To Tempt a Cowgirl

by Jeannie Watt

“Awww...” Dani reached out to pat his upper arm in mock sympathy.

  “I had a visitor, though.”

  There was something in his tone... “Yeah?”

  He nodded. “It was Gina.”

  Dani’s mouth dropped open. “She traveled across the state to see you?”

  “She did. Brought the little guy and everything.”

  Dani had wondered why Gina asked about Mac every now and again in that almost too-casual voice and, looking back, her friend had perked up whenever his name had been mentioned. But she’d never considered the possibility of vivacious Gina hooking up with someone as steady and, well, almost boring, as Mac. Gina had always gone for the wilder guys, but now she had her son to think about.

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  From the way the color was creeping up his face, Dani got the feeling he felt pretty good about it.

  “She’s been going through a lot—needed some time away from her mom.” Mac tightened a corner of his mouth. “We’ve been talking on the phone for a while, and then, well...she asked if she could come see me.”

  “So are you going to keep seeing her?”

  “I’d like to. I’m kind of scared of screwing up. I mean...this is two lives, here, Dan, what with her having a kid.”

  “Yes, it’s different when there’s a child involved,” she agreed, even though she had no personal experience in that regard. And she hoped, really hoped, that Gina wasn’t just looking for a guy to be a decent father to her son. Gina was her friend, but so was Mac.

  “Take it slow,” Dani said, thinking of Mel’s advice to her.

  “I will. It may go nowhere, but...” He shrugged his big shoulders.

  Dani lifted her glass in a salute and the mood between them began to edge back to comfortable—although it was going to take a while for her to get used to this whole Gina-Mac hookup. Talk about opposites attracting.

  “So what’s going on with you?” he asked as he scooted his chair a little closer to the table, setting his elbows on either side of his glass.

  “It’s been one strange summer, Mac.”

  “I heard there’s going to be a water park next to your place?”

  “I don’t know. The equipment is gone and...someone else bought the property.” She pushed her glass from one hand to the next as she debated how to dive into this getting-man-advice thing. “The, uh, guy who was supposed to get us to sell the Lightning Creek to Widmeyer Enterprises bought the property.”

  “He wants to build the water park?”

  “Not according to him.”

  “Then...” he asked, obviously confused. “What’s going on, Dani?” She shook her head, still trying to come up with words. Mac waited almost a full minute before asking gently, “Why the sudden inability to articulate? What’s that about?”

  “It’s about my own stupidity,” she blurted. “I liked this guy—Gabe. Really liked him. We got to know each other—I thought—but I didn’t get to know the real him. I got to know the him he wanted me to get to know.” Mac looked no less confused, quite possibly because she was rambling.

  “Start at the beginning and go slow, okay?”

  So Dani did, from the moment Gabe had engineered the meeting at Lacy’s pen right up to where he’d bought the Staley property and now had no intention of doing anything with it.

  Mac was quiet for a long moment, then he said, “I get why you’re angry.”

  After a few long seconds, Dani cocked her head. “But...?” she prompted, waiting for Mac to present another take on the situation, something she hadn’t considered, as he always did when they discussed life. He was a natural devil’s advocate.

  “No buts. I get it.”

  Great. The one time she was hoping for devil’s advocacy, she hears, “I get it.”

  “So I should be outraged and angry.”

  “I would be.”

  Why did she feel deflated by his agreement? How sick was that? Dani took a bracing swallow of her beer, thought about ordering a shot. “Why do you think he bought the property next door only to have it lie fallow?”

  “Maybe he cares about you.”

  Dani’s chin lifted at the expected response, then she dropped her frowning gaze to stare at her glass. Gabe was a player. He had an angle.

  “Why don’t you believe him?”

  Dani glanced up again, her expression dark. “Gee. I don’t know. Maybe the fact that he spent two months working me?”

  Mac gave a soft grunt of acknowledgement. “So...he was employed by Widmeyer, a friend, and came here on a professional mission.”

  “Yes.”

  “To make an offer on the property.”

  “Yes.”

  “If he’d come right out and offered on it when you first met him, what would you have done?”

  “Turned him down.”

  “Any chance he knew this?”

  “Of course he knew it. That’s why he worked me,” Dani said impatiently.

  “Just checking the facts. And now he’s failed on his mission, he quits Widmeyer’s and buys the property, which he has no plans for.” Mac raised his eyebrows as he met Dani’s gaze. “It wasn’t a cheap purchase, was it?”

  She slowly shook her head, afraid to acknowledge the logical path Mac was laying forth. “So what’s in it for him?”

  “That,” he said, lifting his glass, “is the question.”

  Dani exhaled heavily. “Yeah...” She gave Mac a weary half smile. “You were supposed to have answers. Something brilliant that made everything clear.”

  “You want things to be clear, you’ll have to talk to him.”

  “I’d be afraid to believe him.”

  “Why afraid?” Mac asked.

  Dani closed her eyes. “Because he can hurt me.” Still. A truth she hadn’t wanted to face. “I don’t know if I can trust him. Or myself.”

  “So, no matter what he does, he’s screwed...even if he cares for you.”

  Dani didn’t want to think about him caring for her. “All I want is to have him out of my life, so I can re—”

  She stopped abruptly, but Mac merely lifted his eyebrows and said, “Recover?”

  “Recoup—recoup my lost time.”

  Mac lifted his bottle. “Here’s to recouping lost time.” He spoke the words in a way that told Dani he was talking as much about himself as her. He and Gina—go figure. Well, at least Gina was an open book. No secrets there. If she liked you, you knew it, and the same if she didn’t.

  “Indeed.” She touched her glass to his, then once again took a long drink.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “YOU SHOULD GO see her.” Serena tipped her martini glass toward Gabe as she spoke, then lifted the olive out and popped it in her mouth, setting the toothpick aside.

  “Not a good idea.”

  “Kind of like dinner last night?” she asked archly.

  “No. I liked meeting Lauren.” His date, an old friend of Serena’s, newly returned to the States from a stint in London, was attractive, articulate, warm and funny. Gabe had enjoyed her company, but when the evening ended, they’d parted ways with no intention of seeing one another again.

  “Go settle things with Montana.” Serena’s nickname for Dani, since she couldn’t keep the sisters straight.

  “Leave it,” he said seriously. She’d already drilled him about buying the place, then continuing to work from his apartment instead of from his new home.

  “Fine. I’ll go see her,” Serena said. “Straighten matters out.”

  Gabe gave a disparaging snort. “You do that.”

  She arched an eyebrow at him in a way that was pure Serena. “I would if I wasn’t so busy keeping Neal...busy.”

  “I’m happy for you.” Gabe took a long sip of whiskey. He was happy for them, glad that his friends had patched things up, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel a twinge—no, make that a wallop—of jealousy. “I don’t think I can patch my troubles up with a Crown Vic.”

  “It took more than
the Vic,” she said, swirling the remnants of her drink slowly. “It took a major attitude adjustment...on both our parts.” She gave a small sigh. “Mainly mine.” Then she leaned back in her chair. “I’m going back to Spokane to pick up another car from the Crown Vic guy. A perfect ’57 Chevy for me. Want to come? Road trip? Take your mind off things?”

  “Is Neal coming?”

  “Yes.”

  Gabe laughed. “I don’t think Neal is going to want to have me along...but thanks for the invite.”

  Neal eventually joined them and confirmed Gabe’s suspicions.

  “No offense, love, but the backseat is not big enough for three.”

  Serena blew out an impatient breath, then covered Neal’s hand with her own.

  Gabe smiled with a touch of acid and signaled to the bartender to bring him another drink.

  * * *

  IT WASN’T THAT Gabe didn’t trust Serena...it was just that Gabe didn’t trust Serena when she had it in her head that she needed to help him fix his life. His drawings, his books, his rough-draft proposals—yes, she could have a hand in fixing those. His life? No.

  After she and Neal set out on their weeklong road trip to pick up the new addition to their classic car family, Gabe found it even more impossible to focus than usual. What if she took him at his word and stopped to hash things out with “Montana”?

  That was the very last thing he needed.

  He needed to hash those things out himself. The sane way of doing that seemed to be to give her space. Help her believe that he wanted nothing tangible from her—that he respected her anger, understood her lack of trust. Hell, she was reacting just as he had in his untrusting days, after being burned a few times, so he honestly understood.

  He hadn’t been forgiving or quick to trust, either. It’d taken years for him to control his defensiveness and even then he hadn’t been able to fully open up to anyone...until he’d met Dani. He trusted her.

  She didn’t trust him.

  He needed to do something about that and like Serena had so sweetly mentioned the night before, what would keep Dani from moving on with her life with someone else while he was so gallantly giving her time to stop being angry at him?

  Later that day, he called his three clients, told them he’d be working from Montana the next few weeks, but everything would proceed on schedule. The next morning he flew out of Chicago into Missoula...in the midst of one of the earliest snowstorms in recent history.

  * * *

  “I’M GLAD YOU decided not to travel today,” Dani said to Jolie, cupping the phone against her shoulder as she stared out into the solid mass of white filling her window. “It’s practically a whiteout.”

  “Equally nasty here,” her sister said. “But Allie is making hot toddies, so all is well.” There was a voice in the background and then Jolie said, “Allie wants to know if you’ve heard anything new about Kyle’s rumored transfer.”

  “Gina said it was a done deal,” Dani said. “And since the café is cop central, she probably knows.”

  “I hope he goes soon.”

  So did Dani. That would be one hurdle cleared as far as Allie putting her life on track. With Kyle on the other side of the state, he’d hopefully leave her alone. She was about to say so when a low mechanical groan from the furnace made her jump, then the lights went out.

  “Just lost power,” she said to Jolie. “I’d better go.”

  “Hey,” Jolie said, “stay in the house.”

  “No kidding? And here I was going to go make a snowman.” She smiled and said, “Goodbye. Enjoy your furnace and electric lights.”

  She hung up and turned to face her house. Empty. Silent. Lonely.

  Kind of like certain aspects of her life.

  She walked to the door to call Gus, whom she’d let out just before Jolie called. Dry snow swirled around her when she stepped out onto the porch, stinging her skin as she pulled the door shut behind her.

  “Gus!” She hugged her arms around her middle, hunching over as the wind smacked into her. “Gus!” she yelled again, thinking that he couldn’t hear her over the wind, but he never strayed too far unless he was hot on the trail of a rabbit. Or deer. She’d seen a few does in the field with the cows when she’d fed them that morning.

  The snow pelted against her face as she started toward the gate, calling Gus’s name. He had to be in the barn. A deep shiver ran through her and she reversed course, heading back to the house to get her coat and boots. A few minutes later she emerged from the house and headed toward the barn, following Gus’s tracks, which were rapidly being obliterated by the snow. She followed them around the barn toward the field where the deer had been pushing snow aside to graze earlier that morning.

  Great. Just great.

  She checked the barn, in case he’d come back from his adventure and sought shelter. No Gus.

  And no Lacy.

  The other horses had taken advantage of the windbreak between the barn and the field and were huddled together, but not Lacy.

  Dani’s temples started to throb. No dog. No horse. Snowstorm.

  Squinting against the snow, she could make out a trail leading across the pasture toward the steep part of the creek bank near the road. This couldn’t be good. She called the dog one more time, then pulled her knitted cap down lower over her ears and followed the trail across the rapidly drifting snow.

  * * *

  GABE WAS NO slouch at driving in the snow, but when he started bucking some serious drifts on the way to the Staley house, he was glad that he’d ponied up the outrageous extra fee for the last four-wheel-drive vehicle on the rental lot. Even with the four-wheel drive, he wondered if he was going to make it to his house, which was going to be seriously cold and dark.

  Cold and dark he could deal with. Dani, on the other hand...

  A drift caught his front wheel, pulling the SUV sideways and jerking his attention back to the road. The snow had let up, but the wind was still blowing, whipping snow across the hood of the vehicle, making it difficult to see. The wheels bumped hollowly as he crossed the bridge over Lightning Creek and in the distance he could make out the dark shapes of Dani’s barns. Only about a mile to go—

  A flash of movement near the creek caught his eye and he slowed. A deer? One of the elusive coyotes?

  If so, it was wearing red. He stopped the car and got out, hunching his shoulders against the flurries as he moved around the front of the car. He could no longer see any movement, but he’d definitely seen a flash of red. “Hello?” he shouted into the wind.

  There was no response, so he waded through the snow to get closer to the fence, called again as the wind suddenly stopped. The snow settled to the ground in the eerie silence as he strained his ears for a sound, then a blast of wind hit his back, lifting the snow and swirling it around him again with a vengeance. He heard nothing, but during the moment of stillness he’d caught sight of a distinctive black-and-white horse standing near the willows that edged the creek. What was Lacy doing so far from the barn in a blizzard?

  He plunged through the snow in the direction of the horse, only to run into the half-buried pasture fence. He struggled through the wire strands, snagging his coat before finally wrenching his way through. Lacy started to move away.

  “Lacy!” He wasn’t certain why he’d called out. It wasn’t as if the horse would stop at his command, but she did. And then he heard Dani yell something indistinguishable.

  “Dani?” He started toward the horse and the creek bank.

  “Mac?” He could just make out the name before the wind blasted into him.

  “Where are you?” He burst out of a drift onto a patch of almost barren ground. Once again the wind relented and he saw Dani hunched in the willows near the creek, Lacy standing close by. And then came the plaintive canine whine. Gus, too.

  “Here!” she yelled, looking over her shoulder. Her chin lifted as she recognized him, then she turned back to what had to be Gus. Within a few seconds Gabe was beside her, ben
ding down to help her free her dog from the tangle of branches that had him trapped on the steep overgrown bank.

  “I just found him,” Dani said through gritted teeth. She held tight to his collar, trying to keep him from sliding farther down the bank and into the water. Gabe threw himself onto his belly at the edge of the six-foot embankment and attempted to wrap his arms around the dog’s middle only to find himself sliding toward the rushing waters of the creek himself. Too late to save himself, so he twisted, crashing through the brush and landing on his knees with an icy splash. Frigid water blasted through his clothing, filling his low boots, making his breath catch in his lungs. But he managed to keep Gus from sliding in after him.

  “Gabe!”

  “Hang on,” he muttered, adjusting his grip so that he could give a mighty shove. His feet slipped and he went down again, his knees splashing into the freezing water, but he’d managed to push the heavy dog up high enough for Dani to drag him over the edge of the bank. A split second later she reappeared, leaning down to take his hand, but he managed to pull himself up the bank using the broken willow branches. The last thing he was going to do was to pull Dani down into the icy flow.

  When he reached the top, she took hold of his arm, steadying as he got his balance on his rapidly numbing feet. And then for a long moment she stared up at him as if trying to make sense of everything—why he was here, how he’d managed to appear out of nowhere.

  “Dani...” He reached up to touch her frozen hair but she shook her head, took hold of the arm of his coat and started toward the fence, following the trail he’d broken through the drift, dragging him along behind her.

  “Got to get you out of the weather,” she muttered.

  Gabe’s teeth were rattling by the time they reached the car. The wind cut through his soaked pants, making it difficult to walk on numbing legs. He didn’t argue when Dani opened the passenger door and pushed him inside. The blast of heat that met him sent an uncontrollable shudder through his body.

  A moment later Gus hefted himself into the backseat and Dani got behind the wheel. She put the SUV in gear and slowly eased it forward. Gabe forced himself to keep his mouth shut and not tell Dani how to get them both safely back to the ranch—as if he could with his teeth chattering against his skull.