dollars, she was probably already on a bus headed to Boston.
Jess looked out the window, breathing the tunnel exhaust. Good thing, then, that in two hours, she’d be thirty thousand feet in the air, headed to Montana.
Let Roxie try to find her there.
—
“Okay, look to your left.” Kyla pointed toward the stable as she adjusted her camera later that afternoon. “And stop growling at me. Grumpy cowboys do not sell calendars, Cole.”
“Don’t they have models who do this kind of thing?”
“Yes, but they’re not authentic. You guys are the real deal.”
Cole raised his eyebrows. “The real deal is sweat and dirt and stink.”
“We’re going for pseudo real deal, then. Dirt and stink don’t sell calendars, either.” She motioned at him again. “Lift the brim of your hat up a little, okay? Your eyes are in shadow.”
“Kyla.”
“No growling.”
He raised his hat the obligatory half-inch, and of course as he did, Decker strolled out of the barn.
“Lookin’ good, Cole. Gonna get a little scratchy with those buttons undone, though, don’t you think?”
“Shut up, Decker. Don’t get any horse shit on those fancy shoes.” He looked toward Kyla. “Are we done here yet?”
“I was actually hoping to get a few more in the—”
“Sorry. Union rules. I can only be photographed for an hour a day.”
“Just a few more?”
Cole started doing up his buttons. “I have work to do, Kyla. Go play shutterbug with somebody else for a while, wouldja?”
Christ. Stupid calendar. Real cowboys didn’t run around with their shirts open, aiming for the best light so their eyes wouldn’t be in—shadow. He shivered. At least she hadn’t suggested waxing.
“You could do worse, you know.” Decker grinned as he watched Kyla walk back up to the main lodge. “Maybe she can post those pics online or something. Might help you get a date for Daniel and Hayley’s wedding.”
Cole executed a middle-finger salute, then leaned down to pick up a rope Kyla’d insisted on using for a prop. “Don’t need a date. We have any early guests coming in today so I can be very, very busy next time she comes around with that damn camera?”
“Just Jess.”
Cole stopped coiling the rope. “Oh. Right.”
“Trying to make like you forgot? I’ll pretend I haven’t seen you check your watch about eighty times today.” Decker laughed. “Gonna get up the nerve to actually take her out while she’s here this time?”
“I’ve got plenty of nerve.”
“Right. She’s been out here three times now, and every single time, you’re like a parched man looking at a desert mirage, but—”
“Shut up. I’m hardly—parched.”
Decker eyed him in that way he had, the look that stripped the lies right off your face and made you tell the truth whether you wanted to or not. “I don’t know. Word in the bunkhouse is that your rep in town is getting a little rusty.”
“I’m not—rusty. And we don’t have a damn bunkhouse.”
“Want to know what I think?”
“No.”
“I think ever since you met Jess, you can’t help but compare everybody to her. And nobody quite measures up.”
Exactly. “Not true.”
“Well, true or not, she’ll be here by dinnertime. Kyla’s leaving for the airport in a while to get her.”
Cole rolled his eyes. It wasn’t like he’d been counting the days or anything. Not like he’d gotten a haircut yesterday or had thoroughly checked out Jess’s cabin this morning to be sure it was shipshape and ready for her.
He shook his head, trying to get visions of Jess’s long dark hair and deep brown eyes out of his brain. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around Daniel and Hayley getting married in a week. I feel like we live and breathe weddings around here these days.”
“We’re gonna have a lot more if Kyla’s Bridal Bliss package thing works out.”
“I suppose that means we’d better finish the spa so she can start selling the packages.” Cole shook his head. How in the world had their working ranch become a wedding-slash-spa-slash-getaway place? “Your woman makes a hell of a lot of work for us, you know.”
Decker laughed. “She makes a hell of a lot of money for us, too. I think the only reason she’s not haranguing us to get the spa done is she’s hoping Jess will help with the design. I have a feeling she’s going to dangle it out as a carrot to get Jess to stay out here.”
“Out here out here? Like, for good?”
“Yep.” Decker nodded. “She’s been planting seeds for months. Getting Hayley to move to Montana got her all puffed up about her