Clove Penmire’s heart pounded as she got off the bus in Lonely Hearts Station, Texas, suitcase in hand. For all her fascination with cowboys and the lure of the dusty state she’d read so much about, she had to admit small-town Texas was nothing like her homeland of Australia.
A horse broke free from the barn across the street, walking itself nonchalantly between the two sides of the old-time town. A cowboy sprinted out of the barn and ran up the street after his horse, laughing as he caught up to it.
Clove smiled. From the back she couldn’t tell if the man was handsome, but he was dressed in Wrangler jeans and a hat, and, as far as she could tell, the cowboy was the real thing.
That’s what she had traveled to Texas for: the real thing.
That sentiment would have sounded shallow, even to Clove, just a month ago. But having learned that her sister, Lucy, could not have a child, Clove’s thought processes had taken a new course, one that included fantasies of tossing her brother-in-law into the Australian ocean.
All over the world there were people who couldn’t conceive when they wished. They adopted, or pursued other means of happiness. She hadn’t been overly worried, until Lucy confessed that she thought her husband might leave her for a woman who could bear children.
Lucy had laughed a little sadly and said that perhaps she was only imagining things. Clove had murmured something reassuring, but inside, fear struck her. Lucy loved her physician husband. He’d always seemed to adore her. Men didn’t leave women because they couldn’t bear children, did they? Robert was a wonderful man; Clove had been surprised, and distressed, at the turn of events.
So she’d taken drastic measures. She’d come to America for Archer Jefferson.
The cowboy hauled his horse around, leading it back toward the barn. Clove could hear him lightly remonstrating his wayward beast, but the horse didn’t seem too concerned.
The cowboy caught her interested gaze, holding it for a second before he looked back at his horse. The man was extremely handsome. Breathtakingly so. Not the cowboy for her, considering her mission, and the fact that she was what people politely referred to as…the girl with the good personality.
The girl everybody loved like a sister.
The girl men liked to be friends with.
And the worst, the Nerdy Penmire.
She sighed. If Lucy had gotten all the beauty, their mother always said with a gentle smile, then Clove had gotten all the bravery. Which was likely how she’d ended up as a stuntwoman.
A stuntwoman with thick glasses.
Had she the face of other Australian exports like Nicole Kidman, for example, she might have been in front of the camera. But instead, she was a stunt double. Lucy said Clove had the life other people dreamed of.
Maybe.
Clove watched the cowboy brush his horse’s back with his hand and fan a fly away from its spot-marked face. He was still talking to the animal; she could hear low murmuring that sounded very sexy to her ears, especially since she’d never heard a man murmur in a husky voice to her.
“Archer Jefferson!” someone yelled from inside the barn. “Get that cotton-pickin’, apple-stealin’, dog-faced Appaloosa in here!”
“Insult the man but not the sexy beast!” he yelled back.
Clove gasped. Archer Jefferson! The man she’d traveled several time zones to see! Her TexasArcher of two years’ worth of e-mail correspondence!
He was all cowboy, she realized, more cowboy than she’d come mentally prepared to corral. “Whoa,” she murmured to herself.
Okay, a man that droolworthy must not lack for female friends. So why had he been writing her for two years? She wrinkled her nose, pushed her thick glasses back and studied him further. Tight jeans, dirty boots. Long, black, unkempt hair under the black felt hat—he’d never mentioned long hair in their correspondence. Deep voice. Piercing eyes, she noted as he swung around, catching her still staring at him. She jumped, he laughed, and then tipped his hat to her as he swung up onto the “dog-faced” Appaloosa, riding it into the barn in a manner the stuntwoman in her appreciated.
Just how difficult would it be to entice that cowboy into her bed? Archer had put the thoughts in her mind about his virility, with his Texas-size bragging about his manliness and the babies popping out all over their Union Junction ranch—affectionately known as Malfunction Junction.
Seeing him, however, made her think that perhaps he hadn’t been bragging as much as stating fact. Her heart beat faster. He had said he wasn’t in the market for a relationship.
But a baby, just one baby…one stolen seed from a family tree that bore many…from a man she trusted more than a stranger from a sperm bank.
Maybe she wasn’t brave.
“Howdy!”
She jumped as Archer strode across the street to where she stood.
“Are you lost?” he asked.
“No,” she said, her gaze taking in every inch of him with nervous admiration. “Yes.”
He grinned. “My name’s Archer Jefferson.”
She wished he wouldn’t smile at her that way. Her heart simply melted, despite the cold chill of February. He made her dream of a blazing fireplace, soft blankets and naked him holding naked her tight.
“Can I help you?” he asked. “If you’re looking for a job, the cafeteria is that way. If you’re looking for a hair-do,” he said, eyeing her braided hair momentarily, “I’d choose that salon over there. The Lonely Hearts Salon. Owner’s a friend of mine. Salon owner across the street, of the Never Lonely Cut-n-Gurls, isn’t.”
She felt him studying her glasses, the cursed thick things that gave her clear vision when she was doing stunts. Contacts made her eyes itch and burn.
Lucy said Clove hid behind her glasses. Clove blinked, thinking that right now a curtain was the only thing she’d feel truly hidden behind.
“You sure are a quiet little thing,” Archer said. “Don’t be scared. We’re all real friendly here.”
Scared! She was a daredevil!
But if she told him that, in her lilting Aussie accent, he would know who she was right off. And he would think she was nuts for coming all the way to Texas without telling him. He would know it was no accident that she was standing outside the rodeo he had told her he was participating in.
“I’m not scared,” she said, trying to disguise her accent. “Thank you for your concern.”
“Ah, she speaks,” Archer said. “I’ve got to run, but if you need anything, just grab someone off the street to help you. This is a friendly town, if you bypass the Cut-n-Gurls.”
“I’ll do that.”
He tipped his hat, and with a flash of long-legged denim glory, he disappeared into the arena building.
Her breath slowly left the cage it was bound in.
No doubt his genes were as sexy as his jeans. He was far hotter than the thong-wearing models she’d last worked with.
Now she just had to get those jeans off of him.
He hadn’t seemed particularly inclined to strip down to the “briefs or nothing” of which he’d boasted. Not even a flash of male attraction had lit his eye. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she murmured, suddenly doubtful about her mission.
He was terribly manly. And she had very little experience with men. Lucy had always been the one who warmed to hearth and home.
Clove took a deep breath. For Lucy’s sake, she had to be brave.
She went into the walkway