Cowboy Crush

by Liz Talley

  “I need the keys. Otherwise I could have gone myself, Mr. Lincoln. I do have a navigation system.”

  Cal smiled. “Of course you do, but the thing is, some of these Texas roads aren’t on the map.”

  “This one is. But I figured it would have a gate or something. Mr. Lowery said he’d bring all the keys and show me around. I’m not sure I could even get on the property without a key.”

  Cal smiled. “I guarantee I’ll get you to the front door.”

  “I suppose I can follow you in my rental,” she said, like any good city girl who knew better than to climb into a pickup truck with a stranger wearing Wranglers with holes in the knees. Of course his straw hat was new and expensive...not that a girl from Philly would know.

  “Sure,” he said, motioning for the check. This time Freda hurried over.

  “You paying for her Coke?” she asked, hooking an eyebrow.

  “No, here, let me,” Maggie said, reaching for her bag.

  Cal plopped a twenty down on the handwritten ticket Freda had ripped off and sat on the chipped Formica. “I always buy pretty ladies a drink.”

  Maggie made a frowny face which made her look cute. Still sexy. But cute, too. “Thank you.”

  “Keep the change, Freda. I’m going to take Mrs....Miss?”

  “Miss,” Maggie conceded.

  “Miss Stanton out to the Triple J. Send the sheriff if I ain’t back in two days,” he joked as he grabbed his hat and slid out of the booth.

  He was damned glad to know she wasn’t married. Not that it really mattered. She’d take one look at that dump out on Highway 139 and all he’d see was a trail of dust out of Coyote Creek. In fact as soon as his body healed, he’d be hitting the road, too. The day-to-day boredom paired with his mother harping about him getting killed, about him finding something safer to do...about him being too much like his deadbeat father drove him crazy. His cracked ribs were better and the punctured lung had healed, but his shoulder still hurt like a bitch. His agent called every other day wanting to know his progress. PBR and PRCA reps called, too. His sponsors emailed him. Friends texted him. Everyone wanted him back on the tour come August, except for his mother. And maybe the bulls. They’d never liked him much ’cause he could stay on almost half the time.

  “Wait,” Maggie said, rising beside him. “Why would someone have to come get us? What are you guys not telling me about this place?”

  “No worries, Maggie,” he said, gesturing toward the door before sliding the pill out of his pocket and popping it in his mouth. Only half the dosage. He had to wean himself from the painkillers. “I’m banged up but perfectly capable of looking after you.”

  “I don’t need looking after. I’m a grown woman,” she said, quite serious about it.

  “Don’t think I didn’t notice,” he said, refusing to slide his eyes suggestively down her body like he wanted to. Didn’t want her to think he was a pervert. She looked skittish enough at the thought of following him out to the Triple J.

  Freda snapped her fingers. “See? Don’t say I didn’t warn you about this cowboy.”

  Maggie shouldered her bag and perched her sunglasses atop her head. Then she gave Freda a wry smile. “I’ll be sure to keep my legs crossed.”

  Cal barked a laugh. “I want to see you drive with your legs crossed.”

  Maggie let a self-deprecating laugh escape. “Dear Lord, what am I doing?”

  “I don’t know,” Cal said, pushing open the door to greet the sunny morning. “But I’m kinda glad you’re doing it with me this morning. I’ve been bored as hell around here.”

  2

  MAGGIE WIPED A sweaty palm against her linen shorts and focused on the hot cowboy’s tailgate, which bumped down the dusty highway at a fast clip. Nothing like a man in worn jeans who drove fast and talked slow. She wondered what other things he did slowly.

  Then she swallowed hard and warned her libido that now was not the time to get interested in a man.

  Of course, there had been too much of telling herself no over the past several years, which is probably why she’d noticed just how sexy one Mr. Cal Lincoln was. Being the personal and administrative assistant to Herbert “Bud” Edelman, owner of Edelman Enterprises, was a big job, but it was one she did surprisingly well. Growing up the fatherless child of the Edelman estate’s housekeeper had given Maggie a set of valuable skills—she was diplomatic, humble and hardworking. After college, she had planned on taking a position with a law firm, with the idea of applying for law school in the back of her mind, but life had a way of putting a person down where it wanted. Bud had needed her, so she’d taken advantage of the salary and security...and found out she was a damn good administrator. Her competency had allowed an ailing Bud to untie himself from his work and focus on recovering from his debilitating stroke.

  But now her mentor was gone.

  She glanced over at the box containing Bud’s ashes resting on her floorboard and tried not to tear up.

  No time for tears, turkey.

  The pickup in front of her slowed. To her left she saw a rusted sign arcing above the entrance to the ranch. From either side, fencing stretched across as far as she could see. Tall grass waved in the ditches and the land rose up so she couldn’t see where the graveled road led. Three rusty Js were woven into the sign. The Triple J had been named after Bud’s three children—James, Julien and Judith. All worthless idiots too busy to visit their father unless they needed money. Which meant they’d come by the estate fairly regularly.

  Cal pulled in and put his truck into Park. She pulled in beside him, eyeing the locked gate, and rolled down the window of the rental car.

  He climbed out, leaving his pickup running. “Let me look at the lock.”

  He moseyed toward the padlock holding a length of chain threaded through the gates. He studied it and then let it drop, clanking against the metal. Then he moseyed back to his truck, opened the lid of a trunk thing in the back and brought out a large pair of bolt cutters. One hard squeeze—which caused a flash of pain across Cal’s face—and the chain fell uselessly to the side.

  Turning, he gave her a dimpled grin that made heat shoot into her belly. “Don’t need keys in Texas.”

  “So I see,” she said, glancing back at the lock before returning her gaze to the cowboy. Cal wasn’t a big man, but he covered a lot of ground with his broad shoulders and tight ass. He looked like a rodeo queen’s dream with his ambling walk, lazy grin and naughty blue eyes beneath the brim of the cowboy hat.

  Cal kicked the two gates open and then gestured. “Ladies first.”

  She pulled past the gate and waited for him to climb back into his truck. He shifted into Drive and followed her over the hill and down the path.

  Her first impression was that Bud had been right. The Triple J was a piece of heaven on earth with wide, waving pastures, dotted with occasional scrubby brush. Shady trees she couldn’t identify framed a rippling pond, and a picturesque red barn sprawled not far away from several paddocks and a low building that looked like a hall of some sort. Situated to the right was a white farmhouse with a huge porch that sagged, broken windows that yawned and a roof covered by blue tarp signifying a leak. A skin-and-bones nag looked lonely in the far pasture, and when Maggie rolled up next to the house, about eight cats scattered from the yard, reminding her of a drug bust she’d once seen in a bad part of Philly.

  Her heart sank.

  “Shit,” she whispered as the tiny worm of an idea that she might have been gifted a new future shriveled up.

  “Well, this is it,” Cal said, hopping down from his cab and slamming the truck door.

  Maggie climbed out, shielding her eyes. “This is not what I expected.”

  He surveyed the run-down ranch house. “Never is, is it?”

  Truer words were never spoken.

  “What’s with all the cats?” she asked.

  “Dunno, feral cat problem?”

  “Feral cat,” she repeated, walking over to the lonely horse.


  “On the bright side, you probably don’t have much of a rat problem,” he said.

  “Mmm,” she said, looking over the horse that looked as if it hadn’t been fed in weeks. She lifted a hand to its nose, though she’d only ever touched the nose of a pony at a friend’s birthday when she was eight years old. The horse blew out a gentle breath. “Is this horse malnourished?”

  Cal walked to the beast. The horse turned toward him as if it knew he could be trusted. It blew again as he stroked the coat with his strong hands. “Hey, now, old gal, hey.”

  His words soothed even her.

  “Nah, she’s just old. Ain’t ya, girl?” Cal slapped a hand against the horse’s neck. “Let’s check the barn.”

  She turned to the red barn and noted the graffiti scrawled across it. Some very naughty words along with the rendering of a giant penis graced the front. “Nice artwork.”

  “Yeah, the kids in town come out here to drink and screw. This old place has probably seen more action than a Reno whorehouse.”

  The barn doors had been busted open, so Cal didn’t have to fetch the bolt cutters again. Empty dusty stalls and an old tractor met them. Bags of feed spilled over. Several cats peeked out and she heard mewling kittens somewhere in the dank hay. “This is a mess. What in the hell has this Lowery guy been doing with the money I moved into the ranch accounts each month?”

  Cal shrugged. “The animals are alive.”

  “You sure? I didn’t see the thirty head of cattle that supposedly roam the ranch.”

  “Probably in the back field. Shade trees there and it’ll be plenty hot today,” Cal said, wiping a hand over his brow. The back of his T-shirt already showed dampness.

  Maggie didn’t want to show her disappointment in front of the cowboy...if he even was a cowboy. Just because a man wore boots, a hat and Wranglers didn’t mean he was a cowboy. In her limited experience thus far, lots of Texans wore cowboy stuff no matter what their profession. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Sell it. It needs work, but you can get something out of it. I don’t know much about the real estate market, but it’s good acreage.”

  Of course, selling the ranch was the smartest option. Wasn’t like she was actually interested in owning a ranch, but the terms of the will made it complicated. If she kept the ranch for five years, the title would be hers. If she sold it, the profit would be split with the Edelman children, with her only getting a fourth of the sale. Maggie’s first thought was to hold on to the property for the required years, but she didn’t have the money needed to both maintain a ranch and support herself in Philadelphia. If it hadn’t been so dilapidated, the money netted from the sale would be plenty to help her start a new life, but as is...

  She sucked in a deep breath. “How do I find Mr. Lowery?”

  “Try the bars.”

  “Which one?”

  “All of ’em.”

  Great. Bud had been paying a drunk to take care of the place. The old man’s pride and joy, the surprise bequest he’d left her, had been abandoned for a bottle of whiskey.

  Piece of heaven her ass.

  Maggie pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can sell, but I’ll have to fix it first. No one’s going to make an offer on something needing this much work.”

  “Sure they will. Sell it ‘as is.’”

  She leveled a look at Cal. “Would you buy this place?”

  “Shit, no.”

  “Exactly. That will be everyone’s response. And since I need the money this place will bring, I want top dollar. How much do you think this place would be worth with over three hundred and fifty acres and a decent—” she tossed a glance at the pathetic house “—house?”

  Cal looked at the house, squinting his eyes. “Well, it’s a big house. If you repaired it, painted it, upgraded some things inside, you’d probably get a couple of million easy. Land’s prized around here, but a working ranch, spiffed up...”

  “So you don’t know?”

  “Not really. Like I said, real estate’s not my thing.”

  Which made her wonder—what was his thing?

  But what did Cal matter at that moment? She had bigger fish to fry. Her original plan when she’d left Philly had been to stay a day or two, scatter Bud’s ashes and make the decision on what to do with the Triple J. Of course, she knew the right decision would be to sell the place. But Bud had talked about the Triple J with such wistfulness, describing nights in front of the fireplace, rocking chairs on the porch and lovely vistas. In the back of her mind, Maggie had wondered if the ranch could be a place to belong even if she didn’t know a gelding from a stallion. She could finally have something that was all hers, silly as it sounded.

  The Triple J would be sold. Maggie would take her part and head back to the East Coast. She could stay with her aunt until she found her own place. And though she’d sent her résumé to several companies and already netted interview requests, she’d been kicking around the idea of starting her own consulting firm. She was particularly skilled in creating and facilitating successful board meetings. If she could parlay that skill into a company that mediated contentious corporate situations, she could be her own boss. But to do that, she needed seed money.

  “I need to think. Renovating this place will be a huge job,” she said, trying to regain some of the cool she’d lost in the past few minutes. The situation called for being rational, strategic and—

  “I could help you out,” Cal said, interrupting her internal plea for calmness.

  “What?”

  “Right now I’m living in a trailer on my mom’s land...at least for the next month, but I could always move out here and oversee repairs.”

  “Are you a...uh, carpenter? Or contractor?”

  His smile was like sun after a storm. “Hell, no.”

  “I’m not sure why I would hire someone who doesn’t have any skills to oversee something that... Well, I’m not even sure of the extent of what’s needed.” So he was unemployed, lived in a trailer on his mother’s land and looking for a job? Sounded like a man to stay away from.

  “I have skills,” he said, an edge in his words implying he was talking about more than using a hammer.

  Maggie clamped her mouth closed and studied him. In the midmorning light, he looked right as rain framed against the faded barn. He had the whole fantasy thing going—sexy cowboy with a side of trouble.

  Or a side of fun.

  Okay, yeah, she was attracted to him. Very attracted to him. He made little butterflies flit around her tummy and warmth curl up her spine. But that wasn’t a good enough reason to employ someone she’d not even vetted to help her out of a tight spot with the Triple J.

  Just as she was about to open her mouth to turn down his offer, generous or not, a pickup truck bumped over the rise. The paint job was interesting—two doors covered in white primer and a hood painted bright blue. The rest of the vehicle was a rusty red. It looked like a worn-out American flag as it came to a halt beside Cal’s truck. The engine died and an older man climbed out.

  Cal rubbed a hand over his face. “Ah, shit.”

  “You the gal I’m supposed to meet?” the older man called in a gravelly voice, walking toward them. He wore a straw cowboy hat, brand-new indigo jeans and a T-shirt with Rattled Rooster Saloon stamped across the front. He spit in the dust and eyed Cal.

  The tension between the men was thick. Like there could be a shoot-out at the not-so-OK Corral.

  “The gal?” Maggie repeated, not bothering to extend her hand.

  The older man lifted his hat. “Sorry about being late. Set my damn alarm clock for p.m. and not a.m. I’m usually up when the cock crows, but I must have been tuckered out.”

  Cal snorted.

  Charlie’s mouth tightened at the sound.

  “I’m assuming you’re Mr. Lowery?”

  The man nodded.

  “I accept your apology. But what I do not accept is the condition of this ranch. You’ve been paid a considerable sum of m
oney each month to take care of the Triple J and you’ve failed miserably.”

  Charlie drew back. “Now see here, Ms....what’s your name again?”

  “Stanton.”

  “What you don’t understand is how much money it takes to run a ranch. It’s more than feed and vet bills. I asked Bud for extra money to fix the barn and repaint it last year. Those damn kids are always out here drinking and fu—uh, messing around. Only so much I can do. I told him about the roof leaking. He said he’d send somebody. So I tried.”

  “Tried?” Maggie reined in the anger brewing inside her. “I’ll need to see your accounting, Mr. Lowery.”

  “Like receipts and stuff? Might be a few on the floorboard, but Bud never told me I had to keep a book or nothing.”

  “You realize you’re going to make restitution, don’t you? This place is in shambles.”

  Charlie looked over at Cal who stood still as a puddle watching the confrontation. “What are you doing here?”

  Before Cal could say anything, Maggie pointed a finger toward Charlie. “He’s the person who is going to oversee you and the cleanup of the Triple J. Consider Cal the foreman on this project. And you’re going to be intimately involved with rectifying the neglect or I’ll sue your pants off.”

  She hadn’t meant to make Cal the foreman...which wasn’t actually a position for something like this. Or maybe it was. She’d never undertaken the salvaging of a ranch. Lawyering up was merely a threat. Though she was certain she could get the attorney Bud had used for forty years to draft a threatening letter. Regardless she had to get the place cleaned up and Charlie Lowery owed her. Lumping Cal in was sheer insanity. Maybe the horniness she had for the man had blocked out logic. Or perhaps it was the image of him lifting boards and painting fences, shirtless and glistening with sweat in the hot Texas sun.

  Oh, God. She needed to have her head examined. Or get laid.

  Or both.

  Charlie’s face registered agitation. “You’re hiring Cal? He’s not a contractor. He’s a bu—”

  “I’m perfectly capable of overseeing the repairs,” Cal interrupted. “If you remember, I spent many summers working ranches.”