A Cowboy's Angel. Pamela Britton

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      Chapter Three

      She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

      Mariah ran back to her car while he finished up with the pasture horses. With any luck, she’d have gained control of her emotions by the time they met up again, at least she hoped so, anyway, as she pulled to a stop in front of his home. She found herself pausing for a moment after reaching between the passenger seat and driver’s seat and grabbing a brown bag with her hors d’oeuvres.

      She peered out the front windshield in curiosity. His home was gorgeous. A real showplace. Absolutely nothing of the original ranch remained. The outside consisted of three A-frames that sat side by side, with the middle portion bigger than the rest. Redwood siding complemented the massive windows along the front. The landscaping alone had to have cost 100 grand.

      When she opened the car door and stepped outside, she could smell the redwood mulch used to line the planters of the gardens.

      At least she didn’t smell him anymore.

      He’d told her to go on inside, but it still felt odd to open one of the double doors.

      “Wow.”

      Okay. There was nice, and then there was niiiice. Cavernous didn’t begin to describe the place. Huge beams supported the middle-section roofline—like the rib cage of a dinosaur. A parquet floor stretched from the fireplace on her right to the entertainment center on her left. Straight ahead a trio of windows overlooked the backside of the ranch with a stunning view of low-lying mountains outside.

      “Must be nice,” she heard herself mutter, heading to the left, where she could see the gleam of state-of-the-art kitchen appliances. After vet school she’d inherited a pile of debt and a liability insurance policy the size of a mortgage. It was why she didn’t have her own practice. Not yet, anyway. By the time she made her student loan payment and paid the rent and insurance, not to mention a medical truck payment, she’d be lucky to clear five hundred dollars a month, not enough to live off, and certainly not enough to start her own business. Getting hired by an established vet—someone who could split expenses with her—was the first step toward that happening. And so she waited, and in the meantime she filled in for vacationing veterinarians whenever she could, which wasn’t nearly as often as she needed. Thus the old jalopy outside.

      The kitchen was just as spacious and grandiose as the foyer. Stainless-steel everything, light brown countertops with spots like quail eggs, tile on the floor instead of parquet. She set the bag down on the island in the middle, almost afraid to make a mess. If this was being small-time, where did she sign up?

      Five minutes later she had just finished stirring the Parmesan cheese into her spinach dip when she heard the front door open.

      Oh, dear.

      Two seconds later he walked into the kitchen, the smell of him reaching her before he did: it wasn’t shavings she’d smelled on him earlier, but some kind of fresh-cut grass and sweat and some sort of pine-scented aftershave that had caused her just as much discomfort inside as it had outside.

      “Whatever that is, it looks delicious.” He cocked his cowboy hat back a bit and peered into the dish. “What is it?”

      He was tall. She liked tall men. They made her feel feminine and secure and somehow safe.

      He’s a racehorse owner, the sane part of her screamed. Heck, and a horse trainer, too.

      But he’d agreed to let her help him. That meant something.

      “It’s cheesy spinach dip.” She tried like heck not to edge away from him, but she could feel the heat radiate off of him, which, in turn, made her feel flush. “There’s enough calories in that to clog an artery or two.”

      He leaned down close to her, so close she could see the dark blue ring around his eyes. “You trying to kill me, then?”

      He could have no way of knowing how just being next to him was killing her. No way at all, but she could have sworn she saw the glimmer of something in his eyes, something that made her skin prickle.

      “It’s СКАЧАТЬ