“Hazel, honestly, I can’t see me—”
“But he’s not riding this season, you understand. At the year’s first rodeo in Miles City, A.J. caught his spur in a cinch. The horse went over on his leg and crushed it. Now he’s knitting, but it was a bad fall. It’s not clear if the doctors will certify him for the circuit again. Leaves A.J. with some free time to take on guide jobs for me.”
“I’m sorry he’s had an accident. But—”
“Not that he’s pining away and burning any daylight,” Hazel charged on. “Lands no! A.J. stays busy—a little too busy, if you catch my meaning.” She winked. “He’s left a mighty long trail of broken hearts, but still I remember his ma and pa. They were something fierce in love. The kind you don’t see nowadays. A love like the kind I had.” Hazel smiled at her. “Oh, he’ll have a love like that one day. It’s just taken him a while to come around. In the meantime, while his leg’s been healing, he’s helping out his old partner Cas Davis. Cas runs a popular rodeo-riding school in Thompson Falls.”
Hazel finally paused to take a breath.
“I can’t do this,” Jacquelyn blurted out. “I’m sorry. Not only am I unprepared for the ride, but A. J. Clayburn is a stranger to me. I can’t just go camping in the wilderness—”
“He won’t be a stranger in a few minutes,” Hazel assured her, again glancing at the clock. “A.J. will be here any moment now to meet you.”
For a short, panicked moment, Jacquelyn felt her breath catch.
“Meet me?” she repeated foolishly, stunned at this massive loss of control in her very controlled life. Am I a mail-order bride? she almost asked in disbelief.
“Since you’ll be spending so much time alone with A.J.,” Hazel added, “I suppose I should also mention that he has a recently acquired police record.”
Jacquelyn could feel the blood drain from her cheeks. Hazel laughed.
“Steady, dear. He can be rehabilitated. I’m quite sure of it. You’ve heard of Red Lodge, Montana?”
Still shell-shocked, Jacquelyn answered woodenly. “The town where cowboys and rodeo types rendezvous every Fourth of July for a party, right?”
“I suppose you could call that annual riot a party. Anyhow, this year A.J. was arrested for riding his horse into the Snag Bar saloon. Evidently, a deputy or two ‘accidentally ran their jaws into my fist,’ as A.J. put it in court.”
Oh, great, Jacquelyn thought, her stomach sinking. So he’s a drunken brawler, too? How lucky can one woman get?
“If you really want the true feel of being with Jake McCallum and along on his ride,” Hazel told the reporter, “you couldn’t be with a more similar man. Just as Jake was, A.J. is fast out of the gate.”
Hazel laughed at the alarm that must have flickered in Jacquelyn’s eyes.
“Dear, relax. It’s just an old saying. Means a man is clear about what he wants and how to get it. Tell me…is it your skin you’re fretting about?”
“My…skin?”
“I’ve always been told you Southern women take special pride in your beautiful complexions. You’re living proof of that.”
“Thank you,” she said politely, but it was obvious that Hazel was only jabbering like this to head off any more objections about her wild idea.
She was on the verge of demanding why it was so important that she make this mountain trek. But just then a two-tone chime sounded within the parlor. Nervous fear made her heart speed up for the next few beats.
“That will be A.J.,” Hazel announced with evident satisfaction. “Donna will let him in.”
The tap of solid boot heels reached their ears as the new arrival moved through the kitchen and dining room. Jacquelyn’s trapped-deer desperation didn’t seem to escape Hazel’s notice—or her sympathy.
“Everything will be just fine, dear, I promise. I won’t sugarcoat the dangers of those mountains. But with a guide like A. J. Clayburn, you’ll be fine.”
“But I really don’t understand why this is necessary. You said you liked my articles—that they were authentic,” Jacquelyn whispered in a rush to beat the footsteps. “Why is this so important? Why?”
Something secret and mysterious glinted in Hazel’s eyes—something born of great ambition, great determination and great love. But her evasive answer only further frustrated Jacquelyn.
“Be patient. Making this journey will change your life, I assure you. Very few have taken it. Well, would you look who’s here, Jacquelyn! Timely, yet! Well, my land, A.J., don’t just stand there gawking, come on in. She doesn’t bite!”
Three
Jacquelyn paid scant attention as Hazel went through the formalities of introducing her to Mystery’s leading rodeo celebrity.
Besides feeling confused, trapped and manipulated, she was almost indignant. Somehow she felt she was being hazed, as cowboys called it when they forced cattle to move where they wanted them to go.
Or more like it, Jacquelyn punned wryly to herself, she was being Hazeled.
“Personally,” Hazel nattered while Jacquelyn gathered her composure a bit, “I’ve become a dyed-in-the-wool home-body in my old age. I subscribe to the theory that a gal should never leave her time zone. But then, if some of us didn’t travel, we wouldn’t have Jacquelyn here summering with us in Mystery, would we, A.J.?”
“I guess that’s so,” the cowboy agreed reluctantly. His tone made it clear he could survive that contingency just fine.
He sat across from the two women in a leather wing chair, an immaculate gray Stetson balanced on his left knee. He wore clean range clothes and a neckerchief. Long, muscular, blue-jeans-clad legs were tucked into hand-stitched, high-heeled boots so pointy they looked like weapons. A. J. Clayburn, Jacquelyn noted reluctantly in a brief appraisal, was every bit as handsome as the photo of him in Hazel’s album.
But, in person, he also projected a sense of…physical readiness—even danger. That was undeniable even though he walked a bit stiff-legged from his recent injury.
Also undeniable was his smug awareness of his own abilities. He certainly would not shine among the old, genteel social circles back in Atlanta’s Peachtree Park, where subtlety and nuance opened doors of opportunity. But Jacquelyn had to grudgingly admit he was the kind of man she would want nearby in a crisis. Though, God knows, she’d want him gone after the trouble was over. Immediately after.
“If you youngsters will excuse me,” Hazel said, rising spryly from her chair, “I need to go upstairs and find some old letters that Jacquelyn requested for her series. You two will want to get acquainted, of course, and discuss your arrangements. I’ll try not to be too long.”
Again Jacquelyn felt dismay pulsing in her temples. Arrangements? Hazel was simply taking over her life, to hell with permission. And now came the lame pretext—she was leaving Jacquelyn virtually trapped with this arrogant, self-inflated rube.
A.J. rose politely while Hazel stood and left the parlor. So far, while Hazel was present, he had spared Jacquelyn the force of those penetrating eyes of his. Indeed, each time his gunmetal gaze touched her it slid quickly away.
As if he resented her presence.
Now that they were alone, however, all that changed. Jacquelyn felt his eyes on her, so probing and intense she felt violated by them.
“Is there a fly on my nose?” she finally asked, heat flooding into her face.
“Nope. Just looking.”
“It’s just looking, maybe, for the first few