The Cowboy And The Debutante. Stella Bagwell

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      She was already wearing a heavy, lined jean jacket to protect her against the early-morning coolness, and she could find a pair of chaps in the tack room. Anything else she might need would be on the chuck wagon.

      “No. I think I’ll saddle Ginger and head out to the roundup.” She glanced at Miguel who was still studying her with faint skepticism. “But you don’t have to wait for me, Miguel. Just tell me the area where you’ll be and I’ll catch up.”

      “There’s no hurry. I have a few things to take care of here at the ranch yard before I leave. I’ll find you when I’m ready.”

      To keep insisting he go on without her would be rude, Anna decided. And it was obvious he was going out of his way to please her mother. Oh, Lord, what was she letting herself in for? she wondered.

      “Fine. It won’t take me long to saddle Ginger,” she told him.

      Chloe chuckled softly as the two women headed on down the alleyway between the two endless rows of horse stalls. “I figured once I said ‘groom the yearlings’ you’d decide pretty quick you wanted to head out on the roundup.”

      “Mother!” Anna hissed under her breath, even though they were clearly out of Miguel’s earshot. “Why did you do that to me?”

      Chloe shot her daughter an innocent look. “Do what, honey?”

      Anna groaned. “You know what! You practically threw me at that man! Mother, he isn’t Lester!”

      “No. He certainly isn’t. He’s far younger and a lot better looking, don’t you think?”

      Sighing, Anna shook her head with disbelief. “If you’re trying to do a bit of matchmaking here, Mother, you need to open your eyes and see Miguel Chavez is at least ten years older than me. Probably more.”

      Chloe’s green eyes twinkled mischievously. “So what does age have to do with anything? Besides, I’m not doing any sort of matchmaking. Why would I be, when you keep insisting you’re off men forever?”

      The two of them had reached Ginger’s stall. Anna reached for the nylon lead rope hanging on the outside of the door.

      “Mother, you’re being deliberately obtuse and you know it.”

      “Oh, Lord, Anna, you’re being overly sensitive, aren’t you? I merely thought you’d enjoy going on roundup today. It’s your first week back home. I want you to loosen up and quit all this fretting about trivial things.”

      Trivial! Her reaction to Miguel Chavez was anything but trivial, Anna thought as she watched her mother’s swinging stride carry her on to the tack room. But she would deal with it, she told herself fiercely. She wasn’t about to let the man ruin her much-needed vacation.

      Twenty minutes later Anna was ready and waiting with her paint mare outside the horse barn. She’d found a pair of fringed chaps she used to wear during her teenaged days when she’d helped her mother gallop the racehorses. Anna had added on a bit of weight since that time, but she managed to zip the tan leather around her legs. Hopefully once she had them on for a while, the leather would stretch. In any case, she wouldn’t ride in the brush without chaps. She knew from experience what a patch of prickly pear or choya cactus could do to a person’s unprotected legs.

      She was doing a few squats, trying to gain her legs a bit of breathing space when a male voice suddenly sounded behind her.

      “Are you doing your morning aerobics or trying to teach Ginger a new trick?”

      Gasping with surprise, Anna whirled around to see Miguel standing a few feet away, a sorrel quietly waiting beside his shoulder

      “Oh!” Lifting her chin, she tugged at the hem of her jacket but it was far too short to hide anything. “I...uh, these are my old chaps and I’ve grown a little since I last had them on.”

      The grin on his face deepened, and Anna could feel her cheeks getting redder. This wasn’t the way she wanted to start her day. She’d left one lecherous man behind. Yet here she was looking at another one as though he was the grandest thing to come along since sliced bread. She wished she could kick herself.

      “You must have been a skinny little thing,” he observed.

      His eyes slid pointedly up and down the length of her, and Anna had never felt so stripped and naked in all her life. Which was crazy. She was covered with several layers of clothing!

      Desperate to put a halt to the whole ridiculous encounter, Anna tossed the reins over Ginger’s head and swung herself up and into the saddle.

      “Don’t worry. The wind won’t blow me off if I gallop.”

      A nylon lariat was coiled around her saddle horn, and a slicker and saddle bags were tied to the skirt of the saddle. If she was a greenhorn she was doing a good job of faking it. Still, Miguel found it hard to believe the soft slender woman sitting astride the paint was little more than a flighty musician, a pampered debutante.

      Whether Miss Anna Sanders was capable of being a cowgirl or not, Miguel would grit his teeth and put up with her today. For Chloe’s sake. But tomorrow she’d be on her own. He was a ranch foreman, not a baby-sitter or social director.

      “That’s good to know, Anna. Hopefully we won’t have to gallop.”

      Bemused, Anna watched him swing up into the sorrel’s saddle. Was the man insulting her, teasing her, or was he actually serious? His smooth expression left her without a clue.

      The two of them eased their mounts out of the ranch yard, past the last of the cattle pens, then east toward the river.

      Anna said nothing as she rode stirrup to stirrup with Miguel Chavez. But her lack of conversation wasn’t a personal affront to the man. When she was riding the range, she was always entranced by the sights and sounds around her. And it had been so long since she’d been out of doors, away from the pressures of her job.

      “Your sister, Ivy, rarely rides whenever she’s home. I don’t believe she feels very safe around horses.”

      She glanced at him. “You’ve met Ivy?”

      He nodded. “She’s more like her father, I think.”

      Anna smiled briefly. “I expect so. Daddy never had an affinity for horseflesh.”

      “Your father is a very good man.”

      It pleased her to know this man appreciated her family. “Yes. Very.”

      The two of them crossed the stirrup-deep river, then headed toward the base of the mountain. As they rode, Anna stole glimpses of Miguel Chavez from the corner of her eye. He rose with the ease of a man long accustomed to the saddle, and as she covertly studied him, she couldn’t help but think of all her mother had said about him yesterday.

      He’d been married once. A long time ago. And he didn’t date. Why? Anna wondered. It couldn’t be for a lack of willing females. She suspected the man could crook his finger at most any woman, and she’d come running. Except herself, of course.

      “Do you have a family, Miguel?”

      “Not СКАЧАТЬ