across his back and curled around his jaw. “People ‘round here don’t take to Indian trash messing with their women.”
Judson swallowed hard against the rage that rose in his chest at the memory and made himself focus on the task at hand—transporting a hothouse orchid to the harsh clime of Wyoming. He gave the pretty little thing less than a month before she came to the realization that she was totally unsuited for the rigors of living in the wild Wild West.
I’ve signed a contract to teach in hell, Carrie thought to herself, ducking to avoid hitting her head on the exit ramp door. Greeted by a blast of hot wind, she clutched the wobbly railing and took her first step in Wyoming.
Long before the eighteen-passenger airplane touched down in the middle of what appeared to be a gigantic dust bowl, it had managed to hit every air pocket in the state with an astonishing accuracy that left Carrie feel- ing sick to her stomach. From an altitude of twenty-five thousand feet, it appeared that the entire state was de- void of human life—a world of vast nothingness where colors all blurred to varying shades of brown. And now viewing her new home at eye level, Carrie had to admit that it was, indeed, as bleak as it had appeared from so high above. Truly this was the epitome of nowhere.
Where were all the mountains her favorite authors had so eloquently eulogized in their novels? she won- dered. Where was the sense of freedom she had antic- ipated feeling with the first rush of fresh air into her citified lungs? And where, for that matter, was Bill Madden with his promised open-armed Western hos- pitality?
Fighting the wind, Carrie made her way to the airport terminal. She looked around the tiny lobby in dismay, her green eyes searching the area, trying to match a face to the slightly desperate voice that had hired her sight unseen over the telephone. In her mind, she pictured an overweight, balding man wearing a suit the color of a pastel mint.
“Mommy!” squealed the precocious six-year-old whose incessant chatter had inundated the tiny aircraft for the past two and a half hours. “Mommy,” he re- peated louder, tugging at her sleeve and pointing. “Look, a real-live cowboy! I thought they were dead…like the dinosaurs—”
“Terry!” whispered his harried-looking mother through clenched teeth. “How many times do I have to tell you it’s not polite to point?”
Following the direction of Terry’s extended index fin- ger, Carrie found herself looking up into the sexiest sky- blue eyes she’d ever encountered. Her stomach lurched to her throat as if she had just hit another air pocket. Standing not two feet away was a broad-shouldered man who looked like he’d just walked off a Western movie set. She indulged herself in a long look, one that started with a black felt Stetson hat, lingered over a silver belt buckle and ended with a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots.
“Mr. M-Madden?” she stammered.
A slow smile spread across the man’s rugged features. “No, ma’am. Bill couldn’t make it so he asked me to pick you up and pack you to Harmony.”
Carrie’s temperature soared. Taking a deep breath of air, she tried to combat the sense of light-headedness that she wanted to believe was simply the aftereffect of a jarring plane ride. Never before had she seen such electric blue eyes on such a dark-complexioned man. The effect was so startling it left her positively breath- less.
Grabbing four heavy bags marked with her tags from the luggage carousel, he balanced two of them under his long arms much the way Carrie imagined one would lug bales of hay to a starving herd of cattle and started toward the doorway without another word. Picking up her lighter bags, she mutely followed the lanky cowboy out of the airport and into the bright August sunshine. The way those tight Wrangler jeans hugged his narrow hips as he swaggered across the parking lot was abso- lutely hypnotic. Her eyes would not release their hold on the rhythmic swaying of his jeans. So absorbed was she in the view that when he stopped abruptly in front of her, Carrie bumped right into him.
“Excuse me,” she mumbled, red-faced.
Though he merely nodded in reply, the man’s crooked grin left Carrie with the disquieting sense that he knew exactly what she was thinking. As she watched her “chauffeur” dump all of her bags into the back of a dilapidated pickup that had seen better days, she won- dered whether her first task at Harmony would be to clean the manure off the expensive luggage her parents had given her as a going away present.
Wiping his hands on his jeans, the man stepped back and opened the passenger side door for her.
Eager to prove capable of fending for herself in the Equality State, Carrie announced with a determined smile, “Thank you, but I can do that for myself.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the cowboy said, tilting back his hat. Seemingly looking right through her, that damnable grin affixed on his face, he stepped back and made his way around to the other side of the vehicle. Carrie could swear the air fairly vibrated with the unspoken animosity behind those amazing cerulean eyes.
Climbing into the cab of the pickup, she grappled both with her narrow skirt and the realization that she had somehow inadvertently offended the man’s Western sense of gallantry. Feeling his gaze traverse the length of her legs, Carrie primly smoothed out the skirt that had climbed high upon her thighs. Were all Wyoming men so utterly brazen? she wondered, feeling a blush stain her cheeks. That her look of practiced feminine indignation was received with a twinkle of amusement only served to emphasize the feeling that this man was secretly laughing at her.
As the vehicle lurched to life and they headed down the road, Carrie got her first up-close look at Rock Springs, Wyoming. It was as dreary and no-frills as the olive green pickup in which she rode. Set in the middle of a sagebrush-covered desert, the town could best be described as dusty.
“This is pretty much the cultural metropolis of this part of the state,” her driver matter-of-factly informed her.
Though a variety of small shops lined the streets, Carrie was immediately struck by the fact that the pre- dominant business in town was essentially escapist. An impressive number of bars and saloons called not only to the fantasies of the tourists but to the plight of Rock Springs’s locals, as well. A police car, its lights flashing, was parked outside a tavern named Buster’s. A worn- looking blonde in a leather miniskirt slumped on a street corner bench. A drunk struggled against a red light as Carrie watched him make his way from one bar into an equally dismal one across the street. A huge tumble- weed drifted along the sidewalk in a lonesome gust of wind.
As he pointed to the town’s infamous red-light dis- trict, it occurred to Carrie that her driver had purposely gone out of his way to show her the seedy side of town. Wryly she considered telling him that he was wasting his time if he was trying to shock her. In fact, some of the things she had seen back in Chicago might just set this rough-and-tumble cowboy’s charming smile awry.
What actually did shock her was the modern high school they passed on their way out of town. Complete with a well-groomed football field, track and swimming pool, it was far superior to the facilities where she had previously taught.
“Don’t get your hopes up. Harmony ain’t this nice,” the man warned.
“Isn’t,” she automatically corrected.
Whether it was anger or mirth that activated the dim- ples at both corners of his mouth, Carrie wasn’t sure. Nonetheless, she quickly changed the subject. “Since we’re going to be traveling the next one hundred and twenty miles together, it would be nice to know your name.”
“Judson Horn at your service, ma’am,” he replied, pushing his hat back on his head. “And I can’t say as I’d blame you for wanting to teach here instead of in the middle of nowhere.”
He flashed her a smile and Carrie felt a peculiar sharp stab deep inside her. The man was entirely too sure of himself, she thought with irritation, noting that even the way he draped one arm over the steering wheel was unnervingly sexy. Judson Horn exuded an aura of self- confidence that might just border on the edge of arro- gance. Carrie mentally reviewed her etched-in-stone list of Pitfalls To Avoid In Future. And Arrogant Men was right there at the top.
“I’m