City Girl

Riley Engelst's knuckles whitened around the steering wheel as the rental sedan jolted over another pothole. The paved highway had given way to gravel ten miles back, and now even that was fading into little more than twin ruts carved through sagebrush and dust. This was nothing like Chicago. No glass towers. No gridlocked traffic humming with purpose. Just endless sky pressing down on empty land, the kind of emptiness that made a person feel exposed.

She glanced at the dashboard clock. Four hours since the airport in Billings, and every mile had stripped another layer of her city armor away. Her tailored black slacks were already wrinkled. Her crisp white blouse clung to her back with sweat. The air conditioning had surrendered somewhere around the county line, leaving her at the mercy of the hot Montana wind whipping through the cracked window.

Willow Creek announced itself with a faded wooden sign that read POP 412. The single main street held a feed store, a bar with a crooked neon sign, and a handful of pickup trucks parked at angles like they had simply stopped where they pleased. Two men in faded denim and boots watched her pass. One tipped his hat. The other spat tobacco into the dirt. Riley's stomach tightened. Culture shock did not begin to cover it.

She had known the ranch was remote. The lawyer's letters had been very clear about that. But knowing and seeing were different things. Her grandfather had cut her father off decades ago, and by extension Riley herself. Now the old man was gone and had left everything to the only blood he had left, with one condition. Stay six months or the ranch, the land, and what little money remained would be sold off to the highest bidder.

Riley needed that money. Her accounting firm had downsized six weeks ago, and the inheritance represented breathing room. Freedom. She just hadn't expected freedom to smell like dust and cow shit.

The GPS on her phone gave up with a sad beep as she turned onto the long drive marked by a weathered archway. Bent letters spelled out EngelsT RANCH. The gate stood open, one hinge hanging loose. Riley eased the car through and followed the drive until the house came into view, a two-story white clapboard that had seen better decades. Paint peeled from the siding. A shutter dangled crookedly. Beyond it stretched the barn, corrals, and what looked like several hundred acres of grazing land disappearing into the foothills.

She killed the engine and sat for a moment, letting the silence settle over her. Then she saw him.

He leaned against the split-rail fence near the barn, arms crossed over a chest that made her mouth go dry despite herself. Tall. Broad shoulders straining against a faded blue work shirt. Sun-weathered skin, dark stubble shadowing a strong jaw, and a battered Stetson pulled low over eyes she could already tell were going to be trouble. Even from twenty yards away she felt the weight of his stare.

Riley squared her shoulders, grabbed her leather briefcase, and stepped out. The heat hit her like a physical wall. Her city heels sank immediately into the dirt.

"You lost, ma'am?" His voice rolled out low and rough, like gravel under boots.

She lifted her chin. "Riley Engelst. This is my ranch now."

The man didn't move, but something shifted in his posture. Those eyes, piercing gray, narrowed beneath the hat brim. "That so."

It wasn't a question. It was a dismissal.

Riley walked closer, refusing to let her heels wobble. Up close he was even more imposing. Caleb Stone. The lawyer had mentioned the foreman who had run the place for her grandfather the last eight years. The man smelled like leather, hay, and hard work. It should have been unpleasant. It wasn't.

"The will was clear," she said. "Six months. I'm here to fulfill the terms and decide what happens after that."

Caleb pushed off the fence. He stood a full head taller than her five-foot-six frame. "Your granddad's been in the ground three weeks. Place has been running fine without you. No need to start playing rancher now."

Heat flushed up her neck. "I'm not playing anything, Mr. Stone. This is business. My business."

He looked her over slowly, from the top of her auburn hair, slightly wilted from the drive, down to her impractical shoes now coated in dust. "City girl like you won't last a week. You'll be back in your air-conditioned office before the first hard frost."

Riley's temper, usually kept on a tight leash in boardrooms, flared hot and sudden. "You don't know anything about me."

"I know enough." He jerked his thumb toward the barn. "Those stalls need mucking. Water troughs in the north pasture need scrubbing. If you're staying, you might as well start earning your keep instead of standing there looking decorative."

She blinked. "You want me to... what? Shovel manure? Right now?"

"Problem with that?" His mouth curved just enough to show it wasn't quite a smile. More like a challenge. "Figured an accountant would want to start at the bottom. Real bottom."

Riley's jaw tightened. She could walk away. She could call the lawyer and demand they find some loophole. But the stubborn streak she had inherited from the very grandfather who had disowned her father refused to let her back down in front of this arrogant cowboy.

"Fine," she said tightly. "Show me where the shovels are."

Caleb's eyebrows rose a fraction, like he hadn't expected her to agree. He recovered quickly and led her into the barn. The smell hit her first, rich and earthy, a mix of hay, animals, and aged wood. Several horses turned their heads to watch the newcomers. One stamped a hoof as if in greeting.

He pulled a pitchfork from its hook and shoved it into her hands. The wood was smooth from years of use. "Start with that stall at the end. Wheelbarrow's over there. Dump it in the compost pile behind the barn. Try not to get any on those fancy clothes."

Riley gripped the tool, feeling the unfamiliar weight. Her hands were soft. His were calloused, thick fingers brushing hers for the briefest second as he released the pitchfork. The contact sent an unwelcome spark up her arm. She ignored it.

"This is ridiculous," she muttered, but she marched into the stall anyway. The horse inside, a big chestnut, snorted and moved aside obligingly. Riley stared at the mess on the floor. How hard could it be?

She soon learned it was harder than it looked. The pitchfork kept catching on straw. Her arms burned after only ten minutes. Sweat trickled between her breasts. Caleb leaned in the doorway watching, arms crossed again, that damn hat shading his expression.

"You're holding it too tight," he said after a while. "Loosen up. Let the tool do the work."

"I don't need technique advice from you," she snapped, driving the tines into the pile with more force than necessary. The motion pulled her blouse tight across her chest. She caught him noticing before his gaze flicked away.

Interesting.

She worked in silence for another twenty minutes, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her quit. Her lower back ached. A blister was already forming on her right palm. But she kept going, dumping load after load into the wheelbarrow and pushing it out to the compost pile on legs that were starting to tremble.

When she returned for the final corner of the stall, Caleb was still there. He hadn't moved. The physical awareness between them had grown with every passing minute, like static electricity building before a storm. She could feel his eyes on the curve of her neck when she bent over, on the way her slacks stretched across her ass as she pushed the wheelbarrow. It made her angry. It also made her skin feel too tight.

She straightened and wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. "There. One stall done. Are you satisfied, or do I need to do the rest before you'll talk to me like an actual human being?"

He stepped into the stall. The space suddenly felt much smaller. "You think this is some kind of game? That you can show up in your expensive clothes, push a few shovels of shit, and suddenly own a cattle operation?"

"I think I own it whether you like it or not," she shot back. "The will is very clear. Six months. During that time I intend to go through the books, see what's salvageable, and make decisions based on facts. Not ego."

Caleb's gray eyes flashed. "Ego? Lady, I've kept this place running on nothing but sweat and prayer for eight years while your grandfather drank himself to an early grave. You don't get to fly in here and start talking about facts like the numbers on your spreadsheets mean more than the land under your feet."

"The land under my feet is about to be seized if we don't get the finances in order," Riley said, voice rising. "The water rights alone are a mess. I saw the preliminary filings on the drive up. Some mining company is circling like a vulture."

He went very still. "You think I don't know that?"

"I think you've been too busy playing lone cowboy to face reality."

The words landed like a slap. Caleb took one step closer. She could see the muscle jumping in his jaw. His chest rose and fell faster now, and damn if the scent of him didn't wrap around her, all musk and leather and something darker underneath. Her body reacted with a traitorous flush of heat low in her belly.

"Reality is cattle need feeding, fences need mending, and rustlers have been testing our borders for months," he said, voice dangerously low. "Reality is your granddad left this place in debt up to its eyeballs because he trusted the wrong people. Not because he didn't have the right spreadsheets."

Riley refused to back up, even though her pulse hammered in her throat. "Then show me. The books. The ledgers. All of it. I'm good at this, Stone. Numbers don't lie."

"Neither does the land." His gaze dropped to her mouth for half a second before returning to her eyes. "And the land says you don't belong here."

The air between them crackled. Riley became acutely aware of how close they stood. Close enough to see the faint scar cutting through his left eyebrow. Close enough to notice how his stubble would feel against her skin if he leaned down just another few inches. The thought shocked her. She hated him. Or at least she wanted to.

"I belong wherever I damn well choose to belong for the next six months," she said, but her voice had gone slightly breathy. "And right now that means learning this ranch from the ground up. Even if that means shoveling shit in my good shoes."

Something shifted in his expression. Almost like respect, quickly buried under layers of stubborn pride. He reached out and took the pitchfork from her hands. Their fingers brushed again, longer this time. The calluses on his palm scraped lightly against her softer skin, sending another unwelcome jolt straight through her.

"Sun's going down," he said gruffly. "We'll finish the rest of the stalls in the morning. You can stay in the main house. Your granddad's room is at the top of the stairs. I sleep in the bunkhouse."

Riley swallowed. "Fine."

He didn't move away. Neither did she. The barn was quiet except for the soft shifting of horses and the distant lowing of cattle. For one suspended moment the antagonism felt like something else entirely. Something hotter. More dangerous.

Then Caleb stepped back, breaking the spell. He settled his hat lower on his head. "One week," he said. "I'll give you one week before you run back to the city. But if you stay, you pull your weight. No special treatment because your last name's on the gate."

"I wouldn't expect any," Riley replied, matching his hard tone even as her blistering hands trembled at her sides.

He studied her for another long beat, those gray eyes unreadable. Then he turned on his heel and walked out of the barn, leaving her standing in the growing shadows with the taste of dust in her mouth and the unsettling certainty that Caleb Stone was going to be far more trouble than she had anticipated.

Riley looked down at her ruined shoes, at the dirt ground into the fabric of her slacks, at the angry red welt forming on her palm. She thought about the life she had left behind. The neat apartment. The predictable numbers. The safety of spreadsheets and coffee runs.

Then she thought about the way Caleb's shoulders had filled that doorway and the way his voice had dropped when he'd said her name.

"Six months," she whispered to the empty barn. "I can survive six months."

But as the first evening stars appeared through the open loft doors, Riley wasn't entirely sure which part of the ranch posed the greater threat. The failing finances. The hidden enemies. Or the stubborn, infuriating cowboy who had just put the first cracks in her carefully constructed walls.