“He’s the one I want, Lucia,” she said with both determination and conviction in her voice. “And since you know him, then just ask him. He might surprise you and not turn you down. Of course he’ll get paid for his services.”
Lucia laughed and shook her head. “Getting paid isn’t the issue, Clo. Ramsey is one of the wealthiest sheep ranchers in this part of Colorado. But everyone knows what a private person he is. Trust me, he won’t do it.”
Chloe hoped she was wrong. “But you will ask him?”
“Yes, but I suggest you move on and find another man.”
Chloe glanced back out the window. The man was the epitome of what she was looking for in her “Irresistible Man” issue and she was determined to have him.
“Um, I don’t like that look on your face, Chloe. I’ve seen it before and know exactly what it means.”
Chloe couldn’t help but smile. She could only blame her smile on her father, Senator Jamison Burton of Florida, the man who’d raised her alone after her mother died of cervical cancer when Chloe was three. Her father was the one man she most admired and he’d always taught her that if people wanted something bad enough, they wouldn’t give up until they got it.
She glanced out the window and watched as Ramsey Westmoreland ended his conversation and entered the feed store with a swagger that almost made her breathless. She would be seeing him again.
One
“I can’t believe you’re not posing for the cover of that magazine, Ram.”
Ramsey Westmoreland didn’t bother to look up from arranging a bale of straw in the lambing stall. He’d figured his youngest sister Bailey would show up sooner or later, because news traveled pretty fast within the Westmoreland family. And of course, Bailey made it her life’s work to know everything about her five brothers, down to their every heartbeat.
“I’m not going away, Ramsey, until you tell me what I want to know.”
He couldn’t help but smile at the threat because he knew if he gave her an order to leave that she would follow it. She might like to express her emotions and display her defiance every once in a while, and God help him when she did, but when it was all said and done, Bailey knew how far to take things with him. He would be the first to admit that she had tested his limits plenty, especially during those years when she and their cousin Bane had been almost inseparable. The two thought getting into trouble was a way of life.
Since then Bailey had finished high school and was now attending college, and Bane had surprised everyone with his decision last month to join the military with the goal of becoming a Navy Seal. All was quiet on the Westmoreland front and Ramsey would be the first to admit, but only to himself, things had been a little boring.
“There’s nothing to tell,” he decided to respond. “I was contacted about doing that cover and I turned them down.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” He figured she was probably glaring at him right now.
“Why, Ram? Just think of the exposure.”
He finally decided to look up and the gaze that sharpened on Bailey was so keen, had it been anyone else they would have had the good sense to take a step back. But not twenty-one-year-old Bailey Joleen Westmoreland. Of his three sisters—Megan, who was almost twenty-five and Gemma, who was twenty-three—Bailey was the boldest and could test the patience of Job, so to try the patience of her oldest brother was a piece of cake.
“I don’t want exposure, Bailey. I think the Westmorelands got enough exposure all those years when we had to deal with the trouble you, Bane and the twins got into.”
Not an ounce of regret flared in her eyes. “That was then. This is now. And this would have been good exposure.”
He almost laughed at that one. “Good exposure for who exactly?” he asked, getting to his feet.
He had a lot to do and little time for chitchat. Nellie, who’d had the responsibility of preparing the meals for him and the ranch hands for the past two years, had to leave suddenly yesterday when she’d gotten word that her only sister back in Kansas had emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix. She intended to stay and help out and it would be at least two weeks before she returned.
Ramsey understood and supported her decision, although Nellie’s absence left him in a bind. Today was the start of shearing and with over twenty or so men involved, he was in desperate need of a cook to take Nellie’s place. He had placed a call to one of these temporary employment agencies yesterday afternoon and was told they had just the person who would be perfect as a fill-in and the woman was to show up this morning.
“It would be good exposure for you and the ranch. It could put you in the public eye and let everyone know how successful you are as a sheep rancher.”
Ramsey shook his head. Being in the public eye was something he could definitely pass on. He was close to his family, but when it came to outsiders he was basically a loner and preferred things that way. Everyone knew how much he enjoyed his privacy. Bailey knew it too, so he wondered, why was she harassing him?
“The ranch doesn’t need that kind of exposure. I was asked to pose for some girly magazine, Bail.” He had never read a copy of Simply Irresistible, but the name alone made his jaw twitch. He could just imagine the articles that were between the covers.
“You should be flattered they want you on the cover, Ram.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” He then checked his watch for two reasons. This was Monday and he knew Bailey had a class at the university this morning and his temporary cook was ten minutes late.
“I wish you would reconsider.”
He glanced back at her. “No,” he said firmly. “And shouldn’t you be in class about now?” He moved out of the barn and walked back toward the sprawling home he had finished building the previous year.
Bailey followed, right on his heels. He couldn’t help but recall that she used to do that same thing when he took over the responsibility of raising her when she was seven and he was twenty-one. They’d lost both parents and a beloved aunt and uncle in an airplane accident. During that time she would rarely let him out of her sight. He fought back a smile at the fond memory.
“Yes, I have a class this morning, but I thought I’d drop by to talk some sense into you,” he heard her say.
He turned around, placed his hands in his pockets. At that moment he couldn’t stop the smile that touched his lips. “Fine. You’ve tried and failed. Goodbye, Bailey.”
He watched her place her hands on her hips and lift her chin. No one had to warn him about Westmoreland stubbornness. Hers could be more lethal than most, but over the past twenty-one years he’d learned to deal with it.
“I think you’re making a mistake. I subscribe to that magazine and I think you’d be surprised,” she was saying. “It’s not just a ‘girly’ magazine. It has a number of good articles for women, including some on health issues. However, once a year they feature a man on the cover. They try to find a man who’s every woman’s fantasy lover.”
A woman’s fantasy lover? Now that was a laugh, Ramsey thought. He was nothing more than a hardworking Colorado sheep rancher and since he’d doubled the size of his herd this past year, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d been intimately involved with a woman. Working sunup to sundown, seven days a week had become a way of life for him.
“It will be my mistake to make, brat. I’ll survive and so will you. Now scat.”
A