Wild Mustang Man (4 page)

“I’m not going home until I find my Wild Mustang Man.” She gave a cursory glance around at the ranchers huddled in groups around the corral, who were pointing at this horse and that, loudly discussing their merits. But none of them looked like her Wild Mustang Man. None of them looked like Josh Gentry.

“Want me to introduce you to any of the guys?” he asked, noting her interest with a mocking smile.

She straightened her shoulders. “No, thanks. I can manage on my own.” With that she strode off purposefully toward a knot of wranglers, reminding herself that the future of her business rested on finding the right man for the product. At this point all she wanted to do was escape the scrutiny of Mr. Gentry and show him she didn’t need him. To do that she would have walked into a den of lions. Instead she walked into a den of cowboys.

“Um...excuse me, gentlemen?”

They suddenly stopped talking and stared at her.

“I was wondering—” Oh, Lord, she couldn’t, she just couldn’t talk about men’s cologne to this group. She could tell by the looks on their faces it was completely out of the question. They would laugh her right out of there. “I was wondering if you could advise me on a horse to buy.”

“Honey, you come to the wrong place for a gentle horse. See, these here horses are wild. You gotta go to one hell of a lot of work to tame them, and even then they might not be what you’d call gentle.”

“I see,” Bridget said, nodding thoughtfully. “Well, thank you. I appreciate your advice. It was nice, um...talking to you.” With a polite smile she backed away and walked quickly to the other side of the corral, trying to lose herself in the crowd, hoping, praying that Josh had left and had not witnessed the fiasco she had just initiated.

Josh was supposed to be looking for a horse. That was why he was there, after all, but his attention was not on the horseflesh in the corral. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the woman in the slim new jeans and the form-fitting T-shirt who was making her way around the corral. He wasn’t the only one watching her. Other men watched—they not only watched, they stopped her, smiled at her and spoke to her.

He shouldn’t be surprised. She was the best-looking woman to arrive on the scene in Harmony, Nevada, for some time. Maybe ever. She stood out like a long-stemmed red rose in the midst of a hayfield.

Had she found her stupid Wild Mustang Man yet? He hoped so. He hoped she’d convinced some poor fool to do it so she’d leave him alone and he could get back to whatever it was he did in his real life.

She was talking to Tex Woodruff at that very moment. He’d taken his hat off and he was looking at her as if she was just the prettiest little thing he’d ever seen. That’s probably what he was saying to her, if he knew Tex. The man had a mustache a mile wide and a line a mile long. Not a bad rider though. He’d make a great Wild Mustang Man. Which had probably occurred to her by now. Which was why she was still talking to him after five minutes. She was looking up at him as if he’d assured her he was the greatest rider in the West. He was good. Josh didn’t like the way he treated his horses, though. Didn’t much like the way he treated his women, either, if rumor was correct.

She was reaching into her pocket, pulling out one of her business cards, the same kind she’d given him. Giving the same pitch she’d given him. Tex was smiling, nodding, spending about ten minutes studying her card. Guy probably couldn’t read. Who cared? Who said the Wild Mustang Man had to read? As Josh understood it, it wasn’t a speaking part. But it was his part. She’d offered it to him first. And by God, no simple-minded wrangler was going to take it away from him.

Without thinking any further, Josh plowed through the crowd, towering over most of the other men he passed as he made his way to where Bridget was talking to Tex. With a brief nod to Tex, he took Bridget by the elbow and spun her around.

“Still looking for your Wild Mustang Man?”

Her eyes widened. “Yes, but—”

“Then I’ll do it. Let’s go.” With his hand firmly on her elbow they walked through the crowd, leaving a bewildered Tex standing there staring, as they marched past the milling horseflesh out into the parking lot to Josh’s truck and horse trailer where he finally stopped. Bridget turned to face him, out of breath, with her eyes shining.

“The camera crew. They’ll just be here at the very end. You’re the boss, though. Whatever you say goes. What...what made you change your mind?”

He tried to think of an answer. The hot sun beating mercilessly on his head was no help. Sweat trickled down his forehead. He opened his truck and reached into his cooler for two bottles of ginger beer. He’d never admit to anyone, not even to himself, that he was jealous of some half-baked cowboy. He handed her a cold drink, opened his and took a long swallow.

“The part about Max’s college education,” he said at last “I wish now I’d gone on to college. But there was the ranch. And there was Molly.”

“No. I came close once. I was engaged last year, but I’m not anymore. I’m on my own. My own business, my own life. I like it that way,” she said in a determined tone, then tilted her chin and took a long drink of ginger beer.

Fascinated he watched a drop trickle from the corner of her mouth. Almost reached over to catch it. Stopped himself just in time. But couldn’t stop his heartbeat from accelerating.

“Well, anyway,” he said, slamming the door to his truck. “I came here to get a horse. I better get back in there before they’re picked over.” Or before he’d spilled his guts to an advertising lady from the city who exuded self-sufficiency and the essence of exotic flowers that teased his nostrils, making him think of silk sheets and satin skin. Hers. What was wrong with him? He was a cotton sheet and calluses kind of guy. And she was not his type.

“Wait a minute,” Bridget said, realizing she was being dismissed before she was ready to go. Yes, she got what she came for, but she wasn’t ready to leave. Not yet. “If it’s not asking too much, I’d like to see how you choose a wild mustang. For research purposes, you know. I haven’t taken many pictures yet, either. So if it’s all right with you...” She could tell by his expression it wasn’t all right, but he resignedly tossed his empty bottle and hers into the truck, and they went back inside to where the wild horses were waiting to be chosen.

Leaning next to him at the fence, her shoulder brushed his. Even through his chambray shirt, she could feel the hard muscle there. The herd of horses behind the fence blurred, and all she could do was imagine how her Wild Mustang Man would look without the shirt, all sun-bronzed muscle and flat, washboard stomach.... Her pulse rate shot up, and her cheeks reddened. She slid a glance in his direction. He was looking at the horses, watching them snort and jerk their heads. Didn’t give her a glance.

So this strange attraction she felt was completely one-sided. It was just as well. If they were going to work together, she couldn’t afford to get involved with him. Combining work and romance didn’t work. Led to disastrous results. If the truth were known, she’d choose romance any day. But she had no choice any longer. Her ex-fiancé, Scott, had found her lacking as a desirable woman and as an account executive. Okay, so he didn’t want to marry her. But he was wrong in saying she was no good at advertising. She was.

She’d show him. She’d show everyone, because after landing the dream account, she’d just signed the dream man to be its symbol. She couldn’t lose—as long as she kept her wits about her. Deliberately she broke the contact and moved several inches to her left.

“I don’t understand how you can stand to do this,” she said, keeping her eyes on the horses. “These are wild creatures, right? Used to running free in the Nevada desert. Now they’re trapped behind bars. Like prisoners. They’ll never roam free again.”

“They’ll also never be attacked by mountain lions again or starve from lack of feed. They’ll get good care, get rid of their parasites and live longer in captivity.”

She let his words sink in and felt better about the plight of the horses. “I didn’t know that.”

“Most people outside this area don’t know it They feel sorry for the horses, just like you do. They think we resell them for dog food.”

“That’s awful. What the Wild Mustang Association needs is better publicity. So the world will know what you’re doing here,” she said. It would be a labor of love for someone. Someone who loved horses, who loved their spirit, who appreciated them for what they were, a throwback to simpler, frontier times. “What do these people want them for?” she asked with a glance at the prospective buyers.

“Pleasure, riding, packing. You can be sure if they’re willing to take on a horse who’s never even been haltered before, they’re going to look after them.”

She smiled. It wasn’t really a compliment, but it might be as close as he came. It gave her an unreasonably warm feeling around her heart. Which was spoiled by his next remark.

She straightened. “Of course not. It’s not quite as...as earthy. But it has all the elements. The pungency... the...you know,” she finished weakly. She couldn’t deny that the smell of the wild mustangs was something no man would want to deliberately apply to his body and no woman would want her man to smell like. But who among the millions of women at the men’s cologne counters would know that? “It’s the image that counts.”

“And not the reality?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. She wasn’t going to get into a discussion on the value of advertising. She had a feeling she could never convince him of the validity of her field. But he’d agreed to be a part of her ad campaign, for whatever reason, and that was enough of a victory for one day. She waited a few minutes, letting his question hang in the air, before she asked one of her own.

“How can you tell...how do you decide which horse to choose?”

“I look to see if they have a bright eye.”

Bridget studied the fast-moving horses that milled in front of them and shook her head, unable to differentiate one from the other. “What’s a bright eye?” she asked.

“It’s when they’re curious,” he said, pointing to a black horse with a white star on its forehead. “Watch this one. This is one I’d buy. Look how curious he is about us. He’s looking us over, reserving judgment, but he’s not out and out scared like most of the others.”

“I don’t blame them,” she said. “I’d be scared, too.”

“You, scared?” he asked. “I can’t imagine that You put yourself in the path of a wild kid on a bike, you barge into his house and ask a stranger to be a Wild Mustang Man. What does scare you?” he asked.

She shrugged. Nobody had ever called her brave before. “I don’t know. Snakes, spiders. Failure.” This conversation was getting too close for comfort. She didn’t want to talk about failure. She didn’t want to talk about herself. She wanted to talk about horses. It was much safer. “Imagine being penned up after a lifetime of freedom,” she said. She felt his curious gaze on her, but she stared straight ahead at the black horse in the corral.

Bridget swallowed hard. Just when she’d come across so convincing. He could have gone all day without asking that one. The questions were making her nervous, the last one especially. As nervous as those horses there, wondering what was going to become of them.

“No time for marriage and kids,” she said lightly. “They’re just not compatible with my job. When I work, I work around the clock. It’s a competitive business. Always somebody else trying to take away your business when you’re not looking. Besides, nobody gets everything they want,” she said as an afterthought. As if he needed her to tell him that

Up until recently she’d thought she might get everything—an interesting job followed by or in tandem with a husband she loved, a home and kids. Now that she knew it wasn’t going to work out that way, she was free to pursue her career with all her energies. Which was not a bad thing. No, not at all.

“No...they don’t,” he muttered under his breath, then he turned his back to the horses. “I’m going to the office now and fill out the paperwork on the horse I want and pay the fees. I assume you have a ride back to town.”

So that was it The end of this question-and-answer session. He’d cut her off before she had a chance to ask him anything. Like what was he afraid of, how much did freedom mean to him and what it was he really wanted to do. He’d taken steps in the opposite direction before she realized what was happening. He was leaving.