A COWBOY'S SECRET

by Anne McAllister

  "What about me and J.D.?"

  "You're not exactly soul mates."

  A lot you know, Lydia thought. Once upon a time she might have agreed. But that was before she'd spent the last week and a half working with him every evening. Once she might have said that her interest in J.D. was likely not to withstand any prolonged contact at all.

  That wasn't true.

  In fact, the more she was around him, the more attracted she got.

  Not that she was telling Rance that!

  "Don't go gettin' yourself hurt, Lydie."

  "I'll certainly try not to."

  "J.D. steps out of line, you tell me."

  "Of course, Rance," she replied solemnly.

  There was a second's pause. "You want him to get out of line," he accused her.

  She laughed. "Well, now that you mention it…"

  "Lydie."

  "I'm thirty-one, Rance. I think it's about time I got a little out of line."

  "You?" He sounded shocked.

  "See? That's the problem. Even you don't believe I have a life."

  "You have a life. It's just a … pure … life."

  "Swell," she said dryly.

  "You're not going to go jump in bed with him!"

  "Rance! You're my law partner, not my father."

  "I can call him, if you want. He'll say the same thing."

  "I do not want you to call my father. I want you to butt out."

  "I don't want you to get hurt."

  "I won't."

  "Yeah, right." He took a breath. "Lydie. You have no experience."

  "So it's time I got some."

  He groaned. "I need to talk to J.D."

  "You do not!"

  "Well, somebody's got to save you from yourself."

  "Maybe this is the way I'm saving myself."

  There was a pause. Then, "Lydie," he said after a moment, "have you completely lost your mind?"

  "No, I don't think so," she said consideringly. "I think I might finally have found it."

  "God help us," Rance muttered.

  * * *

  "I don't know how to saddle a horse."

  It wasn't the way she'd hoped the day would start. All night long Lydia had had the most marvelous dreams of J.D. and her, on the range, by the campfire, in each other's arms.

  Wholly unrealistic, of course. Undoubtedly a product of her conversation with Rance right before she'd gone to bed. Still, she'd got up in the morning, eager and primed for adventure. Hoping against hope.

  And the first thing that had happened was that J.D. had said, "Saddle up," and had pointed her in the direction of the horse and gone about saddling his own.

  She'd stood there, feeling like an idiot. She'd planned to impress him with her knowledge. Show him that she knew all about black leg and scours and foot rot and pink eye. But it would be hard to demonstrate any of her useful knowledge if she couldn't get out to the range!

  At her admission now, J.D stared at her, his incredulity apparent.

  "Sorry." But it wasn't really an apology. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. "I've never had the time or the occasion to learn."

  "Right," he said dryly. "The time or the occasion," he muttered.

  She bristled at his tone. "It isn't as if I couldn't if I'd tried! I haven't tried."

  "Well, you're about to."

  He took her into the stall with the bay gelding called Hot Rod and told her to get acquainted with the horse.

  "Acquainted?" She blinked in surprise.

  He nodded. "Hot Rod here's a sociable fella. He likes to know who's ridin' him. And he'll do better for you if he does. There's a lotta fellas would tell you it doesn't make any difference, that you're the boss and the horse does what you tell it to do. An' that's true enough. But while you're the boss, you've gotta work together, the two of you. And like any partnership it works better if you know and trust each other. So get to know him a little bit, then I'll show you how to saddle him."

  He left her in the stall and went to saddle the tall sorrel in the next stall. Lydia could hear him murmuring softly to the horse as he led it out.

  She smiled encouragingly at Hot Rod. "That's a very dashing name you've got," she told him. Lydia had never been afraid of horses. She'd ridden on and off for many years. But she'd never had a horse of her own, had never been trusted to saddle one she'd been allowed to ride, had never thought of having a partnership with a horse.

  Now she rubbed a hand on Hot Rod's sleek neck. "I'm sure we'll get along fine," she told the horse, and was rewarded with a nudge on the breast.

  "Oh!" She stepped back. But Hot Rod followed and nudged her expectantly once more.

  From the other stall she heard J.D.'s laugh. "Ol' Hot Rod's something of a ladies' man."

  Lydia looked up, embarrassed. "What does he want?"

  "Well, not what you're thinkin'." J.D. reached into his own pocket and handed her a sugar cube. "Reckon he's lookin' for this."

  "Oh. You give him treats?"

  "Sure. Sweetens him up a little. Everybody needs a little sweetness in their life."

  Their eyes met. And Lydia felt heat creep into her cheeks at the wholly unbidden thought of what sort of sweetness she and J.D. had shared in her dreams just hours before.

  Did J.D.'s face look slightly flushed, too? It was hard to tell in the dim light of the barn. She didn't have a chance to study him further as he bent his head and fished in his pocket, then handed her a few more cubes of sugar. "Keep 'im happy while I finish here. Then I'll show you how." Then he turned back to saddling his own horse.

  Hot Rod liked the sugar cubes. He liked it when Lydia scratched him in a particular spot where his jaw joined his neck. He bobbed his head and nudged her again when she stopped.

  "Okay," J.D. said. "This is how you do it."

  The next thing she knew he was in the stall with her, deftly putting the bridle on Hot Rod, then taking it off and having her do it.

  "Like this," he said, and his hands covered hers.

  She loved his hands. They weren't lawyer's hands. In fact, the only lawyer she knew whose hands even came close to J.D.'s was Rance, who did his share of cowboying, too. J.D.'s hands were big and broad, with long fingers and calluses. They were capable hands, working man's hands. But astonishingly gentle hands.

  Her own fingers tingled at the brush of his callused fingers. It was a heady experience being in the close confines of a horse stall with J.D. Holt.

  And since Hot Rod took up most of the room, they were forced to stand close together.

  Once she'd put the bridle on to his satisfaction, he tossed a saddle blanket over Hot Rod's back, then settled the saddle on top. Slowly, deliberately he showed her each step. He didn't talk. He just said, "Watch."

  And she did as he pulled up the cinch, then tucked it through and down and over and around. Then, when it was done, he took it off again.

  "Now you try it."

  She almost hit him in the nose with the saddle when she was lifting it onto Hot Rod's back. The horse seemed confused, being saddled, unsaddled, then saddled again – the last time by an incompetent.

  But he stood patiently while Lydia fumbled with the cinch.

  "Tighter," J.D. said when she stopped.

  "Tighter? But won't it hurt him?"

  "Hurt you worse if the saddle falls off. He's holdin' his breath. Tighter. There. That's good. Now ease up. Now see, he's breathin'. Pull again."

  "But—"

  "Pull."

  Lydia pulled, sure she already had it tight. But the second pull got her another two inches of cinch.

  "You'll end up on your tail in the trail if you don't get that saddle on tight," J.D. told her. "Now let's see you finish it."

  He stood directly behind her now, put his arms around her and with his hands he guided hers. And Lydia's heart went into overdrive. She forgot what she was doing.

  He wasn't precisely pressed against her, but almost. She could feel his presence. His breath touched heir ear as h
e spoke.

  "Like this," he said, and there was a slightly rough edge to his voice, as if he was having trouble getting the words out.

  Lydia's own tongue was welded to the roof of her mouth. She wouldn't have been able to speak if heir life depended on it. She tried to focus on what his hands were doing, tried to do what they showed her to do.

  "Yeah, like that." His breath stirred a tendril of her hair.

  She swallowed. She stared again at his hands. They were so different from hers – large, strong, rough. One finger was bent, she noted, as if it had been broken and hadn't set properly. He had any number of small scars on them.

  "Loop it and pull it. Like this."

  She tried to do what he said. She lifted her hands. Her elbow caught him in the ribs. "Sorry." She tried to twist, stumbled and fell back.

  His arms went around heir instinctively. And there they stood, pressed together for a heartbeat. And all the wild wonderful dreams of the night before didn't hold a candle to one split second of realty.

  Then J.D.'s arms dropped abruptly. He cleared his throat, then stepped around her and finished with the saddle. "There," he said gruffly. "You're doin' fine. You've got the hang of it. Come on. Let's go."

  And without looking back, he led the sorrel out of the barn.

  * * *

  J.D.'s theory had been that if he worked her to death every evening, if he made her get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday to go look at her cattle, if he dragged her all over Montana and back before nightfall on horseback and bored her to tears with the actual medical and economic realities of cattle raising, she'd come to the logical conclusion that ranching was for fools and cowboys – that lawyers had more sense.

  J.D.'s theory didn't hold water.

  She'd come every night. She'd worked hard. She'd even brought groceries, like it was her responsibility to feed him.

  "I can cook," he'd protested, but she didn't pay any attention. Having eaten all those cookies had put the lie to his protestations.

  And Lydia was nothing if not practical. "You don't have time," she said simply.

  It was nothing but the truth.

  The other hands were baling hay and checking and moving cattle, and he was still shoveling and painting, and yesterday, for God's sake, he'd had to mow the lawn. But even doing crap like that he was working fourteen-hour days.

  And thinking about Lydia.

  He didn't want to think about Lydia. But what the hell else was he supposed to think about? It wasn't as if he had anything meaningful to occupy his mind.

  He tried to tell himself he ought to be looking for work. But he still had months to go working for Trey, and nobody wanted to know he'd be available in February. He told himself he ought to start sorting stuff out and looking for another place to live.

  But Lydia had told him there was no hurry.

  "I can wait until you're finished at Trey's," she'd told him.

  So he didn't put any effort into that, either. Anyway, she might be fed up and want to sell to him by the time that six months were up.

  Besides, if the truth were known, be liked things the way they were.

  He liked coming home at night and finding Lydia there already. Most of the time there was a hot meal waiting and good conversation.

  They talked. They ate.

  He was used to eating alone. When his old man had been alive they'd eaten together, but they hadn't talked much. Dan Holt hadn't been much of a conversationalist. J.D. had always assumed he wasn't, either. But Lydia somehow got him to talk.

  She asked a lot about horses. He knew about horses.

  He figured he'd bore her silly. But she listened, and she asked intelligent stuff, and she said maybe she'd buy some horses.

  "To put in those corrals I haven't finished?" he'd said, raising one brow.

  "Oh, well. You're almost done. And then you could teach me."

  He wasn't sure about that. He could train horses, but she wasn't talking about training horses. She was talking about training her.

  He both did – and didn't – want to do that.

  He watched her now as she rode. She wasn't a bad rider for having so little experience. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised. He hadn't come across anything yet that Lydia couldn't seem to handle.

  She actually spotted a cow with pink eye before he did.

  "How'd you know that?" he demanded when she pointed it out to him.

  "It was in one of my books," she said simply.

  Books. Cripes.

  No. Lydia Cochrane might have a smile that would curl a man's toes and enough determination to impress most men, but she wasn't for him.

  "So don't go gettin' any ideas," he said.

  "What?"

  He jerked, heat flooding his face. He hadn't realized he'd spoken out loud! "Nothin'," he said. "I was just … thinkin'."

  Thinking what an idiot he was.

  "I think I'm hungry," Lydia said. "I brought some lunch." She patted her saddlebag. "Shall we stop and eat soon?"

  "Guess we could."

  They'd been riding for four hours. It didn't bother him. He could ride all day. He wondered if, once she got off the horse, she'd be able to get back on again.

  "There's a place down by the creek we can stop." He led the way. She followed. He dismounted and watched as she did, too.

  The expression on her face when her feet hit the ground and her legs wobbled was encouraging.

  "Okay?" he asked her cheerfully, and felt only the slightest pang of guilt for his lack of sympathy.

  "Okay." The word came out on a gasp. She clung to the saddle for a moment, then let go, looking like a toddler unsure if she dared take a first step.

  "Sore?"

  "A little."

  He grinned to himself. She loosened the cinch as he'd showed her how to do earlier, grabbed lunch out of the saddlebag, then tottered over and sank down on a rock overlooking the stream.

  As J.D. watched, she stretched her legs straight out in front of her, then tipped her head back and lifted her face to the sun.

  So much for feeling like he had the upper hand.

  How could he when his body had a mind of its own? When it took one look at Lydia's gorgeous profile, at the pert lift of her breasts against the knit rib of her pullover shirt, at the way her hair glinted with copper highlights in the sun, and all thoughts of her unsuitability went right out of his head.

  He swallowed hard.

  Then Lydia patted the rock. "Come sit down. We'll eat."

  He came and squatted on his haunches, as if he could bolt more easily that way if she got too close. But she was busy dividing sandwiches and pouring out cups of coffee. And his stomach was ready to eat, and she didn't look like she was going to jump his bones, so eventually he sat next to her.

  He sipped the coffee. It burned his tongue. Like gettin' too interested in Lydia will burn the rest of you, he reminded himself.

  But the weather was warm and the food was good, and when the wind shifted he could smell the soft scent of flowers that he'd come to associate with Lydia.

  She didn't seem so damned formidable when he associated her with flowers. And though he was perfectly happy to spend entire days riding the range on his own, it was pleasant to have someone to share it with, someone to point out the hawk moving in lazy circles overhead, someone to admire his ability to skip rocks across the creek's shallow water, someone willing to take off her boots and go wading, giggling all the while.

  "It's cold!" She shivered and danced up and down, then grimaced. "It hurts when I move."

  "Too bad," he said unsympathetically. But he felt far too sympathetic for his own good. And he sat on the bank way too long, grinning like a mindless fool.

  The moment of truth came when they had to get back in the saddle. He waited for the groan, waited for the protest, waited for her to say enough was enough, she was too stiff to go on.

  But she was a game one. He saw her grimace. He saw her wince. But he never heard a word of complaint. She n
ever said she was stiff.

  He was the one who got stiff – at least one particular part of him.

  It wasn't Lydia in particular he was attracted to, he assured himself. It was just that he'd been a long time without a woman. Any woman would look good to him right now.

  And he exactly knew how to solve that problem.

  Tonight he'd just go find himself one.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  It didn't work.

  J.D. scowled and banged in another fence post.

  At least Claudia hadn't worked. She hadn't distracted him. Not at all.

  It was ridiculous. Claudia Kileen had enough curves and giggles and seductive moves to distract any man. But all the touching and laughing and flirting and nuzzling, and all the Texas two-stepping this side of Amarillo hadn't distracted him a bit

  Going in for a "nightcap" when he took her home, might have. But J.D. couldn't bring himself to do it.

  Not that he wouldn't have enjoyed it – he wasn't dead, after all – but it didn't seem fair to use Claudia like that.

  A guy ought to want the woman he was with.

  Besides that, it had seemed a little dangerous. What if he'd gone to bed with Claudia and still had Lydia on his brain?

  Because when he was out here in the sun and wind, he sure did.

  Saturday had been bad. Sunday had been worse.

  He hadn't expected her to even show up.

  She had.

  Granted, she'd moved a little slow. And he'd seen her wince more than once or twice when settling into the saddle. But the look she'd given him had dared him to comment. And if she smothered a couple of groans, she didn't let it stop her.

  She'd gone right on asking question after question as they'd ridden up along the Emerson range. She'd studied her damn books, he'd give her that.

  She sure knew the questions to ask. And she was interested in the answers.

  He'd never met a girl who liked talking about cattle.

  He wished Lydia didn't.

  J.D. was used to women on the edges of what he considered his "real life." He'd dated a hundred girls over the years. He'd taken them dancing like he'd taken Claudia. He'd taken them to the movies or to a barbecue on somebody's ranch or to a church social or a wedding.