by B. J Daniels
He shook his head, knowing whatever fueled this battle between the two women had started long before now. “I don’t date anyone I work with during filming. I’m having dinner with my family.”
Chantal brightened. “Take me,” she pleaded. “I am bored beyond belief out here in the middle of nowhere. You’ll be saving my life.”
“Sorry,” he said, thinking about what would happen if he took her home with him. He’d dodged a bullet by sacrificing his brother Shane to the marriage pact he and his four brothers had made. But he was still in the line of fire.
It would be fun, though, to see his family’s expressions if he pretended interest in Chantal for a wife. But even he couldn’t do that to them.
No, the last thing he wanted was to call attention to himself right now. He’d hoped that karma would be on his side when he and his brothers had drawn straws to see who would have to find a wife first. Then he’d drawn the shortest straw and known he had to do something fast, so he had. He’d found the perfect woman—for his brother Shane.
That little maneuver had really only delayed the problem, though. Jud knew in his heart that what his father wanted wasn’t so much for each of his sons to marry but for them to settle in Montana closer to Trails West Ranch, the ranch Grayson Corbett had bought for his new bride, Kate.
Grayson was no fool. He had to know that getting all his sons to settle down in Montana probably wasn’t going to happen, no matter what kind of carrot he dangled in front of them. But it was some carrot.
Grayson’s first wife, the boys’ mother, had written five letters, one to each son, before she died. The letters, only recently found, were to be read on each son’s wedding day. Her dying wish in a letter to Grayson was that the boys would marry by the age of thirty-five—and all marry a Montana cowgirl.
It was hard to go against the dying wishes of his mother, even a mother Jud, the youngest, couldn’t remember, since she’d died not long after he and his twin brother, Dalton, were born. Being a Corbett demanded that he go along with the marriage pact the five brothers had made—and eventually live up to the deal.
The problem was that he’d never met anyone he wanted to date more than a few times, let alone marry.
But then most of the women he knew were like Chantal, he thought, as beside him she pretended to pout.
“You’re going to hate yourself in the morning for leaving me behind,” she cooed.
Jud nodded ruefully. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“Your loss,” she said, and turned in a huff to storm off, again putting a whole lot of movement into those hips of hers.
Jud smiled as he headed for his pickup. He had a weakness for beautiful women and a whole lot of oats left to sow, but his real-life exploits could never live up to those that showed up in the movie magazines about him.
When he thought about it, what woman in her right mind would want to marry a man who did dangerous stunts for living? And he had no intention of quitting until he was too old to climb into the saddle, he thought, as he headed for the ranch.
* * *
FAITH BAILEY RODE her horse to the spot where she always went when she wanted to make sure no one saw what she was up to. She’d been coming here since she was a girl. It was far enough from the ranch house and yet not too far away should she need help.
As she got ready, she recalled too vividly the time she’d taken a tumble and broken her arm.
“Were you thrown from your horse?” her mother had demanded when she returned to the house holding her arm after one of her “rides.”
Not exactly. “All of a sudden I was on the ground,” Faith had said, determined not to lie—but at the same time, not about to tell the whole truth, which she’d feared would get her banned from horseback riding altogether.
She’d kept the truth from even her two older sisters, Eve and McKenna. They couldn’t have kept her secret, afraid she’d break her fool neck and they’d get blamed for it.
Now with her mother remarried and living in Florida, Faith still didn’t like to upset her family. They’d all been through enough without that. So she kept her trick riding to herself. It was her little secret—just like her heart’s desire.
Faith had taken more precautions after the broken arm incident, and while she’d gotten hurt occasionally as she’d grown older, she’d also kept that to herself.
She made a few runs along a flat spot at the far end of a pasture before she got her horse up to a gallop and slipped her boots from the stirrups to climb up onto the back of the horse behind the saddle.
It was a balancing act. Standing, she galloped across the flat area of pasture, feeling the wind in her face and the exhilaration. She always started with this trick, then moved on to the harder ones.
Her mind was on the task at hand. Over the galloping of her horse, the pounding of her heart and the rush of adrenaline racing through her veins, Faith didn’t hear the sound of the vehicle come up the dirt road and stop.
* * *
JUD CORBETT BLINKED, telling himself he wasn’t seeing a woman standing on the back of a horse galloping across the landscape.
He’d stopped his pickup and now watched with growing fascination. The young woman seemed oblivious to everything but the stunt, her head high, long blond hair blowing back, the sun firing it to spun gold.
She still hadn’t seen him and didn’t seem to notice as he climbed out of his truck and walked over to lean against the jackleg fence to watch her go from one trick to another with both proficiency and confidence.
He’d seen his share of stuntmen and women do the same tricks. But this young woman had a style and grace and determination that mesmerized him.
She reminded him of himself. He’d started on the road to his career as a kid doing every horseback trick he could think of on his family’s ranch in Texas. He’d hit the dirt more times than he wanted to remember and had the healed broken bones to prove it.
The young woman pulled off a difficult trick with effortless efficiency, but as she slowed her horse, he could see that she still wasn’t quite happy with it and intended to try the stunt again.
“Hey,” he called to her as he leaned on the fence.
Her head came up, and, although he couldn’t see her face in the shadow of her Western hat brim, he saw that he’d startled her. She’d thought she was all alone.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, shoving back his hat and smiling over at her. “On that last trick, try staying a little farther forward next time. It will help with your balance. I’m Jud Corbett, by the way.” No reaction. “The stuntman?”
She cocked her head at him and he thought as she spurred her horse that she intended to ride over to the fence to talk to him.
Instead, she turned her horse and took off at a gallop down the fence line. He knew what she planned to do the moment she reined in. She shoved down her Western straw hat and came racing back toward him.
This time the trick was flawless—right up until the end. He saw her shoot him a satisfied look an instant before she lost her balance. She tumbled from the horse, hitting the dirt in a cloud of dust.
Chapter Two
Jud scrambled over the fence and ran to the young woman lying on the ground, wishing he’d just kept his big mouth shut and left her alone.
She lay flat on her back in the dirt, her long, blond hair over her face.
“Are you all right?” he cried as he dropped to his knees next to her. She didn’t answer, but he could see the rise and fall of her chest and knew she was still breathing.
Quickly, he brushed her hair back from her face to reveal a pair of beautiful blue eyes—and drew back in surprise as one of those eyes winked at him and a smile curled the bow-shaped lips.
From a distance, he’d taken her for a teenager. Even up close she had that look: blond, blue-eyed, freckled. Now, though, he saw that she was c
loser to his own age.
His heart kicked up a beat, but no longer from fear for her safety. “You did that on purpose!”
She chuckled and shoved herself up on her elbows to grin at him. “You think?”
He wanted to throttle her, but her grin was contagious. “Okay, maybe I deserved it.”
“You did,” she said without hesitation.
“I was just trying to help.” He’d seen so much potential in her and had wanted to—What had he wanted to do? Take her under his wing?
That was when he thought she was a teenager. Now he would have preferred taking her in his arms.
Rising, he offered her a hand up from the ground. She stared at his open palm for a moment, then reached up to clasp his hand. Hers was small, lightly callused and warm. He drew her up, feeling strangely awkward around her. The woman was a spitfire.
She drew her hand back from his, scooped up her Western hat from the dirt and began to slap it against her jean-clad long legs, dust rising as she studied him as if she didn’t quite trust him. She didn’t trust him?
“Look, I feel like we got off on the wrong foot,” Jud said as she shoved the cowboy hat down on her blond head again. “How can I make it up to you?”
She grinned. “Oh, you’ve more than made it up to me, Mr. Corbett.” She whistled for her horse and the mare came trotting over. As she swung up into the saddle, she said, “Thanks for the tip.”
He couldn’t help smiling at the sarcasm lacing her tone and wished he wasn’t so damned intrigued by her. She was cocky and self-assured and wasn’t in the least impressed with him. It left him feeling a little off balance since he’d always thought he had a way with women.
She reined her horse around to leave.
“Wait. Would you like to have breakfast?”
She drew her horse up and glanced back at him. “Breakfast?”
He realized belatedly how she’d taken the invitation. Since he was tied up for dinner tonight, his first thought had been breakfast.
“I already have plans for dinner tonight, but I was thinking—”
“I can well imagine what you were thinking.” She spurred her horse and left him standing in the dust.
He watched her ride away, trying to remember the last time he’d been turned down so completely. It wasn’t until she’d dropped over the horizon that he realized he didn’t even know her name.
* * *
FAITH FELT LIGHT-HEADED. She couldn’t wipe the grin off her face or banish the excitement that rippled through her as she rode her horse back to her family ranch house.
Jud Corbett. The most notorious stuntman in Hollywood. There wasn’t a stunt he couldn’t do on a horse. And he had seen her ride!
She chuckled to herself at the memory of his expression when she’d winked at him. She hadn’t been able to help herself. She’d wanted to show off. She was lucky she hadn’t broken her fool neck doing it, though.
Her heart had been pounding in her chest when she opened her eyes fully and had seen him in the flesh. The Hollywood movie and stuntman magazines hadn’t done Jud Corbett justice. The man, who’d made a name for himself not only for his stunts, but also as a ladies’ man, was gorgeous.
He’d taken her breath away more than her pratfall. She knew about the film being shot down in the Breaks since her sister McKenna was providing some of the horses.
But Faith had never dreamt she’d get the chance to meet Jud Corbett—let alone be asked to breakfast, even though she knew what that meant, given his reputation.
What had he been doing on that old road, anyway? No one used it. Or at least she’d thought that was true. Wait a minute. That road led to the Trails West Ranch property, and hadn’t she heard that someone named Grayson Corbett had bought it?
Corbett. Of course. She’d just never put two and two together. Jud must be one of Grayson Corbett’s five sons she’d been hearing about. Which meant Jud was on his way to the ranch when he’d seen her.
Her grin spread wider. She still couldn’t believe it. She’d fooled the legendary Jud Corbett with one of her tricks.
As she neared the house, she tried to compose herself. Her older sister Eve’s pickup was parked out front. Faith would have loved to burst into the house and tell Eve all about her afternoon. But this didn’t seem the time to reveal her trick-riding secret. Eve worried about her enough as it was, and Eve had her own concerns right now.
Faith knew not wanting to worry her family wasn’t the only reason she’d kept her secret. It was hers, all hers. Growing up, she was always lumped with her sisters as one of the wild Bailey girls. Eve and McKenna had been stubborn, independent and outspoken.
Faith herself had been all of those and then some, but she’d thought her trick riding as a girl had made her the true daring one.
And now Jud Corbett, of all people, knew.
She tried to assure herself that he wouldn’t tell anyone. Who could he tell? He probably didn’t even know who she was—or care. Faith tried to relax as she took care of her horse, then walked up to the house, only a little sore from her stunts.
“Everything all right?” Eve asked from the front porch.
Faith hadn’t seen her sister sitting on the swing in the shade. Eve lived with her husband, Sheriff Carter Jackson, down the road, but she spent a lot of time in the family ranch house when Faith was home, acting as surrogate mother since their mother had remarried and moved to Florida.
“I didn’t see you there,” Faith said as she mounted the steps.
Eve was studying her. “You look flushed. Are you feeling all right?”
“Great.” It was true. “I wish you wouldn’t worry about me, though.” Also true, but she hadn’t meant the words to come out so sharply. At twenty-six, she was too old to be mothered by her thirty-three-year-old big sister. But mostly, she didn’t like worrying Eve.
Eve’s silence surprised her—as well as what she saw her sister holding on her lap.
“Is that your baby quilt?” Faith asked, frowning. “Does this mean...?”
Eve shook her head. “I’m not ready to have a baby yet.”
“Well, you’re the only one in the county,” Faith said, dropping onto the swing beside her. “Have you heard if Laci and Laney had their babies yet?”
Eve shook her head, fingering the quilt on her lap. “I was just thinking about my biological mother and the night she gave birth to me and Bridger.”
Faith had hoped that once Eve was married to the only man she’d ever loved, she might not need to keep up her search. Eve and her twin brother, Bridger, had only been reunited a year ago, brought together by the mutual need to find the woman who’d given them up.
“We know her name,” Eve said, surprising Faith. “It’s Constance Small.”
“You found her?” Faith asked, shocked.
“Not yet. All we have so far is a name and a little information. She was seventeen, possibly a runaway. She disappeared right after she gave birth to us.”
“I’m sorry.” Faith, like her sisters, was also adopted, but she had no desire to know her birth mother or the circumstances. She couldn’t understand Eve’s need. Clearly, it could lead to disappointment—if not worse.
Eve put the quilt aside. “Are you sure you’re all right? Stay here in the shade. I’ll get you some lemonade.”
Faith laughed, glad that her sister had something to keep her mind off finding Constance Small. “Thanks, but I just need a shower.”
“You haven’t forgotten the fund-raiser tonight at the community center, have you?”
Faith had. She frantically searched around for a way to get out of it.
“Don’t even think about backing out,” Eve said. “McKenna called a little while ago to make sure we were both going.”
Faith groaned at the thought of going to the dance.
“Faith?” her siste
r said in a voice that reminded Faith of her mother’s.
“Of course I’m going.” She couldn’t let her sisters down. Even though they weren’t blood related, there was a bond between them that nothing could break.
“Wear your red dress.”
Not even the thought of a county dance could dampen Faith’s mood for long. As she went into the house she hugged her latest secret to her, treasuring what had happened this afternoon.
But minutes later as she stepped into the shower, Faith realized that Jud Corbett had awakened something inside her. A secret impossible desire that she’d put away the same way she’d put away her dolls and her childhood daydreams.
Like a genie freed from its bottle, her secret yearning had emerged now and, even if Faith had wanted to, she knew no matter how dangerous, it wasn’t going back into that bottle.
* * *
JUD OPENED THE front door of the Trails West Ranch house and breathed in the mouthwatering scents of chile rellenos, homemade refried beans and freshly fried corn tortillas with Juanita’s special spices. He’d bet she’d made flan for dessert.
His favorite meal. He closed his eyes, pausing to hang up his jacket and brace himself for whatever was awaiting him. The only good news about his father’s move to Montana was that he’d somehow talked Juanita into making the move with him and Kate.
The menu alone was a tip-off, even if Jud hadn’t seen his brothers’ vehicles parked out front. It was just as he’d suspected: a family meeting.
Hearing the tinkle of ice in crystal glasses and the hum of voices in the bar area, Jud headed toward it, pocketing the pleasurable thoughts of the young woman horseback rider he’d seen.
“Jud,” his father said as he spotted him. Grayson looked at his watch and frowned. He was a big, handsome, congenial man, as open as the land he lived on.
“Sorry I’m late.” Jud thought about mentioning the woman he’d seen but changed his mind. He got razzed enough about women, his own undoing since he’d made the mistake of sharing some of his exploits, embellishing, of course, to make the stories better—just as the movie magazines did.
