The Cowboy And The Calendar Girl

A Cowboy Came With Fewer Complications Than A Man From The City.... Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Copyright

A Cowboy Came With Fewer Complications Than A Man From The City....

Or so Carly thought. He ought to be easy to get along with. He didn’t come with a lot of excess baggage. He rode his horse, drove a pickup truck while listening to country-western music, looked after his cattle and didn’t worry about issues that plagued the rest of the world. The fantasy man had spun around in Carly’s imagination for weeks.

But is that Hank? Carly frowned to herself. Is he the fantasy cowboy I dreamed up?

Maybe not, she reasoned. He wasn’t a cardboard cutout of a man. He wasn’t shallow and empty-headed.

He was real. He was smart and capable, not to mention definitely an accomplished lover....

Dear Reader,

This month Silhouette Desire brings you six brand-new, emotional and sensual novels by some of the bestselling—and most beloved—authors in the romance genre.

Cait London continues her hugely popular miniseries THE TALLCHIEFS with The Seduction of Fiona Tallchief, April’s MAN OF THE MONTH. Next, Elizabeth Bevarly concludes her BLAME IT ON BOB series with The Virgin and the Vagabond And when a socialite confesses her virginity to a cowboy, she just might be Taken by a Texan, in Lass Small’s THE KEEPERS OF TEXAS miniseries.

Plus, we have Maureen Child’s Maternity Bride, The Cowboy and the Calendar Girl, the last in the OPPOSITES ATTRACT series by Nancy Martin, and Kathryn Taylor’s tale of domesticating an office-bound hunk in Taming the Tycoon.

I hope you enjoy all six of Silhouette Desire’s selections this month—and every month!

Regards,

Senior Editor

Silhouette Books

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

The Cowboy And The Calendar Girl

Nancy Martin

NANCY MARTIN has lived in a succession of small towns in Pennsylvania, though she loves to travel to find locations for romance novels in larger cities—in this country and abroad. Now she lives with her husband and two daughters in a house they’ve restored and are constantly tinkering with.

If Nancy’s not sitting at her word processor with a stack of records on the stereo, you might find her cavorting with her children, skiing with her husband or relaxing by the pool. She loves writing romance fiction and has also written as Elissa Curry.

One

“Every woman falls for a cowboy at least once in her life,” said Bert Detwiler, tossing the sheaf of black-and-white photos down on his immaculate black acrylic desk. “Looks like your number’s up this time, Carly.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Carly Cortazzo blew cigarette smoke as she paced the tenth-floor office she shared with Bert, her partner at Twilight Calendars. In their slickly modern headquarters, Bert and Carly had created some of the bestselling provocative pinup calendars that ever graced America’s gas stations, office water coolers and teacher lounges. But their success, Bert claimed, came from their mutual cold-bloodedness when it came to choosing the sexy photographs featured in Twilight’s calendars.

Except Carly wasn’t feeling very cold-blooded these days.

“I’m not going to fall for the guy,” Carly insisted, trying to sound sincere. “I just think he’s photogenic, that’s all. Look at those sample shots again. He’s dripping with sex appeal!”

Bert studied the photos once more, then raised his brows fastidiously and shot a piercing glance up at Carly. “He’s dripping with sweat, dear.”

“Well, sweat is always a hit with our customers—and the mustache and muscles don’t hurt, either. And look at that horse! He’s magnificent!”

“How Freudian,” Bert observed coolly. “Look, it’s too expensive to do location shoots. We’ve always agreed on that.”

“Well, I think we need to spend the extra money. Our calendars are getting stale. If we’re going to compete with Fabio and that basketball player with the purple hair, it’s time we wowed our customers again.”

“And you think this cowboy can do the wowing?”

“Absolutely. If we take the photos on his ranch with horses and that beautiful sky to counterpoint his look.”

Bert bent closer to examine the photos. “He’s not bad, I guess.”

“Not bad! He’s incredible!”

“I’ve never seen you so taken with someone.” Bert glanced up at Carly, his eyes twinkling. “Should I be jealous?”

Carly sighed impatiently and hastily snatched up the top picture, the one she liked most. “Bert, you and I haven’t been an item for three years.”

Bert turned up the wattage on his smile. “Still, I get pangs now and then. You’re looking terrific these days, Carly. I love the new haircut.”

“It isn’t new, Bert,” she returned, automatically brushing the straight blond tendrils behind her ears. “But thanks for noticing.”

“I notice more than you think.” Bert put one elbow on his desk and leaned toward her. “Like how you’ve been feeling lately.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

Carly turned away from her partner, lest he see her reaction. Better to keep this relationship with Bert strictly professional, she thought. After their mercifully short affair three years ago, Carly decided to keep her feelings to herself to insure Twilight Calendars continued to run successfully. Back then business had been far more important to Carly than a love life. But Bert had apparently picked up on her current state of mind.

It must have become obvious that Carly had recently begun to feel—well, jaded. Cynical. The calendar business could have that effect on a girl A few years of looking at every man in terms of how he’d photograph without his clothes on under some good studio lighting has turned me into just another L.A. vulture.

She crushed out her cigarette with a vengeance in the cut-crystal ashtray on Bert’s desk.

Looking at the mess she’d made in his ashtray, Bert said, “I think this cowboy thing has really affected you, Carly. You truly want to get this guy’s shirt off, don’t you?”

“Oh, that’s not it at all!” Carly turned to the huge office window. Keeping her back to Bert, she frowned at the hazy panorama of Los Angeles. But she didn’t really look at the familiar cityscape that stretched as far as the eye could see before disappearing into the smoggy horizon. Instead, Carly looked into her own heart for the first time in years.

“I’ve been doing this too long,” she said aloud—before she could catch herself.

“What do you mean by that?” Bert sounded truly surprised.

Although she hadn’t meant to reveal her innermost thoughts, Carly found herself confiding in Bert Detwiler of all people—her partner and former lover, who paid more attention to the care of his cashmere sweaters than the women in his life. But these days Bert was all Carly had

Without turning around, Carly shook her head. “I’ve been obsessed with appearances, Bert. It’s part of our job, of course—taking pictures that will titillate men and women everywhere—but, well, I’ve let it take over my personal life, too. The people I photograph are completely empty. Now they’re the ones I socialize with, too. And they’re not real.”

“Oh, don’t give me that beautiful-people-have-no-soul garbage again, Carly! We have rich social lives. Why, you’re always running to some gallery opening or movie premiere or dinner with the gang—”

“And my biological clock is running, too.”

“Good heavens.” Bert clapped a hand over his heart as if to calm its lurching. “I never expected you to want a family. What an extraordinary idea.”

Carly spun around and found Bert looking amused. “All right, all right,” she said wryly, indicating her spike heels, black stockings and black minidress. “So I’m not exactly an earth mother,” Carly said. “But I see my sisters building wonderful lives with men who are interesting and talented, and what do I have to show for all my thirty-two years? Six shiny calendars featuring completely mindless guys who’ve smeared their pectorals with petroleum jelly!”

“You think this cowboy person has a soul?” Bert tapped the photo on his desk.

“At least he looks like he puts in an honest day’s work that doesn’t require false eyelashes and a chin tuck every five years the way most of our male models—”

“What is this?” Bert demanded with a laugh. “A midlife crisis?”

“I don’t know what it is! I just looked at these pictures and saw a real person for the first time in ages.”

“Okay, okay!” Bert used both hands to shove the rest of the jumbled photographs across the desk to her. “Take your camera and go to North Whatsit—”

“South Dakota.”

“Whatever.” He waved his hand dismissively. “If you really want to get a taste of a real man, forget the studio shots for once! Just remember...we need another bestseller this year, Carly.”

“I’ll remember,” she said with a soft smile for her partner.

Bert’s perfect grin twinkled again. “And one more thing. The front of the horse is the part that bites, and the back of the horse is the part that kicks.”

“Bert—”

“I know,” he said, nobly holding up one hand to prevent her from saying something that might embarrass them both. “Sometimes I’m a jerk, but once in a while I’m wonderful, right?”

Carly laughed. “See you next week.”

Heading for the airport two hours later, Carly felt extraordinarily free. Suddenly she couldn’t get to South Dakota fast enough.

Things were going to change!

One photograph had done it. Just one of the thousand amateurish pictures sent by fans of Twilight Calendars for the annual talent search. One Becky Fowler had submitted the winning photo—a picture of her own brother, a rancher with amazingly deep blue eyes, an awe-inspiring profile and—oh, well, she might as well admit it—gorgeous shoulders.

And ever since she’d laid eyes on that picture, Carly hadn’t been able to think straight. All she wanted was to meet the man in the photo.

He looked like the kind of guy a girl could kiss until his cows came home.

He was magnificent. One photograph had captured this exquisite example of the male animal.

And his name was Hank, the letter said. Hank Fowler.

Hank. Perfect. Ever since seeing his picture, Carly had felt drawn to Hank Fowler as if by an unbelievably powerful magnet. Secretly she had started keeping his photo in her briefcase. At night she even put the picture on her nightstand. It was as if Hank called to some basic female instinct in Carly. And like a hormone-demented salmon swimming for the pool in which it was spawned, Carly suddenly knew she had to single-mindedly propel herself to the place where the handsome Hank Fowler lived and breathed.

And she didn’t even know the guy.

But she wanted to meet him. A real man. Nothing artificial, nothing dishonest. The genuine article.

The plane deposited Carly in Sioux Falls. There she was informed that renting a car was her only choice for transportation, so she plunked down her gold credit card and acquired a four-by-four Jeep.

“I don’t think you’ll run into any snow,” said the rental clerk. “It’s pretty late for weather like that, but you never know.”

“It’s summer,” Carly protested.

“You’re in South Dakota now, honey. Anything can happen.”

With a grin, Carly heard herself saying, “Oh, I hope so.”

She drove a few hundred miles, occasionally looking at the map spread out on the passenger seat and muttering to herself when towns did not appear where they were supposed to. Within a few hours, much closer to her goal, she hoped, she ended up on a wide-open landscape with tall grass as far as the eye could see.

And then Carly saw him. She knew it was him.

Hank.

His first appearance was like something out of a movie finale.

On the horizon, the silhouette of a rearing horse lashed the setting sun. Then the horse landed on all fours and bolted along the ridge with his rider clinging effortlessly to his rhythmic strides. They galloped along the brilliant sunset-painted horizon—a thundering black stallion and the one man who could control him.

Carly could almost hear theme music.

She got out and leaned weakly against the hood of the truck and watched, speechless. In her chest she felt her heart start to thrum like a tuning fork vibrating to an exquisite sound, as he turned and galloped straight toward her—a knight on his charger swooping down to carry off a maiden.

Carly’s knees actually began to tremble. She put one hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun, and her mouth got very dry. But her gaze remained riveted on the man and horse bearing down upon her with all the unstoppable power of a prairie twister.

But he did stop. Inches from the Jeep, the horse suddenly slid to a halt in a cloud of dust. And with all the grace of a dancer, Hank Fowler flew down from the saddle and landed on his feet just a yard from where Carly stood.

Breathless, Carly stared into the bluest eyes she had ever seen—crinkled at the corners, marked by commanding dark brows, set deeply into a rugged male face—the face she had memorized ever since receiving his photograph. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

“You...you’re Hank Fowler,” she gasped when her brain kicked into gear.

“And who the hell,” he said roughly, “are you?”

Carly still couldn’t manage to verbalize a complete thought. He’s gorgeous. He’s everything I imagined. A real-life cowboy. I’m going to faint right here.

He glared at her, holding his reins in one gloved hand. His jeans were snug and covered by a pair of leather chaps that looked incredibly sexy. Carly could imagine his calendar photo already—just the jeans and leather, no shirt. And those dusty boots—perfect! His hat looked thoroughly broken in by years of riding the range, too. He looked real—lean and mean and just dangerous enough to send a woman’s hormones into a tailspin.

Belatedly, Carly stuck out her hand. “I...I’m Carly Cortazzo. It’s great to meet you.”

He used his teeth to yank off the glove on his right hand, then took Carly’s in a bone-crushing grip. His blue eyes remained narrow, however. “Am I supposed to know you?”

Carly laughed, feeling like a starstruck basketball fan suddenly landing on the same planet with Michael Jordan. “Well, uh, not exactly, I guess. I just—you see, I’m from the calendar contest.”

“The what?”

“Twilight Calendars. Surely you—I mean, your sister did tell you I was coming?”

His suspicious expression changed into a glare that was far more disturbing. “My sister Becky? What in tarnation has she gone and done now?”

For the first time since leaving L.A., Carly felt a twinge of consternation.

“You don’t know?” she asked. “Nobody’s told you about winning the contest?”

He lifted one menacing brow. “I’m betting it ain’t like winning the lottery.”

“Well, a little.” Carly attempted to smile again, but suddenly found herself gulping in the presence of the man who had haunted her fantasies for several weeks now. If he only knew what’s been flitting around in my head....

“Look,” he said when she didn’t continue. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’ve just crossed onto Fowler land, and—”

“Oh, I’m not trespassing. I’ve been invited.”

“You mean Becky’s actually asked you to come onto the ranch?”

“Why, yes. To take your picture.”

“To take my picture? What the hell for?”

“Our calendar.”

He peered at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. “What kind of nonsense are you talking? You must have the wrong guy.”

“Believe me, I don’t. You’re perfect, Mr. Fowler. I’ve never met anyone so naturally photogenic.”

He squinted. “You calling me some kind of pretty boy?”

“Oh, no, of course not!” Carly said hastily. “Not exactly, that is. The camera does catch certain elements that might be unappreciated by the naked eye, so—”

His patience ran out and he interrupted her. “Look, I’ve got work to do. If you get this truck turned around, you’ll find the main road in a couple of miles.”

“But...but...I’ve already made all the arrangements with your sister to take your photograph.”

“My sister,” said Hank Fowler, “is not my keeper.”

“But—”

“Forget it.” He turned back to his horse.

Carly felt the beginnings of anger start to steam behind her eyelids. “Look, Mr. Fowler,” she said, “I’ve communicated with your sister on this matter and I thought we’d reached an agreement. A ten-thousand-dollar agreement. Perhaps you’d better give me directions so that I can settle the details with her.”

He tilted his hat and shot a measuring glance at Carly from beneath the brim. “Why don’t you take a picture of yourself, Miss—what was your name?”

“Cortazzo. Carly Cortazzo.”

“Right. Now, your picture might actually sell.”

Carly felt herself flush. “Is that a compliment, Mr. Fowler?” It hadn’t felt terribly complimentary.

With an easy swing, he climbed back into the saddle. An unsettling ghost of a grin flashed briefly across his rugged features as the magnificent horse danced beneath him. He put two fingers on the brim of his Stetson in a John Wayne salute before saying, “Take it any way you like, Miss Cortazzo.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to work.”

“But...but...you can’t leave like this!”

“Can’t I?”

Carly gritted her teeth. “I...I...oh, hell.” Throwing pride to the four winds, she said, “I’m lost! I’ve been wandering around these same three godforsaken counties all afternoon, and I’m darn sure I’ll never find my way out of them without Sacajewea to guide me.”

“All right, all right,” he said, perhaps hiding a grin. “Maybe you’d better not try driving back to town before dark. Something tells me you’ll get worse than lost. Go up to the house.”

“What house? I never saw a house.”

He pointed. “Backtrack a mile. Take a right at the clump of pine trees, go two miles and you’ll see the ranch. Becky’s there. The two of you can wrangle this out.”

“But you—”

“Get along, Miss Cortazzo,” he growled, reining the horse around. “It’ll be dark soon.”

And he left her in a cloud of dust. With a gulp, Carly watched him go, forgetting her troubles. Dazzled by the glare of sunset and the vision of manhood that disappeared as magically as he’d come, she stared after him, entranced. Her heart pounded along with the rapid strides of the galloping horse.

“Wow,” she breathed.

Thundering into the corral, Hank Fowler let out a whoop.

Of terror.

Then his horse jammed his forefeet into the ground, and Hank tumbled head over heels over the animal’s head.

He landed in the dust at his sister’s feet and lay stunned at the impact.

“You’re a diaster!” Becky exclaimed, not moving from the spraddle-iegged stance that was as natural to her as breathing. Becky was the real cowhand—the one who’d been born to run a ranch. When the horse reared over Hank’s prone body, Becky grabbed the loose reins to keep the panting beast from trampling Hank into a million pieces.

“What the hell,” she demanded, furiously glaring down at her brother, “do you think you’re doing, Henry? Don’t you know how valuable Thundercloud is?”

He spat dust from his mouth. “That stupid horse of yours ran away with me!”

“I told you. You have to show him who’s boss!”

“I tried!” Hank cried, painfully sitting up on one elbow. “But you know how I hate horses, and they must be able to feel it! This isn’t going to work, Beck.”

“It has to work, Henry. I need the money!”

Gingerly Hank felt along his ribs to make sure none of them were broken. “I can’t believe you talked me into this,” he muttered. “I swore I’d never come back to this damned ranch as long as I live. And the charade you came up with gets more ridiculous by the minute! I’m just not a cowboy!”

Becky hunkered down on her heels and grinned at him. “But you’re still going to help me, right? Look, we’ll practice with Thundercloud all day tomorrow. I promise he won’t run away with you again. By the time that lady from the calendar company gets here, you’ll look like a real cowhand.”

Wryly Hank shook his head. “There aren’t enough years left in both our lifetimes to change me, Beck. Besides, she’s on her way.” Hank put his hand up for Becky to help him to his feet.

Her grip was firm and sure, and she hauled him up easily. “What do you mean?”

Suppressing a groan as his muscles protested, Hank tried to brush some of the dust off his borrowed chaps. “I met her.”

“You met her? What are you talking about?”

“This precious horse of yours practically dumped me in her lap. He tore over the hill and threw me as soon as we were out of your sight. By some miracle I landed on my feet. She was there.”

“Where?” Becky demanded.

“Out on the south road. I gave her directions. She’ll be here any minute.”

“Any minute?” Becky cried. “You’re kidding! Did she fall for it? You didn’t mess things up, did you?”

“Don’t worry. I kept the script simple.”

“You talked? First you fell off the horse and then you talked? What did you say?”

“Nothing intelligent, I assure you. After this four-legged locomotive threw me I was a little rattled, so I improvised, that’s all.”

Becky groaned. “Oh, no. I thought I’d have at least a week to get you into shape!”

“A week or a month,” Hank said with a grin. “It wouldn’t help, Becky. I was never cut out for the cowboy life.”

It was true. Even though he’d spent the first fifteen years of his life growing up on his parents’ ranch deep in South Dakota, Henry Fowler was never meant to live anywhere but a few blocks from the nearest urban transit system. Despite his father’s insistence that he learn to rope, ride and eat beans by a campfire out on the prairie, Henry Fowler had escaped the wide-open spaces for an East Coast prep school as soon as he had been able to get away.

After prep school had come four blessed years at Columbia University in New York, after which he’d bounced from one journalist job to the next—staying in each city only long enough to get his fill of the culture, the restaurants and the nearest climbing mountains. He’d made friends in every major city in the country and never once looked back on the life he might have had on the family homestead.

Until his sister, Becky, called with a crazy scheme.

“I think we’d better call it quits before she figures us out, Becky,” Hank said, reaching for the borrowed Stetson that had rolled under the nearest fence rail. “Nobody’s going to fall for me being a cowpoke.”

“Don’t say that!” Becky ordered, grabbing his elbow and steering Hank determinedly toward the barn. “We’ve got to make this work! If I don’t get the money, I’ll lose the ranch, Henry!”

“I thought you were supposed to call me Hank. You said it sounded tougher.”

“It does,” she agreed hastily. “Besides, if she’s coming from Los Angeles, she might actually have heard of Henry Fowler.”

“What do you mean ‘might’?” Henry demanded. “My column is syndicated all up and down the West Coast. She’d have to be a hermit like you not to know who I am!”