Opposing the Cowboy Read online

  With a rumble, her stomach reminded her of more pressing concerns.

  Right. Lunch.

  Usually she brown-bagged it, but she’d been too exhausted from reliving the breakup over and over again all night to do more than drag herself to yoga class that morning.

  There were a few places in the Stockyards that delivered, but none of them had good vegetarian options, and she was sick of salads.

  She debated leaving long enough to pick something up. Even though she knew Kylie often closed the shop for lunch, LeeAnn hesitated. She didn’t want to miss any sales. Keeping Cowbelles going while Kylie was gone mattered to her—and not only because she was getting paid. It would be nice to be able to relieve all of her friend’s anxieties about leaving town. The more sales LeeAnn made, the happier Kylie would be when she returned at the end of the week from her monthlong trip touring with Cole Grayson, her country music star boyfriend.

  But if I don’t eat lunch, I’ll get cranky and end up running customers away.

  With a sigh, she hung the Be Right Back sign on the door and spun the hands on the paper clock around to twelve thirty.

  As she moved toward the stockroom to grab her purse, though, the electronic chimes over the door jingled, letting her know someone had come in.

  Closing her eyes briefly—long enough to send up a short prayer requesting the patience to deal with whoever had ignored the sign—LeeAnn pasted a bright smile on her face and spun to greet the customer.

  The smile froze in place as she made eye contact with the man standing inside as the door swung closed behind him.

  The guy from the Wagon Wheel.

  Superman in a cowboy hat.

  And from the poleaxed look on his face, he hadn’t expected her any more than she expected him—despite the next words out of his mouth.

  “I’m looking for LeeAnn Walker.”

  In the long silence that followed, the two blinked at one another.

  I’m staring again.

  “I’m LeeAnn,” she said.

  And now he’s the one staring.

  What is going on here?

  “So, Clark Kent,” LeeAnn said, finally breaking the long silence. “How do you know my name?”

  “Clark Kent?” His startled laugh was low and full and went straight to her abdomen. When she didn’t answer, he continued. “I’m Jonah Hamilton.”

  Superman of kisses.

  Not that she would say that out loud.

  Not on purpose, anyway.

  Even without an audience, the impulse to kiss him hadn’t faded. Her cheeks heated at the memory.

  Jonah Hamilton. Where have I heard that name before?

  “Can I help you with something?” she asked.

  He gestured at the sign on the door. “Were you about to head out for lunch?”

  “You didn’t answer my question. How do you know my name?” Her stomach dropped in sudden, irrational fear. “Are you following me? Are you stalking me or something?”

  There’s that laugh again.

  “You’re the one who kissed me, remember?” Jonah’s dimples flashed as he spoke.

  Oh, if only I could forget.

  “Can we go somewhere and sit down? Maybe for coffee, if you don’t want lunch?” He tilted his head, regarding her steadily as he waited for her answer.

  Some part of her brain noted that he had a practiced smile that made her a little nervous—and a mischievous gleam in his eye that made her pulse race.

  “I really don’t have time—I need to get back to work.” And fresh off a breakup, the last thing she needed was to spend time with this gorgeous, blue-eyed temptation to rebound.

  Ignore the beautiful man.

  Be calm.

  Centered.

  Definitely time to practice some yoga-style pranayama breathing.

  Counting silently, she drew in a deep, slow breath through her nose, then blew it out through her mouth.

  She could almost hear Angie’s voice in her mind.

  Exhales should be twice as long as inhales. One, two, three. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two—

  “What are you doing?” Jonah asked.

  LeeAnn placed her hands in prayer position at heart level. “Breathing,” she said.

  —three, four, five, six.

  There. That’s better.

  Stretching her hands high above her head, then circling her arms wide as she brought them down to her sides, LeeAnn came to rest in mountain pose.

  Feet planted in the earth, the crown of my head stretching to the sky.

  I am calm.

  I am centered.

  I can deal with this man.

  I can deal with anything.

  “Now,” she said, focusing on keeping her voice low and melodic to reflect the calm she wanted to create in the room, “how can I help you?”

  “Is this some sort of joke?” Jonah’s gaze darted around the store, taking in the rhinestone- and cowhide-covered trinkets, the barbed-wire crosses hanging on the walls, the melamine-encased bluebonnets attached to key chains.

  Texas kitsch. Tourist crap. Normal enough for the Stockyards District.

  Nothing about the place suggested that it was staffed by a crazy woman who did weird breathing exercises while she prayed.

  And handed out stunning kisses to strangers at the local diner.

  “Is there a camera somewhere?” he asked.

  A display on the far left wall entitled “Hometown Heroes” drew Jonah’s attention. An oversize poster version of the cover of country singer Cole Grayson’s latest album took up most of the space. Smaller images of a bull rider surrounded it. Less explicably, what looked like a few shreds of an old concert poster were tacked to the wall next to Grayson’s image, their tattered strands fluttering in the slight breeze of the air conditioner.

  He zeroed in on what looked like a security camera. “Seriously—am I being punked?”

  Placing her hands back in their prayer position, LeeAnn—if that’s really who she is—raised one eyebrow as she lifted her right foot and set it on the inside of her thigh.

  “Punked?” she asked, her warm alto voice rising a bit.

  “Yeah. You know, like Candid Camera.” He bent down a bit to peer at the underside of the camera. It did seem to be plugged in.

  “No. You’re not being punked.” She balanced on one foot, like a crane.

  A beautiful, graceful crane with the most amazing kisses.

  Blinking rapidly to dispel the rather disturbing image, Jonah took his own deep breath and stood up straight again.

  Whatever was going on here, he needed to take control of the situation. “Let’s start over,” he said.

  “Okay.” LeeAnn tilted her head a little to one side but didn’t change her one-legged prayer-hands stance.

  He pulled out his wallet and held out a business card. “My name is Jonah Hamilton. I represent Natural Shale Oil and Gas, the company that is looking to drill on your ranch.”

  LeeAnn froze, one hand reaching halfway across the distance separating them, the other still at her heart in prayer position.

  “Absolutely not,” she said. Her upraised foot finally dropped to the ground. Her gray eyes darkened, matching her suddenly chilly tone. “Jonah Hamilton. You’re the one who’s been calling me.”

  Ah. There’s the ice queen I’ve been talking to.

  He nodded, careful not to let his thoughts show on his face. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Pursing her lips, she moved behind the sales counter, putting both distance and a barrier between them.

  Reading body language during negotiations—normal body language, not some weird-ass, twisty praying shit—now he was in his element.

  “I told you over the phone. I will never allow anyone to drill on my land.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  Still holding out the card, Jonah shrugged. “You may not have any say in it.”

  “It’s my land,” she said. Her lips thinned as she spoke, her nostrils flaring a bit. “M
y decision is final.”

  He leaned forward far enough to place his card on the counter in front of her. “We may be able to drill on the property whether you like it or not. That’s what I’m in town to find out.”

  Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened as if to speak, but no sound came out.

  Tell her about the letter now?

  No. Best to leave before she regained her equilibrium.

  Taking one step back, he tilted his head and touched the brim of his hat. “I’ll be in touch, Ms. Walker.” Then he turned and left the store, the electronic bells jingling into the silence behind him.

  Not until he was sitting in his truck again did he take off his hat and blow out a deep breath.

  Holy shit.

  The ice queen of Fort Worth and the most sensuous woman I’ve ever kissed are the same person.

  He stared out the window at the brick-paved streets.

  While preparing for this particular contract, he’d spent all his time researching the land.

  I need to research the woman.

  A slow grin spread across his face.

  I think I may be in trouble.

  And I think it’s going to be fun.

  …

  LeeAnn stared at the card on the counter in front of her as if it were a rattlesnake poised to strike.

  Finally, she reached out and picked it up between two fingers, staring at the Natural Shale logo across the top and Jonah’s name beneath.

  Its bite might be as poisonous as a rattler.

  What had Jonah Hamilton meant, they might be able to drill even without her permission?

  Surely he was lying.

  And oh, dear Lord. I kissed him this morning.

  With a groan, she dropped her forearms onto the counter and banged her head against the back of her hands several times.

  The only other people who might know anything about the ranch were her cousins, Samantha and Beverly. She looked at the clock. Beverly was in California, finishing her master’s degree in psychology—no telling if she would be available to talk. But Sami was probably still on her lunch break. If LeeAnn called right now, Sami might have time to talk to her.

  With a sigh, LeeAnn pulled the sign from the door and went to the back room to get her cell phone.

  Looks like I’m having a salad delivered again.

  “I don’t know anything about mineral rights.” Her cousin Sami’s voice came through a bit muffled as LeeAnn balanced the phone between her shoulder and her ear so she could pluck a T-shirt from the jumble on the shelf and refold it.

  Sami continued talking. “All I know is that the money went to Daddy and the land was willed to your mom, then after she died, to you. I haven’t even looked at those papers since Daddy died—it’s not like there was anything left for me or Bev once he got his hands on it.”

  LeeAnn made a sympathetic noise. “But you still have the paperwork?”

  “I have no idea. I think it might still be out at the ranch—Gran had us bring everything that looked important over there after his funeral. Maybe it’s in the attic, or out in one of the barns? I’m sorry. I wish I knew.” The shrug in her cousin’s voice came through clearly.

  “Do you remember Gran talking about someone wanting to drill back in the eighties?” As determined as she had always been to keep the oil companies off her land, surely Gran would have said something to someone.

  “Not really—but she talked to you about that stuff more than me, so it’s no surprise that I wouldn’t remember.” LeeAnn heard a voice in the background—probably Sami’s jerk of a boss, demanding she hang up. “Listen, I’ve got to get back to work. Can we talk later?”

  “Okay. Thanks anyway.” With a sigh, she swiped the off button. It had been a slim chance at best, so she wasn’t really surprised that Sami couldn’t help her.

  She didn’t know anything about mineral rights—nothing about oil companies except that they did terrible things to the land. Something about fracking. Even the word sounded bad. If she was really going to have to go up against some big oil company, she needed more information.

  Guess I’m going to have to talk to this Jonah guy again, after all.

  And ignore those dimples.

  But above all, pretend I never, ever kissed him.

  She stared down at the business card on the counter in front of her.

  Contacting him wasn’t going to be easy. The whole thing made her stomach hurt. Luckily, she knew just the stretch for that pain—she’d even cleared a spot in the middle of the store, exactly the size of her yoga mat.

  Kylie won’t mind. Right?

  Stretching her arms up over her head, she leaned back farther and farther, until her hands touched the mat in a perfect back bend. Enjoying the stretch the pose created through her abdomen, she closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing.

  That’s better.

  She would have to deal with Jonah Hamilton and Natural Shale Oil and Gas soon enough. But in the midst of chaos, she could create an oasis of calm—even if it didn’t extend any farther than her mat.

  Tomorrow.

  I will call the number on that card tomorrow.

  Maybe.

  Chapter Three

  By the next afternoon, Jonah was pretty sure he had what he needed. He leaned back from the screen of the microfiche machine, squeezing the bridge of his nose and blinking. If anyone had told him in college that he would end up in a career that required him to do research on a regular basis—and more, that he would love that part of his job—he would have laughed his ass off. But here he sat, moving back and forth between the microfilm scans of the old archives and the screen of the laptop on the desk beside him. He loved the treasure hunt aspect of the research, finding the clues that led back to the records he needed, that took him to the land title, newspaper story, or even old diary that showed who owned the mineral rights to a piece of land.

  Tracking down mineral rights might not always be simple or straightforward, but there was always an answer. It was a problem with a specific, definable solution.

  Of course, he might not love the research quite as much if he had to do it all the time. The fact that the other half of his job required him to work outside as much as inside made up for any difficulties he ran into when digging through old records.

  And this time?

  Pay dirt.

  Between the county records and what he’d found in the library as he sorted through old newspaper reports, he’d put together a pretty clear picture of LeeAnn Walker’s life, along with her connection to the land Natural Shale wanted to drill.

  Orphaned when she was four, she had gone to live with her grandparents on what had then been a working ranch. When her grandfather died ten years later, her grandmother, an elementary school teacher in Fort Worth, hadn’t been able to keep the ranch going by herself. Instead, she had given a cash inheritance to her only living son—LeeAnn’s uncle, George. Then, in order to hang on to the land itself, she’d slowly sold off the animals and let go of the ranch hands, one by one. When the grandmother died and LeeAnn inherited the now defunct ranch, she had been forced to sell off the back twenty acres to pay the inheritance taxes.

  In fact, she had apparently struggled to pay the property taxes ever since she inherited, sometimes incurring a hefty late fee and often arranging to pay them out over time. Jonah riffled through the photocopies of tax records he had added to the file.

  Why didn’t she take out a mortgage on the place? She could have arranged to have the taxes bundled into a monthly payment. Whatever her reasoning, it looked like she was in a bind now—she had about a month left before she would have to pay up again. And unless she had some income source other than the gift shop job and, apparently, a gig teaching a few classes each week at the yoga studio, he didn’t think she was going to find it any easier to pay the tax bill this time.

  But the whole yoga teacher thing certainly explained her reluctance to lease out the drilling rights. He’d run up against the type befor
e—neo-hippie do-gooders, convinced they could change the world by chanting or some shit like that. They thought oil companies were out to destroy the world, and that they could save it.

  Tree huggers and the like.

  Usually smell like pot.

  He drew up short at the thought. LeeAnn Walker hadn’t smelled like that at all. She had smelled warm and clean, with a hint of vanilla.

  Still, a yoga teacher who can’t pay her taxes? Obviously a flake.

  He glanced over at the screen of his laptop, taking in her smiling image. The picture in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram was from a charity event at the Will Rogers Coliseum. Any other time, someone like LeeAnn probably wouldn’t have ended up with her picture in the paper, but she stood next to Cole Grayson in the photo, along with the famous country singer’s girlfriend, Kylie Andrews—the woman who owned the gift shop where LeeAnn worked, he had discovered. On the other side of LeeAnn, another man stared off into the distance, unsmiling. LeeAnn held his arm, but his body language was unresponsive, his lips pressed together in a thin, angry line.

  I’d bet anything that’s the guy from the Wagon Wheel.

  “Darrell Vincent,” the caption read.

  A wave of heat rolled through Jonah at the memory of LeeAnn’s kiss.

  What a colossal dumbass Darrell Vincent must be.

  On a whim, Jonah pulled up his public data records account and ran a search on the guy, finding only the most basic of information: local address, no arrest record.

  Next, he tried Google.

  Salesman for a local business, participated in some small golf tournaments.

  He scrolled down a bit.

  Bingo.

  An engagement announcement: Darrell Vincent and Margaret Carter. In yesterday’s newspaper.

  He switched tabs to look back at the picture with Grayson in it.

  Not even six weeks ago.

  If this guy was LeeAnn’s bad breakup, he had sure moved on fast.

  A quick search of the bride-to-be’s background gave Jonah a pretty good answer for that. Margaret Carter was part of the Fort Worth elite, apparently—she came from old cattle money and was a successful attorney in her own right.

  That painted a clear picture: the part-time salesclerk, part-time yoga instructor struggling to pay her land taxes dumped for the rich lawyer with connections.