The Cowboy And The Debutante

by Stella Bagwell

  Anna expected he’d made the flip remark to irritate and probably even challenge her. He couldn’t know just how insecure, how lacking she felt compared to her mother.

  When she failed to reply, Miguel glanced over his shoulder and was surprised to see her staring vacantly into her cup. He’d expected her to be on her feet, blasting away at him.

  “What’s the matter?”

  His voice jerked her back to the moment and she lifted her eyes to him. “Nothing. And don’t worry,” she added flatly. “I may not be able to win the All American Futurity but I can see the horses are properly taken care of.”

  “You look like you need to be in bed. That’s a hell of a bruise on your forehead. Does it hurt?”

  “Aunt Justine came over last night and brought me a few pain pills. Since she’s a nurse, she wanted to make sure I didn’t have a concussion.”

  A lesser woman wouldn’t have been on her feet today, and that in itself amazed Miguel. “What was your aunt’s diagnosis?”

  Anna grimaced. “That I have an unusually hard head.”

  “She wasted a trip. I could have told her that.”

  Anna couldn’t stop herself. There was something about the man that pulled at her. Her mind said she didn’t want to be within a hundred yards of him. Yet the rest of her craved to touch him, smell him, kiss his lips all over again.

  Sliding from the bar stool, she joined him at the range, yet was careful to keep a few inches between their shoulders. In spite of the pungent smell of the bacon, her nose sniffed out the clean male scent of his skin, the faint musk in his aftershave.

  “What are you cooking?” she asked.

  “Bacon, eggs and tortillas.”

  “Don’t you know those things aren’t good for you?”

  His head turned slightly and his eyes settled on her lips. “There’s lots of things that aren’t good for me.”

  Heat flared inside Anna like the instant spark of flint against steel, and her heart hummed like a runaway machine. It seemed incredible that only a month ago she thought she would never want another man. But now as she stood close to Miguel, she was fairly certain she was only just now learning what wanting a man was all about. Certainly she’d never felt this raw aching attraction for Scott. Or any man. Until she’d met Miguel. The idea was both exhilarating and frightening.

  “Then why do you...indulge yourself?”

  He grinned, then looked away from her as he placed tortillas on a hot griddle. Anna was relieved to find she could breathe again.

  “A man only has a short time on this earth. To deny himself some of life’s basic pleasures is foolish.”

  Folding her arms against her breast, she watched him fork the crisp bacon onto a paper towel. “So you’re not just a cowboy, you’re a philosopher, too.”

  He broke eggs into the bacon grease. “No. Just a cowboy with a few opinions.”

  The word few put a vague smile on Anna’s lips. “Is that what you’ve always been, a cowboy?”

  He nodded. “Always a cowboy, and for a time a lawman, too.”

  Completely surprised by his admission, she stared at him. “Really? What sort of lawman?”

  “First as a deputy, then as an undersheriff.”

  “Around here?”

  “No. Bernalillo county.”

  Her eyes widened. “That would include Albuquerque.”

  “You’re right.”

  She waited, hoping he would tell her more. But he remained silent as he finished cooking the eggs and warming the tortillas. He worked at the stove with practiced ease, and Anna wondered if he’d learned to cook out of necessity or because he enjoyed it. She got the feeling it was both.

  Once the food was done, she helped him carry the dishes to a booth-style table made of varnished knotty pine. The table was built next to a wide-paned window overlooking the backyard. Not that there was an actual backyard. Little more than thirty feet away, the bluff of the mountain rose up like a giant wall of craggy rock, where sage and pine clung tenaciously to the cracks and crevices.

  Anna was always mesmerized by the wild beauty surrounding this place, and Miguel must have picked up on the wonder mirrored on her face as she gazed out the window.

  “Haven’t you ever seen the view behind the house?” he asked as he placed two fresh mugs of coffee beside their plates.

  Nodding, Anna took a seat on one side of the table. “Yes. But it’s been a long time. My brother and I used to come up here and go hiking and exploring. It’s one of my favorite places on the ranch.” She looked at him as he took his seat across from her. “My dad first had this built as a honeymoon house for him and Mom. So they’d have a place to go when they wanted to be completely alone. But after a few years it somehow became the foreman’s house.”

  “When I came to work for your mother I had a house just east of Ruidoso,” Miguel told her. “I wanted to continue to live there, but Chloe wouldn’t hear of it. She wanted me closer for practical purposes and promised that if I sold my house and then later decided I didn’t want to work on the Bar M anymore, she’d pay the down payment on another one.” He shrugged. “But I fell in love with this place on first sight.”

  Miguel passed the eggs to Anna, and she began to fill her plate. Her stomach was gnawing and fluttering. Breakfast was what it needed, but she hadn’t planned on having it with Miguel. How she’d wound up here at his kitchen table was beyond her. He seemed to have a knack for taking control of her.

  “My uncle Roy is the sheriff of Lincoln County,” Anna said. “I guess you must know him.”

  “I’ve known Roy for many years. He’s a legend in his own time.”

  She shook a goodly amount of Tabasco over her eggs. “Did you not want to make the law your life as Roy has?”

  Miguel swallowed several bites of food before he answered. “It was a job. A way to make money. I didn’t see it as a career.”

  “How long did you work as a lawman?”

  Anna didn’t know if his frown was caused by the effort of calculating or annoyance at being questioned by her. “More than ten years.”

  His answer was nothing close to what she’d expected and the shock showed on her face. “Ten years! You must have started very young.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted wryly. “Just how old do you think I am, Anna?”

  She felt herself blushing as his dark hazel eyes waited on her face. “I don’t know...thirty-five?”

  “There was no need for you to be so careful about answering. I don’t care if you know I’m thirty-seven.”

  Thirty seven. He was a decade older than Scott, yet oddly enough, she felt no gap between them. He was simply a man and she a woman, and the hands of time had nothing to do with the breathless way she felt whenever she looked at him or touched him.

  “And it really doesn’t matter to me whether you know I’m going on twenty-five,” she replied. “But I would like to know why you quit being a lawman.”

  The frown on his face deepened, and he forked a bite of egg from his plate. “Because I like being a cowboy more. Is that answer enough for you?”

  The tortilla in her hand stopped midway to her lips. “No,” she retorted.

  His eyes narrowed and for a moment he completely forgot he was eating breakfast. “Look, Anna, I’m not trying to hide some dark tragedy. I wasn’t burned-out or disillusioned. Sure I encountered some hideous sights while I worked in law enforcement, but I was like your uncle Roy. I expected to see the worst and dealt with it as part of the job. It simply comes down to the fact that I’d rather strap on a pair of chaps than a gun every morning. Satisfied?”

  As long as she was around this man she would never be satisfied. He was an enigma, a challenge, a man who stirred her far too much.

  “Sorry I asked.”

  “No, you’re just sorry you wanted to know,” he said with lazy certainty. “You had this grand romantic notion that I have an unbearable festering splinter inside of me and you’re the woman to pull it out and make me huma
n and whole again. Well, I don’t need healing or consoling or saving.”

  She stared at him, anger shooting through her like a red-hot arrow. “What in the he—heck am I doing here?”

  Before he could answer, she tossed the half-eaten tortilla onto her plate and jumped to her feet. “I’ll be down at the stables. Not that—”

  Her words broke off as a wave of dizziness suddenly spun the room around her head. Clutching the edge of the table with one hand, she pressed shaky fingers to the bruise on her forehead.

  “Anna! Are you all right?” He got up from the table and put a steadying hand on her arm.

  Anna wasn’t all right. But not for anything would she admit her weakness to him: “I’m fine. I just got up too quickly. That’s all.”

  He cursed beneath his breath. “You’ve got a concussion! You shouldn’t even be on your feet.”

  The dizziness finally gone, she dropped her hand and glared at him. “Damn it, I don’t have a concussion. And I wish you’d quit acting as though you know everything about me!”

  Stung because she’d mocked his concern, he sneered at her. “If you don’t have a concussion, what’s wrong with you? Are you pregnant? Is that why you suddenly decided to come home to your mama and daddy?”

  Stunned by his impertinent questions, her mouth fell open. “Are you crazy? Do you think I would have been working in the branding pen out in the heat if I were in such a condition?”

  His jaw tightened and his eyes darkened. “I’ve known women to do worse.”

  “Well, not me!” she gritted in outrage. “Besides, you know I’m not married.”

  His brows lifted mockingly. “A person doesn’t have to be married to have children. Or haven’t you learned that yet?”

  He was just the sort of man to point such a thing out, Anna thought angrily. “You have to be the most insolent...most arrogant—”

  “Sit down and finish your breakfast,” he ordered.

  “It’s finished! And so are we,” she said defiantly.

  Suddenly his fist was full of her red hair, and he used it to tug her up against him. With a cruel chuckle, he said, “There is no ‘we.’ Or is that what you’re really wanting, Anna? Is this what you’re pushing me to do?”

  He didn’t give her a chance to answer. His head bent at the same time he jerked on her hair, forcing her face up to his.

  “Yes,” he whispered huskily, his narrowed eyes roaming her flushed face. “I think this is what you really want.”

  “Miguel—”

  His name was the only word he allowed her to speak. The rest he smothered with the brazen search of his lips. And all Anna could do was cling to the front of his shirt and try not to wilt at his feet.

  “You kiss me like I’m the only man you’ve ever wanted,” he murmured.

  He was making fun of her, but his words were so close to the truth she shuddered inwardly.

  “You’re not the only man I’ve ever kissed!” she tried to defend herself, but her voice was weak and trembling.

  He looked at her with hard, hooded eyes. “I didn’t say I was the only man you’d kissed. I said the only man you had wanted. There’s a big difference, Anna. And I’m warning you not to try and spread your virgin wings on me.”

  “As if I’d want to! And my being a virgin is hardly your business!”

  Ignoring her sarcasm, he said, “You and I are two different breeds, Anna. I know what you are, and I know what I am. We won’t go together like tortillas and honey.”

  How could he know about her? Anna wondered. And why did she want him to know the real woman she was, not the one he believed her to be? He was overbearing and impudent. But most of all he was a man. And she’d sworn never to want another one!

  Jerking her arm from his grasp, she stepped around him. “I’m very relieved to hear that, Miguel. So you take care of your end of things on the ranch, and I’ll take care of mine. Savvy?”

  “Completely.”

  Not bothering to give him a backward glance, Anna left the room. She was across the deck and on the way down the steps to her truck when Miguel’s deep voice called after her.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she tried to steel herself against the sight of his hard, handsome image outlined by the mountain bluff behind him. He fit this land like a hand to a glove. But then so did she. He just didn’t know it.

  “I’m going to be watching you.”

  Turning to face him, she pushed back the brim of her hat and stared up at him. “Excuse me. I thought you were the foreman around here, not the lord of the manor.”

  “I can be both. If need be.”

  In other words if she couldn’t take care of the place while her parents were gone, he certainly could. And would, if she so much as faltered a step.

  Well, she wouldn’t stumble or stagger, she silently averred. And Mr. Miguel Chavez was going to have to eat every hateful word he’d ever said to her before she left the Bar M.

  Chapter Four

  Anna replaced the phone on its cradle, then fell back against the cushions of the couch in a dazed thump. Adam was going to be fine. His broken ankle had already been set and put in a plaster cast. Tomorrow he would be released from the hospital. The news was exactly what she’d been desperately wanting to hear all morning. It was the rest of her mother’s message that had knocked Anna’s feet out from under her.

  What had been her parents’ thinking? Or more rightly her mother? Of course Anna could see it was a perfect time for the two of them to travel on down to the coast of Brazil and enjoy a second honeymoon. But Anna had been away from the ranch for more than a year! And even longer still since she’d done any real work around the place. Did her parents actually think she was capable of seeing after the horses for three weeks or a month?

  It wasn’t that Anna was afraid of manual labor. In fact, she welcomed the release it gave her after hours of sitting at the piano day after day. But the responsibility of seeing after two barns full of highbred racehorses was something else altogether. What if one became injured or ill? What if she exercised them too much or too little? They’d all be so stiff and sore they’d never be able to run to a feed bucket, much less down a race track.

  And then there was Miguel. The man was insufferable. He’d be watching her every move. No doubt he’d take great pleasure in seeing her fall on her face.

  Rising from the couch, she wandered restlessly over to the piano. The lid was down and had been that way since she’d arrived home four days ago. So far she’d had no desire to make any sort of music.

  Her fingers trailed absently over the wood as thoughts of this morning burned once again in her mind. Miguel believed she wasn’t capable of doing anything except play the piano. And no doubt he’d roar a loud complaint when he heard Chloe had left her in charge for the next month. But Anna wasn’t one dimensional. There was more to her than making music and pleasing an audience. Moreover, her parents had put their faith and trust in her. If need be she’d work twenty-four hours a day to make sure things ran smoothly. And in the process she’d show Miguel Chavez that she was not just a coddled performer who knew nothing of the real world!

  When Miguel rode in from roundup later that evening, darkness had overtaken the ranch yard. All of the cowhands had chosen to stay with the chuck wagon and bed down in sleeping bags rather than ride back to the ranch. But Miguel had felt the need to come back to the Bar M. With her parents gone, he didn’t want Anna to be entirely alone.

  She might think she was perfectly capable of handling things around here. But Miguel knew better. Three days from now she’d be crying for him to take over.

  A glance at his watch told him it was nearly nine. A late hour for him to be out on a horse, but he seriously doubted Anna would be in bed. As soon as he unsaddled and tended to his mount, he’d walk down to the house and speak with her. Hopefully she had news of Adam.

  The many working horses on the Bar M were stalled in a separate barn, several yards away from Chloe’s high-strung racing stoc
k. As he led the tired animal past the stables of Thoroughbreds, he noticed a shaft of light beneath the closed doors. Figuring Anna had forgotten to turn it off, he made a mental note to stop and check it before he left the ranch yard.

  Twenty minutes later, on his way back by the stables, he noticed the light was still burning. He opened the doors to extinguish it and was instantly shocked to see Anna at the opposite end of the building. One hand held a galvanized pail, while the other gripped a thick lead rope attached to a skittish yearling, who followed closely on her shoulder.

  Miguel walked quickly down the alleyway to intercept her. Once he was within a few steps, she stopped and lifted her head to look at him. For a moment all Miguel could do was stare back, stunned at her appearance. Gone were the expensive clothes, hat and boots. They had been replaced by worn jeans and shirt, work boots and a baseball cap. Yet the clothes were only a part of the drastic change. The woman was bone-weary exhausted. He could see it in the dark smudges beneath her eyes and the deep lines bracketing her mouth. The bruise on her temple looked even more purple against her white face.

  “Anna, what are you doing?”

  She gave him a look that said his question had to be the most ignorant she’d ever heard. “I’m taking care of the horses. What does it look like?”

  He made a point of glancing at his wristwatch. “At this time of night? Your mother never works this late. Not even on a race day.”

  Anna wanted to snap at him, to remind him that she wasn’t her mother. But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing she was riled or rattled. She knew how to be cool and by damn she would be.

  Squaring her shoulders as best she could, she said, “Maybe it slipped your mind that all the hands are out on roundup. It takes time for one person to feed and water thirty head of horses.”

  Miguel felt like kicking himself. He’d been so busy he’d not thought to send a couple of the men back to help her. Anna must surely be thinking he’d purposely kept every ranch hand for his own needs.

  “I guess I owe you an apology.”