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That Wild Cowboy
Lenora Worth
It was just a kiss Producer Victoria Calhoun couldn't care less that famous strut-his-stuff cowboy Clint Griffin doesn't remember her. Or the kiss they shared. And she really doesn't care that he didn't call her afterward. Seriously, the kiss meant that much to her, too.Still, all that history makes working with him awkward–if you call it work, watching him parade around on her reality TV show. Clint seems to be trying to convince her he's much more than his swagger. But she definitely won't be falling for his charms again…even if the way he looks at her makes her want to believe him. She'll do her job and get out with her heart firmly in hand. Too bad her heart seems to have its own ideas….
It was just a kiss…
Producer Victoria Calhoun couldn’t care less that famous cowboy Clint Griffin doesn’t even remember it. The kiss meant that much to her, too. And all that baggage doesn’t mean she has to like working with him—if you can call it work, watching him parade around on her reality TV show. She won’t fall for his charms again, even if Clint is trying to convince her he’s much more than his swagger. Even if the way he looks at her makes her want to believe him. She’ll do her job and get out with her heart intact. Her heart, though, seems to have its own ideas….
Young or old, Clint Griffin still had it
Victoria tried to compare this man to the young cowboy who’d messed with her head all those years ago. No matter how she looked at him, he really did still have it.
But she hadn’t come here to gawk.
“No, no.” She pulled her hand and the camcorder away before he could grab it. “That’s not how this works, Mr. Griffin.”
“Call me Clint and come on in.”
Victoria wondered at the sanity of entering this house without her crew, the sanity of making any kind of deal with this man, verbal or otherwise. Would she come out later all giggly and dazed like the woman who’d just left?
A forbidden image shot through her sensibilities.
Job, Victoria. You need this job, remember? Her boss had hinted at a nice salary change if she nabbed Clint Griffin.
“I’ll wait for you to…uh…get dressed so we can talk.”
He looked down and let out a laugh. “Mercy me, I am half-nekked. Sorry about that.”
He didn’t look sorry, not the least little bit.
Dear Reader,
I’m so happy to see this story in print. We all love cowboys, and although they might change through the centuries, they will never go out of style. I think it has to do with their code of honor (even when they act like rascals) and their need to take care of everyone around them, especially “helpless” women.
My cowboy is a Casanova, but underneath that playful, good-time exterior, he has a heart of gold…and that heart is hurting. He’s acting out because of something that happened in his youth, something he never quite got over. But my heroine will show him the path to happy trails. It will take a lot more than a Texas-style reality show to bring these two together. For once in his life, Clint doesn’t know how to handle a woman. Victoria becomes his biggest challenge. But allowing her to bring in a television team to shoot a reality show might be his undoing, since being a star brings him all kinds of unwanted attention. Clint knows some secrets need to remain buried.
One thing I love about this story is the gift of a big, lovable, fighting family. Clint loves his family, but they sometimes drive him crazy. He’s the man of the house and he’s trying to please too many women. When he meets Victoria, he’s shocked to find her so refreshing and down-to-earth. He feels comfortable with her, almost too comfortable. Victoria is uncomfortable around him, since she’s been burned by more than one cowboy, but she soon falls for all that charm. Victoria can see in Clint what everyone else has missed. He’s not just a Casanova. He’s a good, gentle, loving cowboy with a big heart.
I hope you enjoy Clint and Victoria’s story. I had a great time bringing these two together.
Lenora Worth
That Wild Cowboy
Lenora Worth
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LENORA WORTH has written more than forty books for three different publishers. Her career with Love Inspired Books spans close to fifteen years. In February 2011, her Love Inspired Suspense novel Body of Evidence made the New York Times bestseller list. Her very first Love Inspired title, The Wedding Quilt, won Affaire de Coeur’s Best Inspirational for 1997, and Logan’s Child won an RT Book Reviews Best Love Inspired for 1998. With millions of books in print, Lenora continues to write for the Love Inspired and Love Inspired Suspense lines. Lenora also wrote a weekly opinion column for the local paper and worked freelance for years with a local magazine. She has now turned to full-time fiction writing and enjoying adventures with her retired husband, Don. Married for thirty-six years, they have two grown children. Lenora enjoys writing, reading and shopping…especially shoe shopping.
To my nephew Jeremy Smith, who has become a true cowboy.
Happy trails, Jeremy :)
Contents
Chapter One (#u317c8fc3-a77d-55e4-88fc-8001ffcc85a6)
Chapter Two (#uc83912f6-6e3d-5d2c-b13b-aaecb2a1c26d)
Chapter Three (#ua70ae479-e5fb-5129-8a8f-52a9f7d987de)
Chapter Four (#uc6497894-ec7c-5e08-8b63-11cbbd53a701)
Chapter Five (#u86c817e4-8f63-5732-a3df-a3fe90b48067)
Chapter Six (#u4aa130ab-e92e-551b-8a58-c7a6b81744ae)
Chapter Seven (#u7c51c5ab-c60b-5765-ba39-69ed46048835)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
THIS WAS A bad idea on so many levels.
Victoria Calhoun stared up at the swanky stone-faced McMansion and wondered why she somehow managed to get all the fun jobs. Did she really want to march up to those giant glass doors and ring the bell? Or should she run away while she still had the chance? She really hated dealing with cowboys.
Especially the rhinestone kind.
Especially the kind that got drunk in a bar and kissed a very sober, very wallflower-type of girl and didn’t even remember it later.
Yeah, that kind.
But it had been a few years since that night in downtown Fort Worth. He hadn’t remembered her then and he wouldn’t remember her now. They’d danced, had some laughs and shared some hot kisses in a corner booth and then, poof, he’d moved on. Like two minutes later.
I’ve moved on, too. Enough that I don’t have to stoop to this just because some sexy, sloshed cowboy kissed me and left me in a bar.
Victoria decided she was pathetic and she needed to leave. She’d have to make some excuse to Samuel but her boss would understand. Wouldn’t he?
In the next minute, the decision was made for her. The doors burst open and a leggy blonde woman spilled out onto the porch while she also spilled out of the tight jeans and low-cut blouse she was wearing. The blonde giggled then started down the steps to the curving driveway, but turned and giggled her way back to the man who stood at the door watching her.
The man wore a black Stetson—of course—a bathrobe and...black cowboy boots with the Griffin brand, the winged protector, inlaid in deep rich tan across the shafts. It looked like that might be all he was wearing.
Guess if you lived on a five-thousand-acre spread west of Dallas, you could pretty much wear what you wanted.
Victoria wanted to turn and leave but the sound of her producer’s voice in her head held her back. “V.C., we need this one,” he’d said. “The network’s not doing so great. The ratings are down and that means the revenues are, too. Sponsors are pulling away left and right on other shows and soon the bigwigs will be cutting shows. The ratings will go off the charts if we nab Clint Griffin. He’s the hottest thing since Red Bull. Go out there and get me some footage to show our sponsors, while I keep pushing things with his manager and all the bothersome lawyers.”
So Samuel wanted some good footage? After trying to make an appointment by leaving several voice messages, Victoria had decided to do her job the old-fashioned way—by using the element of surprise. Since this was just a little recon trip and not the real deal, she could have some fun with it. She lifted the tiny handheld camcorder and hit the on button. And got a sweet, sloppy goodbye kiss between Blondie and Cowboy Casanova that should make Samuel and the sponsors, not to mention red-blooded women all over the world, sit up and take notice.
She remembered those lips and the way he pulled a woman toward him with a daring look in his enticing eyes. Remembered and now, filmed it. Revenge could be so sweet.
Blondie giggled her way to her convertible, completely ignoring Victoria as she breezed by. Clint Griffin stood with a grin on his handsome face. He waved to Blondie and didn’t notice Victoria standing underneath a towering, twisted live oak.
“You come back anytime now, darlin’, okay!”
Victoria rolled her eyes and kept filming. Until she got closer and saw that the cowboy in the bathrobe was staring down at her.
“Hello, there, sweetheart,” he said, his steel-gray eyes centered on his close-up. “Who are you? TMZ, Extra, Entertainment Tonight? Oh, wait, CMT, right?”
Victoria stopped recording and held out her hand, both relief and disappointment filtering through her sigh. “I’m Victoria Calhoun. I’m from the television show Cowboys, Cadillacs and Cattle Drives. We’re part of the Reality Network.”
Clint Griffin lifted his hat to reveal a head full of light brown curls streaked with gold and then took her hand and held it too long. “TRN? Get outta here. Did my manager send you as some kind of joke? ’Cause I’m pretty sure I told that fellow on the phone the other day that I’m not interested.”
Obviously, he didn’t have an inkling of ever being around her or kissing her in a bar long ago. Or maybe his whiskey-soaked brain had lost those particular memory cells. Good. That would make this a lot more fun and a whole lot easier.
Yanking back her hand, Victoria wanted to shout that he was the joke, but she needed this job to pay for her single-and-so-glad lifestyle. “No joke, Mr. Griffin. My producers want to do a few episodes about you. But then, you obviously already know that, since our people have been trying to negotiate with your people for weeks now.”
“So I hear,” he replied, his quicksilver eyes sliding over her with the slowness of mercury. Probably just as lethal, too.
Forever grateful that he’d tightened the belt on his robe, Victoria waited while he put his hat back on his head and walked down another step and stared right into her eyes. “Honey, you’re too pretty to be on that side of the camera.” He reached for her recorder. “Why don’t you let me film you?”
His teeth glistened a perfect white against the springtime sunshine while his gray eyes looked like weathered wood. His thick brown-gold hair curled along his neck and twisted out around the big cowboy hat. The man had the looks. She’d give him that. Even in an old bathrobe and just out of bed, he oozed testosterone from every pore. And his biceps bulged nicely against that frayed terry cloth.
Angry that he looked even better with that bit of wear surrounding him like hot red-pepper seasoning, Victoria tried to compare this man to the young cowboy who’d messed with her head all those years ago. Young or old, Clint Griffin still had it.
But she didn’t come here to gawk.
“No, no.” She pulled her hand and the camcorder away before he could grab it. “That’s not how this works, Mr. Griffin.”
“Call me Clint and come on in.”
Victoria wondered at the sanity of entering this house without her crew, the sanity of making any kind of deal with this man, verbal or otherwise. Would she come out later, all giggly and dazed like the woman who’d just left?
A forbidden image shot through her sensibilities.
Job, Victoria. You need this job, remember? Her boss had hinted at a nice salary change if she nabbed Clint Griffin.
“I’ll wait for you to...uh...get dressed so we can talk.”
He looked down and let out a laugh. “Mercy me, I am half-nekked. Sorry about that.”
He didn’t look sorry, not the least little bit.
His cowboy charm grated on her big-city nerves like barbed wire hitting against a skyscraper window. “It’s okay. I did kind of sneak up on you. But I did try to call first. Several times.”
“Did you? I’ll have to find my phone and check my messages. Been kind of out of commission for a few weeks.” He grinned at that. “That’s me, I mean, out of commission. The phone works just fine. If I can keep up with it.”
She knew all about him being out of commission but she figured he had his phone nearby at all times. His life was in all the tabloids. Rodeo hero parties too hard and gets arrested after a brawl in a Fort Worth nightclub. A brawl that involved a woman, of course. Apparently, his phone wasn’t the only thing he didn’t bother to check. Rumor had it if he didn’t check his temper and his bad attitude, he’d lose out on a lot of things. One of them being this ranch.
What a cliché of a cowboy.
He motioned her inside. The foyer was as expected—as tall as a mountain peak, as vast as a field of wheat. But the paintings that graced the walls were surprising. A mixture of quirky modern art along with what looked to be serious masterpieces. And here she’d thought the man didn’t know art from a postcard.
Maybe someone else had picked these out.
