Buch lesen: «Bachelor Cowboy»

CHAPTER ONE

His backside looked good.

Shannon Kelleher stood beside one of the empty stalls in Luke Farraday’s barn and looked up to where he was perched on a huge beam that ran the width of the building. He was inspecting the underside of the roof, and she was honest enough to admit that she was inspecting him.

When she had first seen him, backlit by the June afternoon sun streaming in through the hay door, she’d caught her breath and stared, standing silently in the shadows. She hadn’t called out to announce her arrival for fear of startling him. She just wanted to look.

She liked what she saw, long legs, wide shoulders whose muscles rippled and lengthened as he reached up with a hammer in one hand. He was rapping loudly, methodically on the underside of the shingles, which explained why he didn’t seem to have heard her drive up.

His other hand was braced against a header joist to keep himself from falling. He was wearing boots, the heels notched over the edge of a beam. That position served to extend his legs and tighten the muscles all the way up.

Nice buns, she thought. Scientifically speaking, of course.

Shannon bit her lip to hide a grin. All right, maybe that was exaggerating a bit. She couldn’t actually see the muscles. Besides, human anatomy didn’t have a whole lot to do with her job as a range management specialist. Her areas of expertise were soils, grasses and water control. On the other hand, she appreciated anything that nature had put together beautifully.

Nature hadn’t exactly been sleeping on the job while assembling Luke Farraday. At least, that’s who she thought this man was. There was no one else around.

Shannon admitted that she should be ashamed of herself for ogling the man, especially considering how she hated that kind of thing herself. She had been on the receiving end of sexism more times than she could count and more often in the past year than ever before in her life or career.

Still, she wasn’t being lewd and lascivious. It was more like art appreciation, she thought, leaning against the stall railing and crossing her booted ankles. Like viewing Michelangelo’s David—with a Western theme. The only way it could get any better would be if he took his shirt off.

Besides, she thought, she deserved a little self-indulgent ogling because she’d been sick for a week with a middle-ear infection that had kept her flat on her back in bed. She still felt a little dizzy and weak, but she’d had to get back to work today. Things were piling up. Things that her boss, Wiley Frost, thought only she should resolve.

When Luke Farraday stopped testing the roof and stood staring up, Shannon felt she almost knew what he was thinking. The roof would need to be replaced by winter. The ranch had been allowed to run down by its previous owner, and Luke Farraday had taken on a big job getting the place into shape. Lucky for him, she could help.

Luke reached to place the hammer in his back pocket, and Shannon knew the show was over. She waited until he sat down on the rafter and dangled his feet over the edge before she spoke.

“Mr. Farraday.” She stepped out from the shadowed stall, and his head snapped up.

“Who’s there?” he barked, leaning over to look. His gaze swept the place until he located her.

Shannon hoped that the irate tone was because she’d startled him. She hugged her clipboard to her chest and walked to stand beneath the rafter where he sat.

When she tilted her head, her long black hair swept her waist. The motion made her ears ring, but she formed a warm smile anyway. “My name’s Shannon Kelleher. I’m with the natural resources office. I called your house but couldn’t get an answer, so I thought I’d just take a chance and see if you were here.”

“I’m here,” he said laconically. “What do you want?” As he spoke, he grabbed one of the thick posts that supported the barn roof. It had huge nails driven into it here and there down its length, and he used these as foot and handholds as he made his way to the floor. He moved as easily and gracefully as a trapeze artist from one nail to the next.

Eyes wide, Shannon watched him descend. When one nail broke beneath his weight and clattered to the floor, he grunted, felt for another foothold and continued to climb down.

When he reached the ground, she said, “Wouldn’t that be easier with a ladder?”

He shrugged. “If I had one, I would have used it.”

Shannon noticed a large hammer and more of the big nails at her feet. He’d improvised. She liked that, but it seemed risky. He was here all alone. What if he’d fallen, been hurt? Days might have passed before help arrived. She gave herself a mental shake. No point in manufacturing worst-case scenarios. She needed to concentrate on the reason for her visit.

Smiling, she glanced into his face, finally able to see him clearly. His eyes were deep-set under thick brows and were an unusual light brown. The pupils were wide due to the dimness in the barn. When he looked at her, Shannon had the eerie feeling that he was looking right into her soul. Disconcerted, she quickly glanced at the rest of his face, the square jaw that had a small scar running diagonally across it, the fullness of his lips, which were at odds with the angled cheekbones, and a Roman nose, which had a slight bump in it as if it had been broken.

His face didn’t match up to the rest of his body, but the physical imperfections only added character. This was a man who had worked hard, probably all his life, and expected to work hard for the rest of it, as well.

When his eyes met hers in a rapid, assessing glance, she experienced a moment of dizziness and placed her hand against the post he’d just descended.

“What do you want?” he repeated.

His impatient tone snapped her to the business at hand. Straightening, she indicated her clipboard. “I’ve been sent out to welcome you and let you know what services our natural resources agency can give to help you get the Crescent Ranch into shape.”

“No, thanks.” He bent to pick up his tools.

Shannon gaped at him. “Excuse me?”

“I said no, thanks. I can handle it on my own.” He nodded toward the door. “Close that behind you when you leave, would you?” He turned to the tack room attached to the building.

It took her a few seconds to realize she’d been dismissed. She stared after him in stunned amazement, then she hurried behind him.

“I don’t think you understand, Mr. Farraday,” she insisted as she watched him put away tools and pick up a pair of gloves. “I’m here to help you. We would like you to participate in a project we’re doing.”

He didn’t even bother to turn around. “No, thanks. I don’t have the time. I told that to the guy who called last week.”

“The guy who . . .” Wiley, she thought, rocking to a stop. Irritation made her clench her fists at her sides. The same Wiley who had told her no one had contacted Luke. Well, it wasn’t the first lie Wiley had told her.

Luke turned, and his gaze raked over her again. “Did they think that sending a beauty queen out would get me to change my mind?”

She stiffened. Sexism in the raw, she thought, infuriated. “I am a scientist, Mr. Farraday. I’ve worked in this field for three years now. I was born and raised in this county. Just on the other side of that mountain, in fact,” she said, nodding toward Randall Peak. “I know what I’m doing. My looks have absolutely nothing to do with my abilities as a professional.”

He gave her a skeptical glance. “You’ve never used them to get what you want? Never batted those eyelashes of yours over those deep blue eyes?” His voice dropped to a gritty, intimate level that, to her horror, sent shivers up her spine. “Never used those full, sweet lips to whisper promises into eager ears? Promises you never intended to keep?”

“Certainly not!”

He snorted. “Right.”

Appalled, Shannon stared at him. He was the most insulting, insufferable man she had ever met. She fought the urge to tell him so. Instead, she used her most clipped, professional voice as she said, “I’m sorry you can’t get past my looks and accept me as a person who is here to help you. I would like to be able to take credit for my looks, but I can’t. It’s nothing I achieved on my own. I happen to come from a couple of good-looking parents,” she informed him in a tight voice. Never mind that she didn’t look very much like either one of them. They were both blondes.

Her father had said her long black hair, almond-shaped midnight blue eyes and high cheekbones were a throwback to her French great-grandmother. Her full lips had come straight from her mother.

“Whatever,” he said, as if the subject bored him. “I’m not interested in participating in any study, or project, or anything else. I want to be left alone. I have a blocked stream I need to see to, so why don’t you leave?”

He couldn’t have made it any more clear, but Shannon wasn’t going to give up. She had dealt with pigheaded men before, though not ones who had insulted and infuriated her on their first meeting.

She ignored his invitation to depart. Instead, she plastered a cool smile on her face and said, “Water problems happen to be my area of expertise, among others. Why don’t I come along and help you solve it.”

“Because I don’t want you, Miss, uh, Kipper.”

“It’s Kelleher,” she corrected, speaking through her teeth. “Shannon Kelleher. Range conservation specialist.” She withdrew her card from the little pocket attached to the front of her clipboard and handed it to him.

“Kelleher,” he said quietly, as if he recognized her name. Reluctantly, he took the card she offered, his rough, callused fingers brushing hers as he did so. Shannon felt the warmth and texture of him, and for some reason, her eyes flew to his.

His gaze met hers with a steady assessment that she was startled to see was a little less disinterested than it had been a few minutes ago. For an instant, she thought he was seeing her as a person rather than a pretty face or an annoyance, but his eyelids flickered down, hiding his thoughts.

She couldn’t have explained the intense disappointment she felt.

Luke tucked the card into his pocket. “Fine. If I ever need a range management specialist, Miss Kelleher, I’ll be sure to call you,” he said in a when-hell-freezes-over tone of voice.

“How do you know you don’t need one now?” He started from the barn and she stalked after him.

“I’ve been ranching since before you were born. I don’t need you to tell me how to do it.”

Shannon seriously doubted the first part of that statement. In spite of his weathered skin and the lines that rayed out from the corners of his eyes, he didn’t appear to be much more than five years past her own twenty-seven. In the strong sunlight of the barnyard, she could see that his hair was a deep, rich brown, almost as dark as hers. It was thick, in need of a trim but untouched by gray. He ran his hand through it and settled his hat on his head.

“I’m not here to tell you how to ranch, but am I right in assuming you’re new to southern Colorado?”

He looked at her for a second as if weighing her question for hidden traps, then he nodded. “That’s right. I’m from Arizona. Near Tucson.”

She opened her hands wide. “There you go, then. We have different terrain, different climate, different plants, different water problems. I can help you learn about all of those things.”

He shook his head. “You’re as persistent as fleas on a dog’s belly, aren’t you?”

Shannon tucked her chin in and lifted her eyes to him ruefully. “Well, I’ve never heard it put quite that way, but I guess so.”

As they had been walking across the barnyard, he had been slapping his gloves across his palm. Now he tucked them into his waistband as he reached to untie a big roan gelding tethered to the corral fence. “Since it doesn’t look like I’m going to get rid of you, you can tag along.” He swung into the saddle. “But you’ll have to catch and saddle your own mount.” He gathered the reins and headed the gelding out of the yard.

“Aren’t you going to wait . . . ” she asked, then realized she was talking to the air. He spurred his horse with his heels and galloped away.

She slapped her clipboard against her thigh. “Of all the . . . ” He thought she wouldn’t catch and saddle her own mount, she thought furiously. He thought she couldn’t.

The light of challenge sparked in Shannon’s eyes. Little did he know. She watched to see which direction he had taken, then she whirled and raced to the tack room. She was dressed for riding in the clothes she usually wore to work, jeans, soft and snug from many wearings and washings, a long-sleeved shirt of pale yellow cotton, her sturdy boots and a woman’s cowboy hat. Nothing was going to stop her from following him.

In the tack room, she picked out a saddle blanket and a saddle and bridle, hoisted them onto her shoulder and started for the corral.

The swiftness of her movements made her head spin, and she had to stop for a second and catch her breath when dizziness swirled through her. Cursing the lingering infection that was still slowing her down, she picked out a nondescript brown mare with a wide chest and powerful legs. Bridle in hand, she eased into the corral and moved slowly and steadily forward. She spoke in the soft, quietly crooning tone her father had taught her and cornered the animal quickly.

She slipped the bit into the mare’s mouth, complimenting her on what a well-mannered young lady she was. “Unlike your owner,” Shannon muttered to the horse. “What is that man’s problem, anyway?”

The horse tossed her head as if to say she didn’t know, either, and Shannon laughed. Within a few minutes, she was mounted and heading across the fields after her reluctant host. She concentrated on the ride and quickly caught onto the mare’s smooth gait. Shannon was pleased with her choice. The horse’s easy stride didn’t jostle her head, which would have increased her dizziness. Leaning over the mare’s head, she urged her into a run.

It wasn’t long before she found Luke at the stream where it crossed over from his neighbor’s spread. It was a pretty spot, with a small line cabin nearby. Luke stood with his mount’s reins in his hand as he gazed across the fence.

He didn’t even turn when Shannon approached. She dismounted and led the mare to stand beside him. It wasn’t necessary to ask what the problem was, she could see it for herself.

They’d had a heavy rain the week before, along with lightning. A bolt must have hit a cottonwood tree that stood on the bank of the creek. It had been blasted in half. Branches had fallen into the creek, blocking the narrow channel. Water spread over the land, much of it evaporating in the heat before it could trickle into the path that fed water into Luke’s pond.

“That’s easy to fix,” Shannon said.

Luke glanced at her. “I have to wonder why it hasn’t been fixed before. Do you think my neighbor was hoping to keep all the water for himself?”

Yet again, Shannon stared at him. It was gradually dawning on her that this man’s rudeness to her wasn’t personal. He didn’t seem to like anybody.

“Your neighbor is Violet Beardsley. She’s a nice lady, a good neighbor. If she’d known about this blockage, she would have cleared it.” Shannon placed her foot on the bottom strand of barbed wire and grabbed the second strand, stretching a gap in the fence. “We can go through and clear it now. She won’t mind at all.”

Luke lifted a skeptical brow at her. “I have your word on that?”

“Certainly!”

He reached to hold the barbed wire. “Ladies first, then.”

His direct, challenging gaze made her wonder if he thought she was afraid to get dirty. Shannon took off her hat and tossed it lightly over the fence, where it landed rakishly on a sagebrush.

When she paused before ducking under the wire and looked at him, his hard mouth smiled grimly. “Don’t worry. I won’t let it go.”

Embarrassed because that was exactly what she had been thinking, Shannon crouched and scrambled through. She turned to hold the wire for him, then scooped up her hat and clapped it onto her head.

Luke walked to the stream and began wrestling the branch out of the way. Shannon hurried to help him, grabbing a branch and dragging it. Seeing the expression in his eyes made Shannon repeat to herself the question she’d asked the mare a little while before. What was this man’s problem?

She hoped her help would convince him of her good intentions, but she had to stop a couple of times and catch her breath when she bent over too quickly and her head spun. She hid it, though, not willing to let Luke see her showing weakness. Surreptitiously, she filled her cupped hands with some of the cool stream water and splashed it on her face to revive herself.

When they were finished and the water was once more flowing in its natural channel, they returned to Luke’s side of the fence.

Shannon immediately launched into a speech about the water table and the changes that had developed in the area over the years in the plants and grasses that grew on his ranch, about how last week’s rain had run off rather than soaked in.

Luke interrupted her. “That’s just fine, Miss Kelleher, but you’re wasting your breath. I—” He stopped and his eyes sharpened as if he’d just experienced a mental finger snap. “Kelleher. Now I remember. Gus Blackhawk said your family was the one that tried to buy this place, but he wouldn’t sell to you.”

“It wasn’t my family,” she said quickly. “It was two of my cousins, Ben and Tim Sills.”

“Blackhawk said none of you were too happy that he sold to me instead.”

“Mr. Blackhawk was exaggerating,” Shannon said, giving him a steady look. Ben and Tim had wanted the ranch badly. They’d pooled their money and borrowed from friends and family, but they’d come short of the asking price.

“So your visit here today has nothing to do with wanting to check out the man who bought this place from under your cousins’ noses? You’re not interested in trying to find out if I’ll turn right around and sell to them?”

“I’m here in my strictly professional capacity,” she answered tightly. “I already know some of the situation on this ranch. I can help. There are government grants available to you to help solve your water and grass problem.”

Luke’s jaw tightened. He leaned close, speaking slowly and clearly as if to insure there would be no misunderstanding. “Government money comes with government strings, Miss Kelleher, and no one is going to tell me how to run my ranch.”

She’d met this attitude before, but never quite so vehemently. She took a breath and tried to quell the anger that was simmering inside her. “I’m not, but there’s a unique opportunity here to do some good, to bring this place back to it’s natural state—”

“Which would probably be impossible with you government types stomping all over, sticking your noses into my business.”

“That’s not true. We only want to help.”

He stuck his face close to hers. “I’ve been on the receiving end of that kind of help before. I want no part of it.”

“You’re being completely unreasonable.” Frustrated, Shannon turned and gazed over his pasture. Her head spun again, and she widened her stance to maintain her balance. She closed her eyes for a moment until her head cleared.

Luke’s sharp gaze, didn’t miss her moment of weakness. His hand shot out to grasp her shoulder. “Is something wrong with you?”

“No,” she said testily, startled by his touch. “I’m fine.” She shrugged off his hand because it seemed to weigh as heavily as an anvil on her. She forced the dizziness back, and when it settled, she pointed across the field. “Look at that grass.”

“There’s plenty of it.”

“It’s brown and dry. No nutrition in it at all.”

“I can see that, but I have other fields.”

“How many cattle are you planning to run?”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” he answered in a harsh tone. “But I’ll probably start out with five hundred head.”

“Your other fields probably can’t support that. They’re not in much better shape than this one. This field was badly overgrazed by your good friend Gus Blackhawk,” she said, then could have bitten her tongue at the sharp words. She took a breath, lifted her chin and met his gaze. He was glaring at her. “It’s been standing idle for years, but the grass hasn’t come back. The deer and elk won’t even touch it. It needs serious, concentrated intervention to bring it back.”

“Which I can do on my own,” he insisted. “I told you already that I don’t need your help. What’s the point of owning a huge spread like this, having all this to run, to own, if I’m going to let you or anyone else come in and tell me what to do?”

His tone blew all her good intentions to the four winds. Shannon clapped her hands onto her hips. “You’re being impossibly stubborn! Take a look at this.” She bent to grab a handful of the dry grass to show him what she meant. She moved too quickly, though. Before she could prevent it, dizziness swirled through her, followed by blackness. With a soft groan, she folded up right at Luke Farraday’s boot tips.