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  By tonight, they'd be in Colorado, and the process would start over. Somehow she'd have to pull herself together, because at the moment her on-camera persona didn't mesh with the way she felt inside. She was paid to be pert and bubbly. Instead she felt like a two-day-old glass of champagne. She wished she'd never laid eyes on Clint Walker.

  * * *

  Clint held his act together until the white van pulled away from the house. Then he strode to the barn, saddled Nugget and headed out. He rode all afternoon, until darkness forced him back to the barn. Just his luck he ran into Tuck coming out of the barn.

  "Where did you go off to?" Tuck asked. "I rode all over the place looking for you. I just came back a little while ago, myself."

  "I had to clear my head after having the TV people here for two days," Clint said. "Is anything wrong?"

  "I thought you'd want to know that the folks from Meg's station in New York called. They really want you on that show."

  "They called here?" He'd thought it was over, now that Meg was gone. Obviously not. Maybe his life was screwed up for good.

  "They called again because after finding out you turned them down, they want to give you a bonus if you'll appear on the show. They wouldn't tell me how much they're offering, of course. But they said you might want to consider getting yourself an agent."

  Clint stared at his foreman. "An agent? Why the hell would I need an agent?"

  "Don't bite my head off. I'm just the messenger."

  "An agent!" Clint shook his head. "All I did was get Meg's horse calmed down!"

  "According to the woman I talked to on the phone, I think her name's Sharon something-or-other, you made quite an impression doing that. I guess it was a real Kodak moment. They think you need an agent because you'll be fielding other calls, other offers."

  "That's the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life." Clint undid the cinch on Nugget's saddle.

  "So they've all gone home by now, but this Sharon person gave me her cell-phone number, and she said for you to call anytime. I suppose they stay up 'till all hours back there, but I thought you'd want to call before it got too late, with the time difference and all."

  Clint pulled the saddle off and plopped it on a wooden rack by the door. "Tuck, I appreciate you taking the message, but I won't be calling her back. I have no intention of getting involved in any of it."

  Tuck cleared his throat. "Uh, would that have anything to do with whatever went on between you and Meg?"

  Clint whirled to face him. "Nothing went on between me and Meg."

  "If you say so." Tuck gazed at him with a knowing expression.

  "What … what do you think went on?"

  "Well, I have no hard evidence, if that's what you mean. But I'd be willing to bet that the two of you got friendly while she was here. Jamie thought so, too."

  Clint was dismayed to feel himself blushing. "We … um … it wasn't really … aw, hell, Tuck. It's over and done with now, anyway."

  "Too bad."

  "What do you mean too bad? She's a TV star, in case you haven't noticed. There's no room in her life for somebody like me."

  "Or no room in your life for somebody like her?"

  "She wanted to make me into a trained monkey. Can you picture me strutting around in front of a camera?"

  Tuck rubbed his chin. "It's not so bad, once you get used to it."

  Instantly Clint felt horrible for saying that. Tuck had been proud of his moments on TV, and Clint had made it sound like a ridiculous thing to do. "With you it was way different," he said. "She wasn't parading you out there as a contestant for the hottest cowboy. Your deal was more dignified."

  Tuck burst out laughing. "Is that what's standing in the way of you taking those offers and making good money? Dignity?"

  Clint was highly offended. "What if it is?"

  Tuck shook his head. "It's a mighty high price to pay for dignity, if you ask me. You lose the money and the girl. I suspect you could stand both in your life." He started chuckling again. "Dignity. Lord Almighty."

  "You don't understand." Clint felt as if the whole world had decided to beat up on him today.

  "No, I probably don't. Probably too old."

  "Besides, we don't need the money. Gabriel's going to come through for us."

  Tuck sobered and glanced over toward Gabriel's stall. "That's something else we need to talk about."

  A wave of uneasiness passed through Clint. "What do you mean?"

  "Gabriel's favoring his left front foot. I think I've pushed him too hard, because I wanted him to be ready for the start of the season in Tucson. But he's young, and he'll be fine if we ease up."

  "Ease up?" Clint didn't like the sound of that. "For how long?"

  "Hard to say. But I can't promise you he'll race this spring. You could ruin him. I didn't want to bring this up until after we got through the TV deal, because I knew you'd be disappointed."

  Disappointed wasn't the word. Devastated was more like it. Clint had been counting on Gabriel more than he'd thought. Now the horse was turning into an iffy proposition.

  Tuck clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry too much about it. We'll see what the next few weeks bring." He looked toward the house. "Well, I think Jose's made cordon bleu for tonight, so I'm heading up for dinner. Should we set you a place at the table?"

  Clint didn't feel like eating, but if he said no, that would confirm that he was either a lovesick fool or a guy who couldn't take bad news about his horse. So he'd eat dinner as usual and act as if everything was great. "Sure. I'll be right up."

  After Tuck left, Clint turned to Nugget and reached up to scratch behind the horse's ears. "Too bad you're not a race horse, buddy. Without a race horse, I really will look like an idiot. But I can't see myself on TV, either. It just wouldn't be dignified. I'm sure you get that, even if nobody else does."

  Nugget blew air through his nose, which didn't sound like support for Clint's position. Apparently even his horse was against him.

  * * *

  The days passed more quickly than Meg had expected. She wished the studio had come up with this bright idea in the summer, though, because she nearly froze to death in Colorado and Montana. In Montana they'd had to broadcast in the snow.

  Although hitting cowboy-oriented states in alphabetical order meant more crisscross travel, the concept seemed to appeal to viewers. New Mexico was a little warmer, but not as balmy as Arizona. She remembered with longing the warm sunshine in Sonoita as she and Jamie headed to Oklahoma and then back down to Texas.

  She thought of Clint with more than simple longing. Missing him desperately seemed to be what she did best these days. A thousand times she considered calling to find out if he'd had a change of heart, but she couldn't risk it. He might erase the tiny glow of hope that kept her going.

  Her days were filled with watching cowboys perform, conducting interviews and broadcasting the results to a waiting audience that grew daily. The show's producers were ecstatic about the jump in ratings. Meg knew she should be ecstatic, too.

  But she was too busy missing Clint to feel any satisfaction in the project's success. Even her worry that Mona would steal her spot had been bumped way down on her list of concerns. Instead, she had taken up a new hobby.

  Most of the ranches had porches, and weather permitting, Meg had fallen into the habit of sitting on them in her spare time. None had quite the relaxing vista she'd found at the Circle W, but whenever she sat on a porch, she felt close to Clint.

  She liked to imagine him sitting on his porch thinking of her at the same time she was thinking of him. The more she indulged this new hobby, the more she craved it. And the knot of anxiety about her career that had kept her in constant motion for the past several years began to disappear.

  On the last afternoon of their odyssey, Meg sank onto a wooden chair on the porch of the Double D ranch in Greybull, Wyoming. From the porch she could see the Big Horn Mountains and she pretended they were the Santa Ritas that Clint saw from the front o
f his house.

  She could use a cup of his industrial-strength coffee, because she was a little tired and had to be upbeat for the last finalist party tonight. After the broadcast in the morning, she and Jamie would return the live truck they'd rented in Cody and fly back to New York.

  Jamie came out of the house with two mugs of coffee and sat down in the chair next to hers. "Not as strong as Clint's, but then, nothing is or ever will be." He handed her a steaming mug.

  "Clint's coffee is now the gold standard for coffee strength." She didn't mention what else about the man had become her new criteria for excellence. It involved some private moments with Clint that Jamie still didn't know about.

  "I talked to Alison just now."

  Meg quickly turned to face him. "Really? Is this the first time since Arizona?"

  "First time." Jamie sipped his coffee. "I promised myself I'd wait until we were headed home, and then make the call sound completely casual, like one friend to another."

  "And?" Meg felt Jamie's excitement across the short distance between them.

  "She dumped the other guy."

  "Woo-hoo!" Meg leaped to her feet and went over to land a big smacker on Jamie's cheek. "That's awesome! What did you say?"

  "I said that was interesting."

  "Ah." Meg smiled and sat down again. "Playing it cool?"

  "Sort of. I told her you and I were headed back tomorrow and I'd probably have tons of things to catch up on, so I'd call her when I got settled in."

  "So you're going to call her like two minutes after you walk in your front door?"

  "Probably." He grinned. "But I was proud of myself for riot giving away the farm right away."

  "I'm proud of you, too." She reached over and squeezed his shoulder, although she could barely feel him through the heavy coat he was wearing. She'd had to buy herself a ski jacket back in Colorado, and she wore it now for what might be her last porch-sitting episode in a long time.

  He glanced over at her. "Glad to be going home?"

  She turned and focused on the shadowy mountains on the horizon. "I hate to say this, but I've gotten used to this slower lifestyle. I'm wondering how I'll do once I'm back in Manhattan."

  "You'll be acclimated in ten minutes."

  "That's what I'm afraid of, that this peaceful feeling will disappear the minute I step off the plane at JFK."

  "I've had enough peaceful feelings to last me a lifetime. It's been fun, but I get a buzz from all that big-city energy."

  "I thought I did, too." She took another drink of her coffee. "Now I'm not so sure."

  "Does Clint have anything to do with that?"

  She turned to look at him. "Why would you think that?"

  "Masculine intuition. Plus the fact that Tuck asked me if I thought there was any chemistry, and then I saw the way Clint was looking at you during that wild and crazy broadcast the last morning we were there. And you sniffled all the way to Phoenix, and if it was a cold like you said, it was the shortest cold in history."

  Meg sighed. "Okay, there's something there, but it's hopeless."

  "Nothing's ever hopeless, Megster."

  "Some things are. He's refused to consider putting even his big toe into New York, and I might like more porch-sitting in my life, but I'm not ready to spend all my days on a ranch in the middle of nowhere so he won't ever have to leave his comfort zone."

  "I'm glad you said that, because if that was the plan I'd have to take drastic measures. Kidnap you or something until you came to your senses. You'd go nuts being a full-time rancher's wife. Besides, it isn't even his ranch."

  "But it should be." Frustration gripped her again. "And he could take a giant step toward getting it back if he wanted to."

  "Which means it's out of your control."

  "Uh-huh." She took a sip of coffee. "I hate when that happens."

  * * *

  Clint watched Meg's last broadcast, which was beamed from Wyoming. In fact, he'd watched every broadcast beginning with the one in Colorado right after she'd left the Circle W. He'd rearranged his entire weekday mornings so that he didn't miss Meg and Mel. Once the other guys found out, they'd joined him.

  So that had become the routine—everyone gathered in the living room with a cup of coffee to catch a five-minute glimpse of Meg. Other than Clint, Denny paid the most attention, because in three days he'd be leaving for New York. Clint kept thinking about that during the last broadcast.

  In three days, Denny would be on the set with Meg. He'd talk with Meg and reminisce about her days at the Circle W She might ask about Clint and she might not Clint didn't know how he'd stand it, knowing Denny was there and he wasn't, and wondering whether they talked about him at ail.

  Then after that he'd have to deal with Denny coming home again, having spent time with Meg. Another nightmare, as Denny would undoubtedly rave on about this and that in New York. Denny would know something about the city, about the studio. Clint would still be ignorant of all of it.

  In the days following Meg's departure, Clint had spent his time taking greenhorns on trail rides and performing routine maintenance on the barn and corrals. He'd also confirmed with a vet that Gabriel needed rest before he could be put back in training. That dream was on hold indefinitely.

  But in the late afternoons, Clint usually found himself on the porch drinking coffee and thinking about Meg. His conclusions made him uncomfortable, because he was beginning to realize that he cared more about Meg than he did about his dignity. He hadn't known he'd miss her this much, hadn't known the ache would be constant every waking minute. He had no idea how or if they could create a life together—he only knew they had to try.

  She'd shown that she had the courage to come into his territory when she didn't know the first thing about it. She'd been willing to try anything, from his kick-ass coffee to sex in the shower. Then she'd battled her fear of horses in order to do the job she'd been hired for. Thinking of that, he felt like a yellow-bellied coward by comparison.

  At the end of Meg's part of the show, Clint shut off the TV, as he always did. The boys didn't care about seeing Mel and Mona. They'd figured out that Mona had a mean streak and they could hardly wait for Meg to reclaim her co-host chair.

  As the men started to leave for their various daily chores, Clint called them back. "I … uh, have something to discuss with you."

  They each turned, and all of them looked nervous.

  "George has a buyer, right?" Jed said. "I knew it had to happen some day."

  "That's not it," Clint said. "Tuck knows about this, but maybe not the rest of you. When I accidentally ended up on TV that morning with the horses, I stirred up some interest with the people who run Meg's show."

  "Oh, we all know about that," said Denny. "Tuck said not to mention it, though, 'cause it makes you real mad."

  "Only because I'm an idiot," Clint said. Meg had told him he'd admit that some day. "Look, Denny, I don't want to steal your thunder, but I'm going with you. I've decided to be on that show, if they still want me."

  Denny beamed. "Awesome! I don't stand a chance, but you do! The way we all see it, if you win, you'll get a bunch of money and maybe you can get the ranch back. Then our jobs will be safe."

  Clint felt like the most selfish fool in the world. He'd been so caught up in preserving his precious dignity that he'd forgotten how an infusion of money could potentially protect his ranch hands. "I don't know if this will turn into a gold mine or not," he said, "but I've decided I'd be crazy not to go for it."

  "That's great, boss." Jed came over to shake his hand, followed by Jose, Denny and finally, Tuck.

  "You're doing the right thing," Tuck said, "for a bunch of reasons." He didn't say one of the reasons was Meg, but Clint knew that's what he meant.

  "Are you gonna call Meg and tell her?" Denny asked.

  Clint pictured doing that and rejected the idea. Advance warning would allow the studio to gear up for him and create more hullabaloo. He'd have enough trouble getting through this without g
iving them the chance to make it even more embarrassing.

  "No," he said. "I think it'll be more dramatic if I just show up with Denny."

  "It'll be dramatic, all right." Jed glanced at the ancient television set. "Wish we had something better to watch it on, though."

  "Are you kidding?" Jose said. "We'll get the Steak Out to open up the bar for the show. Everybody will want to be together to watch it, anyway."

  Jed smiled. "Great idea. So, boss, while you're on the show, remember, the whole town of Sonoita will be watching you!"

  Clint's stomach began to churn. Exactly what he didn't want, but it wasn't as if he could stop them. Then he remembered Meg sitting bravely on Prince, white-knuckled and determined. He ignored his butterflies and smiled back at Jed. "I'll do my best to make you all proud."

  * * *

  Meg sat n the makeup chair as Blythe finished with a dusting of translucent powder. The preshow makeup session seemed more tedious than it had been before she left In fact, the parade of morning performances stretching into the future made Meg sigh.

  Although Mona had tried to worm her way onto the show and cut Meg out, she hadn't succeeded. Her tactics had become so obvious that even Mel had commented on Mona's unbridled ambition. So Meg had the co-host spot sewed up. And she didn't want it anymore.

  She didn't know what she wanted exactly. Something in show business, but maybe not a daily TV show. She'd achieved her goal, and now she needed a new goal. Oh, and Clint. She still needed him as much or more than ever.

  But she couldn't leave the show until the Hottest Cowboy in the West contest was wrapped up. She owed the contestants that much. They'd helped her pull the ratings up, and besides, they were good guys. Even Bill wasn't so bad, just immature.

  By now they'd all be in the greenroom. She wanted to pay a quick visit there before show time, to say hello and make sure they were all happy with their hotel accommodations and the tours the studio had set up for them. They were a fun bunch. She could imagine them in there joking around as they waited for the big moment.

  Blythe had unsnapped the makeup cape and Meg was about to get up when Sharon came barreling through the door, her cheeks pink with excitement. "He's here!"