Cowboy Accomplice Part 6

J.T. heard a rustle from the second wall tent and Slim Walker and Cotton Heywood came out, followed by Roy Shields and Nevada Black. After a few minutes of standing around the campfire, J.T. asked about Luke Adams.

"Haven't seen him," Slim said. "He was already up and gone when I woke." Roy and Cotton nodded in agreement and everyone looked to Will Jarvis.

"His cot was empty when I got up and made the fire," Will said.

J.T. took a look in the wall tent. Luke's gear was gone and when he walked over to the corral, he wasn't surprised to find Luke Adams's horse gone as well. What the h.e.l.l?

Maybe after last night's dinner Luke decided he didn't need any more of this. Luke just hadn't seemed like the type to leave in the middle of the night.

Now J.T. was a man short. Worse, he didn't like the way Luke had left-without a word. Was it a coincidence that Luke Adams was gone and Reggie had been talking to someone in the woods in the middle of the night? J.T. highly doubted it as he headed for the line shack.

Shafts of pearl-gray shot down through the tops of the pines, turning the early morning dew to diamonds.

As he neared the cabin, he found himself getting angrier by the minute. The woman had lied and somehow disabled his truck and even tried to blackmail him! She was definitely after his a.s.s all right. But he doubted it had anything to do with a TV commercial. She was trying to sabotage his cattle roundup. Had already done a pretty good job of it. He'd had to send Buck back to the ranch and now he was short another hand with Luke gone.

What the h.e.l.l was J.T. going to do with her? He knew what he'd like to do with her-and it wasn't let her cook.

He just couldn't let her get to him. Look what she'd done to poor unsuspecting Buck. All that delicate softness, curvaceous sweetness and apparent defenselessness sucked a man in. He remembered the way she'd been last night after that awful meal, all doe-eyed and apologetic. It still annoyed him that she'd made him feel guilty as if all of this was his fault.

As he stepped up onto the porch, he wondered what devious plots she'd been hatching last night. He paused just outside the door. He didn't need to announce his entrance. After all, it was his his cabin. But he still scooped up an armload of firewood before noisily stomping his feet on the porch. He didn't want to catch her naked, that was for d.a.m.ned sure. cabin. But he still scooped up an armload of firewood before noisily stomping his feet on the porch. He didn't want to catch her naked, that was for d.a.m.ned sure.

He started to open the door, but stopped himself. Irritated, he knocked.

When he didn't get an answer, he opened the door a crack. "Ms. Holland?"

To his surprise, the fire in the stove crackled warmly, casting a faint glow over the room. He took a couple of steps into the room, reminded that he was walking into her bedroom. "Ms. Holland?"

Still not a sound. He cleared his throat and called out again wondering if it was possible that she'd taken off with Luke Adams.

No hint of daybreak bled through the windows and he realized that she'd draped towels over them for curtains. As his eyes adjusted to the semidarkness, he could make out a lump burrowed under a pile of covers on the first bottom bunk. He figured she'd be dead to the world after last night-no doubt her first real manual labor.

He stomped over to the woodstove, making enough racket to raise the dead-if not a Los Angeles talent agent. If that really was what she was.

She didn't stir-not until he stumbled over something out in the middle of the floor. A series of objects thudded loudly and something rolled across the floor.

Cursing under his breath, he worked his way around the far edge of the floor to the woodstove, dropped his armload of wood unceremoniously and felt around for a match. From the bunk came a loud groan.

He lit the lantern. Reggie was completely covered by blankets, not even her head visible.

"Buck?" came a faint sleepy voice from deep in the bunk.

"No," J.T. snapped, sounding as irascible as he felt. Buck was on his way to Antelope Flats because of her. Reggie was on her own. And look what had happened last night when Buck had helped helped her cook. her cook.

"Oh, McCall," she said from under the blankets, not sounding in the least pleased that it was him.

He held up the lantern to see what he'd tripped over. All of the canned goods and food supplies Buck had brought up were now stacked in a semicircle around Reggie's bunk on the floor.

"What in the-?" J.T. shook his head as he stepped closer. Why in the world would she literally surround herself with groceries?

He swung the lantern around to shine it on the bottom bunk. All he could see of her was one bare arm sticking out of the mountain of blankets. The arm was curled around a ten-pound bag of flour. J.T. frowned in nothing short of true bewilderment.

"Why is all the food on the floor?" he asked patiently.

Reggie's head poked out from under the blankets, she blinked as if blinded by the firelight-or him, then she ducked back under with a louder groan.

He smiled, cheered immensely that he'd woken her from her beauty sleep. The fact that he was the last person she wanted to see this morning made it all the better.

She looked out at him, blinking away sleep, seeming to find it hard to focus on him.

In the lantern light she looked a lot better than he felt. It annoyed him greatly.

"How were your accommodations?" he asked, hoping she'd gotten less sleep than he had, especially since she'd had that late-night secret summit in the woods. He wanted to demand who she'd been talking to out in the woods last night but he decided to keep that piece of information to himself a little longer. First he would watch her with the cowhands. Better to let her think she had gotten away with her late-night rendezvous. "Sleep well?"

"Like a baby." She blinked those big blue eyes at him, clearly lying through her teeth. "What time is it?"

"Time to start breakfast."

Her gaze went to the window. "It's still dark outside."

He didn't tell her that normally the cook got up way before daybreak to start the fire. It took an hour before the fire was ready to cook on.

Fortunately, she'd kept the fire going so breakfast wouldn't be as late as he'd figured.

"As camp cook," he said, "you have to get up earlier than anyone else and usually go to bed later."

She tried to sit up and then seemed to realize she still had her arm around the bag of flour. She sneaked a quick look at him, then haughtily freed her arm and glaring at him, sat up, banging her head on the over-head bunk. "Ouch." She rubbed her forehead and eyed him as if this too were his fault. "Well, aren't you going to say something smart?"

He tried not to laugh. Served her right. If she hadn't been glaring at him- "If you will just go away and let me get up and dressed...."

"Not so fast." The more he looked at the semicircle of staples, the more curious-and concerned-he'd become. "You haven't told me what the food is doing around your bed. I'm sure there is a simple explanation." He highly doubted it since it was Reggie. He wasn't sure what exasperated him more about her, the fact that she looked so good in the morning or that she really thought she could evade his question.

She glanced at the supplies on the floor and chewed for a moment on her lower lip. "Have it your way-" She threw back the covers, swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

Just the sight of her killed every coherent thought except one: Wow.

The white silken gown fell over her curves like melting b.u.t.ter on flapjacks, making it hard to tell where the gown began and skin ended. To make matters worse, there was her hair. Yesterday it had been wrapped in a tight little bun or whatever at the nape of her neck. Now it floated around her pale shoulders, dark and luxurious.

He turned his back to her, going to the woodstove to stoke the fire, a fire of his own burning hot inside him. He was about to excuse himself and give her a chance to get dressed when she padded barefoot over to where he stood by the woodstove.

She had pulled another garment over the gown, something in the same thought-stealing silk that did little to hide her own a.s.sets. He tried to keep his gaze on her face. It was soft and cute as a newborn calf and just as harmless looking. Appearances could be so so deceiving. Her fragrance floated around him. Perfume and-he frowned-dish soap? "What are you doing?" deceiving. Her fragrance floated around him. Perfume and-he frowned-dish soap? "What are you doing?"

She shot him a look as she picked up one of the skillets from the counter behind her. "I'm getting breakfast."

"Not dressed like that! that!" It was the pure impracticality of the ensemble that infuriated him, not the effect it had on him. Worse, he feared she knew exactly what she was doing to him and she was enjoying it a lot more than he was. "Anyway, I fired you."

She seemed to ignore him as she dropped the skillet on the back of the woodstove and went to dig in the cooler. "Then you rehired me. Is it always this cold up here?"

Cold? The cabin felt suffocatingly hot. "Maybe if you were dressed appropriately-"

She shivered and went back to the bunk to get her socks and boots. He watched her wince as she pulled them on. They looked ridiculous with the expensive peignoir. And as ridiculous and out of place as Reggie herself had looked in the red suit yesterday on the roadside. The same way she didn't fit in here at the line camp.

Getting to her feet again, she looked like the only thing keeping her upright was pure stubbornness alone. Why didn't she have the good sense to give up now? Why didn't he?

He watched her draw one fingertip into her mouth, the same one he'd noticed she'd burned the night before. He felt himself weaken.

"I have some balm for your burns," he heard himself say. "You can put it on your boot blisters as well."

She looked over at him in surprise. The grat.i.tude in her gaze grabbed hold of him in a death grip. She bit her lip as if she might feel a little guilty for putting him through this. Or maybe it was just him who was feeling guilty. Could he be wrong about her motives?

J.T. stepped to one of the smaller coolers just off the porch and came back with a chunk of cheese. He held it out to her. "Eat this."

Regina took the cheese and did as she was told before she even thought to question him. As she chewed, she looked up at him, realizing that people just did what J. T. McCall told them to do and he expected nothing less. He wasn't used to anyone not following his orders. No wonder he'd been so angry with her.

The cheese helped, she felt more awake, not quite so tired. She figured that was his intention. "Thank you."

He wasn't like anyone she'd ever known. His looks alone made him stand out. A blond, blue-eyed handsome cowboy. The real thing. Just what she needed.

And yet he was nothing like she'd originally thought she wanted. He drove an old dirty pickup, wore worn clothing, often had mud and manure on his boots and jeans and smelled of sweat and horse-flesh, leather and dust. And she'd never met a s.e.xier man in her life.

No man had ever stirred the desires in her that McCall did. When this was over, she knew she would look back on it and wonder if she'd lost her mind in Montana. She could just imagine what her mother would say if she knew that her daughter was having such thoughts about a man like J. T. McCall.

Not that she would ever let a s.e.xual desire make her stray from her purpose. Too much was at stake for a roll in the hay-literally-with such a man. But she couldn't help but wonder what it would be like.

And he was attracted to her. He'd just about died when she'd gotten out of bed in her nightgown. She smiled to herself at the memory.

If everything in her life wasn't riding on this advertising campaign....

She could just hear Anthony. "Gina, baby, what could it hurt? You can't work all the time."

But looking at McCall, she knew it could hurt. He wasn't the kind of man you just bedded and walked away from unscathed. Not that she'd ever just bedded a man. She hardly had time even to date. Her grandmother was always telling her she'd be an old maid if she didn't forget about work for a moment and think about a man.

Well, she was thinking about a man right now. And her thoughts would have shocked her grandmother. Maybe not. But they definitely shocked Regina.

J.T. DIDN'T LIKE that look in her eyes. "I'll go get that balm," he said as he retreated backward until he felt the doork.n.o.b digging into his behind. "Get dressed. Don't touch that stove. I'll make breakfast." He felt much too heroic.

That's why her next words floored him.

"I'd really like to see you ride today," she said. "Do you think that would be possible?"

Her words stunned him. She couldn't be serious. The guilt he'd felt just an instant before took off like a wild stallion on open range. It took any sympathy he'd felt for her with it as well.

"You just don't know when to quit, do you?" He stepped to her, forgetting for the moment how she was dressed. Or not dressed, as the case was. "I'm going to tell you this one more time. I don't know what you're really up to, but I want you out of my cow camp."

"What I'm up to? I told you what I want. All you have to do is agree to the commercial and you won't ever have to see me again."

So she was sticking to that story. "I thought you had to see me ride first before you could make me the offer?"

She seemed to realize her mistake. "I do. Why else would I want to see you ride?"

"My question exactly." She looked so innocent standing there in her negligee and cowboy boots-"Whatever it is you're really after, give it up, Reggie. I told you, no one can be more stubborn or determined than me. Not even you."

She smiled, baby blues twinkling. "I guess that's the one thing we have in common, McCall. We're both tenacious to a fault."

"Wrong, Reggie," he said as he towered over her. "With you, it's a fault. With me, it's my best quality." He tipped his hat and headed for the door.

But as usual, Reggie got in the last word.

"Believe me, McCall, your pigheadedness isn't your greatest a.s.set. If it were, I wouldn't be here."

Chapter Five.

Blurry-eyed, Regina sat down slowly on the lower bunk and pulled off her boots so she could get her jeans on. She ached all over. A faint blush of light sifted down through the pines beyond a gap in her makeshift towel curtains at the window. She felt like the walking dead, her boot-blistered feet aching, her eyes sandpapery, her fingers burned and red.

But she'd done her best not to let McCall see it. She looked at the bunk, wanting sleep, but not even tempted to get back into that hard bunk. Even if her pride would have let her. She was going to make pancakes. Come h.e.l.l or high water.

She dressed in her new cowboy clothes, not that they looked new anymore. She wished now that she'd just bought a plain western shirt, a pair of her own jeans and some brown boots so she fit in more. The thought surprised her. What was happening to her? She was a Holland. Their whole goal in life was to stand out.

Dressed, she picked up all the food supplies she'd left on the floor. As she began to mix the ingredients for pancakes she felt like she was having a recurring nightmare. She'd stayed up most of the night practicing making pancakes, one batch after another. She'd been determined to show J. T. McCall that she wasn't as helpless as he thought.

Part of her wanted to shock him. The other part wanted to please him. That was the part that worried her.

Before last night she'd never made pancakes in her life, but fortunately she'd discovered a recipe on the back of the flour sack and other recipes on boxes and cans of food and she could could read. read.

After she was sure everyone had gone to bed, she'd gotten up, covered the windows with towels and, working by flashlight, had practiced making pancakes. One batch after another. She hated to think how many mistakes she'd made and had to dispose of before she finally got a pancake that looked like the one on the flour sack.

Now she put more wood on the fire and looked down at her pancake batter and smiled. Her only concern was the amount of supplies she'd used. She hoped they didn't run out of food. But there seemed to be enough for an army and Buck would be bringing back a truck so they could go get more, right?

She tried not to think about Buck's arrival-and her forced departure. She didn't have much time and she was rather at a loss as to how to proceed. J. T. McCall didn't need the money, didn't want the fame and wasn't even flattered by the offer. She would never have believed such a man existed if she hadn't met him.

What McCall was, she realized, was incredibly stubborn. It would take dynamite to dislodge him once he'd made up his mind. And according to him, his mind was as set as cement.

There was the thump of boots on the porch, a step she recognized, then a soft knock at the door. She reached up to tuck an errant lock of hair behind her ear. "Come in, McCall."

J.T. OPENED THE DOOR, another armload of firewood and the balm for her blisters, expecting he would need to get Reggie out of bed. Again.