To be perfectly honest, he’d been nervous since he’d lied to Stuart on the phone and said that Carly was welcome to visit the ranch anytime. She wasn’t welcome, no woman was, and Jake had been wishing for everything from a pilot’s strike canceling flights to Wyoming to a flu virus hitting the entire country that wouldn’t kill anyone but would sure keep them from traveling. Those were silly wishes, of course. Nothing was going to prevent Carly’s visit, and that fact had sank in a little deeper every day until now it seemed to gnaw at the very center of Jake’s bones.
It was especially unnerving that instead of landing immediately, the copter had flown a circle over the ranch compound. Since the pilot would have no reason to make that aerial tour, then Carly must have asked him to do it.
Hell, why wouldn’t she want to get a good look at the ranch? She hasn’t been here since she was a kid.
That argument, though sensible, didn’t elevate Jake’s dark mood by much. If Carly was the kind of woman to throw her weight around because her dad owned the ranch, then there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of the two of them getting along. And if they didn’t get along, wouldn’t it affect his and Stuart’s relationship?
Jake’s lips thinned from an abrupt onslaught of tension. He couldn’t let anything destroy, or even maim, his and Stuart’s working relationship. He and Carly Paxton—Stuart had told him that she’d resumed her maiden name after the divorce—had to get along, even if it meant his kowtowing to an overbearing woman’s whims. Mumbling a curse over that image, Jake watched the copter descend and finally settle on the ground.
The pilot cut the engine, and Jake began walking toward the aircraft. He had a terrible knot in his gut and something else almost as uncomfortable—a premonition. From this moment on his life was not going to be the same.
“Damn,” he muttered under his breath. “Dammit to hell.”
Two
Carly unhooked her seat belt with her gaze on the tall man coming forth. He had to be Jake Banyon, but he wasn’t at all what she’d expected. How had she gotten the impression that the ranch’s manager was much older? She was approaching thirty, and Banyon looked to be about the same. On top of that surprise was another: he was good-looking! Taking in his long, lean body clad in snug, faded jeans and a blue work shirt, and the ruggedly handsome—though hard—features of his face, Carly felt an unmistakably sexual flutter in the pit of her stomach.
The sensation startled then angered her, and she set her lips into a thin, grim line. This visit just might be cut very short, she thought resentfully, although she had packed for a long stay just in case she happened to like the ranch. Dad could have told me Banyon was young and good-looking. Why didn’t he ever mention it?
The pilot hopped out of his side of the copter, called a hello to Jake and then opened the door for Carly. She put her feet on the ground just as Jake walked up, took off his hat with one hand and offered the other.
“Jake Banyon,” he said tonelessly and without a smile. “Welcome to Wild Horse Ranch.”
“Thank you,” Carly said stiffly, giving his hand a quick shake and then pulling hers back as though she had just touched something poisonous. Actually, the warmth and life of his working man’s calloused hand had sent shock waves through her system that nearly caused her to panic right in Banyon’s face.
Good Lord, she thought in the next uneasy breath, except for the sniffing and smelling we are sizing each other up like two strange dogs!
It was true. Jake was shaken because Carly was tall and slender, with stunning green eyes and long dark hair. He’d hoped—ardently—that she would be ordinary, ‘very ordinary’, and she wasn’t. She was appealingly female and would stand out in any crowd.
Carly’s thoughts were similar and horribly perturbing. Banyon had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, a head of almost black hair and darkly tanned skin. There was no warmth in those incredible eyes, but even cold and guarded they were drop-dead gorgeous. She’d been so positive that she would not be affected by a man for a long, long time and here she was feeling feverish and giddy around a damn cowboy. It was totally unacceptable, and any remnants of panic she’d felt a minute ago vanished and were replaced by a defiant determination to remain on her family’s ranch for as long as she wanted. No way was she going to let a good-looking cowboy scare her off.
The pilot was taking luggage from the cargo compartment and setting the suitcases on the ground. It was a nice, safe subject, and Jake used it to get himself thinking about something other than Carly’s long legs and impressive figure, displayed nicely but provocatively—he thought—in a pair of fitted jeans and a blue-and-red striped shirt.
“I’m going to move your luggage away from the copter,” he said. “Then I’ll walk you up to the house. I’ll have a couple of the men bring in your suitcases.”
Carly almost said, “Walking me to the house won’t be necessary. I’m sure I can find it on my own.” But she stopped herself in time and murmured instead, “That will be fine.” As Jake walked over to the pilot and luggage, Carly whispered, “That nicety was for you, Dad.” It wasn’t Banyon’s fault that his good looks and age unnerved her, and neither could she condemn her father for not better describing Banyon during conversations about the ranch and Wyoming. Dad probably hasn’t even noticed that Jake is good-looking, and why would he?
Truth was, she thought uneasily, she could tell that she was as much of a surprise for Jake as he was for her. This was not a comfortable situation for either of them. She knew about the bunkhouse and that Jake was the only person occupying the house. She knew about the cookhouse and that the men took their meals in an attached dining room. Her father had—at least—emphasized those points again, in case she’d forgotten past discussions, and he’d told her that she could eat with the men or prepare her own meals in the house, whichever she preferred. His final advice had been to “relax and enjoy yourself, honey.”
Carly turned to scan the peaceful green fields that stretched for miles in every direction, then the foothills to the west and finally the mountainous horizon. One would have to look long and hard for a more perfect place in which to relax, but something told her that she would have found relaxation much easier to attain if Banyon had been twenty years older, bald and bowlegged.
She lowered her eyebrows, frowning over her own narrowed eyes as she contemplated her unexpected and extremely unwelcome physical reactions to Jake Banyon. She was positive she would be as irate over an attraction to any man at this stage of her life. She needed more time to heal, for God’s sake. The emotional wounds from her frightening farce of a marriage were barely scarred over, and in all honesty the mere thought of romance made her shudder. Romance was merely an illusion, anyhow, she now believed, a short-term ploy that men used to get women right where they wanted them. Once that was accomplished and men started showing their true colors, their women had better watch out.
Heaving a sigh, Carly pushed those dreadful thoughts from her mind and looked at Banyon and the pilot moving her luggage a safe distance from the helicopter. She decided then and there that however magnetic she found Banyon to be, he was never going to know about it, primarily because she was not going to let a meaningless physical attraction override her common sense. She wasn’t ready for anything but the most distant of friendships with any member of the opposite sex, and until she was ready, this and any other relationship with a man would be chilly indeed.
The two men shook hands, the pilot called a goodbye to her and returned to the cabin of his aircraft. Carly moved away from the copter and stood near her suitcases.
Jake walked up. “Your things will be fine here for a few minutes. Let’s go up to the house now.”
“All right.” She spoke without really looking at him, and she began walking when he did. The helicopter took off, and the turbulence caused by the rotors tossed her hair around. Smoothing it down, she chanced a quick glance at Banyon. “I hope this visit is not too much of an intrusion,” she said coolly.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Sounds