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“Ride? On a horse?” She placed a hand against her chest, then dropped it the second she realized it drew his eyes to her body.
“I’ll drive over,” she said, “and meet you there.”
“No need. We can take the pickup truck if you don’t want to ride.”
“No,” she said, her voice shaky. “I’d rather not ride.” Not on your life.
Half an hour later, Amy sat in Hank’s dusty black pickup, checking out the details of this man’s life. A crack in the upholstery had been repaired with duct tape, gray against the black. In contrast, a top-of-the-line CD player shone through a coat of dust on the dashboard.
Amy noticed the cover of an audio book on the dashboard: Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. Wow, heavy reading. Amy had tried it once and hadn’t had the patience for it.
A rancher listening to Hawking? Hank?
Okay, Amy, back off on the prejudices.
As the truck bumped along, Amy felt like a sack of turnips, tossed around by the ruts of Hungry Hollow’s driveway.
Hank’s hand on the gearshift brushed her knee. The man radiated heat like an oven. Her fingers hurt from gripping the door handle to stay on her side of the truck, and still she could feel his heat.
It felt too good.
“I need to apologize to you for yelling,” Hank said above the noise of the truck as he geared down. “I don’t normally do that.”
“So Willie led me to believe.” Amy knew she sounded cool but didn’t care. The man had been unreasonable.
Hank nodded.
A bag of candy in the cup holder caught her eye and she picked it up. “Humbugs,” she cried.
“Yep. They’re my favorite.” Hank looked her way. “You like them?”
“I love them, but I don’t see them very often.”
“Help yourself. I get them in Ordinary, in a shop called Sweet Talk.” Hank steered the truck onto a dirt road with a house in the distance.
“You should take a drive into Ordinary,” he said. “It’s a real sweet little town, the lifeline for all of us ranchers in the district.”
Amy doubted she’d make it into town during this short visit. It had nothing to do with her job here.
After circling into the yard of a big old brick farmhouse, they pulled up in front of a corral teeming with men, horses and dust.
Amy felt the truck dip and lift as Hank stepped out, yelling, “Hey, Angus. What’s up?”
Angus, a dark-haired, fortysomething man with enough character in his face to make it more than handsome, shook Hank’s hand and swatted him on the arm loudly enough for Amy to hear from the open passenger window. Hank didn’t budge an inch. He tapped Angus on the shoulder, raising a cloud of dust from his shirt.
“The boys are practicing for the rodeo,” Angus said. “You here to do some bronc-bustin’?”
“Naw, not today. I’m just showing my guest around.”
Amy stepped out of the truck with her notebook in hand.
“Amy,” Hank said, “this is my neighbor, Angus Kinsey, from the Circle K on the other side of the Sheltering Arms. Angus, this is Amy Graves.”
Angus had a good, strong handshake, and a set of admiring eyes. They felt good on her. Amy smiled.
She wandered with the two men to the corral fence.
Hank leaned his arms across the top as more men congregated outside the corral, leaving a couple of men inside standing beside a small horse. None of them seemed to notice Amy, which was fine with her. She was here to observe them and the way things were done around here.
“So,” she asked, “you raise horses at Hungry Hollow?”
Hank turned her way. “Everyone around here owns and raises horses.” He shrugged. “They’re part of the ranching life.”
“Are they like cows? You raise them for their meat?”
Both Angus and Hank looked at her strangely. Amy wondered about the crafty gleam in Hank’s eye.
“No, we don’t sell horses for meat—” Angus would have said more, but Hank cut him off.
“We raise them for glue.”
Glue, my rear end, she thought. You’re making fun of the city slicker. Two can play that game. She flipped open her notebook and retrieved a pen from her pocket.
“How much do you get per horse? Do you sell them by the pound? What part produces glue?” She shivered—it was a gory subject—but if Hank wanted to make a mockery of this visit, she’d accommodate him.
It was Hank’s turn to stare at her with his jaw gaping. His dark brown eyes widened.
She grinned, meanly, and said, “Gotcha.”
Angus laughed and slapped Hank’s back.
“Seriously,” she said, glad to have rattled him, “do you raise the horses to sell?”
“The truth is,” Hank said in a chagrined voice, “we raise most of our horses to work, but we also keep a special set for rodeo.”
The horse in the center of the corral whickered and tried to pull away from the cowboy who was restraining him, but the man held on tight.
Hank nodded toward the horse. “That looks like the Circle K’s Rusty.”
“It is,” Angus said.
“He’s a mean one.” Hank sounded anything but stern. He sounded proud. “Who’s getting up on him first?”
“Heel.”
“That the new guy?”
“Yup.”
“Let’s see what he can do.” Hank leaned forward, his body straining toward the action on the other side of the fence.
When the rider mounted the horse, Amy watched a flash of excitement light Hank’s face. The men started to cheer. The rider held on to the reins with one hand as the horse bucked and reared, trying to unseat him.
“That’s a chiropractor’s worst nightmare,” Amy shouted above the roar of the men, shaking her head.
Hank looked at her, his sparkling eyes alight with fun, like a kid’s.
Amy noticed all the men looked like a bunch of overgrown, overexcited boys.
Heel flew from the horse, slamming to the ground in a cloud of dust, and all the men groaned. In a split second, he was on his feet, cursing, then laughing, retrieving his hat and setting it back onto his head. Tough guy.
“Exhilarating,” Hank murmured.
“We should look at the rest of the ranch now,” Amy said, leaning close to Hank.
He nodded but didn’t answer, keeping his gaze on the horse.
One of the cowboys got the bronc back under control. “You want to try him next?” Angus asked Hank.
Hank set one hand on top of the chest-high fence, one foot on the second rail, and vaulted over it, looking like a six-year-old who’d gotten his first pair of skates for Christmas.
“Hey, we’re supposed to be here on business,” Amy called, but he either didn’t hear her or chose to ignore her.
The bronco stood with his legs locked while Hank mounted him. As the horse reared, Hank held on to the reins with one hand, and let the other arm fly straight and high above his head.
The horse bucked.
Amy expected him to fall off. He didn’t. She held her breath.
“Hoooooeeeee,” one of the cowboys sang.
“Ride him, Hank,” another yelled.
Amy watched his muscular body get tossed around like a feather on the horse’s back, and she felt a stirring of fear in her belly.
Hank anticipated the horse’s every move, his big thighs gripping the animal’s sides. The horse dipped, he dipped. The horse reared, he followed, his expression fierce.
In spite of herself, Amy watched in fascination. Excitement replaced her fear.
As the crowd cheered and the bronco’s hooves pounded, Hank jumped from the animal’s back. The bronc ran to the opposite side of the corral, then stood with sides heaving like leathery bellows.
Amy stared at Hank. He seemed barely winded. Picking up his dirty white Stetson from the dry ground, he rapped it against his thigh and set it on his head, a broad grin creasing his face.
Her knees got weak. There he went again with that magical smile.
Hank crossed the corral toward Amy, his stride long and confident—in his element, like a cowboy of old, taming beasts and all obstacles.
When he looked at her, Hank’s step faltered. He stared at her with a heat that might, just might, match her own.
When he reached her, he leaned close and whispered, “You okay?”
The men in the corral and lining the fence turned as one to watch her. Amy stared back. Young and old, tall and short, handsome and homely, every one of them had one thing in common with Hank—a lean, stringy strength earned through hard labor.
They surrounded her, nudging Hank out of the way, all speaking at once.
“Well, look here.”
“You new to these parts?”
“Hey, ma’am, I’m Ash.”
“Aren’t you a beauty?”
Did people really say those things in the twenty-first century? Still, in spite of their testosterone-driven competition and manly posturing to get her attention, these men charmed her.
Then Hank gripped her elbow hard and pulled her toward the truck.
“But, I—” She peered over her shoulder at the men who smiled and waved to her.
“We have to get back to those kids,” he grumbled.
She resisted his pull. “But I—”
“We’re out of time. Need to get home.”
Amy dug in her heels. “We’re here to check out the business. I’m not leaving until we do.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“WHOA, HANK,” Angus called. “Not so fast. If Ms. Graves wants to hang out for a while, we’d be happy to entertain her.” He approached, took Amy’s elbow and led her toward the corral.
Angus’s eyes sparkled when he looked down at Amy. She smiled up at him.
Hank choked. For a peace-loving man, which he most certainly was, he was strongly tempted to rearrange Angus’s charming face.
“I’m about ready to practice my rope tricks,” young Ty Walker yelled from across the yard, his smile wide and hokey. “Amy can watch.”
Someone should tell him he looks goofy when he smiles like that, Hank thought. Like a lovesick moose.
“I can drive her home later if you want, Hank,” Hip said.
Over my dead body, Hank thought, and stood beside Amy.
Ty picked up a rope and tied a honda, then passed the plain end through the honda to make a loop. He started to spin it nice and slow. Like any cowboy worth his salt, he spun and worked the rope to an impressive four-foot loop, which he tossed over his head and down his body until it spun around his waist.
Ty smiled his goofy grin while he watched Amy. She clapped and laughed, her pretty smile sparkling in the sun.
Angus put a hand on her shoulder, a hand that would be broken in about two seconds if he wasn’t careful. Hank’s mind was turning to violence at every turn.
