by Kira Barcelo
“Don’t you worry about something being your place or not, Jenna. You can tell me what you think. Long as you understand that, in the end, it’ll be my decision that stands.”
She had almost relaxed…until she heard that last part. He hadn’t been mean about it, but he’d been firm. There was a bit of a paradox there; part of her rebelled at his final statement and part of her rather warmed to it. For the briefest of moments, he actually sounded like the Stone Farrell she’d conjured up in her imagination.
“I just think your parents worked hard at building this place,” she said evenly, “and later on, until the day he died, your dad. I know he would have wanted one of you to hold onto it, to keep it. And I think the one he would have wanted to see doing that was…well, you.”
“Yeah, well, my dad and I didn’t always see eye to eye.” His jaw tightened visibly and he tore his gaze away from her. “But you wouldn’t know about that. Let me assure you, though. Since, my sisters have left the decision up to me, I will be giving this place a fighting chance. But if it’s not for me, it’s not from me. And I’ll give you enough of a heads-up if that happens, Jenna. I won’t just spring it on you. That’s not the kind of man I am.”
An employee. He was speaking to her in the detached, businesslike manner that a boss would use with an employee. Jenna swallowed hard, wondering how much more disappointment she could take in one day. Somehow, she managed to hold her head high.
“Good to know. I would appreciate that,” she said, employing the same aloof air. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I also have work to do.”
“That’s fine. I’m going to have a look around and then I have to be going. Oh, and, uh…”
When he hesitated, she turned to him. “What is it?”
“My father’s room. I guess that’ll be mine now.”
“I guess so. If you’re asking me if someone’s been using it, the answer is no. Jake has what I believe is your old room. And I’m in Robyn’s.”
He was actor, and a good one, at that. Maybe not a famous one, but at the very least he’d almost convinced her with that grin that he was taking this all in stride.
“Good. I’ve got some things to take care of, and then I’ll be back tomorrow with my things.” Waving the half-empty soda bottle at her, Stone nodded. “It was good to meet you and your brother. I appreciate having you here. From what I hear, you know a lot more than I do about running this place.”
“Uh-huh. Well, that’s very nice of you.”
Cordial. Keeping him at arm’s length. That was about all she could deal with, and luckily he was out the door less than a couple minutes after that.
She hadn’t been expecting an actor. Why hadn’t his sisters mentioned that? Hell, she didn’t even like actors, famous or barely famous ones. To Jenna, most of them looked to be either self-absorbed or not all that bright. Or both. She liked them better when they were on the screen, pretending to be other people and babbling off words written by writers.
She’d been expecting a cowboy. No—she’d been hoping Stone would be a cowboy.
That wouldn’t have been such an unreasonable expectation, either. Cowboy was an apt description for his father. In her silly daydreams, he was every bit a cowboy, strong and respectful of the land that belonged to him. In those same silly daydreams, he would have noticed her. He wouldn’t have even looked twice at some plastic Hollywood diva in a shimmery size zero gown.
And he certainly wouldn’t have ever spoken to her like she was nothing more than the help. Jenna realized how much that had hurt her as she stumbled outside and made her way to the stables, where she would find Thunder. That horse, all he had to do was carry her out around the place and she’d lose herself in the pleasure of the ride.
So that was the real Stone Farrell. Whoever that had been in her daydreams had never existed. It had all just been one big, childish fantasy.
What in the hell was that?
Stone Farrell steered the rental with one hand and adjusted his sunglasses with the other. He was attempting to consult the GPS while trying to sort out in his head what had gone on back there at the ranch.
Why had he pictured Jenna totally different from the young woman he’d just met? First off, Jenna Price was supposed to be this older woman in her fifties. He’d imagined her as tall and somewhat on the chubby side, never married, living there with her overweight brother, also unmarried. No frills, as in no bleached hair or makeup, something of a tomboy in her younger days, friendly sort of gal.
The real Jenna Price didn’t come anywhere near that description.
And there was one thing for certain: The real one didn’t like him one bit.
“Recalculating! Turn around when possible…”
“Ahhh, speaking of women who don’t like me. Now what’s your problem?” he muttered to the machine as he searched for a driveway to borrow for the purpose of turning the car around.
That stupid GPS had done him that way three times already; it hadn’t alerted him to an important turn up ahead. Of course, without that infernal machine he wouldn’t have ever found the ranch. Now it was needed to get him to his sister Robyn’s home. That was how long it had been since he’d last been to Wyoming, at least a good five years or so.
Long before Jenna Price and her brother had gotten there. Jake seemed like a cool kid. Stone grinned, recalling their brief conversation before his big sister sent him out to get his chores done. That was fine; he understood that. In fact, he rather admired how well she got that tall, teenaged boy to listen to her.
He also understood that, for all intents and purposes, Jenna had been the boss around that ranch. Heady stuff for a young lady that age, he supposed. Both Robyn and Melanie had their own homes and families. Robyn was a homemaker and Melanie, in addition to her husband and kids, had her nursing career. They’d allowed Jenna to run the place.
But now there was a new sheriff in town. Him. Not a real sheriff, but hey, he’d played one on TV. Stone had no doubt that he and Jenna would get along fine—as long as he set her sexy little butt straight. Now that he would be living there, he was in charge. Not her.
Sounds like you want to be a part-time cowboy.
For some reason, he wasn’t sure why, those words coming out of her mouth had given him the same sensation he would have felt garnering a surprise kiss from her. Maybe she was being playful, maybe she was slapping him with one of those backhanded comments of hers. Whichever, whether she’d meant to or not, or maybe it was the way she’d said those things, but he’d been majorly turned on.
Then again, Jenna wasn’t the type of woman he’d been around for the past few years. Having worked in television and films for the past several years, Stone had been around stick-thin, just-about-anorexic or out-and-out anorexic women. Most of them had had some work done: a nip or a tuck here, a new nose, lips that were unnaturally plump, breasts and rear ends augmented by a cosmetic surgeon’s scalpel.
Jenna Price was a natural beauty. He didn’t get to see many of them anymore. She hadn’t been wearing any makeup. She was unassuming, with her long, brown hair up in a ponytail. The only adornments he’d noticed were dainty, small earrings and some pink polish on her nails. He liked that, particularly because it showed there was a feminine temptress inside that sexy little tomboy.
But he wasn’t about to get sidetracked by the ranch’s tantalizing caretaker. Besides the fact they’d gotten off on the wrong foot, he was seeing already involved with someone. All right, so things had been rocky between him and Ashley lately, but Stone wasn’t interested in the least in the way people in Tinseltown conducted their love lives. Hopping into one bed, then another, then another, cheating on your spouse with your newest leading lady. That empty kind of lifestyle wasn’t for him.
He was going to try to work things out with his girlfriend. In reality, he had a lot of things he needed to work out, not the least of which was his career.
And that ranch. His father’s ranch, because it wasn’t his. The will said it belong
ed to the three of them, and his sisters were more than happy to turn the whole thing over to him. As far as he was concerned, he was ready for the option of calling a real estate agency and putting up a RANCH FOR SALE sign up in front of the place.
But then again, something was stopping him.
As he turned onto the street that he now remembered his sister lived on, his cell phone rang. Ashley’s name came across the screen. Feeling guilty for having had those lustful thoughts about Jenna, he put a smile in his voice and answered the call.
“Hey, baby! What’s goin’ on?”
On the other line, Ashley Covington sounded on the verge of tears. “Oh, baby, you are gonna be sooooo mad at me.”
Aw, geez—now what? Patiently, he asked, “Everything okay, Ash?”
“It’s okay, except…I won’t be getting there until next weekend.”
“Is that all? That’s all right, baby.” It wasn’t really because they needed to talk, but he didn’t care to press the issue and get into an argument.
“Well, I have an interview with People magazine for the movie.”
“Do you? That’s great!”
“Yeah, and then I promise you, Stone, I’ll be there. I was sooooo looking forward to meeting your sisters and seeing the farm.”
“Cool. It’s a ranch, though, not a farm.”
“Whatever!” she responded brightly. “So you’re not mad?”
“Of course not.” Disappointed, but not mad. “Business before pleasure, right? Gotta grab opportunity when you can, honey. We’ll still be here when you’re done. Let me know about your flight and I’ll pick you up at the airport.”
“Sounds good! Love you, babe!” She blew him kisses through the phone.
“Love you, too!”
Ashley Covington. Her real name was Ashley Cropper, which wasn’t as made-for-Hollywood a name as Ashley Covington. Her beginnings had been humble; her dad was on disability after an accident, but he’d worked for years in a car dealership’s parts department, and her mother still worked as a high school biology teacher. Besides sending her parents on a trip to Europe with her first big Hollywood paycheck, Ashley had other good points, too. That was what he found himself telling his sisters. Neither one had met her, but both Robyn and Mel had already passed judgment on her, with Melanie occasionally referring to Ashley as a bubble-headed doll.
So maybe she was on the maturity level of a thirteen-year-old. A little on the self-absorbed side. It wasn’t easy, either, getting her to talk about something other than herself and the business. She was also always on a diet; Stone understood the whole Hollywood pressure thing for everyone, not just women, to stay as thin as possible. But sometimes when he took her out for a steak dinner, he kind of hoped she’d have something besides a plain salad without even an ounce of dressing.
Jenna, on the other hand, was also slim, but on a real-woman basis. She was filled out nicely, too, in all the right places.
And if he had any hopes at all of making things right between him and Ashley, he needed to get that proud little cowgirl, who looked like she could be quite a handful anyway, out of his mind before his girlfriend’s plane came in from California.
CHAPTER TWO
“Why didn’t either you or Robyn ever mention your brother was an actor?”
Up until Stone’s arrival, both Melanie Farrell—now that she was married, her name was Horton—and Robyn Farrell Sawyer had been, technically, Jenna’s bosses. Still, she was never one to mince words. Besides which, she was still miffed by that one little oversight on their part.
Melanie, on her knees while tending to her garden, looked up from under the brim of her floppy straw hat.
“Oh, I—we probably did,” she said. “I did. Maybe. Didn’t we mention that?”
“Never.”
“Jenna, I think we did. You just don’t remember. You see how well the cucumbers are doing? Last year we had more than we knew what to do with.”
She was being purposely evasive, right down to the fact that she was changing the subject. Jenna crouched down beside her, determined not to let her off the hook that easily.
“You never mentioned Stone was a movie star,” she reiterated. “That’s a little something I would’ve remembered, don’t you think?”
“Well, you know…” Melanie chuckled, wiping the perspiration from her brow with her wrist. “Stone’s not a movie star. Not really. He’s a character actor. Character actors don’t usually become stars. Even though, we’re proud of him and all, and it really is impressive how much Stone’s done with his career. What’s funny is that, most of the time, he plays the bad guy.”
And his girlfriend plays the beautiful blonde bombshell, Jenna thought glumly.
She’d found countless pictures of Ashley Covington on an Internet search. In most of them, she was either scantily clad or dressed in designer gowns. The ditzy-looking brunette was described in such words as up-and-coming, talented and beautiful, and the particularly upsetting Stone Farrell’s gorgeous leading lady. On an IMDB forum, one poster had written that she was way out of Stone’s league.
“Exactly. It is impressive.” Jenna used Melanie’s own words to make her point. “That’s why I don’t understand why neither of you girls has ever said a word about it. I’d think that was something you’d brag about.”
Sighing, Melanie straightened up. Now that she’d seen Stone up close, and at the age he was now, because up until then she’d only seen him in pictures, Jenna saw the family resemblance. Melanie shared her brother’s tall, lean build, even the same defined facial bone structure. However, her eyes were not quite as strikingly blue as his.
“It’s not that we’re not proud of him, because we are,” she reiterated. “We thought you might’ve already seen him on TV or in some movie he did, anyway—”
“I don’t watch much TV. I don’t really have time for it. I’d rather read, if I get any time to myself at all. And I don’t go to the movies very often.”
“Ah, well…okay. The truth? Maybe Robyn and I didn’t want you to see him as an actor. We’ve always wanted you to see him as we always have: as the owner of the Circle F.”
That, she hadn’t been expecting. Jenna dropped her gaze, already feeling the heat of embarrassment in her cheeks.
“That’s the way I’ve seen him, too,” she confessed. “But I don’t think he’s going to keep the ranch.”
Melanie tapped her digging spade against the earth to shake off the excess dirt. “Are you sure?”
“No, not sure. He’s not very clear on whether he’s keeping it or not.”
“I guess neither Robyn nor I have any right to complain about it. We both feel terrible about it, but neither of us have time to manage the place. Daddy would’ve been fine if we had, but he really wanted it to belong to Stone. Not that Stone wanted anything to do with it.”
“He’s moving in today.”
“That soon?”
“That soon? He should’ve been there a long time ago.” She’d almost said, When your dad died, but she’d caught herself in time. “Anyway, in other news, my brother’s thrilled, having him around. He’s a little star-struck, I guess.”
“Jake must also be happy to have a man around.” Melanie smiled, then removed one of her gardening gloves to touch Jenna’s hand. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you before. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think Stone’s going to stay with that bubble-headed actress-girlfriend of his.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter if he does. I just work for the man. That’s all I really am to him,” Jenna blurted.
“Give him some time. I think, you know, what you and I believe he can be? I really believe he’s got it in him. For the record, so does Robyn.”
As soon as she pulled into the driveway, Jenna noticed the brand-new, black Dodge Ram parked in front of her aging Jeep. Though it came as an improvement over the flashy sports car Stone had rented, she couldn’t help but think it was the attempt of an actor to fit into his new “role”.
She was also aware of that rather sad, blue feeling going through her, despite the fact that she was trying hard to push it away. On her way to the screen door, which was slightly ajar as always because it needed fixing, she thought about how much she was going to miss that place. Miss Beautiful-and-Talented most likely wouldn’t want a cowgirl like her hanging around once she moved her jewels and furs and obscenely expensive designer bags into the master bedroom.
Yet that had been her home—and Jake’s—long enough for her to feel both anxious and upset about possibly having to leave it. Anxious, because that meant she’d have to start over, finding a new job as well as a new place to live. Upset, because she earnestly loved that place. It hadn’t taken that long for the large but modest, two-storey ranch to become home to her. Jenna climbed the stairs wearily, having found no one downstairs.
She walked to the master bedroom door, which was also opened a few inches. “Stone?”
An instant later, her jaw dropped open.
The door was opened enough for her to see Stone standing there…wearing not one stitch of clothing. He had his back to her initially, giving her a view of how ripped the muscles of his back were, of his long, lean legs, but what really grabbed her attention was that fine male backside.
Caught by surprise, he turned at the waist, reaching for the towel on the bed. Hastily, he covered himself before she could see what used to be called “his manhood” in romance novels.
“Oh, I’m—sorry, sorry!” she stammered, feeling like her feet were glued to the floor and her hand was attached to the doorknob. “I didn’t know you were naked!”
Naked. She’d never seen a man without his clothes on before. Coming from Hollywood, where it seemed like everybody’s favorite hobby was jumping into bed with anybody who looked at them twice, she could imagine what Stone would have thought of her. Twenty-four years old and still a virgin.
“I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t think anybody was in the house.” Stone managed a smile, doing his own share of stammering. “I-I just took a shower. Be right down, okay? Fully dressed. I promise.”
