Authors: Lucy Francis
She looked over and found Sassy staring at her intently. “Are you done eating already?”
Sassy blinked at her and pawed at the clear acrylic cage wall.
“Fine, I’ll let you out.” She reached into the cage and picked up the pudgy rat, setting Sassy on her shoulder. “So, Miss Sass, what on earth is he doing in Utah?”
Sassy tugged on a lock of her hair and squeaked. “Go easy on the hair, girl. I wonder if he’s shopping for a ski condo or something.”
Victoria briefly reconsidered returning to Brindle’s. If she could somehow convince him to give her an interview…no, wait, back up. He wouldn’t give her the time of day if he knew she was a freelance writer. He’d barely masked his dislike of the press when he led a highly visible life. After his vanishing act, he’d like a journalist even less now.
Oh, well. Going back wasn’t an option anyway. She’d spent every ounce of courage she had when she kissed him. She had to, though. It wasn’t every day a man like that paid attention to a woman like her. And small wonder he managed to keep a succession of starlets and hot young things on his arm. It definitely wasn’t just his bank account they liked. Even catching him off-guard, that was one of the better kisses she’d ever had.
She shook her head, nearly dislodging Sassy from her shoulder as she tried to clear the memory of his heat, his taste, from her mind. No sense in reliving something that wouldn’t, couldn’t, and shouldn’t ever happen again. He’d shown an interest in her, and that alone made him off limits. She shivered, a thread of cold winnowing through the lingering heat of that brazen kiss. No, a safe little fantasy moment was all she could handle, and even that pushed the envelope.
Victoria stood and adjusted the rat on her shoulder, then returned the remaining ice cream to the freezer as her cell rang. She glanced at the display. What was Mara calling for at this time of night?
She answered the call. “Hi, cuz, you’re up late.”
Her cousin snorted. “God, you’re getting old. It’s
so
not late yet. Sorry, should have called about this earlier, but I just remembered. Stepmom Number Three had dinner guests tonight, the Campbells. Anyway, they’re heading out before winter kicks in and their usual house-sitter moved to Ohio. And with you needing to move and stuff, I recommended you!”
All thoughts of Curran Shaw vanished as she gave Mara’s voice her complete attention. “Wait, what? They need a house-sitter? For how long?”
“All winter, I think. They don’t do snow anymore, so they’re leaving on Thanksgiving-ish. I don’t know, I was in a hurry to get to the party, so I don’t have details, but I’m texting you the number. You have to call them tomorrow or they’ll look for someone else.”
Mara’s text hit her phone as her cousin said goodbye. The girl could be such a flake, but she might owe Mara big time after this.
She cuddled Sassy like a baby in the crook of her arm. Even if the pay for the house-sitting was minimal, with free housing she could make huge strides on paying off the student loans that still sucked the life out of her budget after all this time. And she’d have even more time to hunt for a decent apartment.
Sassy nibbled at her finger and she smiled at her pet. “Don’t worry, pretty girl, I won’t take the job if they have an aversion to rats. Or, if there are cats in the house.” Who was she kidding? She’d take it anyway and just make sure Sassy was well-guarded from kitty claws.
She needed this so badly and any way she looked at it, she couldn’t see a downside. This would change everything for the better, she was certain. She felt it in her bones.
The third day of January dawned bright and clear, with a gorgeous blue sky and a foot of fresh powder transforming the landscape into a classic winter wonderland. The scenery beckoned to Victoria, begging her to come out for a ride in the frosty New Year air. How could she resist such a delightful invitation from Mother Nature?
She slipped the bit into the big bay gelding’s mouth and eased the crownpiece over the horse’s ears. She pulled on her gloves and lifted the hood of the parka over her head. Sliding a pair of sunglasses on, she led Old Joe out of the stable and into the perfect morning.
Sunlight glittered on the snow like diamonds strewn by last night’s storm, coating the surrounding mountainsides and dressing the bare aspen branches in a sparkling blanket. The crisp air tingled in her lungs. She gathered the reins and swung up into the saddle, nudging the bay into a gentle walk across the snowy meadow and onto the trail that meandered through the sparsely populated canyon.
She intended to squeeze every last moment of relaxation out of this day off, or at least the few hours she would likely allow herself to play before her inner taskmaster cracked the whip. Because she really should be writing. She’d made deadline last night on a set of articles for a pets website and she didn’t need to start developing help screen text for her software developer client for a couple of days.
Precious days when she should work on her own novel. It had been going so well, words pouring out of her over the last few weeks whenever she had a spare moment for her own work. But she’d slammed into writer’s block and now the novel refused to cooperate. Today she’d slept in until after ten, and when she woke up the snow was there, calling to her. Resistance was futile at that point.
She patted Old Joe’s neck as he walked along, solid and sure beneath her. Winter birds twittered in the trees and she settled into the saddle, comforted by the rhythmic shushing of the snow as the horse’s legs made a trail through the powder.
Another sound caught her attention—snorting and a weak cry, coming from somewhere beyond the slight ridge ahead.
Victoria reined in. The sounds continued. An animal, she was certain, but nothing she recognized. She urged the horse forward and laid the reins against his neck, bringing him to the right. She circled around a thick stand of huge blue spruce trees, up the ridge and across a broad meadow. There, in the middle of a snow drift, was the source of the noise.
It had to be a bison. It was far too big and shaggy to be a cow. The animal shifted a bit. Yes, definitely a bison, the heavy head slung low on a huge humped neck. The bison shook its head and snorted again, then let out a strange bawling sound and lurched forward. When the animal didn’t actually move more than a few inches, she recognized the problem. The bison was entangled in a barbed wire fence.
Victoria dug her heels into the big bay, encouraging him into a faster pace through the deeper snow. Near the fence line, Old Joe shied away from the bison. That’s all she needed, a spooked horse bolting back to the barn. She slid from the saddle, led Old Joe behind a couple of pines and tied his reins to a low branch. If he couldn’t see the bison, maybe he wouldn’t get nervous.
Slowly, she pushed through the knee-deep snow until she reached the huge animal. The snow was trampled in a wide swath around the bison. The heavy, earthy smell of damp animal hair reached her nostrils, and steam curling up from the sweat soaking its sides. How long had it struggled? “Hey, big guy,” she said softly. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just need to see how badly you’re tangled up.”
A warning surfaced in her head, one she’d heard as a child in Yellowstone: avoid the bison. Wild bison could prove truly dangerous, but the only wild herd she knew of in Utah lived on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. Several ranchers in the state raised bison, though. This one had to be a domestic animal. Most of the ranchers she knew spoke to their animals, so what could it hurt? Maybe the sound of her voice would calm the poor thing down before it hurt itself worse.
“Easy now, Shaggy.” She hesitated a moment, the sheer size of the wild-eyed animal giving her pause. She continued murmuring to the bison. It seemed to settle a bit and focus on her. Seizing a wisp of bravery floating inside her, she rubbed her gloved hand on the bison’s head, and it bawled, sending her jumping back a few feet.
It heaved a shuddering breath, too tired to fight any longer. She relaxed slightly, sidling closer to it as she looked down the fence line. The snow, probably driven by the storm last night, had drifted over the wire and concealed it. “Poor thing, I’ll bet it just looked like a new hill for you to climb, didn’t it?”
The bison’s weight had broken one fence post and it hung in the air, suspended by a wire knotted in the wooly hair around the bison’s neck. The other two wires had snapped off the post and were hopelessly tangled across its chest and around its forelegs.
Old Joe whinnied a greeting a second after she heard another horse entering the meadow. She looked up to see a man riding a leopard-spotted Appaloosa. He pulled up at the east edge of the meadow, lifted a hand in greeting to her, and dismounted. He closed the remaining distance on foot.
Something about his frame, the way he carried himself, seemed familiar. Even with his pulled-down Stetson and the turned-up collar of his sheepskin coat obscuring most of his face, the sense of recognition tugged at her. But who would she possibly know out here?
As he strode closer, the bison tugged against the wires, and stepped sideways, blocking the man from view behind its hulking body. She heard him on the other side of the animal, seeing only the top of his hat and his gloved hand as he stroked the huge back.
“Don’t worry, Peg-leg. I’ll have you loose in a jiff.”
The words were spoken softly, but the deep resonant voice carried through the thin, cold mountain air without effort. In the sound of his voice, she found the answer.
Curran Shaw.
Memories of Halloween bubbled to the surface, bursting into a flare of heat in her stomach. She pushed away thoughts of her mouth on his, allowing the curious journalist in her to take over. She’d thought he was visiting in town when he’d approached her at Brindle’s. He was obviously living here. Why?
Her train of thought derailed when he leaned around the bison’s shoulder and gave her a slight smile. “He really did a number on the fence.”
Photographs never quite caught the tiny gold flecks in his green eyes. Then again, in still shots, he was merely average-looking. Even video didn’t do justice to the innate power, control, and charisma he naturally exuded. In person, he weakened her knees.
Everyone she’d interviewed for the magazine article had described him with the same words. Powerful. Charming. Focused. Brilliant. Captivating. All those characteristics emanated from him in an almost tangible aura, as if his soul were too large to be contained within the frame of his body.
Dear God, what
had
she been thinking when she kissed him?
He showing her the tool he held. “I don’t suppose you have wire cutters on hand? A second pair would help.”
She found her voice. “I don’t normally ride with a pair.”
“With fences like these around, you should. But I reckon another set of hands will do. Help me keep Peg-leg calm. I’ll cut on this side, you cut on the other, and we’ll get him untangled.” He didn’t ask. He didn’t wait for her response. He just gave the order in his low voice and expected her to do her part.
Victoria suppressed a shiver, her concern and desire to help the bison warring with her growing need to beat a hasty retreat back to the house. If she’d known he was living in the area, she’d have brushed him off at the club and left immediately. Instead, she had kissed him.
Rubbing her gloved palm on Peg-leg’s forehead, she watched Curran carefully cut the wires holding the bison’s legs. What a stupid thing to do, kissing him. She couldn’t even chalk it up to impulse. No, she’d kissed him very much on purpose, because it thrilled her to have a man of his stature find her attractive enough to try picking her up. She’d figured she could lay one good hot kiss on him and vanish before he had a chance to take control of the situation.
Suddenly, it dawned on her how awkward he might have felt afterward. She’d put on such a show in the midst of a crowd. He probably hadn’t appreciated that.
“Here, take this piece when I cut through it,” he said.
She eased the barbed metal away from the bison’s leg, careful not to tug or tighten the wire and cause more damage. Curran searched for another good place to snip. Her stomach quivered. If he recognized her, if he remembered Halloween night, heaven only knew what he might do.
“Your turn,” he said, handing the cutters to her, then pointing. “Cut through right there, where the wire is a bit loose.”
“Okay.” She worked carefully, and just as carefully avoided his gaze. Walking away after kissing him was one of the more difficult things she’d ever done, but she knew better than to risk involvement with a man like him. All her research told her Curran Shaw was accustomed to getting what he wanted, no matter how much pressure he had to apply to get it. He lived large, in a world she very much didn’t belong in.
“Damn, Peg, if you weren’t such a nosy thing, you wouldn’t be in this mess. Always wondering if the grass is greener on the other side.” Curran held his hand out for the cutters when she finished snapping the blades through another twisted section of wire.
“Or the snow whiter, in this case.” She examined the cuts and scrapes on the bison’s right foreleg as he cut wire away from the left leg. The animal was bleeding in places, but only a few of the wounds looked deep. “Do you ranch bison?”