Wild Mustang Man (2 page)

He reached into the freezer and grabbed a handful of ice cubes, put them in a plastic bag and pressed it against the woman’s eyelid, holding it tightly for her as she sat at his kitchen table.

“How does that feel?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said, taking the ice bag from him and laying it on the table instead of against her eye. She was lying. She was too pale to be fine, but her smile was more determined than sincere.

“I’m Bridget McCloud,” she said extending her hand. “McCloud Advertising.” Automatically he took her hand and was struck by her firm grip. A woman used to getting what she wanted, he guessed.

It didn’t take long to find out what she wanted. Him.

“I’m in your area today looking for someone to represent my client, the makers of Wild Mustang cologne.”

Forgetting the ice pack now leaking onto the round oak table, Josh straddled a straight-back chair across from the woman and stared at her. “You’re making a cologne that smells like wild mustangs?” he asked.

A tinge of color came back to her cheeks. “Obviously it won’t smell exactly like horses. What they’ve done is to capture the essence of the wild mustang. You know, leather and...and—”

“Manure?” he asked.

She pursed her lips together, obviously annoyed with him. “Of course not. Putting the scent aside—”

“The smell, you mean,” he said, almost enjoying tweaking her like this. She was so damned citified, so proper, so businesslike. And way off base.

“Yes, you. I’ve come all the way up here from San Francisco to look for a man who embodies all the qualities of the Wild West. When I saw you on your horse up there on the hill, I knew I’d found him.”

“But I don’t wear cologne. I don’t know anyone who does. I wouldn’t want to know anyone who does. So that lets me out”

She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Not at all. You don’t have to wear cologne. You don’t have to wear anything.” Her eyes traveled over his dusty denim shirt and his faded Levi’s and she blushed. Hastily she brought her gaze back to his. “I mean, just clothes, of course—a checkered shirt, along with the vest, the chaps, the scarf. For the color print ads and the TV commercials. I can see it now.”

He jumped to his feet. “You can see it? Well, I can’t. You’ve got the wrong man. You don’t really think I’d make a fool of myself on TV, do you? Advertising some damned flaky perfume? God, I’d be the laughing stock of the whole town.” The thought of men wearing perfume made him gag.

“Oh, come now,” she said, standing to look him in the eye. “You’re exaggerating.”

“You think so?” he asked, glaring at her. “I’ve lived in Harmony all my life. You’ve been here, what, one day? My parents worked this land before me and their parents before them. We buy wild horses. We raise them and train them. And then we sell them. We don’t wear perfume.”

“Cologne,” she corrected.

“And we don’t pose for ads. We run a business.”

“I understand that,” she said. “I run a business too. The advertising business. My job is to find the perfect Wild Mustang Man. And now that I’ve found him I’m not going to let him go. Just because you pose on your horse for a few pictures doesn’t mean you can’t continue your own work. The crew will film you as you’re doing your buying, selling, training...whatever you do. And you’ll make enough money to send your son to college. You’ll make more money than you’ve ever dreamed of.”

“How do you know what I’ve dreamed of?” he demanded.

“I don’t. I’m just trying—”

“You’re trying to bribe me. Well, I can’t be bought. Nothing you can say will make me change my mind. And now if you’re feeling well enough to travel, I’ll see you out” Finally, an excuse to get her out of there.

Bridget blinked. Surprised at being turned down, he thought. It was time she learned to take no for an answer and look elsewhere for this Wild Mustang Man. With his hand gripping her arm, he ushered her and her equipment to the front door. She didn’t exactly drag the heels of her strappy sandals, but she didn’t pick them up very readily, either.

“There are other ranchers, you know,” he said, hoping to ease her quickly and smoothly out of his house. “Maybe you can convince one of them to sell his soul and make a fool of himself on TV. If you’d like some names—”

“I have plenty of names, thank you,” she said stiffly, holding tightly to the front doorknob. “But I know what I want.”

“So do I,” he said. “What I want is to be left alone by city slickers combing the countryside for male models.”

“I’m not looking for a male model. If I was I could have found one in the city. I want a real man. With real muscles. A man who does real work. I want you. When you come to your senses, give me a call. I’m renting a room in town.” She pulled her arm away, fished in her pocket for a card and thrust it at him.

“Don’t hold your breath,” he said. He took her card, intending to throw it away as soon as she was out of sight. It smelled like her, an expensive smell like hothouse flowers, and the sooner he got rid of her card and her scent the better. With relief he watched from the front step as she limped down his path and veered off through the field toward the road. With relief and just a touch of guilt. Maybe she was really hurt. And too proud to show it. He could have walked her to her car. It wouldn’t have killed him. But all he’d done was to bandage her leg after his son had knocked her down and injured her.

His son. What was he going to do with Max? What was he going to do with his life? He buried his face in his hands. He wasn’t cut out to be a single parent. He wasn’t cut out to be single. At high school graduation he’d made a wish— to marry the only girl he’d ever loved and ever would love. He got his wish. He’d loved her, as best he could. And he’d married her, too soon maybe. Too young perhaps. And now what? Was he supposed to spend the rest of his life alone? Of course he was. That’s what Molly would have done if he’d died first. But Molly was a saint. And he...he was a man, an ordinary man, with ordinary wants and needs. He crumpled her card in his hand, but instead of throwing it away, he stuffed it into his back pocket.

* * *

Bridget drove back to town, her head throbbing, her mind spinning and her leg aching. But undiscouraged. It took more than a refusal to discourage the daughter of Angus McCloud, the only Scotsman to run the San Francisco marathon at age eighty. He didn’t win the marathon, but he finished it, as well as a bottle of Scotch whiskey at the celebration that followed. She parked in back of the diner on Main Street, glanced up at the second-floor room she was renting above the shoe repair shop, and decided to call her office before going up to shower and change her clothes.

“Kate,” she said, when her friend answered. “You won’t believe it, but I’ve found him. Honestly, in my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have come up with a more perfect Wild Mustang Man.”

“But you just got there.”

“Isn’t it amazing? My first day and I find a room to rent, I ask around, I get a list of ranchers and cowboys and the first one on my list, it’s him.”

“Him? Who?”

“Josh Gentry is his name. You’ll love him, I guarantee it. The client will love him—”

“What about you, will you love him, too?” Kate asked worriedly. “Remember, Bridgie, you’re in a very vulnerable state. You’ll fall for the first man who smiles at you.”

“Don’t worry about that. This guy is not the smiley type,” Bridget assured her, wishing her head wouldn’t throb that way. Wishing she’d kept that ice on her eyelid. Wishing Kate would forget how Bridget had been dumped so Bridget could forget, too.

“You know I’ve learned my lesson,” Bridget assured her. “In fact, I’ve learned so many lessons in the past year I can’t keep them straight. Don’t mix business and pleasure is one of them. Marriage and a family are not the only possibilities for women in this day and age.”

“Don’t fall in love with unavailable men is another,” Kate reminded her. “And don’t fall in love at first sight.”

Bridget thought of the man who’d applied that washcloth to her shin, the man with the fierce gaze, the short temper and the gentle touch, and a shiver ran up her spine. “I won’t. I’m going to devote myself to my work. I’m not going to fall in love at all. Never again,” she said, gazing across Main Street to the vast high desert plains of Nevada, remembering the pain and the broken promises and the broken engagement.

“I think it was just the shock of...you know, the idea, the way I presented it, all at once. But he has my card, and once he’s had a chance to think it over...well, he’s probably trying to call me right now. And if he doesn’t, I’ll call him.”

“We don’t have a lot of time, Bridget. The rent on the office is due and I’m not sure we can stall any longer.”

“Uh-oh. What I’d better do is send you the pictures I just took. You can forward the best ones to the Wild Mustang people. It will show them we’re not just some little startup with big ideas and nothing else. It will show them we’re making progress. Maybe they’ll even give us an advance.”

“But what if they see the pictures, love the guy, give us an advance, and then he turns you down?”

“He’s not going to turn me down,” Bridget said with more conviction than she felt. “Anyway, I have to go now and get some ice for my eye.”

Including a five-year-old boy who brought out the maternal feelings Bridget had determinedly squashed when her marriage plans went down the drain. A ranch house any woman would love, which had been carefully decorated by a woman who watched over it from her place on the mantel or somewhere in heaven.

Josh shook his head. Had his five-year-old son noticed her tawny wheat gold hair that framed her face and the silky-smooth long legs? “That kid. I wish he’d show as much interest in horses as in ten-speed bikes.”

“Or in pretty women,” his father said with a chuckle. “Sure is nothing like you. All you ever cared about was the ranch and wild mustangs and the neighbor girl who turned into one pretty woman.”

“I haven’t changed, Pop. That’s all I’ll ever care about. Now that Molly’s gone I’ve still got the ranch and the horses, and Max, of course.”

“Sure she would. Of course. But if she was here, and not you, I’d say the same thing. Get on with your life. Find someone to help you raise Max.”

“We’ll talk about it then,” Josh said. “You know what I went through when Molly died. I’ll never take another chance on love. Nothing is worth the pain I went through.”

“Stubborn. Well, that’s one thing you and your son have in common.”

“You may have a point there. Just send him home when you get tired of him. Right now I’ve got a mare I’ve got to halter before I add another horse to my stable. If I can get to it without some damned woman coming around with a camera. You coming with me to the wild horse adoption center on Thursday?”

When Max came home at the end of the day, with his repaired bicycle in the back of his grandfather’s pickup, Josh sat down at the dinner table to have a talk with him.