Barbara Dunlop - A Cowboy in Manhattan

He laid his head down on the pillow, touching his forehead to hers. His voice went low again. “You have to tell me.”

“Why?”

“This is pillow talk. All secrets are revealed during pillow talk.”

“This isn’t a secret.”

“Good. Then there’s no reason not to tell me.”

“It’s silly.”

He shrugged. “Then who cares if you tell me or not?”

She heaved a heavy sigh. “Fine. But you can’t laugh. And you can’t call me a princess.”

“I’m going to call you a princess whether you tell me what’s on your mind or not.” He brushed a few stray hairs from her cheek. “I like calling you princess. You should take it as a compliment.”

“It’s not a compliment. You’re telling me that I’m spoiled.”

“But in a delightful, exotic, sexy way.”

“Ha!”

“Tell me the whole story, Katrina.”

“Fine. He propositioned me a few times. And then he phoned me here and asked me if I’d thought about his offer. I told him I wouldn’t change my mind.”

“And when did your ballet shoe fail?”

“Why are you giving me the third degree?” It wasn’t as if she’d done anything wrong.

“When did you hurt your ankle?”

“Can we back to kissing or something?” She really didn’t want to talk about this.

“Give me the chronology.”

“No.”

Reed ignored her answer. “First, he propositions you. You say no. You narrowly miss some cables. He asks again. You say no. Your shoe fails and you’re injured. He asks again. You say no…”

“That’s the most far-fetched theory I’ve ever heard.”

“No. That’s what you’re thinking yourself.”

“There’s absolutely no way-”

“Did someone check the shoes afterward?”

“I threw them away.”

Reed raised a meaningful brow.

Katrina understood his suspicions. “I have a dozen pairs of ballet shoes. Nobody could have guessed which ones I’d use that day.” But she was convincing herself as much as she was convincing Reed.

He seemed to ponder that information.

She wasn’t going to buy into any kind of paranoia. “Those were accidents, coincidences.”

Reed slowly smiled. “Okay,” he agreed.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She let her body relax, trailing her fingertips across his chest. “I shouldn’t have said anything. We were having fun, and I messed it up.”

Reed slipped his arms around her, drawing her close, speaking against her ear. “You were right to say something. You should always tell me when something goes wrong. Have I mentioned that I know how to fix things?”

“There’s nothing to fix.”

“Maybe not.”

“Maybe the shoes, if I still had them.”

Reed chuckled, and Katrina forced the theory from her mind. There was no connection between Quentin and the accidents. He hadn’t even called again. Clearly, he’d given up. She could relax and stop worrying. When she went back to New York City, everything would be fine.

The next day, it took them two hours to make their way back down the washed-out trail. Then it took Reed four hours to dig the truck out of the muddy road. And they had to stop every half mile or so to remove debris from the road or winch the truck across a particularly rough patch.

All in all, as a “morning after” went, it left a lot to be desired. Though Reed continually told Katrina to wait inside the cab of the truck, she donned a pair of leather work gloves and helped as best she could. Her efforts were pathetic, and she ended up with scratches on her arms and a bruised knee.

It was nearly six in the evening when they pulled the mud-caked truck up to the Terrell ranch house. To Katrina’s surprise, her brother Travis was in the yard with Caleb, loading a couple of horses into a trailer. They both waved a cursory greeting and went back to their work.

As Katrina jumped from the pickup, Mandy trotted around the barn on horseback, smiling at them as she dismounted.

“You’re just in time for dinner,” she called, leading the dun mare toward the truck.

“Were you worried?” asked Katrina, keeping her back to the truck, well away from the big horse.

“About what?” asked Mandy, glancing at Reed as he rounded the hood.

“We were only supposed to be gone a few hours.”

“Did the rain slow you down?”

“It did,” Reed confirmed, halting next to Katrina.

“Did you get the pump fixed?” Mandy asked him.

“Up and running again,” he confirmed.

“So, that’s it?” asked Katrina. They’d been stranded out in the wilds of the ranch for twenty-four hours, and nobody so much as blinked an eye? What if they’d been hurt? What if they’d been trampled by horses or cattle?

“You had a phone call from New York City,” said Mandy. “Someone named Elizabeth Jeril.”

“She’s the director of Liberty,” said Katrina.

“She seems anxious for you to call back.”

Katrina’s thoughts went to her ankle. She realized she’d barely thought about it for the past two days. Through all the hiking and climbing, it hadn’t hurt at all. And the dance routines she’d tried yesterday morning had gone exceedingly well.

She was ready to dance again.

“I’ll call her in the morning.” Katrina couldn’t help a brief glance at Reed while she spoke. He was so rugged and sexy against the backdrop of the Rockies that her breath left her lungs.

“I should probably head back home,” she managed, knowing that for the first time in her life she’d have a regret at leaving Colorado.

“But I’m not ready for you to go,” said Mandy, stepping forward and pulling Katrina into a hug.

Katrina hugged back, keeping a wary eye on the mare. The animal moved, and Katrina jerked away, coming up against Reed.

“Chicken,” Reed teased under his breath.

“She’s scared of those, too,” Mandy pointed out.

“I’ll take my chances with the traffic and the panhandlers,” Katrina retorted.

Caleb and Travis approached, stripping off their leather work gloves.

“I’m about done,” said Caleb, lifting his hat and swiping the back of his hand across his hairline.

Travis nodded at the muddy truck, and Katrina remembered to step away from Reed.

“Nice,” Travis noted.

“Half the hillside came down around it in the storm last night,” said Reed.

“You stay at the line shack?” asked Caleb.

Katrina braced herself, unable to look at anyone. Would they guess? Would they ask? What would Reed tell them?

“We did,” Reed answered easily. “The princess was forced to eat pancakes and maple syrup for dinner.”

“Hey,” Katrina protested. She hadn’t been the least bit snotty about their dinner last night. All in all, she thought she’d been a trooper.

“She nearly walked out on me when she discovered there wasn’t a wine cellar,” Reed added.

She shot him an angry glare.

Caleb laughed.

“That’s my baby sister,” Travis added.

“That’s not why you’re leaving, is it?” asked Mandy.

Katrina caught something in Reed’s expression, and she suddenly knew what he’d done. He’d deflected any hint of suspicion that they might have done anything other than fight last night. She should be grateful to him, not angry.

She’d make sure she told him so later.

She turned back to Mandy. “That’s not why I’m leaving. I have to get back to work.”

“I suppose you do,” Mandy allowed, her voice tinged with sadness.

Caleb pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. “I’ll get Seth and Abigail up here. The least we can do is have a farewell barbecue.”

On the back deck of his ranch house, Reed stood to one side, watching Katrina laugh with her two sisters. She seemed more relaxed on the ranch than she’d ever been, but, ironically, she looked even more untouchable. She’d showered, as they all had, and she’d changed into a simple, clingy, white knit dress. Her legs were bare, and she wore her navy suede ankle boots with a looping, blue-beaded choker and matching earrings.