Wild About the Wrangler Read online

  “I make a good one, thanks to Wild Horse Canyon Adventures. Steve and Myra are doing handsprings over the number of hotel reservations that came in this week.”

  Mac grinned at the image of Steve and Myra Jenson, both middle-aged and stocky, doing handsprings. They’d bought the Bickford Hotel and the attached saloon years ago when business was booming. They’d weathered the bad years, and now business was good again. They deserved to reap the rewards.

  “I’m glad everyone’s happy,” he said, “but I still think I should pay for my beer.”

  “Don’t tell me.” Ike swiped a bar rag over the polished mahogany surface that had been the resting place for drinks for more than a century. “Steve gave me my orders. You’ll have to take it up with him.”

  “Maybe I will.” Mac sipped his beer and licked the foam from his lip. He liked it here in Bickford. He liked it so well he’d bought a fixer-upper east of town and was gradually getting it the way he wanted. First house ever. That was probably a sign he was growing up.

  “Hey, handsome.” Ida appeared at his elbow. “Where’s Travis?”

  “Eating ice cream.”

  “How wholesome of him.”

  “He plans to follow the hot fudge sundae with his usual quota of beer.”

  Ida wrinkled her nose. “That’s disgusting. Did you tell him that’s disgusting?”

  “More or less. But he’s a big boy.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. All three of you are pure eye candy.”

  Mac’s face heated. “Cut it out, Ida.”

  “Not on your life. Age has its privileges. Anyway, I’m done if you want to go over and chat with Anastasia.”

  “Can I see your picture, first?”

  “I was hoping you’d ask.” Ida opened the folder Anastasia mounted the portraits in to protect them.

  Six months ago she’d sketched Mac and had simply handed him the sheet of paper. These days the presentation was far more elegant. He’d had her sketch of him framed, but he still didn’t know what to do with it. Hanging it up in his house seemed conceited.

  He looked at Anastasia’s vision of Ida, and it was perfect. Anastasia had caught the woman’s irreverence and sparkle, plus an underlying wisdom that some people missed because Ida was so outrageous. She didn’t appear young in the portrait, but not ancient, either. More like ageless, and certainly someone you’d want to know.

  Mac glanced at Ida. “It’s you.”

  “I know. That girl has some kind of magic. I’ve had her do my portrait six times, and this is the best. She just keeps getting better. When I croak, I want this in the paper with my obituary, not some studio shot when I was a kid of fifty.”

  “I hope you’re not planning on croaking anytime soon.”

  “God, no. Too much going on. They want me to be in the documentary, and eventually Vince will marry Georgie, and I can’t miss that.”

  Vince laughed. “You certainly can’t. None of us can. I’d crawl through quicksand to see Vince Durant finally get hitched. He was so sure it wouldn’t ever happen.”

  “He was at that, foolish boy.” Ida smiled. “But I knew.” Her thick glasses magnified the curiosity in her gaze. “When are you going to admit you have a thing for Anastasia?”

  He gulped. “Excuse me?”

  “You can’t fool an old lady, Mac Foster. FYI, she likes you, too.”

  “I know she does.” He tried to steady his racing pulse. Not a good conversation to have right before he walked over to her table. “We’re good friends.”

  “I don’t mean she likes you. I mean she likes you.” Ida waggled her plucked eyebrows.

  Mac was determined to make light of it, despite the way his libido reacted to that comment. “You’re a romantic, Ida. You want everybody paired up. But I can’t date Anastasia. It’s way too complicated.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He cracked up. Couldn’t help it. Hearing a woman her age using the word bullshit was plain hysterical. She was the type, though. Ida didn’t pull her punches.

  “Go ahead and laugh all you want, but that’s another reason for me to stick around. I want to see how you and Anastasia turn out.”

  Still chuckling, Mac gazed at her. “I’m happy to provide the motivation for you to stick around, no matter how misguided that motivation might be. But I have to tell you, I’m not dating her. End of story.”

  Ida looked into his eyes for a moment longer. “You are completely clueless, just like your friend Vince was.” Then she stood on tiptoe, kissed his cheek, and left the saloon.

  He wasn’t sure if he’d just been blessed or cursed. But Ida knew things. You couldn’t live on this planet for almost a century and not get pretty damn good at reading people and situations.

  For the first time he questioned the wisdom of being so chummy with Anastasia. Maybe he shouldn’t show her the pictures he’d taken, after all. She had a whole bunch on her computer already. These were nice, but if Ida was right and Anastasia liked him, then deliberately spending time with her wouldn’t do either of them any favors.

  Georgie was super protective when it came to her sister, or rather her stepsister. Georgie’s mom had died when she was a toddler and later on her dad had remarried a woman with two girls—Anastasia, the younger one, and Charmaine, the older one. Charmaine lived in Dallas while she hunted for a wealthy husband, something her greedy mother hoped for.

  It would have been a classic Cinderella story except that Charmaine and Anastasia weren’t ugly stepsisters by any stretch. Charmaine was a sweetheart who mostly just wanted to please her momma, although she also liked the finer things in life and wasn’t opposed to marrying a rich guy.

  Anastasia had told him point blank that she’d rather die than marry for wealth or prestige. She’d told her mother that, too, but Evelyn kept hoping Anastasia would fall in love with some well-heeled tourist passing through Bickford. The chances of that had improved exponentially in the past few months.

  Mac took another swallow of his beer. He wished Ida hadn’t told him that Anastasia had a crush on him. Ida could be wrong, of course, or she could be up to her usual shenanigans. She might think if she planted that idea in his head, he’d be driven to act on it.

  Well, he wasn’t going to. He’d already taken a trip down the aisle only to discover he wasn’t good at marriage. Nobody in Bickford knew about that episode except Vince and Travis. He’d been divorced for a couple of years, now, and figured that would be his permanent designation.

  He chose to date women who didn’t want anything more than a fun time. That wasn’t Anastasia. She deserved a forever guy who was good at this relationship business and would make her happy.

  But he didn’t want to be unfriendly, either. Now that Ida had left, Anastasia sat alone at her corner table, her hand moving rapidly over the sketch pad propped against her bent knee. From this angle he could see the intense concentration on her pretty face but not what she was drawing.

  But since she wasn’t looking at him, he could sneak a look at her, always a pleasure. He supposed some people would call her a brunette, but he didn’t think that was nearly enough of a description. Her hair, which she mostly wore in a ponytail, like today, was about six different colors of brown, ranging from dark to light. The variations in her hair fascinated him.

  But after a second or two, he turned back to his glass of beer so nobody would get the wrong idea. He probably didn’t have to worry, though. None of the customers sitting at the tables or at the bar were local and they all seemed to be involved in their own conversations.

  He glanced over at her again and she happened to look up right at that moment. Her instant smile of delight made his chest hurt. Did she have a crush? He hoped not. That would cause problems for both of them.

  But now that they’d made eye contact, he had to go over and say hi. If he didn’t, she’d think something was wron
g. So he smiled back, picked up his half-full beer glass and walked over to her table.

  He’d ask about her work. That was always a safe topic and he really was interested. He loved seeing what kinds of pictures she came up with. “I noticed you over here furiously drawing something. What is it?”

  She laughed and turned the sketch pad around.

  There he was, sitting on a barstool looking thoughtful as he sipped his beer. Yikes. Maybe Ida had a point. “Hey, I recognize that guy. He sure could use a haircut.”

  “Nah, it looks better long. And it’s way more fun to draw than really short hair.” She turned the pad around and studied the sketch. “You seemed to be thinking so hard. I hope you didn’t have any issues on the trail this weekend.”

  “Nope.” He remained standing because if he sat down, he’d get into a longer conversation with her. It never failed. They always could find something to talk about, but now that he was worried she had a crush, he ought to minimize the amount of time he spent with her. “In fact, the ride went well.”

  “Good.” She added a few strokes of charcoal to his portrait before glancing up again. “Got any good pictures of the Ghost for me?”

  “Um, yeah, now that you mention it.” Her eyes also fascinated him. It probably said hazel on her driver’s license, but he couldn’t decide what color they were. Depending on the light or what she wore, they could look green, brown, gold, or a blend of those colors.

  Although he’d decided not to show her the pictures, he couldn’t look into those eyes and lie. For some reason she trusted him and he never wanted that to change, which was another reason not to get involved. If she trusted him with her heart, he might mess up, and that would be terrible.

  He opened his picture app, scrolled to the bottom, and handed her the phone.

  She sucked in a breath. “Mac, these are stupendous! I’m surprised you didn’t show them to me when you first walked in.”

  “You were with Ida.”

  “She wouldn’t have cared. And it’s not like I go into a trance when I draw. You’ve watched me. I chat and make jokes the whole time. Oh, this one.” She turned the screen toward him. “Text them all to me, but this is the one I’ll do first. Head up, mane blowing in the wind, looking every inch the leader. I love it.”

  Happiness flooded through him. He’d known she’d react this way. When he’d checked out the shots early this morning, he’d been excited to get back here and show them to her. He almost hadn’t done it after what Ida had said, and that would have been a damn shame.

  Maybe Ida was mistaking Anastasia’s natural enthusiasm for a crush. He’d heard her gush over the half barrels of flowers that lined the sidewalks as if she’d never seen flowers before. Now she was wild about the horse pictures on his phone.

  That was just her way. She might have spoken to Ida about him with an edge of anticipation in her voice. It didn’t have to mean anything except that she was glad they were friends and he brought her pictures of the Ghost nearly every weekend.

  “As long as I have your phone, do you care if I just text them to myself?”

  “No, go ahead. I took them—” He caught himself before he said for you. That might be a little too pointed, so he finished with “for people who hadn’t been out there yet.” Damn. He never used to watch what he said before. That had been half the fun of being around her.

  Her thumbs moved rapidly over the screen. “That’s something I’d like to talk to you about. Do you have a minute to sit down?”

  “Sure.” He hadn’t meant to, but what could it hurt? She’d said a minute, not an hour. He pulled out a chair and set his beer on the table.

  After she finished sending the pictures to herself, she handed his phone back. “I have a big favor to ask.”

  “What’s that?”

  She closed her sketch pad and tucked it inside the messenger bag she always carried. Then she looked straight at him. “I need to learn how to ride a horse.”

  That startled the heck out of him. “You don’t already know?”

  “I don’t.” She lowered her voice. “They scare me.”

  “Wow. I had no idea. I just assumed . . . I don’t know what I assumed.” But now that she’d brought it up, he realized that she’d never suggested going out to see the Ghost herself, and the only way to do that was on horseback.

  She kept her voice down and leaned toward him. “I’ve been afraid of them since I was little, but it didn’t really matter until now. I’m starting to feel like a fraud because I’m getting known for drawing a horse I’ve never seen.”

  “No one would ever guess. The pictures are perfect.” He could tell she didn’t want any of this to become common knowledge. Considering how easily she’d always told him things, it wasn’t surprising that she’d tell him this and know he’d keep quiet about it.

  “Maybe I’m fooling people, but when the film crew arrives, they’ll be asking questions, and I don’t want to admit I’ve never seen this horse. So if you’d be willing to teach me to ride, then I could—”

  “Why not ask Georgie?” Instinctively he knew that teaching her to ride was not a good idea. He wasn’t sure whether there was a crush involved or not, but now that Ida had mentioned the possibility, it was permanently planted in his brain.

  Until now, they’d seen a fair amount of each other, but usually here at Sadie’s with other people around. Riding lessons would mean scheduled private time on a regular basis, and if they had any chemistry . . . well, he didn’t want to test it.

  “Georgie would baby me. She wouldn’t mean to, but I’m her little sister and she can’t help being overprotective. You and I are the kind of friends who tell it like it is. You’d push me out of my comfort zone so I can get past this irrational fear. I know it’s a big favor, but . . . you’re the only person I really trust to help me.”

  “Hey, Mac and Anastasia!” Travis picked that moment to bounce in on a sugar high and hail them from halfway across the saloon. “Who’s up for a game of darts?”

  “Be right there!” Mac called back. Then he turned to Anastasia. “Look, I’m not sure if—”

  “Please say yes.”

  When it came down to it, he didn’t really have a choice. Disappointing her wasn’t an option. He looked into those incredible eyes and knew he was about to make a huge mistake. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Anastasia gladly joined Mac and Travis for their weekly game of darts, although she wasn’t fully engaged in it. Instead she was busy congratulating herself on achieving her main objective for the day. After thinking about it all weekend, she’d decided to ask Mac for lessons when he appeared at Sadie’s after the trail ride.

  He always came in for a beer and showed her his pictures, so the plan had seemed foolproof. Except today he’d broken his usual pattern. He’d come in for the beer, but then he’d stayed at the bar instead of walking over to her table.

  She could understand why he might not want to interrupt Ida’s portrait session. He could have, but she appreciated the respect he’d always shown for her work. When he hadn’t come over after Ida had left, though, she’d wondered what was going on.

  He’d known Ida was gone because she’d made a point of talking to him on her way out the door. That wasn’t unusual. Ida never missed a chance to interact with any of the three cowboys who’d changed Bickford’s fate for the better.

  But once Ida had walked out of the saloon, Anastasia had expected Mac to come over to her table. Instead he’d sat there sipping his beer and pondering . . . something. She’d given him a chance to say what he’d been thinking about, but he hadn’t risen to the bait.

  That was okay. When he wanted to talk about it, he would. While he’d stayed at the bar lost in thought, she’d made good use of her time.

  Consequently she had another charcoal sketch of her favorite cowboy to add to her portfolio. Be
cause she’d created a fair amount of portraits featuring Mac, he probably thought she was besotted. She was, in a way, because sketching his portrait months ago had jump-started her urge to draw again.

  But she wasn’t in the mood for romance. She was too busy with her art and her blossoming career. She’d learned in art school that love affairs could be distracting and even fatal to her creativity.

  She was older and wiser, now, and probably wouldn’t let herself get derailed again, but why take the chance? Mac’s friendship was one of the joys of her life, so turning the excellent friendship into an affair made no sense, especially because he was also the perfect choice to deal with her phobia concerning horses.

  She’d heard him talk about working with greenhorns on the trail rides, and he had the attitude she was looking for in a riding teacher. He had empathy for beginners. He’d be tough but not mean, insistent but never a bully. She was desperate to see the Ghost in person and he’d agreed to help her.

  The documentary had been the inciting factor, but she’d been agonizing over the problem for months. Her strong sense of artistic integrity wouldn’t let her build a reputation on a lie. Other artists might disagree, but drawing the Ghost without ever seeing him in the flesh felt deceptive. She couldn’t keep doing it.

  “Bull’s-eye!” Travis won the current round and performed an elaborate victory dance. Then he halted in front of Anastasia. “Mac’s giving our darts tournament his all, but if you’ll excuse my saying so, you’re giving maybe your two-thirds, maybe even your half. Definitely not your all.”

  “Sorry. I have some things on my mind.”

  His eyes widened in mock horror. “More important than this?”

  He made her laugh, as he always did. When all three men had come to town six months ago, Bickford’s population had been mostly composed of senior citizens. Vince had fixated on Georgie, which had left Mac and Travis for Anastasia, the only other eligible woman in town. She hadn’t been sure which one captivated her more.