Cara Colter - 9 Out Of 10 Women Can't Be Wrong

But she knew, finally, it was his eyes that took him over the edge, from a nice-looking guy to something beyond. His eyes were almond shaped, fringed with a spiky abundance of black lash. The eyes themselves were the dark rich brown of melted chocolate, but it was the look in them that defined him.

Unflinching. Steady. Calm. Strong. Deep.

And yet some mystery resided there, too. It was not exactly wariness, but a certain aloofness. His eyes told his story: that he was a man who chose to walk alone, who knew his own strength completely and relied on it without thought or hesitation.

A lot to know perhaps from one glance at a man.

Except she had had so much more than that. A week that shone in her memory, a few photographs she had taken that had become worn over the years from handling.

A memory of the way those eyes changed when the laughter sparked deep in their depths.

The dog caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and flung his great head, drool flying as he did so. Harrie leaped back to avoid her suit being splattered by dog spit.

It was a nice suit. Extremely professional, gray silk, tight enough to be feminine. She had worn it to travel in, with flat-heeled loafers.

Okay, the skirt was a little shorter than it should have been, and she could have done up one more blouse button, and it would have made more sense to show up in slacks, but still—

The dog let out a sudden deep bay. She was completely unprepared for the power of the beast as he leaped to his feet and charged toward a cow and calf that had come out from behind a shelter and were now nosing the new spring grass in the pasture adjoining the driveway.

Harrie felt her shoulder jerk and the leash burn through her hand. She caught the loop of the leash at the end of it and held on for dear life.

Stacey had told her, laughing, after their visit to the ranch, Ty was amazed you didn’t stampede the cattle.

Playfully he had called her Lady Disaster. She was not going to have this stupid dog stampede the cattle within minutes of her arriving this time—this time when everything was going to be so different.

Off balance, as the powerful dog charged toward the cattle pen, baying with excitement, she lost her footing and fell forward. Undeterred, but slowed down, the huge animal continued forward grinding her knees and face, not to mention her beautiful silk suit, into the dirt and grass.

Ty leaped, grabbed the lead, planted his heels and jerked back hard.

The dog came to an instant halt, glanced back and hung his head remorsefully.

“Are you all right?” Ty asked with irritation, rather than compassion. He was at her elbow now, yanking her to her feet.

“I’m fine,” she snapped, jerking her arm away from him, looking down at her ruined suit.

“You’re hurt.”

He was crouched down in front of her, but nothing prepared her for the touch of his hand on her knee. A knee now devoid of nylon.

He looked up at her.

And she sighed. This was an omen. Five minutes in his presence, and catastrophe had already struck. Never mind that she had him exactly where she wanted him—on bended knee.

It was for the wrong reasons. He was looking at her knee with about the same expression she was sure he would use on an injured cow. Detached. Competent.

“I’m fine,” she said tersely. “It’s a scratch. I have a Band-Aid in my bag.”

“The problem with a cut out here,” he said, putting his hands on his knees and rising to his feet, giving the dog a quick jerk on the lead to let him know he was still there, “is that we have a lot of livestock around. We can have all kinds of nasty little things wriggling around in the soil. I’ll have to put antiseptic on it.”

No. No. No.

This was not how she had planned things. At all. “It’s fine,” she said.

“Humor me.” Still controlling the dog, he opened the passenger side of her car and settled the straps of her carry bag over one shoulder, the strap of her huge camera bag over the other.

“I can take that,” she said.

He stepped away from her easily. “I’ll get it.” It was said with a certain firmness that set her teeth on edge. How had Stacey become so independent in the presence of such old-fashioned male arrogance? Maybe Stacey rebelled against his arrogance. Her boyfriend appeared to be Ty’s polar opposite: long-haired, liberal, artistic, sweet-tempered.

He led the way up to the house, giving the dog’s leash a snap every time it lunged forward.

The walk gave Harriet an unfortunate view of the back of him. Broad back, a certain angry stiffness in the set of his shoulders, his fanny gorgeous nonetheless in those faded jeans, his legs long and lean and strong. By the time they arrived at the back door, she felt as if she was practically panting, and not entirely because of the length of Ty’s powerful stride.

The dog was walking quietly at his side, sending him upward glances as though longing for his approval.

“I was going to put you in the bunkhouse,” he said, opening the door and standing back from it. “But I can see that won’t work. Cringle said you’d be here a week. Would you say that’s a fair estimate?”

“I don’t mind the bunkhouse,” she said tersely. “A week maximum. If everything goes right.”

Why did she feel so unsure of that, suddenly? Everything on her photo shoots always went right. Because of her news photography background she had become adept at getting wonderful pictures without great lighting, without a huge team, without makeup artists.

She could just imagine what Ty Jordan would have to say about a makeup artist.

“And the guys surely wouldn’t mind you sharing the bunkhouse, either, but you can have my little sister’s room.” This was said with the quiet authority of a man who didn’t expect to be questioned.

She was sorely tempted to insist on the bunkhouse. She could tell him she had bunked with guys before. That war zones had a way of blurring lines and stripping modesty. But something about the tiny chink in his armor when he said “little sister” stopped her.

This was the side of him she wanted to capture on camera. The personal side. And she would have far more chance of doing that if she was camped out under the same roof as him.

He tied the dog to the outside of the door handle before he followed her into the house.

“Bathroom’s through here,” he said, dropping her bag on the floor. “If you want to slip off those things, I’ll get the first-aid kit.”

She said thank-you when what she really wanted to say was “go to hell.” She retrieved her bag, went into the bathroom and closed the door. She took off the ruined pantyhose, looked down at the ragged scrape across her knee.

She’d been a war correspondent for two years with nary a scratch.

She looked in the mirror. Her suit was ruined. Her face was smudged. Her hair was standing on end. She took off the suit and opened her suitcase. The all-important first impression had been made. Hopefully the first thirty seconds of it had more impact than the second thirty, but she doubted it. She put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. If she was taking her power back, she certainly wasn’t going to fix her hair, or refresh her make-up for him.

She did remove the smudge from her face before marching back out of the bathroom.

When she came out he was in the kitchen, rummaging through a white metal box with a red cross on the side of it. He didn’t even glance up at her.

The kitchen was unchanged, she thought looking around. Plain, a utilitarian room that served a function.

But it held memories, too—her and Stacey making a mess creating homemade pizza, him coming in, dirty from work, sexy as sin, and giving them hell. Then he’d softened the blow by saying how good it smelled, and he couldn’t wait to try it. She remembered playing cards at that scarred kitchen table with Stacey. He’d been tired, physical weariness bowing his shoulders, but when Stacey had pleaded, he had joined them, reluctantly, and ended up showing them how to play poker. Losing his reluctance a little later, he’d showed them a game called Blind Baseball.