Dear Reader,

Duets was first launched in May 1999 and has proved to be a fan favorite. Each month we set out to bring you four sparkling romantic comedies in two separate volumes. You met many new authors in the lineup and revisited longtime Harlequin stars. Your letters and e-mails told us how much you enjoyed Duets!

Here at Harlequin we are always striving to reinvent ourselves, and so is the case with Duets. This is our last month of publication. Beginning in October 2003, look for Flipside, our brand-new romantic comedy series. In response to reader interest, we will be publishing two single books a month that are even longer than Duets novels. Look for #1 Staying Single by USA TODAY bestselling author Millie Criswell. Joining her in the launch month is Stephanie Doyle with #2 One True Love?

I think you will love these stories and all the fun books in Flipside in the months to come. Don’t forget to check us out online at eHarlequin.com for news about all your favorite authors and books.

Yours sincerely,

Ms Birgit Davis-Todd

Executive Editor

Harlequin Books

Let It Bree
Can’t Buy Me Louie
Colleen Collins

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Let It Bree

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

Can’t Buy Me Louie

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Let It Bree

“It’s that biker party—I can’t sleep.”

Kirk huffed as he stepped into Bree’s motel room. He speared his hand through his hair.…

And froze in that position as his gaze swerved to Bree. “Oh, sorry,” he murmured thickly, staring at her standing there in her underwear.

“I’m covered.”

“Barely,” he muttered.

“I’m wearing more than a bathing suit!”

Kirk wanted to say something, but he had the gut sense that if he opened his mouth right now, the only thing that would emerge would be a garbled string of incoherent sounds.

Look away. Be a gentleman. But his eyes were rarin’ to roam free.

And roam they did. All over her long, lean, strong body.

“Are you all right?” asked Bree.

“No,” he croaked.

“If you’d feel better,” she said softly, “I’ll slip back into bed, get under the covers.”

Better? He doubted her in bed would make him feel any better.…

Dear Reader,

True story: A few years ago, a bull escaped from our regional stock show and found its way to a local highway where (until it was captured) it merrily galloped along with traffic. Being a romance writer, I read the story in the paper and found myself wondering, “What if a heroine was riding that bull?”

And so was born Let It Bree, where the heroine, Bree Brown, does indeed ride a Brahman bull out of a stock show to save it, and herself, from some thugs…one of whom becomes the hero in the sequel, Can’t Buy Me Louie.

So kick back and enjoy a rollicking road story where a girl and her bull are rescued by a handsome scientist, the two of them (well, three) on the lam, on the road and falling in love! To read about my upcoming books, as well as enter contests for prizes, please visit my Web site at http://www.colleencollins.net.

Happy reading!

Colleen Collins

Books by Colleen Collins

HARLEQUIN DUETS

10—MARRIED AFTER BREAKFAST

22—ROUGH AND RUGGED

30—IN BED WITH THE PIRATE

39—SHE’S GOT MAIL!

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

867—JOYRIDE

899—TONGUE-TIED

913—LIGHTNING STRIKES

939—TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT

To Ruthann Manley, wonderful friend and talented Webmaster

Acknowledgments:

Carl Rugg of Bovine Elite, who kindly helped this city girl better understand Brahman bulls, and Dr. Kirk Johnson (curator of paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science), who graciously answered my questions about his research on the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) boundary and for whom the hero is named.

1

BREE CUPPED Val’s face between her hands. His mug was so huge, so hairy, it was like gripping a fur-covered volleyball.

“Val—” She stopped and frowned. She lifted her gaze to meet his, but her head remained dipped. Being six feet tall, she was accustomed to lowering—or as she preferred to call it, dipping—her head. Usually it just reinforced that she was different—bigger, taller, more athletic—than other females.

But today, ready to say something that meant life or death—which to Bree meant Europe or Wyoming—dipping was okay.

She stroked his chin, grappling for words. She’d never been a great talker. Action was more her style. “It’s your moment,” Bree finally said. Darn, she’d found the words and now her voice was quavering. She eased in a calming breath. “Our moment,” she continued. “When you walk into the ring, be proud, majestic.” She lowered her voice. “We both know you’re just an oversize puppy, but keep that part buried, deep, because right now, you’re tough. Awesome to the max. You’re gonna blow them out of the stands—” She caught herself from adding, “and get me out of Chugwater.” But even without saying the words, she imagined Val understood what was in her heart. He was her one-way ticket to freedom.

Emotion clogged Bree’s throat. She swallowed hard, stuffing down the reality that escaping Chugwater also meant losing Val. She shifted her gaze to his expansive chest so he wouldn’t see tears were threatening to spill. She refused to cry. That was for girls who played their emotions—and their charms— to manipulate people. Men, in particular.

Not Bree. She prided herself on cutting to the chase. Raising her head, she patted Val’s massive shoulder reassuringly. “Come on, Hot Stuff, let’s make you a star.”

She led the way, her shoulders thrust back, her chin high. She wanted to look like a winner already—after all, the stock show was getting radio and TV coverage throughout the Midwest.

The tang of animal sweat and hay saturated the air. As they headed into the arena, the crowd’s buzz intensified, reminding her of the time her crazy cousin Rupert stuck a twig in a hornets’ nest, triggering a buzzing fury. Before those ornery critters had a chance to attack, nine-year-old Bree was pumping her long legs, running for her life. It hit her how, today, she was running again for her life. A new life. One where she could finally escape stuffy, small-town Chugwater, Wyoming, and discover the world.

Behind her, Val pounded the dirt floor in giant, Olympian strides. Oh yeah, awesome to the max. After all, Valentine Bovine was a major contender for the big prize—the Grand Champion Brahman bull.

Squinting against the glare of the overhead lights, Bree searched the stands. Under one of those Stetsons was Carlton Rugg from Bovine Best, the internationally renowned cattle breeding organization. They had a stellar reputation, and were known for their humane treatment of bulls, so she’d given them her verbal permission—an implied contract, not a written one—to bid aggressively for Val should he win the championship.

And if he won, she’d win three hundred grand— maybe more! With that kind of prize money, she’d fly out of nowhere, small-town Chugwater faster than a full-court slam. And Val would ease into the life of a full-time Romeo, making love to lady bovines for the remainder of his days. They’d both be happy…just happy in different parts of the world.

“Stepping into the arena, ladies and gentlemen,” announced a baritone voice over the loudspeaker, “is Valentine Bovine.” Chuckles rippled through the crowd. Fighting her sadness, Bree forced a smile. She’d named her bull Valentine because of the small white heart on his rear flank, and then she couldn’t resist making his last name Bovine because of its lilt. Her name, Bree Brown, lacked any lilt whatsoever, and she hated it. Her mother had named her after the French cheese, brie, her grandmother had told her, but it wasn’t until Bree was six months old that her mom had realized she’d misspelled it. And Brown? That was about as boring and ordinary as Chugwater itself.

“Valentine, the fourth and last finalist, represents the senior bull champion division,” continued the announcer, his baritone voice reverberating through the speakers.

The crowd’s incessant chatter prickled Bree’s ears. She wiped at her suddenly hot, moist face and for a dizzying moment, she thought she might keel over. She’d never been this freaked out in a volleyball competition—but then, no single game had ever meant fulfilling her dream.

But in a sense, this was like a “single game” considering she’d only helped Mr. Connors, her neighbor back in Chugwater, show his bulls in competition before. This time, with Val, was Bree’s first solo showing, all on her own.

Keep it together. Stay focused. Bree tightened her hold on Val’s leather halter, needing something to grip to quell her adrenaline-crazed nerves. Just as she used to do in high-stress volleyball games, she took a few moments to distract herself. In her mind’s eye, she envisioned Mr. Connors, who’d bequeathed Val to her in his will last June, seven months ago. It wasn’t a surprise, really. After all, he’d let her name the bull the day it was born two and a half years ago, when she was barely twenty-one. Mr. Connors’s death hadn’t been a surprise either, but she didn’t want to think about that now.

She swung her thoughts to Grams, with whom she’d always lived a few miles outside Chugwater. She had vague memories of her father, who’d deserted them when she was two, and of her mother, who’d died when she was five.

The rest of Bree’s family consisted of Aunt Mattie, Uncle Scott and three over-testosteroned cousins who lived next door. But even with a large extended family, it was old Mr. Connors who’d become her best pal. He was the one she’d entrusted with her most secret dream—one day to ride the Orient Express, the exotic and romantic train, through Europe. A fantasy she’d never dared confess to anyone, especially not her Aunt Mattie, who still fretted that Bree had earned a degree in art history rather than in something practical like accounting.

The announcer’s voice jarred her thoughts. “Ladies and gentlemen, Doctor Marshall from Yuma, Arizona,” he said, reintroducing the grand-champion judge.

To a smattering of applause, the livestock veterinarian strode across the arena, his leather boots kicking up dirt. The overhead lights sparked off his gray hair, the shine competing with his fist-size silver belt buckle.

“Slow, boy,” Bree murmured. She barely tugged the strap and Val halted, standing stock-still. Brahmans were known for their smarts, but Val was exceptional. Not only did he understand her vocal and physical cues, Bree swore sometimes he could read her thoughts, too.

The vet began scrutinizing Val, running his hands expertly over the bull’s back and sides. Val will live the rest of his life as a breeding Casanova, Bree reminded herself. But the justification felt hollow. If she hadn’t been so busy these last few days hauling Val down to Denver, registering into the stock show, prepping him for the competition, she might have taken a few moments to ponder if winning your dream was worth losing your roots.

Finally, Dr. Marshall straightened, eyed Val one more time, then walked over to one of the 4H helpers who offered him a microphone. Taking the mike, the vet turned to the crowd. “Valentine,” he began—his drawl making her bull’s name sound like “Vaaalentiiiine”—”walks freely with good placement. He’s got excellent thickness, depth of body, spring of rib, straight topline. Superior Brahman character.” He paused.

Bree’s insides lurched. This was the moment.

The next thing she knew, someone was shaking her hand. She looked into the judge’s twinkling gray-blue eyes, vaguely aware he was congratulating her. People rose to their feet. Stetsons flew. Amid the shouting and whistling, the announcer’s voice yelled, “It’s Valentine Bovine, Brahman Grand Champion of the first Denver Stock Show Brahman Competition!”

People flooded the arena. Flashbulbs. Somebody motioned Bree to bring Val to an adjacent pen where she received a small bronze statue. More flashbulbs. A teenage girl wearing braces on her teeth and a rhinestone tiara on her head—who someone introduced as “Miss Livestock 2003”—joined Bree in another picture. Bree dipped her head a little, painfully aware she towered over the stock-show princess.

The princess disappeared. Several stock show officials joined her for another photo. Carlton, watching from the side, gave her a thumbs-up, a sign that his company was already outbidding other breeders for the rights to own Val. Carlton pointed toward the neon exit sign at the south end of the stadium, mouthing he’d meet her there.

And as Bree smiled shakily for yet another set of pictures, she noticed two cowboys standing to the side. One tall and somber, the other short and confused-looking. They looked ridiculously out of place, like Abbott and Costello gone bad in one of those old gangster films her Grams so loved.

Then the tall, somber cowboy sidled next to Bree, congratulating her in an east-coast accent, mumbling something about needing to get some stats on the bull. As he took the leather strap from Bree’s hands, she noticed a large diamond ring on his pinkie finger. Had to be one of the owners of Bovine Best, a business worth millions. With that kind of money, maybe even his shirt buttons were diamonds.

But before she could check his buttons, the cowboy was leading Valentine away. Val jerked against the leather harness to look over his shoulder at her. As she stared into those big dark eyes for maybe the last time, waves of pain and loss washed over her. After two and a half years of grooming Val for this moment, it had all happened so fast—the trip, the competition, the win—and now her beloved bull was leaving her life forever.

She dropped her head so no one would see the blobs of tears. Honest to God, she felt her heart breaking.

Then, through her blurry vision, she caught sight of something wrong. She swiped at her eyes.

Mr. Pinkie Ring wore brand new turquoise boots.

Come on, she thought. Okay, so maybe he had money to burn and wore diamonds, but fresh-out-of-the-box boots at a stock show? Turquoise ones? And why was he leading Val toward the west exit, when Carlton had pointed to the south?

She scanned the west, a mass of people, pens, cattle…but no sight of Carlton or any of the Bovine Best crew she’d met earlier.

Panic tore through her. Are they stealing Val?

She’d heard of such scams…criminals who’d kidnap, then sell, a prize bull on the black market to some dealer who’d claim he’d leased the bull and procured its sperm before the theft—and have forged records to prove it. These black-marketers made millions selling prize semen to ranchers eager to mix grand-champion genes with their herds. Unethical as hell, but it would take a small fortune in legal fees for the original owner—in this case, Bree—to prove her stolen bull’s semen wasn’t procured before the theft.

A small fortune. Every single penny of her prize money lost in legal fees.

And then there was the heart-killing image of Val, penned in some desolate location, unloved. No lady bovines around…nothing but a fake hind end to induce him…

No! Not to Val! Just as on the volleyball court when she felt an opponent was ready to strike, Bree had to make a decision, fast.

She darted, clawing her way through the mass of people. To her right, a Navajo blanket lay across a beam. Probably for someone’s horse. Bree snatched a corner of the coarse fabric and pulled it with her.

Crazy ideas slammed through her mind as she picked up her pace. Maybe she’d toss the blanket over Pinkie Ring’s face to distract him? It’d buy her a few moments to wrestle Val’s strap from the man’s grip. And then what? A guy with a pinkie ring, turquoise boots and a bad attitude might do something really crazy.

And sure enough, as soon as she spotted him, his jacket flapped open, exposing a gun holster.

Now she knew what that something crazy and workable might be. He probably won’t pull a gun with all these witnesses.

She paused. Wait a minute—is he talking to that cop?

She shuffled in place. Weird. What did Pinkie and a cop have in common? There’d been a rash of internal police investigation stories in the Denver papers recently. Cops on the take. Black-market deals. Maybe some of those bad cops were in on this, too?

Can’t go to the police. I’m on my own. Through a whirlwind of fear and fury, she fought to think what to do. I could flash Val the signal to act tough, to charge, but that’d be dangerous with all these people and livestock around.

Pinkie began walking again, away from the officer, Valentine firmly in tow.

It took Bree three giant steps to catch up. She slowed to a walk alongside Val, knowing instinctively he knew she was there. Eyeing the neatly creased, spotless Stetson on Pinkie Ring’s head, she held up the blanket, ready to…

“Hey, girlie! Whatta ya doin’ with my blanket?”

A man’s angry voice behind her. Had to move. Fast.

She swung the blanket in an arc over her head.

Pinkie Ring jerked around. “What the—?” As he raised his hands to thwart the blanket attack, the lead shank to Val’s halter fell free.

Behind her, more yelling. Feet pounded the dirt floor.

She swung the blanket in a wide, whooshing arc and flung it at Pinkie. As he stumbled and fell, she crouched and jumped—just as she would for a volleyball spike—using her body’s momentum to hurl herself over the back of Val. They’d done this before, but always in open fields, not in a building!

“Go!” she yelled hoarsely, hoisting her leg over the animal’s back as she grabbed a horn for balance.

Val snorted and lurched forward.

A woman screamed.

Bree held on for dear life as the massive beast broke into a trot.

THE MAMMOTH-SIZE VAN lurched and sputtered. Kirk Dunmore cursed under his breath and stared at the dashboard with its myriad buttons, switches and knobs. It reminded him of the spaceship panel in the sci-fi book he’d been reading lately. It starred a mighty warrior, Tarl Cabot, in the strange counter-Earth planet of Gor.

Only this wasn’t Gor, it was Nederland, the funky counter-Earth mountain community an hour outside Denver, Colorado. And Kirk wasn’t a mighty, solitary warrior trying to save the galaxy. He was a frustrated, soon-to-be-married paleobotanist trying to analyze the problem with this damn van. If he was in his old trustworthy Jeep, he’d know exactly what to do.

But no, his future mother-in-law—with too much time and money on her hands—had had this state-of-the-art van delivered to Kirk on his excavation site yesterday outside Allenspark, Colorado. She called it a wedding gift, but Kirk knew it was really an expensive reminder that he was saying “I do” to her daughter Alicia in forty-eight hours, preceded by a rehearsal dinner in twenty-four hours, and he needed to get his dirt-caked, fossil-loving self home.

He stared at the dashboard and its myriad gadgets and buttons. So many, not even a scientist knew what to poke, prod or punch.

Honk. Honk.

Kirk glanced in the sideview mirror and caught the reflection of a blue pickup. It was early evening, the world glazed gray with winter, but he could discern that the hood ornament was a tarnished peace sign.

Honk. Honk.

“Give peace a chance,” muttered Kirk.

Honk. Honk.

He scanned the dashboard one last time. So what if he had a doctorate and was on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough—right now, he was having one hell of a time figuring out this space-age dashboard. “Best option is to treat this contraption like I do my Jeep when it stalls. Pop it into second and let the good times roll!”

Kirk opened the door and jumped out, the impact of his six-one, two-hundred-pound body spraying January slush on his shoes and pants. Screw it. After countless hikes and digs, his boots and clothes had been caked with everything from Patagonian granite flakes to Arctic ice slivers. A little Colorado snow was nothing.

The chill bit his face. This part of the road was on a decline, so he ran a few steps, one hand against the open door, the other on the steering wheel. His footsteps sloshed. His breath came fast. The white van, covered with dirt and slush, rolled forward. Kirk jumped back into the driver’s seat, popped the clutch and punched the gas. The van lurched, sputtered and stalled.

Rolling silently down a dark curving road, he eased the van onto the road shoulder. He set the brake and cut the engine. He recalled the gas gauge showing there was some fuel, so it couldn’t be out of gas.

In the Rockies, on these mountain roads with no streetlights, night settled quickly. Kirk fumbled along the dashboard and pressed a button with the image of a light. The headlights blazed to life, cutting two tunnels of white through the descending darkness.

“Help!”

He looked up. In the haze of headlights stood a woman.

“Help!” She pumped her hands wildly up and down as though yelling the word wasn’t enough.

He threw open the door and jumped down. “What’s wrong?” he yelled, jogging toward her. She wore tattered jeans, scuffed leather boots, a blue-and-white checkered shirt. She didn’t appear to be physically hurt.

“My—” She gasped a breath. “My friend and I need a ride.”

He halted. “You’re hitchhiking in these mountains at night?” The heat of his breath condensed into frozen particles on his mustache. Damn. It was too cold to be chatting with some hitchhiking cowgirl.

And too cold for her to be dressed in nothing but a shirt and jeans.

He started to take off his jacket to offer her when an instinctual warning shot through him. “Friend?” He looked around.

“Pe-pet,” the street girl said softly, waving her hand dismissively as though she’d simply misspoken. “My pet and I are…lost.”

A strength shone through her big, gray eyes. In his gut, he trusted that look. She wasn’t helpless, but she needed help.

He unzipped his jacket and tossed it to her. “Put this on. Let’s get you and your—” he looked around for a puppy or a dog “—pet into the van before all three of us turn into icicles.”

Her smile was so appreciative as she slid her arms into the jacket that, despite the cold, his insides melted. Alicia had never given him a look of such sweet gratefulness.

Forget sweet looks. You’re almost married.

“Your pet can sit on your lap in the front seat.” There should be enough fuel to get them to a gas station. He’d traveled this stretch of mountain road plenty—around the bend was the Sundance Lodge and Café, a few miles farther was a place to fill up.

“He’s, uh, too big to sit on my lap.”

He? Oh, yeah, the pet. “Okay, option two.” Kirk walked briskly to the van’s rear doors. “Back here.” What did this girl own? A Saint Bernard? Great Dane?

He opened the doors, figuring he’d drop this girl and her dog at the station, where they could call for a ride home and have a warm place to wait. He’d fill up and continue into Denver.

His thoughts were interrupted by the thud-thud-thud of steps punctuated with heavy, beastly snorts.

Kirk’s stomach clenched. His mouth went dry.

Staring him down, heaving breaths of steam, stood a ferocious-looking bull with a hump on its back the size of a small mountain. The moonlight, gilding the beast in a surreal silver, added to the monstrous effect.

“He’s gentle,” the girl said, as though hanging out with ferocious animals was an everyday sort of thing.

Kirk glanced around—where had she hidden this creature? Spying the clusters of trees that hugged the road, he had his answer.

“His name’s Valentine,” she continued.

“I—I don’t care if his name’s Sweetheart,” Kirk said, finding his voice, “that’s one big mother of a—” This was not the time for conversation. This was time to move. Run like hell. Unfortunately, his body had other ideas. Like remaining frozen where he stood. If only he hadn’t tossed her his jacket, part of him would be warm enough to flee, encouraging the rest of his body to follow.

The girl blinked, obviously realizing the terrifying effect of her “pet.” “Oh, I’m sorry.” She grabbed the brass ring in the beast’s nose. “See, he’s under control.”

A street cowgirl holding a ferocious bull by the ring in its nose. Oh yeah, that would definitely stop the animal from charging and pummeling Kirk Dunmore into a grease spot.

“I’ll take him to the back of the van,” the girl continued breezily. “I’m sure Valentine can fit easily inside. He can lower himself onto his knees and scrunch down. He’s special that way.”

He’s special that way? Kirk had to put a stop to this, now. What would Tarl Cabot, the mighty, solitary hero of Gor do at a time like this?

The beast raised one mighty hoof and struck the road, the sharp thud reverberating through the chilly air.

“No ro-room,” Kirk stuttered. “Va-van too small.” He held up his gloved hands, the flattened palms parallel to each other, indicating what “small” meant in case she didn’t know.

But she ignored his visual clue. Pulling on the halter, she led the bull to the back of the van. “What is this—about twelve by six?”

“Probably less,” he said quickly, following at a safe distance.

“No, it’s definitely twelve by six.”

Her confidence was irritating.

She continued talking as though this was nothing more than an evening stroll. “I used to put Val into Mr. Connors’s small cattle trailer and it was twelve by six.”

Three cheers for Mr. Connors’s cattle trailer.

“How are its shocks?”

“Excellent. I cart heavy tools.” Damn. This wasn’t the time to tell the truth. Unfortunately, lying had never been a skill he’d learned.

The cowgirl opened the back doors. “What’s back here?”

“Some pickaxes. Shovels. Box of fossils.”

“Fossils?”

“They’re in a metal crate up front.”

“Metal. They’re safe. Valentine is a pussycat, trust me.”

Damn irritating, that confidence of hers.

“Come on, Hot Stuff, let’s get inside,” the cowgirl said, followed by some kissing sounds.

Before Kirk could suck in another brain-numbing breath, the beast had placed one mighty hoof then another on the van’s carpeted floor. Then, with the grace of a meaty ballerina, the beast disappeared inside as the van creaked and lowered with the added weight.

The girl shut the doors carefully, as though she’d just loaded the back with china, then walked back to Kirk. “You saved our lives.” Her voice was soft with appreciation. It was too dark to see her face, but he imagined her having that same grateful look she’d flashed him earlier when she’d stood in the headlights.

And for a sweet moment, he knew how Tarl Cabot, the mighty warrior of Gor, felt when he’d rescued a damsel.

The cowgirl damsel slapped Kirk on the arm, one of those good-pals gestures that wiped out his Tarl Cabot fantasy.

“Let’s go—or we’ll freeze our you-know-whats out here!” She trotted toward the passenger door.

Stunned with the occurrences of the last few minutes, Kirk walked stiff-kneed toward the driver’s door. As he sloshed through a chilly puddle, he experienced literally the meaning of “cold feet.”

Was the anxiety he felt due to his impending marriage or the adventure he’d stepped into?

2

“NEDERLANDER HIGHLANDER RANCH,” Louie repeated for the umpteenth time, rolling the words in his mouth as though tasting them.

“Some Scottish guy?” asked Shorty, taking a last drag on his cigarette and flicking it out the window. The lighted stub seared a thin orange flame through the darkness.

Louis slugged Shorty on the arm. “There’s an ashtray in here.”

“Oh.” Shorty stared straight ahead, looking like a basset hound that had just been severely chastised. “Sorry, Lou.”

Louie sighed. He hated guilt trips. Reminded him of his ex-wives. The first two, anyway. He also hated being stuck with an imbecile like Shorty on a critical job, but Shorty was the nephew of Clancy “The Neck” Venuchi and if Clancy said Shorty was working a job, only a bigger imbecile than Shorty said no.

“Forget it,” said Louie. “We need to figure out where this Nederlander Highlander place is.”

After a little boy hanging around outside the stock show had told them he’d seen a girl and her bull trot into a cluster of rundown nearby buildings, Louie and Shorty had driven around that area for several hours. They’d waved money in winos’ faces, until one swore he’d seen two people loading a buffalo into a big yellow truck with the words Nederlander Highlander Ranch on it.

The buffalo had to be the bull.

But Nederland Highlander?

“Shorty, get the map book. Look up Nederlander.”

Shorty reached underneath his seat and retrieved the thick Denver Regional Area guide they’d purchased at the Tattered Cover.

“Right.” Shorty flipped open the book and stared at a page.

“What’re you lookin’ at?”

“A map.”

Louie bunched his fist, fighting the urge to smack some sense into his partner. “There’s over a hundred pages in that thing. Check the frickin’ index.”

“Right.” Shorty flipped to the back of the book. “Ned…er…lander,” he muttered under his breath. “Ned…er—”

“N-e-d-e-r-l-a-n-d-e-r.” Louie loved books, especially detective novels, so he had an affinity for words and their spelling. But he had a feeling this street map was the first book Shorty had cracked open in years.

Shorty made a smacking sound as his finger slid down a page. “Dere it is!” He brought the book to within inches of his face. “Ne…der…land.” He looked up. “No e-r.”

“Good.” If it was in the book, it was close to Denver. So the girly and the bull had hopped a ride to a nearby town. Sweet. “Check which highway leads to it.”

“Right.” After a pause filled with more smacking, Shorty announced, “Twenty-five north to thirty-six to one ninety-three to one nineteen.”

“I said which highway, not how high can you count.” No sweat. They’d spent a chunk of today on the I-25 highway, and Louie remembered signs to highway 36. The rest was chump change.

He started the engine.

“Lou?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll use da ashtray next time.”

If Louie has his way, there’d be no next time with Shorty. Fortunately, this job would wrap up soon. All Louie had to do was steal the frickin’ bull and cart it to a rendezvous point outside Lubbock, Texas. There, they’d hook up with a go-between who’d pay them their dough and take the bull off their hands.

Louie’d never messed with a bull before, but after being told his take would be a cool half a mil, he figured he could dance with the beast if he had to. Besides, he’d done some studying. Brahmans looked tough, but were for the most part temperate-like.

Sorta like himself, he figured.

Louie turned the wheel and steered down a side street. He could almost smell his cut of the loot, a scent sweeter than his mama’s spicy grilled sausages and peppers. With his take, Louie would fulfill his dream to escape Trenton and buy a boat in the Keys. Spend the rest of his days catching big fish, drinking strong whiskey and loving lusty women. Big, tanned, lusty women. The kind who overfilled a bikini and overloved a man…

Feeling a rush of rare benevolence, Louie finally answered Shorty. “Yeah, just ‘member we got an ashtray.”

A match sizzled as Shorty lit his cigarette, making a great show of tossing the blown-out match in the ashtray.

Louis held out his hand for a cig.

“Thought you’d quit.”

“I did.”

“Then why you want a cig?”

“I need to chew something.”

A bit too quickly, Shorty tossed a cigarette which Louie caught in midair. He ran his nose along the white cylinder, inhaling the pungent scent of tobacco. Squeezing the spongy filter between his teeth, he said, “We’re on our way to findin’ Mr. Money Bull.”

“Mr. Money Bull,” Shorty repeated, blowing out a stream of smoke. “I won’t letcha down, Lou. We’ll get that bull to Texas, wrap up da deal and never have to work again for the rest of our lives.”

Louie grinned, enjoying a whiff of secondhand smoke. Never have to work again. He could smell the sea breezes now. Could feel the hot sun on his skin, the sweet sting of whiskey on his tongue. And when he got tired of the tanned, lusty women, maybe he’d invite wifey number three down for a visit.

Hell, if Shorty did good and helped pull off this job without any more glitches, maybe Louie’d give him visiting rights, too.

“WELL, I’ll be dam—”

“I didn’t hear that!” Mattie stuck her head out the kitchen door.

Ida didn’t look. Being seventy-five years old had its prerogatives, and one of them was enjoying words of the bluer variety. But forget explaining that to her daughter Mattie. Hell, it was still a mystery to Ida how she’d raised such a rule-fixated puritan as Mattie. Good thing she lived next door and not under the same roof with Ida and her granddaughter Bree.

“Hush!” Ida held up a gun barrel, motioning for silence. To the TV, she said, “All right, muffin, let’s have a dose of straight talk.”

Mattie stepped into the living room, wiping a dinner plate with a dishrag. “You watch too many gangster flicks,” she continued. “You sound more like a gun moll than a respectable senior citizen. And how many times have I told you not to clean your pistols in the living room! What if company dropped by, saw weapons strewn all over and told the deputy sheriff? After that incident in the Buffalo Lodge, you swore you’d never again—”

“Hush!” Ida waved the gun barrel again. “They’re talkin’ about my granbaby.”

“My niece Bree’s on the news?” Mattie clutched the chipped china plate she’d been drying to her chest. “Did…Valentine…win?”

The pert, auburn-haired newscaster talked earnestly to the camera. “…reportedly the bull was stolen after winning the grand champion prize, which is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the seller—potentially millions to the buyer. This story is about more than a big bull. It’s about big money.”

The TV reporter checked something on a piece of paper. “Police say the alleged thief was wearing brown boots, blue jeans and a blue-and-white checkered shirt.”

Mattie gasped. “That sounds like the outfit Bree picked out for the competition—”

“Police have issued an all points bulletin,” continued the announcer, “for the alleged thief and the bull, which has a white heart on its right rear flank—”

“That’s our Valentine, all right!” Ida blurted, standing. “They think my granbaby stole Valentine! What’s wrong with those city slickers in Denver? Big-city smog go to their brains?” She mulled this over for a moment. “Ya know, Bree had a verbal agreement with that Bovine Best outfit…wonder if that implied contract is being misinterpreted by these media jerks. They’re conveniently forgetting the word implied and making it appear Bree broke a contract and stole Val.” After barking a few choice expletives at the TV, she said, “I gotta go find Bree—clear up this mess!”

Ida snapped the revolver chamber into place with a click. “Gotta grab my coat and boots—it’s butt-freezin’ cold this time of year.”

“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?” asked Mattie, her face pinched with irritation.

“While I’m getting dressed, find my keys, wouldja?” She glanced around the room. “I’ll need my holster, too.”

“Mother! You’re not driving that…that death trap to Denver!”

“My pickup ain’t no death trap. Just fixed the brakes last year. Where’d I kick off my boots? Oh, there they are.”

“You can’t get the bull into the pickup—”

“Hell, I know that. Bree ’n’ I’ll figure out how to get the bull home.” Ida slipped her tiny feet into a pair of cream-colored boots with purple trim.

“I’d…I’d go with you, but I have three sons to look after.”

“I know, honey pie. Now stop frettin’ and help your sweet ol’ mama get ready.”

Mattie made an exasperated sound. “Does my sweet old mama have to carry a gun?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“To shoot people with, sweetheart.”

“We’re in a family crisis and you’re quoting from those…those bad-guy videos!”

“The Fallen Sparrow, 1943, John Garfield. Who wasn’t a ‘bad guy,’ just a lost soul.” Ida paused.

“And them’s not just ‘flicks.’ Them’s words to live by.” She headed down the hallway. “Grab that bag of chips and a few apples. Meet you at the pickup,” Ida yelled over her shoulder.

“VAN WON’T START,” Kirk said, trying to sound calm. One hell of a feat considering a beast’s massive, horned head nearly hung over the front seat, mere inches from the right side of Kirk’s face.

Kirk reminded himself, again, that the girl said this animal was “intelligent” and “sweet-tempered.”

“We’re stuck?” asked the cowgirl. “We just got in!”

The bull released a hefty snort as though seconding her comment.

Man, that bull had bad breath. “I thought we had enough gas to make it to the station, but I was wrong.”

Wind whistled past. Clouds were creeping across the night sky, blotting out part of the moon. Kirk swore a coarse bull whisker brushed the side of his face. Was this monstrous thing hungry?

“Uh, when did your beast last eat?” he asked.

The girl made an indignant sound. “It’s a Brahman bull, not a beast. And it’s a vegetarian, so it won’t take a bite out of you. Unless you tick him off.”

Tick him off? “I thought you said he was sweet-tempered.”

“He has his moods, like anyone else.”

Wonderful. A moody bull. Worse, one that occasionally got “ticked off.” Kirk had never ticked anyone off. He was always Mr. Reasonable—the result of growing up with a wild, flamboyant mother for whom he had to constantly intervene. Once he’d had to mediate between her and a department-store Santa who his mother swore had propositioned her. Wouldn’t that be Kirk’s luck, after all these intervening, mediating years, to piss off a bull?

“Where were you headed to?” he asked.

“Chugwater.”

“As in Wyoming?”

“You know another Chugwater?”

“What are you doing several hundred miles away from home?” He probably shouldn’t ask. Alicia could make the story of a broken fingernail last a day…he couldn’t even fathom how long a lost-with-a-bull tale might take.

“So, now what do we do?” she asked, ignoring his question. “Any ideas?”

“Ideas? Too many,” Kirk muttered. He was accustomed to excavating and viewing the fossils of long-dead plants and beasts, not driving real live ones around.

He took in a deep breath and looked at the sky. Those clouds didn’t look like snow clouds, but in Colorado, one never second-guessed the weather. He itemized his priorities. First, he needed to find shelter and food. Second, tomorrow morning, he’d deal with their travel logistics.

“There’s a lodge up the road,” he finally said. “A few minutes’ walk. We can stay there tonight.”

“Lodge?” She sighed heavily. “I, uh, don’t have any money.”

“I have a credit card. I’ve stayed there before. The area behind the lodge backs right up to a mountain. Good resting spot for your bull.” He’d ask for one of the rooms at the far end from the main lodge. Considering it was January, high in the mountains, he seriously doubted anyone would be staying overnight at this out-of-the-way place. Stashing a bull would be the least of their worries.

He hoped.

“Do you have a cell phone?” she asked. “I’d like to call my grandmother.”

“Service is maxed out.” He’d tried calling Alicia earlier and discovered he was too far into the mountains to get a signal. “But I’m sure there’ll be phones in the rooms.”

“Think they’ll have oats or hay?”

For Valentine. “There should be some grass, bushes outside…and we can order twenty bowls of cereal on top of dinner.” He buttoned his top shirt button, anticipating the chill outside.

“Let’s go,” he said, opening his door. “Tarl Cabot, watch out,” he murmured under his breath, jumping to the ground.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Kirk flicked the switch of room number one, located at the farthest end of the Sundance Lodge. Although he’d assumed the place would be mostly empty, a gang of Harley riders—seen year-round in these parts of Colorado because of the scenic mountain roads—were staying overnight. Fortunately, there were two adjacent empty rooms available.

Bree followed him inside, checking out the far window through which she could see her bull tethered to a pine tree. “This room’s perfect for me. I can keep my eye on Val.”

He nodded. “Fine. I’ll leave our sandwiches here while I check my room, make a call.” He placed two butcher-paper-wrapped packages on a chipped wooden coffee table.

“Funny how they didn’t question your wanting to buy five boxes of that oat bran cereal, too,” said Bree.

Kirk chuckled. “Nederland’s filled with free spirits—I could have asked to buy one of the tie-dyed T-shirts off their backs and they wouldn’t have blinked an eye. The community is filled with former hippies or hippie wanna-bes. You know, peace and love and all that.”

“Well, I like peace, but I can do without—” Bree huffed a breath and looked around the room, feeling a little stupid for her slip of the tongue. Just because she wasn’t interested in love and marriage and all that nonsense, didn’t mean she had to announce it.

“You’re probably wondering what I was doing hitchhiking in the middle of nowhere,” she said quickly, switching topics. “I, uh, missed my ride from the stock show and a really nice truck driver said he’d give us a lift to Nederland so I said okay but I didn’t want to be dropped off in the middle of a town, so I told him just to leave us off on the side of the road. Figured we’d get a lift somehow to Chugwater, but nobody was stopping, so I jumped out in front of your stopped van…” She sucked in a breath, hoping the story sounded relatively sane and plausible, and it should considering she’d left out the parts about the gangsters and guns.

As he stared at her sorta stunned like, she realized this was the first moment she’d had a chance to really see him in the light. His hair was thick, blond. And he was solidly good-looking. Put him in a double-breasted suit and a gray felt hat, he could star as one of those hunky, hard-boiled detectives in one of Grams’s gangster flicks.

But she doubted this guy even owned a suit. He looked extremely comfortable in his faded jeans and blue-and-gray flannel shirt. Hard to fit his down-home look with that fancy van, though. The two didn’t mix.

He finally broke the silence. “Well, you’re safe now. That’s what matters.”

She hoped that was true. Thanks to this guy, she was, for the time being. Tomorrow, she’d figure out how to get back home, clean up this “alleged theft” confusion, and get back to leading a normal life.

“What’s your name?” asked Bree. She’d hovered next to the door as he’d filled out the registration stuff in the lodge lobby, so she hadn’t overheard any information, such as his name or where he lived.

“Kirk Dunmore. Yours?”

“Bree Brown.” She eyed the TV, knowing in her gut that the story of a Brahman bull trotting out of the Denver Stock Show would be on the news. Escapee livestock was big news. Last year when those llamas had bolted free and run down the I-25, it’d been on all the stations.

She’d check the TV later, when she was alone.

Then she thought, with a sickening realization, that chances were Grams, who watched the news religiously every evening, would have seen a story about Bree and Valentine riding out of the coliseum and be worried sick.

Bree looked around the room for a phone. “I need to call home.”

“Yeah, I need to phone my fiancée, too.” Fiancée?

Bree pushed her hand through her curly hair, unsure why her stomach felt as though it had just flipped upside down. Couldn’t be because of Kirk’s remark. Like she cared. She eyed the sandwiches Kirk had purchased. My insides are flip-flopping because I’m hungry. After she’d eaten something solid, she’d feel lots better.

But when she looked at Kirk, her stomach did another somersault.

The way he stood—legs spread, arms crossed solidly over his chest—he looked like a rough and rugged explorer, the kind of guy who fearlessly tackled anything in the world.

What did he say he had in the back of the van? Pickaxes. Shovels. Oh yeah, this man treated life like an adventure. Only a man like that would understand Bree’s own yearning to strike out on her own and discover the world.

She dipped her head, rubbing her chin against the slick rayon of the jacket he’d loaned her. She caught a whiff of scent—his scent. Male. Musky. Inside her, the curl of heat ignited, spreading through her like a small fire.

Kirk scraped his hand across the stubble on his chin. “I’ll go check my room now, call Alicia, then come back for that sandwich.”

Alicia? Had to be the fiancée. Bree nodded absently, slipping off the jacket so she didn’t accidentally sniff any more of his lethal male muskiness.

He left, the room door clicking shut behind him. She’d do the same with her reactions. Shut them down. Tight. After all, he was just a nice guy who’d helped her out of a jam. By this time tomorrow, they’d both be back in their separate worlds, never to see each other again.

3

BREE RAN BAREFOOT through a jungle, crowded with vibrant green leaves, birds, hanging vines. Her feet slapped hard against cold, damp earth. Pounding footsteps followed, tracking her. She glanced over her shoulder. Dense foliage blocked her assailant’s face. Her gaze dipped. He wore turquoise boots.

Bang-bang-bang.

Bree jolted awake. Cold perspiration slicked her body. She blinked into the dark, her gaze following a stream of moonlight from the window next to her bed.

Outside stood a massive, dark shadow close to the tree line.

Valentine.

She released a shaky breath. I’m in the lodge. We’re safe.

Bang-bang-bang!

Swiping a shaky hand across her brow, she glanced at the digital clock next to the bed—3:00 a.m. Who would be knocking on her door at this time of the morning?

The thugs?

Her stomach curdled. Could they have traced me to this lodge in the middle of the mountains? Maybe not such a far-fetched idea considering they were determined to get Val, which meant big money for them, bigger money for whatever breeding outfit illegally sold Val’s sperm. And for that kind of money, the thugs would go through anything, do anything, to get the prize.

Even take my life.

Hairs stiffened along her arms. Don’t start spooking yourself.

Hell, if they’re that smart, all they’d have to do is look behind the lodge and see Val plain and clear in the moonlight. No need to knock on any doors and alert people that they’re stealing a bull!

Anyway, it was probably just some happy drunk, home from one of those rowdy Nederland bars, knocking at the wrong door. If the knocking continued, she’d call the front desk. Let them know some poor drunkard was knocking at random rooms.

She swung her feet over the side of the bed and edged through the dark across the thick rug, trying to remember where she’d put that phone after calling Grams earlier and leaving the message.

“Bree?” Bang-bang-bang. “It’s me, Kirk.”

She stopped in her tracks. “Kirk,” she whispered. With a burst of pent-up energy, she ran to the door and threw it open.

A blast of frigid night air assaulted her. Shivering, she hadn’t thought about how she was dressed, or wasn’t dressed. All that stood between her and the freezing mountain night air was a spaghetti-strap pink T-shirt and matching undies.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she scooted back as Kirk stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

“A-anything wr-wrong?” she asked through chattering teeth.

“Don’t you hear them?”

“Th-them?”

In the distance, a bottle crashed, followed by raucous laughter.

“It’s that damn Harley party,” Kirk huffed. “Those bikers have been going full steam ever since I went to bed. Haven’t slept a wink.”

Despite the cold, she smiled. With three wild teenage boy cousins living next door, she was used to all kinds of racket, day and night. If she could sleep through beer keg parties, band practices and a bunch of teenage boys screaming and whooping it up, it was nothin’ to sleep through some drunken biker party.

“Where’s the light?” Kirk asked.

She fumbled along the wall behind the door and flipped a switch.

The overhead light flickered on, casting the room in a warm, yellowish glow. Fortunately, the room heater was quickly warming things up, erasing the night chill.

Kirk, disheveled in a pair of worn jeans and a partially buttoned flannel shirt over a dark blue T-shirt, blinked and looked around. It hit Bree that he looked kinda cute all sleepy and disoriented. He speared one of his tan, roughened hands through his rumpled hair…

And froze in that position as his gaze swerved to Bree. “Oh, sorry,” he murmured thickly, staring at her underwear. He quickly turned away, his hand still stuck on his head.

Having grown up in the country, Bree wasn’t hung up on what showed or didn’t show. Besides, any essential “body stuff” wasn’t showing at all. And even it if was, big deal. Ever since she was a kid, she and her buddies—girls and boys—had often skinny-dipped at the Connors pond.

“I’m covered,” she said.

“Barely,” he muttered.

“How long you gonna keep your hand on your head?” she asked.

He dropped it, holding it stiffly at his side.

She laughed. “I’m wearing more than a bathing suit, for gosh sake!”

Kirk wanted to say something, after all, his verbal acumen covered the gambit from lectures to theoretical discussions, but he had the gut sense that if he opened his mouth right now, the only thing that would emerge would be a garbled string of incoherent sounds.

And Kirk Dunmore, always articulate, with an IQ topping 170, was at this very moment reduced to a brain-damaged, blithering idiot. And not just once in one night, but twice.

Okay, okay, even Einstein’s brain might have turned to mush if he’d been faced with a Brahman bull.

But would Einstein have turned to brain mush face-to-face with a striking, partially clad woman of Amazonian proportions? Hell no. Rumor had it Einstein turned into a damn playboy when he crossed paths with the likes of Marilyn Monroe.

While all these thoughts collided in his head, Kirk realized he’d been staring openmouthed at Bree over his shoulder.

Look away. Be a gentleman.

But his eyes were behaving as though they’d been penned up for a lifetime and now were rarin’ to roam free.

And roam they did. All over Bree’s long, lean, strong body as though the most exquisite sights of nature had been molded into one mighty fine package.

The sheen of her tan reminded him of the warm, golden sands on New Guinea beaches. The curve of her breasts mimicked the lush, rolling hills of the Argentine pampas. And those red glints in her dark curls were like the fiery, predawn rays of the sun as it rose over the Himalayas.

But when his gaze dropped to her legs, no geographical reference could do them justice. Those achingly long, sensuous legs reminded him of the libido-searing Rod Stewart song “Hot Legs.”

Was that a tattoo on her ankle?

At first he thought it was a flower unfolding, then realized it was a chocolate being unwrapped. A chocolate kiss. He licked his lips, aching for just a drop of that chocolate to whet his parched soul.

“Are you all right?” asked Bree.

“No,” he croaked.

“If you’d feel better,” Bree said softly, “I’ll slip back into bed, get under the covers.”

Better? He doubted he could feel any better except…if…

Whoa, boy, put a lock on it. You’re getting married in two days. Forty-eight hours. Two thousand, eight hundred and eighty minutes.

This had to be the result of the week-long dig he’d just finished. All that time alone, with nothing but prairie dogs and lizards for company, a man was bound to go whacko for a little chocolate drawing on an ankle.

In the silence, Kirk heard her tread softly across the carpet. Then the squeak of the bed as she settled in. And he tried to keep his mind trained on the lodge’s wooden walls, upon which crookedly hung a framed print of a bear pawing a stream for salmon.

But no matter what he tried to focus on, his just-turned-bad-boy mind kept returning to the image of those long, tan legs and chocolate-tattooed ankle, stretching and twisting in the warm dark under those seductively soft covers.

Why had he been born a paleobotanist? Oh what he’d give for a moment as a plain ol’ blanket conforming to the shape and warmth of Bree.

Breeeeee. The sound of her name was like the wind. Bree. Breeezy. With a soulful lilt, like in that Beatles song “Let It Be.” Let it Bree. Let me lick that little chocolate on your ankle for the rest of my life…

Bree tucked the blanket under her chin and peered at Kirk. He seemed oddly off balance, as though he might topple over any moment.

“Kirk, you look a little unsteady. Need some water?”

“Chocolate.”

“What?”

He coughed. “Uh, water. Right. Need water.”

“Okay, I’ll go grab a glass in the bathroom, get you—”

“No!”

He still stood with his back to her. “I’ll get it. Stay put. And cover up.”

He returned a moment later, downing a glass of water like a parched man, staring at her with wide blue eyes. He was so flustered, so red-faced, she suddenly got it.

“Don’t tell me you’re nervous about seeing me in my undies. We’ve already been through this.”

“Not nervous. Not anymore.”

Maybe he said he wasn’t nervous, but he looked positively mortified. “Aren’t you used to seeing naked women?” She almost said, aren’t you used to seeing your fiancée naked? but figured that was getting into overly personal terrain.

“You weren’t naked—just nearly naked.”

Maybe Kirk was a throwback to another century where men were polite, discreet, and the wedding night was the first time they…

Wow. She didn’t know men like that existed in today’s world. And to think she, small-town girl from even smaller-town Chugwater, possibly knew more about the birds and the bees than Mr. Big City!

“Well, I’m all covered now, so it’s a moot point,” she announced.

Kirk put the glass aside, shot her a feeble smile, then backed up to the couch and fell into a sitting position. Avoiding looking at her face, he scraped his hand across his stubbled chin as though he’d just finished an incredibly long and exhausting journey.

“Wish I had a glass of warm milk,” he rasped. He looked at her, his eyes burning as though he were running a fever.

“Maybe that café’s still open?”

“At 3:00 a.m.?”

“Maybe those Harley people have some.”

“Very funny. Obviously one of us has gotten some sleep.”

Bree jerked her thumb toward the window. “Two.”

Kirk looked outside at Val. “Okay, Val’s gotten some sleep-eye too, lucky bull.” Kirk narrowed his eyes, thinking. “Hmm, maybe I should take your bull to those bikers’ rooms, position him behind me while I ask if they could please keep it down.”

“That’d work,” Bree said with a smile. “Val has a reputation for clearing out places. Once he accidentally kicked over a vat of chili at the Chugwater Chili festival—that sent people running! But his kicking was my fault. I’d accidentally brushed against his back left leg, which is our signal for him to kick out his right leg. It’s a little trick I taught him. Another time he got loose in downtown Chugwater and tore into Mary Jane Tock’s beauty parlor. The street was instantly filled with shrieking women in hair curlers and blue face masks.” Bree giggled.

Kirk chuckled, shaking his head. “Yeah, that’s just what the Sundance Lodge needs in the wee hours of the morning. A bunch of hysterical bikers running amok in the parking lot.”

Bree laughed louder, liking how the two of them were sharing a fun moment. This sure beat the hell out of Kirk’s mortification…or her paranoia that thugs were knocking at her door.

Speaking of which…

“Hey, you know what?” she said, trying to sound as though she’d just had this great idea. “Why don’t you stay on the couch in here tonight? That way, you’ll hardly hear those bikers.” And I’d have a built-in bodyguard. She looked him over in his rumpled hair, flannel shirt and threadbare jeans.

Too bad those pickaxes are still in the truck.

Well, still, he’d be an extra body in case those thugs showed up. And two bodies, plus a bull, were better odds against two thugs.

In the distance, something crashed, followed by the syrupy sound of drunken laughter.

Kirk blew out a puff of air as he looked toward the far wall. “Think I’ll take you up on your offer. At least the sounds are more muted in here.”

Bree snuggled down in her bed, bunching up the pillow under her head, feeling the happiest she had in hours. She wasn’t alone, she had a roof over her head, she and Val had a place to sleep, and tomorrow, ah sweet tomorrow, she’d be back home in Chugwater. Kirk had mentioned that his buddy in Denver, a guy named George who owned a cattle trailer, could drive her and her bull back home.

“Turn out the light when you’re ready,” she said sweetly. “And don’t worry about me if you feel like staying up and reading or watching TV.”

Oops.

Earlier, she’d switched on a local news channel and had watched, openmouthed, as some newscaster reported an alleged bull theft. Bree’s name wasn’t mentioned, but the newscaster described her clothes, right down to her scuffed boots. It had to be because of that damn “implied contract” that the media was insinuating she was a thief!

Bree shoved herself up on one elbow and stared wide-eyed at Kirk. “Uh, nix the TV idea! It would, uh, be too loud, keep me awake.”

“No, I wouldn’t watch TV at this hour,” he answered calmly. “Might read, though.” He rummaged through the stack of old paperbacks on the coffee table. “If it wasn’t so cold out, and if the van wasn’t parked down the road, I’d dash out and get The Priest Kings of Gor, which I left in the glove compartment.”

Bree blinked at him. “The what of what?”

Kirk glanced up. “Book by John Gorman. Science fiction.”

“Oh.” She lay back down. No TV. Life was good.

Kirk rummaged halfheartedly through some books. “What do you like to read?”

“Historical romances.”

“Really.” He flashed her a look, then resumed his rummaging.

“You sound surprised. By which part? The historical or the romance?”

“I…just didn’t envision you as a romance reader.”

“Really,” she answered, mocking his droll tone.

He cocked an eyebrow, obviously catching her mimicry. “You just don’t strike me as the truffle-eating, pink-satin-slipper type.” When she stared at him in silence, he finally asked, “Something the matter?”

“Yours is a typical clueless-male response about romance novels. Double-dare you to find even one truffle-eating heroine in one of those novels. They’re too busy flexing their stamina and intelligence in the face of adversity.”

His eyes glistened with amusement. “I always love a challenge. So, I accept.”

Well, that response took her aback for a moment. She’d never met a guy who’d seemed eager to explore something new and romantic. Well, in a book anyway.

But then Kirk Dunmore was an explorer, she realized now, in more ways than one. A warming feeling washed through her as she realized she was starting to like the guy. Okay, she’d already known he could jump-start her libido with one whiff of his masculine-drenched jacket, but it was a bonus to realize he had an open, intelligent mind with just the right touch of feminist leanings as well.

Was he even from the planet Earth?

“So why the historical part?” Kirk asked, thumbing through one of the books.

“Well, I’ll read about almost any historical era. But my preference would be the Roman era. First or second century B.C.”

He was busy scanning the back blurb on the paperback. “Why?”

“My major was art history, with an emphasis on ancient Roman art. For my senior thesis, I wrote a paper on conserving ancient sculpture, focusing on a second-century statue of Marcus Aurelius.”

“Very interesting,” Kirk set the book down and met her gaze.

“My aunt Mattie doesn’t think so. She’s still stewing that I didn’t study accounting.”

Kirk chuckled. “Well, I must disagree with your aunt because I find your choice of study very impressive. Surprising, but impressive.”

“I found your van rather…surprising, but impressive, too.”

“Surprised me, too. It’s a prewedding gift. My mother-in-law—well almost mother-in-law—is always over-the-top. Too much money and time on her hands. Nice lady. Just too rich.”

He’s getting married, Bree reminded herself. Of course, she’d known, but it didn’t stop a tremor of disappointment rippling through her.

Murmuring she should go to sleep, Bree closed her eyes, determined to think about anything other than him. Like, where was Grams when Bree tried to call earlier? And should she have left the message on the answering machine that she and Val would be back in Chugwater, she hoped tomorrow? With the local news describing Bree’s alleged theft, what if the sheriff or FBI had staked out Grams’s and her home, listened to the answering machine and knew she and Val were on their way back to Chugwater?

She stared up at the ceiling. Sheesh, didn’t anybody in authority check that maybe Bree was the innocent one in this mixed-up fiasco?

Well, I’ll just have to be clever when I get back to Chugwater tomorrow. I’ll pen Val in the south corner of Mr. Connors’s field. Then I’ll sneak into town and, from the back windows of Mary Jane Tock’s hair salon, catch up on the latest gossip. Then I’ll know what steps to take next.

“Thought you wanted to go to sleep.”

She shifted her gaze to Kirk. “Thought you were reading.”

“Couldn’t find any historical romances.”

Kirk liked Bree’s smile. Her big dimples created the cutest shadows in her cheeks. And when she smiled, her gray eyes twinkled as though they housed little stars.

Plus she was pretty without a dot of makeup. Her face had a clear, rosy freshness about it.

Funny, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen Alicia without makeup. Or even what she looked like without makeup. For the two years he’d known her, her face was slathered and painted and God knew what else. She even had colored contacts. If someone were to ask him his fiancée’s eye color, he’d have to say either emerald green or cobalt blue.

Not that makeup was a bad thing. After all, Alicia Hansen was a born-and-bred Cherry Creek girl, from the ultraexclusive section of Denver. Maybe Alicia had the money to preen and primp, but thanks to her family’s wealth, she also used her money connections for good causes, like raising money for research and exhibits at the Museum of Nature and Science. Which was where they’d met when she’d hosted a fund-raiser two years ago. Thanks to Alicia’s efforts, the museum had raised the money to build the current replica of the Minotaur’s labyrinth which was gaining national recognition for its study of ancient mythology.

Yes, he appreciated and even admired Alicia. But most important, the two of them shared a common dream to have roots—a family, children—the kind of roots he’d never had as a kid.

He stared at Bree with her twinkling gray eyes and wild mass of curly brown hair. She was just the opposite of Alicia. Where Alicia was polished, Bree looked wild. Untamed, uncontrollable like the elements. Part wind, part sun, all soul and energy. He’d never met a woman like her.

And maybe it was late, but he wanted to know her just a little more…after all, after tonight and tomorrow, they’d never have the chance to talk again.

“So where’d you go to college?” he asked.

“In Laramie, on a volleyball scholarship. Started out as a psychology major, but after attending a traveling tour of Roman art, I switched majors to art history. Loved ancient art. Those ancient carvings were so raw, so passionate…so unlike anything I’d ever seen growing up in little Chugwater.”

“What did you plan to do with the degree?”

“Escape Chugwater. Travel the world, see all kinds of real ancient art, not just pictures in books and on the Internet.”

He’d never escaped anywhere. Never wanted to. Probably because he’d moved so much as a kid, and traveled over half the globe as a scientist, the last thing he wanted was to escape to somewhere else.

“So,” he said, mulling over her response, “are you escaping Chugwater?”

“Almost did,” she whispered. “Still might.”

She was quiet so long, he figured he’d change the subject. “I love ancient art, myself. Leaf art.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“I study ancient fossils of plants, especially the period between sixty to one hundred million years ago.”

She emitted a low whistle. “Now that’s ancient. And I was pretty proud to love first- and second-century art.”

He smiled. “My area of expertise is the K-T boundary. The era when the dinosaurs went extinct.” He paused. “Typically I stop here unless I’m chatting with scientists or other leaf whackers. I’m accustomed to other people’s eyes glazing over about now.”

But Bree’s twinkled. “K-T boundary?” she prompted.

He smiled. “It’s the layer of iridium that indicates that an asteroid—about the size of Denver today—hit the earth, which caused the dinosaurs to go extinct.” Her eyes still twinkled. “So, by excavating fossils from that era, I’m also studying the traces of the K-T boundary and pinpointing when, exactly, the dinosaurs disappeared from the earth.”

“Wow! Very cool!”

He grinned. Alicia never got this excited over his work. “Why, thank you. I think so, too.”

“So, what’s a leaf whacker?”

“We—paleobotanists and anybody else who joins our excavations—whack rocks to discover embedded fossils, which typically contain ancient leaves. Hence, leaf whackers.”

“This K-T boundary…where is it?”

“Sections are all over the globe. The challenge is to find the thread, the link-to-link layers of iridium that prove my theory.”

Her eyes grew wider. “Does that mean you’ve traveled all over the world?”

He nodded. “Many places, that’s for sure.”

She clasped her hands together like a little kid. “You are one lucky guy, you know that?”

“Lucky to love my profession, yes. But my personal dreams are more simple,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen the big world. I want the smaller one. I want roots.”

“Not me!”

“So,” he started, piecing together her dream with her current situation, “when do you plan to see the world?”

“Don’t know. Right now I just need to get back home…”

Her eyes moistened and she turned her head away.

When she stayed that way for several long moments, he got up and headed to the bed. Looking down at her, he reached out, hesitated for a moment, then gently patted her hair. He liked how the silky curls spiraled around his fingers.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, not sure why he should be sorry, but wanting to comfort her.

“It’s been a long day,” she whispered. She slid him a glance, her gray eyes filled with such a gentle sadness, he wondered what exactly she and her “pet” had gone through. And why.

Were they running from something?

Up to now, he’d bought her story that they’d been left on the side of the road. After all, this was Colorado, cow—and bull—country. But looking into her eyes, clouded with hurt, he knew, just knew, something more was at stake. Not wanting to dig, or upset her further, he simply stroked her hair, comforting her.

Minutes later, her eyes closed and she fell asleep.

4

“THERE IT IS.” Louis turned off the headlights and eased the trailer down a side street off the main drag of Nederland.

“Dere what is?” asked Shorty, leaning closer to the windshield as though that would help him see better.

“In front of us, forty or so feet,” Louie said, jabbing his thumb at the big yellow truck with Nederlander Highlander Ranch in red and blue doughnut-shaped letters on its back doors. “It’s big and yellow and says exactly what that wino said was written on it.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Louie said between his teeth. “It’s right frickin’ in front of us or are you frickin’ blind?”

“Don’t need to get so sensitive, Lou,” muttered Shorty. “I sees it.”

“Sorry,” muttered Louie, not really meaning it but needing to say something sorta nice so Shorty wouldn’t go all sloppy sad and blow their chance to nab the bull—which meant nabbing a cool half a mil each.

“Hey, that truck’s so yellow,” said Louie, trying to sound super friendly-like, “it’s like followin’ a moving block of butter.”

“Yeah, a block o’ buttah.”

“You and me, Shorty, we were pretty damn smart getting a big black trailer ’cause we blend into the night.” He didn’t really mean that, the part about Shorty being smart, but compliments usually cheered people up.

“Right now,” Louie continued, sounding as breezy as the winds over the Keys where he’d soon be living, “we’re blending into the night like chocolate frostin’ on chocolate cake. That dude would hafta be glued to his side mirror to realize he’s bein’ tailed.”

“Chocolate frostin’ on chocolate cake,” repeated Shorty as he took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it out the window. The burning embers flamed in the darkness.

Louis slugged Shorty on the arm. “Nice move. Next time, why don’cha set off a flare?” So much for being friendly-like.

Shorty rolled up his window. “Flare? Wha—?”

“We’re on reconnaissance. We just found our mark—” Louie nodded toward the yellow truck down the alley ahead of them “—and you toss a lighted cig out the window! How many times I gotta tell ya there’s an ashtray in here! But did you use it? No, better to signal the guy with a miniflare that we’re tailin’ him!”

“I’ll use the ashtray next time, Lou.”

“So you’ve said. Now shut up. I’m concentratin’.”

Louie drove slowly, keeping some distance behind the truck.

“He’s movin’ awful fast for hauling a bull,” commented Shorty.

Louis had thought the same thing when he’d seen the truck turn down this side street.

Suddenly, the Nederlander Highlander truck lurched to the right and parked in a well-lit spot between a scooter and a compact car. Louis did an ultra-smooth glide into a neighboring parking lot, conveniently dark with no streetlights.

“Primo lookout spot,” he murmured, killing the engine. Damn, he was good.

They were sweetly hidden in the night gloom. And, between two Dumpsters lined up between the lots like some kinda green metal barricade, they had a clear sight of the parked Nederlander Highlander truck.

Louis breathed a small prayer to Saint Anthony for the strategically placed streetlamp that acted like a spotlight on the truck.

“Why’d he stop there?” asked Shorty, fidgeting with the pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket.

“Look at the frickin’ flashin’ neon sign.” Over the back door of the brick building that Mr. Nederlander Highlander would probably soon be entering was an orange-and-purple neon sign flashing Ned Head Ed’s with a dancing beer bottle.

“Ned Head Ed’s?” repeated Shorty, squinting at the sign. “What’s a Ned Head?”

“Ned’s an abbreviation for Nederland. If you’d been looking as I was drivin’, you’d have seen Ned-this and Ned-that on almost every frickin’ store we passed.”

“But Ned Head?”

Louie blew out a gust of air. “Ain’t you ever heard of the Dead Heads? Jerry Garcia? The Grateful Dead?”

Shorty was quiet for a long moment. “Oh!” he finally said. “It’s a play on da words Dead Head. Ned Head. Hey, dat’s kinda cute.”

This gig better end soon. Two more days with Shorty and Louis would remarry wifey number three, who not only applied less guilt and asked fewer questions, but figured stuff out faster.

“Dere he is!” Shorty pointed at the ponytailed guy shutting the driver’s door of the yellow truck. With his hands stuffed into his jeans pockets, the guy slouched casually toward Ned Head Ed’s back door and disappeared inside the bar.

The truck sat unattended.

“Go check if there’s a bull in there,” ordered Louie, flicking the overhead switch so the dome light wouldn’t go on when they opened their doors.

“Me and what army? Did you see the size of that mother back at the stock show?”

“Just sneak up and look in the truck’s back window.”

“It’s butt-freezin’ cold out.”

“You gotta coat on.”

“So do you. Leather, too.”

Louie’d known this topic would come up sooner or later. A week ago, when they’d got this gig, he’d had to do some fast shopping for Colorado winter weather. Shorty bought some butt-ugly wool and canvas coat, while Louie went for a fur-lined leather jacket. After they’d got to Colorado and put on their coats, Shorty kept flashing little jealous looks at Louie’s jacket.

But Louie’d been accustomed to such looks all his life. Dudes givin’ him those little jealous glances over his clothes, his cars, his dames…hey, it wasn’t easy being a classy guy.

“I’m drivin’,” Louie said, “You’re sittin’. Now go!” He fisted his hand, ready to smack.

Shorty made a disgruntled sound and hopped out. Hunching over like some kind of chubby troll, he skittered through the opening between the Dumpsters. Just as Shorty reached the yellow truck, the back door of Ned Head Ed’s reopened. The driver and several guys carrying boxes headed toward the truck.

Shorty, about ten feet from the truck, halted midstep as though stung by an invisible cattle prod. Slowly, he straightened, then began whistling and sauntering as though he were out for an evening stroll. Which might be convincing if it wasn’t colder than a meat locker outside.

Louis sighed heavily. “You coulda acted like a wino or hidden behind a Dumpster,” he said out loud, “but no, you act like you’re out taking a frickin’ stroll in a frickin’ parking lot on a frickin’ freezin’ evening.” He slammed his fist against the steering wheel, wishing it were Shorty’s thick skull.

Fortunately, none of the people exiting the building seemed to notice Shorty’s nonchalant strolling act. They opened wide the truck’s back doors.

Louie strained to the left, peering into the back of the truck.

No bull.

He smacked the steering wheel again. “Frickin’ A. We fly all the way out to bohunk Colorado, rent this frickin’ bull-size trailer piece of junk, only to lose what we had stole, clean and clear!” That girl had balls. Stealing back the bull by mounting it and riding it out of the stadium like some kind of rodeo bull queen. And that was the last time Louie paid off a few cops for their “support”—they’d watched, bug-eyed, as she rode away.

Shorty had navigated an elaborate U-turn and was whistling as he sauntered past the truck, heading back to Louie. “Are you frickin’ crazy?” Louie muttered. “Walking right past the people we’re tailin’? Like they need extra help to ID us?”

A few minutes later, the passenger door opened and Shorty hoisted his chunky frame inside. “No bull.”

“No kiddin’.”

“How’d you know?”

“I was sittin’ here, looking at the truck as they opened the back doors. I was also lookin’ at you—” he shook his fist “—walkin’ past them not once, but twice! Why didn’t ya just yell ‘hi there’ and introduce yourself?”

“They didn’t notice me, Lou.” Shorty’s voice was getting all whiney again.

Wifey number three was looking better and better. Louie hunkered down, watching the people stash the boxes in the back of the truck. “We’ll sit here, wait for the guy’s buddies to leave and then we’ll have a little chat with our ponytail friend.”

“What for? There’s no bull.” A match sizzled as Shorty lit his cigarette, carefully hiding the flame behind his cupped hand.

“He might not have the animal in the truck at this very moment, but he knows where he dropped our Mr. Money Bull.”

“Mr. Money Bull,” Shorty repeated, blowing out a stream of smoke.

Louie grinned, enjoying a whiff of secondhand smoke. Enjoying even more the word money. Oh yeah, once this gig was up, life was gonna be sweet.

A few minutes passed as boxes were loaded in the back of the Nederlander Highlander truck, then the guys, except for the ponytailed one, returned to Ned Head Ed’s bar.

“He’s alone.” Shorty made a great show of stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray.

“Let’s go have us a little chat,” said Louie, tugging the collar of his leather jacket up around his ears.

“You carryin’?” asked Shorty.

Louie shook his head no. “Don’t need no gun to convince Mr. Nederlander that all we need is a little information. I have a feelin’ he’ll sing with very little persuasion. Just like a little canary.”

“Tweet tweet,” said Shorty, opening his door.

KIRK YAWNED and blinked open his eyes.

In front of him, like two burnished columns, were a pair of bare legs.

Long.

Shapely.

Sleepily, he gazed up those legs, past the thighs, daring to look farther…

She moved and a blast of sunlight hit him smack in the face.

He squinted, his eyes aching from the white brightness.

She moved again, her body shadowing his face.

He dared to open one eye, then the other, and stared at a very curvy bottom in a pair of creamy pink undies.

She bent over and the very curvy bottom widened provocatively, stretching those creamy pink cotton undies until the pink became sheer…so sheer, the color looked more fleshy than pink.

Kirk licked his suddenly dry lips as his pulse kicked up a notch. That was no fleshy color.

That was flesh.

His stomach muscles bunched. His face flamed hot.

Kirk blinked rapidly, amazed at the physical reactions he was having. He, who prided himself on his intellect. Dr. Dunmore, global expert on the late Cretaceous period, recipient of prestigious paleobotany awards, the discoverer of the new dinosaur species Saurexallopus lovei…

Was suffering from libido fever.

Struggling to breathe, Kirk watched as Bree pulled a pair of jeans over that tan, pink-clad rump.

“Checking me out?”

Caught.

He jerked up his gaze. “No, I, uh, was, uh, watching the sun coming up.” Hell, he was getting married in less than forty-eight hours. Whoever named pre-wedding jitters “cold feet” was too subtle. This was out-and-out body freeze.

She turned and faced him, her hands on her ample jean-clad hips. “You really are from another planet, aren’t you?”

With great effort, he maintained eye contact and whispered hoarsely, “Gor.”

“What?”

He cleared his throat. “Gor, the counter-Earth planet.” Which was pretty much the truth because Kirk Dunmore sure didn’t conform to most of the stupid guy-stuff on Earth. He didn’t play pool, swig beer and had long ago decided “nailing” a woman was despicable and demeaning for both the woman and the man.

So if Gor was good enough for Tarl Cabot, it was good enough for Kirk Dunmore.

Bree flashed him a quizzical look. “Is Gor where you paleo-paleo-whatever-you-guys-are visit to dig up fossils?”

“No, it’s what we paleobotanists say to cover moments when we’re caught gawking at a woman’s body parts. Very lovely body parts, may I add.”

Was she blushing?

His gut did that funny clench again and he wondered for one insane moment, if maybe, just maybe she felt the same things he was feeling.

With a swivel, Bree turned and headed back to the bed where she sat down and began pulling on her socks and boots. “I know we’ve been playing a bit with each other, but the fact is, you’re almost a married man, Kirk,” she said quietly.

Almost married. Kirk could feel that damn body freeze creep from the tips of his hair all the way down to his toes. Okay, okay, his best buddy George, who was blissfully married and had two great kids, had admitted even he’d had a bad case of cold feet right up until the moment he said “I do” five years ago.

Kirk expelled a slow breath. That’s all this is. A little cold feet, or in my case, a complete body freeze.

He reflected on why and how he’d fallen for Alicia in the first place. At the time, his dating life was more in danger of becoming extinct than the dinosaurs he researched. And when he’d talked to her about his recent discovery of the five-lobed Macginitiea leaf from the Tertiary period nearly forty-five million years ago, he’d loved how her cobalt-blue eyes stayed glued on him, immensely fascinated.

And when she’d murmured that she’d always wanted a smart, prestigious man in her life, he figured this Cherry Creek trophy number was hot for him.

After a few dates, when they were discussing their mutual desire to settle down, have roots, family and children, he did the first spontaneous thing he’d ever done in his life.

He asked her to marry him.

And when she said yes, it wiped out his years of growing up as a lonely kid, moving from town to town, calling at least six different men Dad. Finally, Kirk Dunmore was on the verge of having what he’d always wanted—roots, family, children.

And that had all seemed well and fine until…

Well, until meeting Bree.

Waking up in the room with her this morning, looking at Bree’s freshly scrubbed face, and her “naked confidence” as she strode around in those pink cotton thingies, shook him up like he’d never been shaken before.

He didn’t remember ever feeling that shaken up with Alicia. Maybe if she wasn’t always slathering goop on her face or talking on a cell phone that seemed permanently wedged next to her ear, maybe he’d feel more shaken up.

Or maybe it had nothing to do with goop or phones. Maybe it was simply that Alicia didn’t seem to give a hoot about his research anymore. Months ago, he’d chalked it up to her being preoccupied with the wedding plans, but he sometimes wondered what she’d be preoccupied with after the wedding…

“I’m gonna check on Val,” said Bree, interrupting Kirk’s thoughts.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll join you after I think through a few jigsaw pieces.”

Ignoring her questioning look before she exited, he rubbed his eyes. He had a lot on his plate today.

First, he needed to get gas.

Second, he needed to get back to Denver.

Third, he needed to contact George, ask him to give Bree and Val a ride to Chugwater. He’d call George now, but knew George and his family did their shopping on Saturday mornings, so Kirk would wait to phone.

Then there was the dreaded rehearsal dinner at Alicia’s family’s tony Cherry Creek estate. Monkey suits and small talk. Had Alicia said four or five o’clock? Well, one of those times should work. The family never expected Kirk to be punctual, blaming his absentmindedness on his being a scientist. Whether he was late, lost or just plain forgetful, they cooed and excused the “famous scientist.”

He dragged himself off the sofa and staggered into the bathroom where he splashed cold water on his face. Somehow, in the midst of today’s activities, he needed also to check the I-25 excavation site. He sensed he was close to unearthing some rare fossils there. Plus he’d accidentally dug up that strange, exotic engraved stone last week…very unusual, at least two thousand years old. He couldn’t wait to show it to George.

“Hey!” Bree yelled from outside the bathroom. “You comin’ out, or are you gonna primp in there all day?”

He grinned. Kirk, primp? Sounded like something he’d say to Alicia.

A few minutes later, he walked around the back of the lodge to where Val was tethered to a pine tree. The animal had a cozy spot, hidden from prying eyes, between Bree’s lodge room and the back of the forest. Plus Val had plenty of grass and brush to munch on.

Bree was scratching Val’s head, which looked as big as Bree’s whole torso, while she talked to the animal.

“It’s gonna be okay, Hot Stuff. You ’n’ me, we’re gonna get back home today. Maybe I didn’t get to Europe, but that’ll come in time.” She rubbed the bull’s back. “After what you’ve been through, we need to get you home where you can eat all the oats and grass you want in Mr. Connors’s field. Meanwhile, I’ll contact Bovine Best, clear up any confusion over the ’implied contract’ fracas, see if they’re still interested in purchasing you…” She sniffed.

Bree, crying?

Kirk stood, unsure what to do. Should he leave? Let her spend a few moments alone with her animal?

But just as he half turned to go, Bree said sweetly, “Mornin’.”

He turned back. “Good morning.” He observed how the sunlight played tricks with her hair, highlighting strands of gold and maroon in those rich brown curls. Just like Bree, he thought, seeming so solid and strong on the outside, yet inside, harboring such sweet, tender secrets.

“Val, lookee who’s visiting. Our hero, Kirk,” she said in that velvety tone that twisted Kirk’s heart. “Remember how he picked us up last night? Thanks to him, you had this safe, comfortable spot to sleep…and I had a safe, comfortable bed. Come on, let’s say ‘thank you’ to this nice man.”

“Oh, that’s quite all right,” Kirk said, holding up both hands.

But Bree just giggled, a fun, girlish sound that sent a crazy thrill zigzagging through him. “Come on,” she coaxed, “let Val thank you.” She crooked her finger at Kirk in a come-here gesture, those dimples in her cheeks turning him to putty.

He stepped forward, ready to do her bidding.

“Scratch him here,” Bree said softly, taking Kirk’s hand and placing it on a section of coarse fur between Val’s horns.

Kirk tried to concentrate on the scratching, but he was far more aware of the warmth and softness of Bree’s hands. And her fingers. So long, they didn’t just interlace with his fingers, they coiled around them. Even better, he liked how their fingers moved in tandem. So natural, as though they’d done this a hundred times before.

For the next few minutes, he and Bree stood side by side, scratching and stroking Val’s head. Feeling and stroking each other’s hands, accidentally of course.

After a few minutes of bull-loving, Kirk turned to Bree. “I told Alicia I’d call her this morning, let her know when I expected to be in—”

“She must be worried about you, running out of gas ’n’ all.”

“Actually, Alicia doesn’t worry about things like that.” She worried if Kirk would be late. Or not dressed properly. Or had lost his way.

Bree looked at Kirk, her eyes filled with something he couldn’t decipher.

He meant to turn and go, but he wanted a few more moments to see what sunlight did to Bree’s hair, how her skin glowed in the fresh air, the way her lips curved when she spoke. And if he was lucky, maybe he’d get another flash of those killer dimples.

They stood so close, he could almost sense her heat, almost hear her beating heart. And he ached to know how it would feel to take her into his arms, hold her close, mold her body to his…

Something nudged him from behind.

He looked over his shoulder at Val’s massive head, rubbing against his back.

“He likes you,” said Bree.

“Maybe he does, but I’m worried about those horns of his…”

Bree giggled. “Trust me. He wouldn’t hurt you with those. He’s just nudging you with his nose, checking you out.”

“Gotta call Alicia,” Kirk said quickly, backing off. He didn’t mind scratching a bull, but being nudged by one was a far different matter. Even Tarl Cabot would agree, Kirk was sure of it.

A few minutes later, Bree walked back into her room to find Kirk on the phone. It occurred to her he could have used the phone in his room, but no big deal. Nobody in Chugwater locked their doors, so people were always coming in and out of each other’s houses…finding Kirk here was almost like being home.

And for a moment, she missed being home. Home, the very place she swore she was so anxious to escape. How many times had she said she wanted to split Chugwater and see the big world? Yet sometimes…at crazy moments like this…she couldn’t help but wonder again if fulfilling one’s dreams was worth losing one’s roots.

“Yes, dear, I’ll call you from the gas station so you’ll know when I’m leaving,” Kirk said. “No, I won’t be late.”

Wow. Does his fiancée always need to know his every move? Maybe most married people were like that. Just another reason why Bree had zero desire to settle down. She wanted the free life, no constraints, not having to answer to anyone.

“What?” Kirk suddenly said, straightening. “Oh, no.” He dropped his head in his hand. “Poor Robbie. What happened?” Pause. “Broke his what?” Pause. “That’s called a femur, not a female bone. Alicia, stop fretting. So my best man is holed up in an L.A. hospital and can’t make the wedding. Worse things in the world have happened. What’s important is that Robbie is okay.” He looked up at Bree. “Look, I need to go.” Pause. “Me, too. Yes, dear.” He hung up.

“Sorry to hear about your best man,” said Bree.

“Broke his leg doing some fool stunt at a Raiders game.” Kirk looked at Bree. “Thanks for your good wishes. I suppose Alicia feels bad about Robbie’s health, too, but she’s more concerned with the wedding plans…” His voice trailed off.

“Well,” said Bree, trying to alleviate the gloom that had suddenly settled over the room. “It’s almost nine. If we get gas now, we can get to Denver by ten or eleven, then you said your friend George can help Val and me get to Chugwater—which means we’ll be out of your hair and you can proceed to do all that fun getting-married stuff!”

Kirk stood, giving her a look that seemed almost sad.

“No need to check if the coast is clear,” he finally said. “Even if someone sees us walking a bull, they’ll just think they’re having a sixties flashback.”

“But it’s the twenty-first century.”

“Not in Nederland. Here, the sixties live eternal. Let me get my keys…”

He pulled them out of his shirt pocket. “Let me check how much cash I have for gas…” He patted his back jeans pocket. “Funny, my wallet’s missing…” He looked around the room. “See it anywhere?”

Bree jerked her gaze out the window, fighting a rush of dread. “Val,” she whispered.

“What?” said Kirk.

“Val was nudging you.”

“Yes. And?”

“And…” Bree swallowed, hard. “He may have nudged things out of your pocket and…”

“And…what?”

“And…snacked on them.”

Kirk stared at her, realization dawning in his eyes. “You mean…your bull…might have eaten what was in my back pocket?” Kirk shook his head slowly, back and forth. “My wallet, my credit cards, my cash…”

Bree blinked rapidly. “I’m sorry. Really, really, sorry.”

Kirk held up a hand, palm out. “Let’s look at the problem, put together the pieces.” He stared into the distance for a moment. “We can coast into town because the road is downhill into Nederland, but I’ll have to call Alicia and ask her to wire money or maybe contact one of her wealthy friends in the area who can give us a loan…”

“Sounds like a plan,” Bree said encouragingly.

“Yes, a plan that includes Alicia getting royally…” He groaned again. “If Alicia finds out I spent the night with…” He flashed Bree a look.

“Are you upset because Alicia will think we slept together?”

He nodded.

“So it’s in your better interest if we can get money without Alicia knowing,” said Bree. She mulled it over for a moment. “Would thirty, maybe forty dollars be enough to fill that gas tank?”

“To get to Denver, we could maybe do it on fifteen, twenty.”

“Great!” Bree’s eyes twinkled. “I have the solution!” She rolled back her shoulders, a big proud smile creasing her face. “We’ll coast into town, find a bar and…”

Kirk waited. “And…what?”

Bree grinned gleefully. “I’ll strip!”

5

“STRIP?”

It was the first word Kirk had said after his and Bree’s trek, with Val in tow, down the road from the Sundance Lodge to where they’d left the van the night before. He hadn’t talked the entire time, not even as they helped Val into the back of the van. But now that he and Bree were again sitting in the front seat, about to coast into Nederland, he was ready again to broach the subject of stripping.

“Yes, strip,” Bree said sweetly, as though she were talking about butterflies fluttering about flowers and not naked bodies gyrating on tabletops. “Heck, my best girlfriend did it in a coffee shop outside Butte, Montana, last summer and made a fast twenty dollars…enough to buy a bus ticket home.”

“Coffee shop? I thought places like that served coffee and doughnuts, not naked bodies.”

Naked. He shouldn’t have gone there. His mind started reeling with the sneak peek he’d gotten through those overstretched, ultrasheer pink undies.

Bree made an exasperated sound. “You know, being naked is not a big deal, not to a country girl anyway. When you think about it, we all strip every single night of our lives. So, that’s all I’m going to do. Strip like I would for bed. Well, with a little dancing thrown in.”

“Stripping,” he said, his voice cracking, “is a…sexual act.”

“Sexual?” She mulled that over. “Yeah, under the right circumstances, you’re correct. But nobody’s going to touch me. Well, except to shove money down my—”

“This conversation is officially over.” Kirk thrust the gearshift into neutral. Avoiding eye contact with Bree, he more or less announced to Val, whose head hung partially over the front seat, “I’m going to jump out, get this baby rolling, then we’ll coast into Nederland and figure out…”

Hell, he didn’t know what to figure out. He had a wanna-be stripper, a buddy bull and a de-gassed van on his hands and no time to properly disassemble and analyze this problem to see the big picture.

This was a Tarl Cabot moment. Time for action, not thoughts and words.

He opened his door, hopped out, and holding onto the door, jogged a few feet to give the van some momentum. As the vehicle began rolling downhill, Kirk leaped back inside, slammed shut his door, and held the thought that at least the humans in the van were still clothed, for the time being…

Ten minutes later, after a very silent ride downhill on the narrow mountain highway 119, the van slowly coasted into a gas station in Nederland.

Kirk glided across the asphalt to a phone booth and stepped on the brakes. The van stopped. There was no way they’d start again without a tow truck or gasoline…and at the moment, he had no means to obtain either.

“Well,” he said, shoving the gear into Park, “time to call the princess.” He started to open his door when Bree grabbed his arm.

“Look,” she said, not sure exactly what to say, but his calling Alicia didn’t seem the better of any options. “Let’s talk for just a minute, okay?”

Kirk shot her a glum look. “One minute.”

“Remember last night when I walked in front of you in my undies and T-shirt?”

He made a strangled sound, his face turning a ruddy color.

“Well,” continued Bree, talking faster, not wanting to waste even a second of her minute. “That’s more than I wear when I go swimming at Mr. Connors’s lake.”

Kirk made another strangled sound.

“I’m not hung up on being natural.”

“Stripping isn’t natural,” he said in a strained voice.

“It isn’t? Then what do you call it when you take off your clothes at night?”

He cleared his throat. “We’ve already had this discussion.”

“Humor me. What do you call it?”

“I call it taking off my clothes.”

“Same thing.”

Kirk released a tormented breath. “No, it’s not. When I take off my clothes at night, I don’t do it to entice women.”

“Not even Alicia?”

He shot Bree a look. “That’s personal, but for the sake of argument, I don’t strip to entice my fiancée.”

“What a shame…”

“Minute’s up!” Kirk started to get out.

“Wait!”

He looked over his shoulder at Bree, cocking an eyebrow.

“Look,” she said, pleading, “I don’t want Alicia driving up here and finding you with me and Val.” Bree was worried about Kirk and some flying princess fur, but even more than that, Bree was worried sick that someone from the “big city” would have seen her face splashed on TV. Maybe funky mountain people didn’t watch TV, or maybe they thought splashing faces on TV was a groovy sixties thing, but Princess Alicia, after finding her man with another woman, might do something very unprincess-like and turn Bree and Val over to the police.

Which was a wild card, because Bree still wasn’t absolutely certain that there were no “bad cops” in on the bull scam. Surely no Nederland police were…but if they called in “the girl and the bull” over some network-wide police radio…and some bad cops heard about it and pinpointed their location in this mountain town…

“So,” she said, fighting the urge to give in to an utterly un-Bree-like hysterical moment, “let’s you and me cut a deal. Give me ten minutes in a bar. If I don’t have gas money after that, you can call Alicia.”

Kirk flashed her a no-way look.

“Ten minutes!” she urged, “could mean money for gas, a drive to Denver where your pal will give me a lift to Chugwater. And ta da! I’m out of your hair and you’re at the rehearsal dinner. Easy. Simple.”

Bree looked around outside. “Plus, this is a pretty little mountain community, not some hole-in-the-wall. And it’s barely, what, ten in the morning? Sleazy types don’t go into bars at this time in the morning—”

“How do you know?”

“I’m from Chugwater, population two hundred. Well, almost. What you find in a small-town bar at this time in the morning are some wholesome, good ol’ boy cowboys who’re drinking coffee, a beer maybe, and they’d have one hell of a fun time throwing a few bills at a good ol’ country girl kicking up some hotcha.”

Kirk frowned, assimilating the string of words into some kind of sensible statement. After a moment, he repeated slowly, “…one hell of a fun time…throwing a few bills…at a good ol’ country girl kicking up some hotcha?”

“Heck, this whole stripping thing is more a joke than a problem. And best of all, Princess Alicia would never know you’d spent the night before your wedding rehearsal dinner sleeping in a motel room with another woman.”

Kirk leveled her a look. “That’s low.”

“But truthful.”

“You’re blackmailing me.”

“Yep, guess I am.”

He stared out his driver’s-side window at a gas station attendant dressed in a tie-dyed shirt with the words Buy Hemp, Be Free written in loopy purple script across the back.

“Could be there aren’t even cowboys in this town,” Kirk murmured. “You might be stripping for some hemp-loving Dead Heads.”

“What?”

Kirk stared off into the distance, imagining the days, weeks, months of listening to Alicia whine about his “Nederland fling” with another woman.

“Okay,” he finally said, sounding anything but okay. “You can attempt this cockamamy strip thing for ten minutes tops on the condition I’m sitting front row, right where I can protect you.”

Bree’s heart swelled a little at the thought of Kirk playing the protector. At six foot, she’d never had any guy play protector. If anything, guys made jokes about her height or how she could protect them.

But not Kirk Dunmore. It was as though he ignored the obvious and saw right through to her true self. That she was a little scared, a little ballsy and willing to take a risk. And suddenly she felt even braver, knowing he’d be right there, watching out for her.

“Sure,” she said softly. “You can sit front row.”

“And nobody touches you.”

She nodded her head in agreement.

“And you only strip down to…” His eyes grazed over her body, his face turning that ruddy color again. “…to, uh, your pink undies and T-shirt.”

She took a moment to ponder that. “Undies.”

“And T-shirt.”

“No, T-shirt goes, too.”

“Stays. You don’t wear a bra under that thing.”

She fought the urge to smile. “So you noticed?”

“T-shirt stays,” he repeated emphatically.

“Goes,” she said authoritatively, defying him to one-up her again. “If I haven’t made at least twenty bucks by that point.”

He stared at the sky as though the answer lay somewhere in the clouds. “Deal,” he finally muttered, adding something under his breath about not believing he’d just negotiated a stripping contract.

TEN MINUTES LATER, they walked to the front door of a wooden storefront building that advertised pool, grub and beer. Mainly beer. A wooden sign, hung crookedly over the front door, said Neder-Brewsky’s.

“This is it,” said Bree.

“I know,” mumbled Kirk, who’d picked this bar after doing a quick reconnaissance around the area surrounding the gas station. He’d thought just he and Bree would jog down the back alley from the gas station to this bar, slip in the back door, but no. She’d insisted they slip Val down the alley, too, because she didn’t want him cooped up in the van close to a busy street.

Kirk had reminded her this was only going to be ten minutes.

Bree had countered, in that authoritative voice she got when determined to get her way, that if a group of Harley partyers roared into town, Val might get spooked and kick his way out of a certain superfancy van.

So, just as she’d won the T-shirt argument, she won this Val argument, too.

After they’d safely tied Val to a fence behind Neder-Brewsky’s, where the bull was nicely concealed, Kirk and Bree entered the bar.

It was mostly dark with some hanging lights positioned over several pool tables. More light was emitted by a variety of neon beer signs placed randomly around the room. A group of people, all wearing cowboy hats, sat at the end of the bar. Some guy with braids, wearing what Kirk had decided was the regulation Nederland tie-dyed T-shirt, was wiping glasses behind the bar.

“Be right back,” Bree whispered.

Kirk grabbed her forearm before she took off, images of her wildly ripping off her clothes tearing through his mind. “First, tell me exactly what you’re doing.” He closed his eyes, then reopened them. “Okay, okay, I know what you’re doing, but can we please discuss the plan?” Did this girl ever weigh options, prioritize her actions?

“Plan?” She sighed heavily and brushed his gripping hand off her forearm. “I’m gonna tell the bartender what I’m up to, offer him a kickback—”

“Kickback? Good God, we’re sounding like goons doing a shady deal.”

Bree rolled her eyes. “You are such a worrywart. Do you do that with your fossils, too?”

“Fossils are a lot different than stripping.”

“Don’t you dust them off, check them out, put them on display?” Observing Kirk’s openmouthed, silent response, Bree winked and whispered, “Be right back.”

He remained standing in place, his feet bolted to the floor, stunned by Bree’s comment…and her determination to play stripper. He’d had plenty of buddies crow about their trips to Vegas and how they threw wads of bills at strippers and lap dancers as though doing so earned them macho badges of honor. Kirk had always thought it ludicrous to pay a woman to expose herself…and told his buddies in so many words that only Neanderthals—or in this case, Nederthalls—paid for false love or lust. Real men never paid because they earned a lady’s gifts.

Yet here he was, damn near playing pimp for a sweet country girl!

He took a step forward, ready to tell Bree to can the plan, but she was already leaning way over the bar, her firm, blue-jeaned bottom seductively outlined in neon red from one of the beer signs, while she whispered something to the bartender.

The bartender looked over at Kirk, back to Bree, and nodded.

Good God. She’d just negotiated herself a gig as a ten-minute stripper. This woman could probably negotiate anything.

Bree waved Kirk over.

He strode toward her, a hundred thoughts crowding his mind. Okay, okay, she was doing it, but looking around, there were only a few cowboys at the bar, some drinking coffee, some beer—just as Bree had said. And this early in the morning, he seriously doubted anyone would be soused and do something stupid.

A muscle twitched in his jaw. But if they did, Kirk would deck the sorry sonofa—

Bree was grinning like a schoolgirl, twiddling her fingers at Kirk as though this were some kind of talent show tryout. She pointed to a stool, indicating he should sit there.

He straddled it, glaring at the backs of the cowboys sitting several feet away.

“You want somethin’ to drink?” the bartender asked.

“Yeah,” Kirk answered in a low, mean voice he didn’t even recognize. “Cola. With lots of ice in case I need to toss it at someone and cool them down.”

The bartender did a double take. “Whatever, dude.”

The bartender set the drink in front of Kirk, then put on some tearjerky country song with a guy crooning forlornly about the beautiful girl he’d left behind.

Kirk tried not to listen to the words—but they seeped through his brain and settled right on his heart. As the guy bemoaned losing the girl of his dreams, analytical, pragmatic—and since he’d walked into this place, badass macho—Kirk Dunmore realized he was getting a little choked up.

Because the words made him think of Bree.

Soon she’d be part of his past, just the memory of a naturally beautiful girl he left behind…and in his gut, he knew he’d always think of her, always wonder about her, always hope her life had turned out happy…

His thoughts ground to a halt when Bree jumped up on the bar and started doing what he could only describe as a hopping dance step.

Hopping?

He winced as she did a little turn in those boots, half clog, half bunny hop, while yanking and tugging her blue-and-white checkered shirt out of the waistband of her jeans.

Is this how she undressed at night? It looked more like a battle than an unveiling.

Someone laughed.

A vein throbbed in his temple. It was one thing for him to wince at Bree’s bunny hop, but no man was going to make fun of her!

Another laugh. But this one sounded more like a raspy giggle.

Kirk felt the hairs bristle on the back of his neck as he realized that raspy giggle was…female laughter.

He squinted at the group gathered at the end of the bar. When he’d first walked in, before his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, he’d assumed the group to be cowboys.

But now that he could see better, he recognized them to be…

Five or six crusty old cowgirls.

One of them looked over her shoulder, her face tan and weathered. Wisps of white hair fluttered from underneath a Stetson that had a peacock feather stuck in the headband.

She smiled; one of her teeth was missing.

Being a polite sort of guy, he smiled back.

She winked. And nudged one of her cronies, who looked over at Kirk.

Bree, oblivious to the little drama taking place beneath her on the bar stools, was hopping her heart out on the bar, struggling to get her partially unbuttoned shirt over her head, though it seemed to have gotten stuck somewhere between her chin and her nose.

The only person watching her was the bartender, who was shaking his head as he wiped his glasses.

Meanwhile, the entire group of toughened cowgirls were eyeing Kirk as though he were a side of steak. The one who’d first eyed him reached deep into her well-worn jeans pocket and extracted something. Grinning that missing-tooth grin, she waved a bill at him.

Another pulled out a bill, tonguing a toothpick between her lips. “I’ll add a five to her five, sugar boy,” she said in a gravelly voice, “if you’ll get up there instead.”

Sugar boy?

Bree, who’d finally wrestled the shirt off and could see what was happening, stopped her hopping. “Get the hell up here!” she yelled at Kirk. “We’re up to ten dollars and counting!”

The group of cowgirls whistled and clapped, more of them waving bills at him.

Kirk looked at Bree, giving his head a shake. He was a scientist, not a stripper, and was about to say as much when Bree gave him the evil eye and mouthed “Princess Alicia.”

He stomach plummeted. He looked again at the senior-citizen cowgirls, who were waving so much money, he could almost feel the breeze.

Bree, in her jeans and pink T-shirt, with that blue-and-white checkered shirt tossed boldly over one shoulder, stood wide-legged on the bar and gestured broadly to Kirk. “Ladies,” she said loudly, “may I introduce Doctor ‘Feelgood’ Kirk, whose moves can cure your ills for just a few bills.”

If Bree hadn’t stunned him before, she did now. At what point did she evolve from good ol’ country girl to stripper-carnival-barker?

The cowgirls started whooping even louder. “I wanna feel real good, Dr. Feelgood!” one yelled.

Another stood and did an up-and-down shoulder-shimmy, exposing a flash of massive cleavage that put the fear of God into Kirk.

Over the din of hollering cowgirls, Bree yelled at the bartender, “Put on some music! This man’s gonna get down!”

Get down?

Next thing he knew, the frenzied mass of senior citizens had half pushed, half lifted him onto the bar. Damn, who would have thought women that age were so strong?

Soothing, soulful music began playing. A Beatles tune about times of trouble.

Oh, Kirk could relate to the words of “Let It Be.” Odd the tie-dyed bartender hadn’t put on “Truckin”’ or some other Grateful Dead song. Maybe there were rival factions in Nederland between lovers of the Dead and of the Beatles.

“Hell, no!” yelled a wizened cowgirl. “Put on some hot Wynonna!”

The bartender, looking bored, ambled over to the CD player while Paul crooned, “Let it be, let it be.”

Let it Bree, thought Kirk, wondering how in the hell she’d gotten him into this mess. New music started playing. A woman’s husky, sultry voice oozing heat and sin. Had to be Wynonna, whoever she was. But if he didn’t know, these old gals certainly did. They began thumping the bar in time to the music, whistling and whooping at him to strut his stuff.

He glanced at Bree. She had to put a stop to this nonsense.

But no, she was now straddling the same bar stool he’d just been at, thumping and whistling and whooping just like the rest of the tribe.

Traitor.

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