The Rancher's Wedding - Diana Palmer Page 0,1
big man in denim and a shepherd’s coat with a black Stetson slanted over one eye and big boots peering out from under thick denim jeans stood looking at her incredulously.
“Do you . . . work here?” she asked, her teeth chattering as she shivered.
“Sort of. What are you doing?” he asked in a deep, amused voice.
“Picketing! The man . . . who owns this place . . . oppresses poor chickens!”
He blinked. “Chickens?”
“In his chicken houses,” she explained. She pulled her useless coat closer. She didn’t even have a cap on her long reddish-gold hair. Her blue eyes met his shaded ones. She wondered idly what color his eyes were, because they weren’t visible under the brim of his hat. “He tortures chickens,” she continued. “He keeps the lights on all the time so the poor creatures will lay eggs! It’s an abomination!”
He pursed sensuous lips and cocked his head at her. “Chicken houses,” he said, nodding.
“That’s right.”
“Who sent you?”
She blinked. “Nobody sent me. This cowboy in the restaurant where I work said a whole group was coming to picket and he invited me, too. He’s nice. His name is Cary.”
“Cary.” Now he looked very amused. “Tall guy, black hair, scar on his lip . . . ?”
“Well, yes,” she said.
He chuckled. “He’s my cousin. I gave him the scar on his lip.”
Her eyebrows raised. “Your cousin?”
“Yes. And he’s known for practical jokes. Although this one is low, even for him,” he added, studying her. “Come with me. You’ll freeze to death in this weather.” He looked around. “You didn’t drive here?”
“My dad brought me. Can I see the chicken houses, if I go with you?” she asked, trying to sound belligerent.
He smiled. “Sure. Come on.”
She put her sign in the back seat—the letters on it were faded because it was cardboard. She got in beside the man and automatically fastened her seat belt. It was a nice vehicle. Big and fancy, with heated seats and powered windows and a CD player built into the dash.
“This is great,” she remarked.
“It’s functional,” he replied. He wheeled the vehicle around and headed it down the ranch road. “You got a name?” he asked.
“Oh. I’m Cassie,” she said. “Cassie Reed.” She studied him. He had a handsome face, if a little rugged. Sensuous mouth. Long nose. Square jaw. “Who are you?”
“You can call me JL,” he offered.
“This is a big place,” she remarked as he sped down the road.
“Thousands of acres,” he agreed. “Plus a lot of leased government land for grazing. It takes a lot of cowboys to keep it going.”
“Does Cary work for you?”
He laughed. “He does his best not to work at all,” he said. “Mostly he goofs off and lies to people.”
“Lies to people?”
He slowed as they approached a sprawling brick house sitting in the middle of other widely spaced buildings, including a barn, a stable, a silo, and a metal equipment shed far bigger than the house Cassie and her father lived in.
She looked around, frowning. “Where are the chicken houses?” she asked, surprised.
He chuckled as he pulled up the drive toward the house. “I don’t keep chickens,” he said. “I run purebred Black Angus cattle.”
“But Cary said—” she began.
“Cary was pulling your leg,” he assured her.
“How do you know that?”
“Because this is my ranch,” he replied. “I’m JL Denton.”
She ground her teeth together. She was embarrassed. “Why?” she asked miserably, pushing back a scrap of drenched red hair. “Why would he do that to me?”
“Cary likes a practical joke,” he said. He was recalling another of his cousin’s jokes, even less funny than this one was. Cary would spill his guts for enough drinks, and an unscrupulous woman had plied him with alcohol to find out enough about JL to come on to him in a big way.
JL had thought he’d found the perfect woman. She seemed to be exactly like him in attitude and politics, likes and dislikes, everything. She had taken him almost to the brink of marriage, in fact, until he heard what she’d said to someone on her cell phone when she hadn’t known his cousin Cary was listening.
Cary was heartbroken to tell him about it. He said she was telling a friend that she’d found this reclusive rich rancher, and he was dumb enough to accept her pretense as fact. She’d learned enough about him to mirror his thoughts, and now he was going to marry her and she’d have everything she wanted. She wouldn’t stay on this dumpy ranch for