by B. J Daniels
She glanced at the supplies on the floor and chewed for a moment on her lower lip. “Have it your way—” She threw back the covers, swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up.
Just the sight of her killed every coherent thought except one: Wow.
The white silken gown fell over her curves like melting butter on flapjacks, making it hard to tell where the gown began and skin ended. To make matters worse, there was her hair. Yesterday it had been wrapped in a tight little bun or whatever at the nape of her neck. Now it floated around her pale shoulders, dark and luxurious.
He turned his back to her, going to the woodstove to stoke the fire, a fire of his own burning hot inside him. He was about to excuse himself and give her a chance to get dressed when she padded barefoot over to where he stood by the woodstove.
She had pulled another garment over the gown, something in the same thought-stealing silk that did little to hide her own assets. He tried to keep his gaze on her face. It was soft and cute as a newborn calf and just as harmless looking. Appearances could be so deceiving. Her fragrance floated around him. Perfume and—he frowned—dish soap? “What are you doing?”
She shot him a look as she picked up one of the skillets from the counter behind her. “I’m getting breakfast.”
“Not dressed like that!” It was the pure impracticality of the ensemble that infuriated him, not the effect it had on him. Worse, he feared she knew exactly what she was doing to him and she was enjoying it a lot more than he was. “Anyway, I fired you.”
She seemed to ignore him as she dropped the skillet on the back of the woodstove and went to dig in the cooler. “Then you rehired me. Is it always this cold up here?”
Cold? The cabin felt suffocatingly hot. “Maybe if you were dressed appropriately—”
She shivered and went back to the bunk to get her socks and boots. He watched her wince as she pulled them on. They looked ridiculous with the expensive peignoir. And as ridiculous and out of place as Reggie herself had looked in the red suit yesterday on the roadside. The same way she didn’t fit in here at the line camp.
Getting to her feet again, she looked like the only thing keeping her upright was pure stubbornness alone. Why didn’t she have the good sense to give up now? Why didn’t he?
He watched her draw one fingertip into her mouth, the same one he’d noticed she’d burned the night before. He felt himself weaken.
“I have some balm for your burns,” he heard himself say. “You can put it on your boot blisters as well.”
She looked over at him in surprise. The gratitude in her gaze grabbed hold of him in a death grip. She bit her lip as if she might feel a little guilty for putting him through this. Or maybe it was just him who was feeling guilty. Could he be wrong about her motives?
J.T. stepped to one of the smaller coolers just off the porch and came back with a chunk of cheese. He held it out to her. “Eat this.”
Regina took the cheese and did as she was told before she even thought to question him. As she chewed, she looked up at him, realizing that people just did what J. T. McCall told them to do and he expected nothing less. He wasn’t used to anyone not following his orders. No wonder he’d been so angry with her.
The cheese helped, she felt more awake, not quite so tired. She figured that was his intention. “Thank you.”
He wasn’t like anyone she’d ever known. His looks alone made him stand out. A blond, blue-eyed handsome cowboy. The real thing. Just what she needed.
And yet he was nothing like she’d originally thought she wanted. He drove an old dirty pickup, wore worn clothing, often had mud and manure on his boots and jeans and smelled of sweat and horse-flesh, leather and dust. And she’d never met a sexier man in her life.
No man had ever stirred the desires in her that McCall did. When this was over, she knew she would look back on it and wonder if she’d lost her mind in Montana. She could just imagine what her mother would say if she knew that her daughter was having such thoughts about a man like J. T. McCall.
Not that she would ever let a sexual desire make her stray from her purpose. Too much was at stake for a roll in the hay—literally—with such a man. But she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like.
And he was attracted to her. He’d just about died when she’d gotten out of bed in her nightgown. She smiled to herself at the memory.
If everything in her life wasn’t riding on this advertising campaign….
She could just hear Anthony. “Gina, baby, what could it hurt? You can’t work all the time.”
But looking at McCall, she knew it could hurt. He wasn’t the kind of man you just bedded and walked away from unscathed. Not that she’d ever just bedded a man. She hardly had time even to date. Her grandmother was always telling her she’d be an old maid if she didn’t forget about work for a moment and think about a man.
Well, she was thinking about a man right now. And her thoughts would have shocked her grandmother. Maybe not. But they definitely shocked Regina.
J.T. DIDN’T LIKE that look in her eyes. “I’ll go get that balm,” he said as he retreated backward until he felt the doorknob digging into his behind. “Get dressed. Don’t touch that stove. I’ll make breakfast.” He felt much too heroic.
That’s why her next words floored him.
“I’d really like to see you ride today,” she said. “Do you think that would be possible?”
Her words stunned him. She couldn’t be serious. The guilt he’d felt just an instant before took off like a wild stallion on open range. It took any sympathy he’d felt for her with it as well.
“You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” He stepped to her, forgetting for the moment how she was dressed. Or not dressed, as the case was. “I’m going to tell you this one more time. I don’t know what you’re really up to, but I want you out of my cow camp.”
“What I’m up to? I told you what I want. All you have to do is agree to the commercial and you won’t ever have to see me again.”
So she was sticking to that story. “I thought you had to see me ride first before you could make me the offer?”
She seemed to realize her mistake. “I do. Why else would I want to see you ride?”
“My question exactly.” She looked so innocent standing there in her negligee and cowboy boots—“Whatever it is you’re really after, give it up, Reggie. I told you, no one can be more stubborn or determined than me. Not even you.”
She smiled, baby blues twinkling. “I guess that’s the one thing we have in common, McCall. We’re both tenacious to a fault.”
“Wrong, Reggie,” he said as he towered over her. “With you, it’s a fault. With me, it’s my best quality.” He tipped his hat and headed for the door.
But as usual, Reggie got in the last word.
“Believe me, McCall, your pigheadedness isn’t your greatest asset. If it were, I wouldn’t be here.”
Chapter Five
Blurry-eyed, Regina sat down slowly on the lower bunk and pulled off her boots so she could get her jeans on. She ached all over. A faint blush of light sifted down through the pines beyond a gap in her makeshift towel curtains at the window. She felt like the walking dead, her boot-blistered feet aching, her eyes sandpapery, her fingers burned and red.
But she’d done her best not to let McCall see it. She looked at the bunk, wanting sleep, but not even tempted to get back into that hard bunk. Even if her pride would have let her. She was going to make pancakes. Come hell or high water.
She dressed in her new cowboy clothes, not that they looked new anymore. She wished now that she’d just bought a plain western shirt, a pair of her own jeans and some brown boots so she fit in more. The thought surprised her. What was happening to her? She was a Holland. Their whole goal in life was to stand out.
Dressed, she picked up all the food supplies she’d left on the floor. As she began to mix the ingredients for pancakes she felt like she was having a recurring nightmare. She’d stayed up most o
f the night practicing making pancakes, one batch after another. She’d been determined to show J. T. McCall that she wasn’t as helpless as he thought.
Part of her wanted to shock him. The other part wanted to please him. That was the part that worried her.
Before last night she’d never made pancakes in her life, but fortunately she’d discovered a recipe on the back of the flour sack and other recipes on boxes and cans of food and she could read.
After she was sure everyone had gone to bed, she’d gotten up, covered the windows with towels and, working by flashlight, had practiced making pancakes. One batch after another. She hated to think how many mistakes she’d made and had to dispose of before she finally got a pancake that looked like the one on the flour sack.
Now she put more wood on the fire and looked down at her pancake batter and smiled. Her only concern was the amount of supplies she’d used. She hoped they didn’t run out of food. But there seemed to be enough for an army and Buck would be bringing back a truck so they could go get more, right?
She tried not to think about Buck’s arrival—and her forced departure. She didn’t have much time and she was rather at a loss as to how to proceed. J. T. McCall didn’t need the money, didn’t want the fame and wasn’t even flattered by the offer. She would never have believed such a man existed if she hadn’t met him.
What McCall was, she realized, was incredibly stubborn. It would take dynamite to dislodge him once he’d made up his mind. And according to him, his mind was as set as cement.
There was the thump of boots on the porch, a step she recognized, then a soft knock at the door. She reached up to tuck an errant lock of hair behind her ear. “Come in, McCall.”
J.T. OPENED THE DOOR, another armload of firewood and the balm for her blisters, expecting he would need to get Reggie out of bed. Again.
To his surprise, she was dressed and standing at the cookstove. Nothing appeared to be on fire. In fact, she seemed to have breakfast almost ready.
He’d taken a little extra time to give her a chance to get up and dressed. After saddling his horse, he rode the perimeter of the camp looking for any sign that he and his crew might not be alone up here.
He found none. No tracks. No sign of a newly used campfire ring. No sign of a spot where a tent might have been erected. He hadn’t realized how long he’d been gone.
Since he’d planned to cook something simple when he returned, he hadn’t worried. He never expected to see Reggie cooking. Especially over a stove where there was no flaming food.
Cooking was supposed to have been punishment for Reggie. The last thing he wanted was to see her looking competent at that cookstove, to see her looking as if she belonged here.
He checked out the pancakes she had going on the griddle. They actually looked like pancakes. She also had some ham and bacon fried up on the back of the stove. It wasn’t even burned.
He glanced at the lower bunk. She’d picked up all the canned goods and supplies around it.
She followed his gaze and seemed to blush. “I was practice-cooking, all right?”
“Practice-cooking?” he echoed.
“I read the recipes off the backs of the bags, cans and boxes of food. Then I practiced preparing a few dishes. That’s all.”
That’s all? In the lantern light, he could see an array of freshly cleaned pots and pans on the counter in the kitchen. That’s why she smelled of dish soap this morning. He couldn’t help but smile.
“What’s so funny?”
He shook his head. He knew he must be looking at her as if she’d just single-handedly forged a mission to Mars. He couldn’t help it. Nor would he have been more surprised.
Why would she stay up half the night reading recipes off the backs of containers and practice-cooking when he’d fired her and by lunchtime she was out of here? He sobered. This woman’s persistence knew no boundaries.
He felt his dread deepening and told himself that Buck would return by early afternoon at the latest and Reggie would just be a memory. One he wouldn’t soon forget.
“Do you mind if we didn’t have eggs this morning?” she asked.
All he could do was shake his head. Earlier he’d thought of things he wanted to say to her but they’d all flown right out of his head. He just stood looking at her, overwhelmed by the woman’s doggedness, but grudgingly impressed. She was truly a babe in the woods but she was trying so hard, he had to admire her grit.
“Here, I brought you this,” he said holding out the balm.
She took it with a look of such gratitude that he had to look away so she didn’t see how guilty he felt.
“What do you have against city girls?” she asked as she flipped one of the pancakes. It was a beautiful golden brown and smelled wonderful. Almost as good as Reggie, dish soap and all.
For a moment he was taken aback by her question though. He was going to tell her it was none of her business but then she looked at him, those big blue eyes drawing him in.
“I…I almost married a woman from the city.”
Reggie lifted a brow. “You were in love with her.”
He thought about lying, but nodded. “She wanted a cowboy and the fantasy, but she soon realized what she didn’t want—the reality of my lifestyle.” He turned away and saw that she’d set the table already. Or had she set it last night when she was practice-cooking and he just hadn’t noticed?
“She broke your heart.”
He wished he had told her it was none of her business and left it at that. “She just made me realize that the last thing I needed was a city girl on a Montana cattle ranch.”
To his surprise Reggie was silent. For that he was grateful. She flipped the pancakes and looked up at him, the spatula in her hand. He knew he must be staring at her, but he couldn’t help himself.
He was hoping to hell she didn’t have anything to do with Luke Adams’s disappearance. And he was also trying to understand what it was about this woman….
REGINA MET his gaze and suddenly felt like giggling. It was his baffled expression, her own lack of sleep, the ridiculousness of her situation and the fact that she’d stayed up all night teaching herself to make pancakes to get a cowboy’s perfect posterior in a pair of her jeans. If her grandmother could see her now.
She tried to hold back the giggle but it escaped.
“Reggie?”
To her horror, she started giggling and couldn’t stop. Tears ran down her face and her body shook with laughter.
McCall was staring at her as if she’d lost her mind and then he did the strangest damned thing, he laughed. J. T. McCall laughing.
It came as such a surprise, the sound of it, the rich lyrical depth of it, she stopped giggling and looked at him and then to her shock, began to cry, huge sobs that racked her body.
He moved to her. “Finally sunk in, huh.”
She nodded, crying and laughing until she took a breath and was sane again.
He reached over to thumb a tear from her cheek.
“You must think I’m the biggest idiot you’ve ever met,” she said.
He shook his head. “But you are the most determined woman I’ve ever met.” He thumbed away another tear. “And one of the bravest.”
She smiled and he stood there just looking at her.
“Want to tell me anything before I call the men in for breakfast?” he asked, his voice sounding hoarse.
Tell him something? Like the fact that she wished he’d kiss her. Is that what he meant? Or was he still thinking she had the truck part?
She saw that was more what he had in mind. And to think that a second ago she’d thought he might want to kiss her as much as she had wanted him to. She really had lost her mind.
He edged backward to the door, never taking his eyes from her as if he feared what she might do next. Then turning, he left.
Men. She would never understand them.
She stopped long enough to hurriedly apply the balm to her blistered feet and fingers. It helped, giving her hope
that after breakfast her feet would feel good enough that she could sneak off and watch him ride. She already knew he would look great in the saddle. But she wasn’t just doing it for the commercial.
The truth was the more she was around McCall, the more curious she became about the man. Not that she wasn’t still determined to have him for her commercial. What would it hurt to learn more about him? She was curious about his life—a life he wouldn’t even trade for fame and fortune.
She shook off the exhaustion and poured the last of the not-bad-looking pancake batter onto the griddle as if born to do it, then stood back and watched the cakes bubble. She could make pancakes!
Even after all her practicing, it still amazed her. Might not mean much to some people, but to her it was nothing short of a miracle.
She flipped the pancakes with an expertise born of practice and pain the night before. The pancakes had cooked to a rich golden brown. She smiled to herself again, feeling as if she’d really accomplished something, feeling good in spite of the burned fingers, blistered feet and sore back and legs.
The only thing that could make this day any better would be for J. T. McCall to agree to do the commercial before Buck got back. She realized that was probably the only reason J.T. was being even civil to her. He knew he would be rid of her soon.
Well, she wasn’t down and out yet. Somehow she would change his mind before Buck’s return. Going at it head-on hadn’t worked. Perhaps there was another way. Although it wasn’t her nature but it just might work.
The cowhands came in slowly, as if afraid of what they’d find. Who could blame them after last night’s meal. It had frightened her more than them. She’d been the one who’d had to extinguish the flaming food.
She watched the men file in. There was the tall blond, Cotton, then Slim, the lanky cowboy with the scarred hands. Burns? She had an acquaintance who’d burned himself with chemicals while working at a meth lab. He had scars like that.
