Red-Hot Ranchman

by Victoria Pade

  Even females of other species respond to him, she thought. But as he smoothed the animal’s mane with his free hand in a way that kept Nijjy calm, Paige was grateful she could get back to work.

  “How is it that you ended up with all the water rights to these two pieces of property anyway?” he asked then, not seeming disturbed either by that or by the fact that her response to his written request hadn’t been the one he’d wanted.

  “It was all one big ranch years and years ago, when Pine Ridge was nothing but a stagecoach stop, a saloon and a general store. It was owned by a family with two sons. About the time the sons were grown, the original house caught fire and burned, taking the barn and all the outbuildings with it and killing the parents. When the brothers rebuilt, they put up separate houses and barns but still basically worked the place as one ranch—that’s why the houses and barns are so close together. But after their deaths, the property was split and sold separately, with the water rights going to this parcel because it was the smaller of the two. My folks bought it and paid more than they would have for the extra land on your side so they’d have the water.”

  “And how did you come by it all?”

  “I inherited it when they passed on.” She glanced up to find his handsome head nodding.

  “Seems silly that the water rights weren’t split, too,” he said.

  Paige shrugged. “That’s how it is. Silly or not.” And maybe that had come out a little more caustically then she’d intended as a result of her own disappointment.

  John didn’t seem to take offense. “I’ll tell you what I have planned over there. I want to do some farming, raise some cattle, and I’d like to expand my holdings to do it all on a decent-size scale. I can’t do that without a guarantee of more water. So I have two offers to make you.”

  Paige finished cleaning Nijjy’s wound. She again sat back on her heels and looked up at her neighbor. All the way up that long, perfectly proportioned, prime specimen of a man to the face that once more made her heart do a little skip dance.

  He smiled down at her with another of those one-sided grins that lifted his mustache at a rakish angle, then started to toss the jar of ointment casually up and down, catching it without so much as glancing at what he was doing while his other hand just rested atop Nijjy’s shoulder—the only effort it seemed he needed to satisfy the smitten horse.

  “I’d either like to buy you out completely—lock, stock and barrel—or at least buy a full fifty percent of the water rights from you.” The other side of his mouth joined the first in a conspiratorial smile. “And you can charge me a premium price one way or the other and probably get it. But don’t tell anybody I told you that.”

  She couldn’t help smiling back at him and somehow that disappointment she’d felt before disappeared, business talk or no business talk.

  “Sorry on both counts,” she said. “I’m not selling out and I’m not selling the water rights, either. Around here, anybody who’d give up any part of her water rights needs her head examined.”

  He cocked his slightly and made a great show of studying hers. “Your head looks pretty good to me. Can’t see any reason it’d need to be examined. Especially if you come out with a lot more than the deal is even worth.”

  “I’m perfectly happy with things just the way they are.”

  “Ah, I get it—you’re a hard woman,” he said, only it didn’t sound serious. “But I can be as persistent as a nanny goat draggin’ clean wash off the line. So I’m warnin’ you, I won’t be givin’ up on this.”

  Her smile stretched wider as so many of the final gs fell off his words. She’d been wondering where Robbie had picked up that habit and now she knew. “I thought I heard a drawl lurking around the edges of your voice before, but why did it suddenly come out full force?”

  He laughed. “Guess it’s hard to keep a good twang down. But that doesn’t mean I can’t keep tryin’.”

  It occurred to Paige out of the blue that Pine Ridge’s townsfolk were wrong about at least one thing when it came to John Jarvis—he was not sullen. On the contrary, she couldn’t help being drawn to his quiet, slightly ornery charm. Even as she fought it.

  And toward that end she nodded at the jar he was still tossing up and down. “Would you hand me that salve?”

  “Say please,” he half coaxed, half ordered.

  “Please.”

  But he still didn’t give it to her. He went on tossing it and angled his chin toward Nijjy’s leg. “What happened to her?”

  Paige explained, adding the fact that she was having trouble getting the wound to heal.

  “Is that so?” he said ruminatively when she’d finished. For the first time, he looked closely at the jar in his hand and read the label. Then he peered at Nijjy’s leg. His brows pulled together slightly as his eyes narrowed in thought. “Let me take a look.”

  “Are you a vet?”

  That brought a chuckle out of him, a low rumble from deep inside his broad chest. “Not hardly. But I’ve been around animals all my life. Seen a lot of things. You never know what I might come up with. Scoot over.”

  He began to smooth Nijjy’s mane again and murmur to her softly as Paige did as he ordered and made way for him.

  Then he hunkered down, thick thighs spread so wide that one of them brushed Paige’s shoulder. Just barely. But enough to cause a repeat of what had skittered across her nerve endings before at the first sound of his voice.

  She was just tired, she told herself, because the weather was too warm to pretend she’d taken a chill.

  “Go ahead and give her one of those apples,” he advised, although Paige didn’t see the need. Nijjy was behaving better than she ever had. It was almost funny, actually, to see the usually fidgety, cantankerous mare holding her injured leg up for him like an enraptured lady expecting her hand to be kissed.

  Still, there didn’t seem to be any harm in distracting the horse, so Paige looked around again for the sandwich bag and fished out another apple half.

  While she fed it to the horse, she kept an eye on John and what he was doing, which didn’t seem to be much of anything. He had both hands on the animal’s leg—on either side of the wound—as he studied it for what seemed like such a long time she began to think he must be searching for something.

  “Find anything?”

  He didn’t answer her right away, so intent was he on what he was doing. Then he shook his head and opened the jar of ointment. “No. I thought she might’ve gotten somethin’ in it or that maggots might be the problem, but there’s nothin’ there.”

  Except that drawl of his again that Paige found herself liking more than she could explain.

  “I’ll apply the salve if you don’t want to,” she offered because it wasn’t the most pleasant job in the world.

  But John ignored her, scooped some out of the jar with bent fingers and did the job. Then he bandaged the wound. “Good girl,” he praised, reaching up to pat and smooth Nijjy’s side when he was done.

  Paige knew she was being silly, but she was aware of a twinge of jealousy—for a horse, no less—over the tender caress of John Jarvis’s big, blunt-fingered hands.

  He wiped them on the rag she gave him as he rose in one smooth motion that was a feast for the eyes until Paige forced herself to avert her gaze, gather all her gear and stand, too.

  She could feel him watching her as she put everything away. Coupled with the inappropriate thoughts and feelings she was having about him, his scrutiny made her very uncomfortable.

  “So whereabouts are you originally from?” she asked to cover her uneasiness. And maybe get some answers she hadn’t been able to find this morning.

  “Texas,” he said simply, offering no more than that.

  “Born? Raised? Up until you came here?” she persisted as they headed for the barn door.

  “All of the above.”

  “Do you have family still there?”

  “A brother. Dwight. We ranched and farmed a few thousand acres togeth
er. Well…Dwight did most of that kind of work…until I sold out everything but my share of the mineral rights to him and came here.”

  “Why did you sell out?” she asked as they stepped into the night air.

  “Why not?”

  He might not be sullen the way townsfolk thought he was, but he certainly fitted the bill when it came to not being forthcoming about himself. It was not surprising no one knew anything about him. Paige felt as if she were pulling teeth.

  “Why sell a few thousand acres of land in Texas for a place here that isn’t big enough to make a living off of?”

  “It’d be a lot easier if you’d sell me more water for it.”

  He was half-teasing again. She could hear it in his voice, and when she glanced up at him, she found that one-sided smile tugging at his mouth like before.

  But she realized he still hadn’t given her any kind of answer so she tried putting a different spin on it. “Why’d you choose Pine Ridge?”

  “I drove through here once. Liked it. It was small, quiet. Seemed like a good town for a fresh start.”

  “Why did you need one?” She was beginning to sound like Robbie—why, why, why…?

  “Doesn’t everybody need a fresh start now and then?”

  She had, once upon a time, so she could hardly take issue with that. Or pursue what he obviously didn’t want to talk about.

  He’d walked her all the way to the back porch by then, and as she stepped up onto it, he reached out a hand to the side post and leaned his weight against it.

  Paige turned to face him and found herself closer than she’d expected—or intended—to be. But she enjoyed the sight of his features bathed in the golden glow of her porch light anyway and didn’t back up.

  “Would you like to come in? Have a cup of coffee?” she heard herself ask before she’d even thought about the wisdom of her invitation.

  “Thanks, but maybe another time.”

  One when she wasn’t being so nosy? Paige wondered. “I didn’t mean to pry. I’m sorry if I offended—”

  “I didn’t think you were prying. And I’m not offended,” he said with another of those chuckles that sounded intimate, sexy. “I thought you were just being friendly.”

  “I was. But nosy, too, I guess,” she conceded with a laugh of her own that seemed a little jittery.

  But then, she was a little jittery because he was staring at her once more, studying her, watching her with those penetrating sea-foam eyes.

  It occurred to her that that same man-woman thing was happening between them again, the way it had the night before. Only it was stronger this time, leaving her all too aware of the feminine side of herself that she rarely had cause to pay attention to anymore.

  And suddenly, visions of kissing him flooded through her mind. Vivid enough to raise goose bumps along her arms even as she told herself she was really being dumb now.

  The man was only her neighbor, come to make her an offer for her water. Nothing more than that. A perfect stranger.

  Too perfect. Except for his not being very candid.

  Of course John didn’t make any move to kiss her. But he did go on looking at her face a while longer, as if he were memorizing it. Something about that steady gaze drew her in, made her wonder what was going on in his head. If it was anything at all like what was going through hers…

  Surely not. It couldn’t be. He was probably just trying to figure out what she might look like if he ever saw her with her hair combed.

  He finally glanced away. “I’d best say good-night.”

  Paige knew she should have been glad to have him go home and end his scrutiny. But thoughts of kissing were still dancing around in her brain and she felt another wave of that disappointment that had assaulted her earlier when she’d realized he’d only come to talk business.

  Yet all she could do was answer his good-night with one of her own, turn and let herself into the house where she hoped sanity was waiting for her.

  Great-looking, charming, or not, there was no reason for her to fall victim to that cowboy’s appeal, she lectured herself as she locked up once more and went to bed. She was made of sterner stuff than that.

  But sterner stuff notwithstanding, once she was between two clean white sheets, her head on a soft, fluffy pillow, she couldn’t help thinking again about Nijjy’s reaction to John.

  And she also couldn’t help wondering…

  If he had so much as touched her, would she have responded the same way—as putty in his hands?

  She was afraid she might have.

  And that thought scared her more than when she’d mistaken him for a prowler.

  Chapter Three

  “The frog cannot come to lunch with us,” Paige told Robbie for the fourth time as she urged her son to the truck just before noon the next day.

  They were meeting Julie at a new pizza parlor that had opened two weeks before. It was a mile north of town and they were already late because Robbie kept insisting he had to bring his frog, Pete, along.

  But this time, Paige’s voice conveyed that she meant business and her son reluctantly put the frog in the small pond Paige had designed in the center of a rock garden below the front porch.

  “Finally,” she muttered to herself, getting into the truck.

  Robbie followed, giving her dirty looks the whole way.

  “I needed to make sure Pete didn’t die again,” he informed her once he’d buckled himself in and Paige had checked to make sure the seat belt was secure.

  “Die again?” she repeated as she started the engine and headed down the driveway.

  “Pete was in my pocket this mornin’ at John’s an’ I fell down right on ‘im, an’ when I took ‘im out he wasn’t movin’ or croakin’ or nothin’. He was dead. An’ John holded ‘im an’ brung ‘im back to life, an’ I needed to make sure it’d stick.”

  Paige rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell stories, Robbie.”

  “It’s not a story. It happened just like I said.”

  “Okay, then don’t exaggerate. What did I tell you about that?”

  “I’m not zaggeratin’ this time. John holded Pete like he was warmin’ ‘im up, an’ Pete come right back to life. John can do anything.”

  Paige realized that that was how Robbie saw their neighbor. Still, she felt she had to rein in her son’s imagination and his hero worship. “Pete was probably just dazed from the fall and he came out of it while John was holding him.”

  “That’s what John said, too. But I think he did somethin’ to Pete, an’ I wanted to make sure it’d stick,” he repeated more forcefully.

  “Once anything dies, Robbie, it can’t be brought back to life. Not even by John.”

  “You don’t know,” he accused, going into a pout.

  “You said John told you the same thing,” she reminded him. “I know you really like John and it seems as if he can do anything, but—”

  “I shoulda brung Pete along,” Robbie cut in, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring out the windshield from beneath a dark frown that scrunched his brows together, made narrow slits out of his eyes and let Paige know he didn’t want to hear anything that might diminish his bigger-than-life opinion of John Jarvis.

  “Pete will be fine when we get home again,” she assured him rather than continuing to fight a losing battle. “In fact, especially after what he’s been through today, he’s probably better off in the pond than in your pocket.”

  “He likes my pocket.”

  There was no winning on this front, Paige realized, and since they’d followed the road that wrapped around the perimeter of town to arrive at the restaurant, she quit trying. She just instructed her son to mind his manners as she parked in front of what had been a roadhouse honky-tonk until it had closed a year ago. Now it sported a neon sign proclaiming it Papa Billy Bo Bob’s Pizzeria.

  A fresh coat of paint on the weathered exterior helped make the place look inviting, while the interior had been completely remodeled with paneled walls, a newl
y carpeted floor, and tables covered in red-and-whitechecked cloths with lacquered bread sculptures as centerpieces on each one.

  Julie was already sitting at a corner table, so Paige urged her son in that direction.

  “Hi, guys,” her friend greeted when she spotted them.

  Julie was Paige’s age. They’d grown up together in Pine Ridge, gone all through school together, even to college in Fort Collins. The five-feet-eight-inch, strikingly pretty blonde with deep brown eyes had been Paige’s maid of honor and was Robbie’s godmother. She taught social studies and English composition to grades seven through twelve at Pine Ridge’s only school, which meant that for another two weeks until classes started again, she was on vacation.

  “I’m sorry we kept you waiting. We had a minor frog emergency,” Paige said as she sat down and Robbie climbed up into the chair around the corner from her.

  “A frog emergency?”

  Paige explained, with Robbie chiming in with his story of John’s resurrection of Pete.

  Once more, Paige disabused her son of that notion.

  When she’d finished, Julie said, “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve only been here a few minutes myself. I’ve been rushing around all morning getting things for Burt’s birthday party.”

  Robbie brightened up at the mention of that. “Yer havin’ a birthday party?”

  “A real big one. Wednesday night—right on Burt’s birthday,” Julie said with as much enthusiasm as Robbie.

  “Do I get ta come?”

  Julie reached over and grabbed Robbie’s nose between two knuckles. “Would I have a birthday party and not let you?”

  “How ‘bout John? Can he come if he wants to?”

  “John? The guy next door who we were just talking about?” Julie asked.

  Paige glanced down at her menu. “Right. John Jarvis.” She knew her friend was waiting for her to give a clue as to whether or not she wanted him invited, but for the life of her, Paige couldn’t make herself say one way or another.

  “Burt told me you finally met your neighbor,” Julie said, sitting back in her seat and honing in on Paige.