Ride 'Em (A Giddyup Novel)

by Delphine Dryden

  The place looked deserted, and when Mindy got out of her car she could hear nothing but birdsong and the distant sound of running water. She hoisted her suitcase and trekked along the gravel path that led from the parking area, following the arrows that pointed toward the main house. Along the way she caught glimpses of two of the guest cottages, but no people. No more vehicles. Nothing. She’d forgotten that about the country, how the silence could become so noticeable it was like a presence. It was almost eerie, even in the bright light of day. She welcomed the noisy crunch of her own footsteps on the walkway.

  The temperature was already past warm and edging into hot, and things were starting to look parched; as usual, Texas needed rain. But she was encouraged by the sight and sound of a busy creek, which indicated they weren’t quite at drought conditions yet. And when she rounded another bend in the path, veering away from the cheerful burbling, Mindy came across yet another vision of running water over rock-hard surfaces.

  This one stopped her in her tracks.

  I’d like one of those.

  Well, who wouldn’t? He was magnificent, a cowgirl’s dream of a man, with a sleekly muscled back and broad shoulders. Not an ounce of fat that she could see, but he was certainly rounding out the seat of his jeans in a delicious way that made her want to grab on. The water-spotted, well-worn Wranglers molded to his ass and thighs like they were happy to have the job.

  Water dripped down from the thick head of dark blond hair he’d slicked away from his face before putting his hat back on. She was just close enough to see how the rivulets outlined each defined muscle as they trickled down his back and sides, drawing the eye to those pleasing shapes, catching the afternoon sun and twinkling playfully along his gorgeous abs as he turned to face her.

  Oh shit! She’d been caught blatantly ogling him. She could only hope he was flattered, not offended.

  “Well, hey there,” said Adonis in denim.

  Mindy waved weakly with one hand, dropping her eyes from the man’s six-pack in an automatically submissive gesture more suited for the club than for a business setting. “Hey. I’m one of the guests. I guess I’m a little early.” She composed herself enough to drag her gaze back up to his face, where it belonged—and her jaw dropped.

  No. Fucking. Way.

  The man coming toward her, mopping off his phenomenal chest with a plaid shirt, was Logan Hill. He flashed a movie star-caliber grin at her as he approached, tipping his hat like a gentleman. No braces, no gawkiness. All grown up and then some. And then a little more on top of that. But recognizable, all the same.

  “My God. Mindy Valek. I saw the name on the reservation, but I never put Melinda Valek together with Mindy from back in school. That last name is so common around here. How the hell are you? Wow!” Then he said the thing she least expected and least wanted to hear. “You haven’t changed one bit.”

  * * *

  Logan knew he needed to charm everybody, to wow the “crowd” of eight visitors. He prided himself on good presentation skills. But even as he launched into the welcoming spiel he’d worked up, he couldn’t help sneaking glances at one guest in particular.

  Mindy Valek. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said she hadn’t changed a bit since high school. Still the same thick strawberry-blond hair. It was a little darker, she wore it a bit shorter now, and he figured she probably had a more complicated and expensive haircut, but the general impression hadn’t changed. Same adorable freckles across the bridge of her nose, wide hazel eyes that that had always caught his attention because they always seemed to be smiling. Most importantly, the same knockout body that looked every bit as good as it had back in high school. She’d always seemed like the girl next door, if the girl next door had happened to be a ridiculously hot underwear model. And that ass. Her cheerleading uniform had just been the icing on the cake, although the snug T-shirt she currently wore was definitely an acceptable alternative.

  Do not stare at the boobs of paying customers, some deep instinct prompted, and Logan snatched his gaze back to the group at large. Most of them were paying attention, either to Logan or to Charley, who waited patiently next to him, the cowboy’s obligatory trusty steed. Logan took a gulp from the water bottle he held, and hoped his momentary distraction would be put down to a dry throat.

  “You’ll find a menu in your cabin, along with the schedule. Also a map with some of the restaurants in town, for lunch. Or you can let Robert know at breakfast if you’d like a box lunch, and he’ll be happy to take care of that for you. I believe he even has a form you can fill out with choices and prices. If you decide to head out for dinner, just give Robert or me a heads-up so he doesn’t cook too much. He told me to make sure I mentioned that,” Logan said with a sheepish grin, “or else he’d come after me with the big skillet.”

  The little group chuckled, obviously a fairly easy crowd, and Logan relaxed as he continued. “I know some of you plan to do a little riding this week, and Lamar over there will be the go-to person for that. I can’t offer you Charley here, but we have a number of fine riding horses and tomorrow morning Lamar will make sure you get matched up with the right mount and get whatever instruction you might need. He knows more about horses than most of us will ever forget. Isn’t that right, Charley? Isn’t it?”

  On cue, the gray nodded his long head, to the audience’s delight.

  “Smartest hand on the ranch,” Logan deadpanned, jerking a thumb toward the horse. “Also in your cabins is a map of the property. We don’t want anybody lost, and we definitely want to keep the hunting confined to the designated areas. Which brings us to Diego. Wave hello to the folks, Diego.” He looked expectantly over to his crew of three, perched in a row on the high rail fence of the paddock behind him. Diego waved, then doffed his straw hat with an extravagant flourish.

  “Diego is our gamekeeper, and supervises all the hunting activity. Please make sure you talk to him this evening about the guidelines if you’re planning to hunt, and also if you’d like to shoot trap or get in some target practice. And I guess that’s pretty much it for now.” Logan shifted the water bottle to his right hand, giving it a subtle crinkle and suppressing a grin when Charley took it with a snort and flutter of his velvety mouth. “Hey!”

  The horse tipped his head back, swigging the last inch or so of water, and the guests and hands alike cracked up as Logan threw his battered Stetson down to the ground in a mock rage.

  “Darn it, Charley, we’ve talked about this!”

  Charley lowered his head, and Logan could practically see his eyes twinkling as he released the water bottle to his owner’s waiting hand . . . then ducked down to grab the hat.

  Logan glared, crossed his arms, and tapped his foot as the onlookers cackled. Charley tossed his head in horsey glee, then obediently placed the crumpled hat back on Logan’s head.

  “I’ll deal with you later,” he promised the horse, then pasted on a long-suffering look as he turned back to the audience. “I hope you all have a wonderful week. Welcome to Hilltop Ranch!”

  The happy group dispersed slowly, the two older couples chatting slowly as they walked toward the main path back to the cabins. The three men who’d come primarily to hunt wandered over to consult with Diego. Mindy was left alone, looking amused. She had her weight shifted to one foot, her thumbs hooked around her belt loops, a study in nonchalance. The late sun made a ridiculously bright halo of her hair.

  Perhaps he’d wowed her after all. Stunned her into speechlessness with his brilliant comedic performance. Acting—yet another skill he hadn’t realized he’d need in order to take over the family business.

  “Charley Horse?” Mindy cocked her head. “Really?”

  Not speechless, apparently.

  “I didn’t name him myself,” Logan defended, as he patted the animal in question and fed him a hunk of carrot.

  “Did you steal him from a circus or something?” Mindy came forward and let Charley snuffle her hand, then reached up to scratch behind one of his expressive
ears.

  Logan shook his head. “More like rescued him. My brother, Ethan, did, actually. You remember Ethan, right? I think he graduated the same year as you. He’s a large animal vet now. Charley was in a traveling carnival, and one of the handlers called Ethan out to stitch up a cut on a different horse. He saw Charley there in the next stall, with one of the worst cases of navicular syndrome he’d ever seen. They were actually getting ready to ask Ethan what he’d charge to put the poor critter down, because his hooves just couldn’t take all the hard surfaces and riding in the trailer anymore. He was lame all the time, and hurting. So Ethan called me, I staked him some cash, and we sprang Charley from that joint.”

  “Wow. He looks great now.”

  “It took us a good year to get his hooves back in shape and get the inflammation under control. But now it’s all soft pastures and trails, and gentle physical therapy rides.”

  “And entertaining the customers.”

  “That, too,” Logan agreed. “He seems to enjoy it. I think he missed performing during his hiatus.”

  “Well, who can blame him? He’s a born showman, obviously. Lucky you had this place here to keep him.”

  Logan chuckled. “Well, he seems to be getting used to it. But no, for most of that time he was outside Houston, where I lived until a few months ago. Not too much work for engineers in Bolero.”

  “Oh. You . . . got out? I guess I just assumed—”

  “I never left? No, I couldn’t wait to leave. Four years at UT, then I went to work in Houston, bought a house there and everything. And I was probably a fool to come back. They say you can never go home again, but . . . well, here I am.”

  “Huh. Yeah, here we both are.”

  She propped one foot on the lowest fence rail, drawing Logan’s eyes down to her legs and the skillfully distressed jeans that hugged her curves like a glove. He wished she was facing away from him— it hadn’t escaped his attention that her ass had somehow only grown more shapely and spankable since high school.

  Do not think about spanking the asses of paying customers, either.

  “So . . . now that I’m not sopping wet, showing people to cabins or helping Charley entertain the customers, I finally have time to ask. What brings you back to town, Mindy? I wouldn’t have figured you for a dude ranch kinda girl.”

  * * *

  Mindy leaned into the fence and hooked her boot heel more firmly over the bottom rail. How to answer?

  The right answer, the only true answer, was that his ranch was sitting on a figurative gold mine, and she wanted to exploit that fact to further her own career. To put the land to its best use, according to the tenets of the oil and gas industry. To make them all money. “Drill, baby, drill” and all that. Time to get things out on the table.

  But Logan was smiling at her, a real knee-melter of a smile. He was sticking around to make conversation as if he didn’t have a million other things to do—but not like he was fawning over a popular girl, hoping to catch her eye. Like a friend. A very calm, in-charge kind of friend. It was throwing her off.

  He was an engineer. And he did a comedy routine with his horse.

  She didn’t want the moment to end. She liked life so much better when she could please all of the people, all of the time. So she opened her mouth to tell one set of truths, but another came out.

  “Nostalgia, I guess. I spent so much time helping Lamar out down at the stables growing up. I even used to lead trail rides for him. I wanted to spend some time riding again, and you’d just announced the grand reopening, so I figured, where better to spend my vacation?”

  “That makes sense. Well, I appreciate it, anyway.”

  Guilt trickled a slimy path through Mindy’s glow. She smiled weakly, eyes still on the horse. “Anything I can do to help.” As it please you, sir. She longed, for a moment, to be in the club, or at a play party with a trusted Dom, somewhere she knew exactly what would happen if she did or didn’t follow the rules. Where she knew what the rules were.

  “Anything? You wouldn’t happen to know anything about marketing, would you?” Logan joked.

  “Nope, sorry. Why, do you need more publicity?”

  “As much as I can get for a budget of... well, a very small budget, let’s put it that way. I sank most of my liquid assets into buying this place and getting it up to code for guests.”

  So money’s tight. He needs an angel. There’s your opening, Mindy. You know how he can make enough money to buy space on every billboard in the state.

  “I’m headed to the barn,” Logan said before Mindy could frame her offer. “I need to put Charley up. Hey, it’s still early. You should come with me and get Lamar to hook you up with a mount. Avoid the rush later.”

  “Oh . . . sure, okay.”

  Whatever Mindy had planned to say was lost in the jumble of guilt, lust, and other thoughts that spilled through her brain as Logan hiked his foot up to the stirrup and swung his leg over the saddle. It was all just a whirl of squeaking leather and denim stretched taut over powerful thighs. When the hell had he filled out like that?

  Logan was holding out his hand, looking down at her like it didn’t occur to him she’d decline to take it. “Hop on. It’ll be faster.”

  She did it almost automatically, toe finding the stirrup he’d momentarily vacated, arm flexing against the pull of their clasped hands for leverage as she lifted off. There was an awkward moment as she shifted into position against the back of the saddle, when she grabbed for leather and may or may not have accidentally groped a certain amount of denim-clad cowboy butt along the way. Then she had to figure out where to put her hands, finally settling them on Logan’s waist as Charley started the short stroll to the barn.

  Lamar assessed Mindy’s skills as rusty but adequate, and matched her to a slightly standoffish but soft-mouthed bay mare with a gait like flowing water. Mindy hadn’t been on horseback since leaving Bolero, but she found that after a few minutes, it all started coming back to her. Even out of practice, she could tell when she was riding a quality animal.

  “This is no rescue horse,” she called to Logan, who watched from Charley’s back as Mindy put the mare through her paces.

  “You’re right about that. Poppy is my mom’s horse, actually. I’m not supposed to let the customers ride her, but she needs the exercise. And you’re sort of similar to an old friend, so I think I can get away with it. You used to ride dressage, right?”

  A lifetime ago, all through elementary and into middle school. She had stopped competing when she started cheerleading in high school, because there just wasn’t enough time in the day. When her family moved to Dallas, they’d taken their horses, but her dad had kept them in the divorce he’d initiated a few months later.

  “It’s been a while,” she admitted.

  “You’ve still got a great seat.”

  His smile was too slow and broad to be anything but suggestive. He was confident in a way that bordered on arrogance, and pinged her unique sexual radar loud and clear. He certainly hadn’t ever smiled like that back in high school. Although maybe he had, and the braces just spoiled the effect. It was disconcerting, seeing the boy she’d known as this almost too-handsome, too-confident man. She’d recognized him easily enough, some essence of him hadn’t changed . . . but at the same time, everything had changed. Mindy didn’t like to think of herself as shallow, so she stuffed down the flashback of water caressing Logan’s sun-kissed chest, the association of him with the smell of warm leather tack, and concentrated instead on the animal beneath her. The little bay mare felt tense, fractious after going too long without a rider. She would take some watching, and Mindy was out of practice. Extra caution would be required.

  She swept past Logan and Charley at a slow, controlled canter, and caught his appreciative nod from the corner of her eye. He looked like a good guy in a Western, white horse and all, like the Lone Ranger without the mask to hide his beauty. But that smile was pure Black Bart. Mindy had been foolish and conceited to assume she cou
ld wrap him around her finger; she’d be lucky to keep herself from acting like a fool over the man Logan Hill had become.

  Extra caution would definitely be required.

  Chapter Three

  Logan excused himself after only a few minutes of watching her ride, and Mindy tried not to make a spectacle of herself watching him ride away. Watching his horse’s ass, to be specific, since Logan himself never looked back. She wouldn’t admit to herself that she was watching Logan’s ass. She knew herself well enough to know that nothing good ever came from ogling the asses of vanilla men. That way lay only disappointment and bitterness on both sides.

  But damn. He not only looked like Fantasy Cowboy Dom, he literally smelled like horse, leather, and yes, man. If e-books could be worn out through overuse, by now Mindy would have run through several copies of a few cherished romance novels featuring heroes who were more or less Logan Hill captured on the page.

  Except for the financial insecurity and the goofy horse, she reminded herself. A romance novel Dom would be a billionaire oil mogul who ranched as a sideline—J. R. Ewing with a bullwhip. Or some younger, more picturesque version of her stepfather. Never mind that the actual Doms of Mindy’s acquaintance tended to be network analysts, or mid-management types. Or engineers. Fantasies were fantasies for a reason.

  “ ’Bout time to call it a night, here,” suggested Lamar from his perch on the paddock rail. “It’ll be supper time soon.”

  He hopped down, and Mindy let Poppy have her head to trot in his direction. The mare stopped neatly one pace away from him, making no fuss during dismount. She seemed to have calmed down a bit during the course of even that short ride, and she really was a pleasure to work with; Mindy couldn’t wait to see how she did on the trail.

  “So, how have you been, Lamar? You’re not going to tell me I look just the same, too, are you?”

  “Logan said that? Pfft. Boy’s an idiot. They ain’t feeding you in Dallas, I guess,” the old man chided as he walked the mare back to her stall.