paced away from the kitchen door and Braden’s legalities. The zucchini was gone. Sophia had gotten up and gone out, then. He wasn’t going to jump to any crazy conclusions. She wasn’t dead or dying, languishing somewhere, needing his help.

  Where was she?

  There were no horses in the barn, or else that would have been the logical place to assume she was.

  “Let’s hit the barn,” Braden suggested. “Maybe she’ll show up while you’re taking care of your paperwork.”

  Travis had barely slid open the barn door when he heard Sophia calling out.

  “Hello? Is someone there? Can you help me?” The distress in her voice was obvious as she emerged from his office. He’d already started for her before her next words. “Travis! It’s you. Thank God, it’s you.”

  She started down the aisle toward him at a half run, clutching her heart with two hands.

  They met halfway. He stopped her from crashing into him by catching her shoulders in his hands. At a glance, she didn’t seem to be hurt. Her expression was panicked, but her color was normal and she seemed to be moving fine. “What’s wrong?”

  She peeled her hands away from her chest to show him. “It’s the kitten. It’s dying.”

  “It’s the—” Her words sank in. Travis let go of her shoulders and turned away for a moment to control his reaction, a harsh mixture of relief and anger. He’d thought she was having a heart attack.

  “Do you hear that?” she cried.

  He turned to look, and yes, she was really crying. She dashed her cheek on her shoulder.

  “His cries are just so pitiful. He’s been pleading for help like that for six hours. I can’t stand it. He cries until he’s exhausted, and then he wakes up and cries again. I don’t know what to do for him.”

  Her distress was real. She was just too softhearted for the hard reality that not every animal could be saved. Travis took off his hat and gestured with it toward the office. “Come on, I’ll take a look. Did you say six hours?”

  “I came in to get the milk from the fridge, and he was on the floor, just lying out there. I warmed him up like you did, but then I couldn’t find the mother cat for the longest time. The kitten started crying while I went over every square inch of this place. It took me an hour to find her, but when I put the baby in with the others, the mother just up and left, like, ‘Here, have three babies.’”

  Travis pulled out his desk chair. “Have a seat.”

  “I’ve been in this chair all day. I couldn’t look anything up on the internet about what to feed a kitten, because your computer is password protected.”

  “That it is.”

  She sat in the chair he offered, but she glared at him like he’d invented the concept of computer passwords just to annoy her. “You’ve got all these books on animals in here, but do you know what they contain? Info on how many calories are in a frigging acre of alfalfa to calculate how many calves it’ll feed. Chart after chart on alfalfa and Bahia grass. What to feed a cow, how much to feed a cow, how much to grow to feed a cow. Who needs to know crap like that?”

  “That would be me.” Travis didn’t dare smile when she was working through a mixture of tears and indignation. He let her vent.

  “Do you know what those books don’t contain? What to feed a newborn kitten. Not one word. I couldn’t call you for help. You’re out on a horse all day.”

  “I’ll give you my cell phone number, but there’s no reception out on the range. If you leave a message, it’ll ping me if I happen to catch a signal.”

  Braden strolled into the office with a dish in his hand. “Looks like you tried to give it a sau
cer of milk. On my mother’s fine china.”

  Sophia jerked back in the chair, clutching the kitten to her chest.

  Travis had seen that skittish reaction too many times. This time, he put his hand on her shoulder, a little weight to keep her from jumping out of her own skin.

  “It’s okay. This is Braden MacDowell, one of the ranch owners. He already knew you were here. Your name’s already on his lease.”

  She sniffed and looked at Braden resentfully. “I remember you from that stupid ball. You’re the CEO of the hospital.”

  “Guilty.”

  “You shouldn’t sneak up like that. I thought I was alone with Travis. Usually only one person comes in at sundown.”

  The implication hit Travis squarely. “What if it hadn’t been me tonight? You would’ve blown your cover. I told you it wouldn’t be me tonight. You came out of that office without knowing who was here.”

  “Trust me, I had hours to think about that while this kitten cried his heart out. I knew whoever came in was going to get a big surprise, and then he was going to get rich. I’d have to pay him hush money to keep my secret. It’s like being blackmailed, only you go ahead and get it over with and offer to pay them up front.” She rested her head back on the chair and sighed. “It’s only money. That’s the way it goes.”

  Travis was stunned.

  She frowned at him. “What did you expect me to do? I couldn’t just let a kitten die because the paparazzi might find me.”

  “No, of course not.” But of course, she could have done exactly that. She could have left the kitten where a ranch hand might find it and then run away to hide in safety. But she’d stayed to comfort a struggling animal instead of leaving it to cry alone.

  “Sorry I startled you,” Braden said. “I’m surprised you remember me. We’d barely been introduced at the fund-raiser when you...left.”

  “I remember everything about that night.”