The Cowgirl Ropes a Billionaire (8 page)

“Hey, wait up!” Paul the cameraman yelled after her, but she didn’t miss a stride. Sure, she was losing. Sure, they had nine more contests to go. She didn’t care. She’d won three points when by all accounts she should have scored zero.

She was still in the running.

* * * * *

Evan picked up his daypack and map and followed more slowly behind Bella, his crew trailing behind him. How had he let her get three points? Hell, she wouldn’t have scored at all if he hadn’t yelled out those instructions. Was he insane? Or had she hypnotized him with her long legs and incredibly curvy curves. That t-shirt had been distracting enough back at the starting line. Now she’d exerted herself for a few hours, it clung to her damply, and he struggled to keep the reaction in his groin from embarrassing him on national television. It wasn’t just her curves, either. Her insults revved him up even more. He loved competition, but he’d always pursued solitary sports, and when he did compete he went up against other men. Her taunts turned him on, and so did the way she breathed heavily when she got angry. The rise and fall of her breasts was mesmerizing.

Her abundant, curvy, wonderful breasts.

Yep, that part of himself he’d tried to bury was alive and well, thank you very much.

If he wanted to win this contest, however, he needed to keep a clear head. He could pursue her after he’d married her, he thought with a grin. Everything would be settled—he wouldn’t need to worry about losing control of Mortimer Innovations, and he wouldn’t need to worry about being rejected on national television. He’d been publicly humiliated before. He didn’t care to repeat the experience.

Focus. First he needed to win this contest.

He decided to hang back and let Bella keep her lead for now. He bet she’d get nervous after a while, and sure enough he caught her looking back from time to time, probably wondering why he didn’t speed up and pass her by again.

Not this time, honey
, he thought.
This time I’m watching you. That’s right—you should be worried. What am I plotting?

Not much—unless you counted all the positions he was trying out with her in his mind. He really needed to stop thinking about that. His groin twinged. Definitely needed to stop thinking about that. He hadn’t spent as much time in the sack as a guy his age should have, but he’d spent enough to know what he liked.

And he liked Bella.

The trail climbed even more and toward noon the trees thinned out. Evan was starving by the time Bella stopped for lunch. She put down her pack and glanced back at him, tensing as he approached.

“There’s a whole mountain—can’t you eat somewhere else?”

“Don’t you want company?”

“No.”

“Well, I do.” Company that would actually speak to him, not just trail after him like his camera crew did. Besides, this was the perfect occasion for him to get to know his future wife. He sat down on a rock and opened his pack, hoping the show provided decent food. He pulled out several sandwiches, some trail mix, an apple and an orange. Enough food to get by, but not very generous. He supposed it was Madelyn’s aim to keep them tired and hungry, so they’d bicker more and make mistakes.

Bella remained on her feet. So did Paul and Nita, although he thought the two of them might rebel if she didn’t sit down and eat her lunch. They must want to grab their own meal.

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Yes. I just…” She glanced around, color rising in her cheeks as she found all four crew members watching her along with him.

Aah—she heard the call of nature. “There’s toilet paper in your pack. Just find a handy tree.”

She frowned, but opened her pack and took out a plastic pouch filled with toilet paper. “Okay.” She headed reluctantly into the bushes. When she reappeared a minute or two later she wouldn’t meet his eye. Paul, Nita, Chris and Andrew had all settled down to eat but he was positive the cameras and microphones were still on.

“Seriously, Bumpkin. People piss every day; it’s no big deal,” he said.

She ignored him and looked in her pack again. She didn’t appear any more enthusiastic than he felt when she pulled out her lunch.

“That’s it?”

“Think of it as a bonus diet,” Evan said. “You may lose the show but at least you’ll get rid of those pesky last five pounds.”

“I don’t need to lose five pounds,” she said. She selected a sandwich, the apple, and the trail mix, and tucked the rest back in her bag.

Evan had to give her points for that response. Most women were so touchy about their weight they might deny needing to diet, but they would have felt very self-conscious afterwards. Bella didn’t seem bothered a bit. She ate in silence and Evan bit into his sandwich, too.

“Do you hike a lot?” he asked after a minute.

“Sometimes.”

“Do a lot of camping?”

“You already asked that.”

He laughed. “Right. Girl scouts. Tell me about it.”

“No.”

He could almost hear the collective groan of the camera crew—this wasn’t interesting television. How could he rile her up some and forestall a lecture from Madelyn the next time they saw her? God—what if Madelyn made them re-do the day? He could just imagine her yelling, “Cut—get back to the starting line and let’s hear more trash talk this time!” He wasn’t interested in that scenario.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

This time she did turn around. “No, I don’t.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me if I have a girlfriend?”

“I don’t care.”

“I don’t. Not a steady one, anyhow,” he amended since he didn’t want to come off like a total dork.

“You mean you have one night stands.”

Hmm, her disapproval about that idea was palpable. “Sure. Or two-night stands. Sometimes seven-night stands, even. I’m versatile.” Let her chew on that. He hadn’t even had a one-hour stand in a long, long time, though. Way too long, now that he was sitting close to Bella.

“You’re a slut.” She shot him a look. “I bet you have to pay for it, too.”

Anger surged within him. That was taking trash talk too far. And the fact that he’d entertained the idea once or twice out of pure desperation made it all the worse. “Betty, I never have to pay for sex.”

She just raised her eyebrows. “But let me guess—you do pay for dinner, entertainment, hotels, plane tickets, gifts…” She ticked the items off on her fingers. “You may not hand them hundred dollar bills at the end of the night, but you most definitely pay for sex, Moneybuns.”

Evan opened his mouth, thought a second and closed it again. She’d hit a bull’s-eye, but she’d also missed the target altogether. He didn’t date because it felt like paying for sex. The women were so sure a billionaire would lavish them with gifts that he felt compelled to do so, or ruin their good impression of him. He could never simply be with them; never know for sure if they even liked him.

He didn’t trust women.

He didn’t trust anyone, come to think of it.

CHAPTER FIVE

Bella watched the color surge into Evan’s handsome face. Score one point for her. Was he thinking over past dates and wondering whether they’d have gone so well if he hadn’t spent so much cash? She bet guys like him never found out. They were probably so addicted to the high life they rarely ever got their credit cards back into their wallets before it was time to flash them again.

Poor little rich boy, she thought, and bit into her sandwich. She hoped the show planned to provide them a big dinner tonight, because while the food in her pack might get her through the rest of the afternoon, it wasn’t going to satisfy her at the end of this hike. She was ravenous.

She finished as quickly as she could and allowed a crew member to top up her water supply. Apparently they might starve her, but they weren’t going to allow her to get dehydrated. She recalled Evan’s diet comment. Most women might fuss about their weight, but she wasn’t one of them. She was comfortable with her body and she saw no reason to change it. Who cared about frivolous things like that when there was so much suffering in the world?

Speaking of suffering—how was Hannah doing with the animals? Had she remembered all their special diets? Had she played enough with the dogs in the back kennels? What about emergencies?

“If you need a nap, you can curl up by me,” Evan said suddenly, startling her out of her thoughts. “I’ll keep a watch on…things,” he let his gaze dip to her breasts and raised it again, “while you sleep.”

“Shut up,” she said and bit her lip, catching his mischievous grin. Darn it—he always made her sound like an adolescent when he caught her off guard. He obviously enjoyed the opportunity the show gave him to act like a teenager. Somehow she knew he didn’t normally behave this way. Her body hummed with interest over his insinuation, though. As much as she wanted to dislike Evan, she was attracted to him at some basic level. The thought of him looking at her? Yum.

No, yuck. She gathered her trash and stowed it away, shouldered her pack and began to walk again, determined to focus on the contest, not her adversary. That proved to be harder than she expected, though.

It was bad enough worrying about the cameraman focusing on her bottom. Now Evan dogged her every step and whenever she glanced back she could swear he was staring at it, too. She tried to curb the sway of her hips, but that made her walk stiffly and soon became uncomfortable.
Okay, America
, she thought as she gave up trying to repress her natural stride.
Take a good long look at my butt. Hope you like it.

Knowing Evan was unabashedly staring at her hindquarters kept her all too aware of him throughout their hike. Worse were the images of her and Evan in a more intimate setting. She pictured them peeling the clothes off of each other. Taking their time. Touching…

She was thoroughly unnerved by the time they reached the colored flags that signaled their second challenge of the day. Her boots had begun to rub and she pulled the small first-aid kit out of her pack and held her breath as she opened it. Thank goodness there was a Band Aid big enough to cover the blister building on her heel. She shucked off her boot and sock, applied the bandage and pulled them back on. Only then did she allow herself to survey the challenge.

Wait a minute. Where was the challenge?

She caught sight of a rope dangling from a nearby tree and followed it up—and up—and up—until she spotted several people standing on a platform high overhead.

Back on the ground, a crew member approached carrying something that looked like a cross between a vest and a harness. Her stomach sunk. A zip line course? She was not a huge fan of heights. She had managed to help fix the gutters on her clinic last year, but she’d never tried anything like this before. Was the challenge simply to live through it?

As one crew member helped her into the vest, another explained the rules.

“Once you climb to the platform, you’ll be at the first of five zip lines we’ve installed. You’ll be handed a beanbag at each platform and you need to pitch it into a basket positioned somewhere along each zip line. The challenge is to spot the baskets and make each shot for a possible total of five points.”

“We have to throw things while we’re zipping?” she said, and cringed at the squeak in her voice. “Aren’t we supposed to hold onto something?”

“It only takes one hand to control your speed,” Evan said as a crew member finished fastening him into another harness. “It’s no big deal to throw something, too.”

Control your speed? She hadn’t even thought about that. And why did Evan seem so confident about this task, too? Was he as much an expert at this as he was at archery? This whole thing was rigged, wasn’t it? The show’s producers must have it out for her.

Miserably, she allowed herself to be fastened into her harness and led over to the tree containing the first platform. Evan, already halfway up, waved down to her. “Come on up!”

“I’ll wait,” she said.

His laughter rang out above her. “What’s wrong, Bumpkin—afraid of heights?”

“No.”
Yes. Kind of
. She wasn’t afraid of balconies, or even ladders up to a point. This particular ladder, attached to this particular tree, however, seemed to go up and up and up—much higher than she’d ever climbed before.

When Evan disappeared from view she took a deep breath and began her ascent. Paul and Nita climbed beneath her, Paul still filming. Terrific. This must be a very flattering angle. Her arm muscles began to ache about halfway up, but she knew better than to hesitate even for a second. She also knew better than to look down. The ladder seemed sturdy, so as long as she focused only on the next rung, everything was okay.

“Just a few more rungs,” a voice said above her. She glanced up and saw the underside of the platform looming overhead. A trapdoor was open and a man she didn’t recognize looked down through it. “I’m Jim, your instructor,” he said as she climbed through the door. He steadied her as she awkwardly flopped onto the platform’s floor. “Come on, I’ll show you the ropes.”

Evan was there, leaning casually against a railing as Jim began his safety spiel. She tried to pay strict attention to everything Jim said, but her gaze kept trailing back to Evan’s strong shoulders and wide-legged stance. Even in a harness he was hotter than hot. Would marriage to him for a year be so bad? What would it be like to be cared for by someone else for a while? To let him worry about bills and costs and… She snapped herself out of her reverie. Evan wasn’t interested in saving animals’ lives. Marriage to him meant an end to the clinic and possibly to her career.