Tex Appeal (9 page)

H
AVING TALKED
to Wyatt Crowe on the phone when making plans for her visit had not prepared Tess for Wyatt Crowe in the flesh. He was big and muscled, tall—though she couldn’t be sure how much of his height was his hat.

His hair was dark-brown, shaggy against his neck as if he hadn’t taken time for a cut, and his eyes were sharp, aware, alert. The way he watched her, studied her, left her feeling as if she’d been pinned like a butterfly to a board.

The way his men had shown him deference made her wonder about the type of man he was, the type of boss, made her question his willingness to let her into a world of which he seemed highly protective.

Was there something he was hoping to get from her visit that could impact her plans?

Her suitcase in hand, he walked her into the house, pointed the way through the front room and followed her up the stairs. He didn’t follow too closely. It was, however, just the right distance to put him at eye level with her ass.

She didn’t know whether to hurry so that he didn’t have a lot of time to stare, or to linger so that he did. To take her time, swing her hips, let him wonder and want.

He was gorgeous, he intrigued her, he was nothing like the men her mother kept sending her way. But she didn’t know him; was she being stupid to tempt him without knowing more than she did? For all she did know, he’d sworn off women completely, or had left a long line of ex-Mrs. Crowes.

Before she could make up her mind—to flirt or not to flirt, what a silly thing to ponder—the decision was out of her hands. They had reached the second floor.

“This way,” he said, leading her down the short hallway, his boots thudding on the hardwood floor as he walked, his face expressionless as he stepped around her, giving her no clue as to whether he’d noticed her ass at all.

Tess put a hand to her forehead, pushed her hair away from her face as she followed him, her own steps softer and lighter. She had to get a grip and do it now. The thoughts flitting through her mind were hardly professional, and she was here for reasons that were.

Okay, so he made her heart pitter-patter. If not her heart, then certainly her loins. She could either ignore the impact of seeing him in person, or use it as research for her column, putting herself into the boots of a buckle bunny and walking the proverbial mile.

Except she wasn’t so sure that would work.

Earlier on the porch, she’d met Skeeter and Woodson, Rusty, Teddy and Max. She had yet to meet Buck, the foreman and ranch manager, but she couldn’t imagine her reaction to him would be any different than her response to the hands who’d come to meet her.

They would be able to tell her what it was like living on the road, moving from one dusty small town to the next, finding women waiting, women willing to soothe their aching muscles, their tired minds, their bodies that were still able to perform.

She wanted to hear their stories, to understand what they saw in their sport’s groupies, if anything, beyond the guaranteed sex, the warm, responsive partners who could so easily be won even if just for the night. She wanted to hear their stories because of what the women had told her, but also because of who these men were.

They were all rodeo cowboys who’d been successful in their events, who hadn’t tired of the sport but had been left physically broken and with no option but to retire, who had chosen to work the Triple RC because it kept them involved in a world that had defined them for most of their lives.

But they weren’t Wyatt.

Only Wyatt had caused her mouth to go dry, the small of her back to perspire. Watching him on the back of his horse, she’d known he’d be something. His command of the animal, of his own movements, his body in the saddle, fluid, swaying…she’d been duly impressed, her breath stolen.

Hearing about him from his men, she’d better grasped the mutual respect she’d sensed in their first conversation. Considering his employees’ welfare made them the loyal hands they were.

Only minutes earlier, she’d felt the power of his approach without seeing him, and by the time she did, her chest had been so tight, the ache to draw a breath so fierce, she wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d passed out at his feet.

It was fortunate that she hadn’t. She would’ve hated to miss out on that time on the porch, that tension, that wondering if he would come up, if she should move down, that sense of pregnant expectation, the waiting for her stomach to settle, her heart to find a less spectacular rhythm…

“Here we are.”

He set her suitcase just inside the door. She brushed against his hip—oh, my, the hardness—as she walked by to place her laptop case and oversized purse on the bed. She looked around the room, rubbing her hands up and down her arms, shivering from the contact and feeling uncomfortably weak in the knees.

“It’s perfect,” she said, caught by the simplicity of the space as much by the color. The paint was an off white, the wood trim a light oak, the only thing on any of the walls a fringed blanket woven in variegated blues, reds and greens that matched the spread on the bed and the throw rugs on the floor. “Very south of the border.”

“The bathroom’s across the hall, the linen closet beside it.” He pointed to the desk that sat next to the door. “The house has WiFi thanks to Max, so you’ll be able to check e-mail or whatever. The kitchen’s at the back of the house on down the hall from the staircase, and Woodson should bring supper over for us around six.”

She stopped herself from asking where his room was, and turned at that. “Bring it over from where?”

He lifted his chin, using it to gesture toward the other side of the house. “There’s a big kitchen in the men’s quarters.”

“And that’s where you all eat?”

He nodded, his jaw set, his lips pressed together, his eyes frowning darkly beneath the brim of his hat, the shadow keeping her from seeing their true color.

“Could we eat there instead of here?” she asked, wondering if he was already having regrets about her invading his space, disrupting his routine. “It would give me a chance to get to know everyone, and maybe see what time would be convenient to talk to your men individually.”

He didn’t answer right away. He stared at the floor or at his boots; she wasn’t sure. Neither was she sure if he was second-guessing the involvement of his crew in her project. Or maybe, just maybe, he’d been looking forward to the two of them eating together alone.

The first she wasn’t going to let happen. She’d charm, cajole, even coerce if she had to. This project might have started as a ploy to fend off her mother, but having interviewed the women, her interest in the men’s side of the story was piqued.

And the second? If he wanted to get her alone, she was always open for dessert. “Whaddaya say, cowboy?”

He grimaced, grunted, but nodded and said, “I’ll meet you on the back porch at six.”

S
UPPER
, dinner, whatever the cowboys called it out here on the ranch had been amazing. Homegrown and fresh-canned green beans with onions, potatoes mashed with sour cream and the skins, chicken baked with a crust of cornmeal and sage.

And then dessert. Banana pudding with whipped cream and dozens of soft vanilla wafers.

She was stuffed.

The time she’d spent with the men as a group had been invaluable. It had also been noisy as hell. She couldn’t remember when she’d laughed so hard she’d nearly snorted food up her nose. She’d also gotten a good feel for who would be open to talking to her one-on-one, and who might need coaxing to open up.

Talking to a woman—her—about how they’d slept with others whose names they’d never known wasn’t something all of them were going to be comfortable with, even though she’d assured them she wasn’t here to judge.

A couple of them seemed as if they’d be more willing to share their tales if she interviewed them together. Counseling was often done similarly and for the same reason: knowing they were not alone in their experiences gave the participants a level of comfort they otherwise lacked. Putting the same tactic to use here might work.

But the one she was most curious about was Wyatt.

He’d sat down the table from her on the opposite side, and hadn’t joined in the dinner conversation at all. He’d grinned to himself—oh, but she loved his smile and his laugh—or chuckled under his breath at the ribbing that had gone on, but he’d waved off personal queries and deftly reflected the digging barbs thrown his way. There was something he didn’t want her to know. She was determined to find out what it was.

The entire group had stayed at the table long past the end of the meal, and when she and Wyatt had finally set off for the main house, the sun was completely down, the moon in its place and shining brightly in the velvet canvas of sky.

Walking beside him now, she made no attempt to hurry, enjoying the brisk air that frosted when she breathed, the scent of that very same cold, of the earth chilling as the temperature fell, of the animals snorting and huddling close in the pasture.

“You cold?” Wyatt asked, looking over at her.

She nodded, shivered, tightened the belt of her sage-green cardigan. “Yes, but it feels wonderful. At home I’d be huddled beneath a lap blanket, drinking hot tea, basking in the warmth of central heating. This is a different kind of cold. Invigorating. Lovely.”

She thought she saw him nod, the brim of his hat seeming to dip…unless what she was seeing was shadows, tricks played by the moonlight as she tried to sneak peeks at his face.

“If it gets to be too much,” he told her, “I can rummage up the tea and the blanket. But for heat, it’s propane or the fireplace.”

She stopped. He stopped. Their eyes met, and after several heartbeats of seconds, she smiled. “If you’ve got tea and a fire, I wouldn’t even care about the blanket. Of course, I wouldn’t say no to toasted marshmallows.

“But most of all,” she said, taking a monstrously frightening leap of faith and hoping for a net at the bottom just in case she fell. “Most of all I’d like you to stay and enjoy it with me.”

It took him no time at all to grin. “I’d planned to all along.”

“I
TAKE
back what I said about you all retreating.”

Wyatt suppressed a smile. They might have been doing just that, but it had never been a conscious surrender. This was just the life they all loved. One lived in the present, the baggage of the past left unclaimed. “Yeah?”

“Well, at least hiding out from women,” Tess said, animated. “Your crew are incredible flirts.”

She wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t know. “Think so?”

She nodded. “But I’m quite certain you’re hiding out from something. And that’s you specifically, not you in the plural meaning all of your men.”

While he stared at the flames licking their way through the kindling to the wedges of split oak, his smile twisted in irony. If he hadn’t wondered before, now he knew. He was in for a hell of a weekend.

Tess had brewed the tea while he’d laid the fire. He hadn’t run across any marshmallows, but had found a bottle of rum. Even if she didn’t want any, he didn’t see himself making it through the rest of the evening without it.

Watching her at the supper table had been as telling as it was excruciating. Telling because it was obvious how well she had chosen her field. She was a people person, empathetic, a good listener, giving her full attention to whoever had the floor. He’d never seen his men so engaged.

Sure, sitting down to eat with a gorgeous woman had a lot to do with the bunch of them, even Buck, having such a good time. But Wyatt had seen them all in the company of other women—many of them the women Tess was here to ask about—when none of them could find much to say.

Tess made the men feel safe, as though what they had to say mattered, as though
they
mattered—not as a team, the hands who managed the Triple RC, but as individuals. She had earned their trust and their respect over that one very long meal. And that was where the excruciating part came in.

She wasn’t the type of woman he could love and leave. Tonight’s dinner had proved that. He hadn’t learned much about her personally; she’d kept the conversation focused on the men. But what he had learned meant he’d just signed on for four very long days.

Oh, yeah. Rum was definitely called for, he mused, grateful he’d carried the bottle to the big empty house’s main room. He hadn’t built a fire since Christmas when his folks were out to the ranch. It hardly seemed worth the effort to do it for himself, but now he was glad he’d made the suggestion.

Tess sat on the floor in front of his big recliner as if she were better able to feel the heat from there than curled into the corner of the chair. He was quite sure if she had, the light wouldn’t have reached her halo of hair, threading like ribbons through the strands.

And why she had him stupid-dizzy and wanting to touch her hair was something he couldn’t afford to examine too closely. What he had to keep in mind was that this wasn’t a rodeo, he wasn’t a champion and she was not a bunny looking for a good time.

He sat on the steamer trunk that served as a coffee table. It was closer to her than the sofa, but not as close as he’d be were he to sit on the floor and lean back against the trunk, his legs stretched out toward the hearth. When he twisted the top from the bottle and offered to pour, she nodded, and he added a splash of rum to her tea.

“So are you going to tell me what it is?” she asked after she’d sipped and sighed. “Why you’re out here keeping a low profile when I picked up more than a few hints over dinner that you’re a high-profile guy?”

He figured this was as good a time as any to remind her that she’d agreed not to name names, and in exchange for that consideration, he might even give her the answer to what she was asking.

“I
was
a high-profile guy.” The room his folks used to sleep in was where all Wyatt’s trophies and buckles were on display in glass cases. Right now he was really glad he’d moved them out of here. “I guess I still am. It’s just that out here it’s not such a big deal. For the most part, I work behind the scenes and let Buck do all the talking.”

Tess tucked her legs to the side, wrapping the blanket she’d found folded on top of the trunk more tightly around her shoulders. She brought her mug to her mouth, but before drinking, asked, “Who are you then?”

Elbows braced on his knees, he stared down into his mug, watching the reflection of the flames dance on the surface of the golden-brown liquid. He lifted and drank, gathering his thoughts as the pungent tang of the rum warmed his throat on the way down.

“I’ve won more professional bull-riding championships than any other rider ever has.” Though after the beating he’d taken from the seventeen-hundred-pound monster Brangus named Baby Shakes, his records were up for grabs. “They called me Lawman, something about letting the bulls know who was in charge.”

Tess held her mug in both hands, her eyes wide as she listened. “Or maybe something about the name Wyatt belonging to Wyatt Earp? One of the legendary lawmen of the West?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “That, too.”

She tilted her head toward the fire as she considered him. “Does that make you uncomfortable? Having a legendary status of your own?”

“Nah. There was a lot of pressure, sure. Could I do it one more time? When was I going to wash out or meet my match? But in the arena?” He shook his head. “All that goes away. It’s only you and close to a ton of pissed-off bull aiming to use you as a punching bag. You think of anything but the ride, and you won’t make it two seconds, much less eight.”

“Eight seconds.” She sighed, sipped her tea. The light from the fire washed her skin in gold, picked up bright sparks of color in her cheeks. “It sounds like little more than the blink of an eye.”

“Trust me. It can be a lifetime.” He added another splash of rum to both of their mugs, then another to his for good measure. He didn’t mind talking about rodeo at all. But talking about it to a woman with this one’s intuition wasn’t the easiest thing to do.

He didn’t dwell on those days or want them back. They were a part of who he was, sure, but he’d moved on. This was his life now, his home. The ranch was as important to him these days as the rides had been in the past. And he didn’t want what had gone before to be what he was judged on now.

That was why Buck acted as the mouthpiece for the Triple RC, and why Wyatt himself had grown to accept being a bit of a recluse. It was unintentional, not a lifestyle he’d ever planned for, but leaving his celebrity behind made it easier to trust that he wasn’t being used for his name.

“I’ll bet you were a hit with the bunnies,” she finally said as if reading his thoughts.

“For a few years there? You bet.” Why deny a truth that was so obvious? “The only nights I spent alone were those on the road when we drove straight through from one town to another. The rest of the time there wasn’t enough of me to go around. I don’t know if it was the bulls or the bunnies who wore me out in the end.”

She seemed to take that in, mulling it over and considering what she wanted to do with his admission. Whether to kiss his ass good-bye right here and now, or forgive him a past life that had branded him as less than a saint.

After a long minute spent studying his face, she said, “It won’t work, you know.”

He tried not to squirm under her scrutiny, or her insight. She knew what he wanted. And his insight told him she wanted the same thing—and had since that second phone call. They were headed to bed. How soon it would happen and how long it would last were the only things to settle.

“What won’t work?” he finally gave in and asked.

“You’re too smart a man to ever have jeopardized your career for sex. I understand groupies. All sports have them. But athletes who want to stay in the game know where to draw the line.”

She let the blanket fall to the floor and got to her feet, coming to sit beside him. “If you’re wanting to scare me off, you’ll have to do better than that.”

Wyatt could’ve shifted so that their thighs pressed together—there wasn’t more than an inch between—but he didn’t. He stayed where he was, enjoying the heat of having her near, the anticipation of having her nearer still.

Sooner. He was pretty damn certain it was going to happen sooner, though he wasn’t going anywhere if she had later in mind. “I hadn’t thought so much about scaring you off. It was more about letting you know who I was.”

“Isn’t
was
the operative word here? Because if that’s still who you are, you wouldn’t let Buck do all the talking. You’d keep your profile as high as it ever was and have the bunnies lining up at the gate.”

He set his cup aside, got up to tend the fire, knowing that no matter his good intentions, it was way too late to put any distance between them. Yeah, she’d agreed that he wouldn’t be profiled for her article or interviewed for his take on the rodeo life. Even so, she’d been here less than twelve hours, and she’d already figured out more about him than he’d told anyone in a very long time. It was going to make her four days on the ranch seem like four years.

That should have bothered him more than it did, but instead of figuring out why it didn’t, he decided to tell her as much of the truth as he could manage without choking on the words.