Love and a Blue-Eyed Cowboy

  Love and a Blue-Eyed Cowboy is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A Loveswept eBook Edition

  Copyright © 1992 by Sandra Chastain

  Excerpt from The Reluctant Countess by Wendy Vella copyright © 2013 by Wendy Vella.

  Excerpt from Wild Rain by Donna Kauffman copyright © 1995 by Donna Kauffman.

  Excerpt from Silk on the Skin by Linda Cajio copyright © 1988 by Linda Cajio.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Love and a Blue-Eyed Cowboy was originally published in paperback by Loveswept, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. in 1992.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-54198-7

  www.ReadLoveSwept.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  The Editor’s Corner

  Excerpt from Wendy Vella’s The Reluctant Countess

  Excerpt from Donna Kauffman’s Wild Rain

  Excerpt from Linda Cajio’s Silk on the Skin

  One

  The woman was riding a pink bicycle, for Pete’s sake, heading toward a gang of the toughest motorcycle buffs since the Hell’s Angels.

  Hunter Kincaid caught his breath, then let out a sigh of relief as he watched her pedal past the entrance to the motorcycle dealership. He leaned against a concrete pylon, adjusted his aviator sunglasses, and let his gaze slide back across the mass of humanity. They reminded him of buzzards circling a fresh road kill.

  Banners strung across the parking area announced the scavenger hunt being held by the manufacturer of the new Panther Motorcycle as part of an introductory advertising campaign. But the fifty thousand dollars in prize money didn’t entirely account for the crowd. This crew of road hogs would have been there for the prize of a new Panther cycle alone, Hunter surmised.

  The same scenario was taking place in six other towns in the country. Fourteen teams of one man and one woman were to be selected in each area. A couple of hundred wide-eyed innocents mixed uneasily with the tough guys waiting for the drawing to select the teams to begin. Though he’d ridden with the best of them, even Hunter had never seen so much leather and so many tattoos in one place.

  Mary Poppins on a pink bicycle didn’t fit into that crowd.

  Idly, Hunter chewed on a small brown cigar and wondered what had happened to her. He bent his knee and felt the ever-present ache in his lower back as he propped his foot against the concrete. He was tired of listening to the president of Panther, Inc., rave over the virtues of the motorcycle.

  His gaze was drawn back to the sidewalk in search of the pink bicycle and its rider.

  Across the parking area, Fortune Dagosta parked her bicycle in a stand of pines and hurried down the grass embankment, afraid they’d already started calling names. She’d learned only an hour earlier that Joe had filled out an entry form in her name. She was late. She was always late. Only this time she couldn’t afford to be.

  Joe, the oldest member of the group of orphans and runaways she’d taken in, had been gone when she’d awakened. But his note, the note she’d found pinned to her purse, had explained that when the organizers of the scavenger hunt called out her name, she had to be there, or she’d lose her chance at winning fifty thousand dollars. That was all she knew. She’d worry about the details later.

  The temperature in Cordele, Georgia, was at least 95 degrees, and the concrete at two o’clock in the afternoon was hot enough to fry eggs on.

  Fortune danced barefoot across the parking area as she skirted the crowd, trying to get closer to the platform. She couldn’t imagine what had happened to her shoes. Misplacing things was nothing new to her, but she didn’t want to think that Joe’s being gone had anything to do with her missing tennis shoes. Still, she had a bad feeling about the connection.

  The man standing at the bottom of the steps in the shadow of the second-story entrance to the building was out of Fortune’s line of vision. She didn’t see him grind out the cigar, flicking the hot ashes across the pavement. She only felt the fire burning the bottom of her left foot.

  “Holy hell! I’m branded!” She let out a more vivid oath and hopped around, holding her injured foot crossed over her upper thigh.

  Hunter Kincaid, leaning against the building, took a step toward her and shook his head. “That’s not all you’re going to be if you don’t put on some shoes.”

  For the briefest moment their gazes met, and he felt an unexpected intensity of feeling arc between them. He couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from her face, a pert face with wide lips that were parted, not in anticipation of a kiss, but in fury.

  “Well, thank you very much for your concern, Mr. Wise Guy.” She glanced down at the ground, catching sight of the scattered ashes and the still-smoking cigar butt. “I don’t suppose you know who threw that down.”

  “I did.”

  Fortune slowed her hopping and glared at the man who was frowning at her. His clothes were trendy and expensive. He hadn’t pulled his designer jeans from the throwaway bag at the thrift shop. The boots certainly weren’t hand-me-downs either. They were snakeskin probably, and the skin hadn’t been long off the snake.

  If that weren’t enough, he was wearing a cowboy hat with a band that matched his boots. The Stetson was pushed to the back of his head, revealing a mass of sun-streaked blond hair. For a moment she had an insane urge to run her fingers through his thick locks. Yep, this sidewalk cowboy was well-heeled and full of himself, she determined, and runaway-from-home-with good-looking.

  So what if he did set off skyrockets in her stomach? she told herself. What gave him the right to pollute the earth and contaminate the ground where innocent people could blister their feet? He didn’t have to lay down a bed of fire to burn her; he was roasting her with the intensity of his gaze.

  “You did that? Why?”

  “Well, I didn’t expect company,” said Hunter, not caring for the sudden coil of heat that fired in his lower body. The woman probably didn’t weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. Sizzling dark eyes glared at him as if he were the enemy. His first impression of her as a Sesame Street follower ended when he glimpsed those flashing black eyes. Where she belonged was in some MTV rock video.

  Except for the freckles, he thought, the freckles didn’t fit the punk image. They weren’t covered with makeup. They were just there, a peach-color scattering of freckles below the darkest, most expressive eyes he’d ever seen—eyes that were exploding with pent-up anger. She seemed as confused over what was happening as he, but while she covered her uncertainty with fury, he covered his with stoic indifference. Hunter decided that they were both very good at shielding their emotions.

  Decked out in jeans with no knees and a hairdo that resembled a frightened porcupine, she stood her ground. Her looks matched her personality—outrageous. Normally, he’d just walk away, but something about those freckles challenged him. And being challenged by a freckle-faced, fire-breathing pixie was a welcome change from dealing with the perky, charming “And how are we feeling today, Mr. Kincaid?” attitude of the nurses who’d driven him mad for the last twelve weeks.

  The
strange cut of her short, spiked hairdo and the Down with the Establishment on her T-shirt told Hunter that he was doing battle with a woman who had no qualms about taking on causes, and at the moment the cause was him. She was bound to be one of those fanatics who didn’t eat meat and would attack him for contaminating her airspace.

  Still, he shouldn’t have wounded her. He was out of practice with apologies, but he was about to try when she railed at him.

  “Okay, Mr. Big Shot. You’ve made your statement. It’s your space, and I invaded it. You don’t care much about other people, do you?”

  Fortune didn’t know why she was behaving so badly. Normally, she was easygoing. It had to be this man who gave the impression of a powder keg, contained but ready to explode at any minute, who forced her to act so out of character.

  “Not much,” he drawled, pleased to see her register shock at his honesty. “I’ve found the feeling pretty much mutual. Are you always this prickly?”

  Fortune’s feet really hurt now, both of them. The sun had cooked the sidewalk to a red-hot intensity. She glanced around, seeking shade. There was none.

  “I’m not prickly. I’m in pain. The least you could do is step aside and let me share your shade,” she said. “I mean, I think you owe it to me since you re responsible for my injury.”

  “Certainly.” Hunter stepped sideways, allowing Fortune to move into the small shady space. They were too close, he thought. He could smell an elusive floral scent, like wildflowers in the spring.

  Damn, he must not be as strong as he’d thought. Maybe all those weeks in bed had affected his mind. Here he was thinking of hidden meadows and wood sprites, sprites with bare feet and freckles. He stood there for a moment, then said, “I’m sorry that you were burned.”

  “It’s my fault, actually. I ought not to be barefoot, but you ought not to be smoking. Both things are bad for the health, cowboy.”

  Her tongue slipped out from between her lips, painting them with moisture in the heat. As Hunter stared down at her, he had the absurd desire to follow the path her tongue had taken with his own.

  Maybe it was the heat that was making him crazy. He shook his head, trying to focus on his reason for being there, the chance at a spot on the scavenger-hunt team.

  “The name’s Hunter, and do you always tell other people what they should do?”

  “Yes.” She glanced up at him, her eyes bright with merriment. “Hmmm, Hunter. As in bounty hunter?”

  “I’ve been called that.”

  The name fit. “Do you take your victims back alive?”

  “I haven’t lately.”

  “That’s about what I thought.” She pulled her shirttail down and dusted off the bottom of her foot, muttering under her breath, “There was a young woman with bare feet, who burned them—bleep, bleep. The devil from hell, gave orders very well, but the dude was basically cheap.”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “Nothing. I was making up a limerick. Forget it.”

  “Look, I really am sorry about your feet. I don’t normally singe my victims. As soon as the drawing is over, I’ll make it up to you by buying you a new pair of shoes and a shirt.”

  “No thanks, I’ll survive.” She glanced at the shirt and grimaced. “No need to replace the shirt, I didn’t buy it. It came from Goodwill. I guess you don’t do much shopping there, Mr. Hunter.”

  “Not Mr. Hunter, it’s Hunter Kincaid. And I haven’t shopped there lately, but I know of them.” He could have said he knew of them well, but he didn’t, adding instead, “Where are your shoes, anyway?”

  Hunter didn’t even know why he’d given her his name. It connected them somehow, and that was the last thing he wanted. She reminded him of one of his grandmother’s fancy chickens, ready to peck the hand of anybody trying to take the eggs from her nest.

  Hunter squinted and wondered why on earth he’d remembered his grandmother. She’d been dead for twenty years. And although he missed her, he knew a woman who cooked on an old black iron stove and drew her water from a well would never fit into a modern world where the offspring she’d produced wore tuxedos and ate truffles and cherries flambé.

  “I couldn’t find my shoes this morning.”

  She could have explained about the fire that had burned all her clothes and nearly ended her attempt to provide a haven for runaway kids, but that was her business. There’d been enough publicity about a homeless kid named Joe who’d almost destroyed a local landmark. “I was told that if I wasn’t here when they called my name, I wouldn’t qualify for a spot in the scavenger hunt—I had to leave without them.”

  Hunter didn’t even try to conceal his surprise. “You only just found out about the drawing? You do know those chosen are expected to leave tomorrow? What kind of work do you do that you can take off at the drop of a hat?”

  “I’m a housekeeper. I work for a cleaning service as a fill-in when one of the regular crew members can’t make it.”

  He took off his sunglasses and studied her.

  Fortune didn’t know anything about the rules. But her fervent “I’ll be ready” was half-swallowed as she got lost in the blue of the cowboy’s eyes.

  Hunter Kincaid’s eyes weren’t shaped any differently from anyone else’s. They weren’t that much larger, or that much bluer, but somehow, all put together and crowned by thick eyebrows that framed them perfectly, the effect of his eyes was as unexpected as primroses in the snow or a colored stone on the bottom of a mountain stream.

  “Where’s your partner?” Hunter couldn’t wait to see who had teamed up with a barefoot woman who spouted limericks.

  Fortune swallowed hard. She was beginning to figure out that there were other things that Joe hadn’t explained to her. “Ah, I’m not sure.”

  “I hope he’s a big, tough guy, because I have my doubts that you can handle one of those new Panther machines. Are you sure,” he asked with an unexpected softness, “you know what you’re doing?”

  She wasn’t at all sure, but she couldn’t admit it. “I can do anything I need to do. How tough are you? From where I stand, those boots don’t have a scuff on them.” His blue eyes narrowed; his muscles were rigid with tension. The fire on the bottom of her feet seemed to move upward at an alarming rate.

  “You have no idea how tough I am, or how far I’ve traveled in these boots.”

  This time there was pain in the cowboy’s voice, and Fortune, always a sucker for somebody who was hurting, regretted her outburst. She’d never walked in his shoes, and therefore shouldn’t judge his actions.

  She blinked, trying to close off the shattering intensity of his gaze while she searched for something to say, and settled for the truth.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Where’s your partner?” she asked, curious abut the woman he’d chosen.

  “I’m wondering about that myself.” Hunter glanced at his watch, grateful for the distraction. The woman he’d asked had been a friend, someone he knew well enough to travel with for nine days, no strings attached.

  “What happens if she doesn’t show up?” Fortune’s question was more important than he could guess.

  “I forfeit my chance at the money.”

  Uh-oh. If she had to have a partner, she was sunk. Joe hadn’t mentioned that in the note. Fortune glanced around, trying to spot a familiar face in the crowd, someone—anyone—whom she could coerce into being her partner.

  The men listening to the speaker were all leather-clad strangers—tough-looking strangers. All except the man standing beside her. And he already had a partner.

  Then the official drawing began. Hunter hoped that his partner was there somewhere, looking for him.

  Fortune closed her eyes. She needed that money. She needed to have her name selected. She needed a partner.

  Suddenly, she knew with breath-stopping certainty what was about to take place. They both happened to be in the same place at the same time—alone. His partner hadn’t shown up, and she didn’t have one. It was f
ate.

  Still, she refused to concede the obvious until the president of Panther, Inc., pulled out thirteen entries that had neither Hunter’s name on them nor hers. Then came the last selection: the Hunter Kincaid team.

  Hunter looked around, scanning the crowd. There was no woman moving toward the platform. Something must have happened. Damn! He wasn’t about to lose his spot. There was only one thing to do. He reached back and, taking Fortune by the arm, pulled her through the crowd like a rag doll, seeking as much shade as possible until he reached the platform steps.

  “What are you doing, cowboy?” Fortune demanded.

  “You wanted to go on a scavenger hunt. It looks like you’ve got your wish, partner.”

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  “I probably am,” he conceded as they reached the platform. “Smile,” Hunter urged, “and try not to look so—so—wild.”

  On the stand Hunter identified himself to the official.

  “And your partner?”

  Hunter was caught short. He didn’t even know the woman’s name. He turned toward her in question.

  “Fortune Dagosta,” she answered, returning his gaze with daggers in hers.

  The hunt director motioned for them to take their place beside the other teams and went on with his instructions. “Tomorrow morning the teams will assemble here. You will receive your instructions and your clues. Today I just want to caution you about the rules.”

  Hunter listened, wondering if he’d made a mistake. But he was flat broke and determined not to be more obligated to his family than he already was. After the bike accident he hadn’t wanted to go from the hospital to his family home, but he’d had little choice. He’d known what that would mean, what his adoptive father, Hale Kincaid, would say.

  “Hunter, Son, when are you going to quit wasting time racing motorcycles and settle down? Kincaid Industries is growing. You know, I had hoped that you’d take an interest in the hotels. That’s the division I envisioned for you to head.”

  “I can’t,” he’d tried to explain. “I don’t fit in—cities are too confining,” he’d added. “I need to be free to—”