Home on the Ranch: Colorado: Big City Cowboy / Colorado Cowboy. Julie Benson

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      I Love NY dug through her purse. A second later she handed him a Starbucks receipt and a pen. “Can I have your autograph?”

      He almost asked her if she was kidding, before the manners his mother had drilled into his thick skull kicked in. “I’d be happy to. What’s your name?”

      “Lindsay.”

      He wrote “To Lindsay, thanks for being my first fan,” and signed his name. This autograph stuff wasn’t so bad. He might even grow to like it. “You ladies from New York?”

      “We’re here on a girls’ vacation. We’re from Texas.”

      “I should’ve guessed that.” He pointed to the baseball cap.

      The other woman handed him a scrap of paper. “My name’s Judy.”

      He stood there trying to figure out something clever to write. Signing autographs was harder than a person would think unless he simply scrawled his name, or wrote something generic. He thought doing that was kind of a raw deal. Everybody liked to feel special. He finally settled on “Judy, enjoyed meeting you in NYC” and signed his name.

      When he looked up from the scrap of paper, a crowd of women had gathered and started tossing questions at him.

      “Are you married?”

      “No.” Someone else shoved paper and pen into his hand. “Who should I make—”

      “Seeing anyone?”

      An image of Lizzie flashed before his eyes. How insane was that? The last thing he needed was a relationship with another city woman. “Not right now.”

      He scrawled his name on the paper and held it out. To heck with making them feel special. He just wanted to get out of here. This many women, all focused on him, couldn’t be good. One woman was unpredictable—a gaggle of them downright scary.

      “Do you have any pictures?”

      “Not right—”

      “Do you live in New York?”

      These women could teach police interrogation classes.

      “I live in Colorado.”

      “Here’s my business card,” a tall blonde dressed in black pants and a blouse said. “Call me. We can go out to dinner.”

      “Would you like me to show you around the city? Here’s my business card.”

      Wonderful, he could start a collection. He managed to toss a smile in the general direction from which the card came.

      The circle around him grew tighter. He backed up, bumped into a woman and mumbled a quick apology. A tall redhead leaned toward him. “You and I could have a lot of fun. Let’s get out of here.”

      He considered telling her he was gay, just to get rid of her. But with the way his luck was going, she’d club him over the head and kidnap him to prove he wasn’t, that he just hadn’t met the right woman.

      Before he could answer, the ladies all started talking at once, creating quite a noise. To the general crowd he blurted out, “Excuse me, I’ve got to go.”

      But when he stepped forward to leave, the circle didn’t budge, and someone grabbed his arm. Fear shot through him. The women had him so surrounded that if he pulled away, he’d knock half of them down.

      He turned to the heavyset woman at his elbow and smiled. “Would you mind letting go of my arm? I’m thinking I might need it later today.”

      She leaned closer, and the bitter smell of coffee assailed him. “I’m from Littleton. Where in Colorado are you from?”

      “I’m from Estes Park.”

      Another woman grabbed his left arm. His fear spiked up a notch. “Ladies, if you don’t let go, you’re going to pull me apart like a wishbone.”

      “Only if you agree not to go anywhere.”

      Right now he’d agree to just about anything to get these two to free him. “I can stick around awhile.”

      Apparently satisfied with his promise to stay, the women released him.

      But when an escape route presented itself he’d be outta here faster than a jackrabbit with a coyote on its tail. Only who knew how long one would take to appear?

      Then someone pinched him on the ass. He jumped and spun around, looking for the guilty party, not quite sure what to do if he identified her.

      He drew the line at grabby women. His chest tightened and his heart banged painfully against his ribs. It was either him or them, because he couldn’t take this anymore. Deciding to call in reinforcements rather than trample the women as he broke free, he grabbed his cell phone and called Lizzie. “I need your help.”

      “What’s wrong?”

      A woman shoved a Wal-Mart receipt and a pen into his hand. “Will you sign an autograph for me?”

      “Do you have any pictures like the one on the billboard to sign?” someone else yelled. “I’d love one of those.”

      He tried to tune out the barrage of questions. “They’ve got me surrounded. You have to help me get back to the hotel.”

      “Who?”

      “What hotel are you staying at?” someone shouted at him.

      They could torture him for days, but no way would he give out that information.

      “Women have me surrounded,” he said, cupping his hand, still clutching the now sweaty pen and paper, around his ear in an attempt to hear better. “There’s a whole herd of them. They’re asking for my autograph. They’re asking if I have pictures like the billboard. I don’t know what to do, and they won’t let me leave.”

      “This is fantastic!”

      “No, it’s not.” A camera flash went off in his face, momentarily blinding him. Great. Now he was completely defenseless.

      “We have a few photos of the billboard shot. I’ll be there with them in ten minutes. This is exactly the kind of reaction we want.”

      “I’m glad one of us is happy, but you’d better get here sooner than ten minutes.”

      “Whatever you do, be nice. Keep people talking, and try to get them to stay. As often as you can, mention Devlin’s men’s jeans and that they’re available at department stores.”

      He was in the middle of a feeding frenzy, and Lizzie was worried about how often he mentioned the product? Didn’t her business mind ever take a day off?

      He and Griff had often fought over the last cookie in the jar. More often than not, the treat had ended up in pieces. Rory never dreamed he’d one day know how the cookie felt.

      * * *

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