A COWBOY'S SECRET

by Anne McAllister

  But he'd never spent any time with a woman doing things he liked to do.

  He had never taken a girl out riding on the range. Had never discussed calving or branding or the ideal birth weight of a calf.

  He'd never met one who wanted to hear that sort of thing.

  He kind of liked it.

  He just didn't want it to be Lydia.

  If she had to be in his life, well, so be it. He just didn't want to enjoy it!

  But he did.

  She'd brought lunch again, and they'd sat in the shade of the pines and looked out across the valley in complete silence.

  He'd never met a woman who didn't talk all the time. But while Lydia talked plenty, she knew when not to. She knew when to just breathe deeply and sigh softly and let the silence settle around them.

  And that was dangerous, too.

  It made him aware of how alone they were, of how damned tempting she was. It made him jump up and go check on his horse who didn't need checking on. It made him prowl the small stand of pines where they'd stopped, searching for anything that would keep him from reaching for Lydia, which was what he wanted to do.

  "Time to get movin'," he said abruptly when he could think of nothing else to do besides going to sit back down beside her.

  Slowly, as if every muscle was screaming at her, she got to her feet. Gamely, without asking any quarter, she got back on her horse.

  And when they were back at the ranch and had turned out the horses, she looked at him with shining eyes.

  "This was the best weekend I've ever spent," she said.

  He whacked another fence post. "Me, too," he muttered.

  And hated the fact that it was true.

  * * *

  "I need to buy a horse," she told him the next evening.

  They were working on the corral. J.D. was finishing the last section, and she was painting. It didn't need painting, but she wanted it painted. Trey's was painted, she told him.

  As if that would make him want to do it.

  "Trey has some horses for sale," she said. "Have you seen them? Do you know them?"

  He didn't want to give Lydia advice on buying a horse – especially not from Trey Phillips.

  "They're lovely," she went on. "Especially the sorrel mare with the white blaze."

  "Dancer," J.D. said before he could stop himself.

  "Is that her name?" Lydia's eyes brightened.

  J.D. concentrated on the board he was sawing. "She doesn't have a name. I just called her that once or twice."

  "It's the perfect name," Lydia said. "She's so graceful. She's absolutely beautiful."

  J.D. grunted. He kept sawing.

  "Maybe I'll buy Dancer."

  "That's not her name. You don't have to call her that!"

  The stubborn Cochrane chin tilted. "I like the name. I'll call her that if I want."

  He shrugged. "Suit yourself."

  "Or maybe the pinto. What do you think of that little pinto?"

  "Got rocks in his head."

  "But he's so friendly. Such a charmer."

  "Until you try to ride him," J.D. said dryly. "Look. Are you going to stand around and chatter all night or are you going to paint?"

  She blinked at his irritable tone, then shrugged. "Just a little touchy tonight?"

  "Hard day," he muttered. He went back to sawing.

  She watched for a moment, then out of the corner of his eye he saw her nod. "I won't bother you, then."

  She picked up her paint can and moved to the far side of the corral. She started painting. Neatly. Studiously. Carefully.

  As if she'd read a damn book on how to do it!

  Hell. He tried to ignore her. Tried to focus on his sawing. He sawed. She painted. He finished the last board. She didn't look up.

  "The corral is finished," he informed her.

  Her head lifted. She looked around. "So it is."

  He expected her to go right back to painting. She set her brush down and smiled at him.

  He shut his eyes, heard her footsteps approach.

  "It's a lovely corral," she said. Her voice was very near. He turned his head away before he opened his eyes again. No matter. She was still within his gaze. "It is," she repeated.

  He took off his hat and rubbed a hand through his hair. "Oh, yeah. Fantastic. The best corral in Montana."

  "I like it," she said stoutly. "And soon it will be the most beautiful, too." She nodded toward where she'd begun to paint.

  He rolled his eyes. And then, instead of just leaving her to it, he found himself asking, "Did you see the black gelding? That's the best horse out there."

  And her eyes positively sparkled. "Is it? Why?"

  And instead of shutting up and starting to cut the wood for the stable, he started telling her. It was like she bewitched him, like he couldn't shut up around her.

  "Must be the lawyer in you," he muttered, disgusted with himself.

  A tiny line appeared between her brows. "What's the lawyer in me?"

  "Getting me to spill my guts. I never talked so much in my life."

  "Do you mind?" she asked seriously.

  He shrugged. He wanted to say, Hell, yes, I mind. I don't want to get involved with you.

  But on another level he did want to get involved with her. She was a very enticing woman.

  "I just don't need to be babbling," he told her.

  "You're not. You're advising me. I'll go back out and look at them again tomorrow. Maybe I'll see you there. You could look at them with me. Would you?"

  It was one thing to see her here – at Trey's was a different story.

  "Maybe," he said vaguely.

  He thought, Not if I see you first.

  * * *

  And thank God, he did see her first.

  He was in the field moving the dams and clearing out weeds in the irrigation ditches. It was a dirty, muddy job and not one he wanted her seeing him doing.

  So when J.D. saw her car trailing a wake of dust coming down the road from the highway, he found some really low down weeds to keep him busy until she was well past Skinny could come and get him to take her up to the horses.

  But while he hoed and hacked for almost an hour, keeping an eye on the house all the time, Skinny never came.

  And when he finally did come out of the house and get into his truck, he headed in the other direction – out where Trey had the men baling hay.

  What the hell? Was he going to send one of them with her?

  J.D. gave the weeds a savage whack.

  Not one of them knew those horses the way he did! Not one would give Lydia near as good advice. Not that it mattered to Trey!

  Well, the hell with him! The hell with them all! J.D. thought furiously.

  And the hell with Lydia, too. She could've asked for him to show her!

  Yeah? And then what? he asked himself. Maybe she'd come with Skinny to pick you up out of the ditch?

  The notion mortified him.

  He couldn't explain exactly why, but he did not want Lydia coming to find him standing here with a hoe in his hand.

  He was a cowboy, damn it, not some sod-buskin', weed-hackin' farmer!

  In the distance J.D. saw the truck come back.

  The door to the house opened, and he could just make out Trey and Lydia coming to meet Skinny and another cowboy.

  J.D. squinted to get a better look.

  Cy?

  Skinny had gone to pick up Cy?

  Why the hell was Trey sending for Cy? Just because Cy Burgess had an Ag degree and, according to him, knew more than five old-timers combined, he damned sure wasn't any authority on horses!

  J.D. imagined Cy saying all those fancy college-boy, etiquette-book things that would amaze and impress a woman like her. Things that would never occur to J.D. in a million years.

  Well, hell, let him. And let her fall for it – hook, line and sinker.

  He didn't care. Much.

  It was just that Cy had an eye for the ladies. He'd go out of his way to i
mpress a woman like Lydia.

  J.D. clenched his teeth. He whacked furiously at the stubborn clump of weeds on the edge of the ditch.

  As Cy went around and got in, then backed the truck around and headed down the lane, J.D. kicked and hacked. They would drive right past him!

  And he had no doubt that Cy would be only too happy to point him out to Lydia as they passed.

  He ducked his head and attacked the weeds with renewed fury. The clump caught on the edge of the hoe just as the truck was getting close. J.D. muttered furiously under his breath, then reached down and gave a yank. The clump broke away. The bank did, too.

  The next thing he knew he was cartwheeling into the ditch!

  "Son of a—" He reached to brace himself as he fell against the opposite side and slid on his butt into the water. "Damn it to hell!"

  A cloud of dust, which meant that the truck had passed, settled over him as he sat.

  He struggled out. He squished up onto the side of the ditch and sat down to pull off his boots and wring out his socks. His shirt – at least the top half of it – was still fairly dry. Not so his Wranglers.

  They were wet and rough against his legs. He would have liked to have taken them off and wrung them out. He didn't because with his luck, damn Cy would come driving back and as they went by, he and Lydia would wave!

  Disgusted, J.D. slapped his hat against his leg. He dripped onto the ground. He could go up to the house. He could say he had to go home for a minute. He didn't have to tell them anything. He could just leave. But he wouldn't.

  He knew he wouldn't.

  He didn't want anyone to see him come dripping up the hill. He didn't want to see Skinny's jaw drop in amazement at the sight of him. He didn't want to see Trey snicker.

  And Trey would snicker. There was no doubt about that.

  J.D. laid his socks out to dry in the sun. He pulled his shirttails out of his jeans and left them to flap in the breeze, Good thing it was a reasonably warm day, because that made the rest of the afternoon spent in his soggy jeans tolerable.

  Barely.

  They'd have been a damn sight more tolerable if he hadn't spent the whole time thinking about Lydia.

  He attacked the weeds with renewed fury. Every clump he destroyed, for the rest of the afternoon, had Cy's name on it.

  He could just imagine the young cowboy's tongue hanging out if Lydia smiled at him. She had a killer smile.

  She had beautiful eyes, too. Lively and interested. They'd never even blinked when she'd looked at him last night as he'd talked about the horses. It was as if she'd been hanging on every word.

  He damned sure didn't want her hanging on Cy's words!

  He didn't want Cy ogling her curves, either. She'd been wearing trousers up there at the house. He had seen that much. But from a distance it had been hard to tell how snug they were. She'd better not be wearing those new curve-hugging jeans she wore out to the house every evening.

  That'd damn sure give Cy an eyeful.

  J.D. had never considered her jeans too tight before. He'd just enjoyed the view.

  But he didn't want Cy enjoying it.

  He shifted irritably, trying to get a little more room inside his own.

  Like most cowboys. J.D. wore his jeans cut to fit when he rode. He didn't need a lot of loose material flapping around when he was in the saddle. Normally they were fine. It was just that they were wet – and shrinking.

  And it didn't help to be thinking about Lydia.

  "So stop thinkin' about her," he muttered to himself. He slogged on. He hacked. He scratched. Mostly he itched. And then he squirmed against the rough, damp denim of his jeans. They were clammy, scratchy. Snug.

  Way too snug.

  And getting snugger by the minute. Hell.

  * * *

  He left work early. First time in years.

  He wanted to get back to the ranch and change his jeans before Lydia got there tonight. He'd seen her leave but had stayed well away from any place she might see him. He'd seen Cy go back to the pasture with a horse trailer sometime later.

  So she'd bought a horse.

  And it would be there when he got home. But she wouldn't be. She never got there until after six. It was usually closer to seven.

  Tonight, of course, she was already waiting for him.

  She came running, grinning all over her face.

  "I got her!" She was absolutely bubbling. "Do you see?"

  She pointed, as if he could miss a fifteen-hand horse in the middle of a corral that had had nothing in it when he'd left this morning.

  He flicked off the engine and sat, gathering his wits, willing his jeans to stop grabbing him in inconvenient places. "I see," be said gruffly. He gave one last tug on his jeans, opened the door of the truck and got out.

  "I couldn't work for thinking about her," Lydia enthused. Her eyes were sparkling. "Everything you told me about her kept running through my head all night. And all day," she admitted. "I couldn't get anything done."

  Me, neither, J.D. thought.

  "So I decided it would be time better spent to go and take another look. I'm not usually an impulsive purchaser – the ranch aside," she said quickly. "But it just didn't make sense to have a ranch and cattle and not have a horse."

  This last she said almost hopefully, as if looking for him to agree with her.

  He grunted. He wanted to adjust his jeans again. He didn't want to go grabbing his crotch in front of her. "She's a good horse," he allowed.

  "Would you … come see her with me?"

  "Now?"

  His reluctance surprised her. "Why not?"

  Indeed why not? Was he actually going to answer that? Tell her that between thoughts of her and a pair of wet jeans, things were getting a little, er, tight.

  "Awright," he said grimly. "Let's take a look at this horse."

  Lydia practically danced ahead of him as she went toward the corral. Dancer, since that's what she was determined to call her, was prancing back and forth, ears up, eyes wide, as she checked out these new surroundings.

  J.D. made himself watch the horse. It did him no good at all to be staring at Lydia's curvy bottom moving on ahead of him in those jeans of hers.

  Lydia scrambled up on the fence and Dancer came trotting over. But instead of going to Lydia, the horse came right to J.D.

  "It's because she knows me," he explained as Dancer poked at his shirt pocket with her nose.

  "It's because you give her treats," Lydia accused, but was smiling.

  "I do not!"

  Still she grinned at him. "You're a softy, J.D. Holt."

  No, he wasn't. He was hard as a rock.

  "Isn't she lovely?" Lydia couldn't keep her hands off the mare.

  J.D. nodded. "She's lookin' good. Reckon she'll shape up good."

  "That's what Cy said. He said she'd be a good horse when she was trained."

  "Like he'd know."

  Lydia turned her head and blinked at him. "Trey said he was good with horses. He said he could help me."

  "I could've helped you," J.D. said.

  "Well, I suggested to Trey that you might, but he said you were really busy."

  "Oh, yeah." J.D. didn't know whether to thank Trey for that or not. He was almost surprised the old man hadn't sent Lydia out to see him knee-deep in mud.

  "Will you … help me with her?"

  "What?"

  "Teach me to work with her. Connect with her. The way you do with a horse." She was looking at him earnestly, eagerly.

  "You can't find a book on it?" He could have kicked himself the minute the words were out of his mouth.

  "Well, I could, I suppose. If you'd rather not bother… Or maybe Cy would—"

  "I'll bother."

  Her eyes lit up. "That's fantastic."

  No, it was insane.

  He was insane. He wanted this woman out of here, didn't he?

  So what was he doing teaching her stuff that would just make her want to stay?

  * * *
<
br />   "You bought a horse?" Rance sounded halfway between astonished and amused.

  "A mare. A three-year-old. One your dad bought in the spring, J.D. says. She's a sorrel with a white blaze and four white stockings. J.D. says she's going to be a good horse."

  "I'm hearing a lot of 'J.D. says.'"

  "Well, that's because he talks a lot."

  "He does?" Rance sounded as though that was news to him. "Are you seducing my foreman, Lydia?"

  She laughed, embarrassed. "I wouldn't know how," she admitted.

  "Is he seducing you?" Rance asked then, a sterner note in his voice.

  "No." She rather wished he would, but he never brushed up against her or touched her unnecessarily.

  Maybe he didn't even really like her.

  Maybe he was still trying to get rid of her.

  Maybe it was time to ask him.

  She did – that night when they were working with Dancer in the corral. He was cutting boards for the stable, watching her at the same time – sort of. Mostly he was not watching her almost deliberately. And she rode Dancer up close.

  "J.D.?"

  "What?"

  "Are you still trying to get rid of me?"

  "What the hell are you askin' a thing like that for?"

  "Because we discussed it once and you said you were."

  "You make it sound like I'm going to have you knocked off."

  She shook her head. "You know what I mean. Are you?"

  He scowled.

  "I know you still want the ranch. I could … well, maybe I could sell you part of it."

  His brows arched. "Part of it?"

  She nodded eagerly. Actually it sounded like a really good idea, the more she thought about it. They could both be there. Not in the same house, of course. She'd have to build a house. Or he would. Or—

  "No."

  "What? What do you mean, no? I thought you wanted—"

  "I said I'd buy the ranch from you. The whole thing."

  "We could share—"

  "We couldn't share."

  "But—"

  "No, Lydia. I don't want to buy part of it. And—" he heaved a sigh "—I'm not going to try to get rid of you, either. It's yours."

  "But—"

  "Yours, Lydia."

  Then he turned and walked away.

  * * *

  Sometimes J.D. thought that if Lydia spent her entire life trying to come up with ways to torture him, she couldn't do a better job than she did unwittingly.