Pamela Britton - The Cowgirl's CEO

“But I—”

“I’ll let you know.”

He turned away, striding over to the guy in the ball cap who, she suddenly realized, had been waiting there the whole time.

Damn it. She hated bossy, autocratic men.

It’s only a couple of hours, Caro. It’s not the end of the world.

But she had a feeling she’d be dealing with this bossy, autocratic man for way longer than a day.

She didn’t look happy.

Ty told himself he shouldn’t care. Ultimately, Caroline Sheppard was responsible for their current predicament. If they were on a tight schedule it was her fault. And if they were forced to do the shoot today, she would just have to deal with it.

But he did care.

He hated playing the heavy. Especially with Caroline. And that perplexed him.

He glanced her way again. Guy—the key grip—was waiting for instructions about the snow machine. “We’ll have to wait to test it,” he said, his eyes following her progress back toward the barn, her loose, beautiful hair, which swayed back and forth with every step. “They want to clear the arena.”

“Roger,” Guy said. “We’ll keep working on the lighting.”

“No, don’t,” Ty told him, his eyes still on Caro. “Wait until they clear the arena.”

“Will do.”

Caroline rounded the end of the barn, out of sight. Remarkable woman, Ty found himself thinking. Gorgeous. A champion barrel racer. College valedictorian.

If they’d met under different circumstances, he might have considered pursuing her.

He reached for his cell phone. “Get me Bill Clement,” he ordered his executive assistant, Annie.

“Certainly, Mr. Harrison,” she said from their office in Cheyenne. Ten seconds later his cell phone rang.

“Mr. Clement,” he told his director, “we have a problem.”

It turned out Bill was already in town. Even better, he didn’t seem to mind changing his schedule to accommodate Harrison’s Boots—not surprising, given the amount of money they’d paid the man. The camera crew was a bit trickier, but money always helped to motivate people, and it worked in this instance, too. Like the director, they’d chosen to fly in the day before the shoot, which, given their tight parameters wasn’t all that surprising. Once their flight landed, Annie got ahold of them and set everything up.

They were in business.

Ty tried to alert Ms. Sheppard via her cell phone. No answer. He wondered if she’d decided to ignore him—again. If so, she’d have a rude awakening. Left with no other choice, he went in search of her, walking up and down the rows of stalls. No luck. Next he tried the indoor arena, but she wasn’t there, either. When he finally located her, standing alongside her horse trailer, his blood pressure had hit an all-time high.

“Why aren’t you answering your cell?” he snapped, startling her, by the looks of it. She held a rope attached to her horse’s halter. A man squatted near the back end of the animal, one of its rear legs in his lap.

“My cell phone?” she asked, pulling the thing from her pocket. “It hasn’t even rung.”

“Maybe it would if you turned it on,” Ty said curtly.

“It is on,” she retorted. Ty recognized the combative look in her gray eyes.

He could see she was right. The phone might be closed, but the digital display showed it was powered up.

He took the phone from her. “Well then, why—”

“Hey!” She tried to snatch it back.

“No bars,” he said, after flipping the thing open.

“Oops.”

“Is there a problem?” The man working on her horse straightened. Worn chaps covered the front of his legs, and he held a rasp in one hand.

“No,” Caroline said quickly. “Mr. Harrison here was just being his typical, high-handed self.”

“Excuse me,” Ty said, shocked that she would talk to him that way.

“It’s true,” she said, raising her chin. “But since you’re here, I can only assume we’re a go for the commercial.”

“We are,” he said, scanning her up and down—the T-shirt tucked into her jeans, the sparkling belt accentuating her narrow waist. Yes, under other circumstances he would have enjoyed bringing her to heel. “And since it took me nearly half an hour to find you, you now have less than an hour.”

“I don’t need an hour. I don’t even need five minutes. I can wash up inside my trailer,” she said, pointing at the rig, which, Ty noticed, was some sort of RV-horse trailer combination, complete with motor-home-type tinted windows near the front.

“I’ve arranged for a local makeup artist to assist you.”

“I’d rather do my own.”

He felt his blood begin to pound again. “Caroline, I know you’re less than thrilled about our change of schedule, but it’ll make it easier on everyone—myself included—if you’d just go with the flow.”

He could tell she wanted to protest, but something held her back. Probably his subtle reminder that he was her sponsor.

“Dale, can we finish up later?” she asked.

“Sure. I was just filing the hoof around the new shoe. I can do that on my own.”

Caroline sighed. “All right. Gimme a sec.”

But she didn’t seem in a big hurry to tie her horse to the side of the trailer. And she took more than five minutes to wash her face—or whatever it was she did inside her trailer.

Brush her hair, he realized when she returned. Her most stunning attribute, he noted objectively, it looked like a collection of silk threads, each a different color, the whole mass so thick he’d have thought it fake if he didn’t know better.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Lead the way.”

He turned, but not before noticing that she wiped her palms on the front of her jeans. When she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her hands shook.

“Caroline,” he said, stopping abruptly. “There’s no need to be nervous.”

“What makes you think I’m nervous?”

“Aren’t you?”

She took a deep breath, relaxed her shoulders and said, “All right. I’ll admit it. I’m terrified.”

“There’s no need to be. The thing about filming a commercial is that we can do it again, if we need to.”

“Yeah, but everyone has their limits. Your director won’t be happy if I keep messing up, and neither, I suspect, will you.”

“I won’t mind.”

“You’ll mind if we end up having to reshoot the whole commercial. I imagine this is costing you a pretty penny.”

No more so than she’d cost him. “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”

He saw her swallow. “It’s not just flubbing it that I’m worried about.”

“It’s not?”

She tugged her T-shirt down. “This is big. Once the commercial starts airing, my life will change. I know. I’ve seen it before. One of the bull riders got a big sponsorship deal. He started filming commercials, too, for some rental car agency. Suddenly he was being stopped for autographs, girls were calling out his name, people were writing him letters. He had to hire an assistant to deal with it all. I don’t have time to hire an assistant.”

“Harrison’s Boots can handle the fallout, Caroline. You just concentrate on winning the NFR.”

“Caro,” she said. “Only my mom calls me Caroline.”

He nodded. “And besides, I have a feeling you’ll take to stardom well.”

Stardom. When he said the word he saw her wince. “All I want to do is ride my horses, not sign autographs or do public appearances.” She brushed a hand through her hair, the long strands catching in her fingers. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

“You want to pull out?”

She looked him square in the eye. “What would you do if I said yes?”

He’d like to tell her hell no, they had way too much money invested in her to allow that. Then he’d tell her to call an attorney.