He walked toward the front of the ranch house, determined to be as gracious as possible without letting this TV woman take over. He got there as a white van pulled around the circular drive and parked in front of the house.
The woman who hopped down from the passenger side was shorter and skinnier than he’d imagined from watching her on TV. Mostly skinnier, anyway. Her breasts were quite impressive, not that it mattered to him one way or the other. Her outfit, though, was exactly what he might have expected.
She wore a rhinestone-studded denim shirt over a scoop-neck top that showed plenty of cleavage, a pair of tight cropped jeans also studded with rhinestones, and backless red shoes with pointed toes. The tooling on the red leather was probably supposed to make them look sort of like boots.
“Hi, there.” She walked toward him, her hand outstretched. “I’m Meg Delancy, from ‘Meg and Mel in the Morning’.”
He’d intended to be suave. He’d intended to be slightly nonchalant, as if he met TV celebrities every day and he couldn’t get very excited about this one. But her smile blinded him. He hadn’t been prepared for that smile to go right through him and make him weak in the knees.
Despite her ridiculous outfit, despite her plan to turn the noble Circle W into a media circus, despite his resentment of her intrusion into his peaceful way of life, he was dazzled. “I’m…uh…Clint…uh…Walker.”
“Now there’s a name right out of television Westerns. Wasn’t Clint Walker the star of Cheyenne?”
“My dad loved the show.” He shook her incredibly soft hand and cursed himself for acting like a teenager with a crush.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Walker. I must say I expected jeans and a Stetson. You’d be right at home on Madison Avenue.”
“Well, I don’t…my foreman, Tucker Benson, he’s the cowboy around here. I’m a business-school major.” That last part was true. Unfortunately his shiny new degree had been no good when it had come to pulling the ranch out of the red.
“Not everyone’s cut out to be a cowboy, Mr. Walker.”
“You can call me Clint.” The words were out before he knew it. Sheesh. And he’d promised himself not to be overly friendly, just polite. Mr. Walker would have suited that plan perfectly.
“I’ll do that.” She hit him with The Smile again before gesturing to the small, wiry guy who climbed from the driver’s side of the van. “This is my cameraman, Jamie Cranston. Jamie, this is Clint Walker, our host.”
“Good to meet you.” Jamie’s handshake was firm. Then he glanced up at the sky. “We still have some daylight left, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to get footage of the ranch. Do you have a bunkhouse?”
“Yes. Behind the main house, over by the corrals.” Clint thought about the usual condition of the bunkhouse. “But the place isn’t very—”
“I’m not interested in a Hollywood bunkhouse,” Jamie said. “I want a real one. If you have a spare bed down there, I’d like to hang out with your ranch hands.”
Clint hadn’t figured on this at all. He’d made up both spare rooms in the main house, planning that she’d take one and her cameraman the other. If the cameraman slept in the bunkhouse, then he and Meg Delancy would be in the big house…alone.
“It’s the best way to get local color,” Jamie said.
Clint could hardly object on the grounds that he wanted Jamie around to chaperone. “Sure, I guess that would be okay.” Jed and Denny would be only too happy to have the cameraman there. They both planned on entering the competition, so hanging out with Jamie would seem like a good way to gain an advantage.
“Great,” Jamie said. “Meg, if you want to grab your suitcase and laptop, I’ll just drive the live truck around to the bunkhouse and unload my camera.”
“What live truck?” Clint glanced around, expecting God-knows-what to materialize.
“That’s what we call the van with all the communications gear in it,” Meg said.
“Oh. Right.” Clint acted as if he’d known that all along.
“We don’t have a whole lot of time here,” Jamie said, “so I want to make use of every minute.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Meg headed to the back of the van, where Jamie had already opened the doors.
Clint glanced inside and saw enough electronic equipment to choke a stable of horses. He supposed they’d need all that to beam stuff to New York, or whatever the plan was.
Meg pulled out a rolling suitcase the size of a hay bale and plunked it to the ground. Then she hooked the strap of a computer case over her shoulder. “I’m all set, Jamie. Take off.”
“Thanks, Meg. See you two later.”
Full-blown panic set in. Clint hadn’t pictured being stuck alone with Meg, especially not five minutes after she’d arrived. “Dinner’s at the main house at six,” he called after Jamie. But that left two incredibly long hours. What in hell’s name could he do with this big-city woman for two hours?
“I’ll be back at six.” With that, Jamie hopped in the van and drove around behind the house.
Clint watched the van until it was out of sight.
“Well, Clint. Here we are.”
Her voice tickled his eardrums in a most unsettling way. A sexual way. This was not good, not good at all. He was supposed to think of her as the enemy. Instead he was more fascinated by the minute.
He glanced down at her. “I guess we should…go on in.”
“I really appreciate you putting me up. I’m sure it’s an imposition.”
“No, not at all.” He reached for her suitcase and lifted it so it would clear the steps. The thing felt as if she’d packed it full of anvils, but he would have expected her to come loaded to the gills with fancy clothes. In fact, she was exactly as he’d pictured her. And instead of being repulsed, he was wildly attracted. It defied logic, but there was the truth of it.
“I’ll show you to your room.” As he trudged up the steps with her bulging suitcase, he pictured her sleeping in that room, then pictured how close her room was to his. Damned if that didn’t get him extremely excited.
2
THE LANDSCAPE DIDN’T provide much inspiration for Meg as she followed Clint into the house, but the view in the foreground was outstanding. She could look at buns like that all day. And those eyes of his—were they really that blue, or was it his tan that made them seem that way?
The tan had her speculating about his claim that he was only a business major and didn’t mess with ranch work. Unless he had tennis courts hidden away somewhere, she’d bet money he did some manual labor around this place. And he moved like a guy who was used to physical activity.
She’d known her share of desk jockeys, and Clint didn’t strike her as the desk-jockey type. He struck her as the yummy type, though. Interesting that he’d deny knowing anything about the very occupation she’d come out here to showcase. Very interesting.
“Here’s your room.” He carried her suitcase into an antiquey sort of place, with a brass bedstead, an old pine dresser and a braided rug on the wooden floor. Shoot, there was even a rocker in the corner. Homespun City.
She spied a door on the far wall. Laying her laptop on the bed, she gestured toward the door. “I imagine that’s the bathroom.”
“No, that’s the closet. The bathroom’s across the hall.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t walked across the hall to a bathroom since she’d lived at home with her family in Brooklyn. “Good thing I brought a bathrobe, huh?”
“Listen,