A Cowboy in Disguise (16 page)

“Come on,” he yelled as he started to run on the slippery surface.

Alexandra planted her feet firmly on the ice and moved her legs almost as if she were cross-country skiing. Faster and faster she ran across the ice, but try as she might, Scott’s long, muscular legs carried him a few yards beyond catching up to him.

As she ran, she crossed over fluffy bunches of cream-colored stuff where the velvety brown cattails had broken open along the banks. The slick ice took on a light greenish tone under her feet, and here and there she had to dodge a hard brown lump where a rock poked through.

“Wait, wait,” she cried out with a laugh and stopped to catch her breath.

Scott circled back to her. The crisp air stained his cheeks with hint of red and added a sparkle to his stunning blue eyes. “You’ve been behind a computer for too long. Getting soft.”

“I’ll show you soft,” she teased as she cut in front of him to throw him off balance. In a flash, she was off ahead of Scott, leaving him to watch her in amazement. Just as she had been surprised to find a rancher lurking behind his corporate image, he couldn’t believe who he had discovered hiding behind hers. This woman racing ahead of him on the ice seemed to fit with ease into the strange mixture of his life. He would never have guessed it that day on the freeway. He’d never known a woman accustomed to silk who seemed to thrive out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by broken cattails and calf slobber.

“You cheat!” Scott caught up with her after a minute. “Wait up a second. I forgot to mention something,” he said as he gazed down in to her shining, emerald eyes. “Damn if just looking at you isn’t going to be my undoing.” When Alexandra looked startled, Scott realized he had spoken his thought aloud. He certainly hadn’t meant to.

“That’s what you forgot to mention?”

His voice deepened. “A little more than an hour away from here, there’s going to be an area get-together tonight.”

“A get-together?”

“We have the same one every year just before the holidays. The whole party is held in the middle of a field outside town. There’s usually a big bonfire, food set up on all the tailgates. They string Christmas lights up along the fences. A stage is set up with a different band every year so people can dance. People line up different craft booths along the edges. It looks a little like a holiday carnival.”

“It sounds fun. I haven’t been to something like that in—ever.”

“I know it’s no ritzy Rio Safari gala, but I thought you might like to go with me. With us, I mean—the whole family’s going.”

Alexandra smiled to herself. She’d already had the chance to watch Scott don a tuxedo and mingle with the elite. He’d ballroom danced, sipped champagne, courted clients and sat through a long night with her in the emergency room. Still, she wondered how he’d look in jeans and a sweater doing some sort of country dancing by bonfire light. The image seemed simple enough, but Alexandra thought it might be fun to guess which world Scott Falconer fit into better—corporate or countryside. Would she be able to tell?

She only said, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

•

Alexandra and the entire Falconer family piled into a big Suburban just as the sunlight started to fade, and bounced along for well over an hour until the glow of an enormous bonfire came into view. She suspected they were closer to Helena again than they were to the ranch, but this far out in the country at night, she couldn’t tell for sure.

Alexandra sat behind Mr. Falconer as he drove. From her position, she could watch Scott sitting in the passenger seat talking and laughing with his father. She almost laughed out loud as she remembered everything Sarah had told her that first day she’d met Scott. She’d pegged him as a shiftless, spoiled rich guy. He’d turned out to be a hardworking executive and cowboy rolled into one. She’d thought he was a playboy, but he had shown her a respect for her values and genuinely seemed to be looking for a commitment. Was it any wonder her initial butterflies had evolved into a powerful longing?

Under the illumination of Christmas lights and the bonfire, Alexandra could see the gathering of people was far bigger than she had imagined. The scene she was looking at was more like a small state fair—without the carnival rides—all centered around the biggest bonfire she’d ever seen. A dozen children giggled and thrust marshmallows and hotdogs on spikes wherever they could find an open space along the bottom of the teepee of burning wood.

A large area had been plowed out for the event, but along the edges of that area, people ran out into the blackness of the night to throw snowballs at each other. They were nearly impossible to see, but their mock war cries carried far across the countryside. Starlight hit the snow-covered mountains far in the distance and bounced delicately off their white caps.

And the smells of food cooking were heavenly. One of the vendors who had set up a large corner booth had rows of barbecued ribs turning over a spit. He slathered on more sauce as he turned the meat over to let it sizzle from a new angle. Another booth served large foam cups full of hot, steaming apple cider and other drinks. Alexandra saw caramel-covered apples, pots of homemade chili, hot deli sandwiches—the possibilities were endless.

Scott took Alexandra by the hand and led her down the tantalizing row of food booths, past the tables of fudge and mincemeat pies to the start of the row of crafts tables.

“Dad always buys one new stained glass Christmas tree ornament here every year from Mrs. Smith. She makes them by hand. Her husband does all that woodcarving on the table over here. I think they must work all year just to have enough on hand for this festival.”

Scott gestured and led Alexandra over to a table stacked with hand-carved jewelry boxes and wooden signs decorated with elk and bear. She picked up a small, cream-colored wooden box, opened the lid and breathed in deeply. The earthy, rich scent of the wood filled her senses.

“This is beautiful wood,” she said to the tall, blond man behind the table. “It almost smells like cedar, but not quite. What is it?”

“Juniper. Now if we could just find some use for all the sagebrush we have around here, we’d be set for life.”

Alexandra laughed and walked on with Scott, “Thank you for bringing me here.”

“This was the place to be when I was in school.” Scott nodded to a group of teenagers swarming all over the backs of several pickup trucks. “It you didn’t make it to this, you just weren’t with it. Things around here don’t change much.” They strolled past a bunch of welded iron sculptures.

“It’s definitely not like things back in the office, is it? Things are changing just about every minute back there.” She picked up a self-published cookbook of recipes used on the Oregon Trail and put it back down again. “I can’t even remember when I last cooked a full meal. There’s never any time.”

“That’s why I like it here,” he said. “The pace gives a person time to think, time to run deeper instead of faster. Not that the ranch isn’t a lot of hard work, though.”

“Well, I wasn’t raised anywhere so glamorous as this,” she teased. “I’m just a girl who wound up in the ‘
burbs
, got bounced around between foster homes, then made it to college and moved into the city to work.”

“How did they die?”

She shrugged. “Car accident on bad roads. Happens everyday. I wonder all the time what life would have been like with a real family.”

“You ought to be proud of what you’ve done on your own. But don’t you ever think of adding just a little bit more?”

They teetered too close to crossing that personal line into romantic taboo again. “I thought that’s what I was doing right now.” She had an impossible time acting like the friendly colleague she was supposed to be.

Scott grinned at her as she stood facing him with her arms crossed in front of her chest. Her breath hung frosty in the air and she looked at him as if she expected him to say something meaningful in response. But how could he? All he could think of was the way the cold air added a shine to her green eyes and a kiss of stained crimson to her cheeks.

After a long pause he said softly, “Are you too cold? We could get back closer to the fire.”

“I’m doing fine, but I think we’ve almost seen all there is to see, and done all there is to do here.” The twinkle in his eyes and the colored glow of Christmas lights on his face had taken all her focus away from the festival as it was. She’d have been happy huddled in a cave with him at that moment.

Scott’s attention slipped briefly away from her gaze and excitement leapt into his voice. “Do you hear that?” he asked. “The band’s going to start. Come on.” He grabbed her hand firmly and tugged. “This is the best part.”

Alexandra nearly had to run to keep from being dragged. “Slow down a little.”

“You don’t want to dance?” His tone of disbelief told her that not wanting to dance was no better than a crime.

“If it’s some kind of country swing, square dancing, polka thing—then, no thanks. I’ll just stand on the sidelines and watch you.”

Scott laughed at her. “You’ve been sheltered in the city way, way too long. We’re not a bunch of rednecks out here, you know.”

Joe sauntered past them, surrounded by a group of friends. “Hey, big brother. Tell Dad I’m going night skiing. The guys will give me a lift home in the morning. You know, the usual ritual.”

“Sure. I remember the routine,” Scott said as he turned back to Alexandra. “He does this every year. I’m afraid he’s never going to grow up. Wonder which bone he’ll break this year. The stories I could tell.” He waved his hand in a dismissive motion. “Now let’s dance!”

With a burst of energy, Scott swung Alexandra around and whirled her into the crowd. The first beats of a solid rock and roll song filled the night. This was better than a nightclub, Alexandra thought as they danced together. They laughed and moved faster, swaying and bouncing energetically to the rhythm of the guitar and the beat of a drum. All of the visitors to the festival filtered in from the craft tables and food booths, some running, others walking hand-in-hand to join in what was obviously an event they looked forward to each year. Scott and Alexandra were forced closer together as the area around the bonfire and in front of the band grew more and more crowded.

A subtle night breeze flowed across the group of people and pushed feathery clouds over the bright stars overhead. Then the opening song ended with a drumbeat and the band began playing the first notes of a slow, romantic ballad that Alexandra remembered from college. Scott pulled Alexandra against his chest without missing a note. “Having fun?”

“Tons,” she answered as she looked up at the sparkling blanket of stars coating the night sky. “My friends and I used to dance to this song way back in the day, before I’d even taken my first job.”

He rested his cheek against her hair briefly and then thought better of it. “You’re not even thirty yet, and you’re talking like you’re a hundred years old.”

He couldn’t have wished for a warmer, more beautiful woman in his arms. He smiled, knowing he knew another Alexandra —the sleek, commanding marketing executive who could slip back into a designer suit and charm a room with the snap of a briefcase lock. With her faded jeans and ponytailed hair, no one in the Falconer family had believed him at first when he told them of Alexandra’s cool, in-control reputation. After getting to know her, he could barely believe it himself.

“The stars remind me of something Joe and I used to do,” Scott said quietly with a hint of nostalgia in his voice.

“Something even better than skating down the ditch? Or getting covered in hay dust?”

“Wouldn’t think it possible, would you?” He laughed and continued, “Sometimes when the ranch hands got sidetracked, they’d leave a hay wagon only partially loaded. When they left to take care of whatever emergency had hit, they pulled a heavy black tarp over what few hay bales they’d already loaded. Joe and I would slip underneath the tarp and lay down between bales. It was pitch black under there except for the hundreds of tiny, pinprick holes that the sharp hay had poked in the plastic. We would stay there for the longest time just looking up. With the sun shining down on the tarp and those tiny holes, it looked exactly like we were seeing a night sky full of brand new stars and constellations that no one had ever seen before. And with the smell of the hay, it was magical.”

Alexandra could nearly feel the sensations. “That must have been wonderful. But what if some of the hay had fallen? You two could have been squashed under there.”

“Nah. We were a bunch of little monkeys crawling all over the place. Never in any danger I don’t think. We climbed trees, swam in the pond—pretty much ran wild through the hills. I don’t think there’s an inch of land on the ranch I haven’t walked across.”