by D'Ann Lindun
“Thank you, Mr. Cortez.”
“Call me Cowboy.” He had a rich, deep voice. A lot like Kentucky bourbon. Smooth. Addicting.
She ignored her suddenly dry mouth and studied him. Not handsome in a classical sense, he had sharp cheekbones and full lips. His bottom teeth were a little crooked. He wore his longish hair in a ponytail. Realizing she was staring, she pulled her hand free and indicated Shannon. “My friend and our camp cook, Shannon Lamb.”
He gave her hand a brief shake. “Cowboy.”
“I know.” She giggled.
The others joined them, and Joel stepped forward and hugged Montana. He smelled like expensive cologne and the hair mousse with which he’d spiked his hair into sharp points. She wondered if he’d brought along a suitcase full of grooming aids.
“It’s good to see you, Montana.”
“You, too. It’s been a long time.”
She barely recognized her old college buddy. Heavier, taller than he’d been back then. Gone was the insecure boy, replaced by a man with a cocky stance and attitude, although he looked completely out of place in a pair of brown Carhartt bibs and Sorel boots. Almost as out of place as he’d been back in that long-ago science class.
He perused her as openly as she did him, his eyes hidden behind expensive sunglasses. “Too long, Montana. You look amazing.”
“Thanks.”
He indicated the two people standing silently behind him. “Montana, I’d like you to meet Dalton Stone and Adrian Devereaux.”
The long-haired man lifted a hand. “Hey. Call me Stoney.”
The girl, dressed all in black, smiled and stepped forward. “Great to meet you.”
“You, too.” Montana motioned to the woman at her elbow. “This is my good friend, Shannon. She’ll be cooking for us.”
“Great,” Adrian said.
“Do you have your gear?” Montana asked.
Joel waved a hand at the black SUV. “In there.”
“You can’t take that vehicle where we’re going. It’s a four-wheel only road. We need to put your gear in the Jeep,” Montana said.
To her surprise, Johnny Cortez jumped immediately into action. He walked toward the vehicles with a long-legged, purposeful stride. Without waiting for anyone to help, he began pulling gun scabbards, sleeping bags and boxes of liquor from the trunk.
After their gear had been safely stowed in the back of the Jeep, Shannon settled in the driver’s seat. “Who’s with me?”
“Me.” Adrian jumped into the front passenger seat.
Stoney climbed into the back seat and closed his eyes.
Johnny smiled at Montana. “Looks like I’m riding with you.”
Her heart thudded a little faster. “Okay. Anyone else?”
When Joel moved her way, Cowboy shook his head. “You go with Shannon.”
“Okay.” Joel spun in that direction.
Montana stared in disbelief. Did anyone tell this guy no? If he expected her to jump at his every whim, he had another think coming. When Boots moved to the driver’s door, Montana motioned him toward the house. “Not this time. You stay here and keep an eye on things.”
“Why can’t he come?” Cowboy stroked the Border collie’s ears.
The dog whined, hoping.
“Because he’ll run off game,” she said.
Johnny frowned. “What will he eat?”
“I left his automatic feeder full and my friend Rose is going to stop by mid-week to check on him.” Did this guy think for a minute she’d leave her dog without food or water? Gosh, he’d have heart failure if he knew a mama cat and her kittens in the barn survived on mice and other small critters.
“I hate when I have to leave my dogs,” the rock star commented as he finally climbed into the truck. “I wish they could tag along everywhere I go.”
Montana slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. “You have dogs?”
“Six. All rescues.”
She steered the rig behind the Jeep. “That’s a lot.”
“I’d have more, but my housekeeper refuses to take on any more responsibility.” He shrugged. “What can you do?”
“Sounds like you’re a good pet owner.” The guy was full of surprises. Who would have guessed he loved dogs? She softened a little. An animal lover went a long way in her book. “I feel that way about my horses. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep them fed and here with me.”
He grinned at her. “Even put up with me?”
Montana couldn’t help smiling back. “Even that.”
His burst of laughter was rich and deep, making something low in her stomach clench. “You always so honest, Montana-girl?”
She shifted the truck’s gears. “I try to be.”
His gaze, behind his expensive dark sunglasses, rested on her hand on the gearshift. “You been driving a stick a long time?”
“Since I was twelve.” She glanced his way. “Why?”
He covered her hand with his. “I’d like you to finesse my stick like that sometime.”
Montana jerked her hand away as if he’d burned her. She glared at him. “Let’s get one thing straight, Mr. Cortez. I’m not a member of your fan club, a stripper or a groupie. I’m the hunting guide you hired to scout big game. In no way is me sleeping with you included in the fee. I realize you think most women want to jump all over you.” She drew a shuddering breath. “I am not one of them and I don’t appreciate your sexual innuendos. Please don’t speak to me like I’m some video vixen waiting in the wings for a few moments of your attention.”
He took his hand from hers as a slow smile spread across his face. “My bad. I apologize.”
“Thank you.” The warmth from his palm remained minutes after he removed it from her hand.
The unwelcome thought of how the guitar player’s fingers would feel on other parts of her body lingered even longer.
CHAPTER FIVE
Johnny hid a grin. He’d never met anyone like Montana Weaver. She almost appeared to dislike him. He was used to games. Chicks loved to play them, but she didn’t seem the type. Her distaste for him seemed genuine.
Why?
They’d never met before. He hadn’t offended her in some way. Hadn’t screwed her and left her crying. Or cussing him. He did his best to break things off gently, but sometimes hard feelings were inevitable.
Teal wanted to kill him, yet she’d been the one to fuck things up between them.
His come-on about the gearshift had been a dismal flop.
Being used to girls who lay down and spread their legs before he could say hello made meeting a girl who needed a bit more wooing not only a novelty, but a welcome challenge. He grinned openly. Sing her a song or two and she’d be all over him.
Before the week was over he’d have the gorgeous blonde begging for his cock.
Glancing in her direction, he liked what he saw. Long pale blonde hair held in a ponytail, white Stetson, plain olive green Henley that hugged smallish tits. Worn Wranglers snugged against long legs that he could easily imagine anchoring his waist as he rode her hard.
She noticed him studying her and looked at him. “Something on my face?”
No makeup. No false eyelashes. Just a spattering of freckles across her nose and a gorgeous mouth he’d love to see wrapped around his cock.
“Smile,” he said.
She flashed her teeth. “Better?”
He chuckled. “You’re a pistol, Montana-girl.”
“Please stop calling me that.” She turned her attention back to the bumpy dirt road.
“Why? I like the sound of it.” Always and forever a songwriter, he had lyrics already forming in his head. Something about a long-legged blonde….
When she shot him a glance, her eyes clouded. “My father used to call me by that name.”
“Not now?”
“No. He died four years ago.” Her voice cracked.
“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t imagine life without his old man, although they didn’t see each other
as often as they’d like with Johnny’s touring schedule.
“Thanks. I miss him terribly.” She blinked hard and looked out her side window.
“He taught you to hunt?” That he actually cared about her answer took him by surprise. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a real conversation with a woman outside the business. What had he and Teal talked about? He couldn’t recall. What position or what to have for dinner, maybe.
“Yup.” She grabbed another gear, slowing for the bumpy dirt road. “When I was a little kid. The rifle was bigger than me.”
He grinned. “My old man taught me, too.”
“So you actually know how to shoot? Joel said you did, but…” She shrugged.
“What? You don’t think a music man can do more than sing and fuck?” He was more offended than he had a right to be. “Like you, I started hunting at a young age. My job keeps me away from things I like to do, but I can hit the side of a building fairly accurately.”
Seeming to miss his attempt at wit, she glanced at him with serious gray eyes. “I don’t have any idea what you can or cannot do. I don’t know you yet.”
When was the last time he’d had to prove something? He fought to remember. Not in forever. The early years in the business were another story. Every album, every song, he’d had to establish himself all over again to the critics, to the public. Until both had grudgingly accepted him and his brand of southern rock mixed with some blues.
When he’d tried something different on his last album, both had panned him.
The shock had knocked him on his ass.
Almost as much as losing his first record deal had. He stared at the Colorado scenery without really seeing as memories played in his head like an old record.
He and Keifer had been playing small clubs—anywhere that would let two underage kids in—when an executive from a small label spotted them. He liked what he heard and offered them a deal. They’d been so excited, over the moon. Beyond.
Both sets of parents refused to let them sign, insisting they finish school first. Terrified they’d lose the arrangement, the boys ran away and forged their parents’ signatures, determined to make their dreams come true.
All their plans came crashing down around them when their parents tracked them down, told the record company what they’d done and made them come home to finish their senior year of high school. The deal had been immediately rescinded and the record dropped.
Remembering all that drama made him laugh now, but at the time he and Keifer had been so sure their lives and careers were over, they almost died from despair. In fact, the episode had made great tunes on their subsequent records. What Johnny had learned since that fateful summer could fill a hundred songbooks.
In comparison to that long-ago teenage angst when his folks forced him to give up his record deal and finish school, the hurt of Keifer’s betrayal had ripped a hole in his soul that would never heal. What Teal had done burned, too, but it was the loss of lifelong friendship he grieved more.
His upcoming album was filled with the heartbreak of losing his best friend and wife in the same moment. He could easily fill another ten CDs.
Refusing to give in to that pain, he refocused his attention on the landscape outside. The starkly beautiful mountain peaks took his breath. The rising sun glistening off them shone brilliant gold. The intermingled green pines and quaking aspens with white trunks and red, yellow and copper leaves reminded him of a handmade quilt his mother had stitched in his childhood.
“How high will we go?” He motioned to a granite cliff. “Up there?”
“We’ll climb well above ten thousand feet at times,” she said. “But that particular area is dangerous. We want to avoid it at all costs. Only mountain sheep belong in shale.”
“A guy could get killed pretty easily out here,” he mused.
“Too easily.” Montana leaned forward to peer through the dusty windshield. “She looks welcoming, but the wilderness can be a real mean bitch if you’re careless.”
That applied to most women, Johnny thought, not just Mother Nature. Beautiful to look at, wonderful to touch, vicious to those foolish enough to lose their heart. A mistake he wouldn’t make again.
Enjoy a woman’s charms?
Absolutely.
Give her his heart?
Never.
The road narrowed and switchbacked up the mountain. As Montana slowed the rig to a crawl, Johnny rolled down the window to let his right arm hang out. The light breeze felt cool against his open hand. Compared to L.A.’s summerlike temperature, it was downright cold. Glad he’d packed plenty of warm gear, he idly wondered if the others had come as prepared.
“It smells good,” he said. “Clean.”
Without looking at him, Montana replied, “No pollution in our little corner of the world.”
Fleetingly, he thought of the smog-covered city he called home. There was no such thing as fresh air or a bright blue sky. No such thing as a completely safe neighborhood. He’d bet his last dollar Montana and her neighbors didn’t even lock their doors.
Like all his friends, he lived in a gated community with a myriad of locks on his house. Still, Teal had managed to get in. Hell, she’d almost killed him in his own home. Maybe a little overstated, but she’d marked him pretty good.
Had she broken in again since he’d been gone? He smiled, thinking of her climbing into bed, expecting him and finding his dogs instead. His pack of furballs weren’t what she’d anticipate finding between his silk sheets. Maybe one of them would bite her. He chuckled.
Wouldn’t she just shit to know he’d gone to the mountains, enjoying the company of a woman who apparently wanted nothing more from him than a paycheck? He couldn’t help comparing the pretty lady next to him to the one he’d married. Much like the differences between his city and this unspoiled land, they were like night and day.
Teal would die before she wore a pair of worn Wranglers and scuffed boots like Montana’s. Although both were blonde, Teal kept her hair highlighted by an expensive salon. He imagined the streaks in Montana’s hair came from being outdoors.
His ex had fucked like a wildcat in bed.
How did Montana screw?
He aimed to find out.
For the first time since he’d found Keifer and Teal together, the sun seemed to shine a little brighter.
A wide spot in the road drew his attention. Several mules stood tied to hitch rails, and a young man stood with them.
“This it?”
“Yes.” Montana pulled to the side of the road and set the parking brake. She glanced at him. “You ready?”
“I can’t wait,” he said truthfully.
She opened her door. “Then let’s get this party started.”
~*~
Montana quickly introduced Ryan to their guests before unloading the horses. Tall and good looking, he’d turned more than one female head, but Adrian seemed less than impressed when he winked at her.
“Are the mules packed?” Montana tied a sorrel gelding to the trailer.
“Yup,” Ryan said. “All ready.”
“Good job. Let’s get these people’s stuff loaded and we can go,” she said.
They headed for the Jeep, where Joel met them. “Our rifles are on top.”
“Shannon will show you which horse to put them on,” Montana said. “We brought extra scabbards if you need them.”
“We have our own,” he said. “Thanks.”
He took the first rifle, holding it like someone familiar with guns. A little surprised, Montana wondered where he’d learned to handle a weapon. The guy she’d known in college had been terrified of firearms. Once, a group of friends had gone to a shooting range. She’d talked Joel into going along, but he’d refused to shoot, too scared to try.
Too busy to give the past much thought, she helped Ryan add their guests’ supplies to the panniers already hanging on the mules.
Ryan untied his horse. “We ready to mount up?”
�
�Yes.” Montana indicated the row of waiting horses. “Let’s get to camp.”
While they’d been packing, Shannon had settled Adrian and Stoney on their horses. Rifle scabbards hung by each horse’s right shoulder. The hunters had tied bright down coats over bulging saddlebags and changed into vibrant orange vests with matching running pants. Montana imagined the man in the moon could spot them with all the color they sported.
She tugged her own camouflage sweatshirt a little closer. She wore the required orange vest, too, but nothing like her hunters’ brilliant display.
Johnny stood by the Jeep, adjusting something on his scabbard. Joel stood a few feet away, texting fiercely.
“Better finish whatever it is you’re saying,” Montana told him. “Because in a few minutes you’ll be out of service.”
He frowned and stuffed the phone in his pocket. “Right.”
“I’ll help you on your horse.” Shannon led him toward the trustiest mount in the remuda—a little buckskin gelding named Shortstack. Joel followed her with a less than enthusiastic expression. A pair of enormous binoculars hanging around his neck bounced against his chest.
Johnny stepped in Montana’s direction. “Looks like I’m it, huh?”
“Looks like it.” She indicated the big dun still tied to the trailer. “You have Gunsmoke.”
To her surprise, Johnny stepped forward, checked the cinch and untied the gelding. Under her watchful eye, he led the horse a short distance away, gave his neck a pat and mounted.
So he had ridden before.
Most of her guests expected her to wait on them hand and foot. Montana shrugged. This guy surprised her at every turn.
She grabbed her own horse, Sunflower, a palomino gelding she’d raised from a yearling, and swung aboard. Ryan nodded when she waved him on. One by one, they fell in line. Adrian slipped in behind Ryan’s string of mules, then Stoney, and Shannon next. Montana waited for Johnny to drop behind Shannon, but he held the dancing dun in check, obviously wanting Montana to go ahead.
“No staring at my ass,” she warned as she nudged the palomino with her heels.
“Never.” His wicked grin belied the promise.
