High Country Hideout. Elle James
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Название: High Country Hideout
Автор: Elle James
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Covert Cowboys, Inc.
isbn: 9781474005500
isbn:
Angus glanced across at the boy. “I don’t know. What is a real cowboy?”
The boy promptly answered, “A man who wears a cowboy hat and rides a horse.”
Angus glanced at the cowboy hat sitting on the workbench beside him. “That’s my hat.”
The boy considered the hat and then Angus. “Do you ride horses?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you must be a cowboy.”
“I guess you have a point.” Angus set the rag and oil aside and replaced the saddle on the saddletree. “Does your mother know where you are?”
The boy shrugged. “I come out here all the time.”
“In the dark?”
He dipped his head. “No, but I know my way back.”
“How about you and I go back together?”
The boy seemed to think about it and then raised his hand.
Angus captured the hand in his, marveling at how small and trusting the child was. Unused to small children, Angus held the boy’s hand, swallowing the tiny fingers with his own.
“Have you had supper yet?” Angus asked.
“No, sir. Mrs. Jo asked me to come get you. It’s almost six o’clock.”
“Then we’d better get going or we’ll be late for dinner.”
They exited the barn together, Angus closing the door behind them.
“What’s your name?” the boy asked as he walked alongside Angus, trying to match his short strides to Angus’s longer ones.
“Angus.”
“Angus.” The boy tipped his head. “Isn’t that a cow?”
Angus grinned. “A kind of cow.”
Nodding, the boy trotted along a little farther before saying, “My name is Tad.”
“Nice to meet you, Tad.”
He had to admit, a strange feeling came over him as he walked with the boy at his side. It felt right. How, he didn’t know. But he liked answering the boy’s questions. The kid was polite, curious and instilled powerful protective instincts in Angus.
The child had pluck. He didn’t ask Angus to slow down, taking three steps for every one of Angus’s long, if gimpy, strides.
When they finally reached the porch, the boy ran up the steps and turned to face him. “Could you teach me how to ride a horse like a cowboy?”
“I could,” he said, wondering what his mother would say about him promising to teach the boy to ride.
As he mounted the steps, Angus’s brows furrowed.
A woman, a kid and two old people on their own on a ranch in the hills. And someone had planted a snake where the woman was bound to ride. Although it was a fake snake, it had accomplished its mission. The horse had spooked, the rider had fallen. Whether it was a practical joke or had malicious connotations was pure conjecture.
CW seemed a pretty down-to-earth old man. He would not have called his old friend Hank for help if he wasn’t convinced Reggie Davis was in trouble.
Angus’s gut told him the situation bore watching. Even a man with only one good leg would be better than no one. But he would put in a call to the head of Covert Cowboys Inc. Reggie and her small son deserved someone more capable of taking care of them.
Reggie had stripped in the mudroom, wrapped a towel around herself and headed through the house to shower. All the while her mind drifted back to the man in the barn and the way her body still felt after simply brushing up against him.
Naked beneath the towel, her breasts tightened. Jo and CW had insisted on the new ranch hand staying in the house. The older couple had a small cabin nearby, which meant they wouldn’t be around at night should she need help.
What if she ran into him in the hallway when she was only wearing a towel?
Her body burned at the thought. Holy hell, she was lusting after a stranger. How could she, when her husband had only been gone a year?
She entered the master bedroom and closed the door. Riffling through a drawer, she unearthed clean underwear. If they happened to be her best, black-lace bikini panties, that was only because all her cotton underwear were in the wash.
Once in the master bathroom, she dropped her clothing on the counter and switched on the water, adjusting it to hot. When she faced herself in the mirror, she almost laughed out loud.
Though her body was somewhat clean, her jeans and shirt taking the brunt of the mud bath, her face was smudged with mud, some of it drying. Her hair stood on end, caked in mud. And to think, she’d been having lusty thoughts about the new ranch hand.
Covered in mud, she looked more like a pig in a poke than a young, beautiful and desirable woman. Not that she wanted him to desire her. No, sir. She was far from ready to reenter the dating pool. With a struggling ranch to run and a son to raise, she had her hands full.
Reggie stepped into the shower and eased beneath the hot spray. After a good soaking, she poured a heaping helping of shampoo into her palm and scrubbed her hair. Using a fresh washcloth, she scrubbed her face, arms and body and finally felt clean of mud and manure. And she smelled more like a woman than the horse she’d ridden in on.
Of course it was purely for personal hygiene, not a desire to prove she was an attractive woman beneath the jeans and dirt.
She stepped out onto the mat and dried off. She’d shared this bathroom with Ted. It was spacious, with a tub big enough for two people. They’d shared many baths in that tub, learning to love each other, spending time together even after a hard day’s work.
Their life together had been going so well. Why did he have to die?
A hard lump settled in her chest, but she’d already spent all her tears. The fact was, Ted was gone and she’d been left behind to take care of their son. If she could manage to keep up with the ranch his father had left for him. Ted’s life insurance had paid off the land, now all she had to do was make the land support them.
And that was the biggest test of all. Raising cattle in the Rockies was iffy at best. The cold winters and the crazy amounts of snow made every day a challenge. If they lived closer to a city, Reggie could go to work and support them, but Fool’s Fortune was so small. Most jobs consisted of selling real estate to the wealthy people from Denver and serving those wealthy people in the bars, diners and souvenir shops in town when they came to the mountains for vacations.
They’d been lucky so far this winter. The snows had held off. And a good thing, too, since the cattle had spread all up in the hills, and getting СКАЧАТЬ