“Not that bull he imported from Colorado?”
“Uh-huh.”
Hunter pushed Jasper’s stall door open. A man could buy a whole ranch for what some prize bulls cost. “Were you able to save him?”
“Luckily nothing was broken, so he’ll survive.” She caught Jasper’s bridle as Hunter put the saddle blanket on his back. “He won’t be doing his job for a while, but when he’s called on to perform in a week or two, he’ll do his duty.”
“Poor baby.”
Kelly specialized in large animals, which is why she’d chosen to set her practice outside Houston. There was opportunity galore to practice in the city, where there were plenty of youngsters whose parents could afford the expense of a horse, but like Hunter, Kelly preferred breathing country air. It was one of many interests they shared. They had a lot in common, from a love of horses and country living to family history.
She watched him pull the cinch tight around the horse and then reach to adjust the stirrup. “Looks like you’ve got plans for the day.”
He glanced over at her, picking up something in her voice that made him proceed with caution. “At least, for most of the morning,” he told her. He and Kelly had drifted into a relationship of sorts lately. She’d stayed overnight at his condo once in a while when she was in the city, and they were often together on weekends when he made it out to the ranch. But today he craved a few hours by himself. “I thought I’d check the fence line,” he said, and bent back to his task, hoping she wouldn’t want to mount up and go with him.
They’d been friends since childhood, which was understandable seeing the close connections of their parents. It was when Kelly finished her training and returned to establish her practice near the ranch that he realized she wanted them to be more than friends. She was an up-front, direct kind of woman who went flat out for whatever she wanted. And she made it plain that she wanted Hunter. He admitted he hadn’t put up much resistance; even so, he’d felt a little uncomfortable the first time they’d wound up in bed. Not that the sex wasn’t good, it was. Kelly didn’t seem to feel any qualms and had settled happily into their affair. What he couldn’t quite figure out was why—to him—something didn’t feel exactly…right.
“Isn’t that Earl’s job?”
“Riding fence?” He’d almost forgotten what they were talking about. “I do it for the fun of it. He indulges me.” When she failed to smile, he reached for the reins and she let go. “I’ve been fighting traffic and breathing interstate exhaust night and day for two weeks, Kell. Once I’m out of the barn, it’s just me and Jasper and open air. You know the feeling.”
“I guess that means you don’t want company.”
He had Jasper out of the stall now. He put his foot into a stirrup and mounted up. The stallion danced and snorted, eager to be moving, but Hunter held him in check for another moment. “You’ve been working all night. Get some sleep. I’ll come over later. We’ll drive into Brenham and get something to eat.”
“Did you even think of calling me, Hunter?”
Since he wasn’t sure in his own mind why he hadn’t, he wasn’t in a mood to admit or discuss it now. “See you around seven tonight.”
Three
Erica’s Art was the name of her shop and Erica loved it. She loved stocking it with her designs and watching customers pick and choose from the collection of quilts and jackets and then leave pleased to own something she’d created. It surprised her that she was a good merchant. As an artist, she preferred solitude to produce her creations, and she was shy when she had to assume the role of salesperson. That was Jason’s thing and he was so good at it that she didn’t often have to actually deal with a customer. Everything else about the shop she loved, even the end-of-month accounting. It was satisfying to run the numbers and find they were solidly in the black.
Today, she had holed up in the office at the rear of the store preparing tax records for their accountant. Finally done, she closed the books just as a ping sounded, announcing a customer. She glanced up, caught a glimpse of a tall man entering the store before he moved from her line of vision to browse. Jason had returned from a lunch date a few minutes ago, which relieved her of having to drop what she was working on to go out and sell. She knew it was silly that she found it awkward standing by while perfect strangers fingered her quilts, or squinted critically at her jackets. She had no problem accepting that what she created and stocked in the shop wouldn’t appeal to everyone, but it was so…well, awkward pretending that it wasn’t somehow personal, when creating every design was, in fact, somehow very personal.
Turning to a shipment of fabric that had arrived an hour ago, Erica tore the wrapping from material intended for a series of jackets still in the design stage. She pulled yardage from the first bolt and ran a palm over the weave, pleased with both texture and color. She itched to get started, but she’d have to wait until Jason could help her take the shipment upstairs to her studio to begin cutting. She made all originals of her jacket designs herself before handing the pattern and fabric to the two women who sewed the numbered replicas. She never authorized more than six of a single design.
“Psst! Erica, come out here for a minute.” Jason stuck his head around the door, doing funny things with his eyebrows.
She frowned at him. “What?”
“You’ll see,” he hissed. “Just drop that and walk out here on the floor.”
“Not until you tell me why.” She’d been on the receiving end of his practical jokes before. Refusing the bait, she reached for a second bolt.
He gave an exasperated sound but had to withdraw when someone—the customer, she assumed—called, “Hey, I’m on my lunch hour here.”
“Sorry, I was just consulting with the designer,” Jason said, giving the man a boyish smile, one that was usually effective in softening up the most hardened sales-resistant browser. As she tore at the wrapping, she heard Jason launch full bore into his sales pitch. Apparently the customer’s choice was narrowed to one of the evening jackets. Dismissing them, she removed silk shantung in a stunning shade of crimson from the packing material. She held the length of silk up to the light, visualizing a beaded design. Jet beading, she decided with a forefinger pressed to her lips. With a long black skirt or skinny black pants, it would make a fabulous holiday outfit. She reached automatically for her sketch pad.
“Why don’t we ask Erica to help us out.” Jason was again at the door, but this time he’d dragged the customer with him.
It took her a moment to bring them into focus. She looked beyond Jason into dark eyes deeply set in an unshaven face of chiseled angles and shadowy planes, a bone-deep tan—which she knew did not originate in a tanning booth—and hair a rich, sun-streaked, tobacco-brown. He was tall with an athlete’s build and wore a battered leather jacket and black T-shirt. He looked tough and not quite housebroken. She noted all this with her artist’s eye before realizing with an unsettling start that he was studying her, as well. Setting her sketch pad aside, she said, “What’s the problem?”
“No problem.” Jason glanced at his customer as if dishing him up on a platter for Erica. “This is Hunter McCabe. He’s thinking of buying his mother a jacket for her birthday. Hunter, meet the artist herself, Erica Stewart.”
“My pleasure.” Hunter leaned around Jason and extended a hand.
“Hello.” With no other option, she put her hand in his and found it as hard as his jaw. She quickly withdrew hers. He definitely did not spend his days behind a desk.
“From Hunter’s description of his mother,” Jason said, beaming at the two of them, “she’s probably about your size, Erica. Am I right?” he asked Hunter.
“Yeah, but that’s pretty much where the resemblance ends.”