J.J. rolled her own eyes as she listened, sure Mack was being manipulated. The girls were cute as could be, but what a pair. She saw Mack begin to cave and wondered if the kids knew to quit digging themselves a deeper hole when they might be winning.
“Hmm. So, it’s only a one-time story in your magazine, right?” Mack’s eyes bored into J.J.
She could lay out his daughter’s real reason for sending the essay and scare him off, or she could give the girls a break. She’d probably come to regret this later, but she elected to play along for Zoey’s sake. “One time, yes. Each monthly winner gets a four-page spread in the center of the magazine. Yours is slated for our August issue, with a follow-up on the check presentation the next month. I can give you our web address if you’d like to see the other men we’ve worked with. Basically I interview you and write an article about your life, your work and your charity. We’ll include photos of you on a horse and with your cattle, like the pictures Zoey provided, but professional.” She shrugged, figuring he’d bolt for sure if she said readers specifically liked beefcake.
“Well, about the photos Zoey took...” He scowled. “Just so it’s clear...I don’t usually work around the ranch without my shirt on.”
“So, are you gonna do it, Daddy?” Zoey asked, hope creeping into her voice.
Mack was still teetering. He didn’t want Jill Walker here. He certainly didn’t want her poking in his life. He didn’t want her following him around the ranch. But, dammit, neither did he want her to go before he had a chance to ask why she’d dumped him so unceremoniously when he thought they’d settled on a life together. Not that it mattered after all these years. Common sense said Jill wouldn’t be straight with him, anyway. But his common sense fled as he faced her. She still had the power to ignite ripples of desire no other woman had sparked in more years than he could count.
“All right,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll agree because the girls already did what they did, and because your magazine shelled out some bucks to send you here. So I’ll go along with it, Jilly—uh, J.J.”
Zoey and Brandy discreetly bumped elbows, a move so practiced that J.J. guessed it held special meaning for the friends.
J.J. separated another page from her folder. “First things first. Sign and date this release giving me permission to proceed. I’ll scoot on out to the ranch for a few tests with my light meter while you check on Erma. This shouldn’t take more than a few hours to wind up.”
Nodding, Mack ran a thumb over his lips before he took the pen she held out to him. He scribbled his name where J.J. indicated. As he jotted today’s date he was starkly reminded of how many years had passed since this beautiful woman had hurt him so badly. He needed to keep his distance and be vigilant about not letting her hurt him again. Him or Zoey. Mack recognized hero worship in both girls’ eyes, and he was already regretting his decision.
“Shouldn’t Ms. J.J. ride with us so she can find our place?” Zoey asked, sunny again.
“My rental car has a GPS system, Zoey. I left it at the motel, but I’ll be fine on my own,” J.J. said.
Mack’s cell rang and he excused himself, turning his back as he took the call. They all saw him massage his neck and heard his tense voice, so their chatter ceased. J.J. was afraid it was bad news about Erma. Instead, he exclaimed, “Trudy, this is a surprise....Uh, Erma’s still in the E.R. How did you hear about her accident so quickly?...It’s kind of you to, uh, want to rush to the ranch to help out....Really, there’s no need. Thanks, though....Hey, sorry to cut you off, but I’m heading to the clinic for a verdict on Erma.” He closed his phone, straightened and turned in time to see Zoey and Brandy making ugly faces.
“Girls! That’s rude. Erma might have a few things to say about Ms. Thorne, but she has a good heart and was just being neighborly.”
J.J. alone caught the mock gags the girls exchanged, because Mack had dug out his keys, dropped them and had leaned down to retrieve them. On rising, he motioned the girls toward a big, black, extended cab pickup. J.J. had already guessed it belonged to him based on the chrome cowcatcher bolted to the front bumper.
Zoey stopped, looked back and waved shyly. “See you, Ms. J.J. I like your boots a lot,” she added. “I hope you don’t mess them up tramping around our ranch. We have a lot of dirt.”
J.J. smiled. “Please, girls, call me J.J. without the ‘Ms.’” She cast a glance at Mack and interrupted him in the act of checking her out from head to toe. She felt her cheeks grow hot. Her boots were fashionable, with high heels, but they were black leather and should wipe free of dust easily. “I can wait and photograph you with your cattle tomorrow. I brought sneakers and a sturdier pair of boots for navigating around cow patties,” she said, flashing him an exaggerated smile.
* * *
CAREFUL TO CONCEAL his real thoughts, Mack hoped his face didn’t show the admiration he felt for how fantastic she looked. So good, in fact, his heart skipped several beats. Jill had always had a knack for enhancing her natural beauty. Once, she’d been his life. His love. For a year or so she’d been a favorite around the ranch. His dad, Erma and Benny all loved her. Then, poof, she’d up and run off, leaving him to grieve the loss of his father and her at the same time. Standing near her now, watching how the sunlight made a halo around her honey-gold hair, it was easy to forget how cruelly she’d walked away from everything they’d pledged each other. His question remained—why? Again the answer punched him in his gut—to further her career. Hadn’t her mother admitted as much to him? Mack hated that even now her smile turned him inside out.
Zoey called for him to unlock the pickup. That brought Mack crashing back to the present. Stepping aside, he said curtly, “There’s something we need to get straight, Jill. Take your photos and ask me any questions you have. Don’t bother Erma if she comes home, and don’t involve Benny Lopez. And stay away from Zoey.”
Spinning on worn boot heels, Mack strode to his vehicle and jumped in. In his haste to leave the woman who shaded her stunning blue eyes as she watched his departure, Mack flooded the engine.
Zoey and Brandy had climbed into the backseat of the king cab but had yet to buckle in when Mack reversed sharply out of his parking space. His jerky move knocked the girls together.
“Slow down, Dad! You didn’t give us time to fasten our seat belts.”
“Sorry.” Mack braked and studied the girls in his rearview mirror. “I told Erma I’d collect you from the library and come straight back to the E.R. I certainly didn’t expect to be confronted by...” Cutting off his admission, he again took off too fast.
Brandy leaned forward. “So, Mr. B., you didn’t get around to telling us how you know J.J.”
“Yeah, Dad, it’s weird, but cool, too.”
“It’s a small world, girls. Jill, that is, Ms. Walker and I went to the same college a long time ago. Most kids who graduated from La Mesa High went to Lubbock. And Jill grew up in Lubbock.” He wouldn’t call their recent encounter cool. He’d call it a punch-to-the-gut shock.
“Oh,” Brandy murmured, sliding back in her seat. “My folks met in college, too, and fell in love. They lived in Utah.”
“Here’s the clinic.” Mack jockeyed his pickup into an open slot between two subcompacts. “I’ll go see what’s up with Erma. You two stay put. And don’t open the doors or you’ll set off the alarm.” Mack removed the keys, slid out and hit the automatic lock on his key chain. He hauled in a gulp of fresh air, glad to take a break from the kids’ interest in him and Jill. Of all the photographers in the world, it was more than weird, as Zoey had said, that Jilly was the one sent from New York to handle a stupid contest his daughter shouldn’t have entered in the first place.
As he stepped into the clinic, Mack curled a hand around the back of his neck to soothe the throbbing headache that had begun at the library. Stopping at the reception desk, he said, “I brought Erma