Who Wouldn't Love a Cowboy? - C.J. Carmichael

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same cow lifted her tail and a fat patty of excrement splattered to the road, right in front of her car.

      “You work for the Big Horn Guest Ranch,” she said, stating the obvious.

      “Correction. I own the Big Horn Guest Ranch.”

      “I should have guessed. You obviously love working with people as well as animals.”

      His eyes narrowed at the sarcasm. Then his jaw muscles tightened. “I hire staff to deal with the dude ranch. I told Naomi it was a bad idea to have a journalist on the property. But she convinced me I wouldn’t even notice you were here.”

      Talk about making a paying guest feel welcome. Now she was the one getting annoyed. “Well, I wouldn’t have bothered you if your cows weren’t blocking the road.”

      “Wouldn’t have been a problem if you’d taken the main approach from the north, the way our brochure tells you to do.”

      Crap. He had her there. “Fine. My mistake. I’m sorry. Please feel free to go back to work while I sit here and wait for the road to be clear.”

      “I’m not going anywhere,” he replied. “Until you erase those pictures of me.”

      Jason Dowcett just wanted to be left alone. Was that too much to ask? He owned a thousand acres of land—most of it wilderness. So how was it possible that, purely by chance, he would happen to be snagged by a journalist on assignment to write some damn article about why women loved cowboys?

      When Naomi, the dude ranch manager, had told him about the writer from Montage magazine that was booked at the ranch—and why—he’d done his best to nix it.

      “She’ll be too disruptive. Asking questions and getting in the way.”

      “But think of the PR,” Naomi had coaxed.

      He didn’t care, particularly about that part of the business. For the past year and a half the only company he could tolerate was that of his horse, Gold, and his cattle. The dude ranch was just a reminder of Lana and what used to be. He planned to shut it down as soon as he could figure out how to take care of his staff. But he hadn’t told anyone about that yet. And so, reluctantly, he’d let Naomi have her way.

      “Just keep her out of my hair,” he’d said.

      “I will,” Naomi had promised.

      And now look what had happened. Callie Anderson hadn’t even handed over her credit card yet and she was already in his face. Dressed in the sort of duds that city folk liked to call “country chic“—a formfitting black dress with a silver-and-turquoise belt slung around her waist and black-and-brown boots that were obviously fresh out of the box.

      Standing on the driver’s seat of her car, she appeared to be a tall woman, but she was still significantly shorter than he was astride Gold. He urged the Appaloosa closer, then held out his hand.

      “The camera?” If she wasn’t going to erase the pictures, he would.

      “Just look at them first. If you’re concerned about your privacy, you needn’t worry. Most of your face is hidden by your cowboy hat.”

      When he said nothing, she reluctantly handed over the Nikon. He squinted at the screen, then scrolled through the photos. They looked innocuous enough. Maybe he should let her keep them. Now that she was here, he didn’t want to make the journalist mad.

      He passed the camera back to her.

      “Thank you.” She smiled at him again, and he had to look away. Damn, but she had a pretty smile. And nice legs, too. He felt guilty as hell for even noticing.

      “Keep well back from the cattle,” he warned. “In another five minutes the road should be clear again. Don’t imagine I’ll see you again, but do me a favor and stick to the designated dude ranch areas from here on in.” He tipped his hat and turned away.

      It actually took fifteen minutes, about a hundred head of cattle and two more cowboys before the road was clear. The cowboys bringing up the rear were a lot friendlier than the ranch owner had been. They both waved and came over to apologize for holding her up.

      Too bad neither of them was as photogenic as their boss.

      Anyway, Callie had already tucked away her camera, thankful that the Big Horn’s owner hadn’t insisted she erase the photos.

      With the road finally empty, the Mustang made short work of the final few miles to the dude ranch, which was picturesque and welcoming. Someone other than the owner must have done the designing.

      The main house—a Montana-style log home—sat on a rise to the right amid a grove of freshly budding aspen. The outbuildings were next, all white with green roofs. These included several barns, storage sheds and a series of loading chutes and fenced pastures. To the far left along the bank of a meandering creek were eight log cabins for the guests. Each one had a hand-painted mailbox out front with a number.

      Callie had been booked into Cabin 7 and her directions were to head straight in, she’d find the key in the mailbox.

      She eased her Mustang into the parking spot beside the cabin, cleverly disguised by a thick border of shrubbery, then popped open the trunk. She’d no sooner done this than, like magic, a man in his forties dressed in Western boots, jeans and a plaid shirt arrived to help her with her bags.

      “Ms. Callie Anderson?”

      “That’s me.”

      “Welcome to Big Horn Ranch. I’m George, the assistant manager of the guest ranch. You’ll be seeing a lot of me while you’re here.” He grabbed her bags then nodded for her to precede him along the path to the cabin. “We’ve got a basket of fresh scones waiting, as well as the fixings for either French-pressed coffee or your choice of tea.”

      “What a welcome!” She stopped at the mailbox for the key, then went ahead and unlocked the door. Inside she found a charming room with a vase of flowers on a small table, a cozy quilt-covered bed and a love seat with a blanket folded over one arm. Hooked rugs were strategically placed on the pine plank flooring and several beautiful quilt squares hung on the walls.

      “We aim to give you an authentic Montana ranch experience while you’re here—but we want you to be comfortable, too,” George said with a wink. He set her bags on a bench at the foot of the bed.

      “Can I get you anything else? Dinner will be served in an hour, then we can go over your orientation after that. We were expecting you earlier, I hope you had no trouble getting here.”

      “I’m sorry. I was held up by a couple hundred head of cattle crossing the road.” She smiled as she said this, thinking she was making a joke, but George looked very serious.

      “That’s unfortunate. You must have come in the back way.”

      “Yes. The recommended way, according to my GPS, but it was made very clear to me that I mustn’t do that again.”

      “So you met Jason?”

      “If Jason is the owner of this place, then I guess I did. He didn’t bother with introductions.”

      “I’m not surprised. His name is Jason Dowcett. His family has owned this land for four generations.”

      “He’s not the friendliest guy, is he? I’m surprised he runs a dude ranch operation.”

      George sighed. “He used to be different.”

      “Really?” Sounded like a story. Callie’s journalist instincts went on high alert. “What happened?”

      But George

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