EXCERPT

Damn headache. Jake Caldwell used the boot remover to pull off his well-scuffed boots, and then strode tiredly toward the living room and the over-stuffed sofa. It irritated the hell out of him to be forced away from his ranch duties to lie down for a few minutes in the middle of the day. But there was no help for it. The throbbing had gotten so bad he could hardly think straight.

He stretched out on the extra long sofa and closed his eyes. A hammer seemed to be pounding at his forehead from the inside out. He reached up to rub at his brow, but it didn’t help at all. Only a spell of resting his eyes would ease the migraine.

Just as he started drifting away from the pain, someone knocked on the front door with the heavy metal knocker. He scowled, wondering whom the blazes was calling on him now. None of his men. They knew he’d gone inside to lie down. So who the blazes kept on rapping with the knocker—a knocker he would damn well remove tomorrow?

When his unwelcome visitor refused to give up, he launched himself from the sofa and stormed to the door. His annoyance immediately gave way to shock as he faced a purple-haired female in her late teens.

“Bitchin’ place you got here, Cowboy. Ain’t never been on a ranch before.”

Jake’s gaze took in the small gold stud piercing one eyebrow and a matching gold ring in her left nostril. He winced. He’d seen a lot of things in his thirty-three years, but a sight like this he’d missed until now. He wished he’d missed it now.

The girl caught him staring and smirked. “Got more if’n you want to see them.”

“No. No, I don’t.” He for dang sure didn’t want to see more bodily mutilations.

“Mom couldn’t make it. Her ex showed up at the last minute. Evidently the old heat flamed up again, if you know what I mean. ‘Cause she decided to give him another chance,” she explained, as though that would make some kind of sense.

“Your mom?” What kind of mother would let her kid do these weird things to her body? Obviously a mother with no sense at all. Seemed to him that both of them needed some reining in, some time getting their bottoms warmed.

Then, to his horror, the girl winked at him in what he imagined she considered a seductive manner. He cringed and stepped back.

“Maybe, when I bring ya back here after our dinner date, we can lasso one of them horses over yonder. Take a midnight ride. Be romantic, huh?” she suggested, her black-painted lips curving up into a smile of sorts.

“Miss, I’ve got no idea in the world who either you are, or who your mother is.” Jake reached up a shaky hand to rake it through his hair out of frustration.

She beamed. “Miss! Way cool.” Her nearly painted on tank top rose with the stiffening of her shoulders, enough to reveal her bare midriff and expose a ring in her navel.

He flinched again. He didn’t even want to think about the pain she’d experienced with all the body piercings. Or the infections she was likely to get. Again, he thought the teenager needed more control in her life. Control and discipline.

“Who exactly are you?” he managed to question, inching back a little more.

She looked at him calmly. “Zelda. Mom and I just moved to Dodge City from Denver.” She stopped to chomp on her gum a couple of times. “We met Maybelle Caldwell—your grandma—at a flea market. She told Mom to come see you here at the ranch. Convince you to go out with her. Said you were having trouble finding a woman.”

He nearly bit his tongue in two to keep from cursing a blue streak in front of the strange teenager. Maybelle and him were going to have words. Soon.

******

It had taken Jake a week to try and talk his grandmother out of her obsession with finding him a wife, and then to come up with a plan to thwart her when she refused to listen to reason. ‘Course his good friend and foreman, Rusty, had thought the plan amazingly stupid. Actually, worse than just letting Maybelle continue on with her matchmaking schemes. But Jake couldn’t deal with anymore Zeldas showing up at his ranch. Nor could he handle more blind dates with the peculiar women Maybelle kept rounding up for him to go out with. No, he was desperate enough to try this plan. At least HE would be in control.

Elevators made him feel pinned in, but at least he figured it wouldn’t be a long ride. He had a few seconds to ponder the place and the woman he’d come to see. The Jamison Advertising Agency had quite a reputation in the Midwest and Colorado, or so his grandmother had told him several times. Rylee Jamison was an executive with the outfit, and she now owned the whole damn place after her father’s death. He knew a lot about Ms. Jamison—without actually knowing her. Thanks to his grandmother. The much younger woman lived in his grandmother’s exclusive apartment complex and they played bridge together every week or so. He also knew that Rylee had been the only child of a very wealthy man, who had let her go her own way growing up. She’d gotten into one spell of mischief after another in her teen years, which her father had gotten her out of with no more than a “don’t do this again” comment. Clearly, the gal had needed a great deal more than that. If she’d been Jake’s daughter, he’d have warmed her bottom good and made damn sure she didn’t even think about getting into whatever mischief again.

******

“Fudge! Fudge! Fudge!” Rylee Jamison grumbled again as her elbow knocked a stack of advertising layouts that she’d already jostled to the floor. To her disgust, the papers she’d worked so hard on involving the firm’s newest client scattered all around the big ebony desk, several sliding underneath.

She slipped from her chair, going down to hands and knees to scramble around and gather the papers. What a position for the president of the company to be in! If her board could see her now. She felt her clearly shorter-than-she-thought skirt pull up rather high on her thighs. She gathered the papers faster, hoping to get them all retrieved before one of the staff—particularly one of the men—came in and caught a glimpse of more of her than she wanted them to see.

One paper was elusive, tucked way under the side of her desk. With a tiny groan, she leaned nose to carpet and stretched her arm out as far as she could. The skirt slipped up even higher.

At that precise moment, of course, someone tapped on the open office door. It figured. It was just the way her day had been going. No, make that her week.

“Rylee Jamison?” came a voice in a deep, husky tone that had her stomach instantly quivering. She almost didn’t want to look up and be disappointed, as so often happened when you finally put a face to a voice you admired.

But when she pulled her arm back from under the desk and glanced his direction, she was definitely NOT disappointed. Her pulse rate ratcheted up a notch. “Yes?” she managed to squeak out.

“Maybelle Caldwell’s bridge partner?” asked the six-foot something, splendidly built male looking down at her, a hint of amusement in his ebony-colored eyes.

She nodded, sitting back on her heels, overlooking the fact that her skirt rose even higher. She could listen to this man’s voice forever. It called forth the sensual image of being wrapped up in a quilt on a cold winter’s evening, sitting by a crackling fire and watching an old romantic movie. Or just an image of being skin-to-skin with him. Yes, THAT was a much better image!

Making an effort to tamp down her hot-to-tackle-him hormones, she said, “Yes. I’m that particular Rylee Jamison. Can I help you?”

“’Pears you’re the one needing some help,” he said, strolling closer, stopping less than a yard away from her and focusing on her bent legs. “I’m Maybelle’s grandson, Jake Caldwell,” he added somewhat even huskier sounding.

Oh gawd! He was killing her here. She felt hot; her pulse raced. He looked like he was ready to lay her out on the carpet and… Mortified at her thoughts, she glanced at her lap and discovered that way too much of her was exposed. She immediately slid forward until she was on her knees, but not revealing quite so much of her legs.

She wasn’t used to such strong reactions to a man, but then she’d been working long hours for the last few months. Little time for dating. Exhaustion no doubt was the culprit behind her explosive responses to this stranger. Well, not exactly a stranger, since she’d heard so much about him from Maybelle. She’d just never seen him in person. Seeing him was very, very nice.

She half-heartedly straightened the stack of papers again. “Are you here to see me about advertising for the ranch? I didn’t realize we had a meeting scheduled.”

“No, ma’am, I’m not here about the Circle C.”

A little nervous and wanting to make some kind of conversation, she said, “I hear the Circle C is a pretty impressive cattle ranch. Struggling a bit financially, but that’s not unusual for ranches, I’ve been told.”

“You heard right.”

Clearly Jake was a man of few words. She attempted to lighten the conversation again. “So you’re the hard working cowboy who needs a ‘good woman by his side’—as Maybelle put it—but can’t seem to find himself one.”

He mumbled something, and she imagined it was less than complimentary about Maybelle for telling her such a thing. Then he pulled some kind of rolled up papers from his back pocket and began unfolding them. It appeared to be a legal document.

“Maybelle needs to mind her own business. Particularly when it comes to my personal life.” He reached up to thumb his straw hat back a bit. “She won’t, though. Meddling in my affairs has become serious business with her.”

He shoved the unfolded papers at her. “I believe this will solve both of our problems with my grandmother.”

“But I,” Rylee began, and then remembered that Maybelle Caldwell definitely had been making her life a trial lately. Although she didn’t understand how HE knew that. She glanced at the top paper. In shock, she thumbed to the next one, then the next one.

She raised her gaze and found he had removed his hat only to reveal a thick head of black hair that appeared to be a bit shaggy, although she liked it that way. He fiddled with the brim and shifted uneasily from foot to foot. Nervous. Thinking about what she’d just skimmed, she understood why.

“This is a pre-nuptial agreement. Between you and me.” She still couldn’t believe what she’d read, or at least partly read.

He nodded and looked oddly pleased with himself. His crooked grin highlighted a deep dimple at the left side of his mouth. A mouth too kissably tempting for her peace of mind. Especially when she also noted what appeared to be permanent five o’clock shadow—something that seemed to scream virility. An advertising photographer’s dream. Too bad he had all those good looks and not an ounce of brains.

“I figured us getting married would put a kink in Grandma’s meddling. For me, and for you.” He faced her steadily. “I’m tired of her matchmaking schemes. Reckon you are, too.”

“I—“ Rylee began, only to have him continue on with his obviously rehearsed speech.

“I need to concentrate on getting my dude ranch operation going. I don’t have time to keep arguing with her. Or time to keep coming up with reasons why I can’t go out with whomever she sends husband-hunting my way.” Annoyance flared in his eyes. Determination set his jaw.

She looked at the papers again, and then back at him. Oz. Maybe she’d zoned out in her exhaustion and had landed in Oz. Or another world. This was just too nuts to be real.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” he asked in irritation.

“Something like you’ve been out riding the range too long without your hat, cowboy? Like you’ve sun-baked your brains?”

Every muscle in his body tensed with indignation. He clenched and un-clenched his hand.

The reaction made her curious, but she focused on his comments. “Let me make sure I understand you clearly. You want to thwart your grandmother. Put a ‘kink,’ as you put it, into her plans.” She waved the legal document in his face, her voice rising in exasperation. “You want ME to marry YOU. A complete stranger.”

“Sure, we haven’t exactly met one another ‘til now. But I’ve heard a lot about you. A lot. Figured you’d heard about me as well,” he protested. “Besides, this’ll only be for a year, and only to keep our sanity. You know, for convenience’s sake.”

Dude Ranch is download only but is available in print in the RANCH HEAT trilogy available from Lulu, Romantic Spankings and Amazon.