Wild Wyoming Nights

by Joanne Rock

  Still, it definitely wasn’t a good time to be noticing the sex appeal of Emma Layton, who stared him down as though she wished he was the one driving a car into a burning building. Preferably at full speed. More often than not, women found him charming. How damned ironic that the one woman to turn his head in recent memory looked like she wanted to take his head off.

  “I want you to feel more at ease on horseback,” he told Emma finally, reminding himself he was not the demanding, inflexible McNeill brother. “That will decrease your risk of injury considerably.”

  Once he felt assured of her competence, he would return to work. She was a professional, after all, and she had a stunt coordinator watching over her shoulder. The company was insured for this kind of thing and the ranch wasn’t liable.

  Except Carson had a conscience to answer to, and damned if it hadn’t grown bigger with his ever-responsible twin out of the picture. Their own mother, an experienced rancher, had died from injuries sustained while trying to separate a bull from the cattle. Carson had been four years old at the time, and he’d been there, along with his older brother. Her death had haunted the family and changed their father forever. He knew all too well that animals could turn unpredictable.

  Emma lifted her riding helmet and strapped it on her head. “I’m ready.”

  “I sent your two colleagues out to the arena to work on their leg positioning.” He pointed out the track his younger brother, Brock, used to show and train quarter horses, a lucrative side business at the Creek Spill. “There’s a training area beyond that, next to a tack shed. Let’s take your horse out there and we’ll start working on your hands.”

  “Her name is Mariana.” She pointed toward the horse as he began leading the gray mare out to the training field. “And what do you mean about my hands?”

  He took the quieter shady route behind the barn, his boots finding the worn grassy path that hadn’t been trampled to dirt yet. He thought he’d been prepared for the added activity of a film production on his property, but he’d underestimated how much equipment and manpower it required.

  “They’re too stiff.” He hadn’t given riding lessons since Scarlett was a girl. “You need a more elastic hold that doesn’t place extra pressure on the bit. As it is, Mariana will get confused about what you want from her if she feels like you’re tugging.”

  “I’m a fast learner.” Emma slanted a look his way, peering over the horse’s nose. “Just tell me what you want to see from me, I’ll do it. I can’t afford to lose this job.”

  There was more to that story. He could hear it in her voice. See it in the hint of vulnerability in those dark brown eyes. And he regretted that he couldn’t give her the reassurance she clearly sought.

  Opening the gate to the training area, he waited until Mariana and Emma were through before he latched it behind them. “And I can’t afford for anyone to get hurt on my property. I made it very clear to the production manager when I signed the contract that a ranch is a dangerous place. I won’t allow you to continue if I think you’re at risk.”

  She huffed out a breath, regarding him with frustration she didn’t bother to hide. Hands on hips, she faced him.

  “Every single thing we do in my business puts us at risk. In my last job, I once had to reenact a knife fight over twenty times before it was right. The take they liked best was the one where I took a slice to the right calf that sent me to the ER. That comes with the territory and I know that going in.” Her cheeks flushed with color.

  He’d hit a nerve. Or else just wounded her pride.

  “I’m more concerned about head trauma. If your horse throws you—”

  “I’m trained to fall the right way,” she reminded him.

  “For a woman who is concerned about keeping her job, perhaps you should listen more and interrupt less,” he suggested mildly, even though she was beginning to get under his skin.

  She pursed those full lips thoughtfully. Then her shoulders eased a bit. “You’re right. I’m nervous and defensive, and that isn’t going to help. What should I do first?”

  He had to admire how fast she shifted gears.

  “Hop on your mount and I’ll show you.” He watched as she placed a boot in the stirrup and swung her leg over. Smoothly. Easily.

  He amended his earlier assessment of her skills. She had more in her background than a weekend at a dude ranch.

  Quickly, he ran down what he wanted to see from her, starting with an explanation of what her hands were telling her horse. She practiced gripping the reins farther apart so she could feel the horse’s natural movement, allowing her to stay in sync with the animal. While the horse trotted around the track, Carson stepped out of the practice yard to check in with the two male riders in the arena. They looked better, but Carson wasn’t releasing them yet. He called over Nate—a ranch hand who’d been working closely with Brock and the quarter horses for more than a year—and tasked him with giving the riders a few more tips.

  “Me? I’m no riding instructor.” The younger man scratched his head under his hat as he stared out at the arena, planting a dusty boot on the lowest fence rail. “I train horses, not people.”

  “But if you had to give these guys a handful of tips to make sure they survive two weeks on horseback, what would you say?” Carson glanced back to check on Emma, who had slowed to a walk.

  “I’d say I’d rather work the hot brunette.” Carson followed Nate’s gaze, and noted the appreciative grin pulling at his mouth as he watched Emma.

  His protective instincts stirred, surprising him.

  “Seniority has its privileges.” Though Carson didn’t plan on pursuing his attraction for the prickly stunt double, he needed to keep safe for two weeks, especially after seeing that vulnerable look in her eyes.

  Then again, he wasn’t ready to walk away yet, either.

  “You’re the boss,” Nate told him agreeably, turning his attention back to the stunt actors riding circles around the dirt track. “But the dude on the left rides too high in the saddle. Guess I could pull off his stirrups. Get him to work on his seat.”

  Carson clapped Nate on the shoulders. “Good thinking. Whatever you can do. By the end of the week, they’re going to be racing and fighting on horseback, so I’d like to do whatever we can to keep them in one piece.”

  Leaving Nate to take over with the men, Carson returned to the practice yard, his attention fully on Emma. The thought of her racing at breakneck speed in just a few days from now made him edgy. He didn’t want to tick off the stunt coordinator any more than he already had, and he had to get back to overseeing ranch operations, so he didn’t have time to interfere with the filming. But he wasn’t impressed with the level of safety he’d seen on set so far.

  “Am I doing it wrong?” Emma called over to him as he neared her and Mariana. Her lean body swayed in the saddle. “You’re scowling.”

  Of course he was. He wanted to drag her off her horse and see if those full lips were as soft as they looked when he kissed her. Instead, he was stuck teaching her how to stay on her horse before she broke her neck performing unwise stunts on his property. The thought of something happening to her only made him scowl more.

  “Your hands are fine, but your seat is all wrong.” Had it been a mistake to work with her? To get involved when he had a multimillion-dollar ranching operation to oversee?

  Heat crept up his back as he stared at her, an amused smile playing around her kissable mouth.

  “My seat.” She forgot about her hand position and let the reins go slack as the horse halted beside him. “I didn’t know I could mess that up.”

  He would have preferred crooning extravagant compliments in her ear about the tight curve of her ass, but that wasn’t going to help her stay upright during a race scene. Tightening his hold on his control, he reached to touch her left hand, nudging it higher.

  “You need to be aware
of your body at all times. Right now your hands are sending a bad message.”

  Her eyes widened for a moment before she redirected her focus and moved her hands to the exact position he’d shown her ten minutes earlier. Away from his touch.

  “Right. Like this.” Her cheeks pink, she stared down at Mariana’s head. “What else?”

  He shouldn’t touch her again. Not when the point of contact from the first time still supercharged the air between them. He hadn’t gotten involved today because he wanted to hit on her, damn it. He was only trying to keep her from getting hurt.

  “You’re sitting too far back in the seat.” His gaze veered to her hips as she edged forward. Saddle leather creaked. She used a hand on the pommel to inch along.

  Killing him.

  Making his throat dry as dust.

  “Better?” she asked, her voice a quiet stroke to his ears.

  He nodded. Then, forcing himself to finish the instruction since it was damned important, he touched the back of her thigh.

  “Legs should be directly under you.” He let go almost instantly, backing up a step.

  Still, the feel of her—lean muscle under those body-skimming jodhpurs—imprinted itself on his brain. He would be tracing a lot more of her in his dreams later.

  “Is this better?” Her voice took on a husky note that he told himself must be from the dust in the air and not because the touch affected her as much as it had him.

  “Looks good,” he managed. “Take a lap or two and see if you can maintain it.”

  She rode off in a hurry and it was all he could do not take off his hat and use it as a fan.

  Damn.

  He’d exchanged far more provocative talk—and touches—with willing strangers in bars that had left him cold. Why was this bristly, defensive stunt performer getting under his skin so fast?

  The sooner he finished the riding lesson the better. He had a ranch to oversee, a family falling apart and a blackmailer to catch. Thoughts of Emma Layton would have to wait.

  Two

  Four miles into her evening run, Emma regretted the decision not to take the cast shuttle back to her lodgings at White Canyon Ranch.

  She’d been in a hurry to burn off the keyed-up awareness she’d felt all day working with Carson McNeill and thought maybe she could jog away that hypersensitive energy. Now, her thighs burned with a soreness that no workout had ever given her before. As a personal trainer strictly for female clients, she had plenty of thigh workouts in her personal inventory. In the future, she’d have to start recommending a day in the saddle to women who complained about their inner thighs.

  Slowing to a walk on the grassy path alongside a fenced-in field between the Creek Spill lands and the guest ranch where second unit cast and crew members were staying, Emma checked her directions on the GPS. She’d asked one of the stable workers about the route she’d chosen, and he’d assured her the dirt road was good enough to drive on in a pickup truck. Running would be no problem. She’d thought she’d been well prepared, peeling off the jodhpurs and stuffing them in her nylon knapsack along with an extra bottle of water. She’d changed into a clean pair of cropped leggings along with the running shoes she’d packed for her evening workout. Her boots she’d left tucked in a corner of the tack room, at the suggestion of the ranch hand who’d told her about the path.

  The sun was sinking low on the horizon, though, and it occurred to her that it was liable to be very dark at sunset. Not like her neighborhood in Studio City, where she could run at all hours of the night and still see because of the streetlamps. Taking a moment to stretch in the hope it would ease some of the stiffness in her muscles, Emma breathed in the scent of fresh air and wildflowers. The breeze stirred the tall grass inside the four-rail fence.

  She was just about ready to start running again when the hum of an engine alerted her that a vehicle was heading her way. Her shoulders tensed. Yes, Emma had taken plenty of mixed martial arts classes, training that served her well in stunt work and helped to make her feel sure of herself in isolated places. Still, she couldn’t shake some of the old fears. Her ex-boyfriend was a fellow fitness trainer who’d hit her in a public place, in front of a room full of witnesses after a kickboxing class he’d taught. He’d tried to play it off like he was giving her an extra lesson, but thankfully no one else in the class believed that. An off-duty cop had been among the attendees, leading to the battery charges that kept her ex locked up for almost three years.

  She didn’t want to ever need saving again, though. She tightened her ponytail and started a light jog that irritated her burning thighs.

  As the sound of the engine drew closer, punching up her heartrate, she turned to see a two-seater utility vehicle with an open cargo bed in back. The compelling cowboy she’d been trying to excise from her thoughts sat behind the wheel.

  Her fears dissipated fast.

  Carson McNeill braked to a stop beside her. The tension inside her shifted from fright back to the attraction she’d been fighting all day. She told herself it shouldn’t matter that she was red faced and sweating. But it was tough not to be aware that she looked like roadkill when he looked like he’d just had a shower, with his hair still damp and his face freshly shaved. He wore a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up and a clean pair of jeans.

  She paused beside the vehicle, swiping the back of her hand over her damp forehead. “You can’t possibly be here to critique my form. On my own two feet, I absolutely know what I’m doing.”

  He didn’t even crack a smile. “My foreman told me you decided to run back to the White Canyon.”

  “When running alone, it’s a good safety practice to let someone know where you’re going.” She’d taken extra precautions. “I told Zoe, too.”

  His jaw flexed. She’d seen that look often enough today when she’d tried his patience. Now, the furrow in his brow said he was downright aggravated.

  “Speaking of safety practices, how many times did I mention that a Wyoming ranch can be dangerous? That animals can be dangerous?”

  “Several.” Hot, tired and sore, she was beginning to feel her own patience fray. “But since I’m off the clock for the day, I’m no longer your concern.”

  “If you’re on McNeill lands, you’re my responsibility.” He swiped his Stetson off the passenger seat and tossed it in the cargo bed behind him. “Get in. I’ll drive you the rest of the way.”

  She didn’t appreciate the command, but she also didn’t want to antagonize a man who still had the power to send her packing. Besides, her legs hurt and twilight would turn to full dark soon.

  The vehicle didn’t have a door so she swung into the passenger seat while holding on to the roll bar. Carson revved the engine once she was seated with her safety belt buckled.

  “Nice ride,” she remarked lightly, hoping he wasn’t going to hold this latest transgression against her during this extra stressful week.

  She’d had multiple texts from her roommate and her mother reminding her not to answer any calls from unknown numbers this week. They were both worried about her, with her ex getting out of prison. As if Emma wasn’t worried enough on her own. But she couldn’t imagine how Austin would find her here. Hollywood made no secret of lead actors’ whereabouts, but anyone looking for information about stunt roles, especially smaller roles like this one, would be hard-pressed to find it. Another bright spot was that Austin would have no idea she’d gone into stunt work, even if he wanted to find her.

  Beside her, Carson remained silent while the stars popped out overhead. One. Two. And then a million. The sight was breathtaking. She craned her head back to stare straight up, but she didn’t need to. Pinpoints of blue and white light blanketed the sky in every direction.

  “Wow.” She glanced over at her silent driver, wondering if he’d grown immune to the beauty. “I’ve never seen stars like this.”

  Mayb
e some of her wonder seeped through his frustration, because he slowed the vehicle, then stopped altogether, the engine rumbling at idle in the creeping night. They sat on a hilltop with meadows rolling out into the distance on one side, and a shadow of rocky cliffs and trees on the other. He snapped off the headlights to give them a better view and turned off the ignition. The engine ticked for a few moments and then went silent.

  “It’s amazing how much the lights of a city detract from the night sky.” Carson tipped his head back, too, his hands resting on his sprawled denim-covered knees.

  The right one hovered close to her leg, radiating a warmth she could feel. Or maybe it was the electric current of attraction that made her skin tingle that way beneath her leggings. She had been on a few dates since breaking things off with Austin but nothing serious. She definitely hadn’t experienced the sizzling awareness she got from being around Carson. What a shame for her body to finally wake up again around a man she needed to impress with her professionalism.

  “It’s funny,” she said, needing to break the intimate thread of silence between them, “because I always think I live in a quieter area of Los Angeles.” She tried not to think about his knee next to hers. His hand close to her leg. But memories of the way he’d touched her earlier—shifting her thigh on the horse—sent a fresh surge of heat through her.

  “Even in Cheyenne, you can’t see the stars the way you can out here. There aren’t many perks to ranching, but the night sky is definitely one of them.”

  Straightening in her seat, she peered over at him. The breeze turned cooler.

  “You don’t like your work?” She was curious about him, this man who allowed a film production company onto his property but couldn’t really relinquish control. “After seeing you on horseback today, I guess I just assumed you were born in a saddle.”