Wild Wyoming Nights. Joanne Rock

and a lighted swimming pool, along with numerous barns and sheds, all landscaped and much of it fenced. The buildings she could see, however, were small compared to the stables and barns where the stunt horses were kept and where Zoe was staying with many of the other crew members. She’d read online that the Creek Spill and its neighboring ranch, the Black Creek, were a combined fifty thousand acres, an amount of land that had boggled her mind.

      It made her wonder how the owner of all that property had time to watch her ride a horse today.

      Carson had an army of people working for him. She understood that now after meeting his housekeeper, who had shown Emma her room. A maid had brought up her dinner, which had been prepared by a cook. Knowing there were so many people on staff in the house had helped her feel a little less awkward about sleeping in Carson’s home. It wasn’t as if she was alone in the house with him.

      Deciding she needed to stop thinking and start sleeping, Emma was about to return to her suite when a shadow emerged near the illuminated swimming pool.

      A very male shadow.

      The heavy shoulders and narrow waist told her as much. But she’d spent enough time admiring that particular masculine physique today that she didn’t have to guess who she was watching.

      Carson McNeill had come home.

      He stood at the deep end, facing the house. Facing her. She recognized his clothes from earlier; he must have just returned from his family obligation. She didn’t move, not wanting him to see her.

      Wanting to watch him a little longer.

      But then he raised his hands and dragged his T-shirt over his head. The light from the pool glinted off the bare muscle of his arms. She couldn’t see his abs in the shadows but her imagination supplied a picture of them just fine.

      It was too late to shout down to him. Or at least, that was what she told herself. She seemed to have forgotten how to move, let alone speak.

      His hand moved to his belt and he stepped out of his boots. Her mouth went dry when he reached for the button on his fly.

      She gasped out loud when he stepped out of the denim.

      That must have been what he heard. His head snapped up then, his gaze immediately finding her.

      Her heart thudded so loud in her own ears she wondered if he heard that, too. Still, she couldn’t seem to lift her eyes from the slim-fitting boxer shorts that hugged his hips.

      “Emma?” His voice smoked through her, heating her skin from the inside. “Is that you?”