The Rancher and the Rock Star (2 page)

“Tomorrow?”
Another day?
Gray lost his hold on calm. “Damn it!”

He stalked from the hay wagon. The cloying air pressed heavier with every step, and the clouds encroached, purple and black. Thunder reverberated, close, angry. He had another show in Chicago tomorrow night. No way could he miss it, too. What would Chris do when he found out tonight’s gig hadn’t needed to be canceled at all?

Slipping his hand into the pocket of his leather blazer, he fumbled for a pack of cigarettes. He hated them. He was down to half a pack a day, but times like this he despaired of ever kicking the habit. With automatic skill he drew one out, flicked his lighter flame against the end of the cigarette, and took a drag.

The idea of Chris Boyle on a rant made Gray swear under his breath again. Everything came down to money for his manager. Sometimes Gray felt like no more than a wind-up monkey who waddled onstage, banged its cymbals together, made the crowd screech, and raked in the dough. He dug his fingers through his hair and started a vicious second drag—

Thwack!

The cigarette flew from his lips as if a bullwhip had snatched it, and he choked on air and smoke.

“Are you really this phenomenally stupid?” Abby, her face florid, her posture like a boxer ready to jab, ground her boot toe into the smoldering cigarette until shattered pulp remained.

“What the . . . ?” He stared at the ruins then into her furious eyes.

“This is a barn. Fifty feet away is a wagon loaded with hay. Do you have any idea what a gust of wind could do with one of your stupid ashes?”

“Oh, damn, Abby, Mrs. . . . Abby. I’m sorry.” Contrition twisted his gut.

He
hadn’t
considered the danger before lighting up. Her gaze drilled into his, and regret gave way to a slow roll of deep, unexpected attraction. Earlier they’d been separated by hay and irritation, but now they were separated by nothing but five inches of steamy, sultry air. An asinine string of thoughts ran through his brain: how smooth her cheek was up close; how the middle of her pupil was soft and calm like the eye of a hurricane; how much he wished he had a breath mint.

“It won’t happen again.”

Along with his sudden, inappropriate desire came an image of Fate laughing as he got pummeled by Mr. Abby Stadtler—who probably always carried breath mints. Then, without warning, Abby’s face drained of color. Slowly, she covered her mouth with one slender hand.

A
BBY PRESSED SO
hard against her lips she could almost feel pulses in her fingertips—ten runaway jackhammers. Every clue, every suspicion, crashed over her as she stared at the earnest-eyed man before her. How in the world had she missed it? What was he doing in her farmyard?

When he said, “It won’t happen again,” his thick brows furrowed in honest apology, his rich baritone was suddenly, obviously, as familiar as her daughter’s voice. And his pale blue eyes were ones she’d seen as many times as she’d entered her child’s bedroom, only this time they mesmerized in person, not from a dozen posters on Kim’s walls.

He’d given it away himself. “Dawson Covey.”

Oh, Lord, she’d slapped a cigarette from Gray Covey’s mouth.

Strangled laughter caught at her throat. This was far from the meeting fantasized by ten thousand adoring women at any given time. What did you say to a rock legend after you’d called him a liar? She dropped her hands from her mouth. “You—”

His face changed. The instant before she’d recognized him, he’d shown honest contrition. Now his mouth slipped into a strange, plastic smile, automatic, a little self-satisfied. Her annoyance sparked. It reminded her why, despite his knee-weakening looks, he’d irritated her with his assumptions and attitude. All at once, she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of fawning over his identity.

“Sorry.” She forced herself to spin away and pull off a fib. “I just got a mental picture of my barn going up in flames. I accept your apology. But know this. If it
does
happen again, I won’t be knocking the cigarette out of your mouth. I’ll be drowning it with you attached.”

Ignoring his celebrity left her uplifted, as if she was going against nature—something her practical streak rarely allowed. She half-expected him to protest with wounded pride but, in fact, he remained silent until she was back at the hay wagon.

“You’re funny even when you’re mad,” he said. “I guess I consider myself lucky.”

“My daughter wouldn’t say I’m funny.” She half-grinned, although her back was to him.

“Speaking of your daughter and, by association it seems, my son. I don’t suppose there’s any way of getting them home early? I was hoping to take him with me tonight.”

Irritation seized her again, and she glared over her shoulder. Her breath caught now that she recognized who he was, but she shook it off. “Dawson’s been living here for almost six weeks. Won’t it be kinder to give him time to adjust?”

“You do understand he’s a runaway, right?” His voice lifted a notch in irritation. “You have no claim to him. Not to mention, a lot of people have been put out by your . . . employee.”

“Put out? How about worried? Has anyone been worried in all the time it took to locate him?” Immediately Abby regretted the thoughtless words. Gray’s features stilled, and his eyes iced. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me . . .”

The first plop of rain hit her dead on the nose, followed by a second on her head. Her heart sank. She’d let herself get distracted, and now she risked losing the eighty bales of hay still on the rack if they got soaked.

“Crap, crap, crap.” For half a second she waffled between Gray and the hay wagon. She groaned and chose the hay. “I’m sorry. Can you finish this discussion from the barn?”

Two more fat drops left splotches on her shoulders, and she hoisted herself back up onto the wagon. Normally, she didn’t mind stacking hay. It taxed her body while anesthetizing her brain. But even if she threw as hard as she could she wouldn’t beat this storm.

“I worried about him.” Gray’s voice held as much promise of thunder as the storm.

“I didn’t mean that.” She pulled two stacks of bales into heaps with one movement, and they banged into her legs, nearly knocking her off balance. More rain splashed her cheeks. “At least, I didn’t mean it to sound so harsh.”

“Let’s just call us even for assumptions. The point is, I flew from Chicago and am missing work to be here. I’m sure this will sound even crasser to you, but I have appointments I can’t miss. My job involves more than just me and a boss.”

Two bales. Three. Four.

“So you thought you’d simply grab your son and, what, take him to work with you?”

“As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I thought. I’m his father. I have considered what’s best for him.”

Five. Six. Seven. Abby heaved the hay just far enough to get it into the barn door. She could stack it later. Her arms started to sting from their exaggerated motions, but she knew how to ignore the discomfort.

“I’m sure that’s true.” She grunted with exertion. “But wouldn’t you like to know why he ran away in the first place, before you haul him off again?”

“Lady.” His taut voice caused her to look into his angry face. “I don’t know if you think you’re some sort of pop psychiatrist, but I’m not the sixteen-year-old here. I know why my son ran and, frankly, I don’t blame him. But, it’s not your business, and I don’t have the freedom to hang around waiting for him to come back.”

The drops fell faster, and the breeze picked up. An eerie twilight settled over the farm.

“Seems to me you do what you have to do where your children are concerned “Sacrifice. Ask yourself what your priorities are.” She tossed harder. The tender alfalfa leaves in the fragrant bundles glistened with moisture. In ten minutes the bales would be soaked deep. The rain saturated her shirt, and the tendrils escaping her loose chignon clung to her cheeks.

“You’re something, you know that? You warn me about making assumptions then tell me my priorities are screwed up. Who the hell do you think you are? ”

The knife-blade edge to his voice made her stop and blink. She’d concentrated so hard on fighting the rain that she’d forgotten her actual fight with the person next to her. Lecture mode always seemed to slip out when she multi-tasked, but Gray’s glare of unequivocal anger told her she’d stepped over the line. Although the water beating into her hay made her cringe, she looked him in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” she began, but something fluttered in her chest, and she caught her breath in surprise. He didn’t look exactly like any picture of him she’d ever seen—and Kim had scrapbooks full of clippings and magazine photos. Three dimensions served him incredibly well. “You’re right.” She reined in her emotions. “I’ve grown fond of your son, Mr. . . . Graham. But I don’t have the right to be protective of him.”

The anger drained from his eyes, but his body remained a study of sculpted seriousness. Cocoa-colored hair feathered back from his forehead and framed his high cheekbones with thick locks that kissed his collar. A chiseled Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, and Abby’s stomach fluttered again. If the rock-and-roll lifestyle was supposed to ravage a body, Gray Covey’s hadn’t paid attention to the rule.

Unable to ignore her hay any longer, she pulled her gaze from Gray’s, jumped off the wagon, and began dragging bales. This time her back muscles whined with every surge.

“I don’t suppose you could wait to finish until this passes?” he asked. He held up his palm to show he knew the answer. The rain on the old barn roof drummed like the backbeat on one of his songs. A flash of lightning slashed the dark sky, and thunder followed mere seconds later. He shucked off his leather jacket. “Aw, hell.”

Chapter Two

H
IS FITTED, DENIM-COLORED
T-shirt read “Dashboard Confessional,” but it wasn’t the band name that unhinged her jaw. Who would have known a singer could sport biceps and pecs like— She snapped her mouth shut.
Get a grip, Abigail. You sound like Kim.

On second thought, no way did Abby want her daughter thinking what she was thinking.

“Forget it.” She meant her refusal sincerely. “You’ll just get wet, too. I can handle this.”

“You can’t come close to finishing all those bales alone, and I can’t stand here any longer watching a damsel in distress.”

Her flash of defensive pride had no time to grow. Two seconds later they were both soaked to the skin. After they each had a stack safely inside, Abby took a moment to rummage in a corner for a pair of canvas work gloves. He thanked her with a silly smile, and she realized what a ridiculous situation she was in. His fame aside, they’d known each other fifteen minutes, and here he was in a downpour, ruining expensive-looking leather shoes and a perfectly good pair of jeans, and doing some serious atonement for lighting his cigarette in the process.

As they fell into a quick, efficient rhythm, there was no missing that Gray Covey’s pecs and deltoids were not merely for show. He didn’t need to get off the trailer and lug bales into the barn. Instead, he hoisted cube after bristly cube and launched them like javelins through the door. For every four bales she heaved, Gray tossed eight. His biceps contracted over and over, smooth and firm, and his hips twisted in fluid perfection with no wasted movement.

By the time they were three-quarters finished, she’d changed her mind—or lost it. He wasn’t ruining his jeans. He could have sold the sucked-on denim for a thousand bucks to any woman who saw it. She let herself imagine what a phenomenal photo she could take. It had been a long time since she’d seen anything finer than Gray Covey/David Graham with his thick, rain-darkened hair slicked back to his collar and rivulets of water streaming from his cheeks.

They continued without words. Once in a while, when a bale flew well, she heard a guttural “oof” from his throat that gave her more chills than the rain did. She refused to dwell on the errant thoughts—they were so foreign she barely recognized them as hers. But even in the driving rain, with lightning crackling every half a minute and thunder following much too closely, Abby didn’t think she’d ever enjoyed any job on her farm as much.

In ten minutes they had every bale under the roof. She stood beside Gray in the deluge staring at the barn floor, which looked like the aftermath of the Big Bad Wolf versus the first Little Pig’s house.

“Woo hoo!” He uttered his first syllables since climbing onto the wagon. Blowing out a deep sigh, he bent and braced his hands on his thighs. He peered up at her and grinned. “Here I thought I’d have to miss the gym today. You were going to do this all yourself, Mrs. Stadtler? I’m damn impressed.”

The compliment pleased her ridiculously.

He straightened and held up his palm for her to slap. Their gloves made a pitiful, slurping smack, and Abby giggled, although embarrassment picked at the edges of her gratitude.

“I don’t know how to thank you. This defines above and beyond.”

He tilted his head back and opened his mouth to the sky. His Adam’s apple convulsed, and Abby’s throat went so dry she could have been standing in a desert rather than a monsoon.

“Not what I expected when I left Chicago this morning. But it’s been a very long time since I’ve played in a full-blown thunderstorm.” He winked and licked the water from his lips.

“I’m a little worried about you if you think you’ve been playing.” She didn’t tell him that for over ten minutes she hadn’t once considered this work either.

He laughed. “C’mon. A celebratory dance before we get you inside.”

“Dance?”

He linked their elbows and pulled her into a hoe-down spin on the wagon bed. To her astonishment, he started in on a pretty song she’d never heard on any disc in Kim’s collection.

“A storm-eyed girl took my hand one day,

and said, ‘Follow me, boy, I know the way.’

I went with open heart and soul,

till the rain came down and she had to go.”

He drew her into a waltz hold and hummed more of the beautiful tune. “
Mmm, mmmm, thought this was our dance. And she said
. . .” He hesitated, then shrugged and grinned. “ ‘
No, no, no, I’m off to France.
’ ”

Abby managed a snort at the song’s goofy degeneration, but after Gray spun her beneath his arm and let her go, he bowed. She couldn’t draw enough breath to make another sound. He jumped off the wagon, reached for her waist, and took her weight to lift her down. She’d never been touched in such a downright sexy way.

Once under shelter she surveyed the hay chaff coating her drenched pant legs. Gray’s thousand-dollar Levi’s—button front she noticed now—had fared no better.

“What was that song?” she asked to distract herself.

A slight flush darkened his cheeks, followed by another shrug. “Let’s call it ‘Dance in France’ and just say you’ve heard its first and last performance. Sorry, sometimes things just pop out of my mouth.” He copied her and looked down his legs. “Wow. Is this Minnesota’s equivalent to tarring and feathering?”

“I’m sorry.” Unwelcome flutters plagued her as he brushed at the dust and watched it turn to soupy slop on his T-shirt. “I shouldn’t have let—”

“Hey?” A firm gaze caught hers. “I offered, so stop being sorry.” He burst into laughter. “But we are nasty. What now?”

“The rain is bound to let up. I’ll see if I can find some clean towels, and at least we can dry our hair. I’ll be right back.”

She hurried for the tack room in the corner of the barn, feeling guilty for leaving him alone, but needing time to tame her unruly thoughts. His song infiltrated her mind along with the memory of his powerful body guiding hers through the fanciful dance, and a combination of heat from her face and cold from her wet clothing undulated through her like fever chills.

After peeling off her sodden, flannel shirt, she grabbed a handful of clean towels normally used on the horses. Scanning the room, she spied an old, oversized sweatshirt on the ancient washing machine in the corner. Gray could at least try it.

When she returned, he was no longer alone but squatting beside a wiggling, face-licking, very soggy golden retriever. For a moment she stared as Gray fawned and chuckled over her dog in a classic, heart-warming moment. “Roscoe,” she called, breaking her own spell. “Stop it, and leave him alone now.”

Gray let the dog smooch him a last time and stood. “It’s okay. I used to have a golden just like him when I was a kid. Roscoe, ’eh? Great name.”

“He’s a lover, but a big baby in storms. This one must be almost done for him to have surfaced. Here.” She handed him two towels. “For your hair. And I don’t know about this, but you’re welcome to try it.” She held up the light-blue sweatshirt. “It’s a little girlie, but warm.”

He took it dubiously. “Thanks. What about you?”

“I keep stuff lying all around. I’ll find something.”

After toweling his head vigorously, he finger-combed his hair until the little curls at the ends no longer dripped. For a moment he studied the sweatshirt, and anticipation hitched her breath. To her juvenile disappointment, he grinned and disappeared into a stall. Abby pulled the elastic band from her hair, letting it fall to her neck in a soggy clump and drop congealed alfalfa mush between her shoulder blades. She screeched and whipped the towel over one shoulder.

“What? What happened?” Gray popped up from the stall, eyes concerned, in glorious naked-torso-ness.

Abby forgot the gunk slipping down her back and stared at the perfect vee of dark hair across his chest. She spun away, embarrassed as a pioneer schoolmarm, choking on laughter to hide her discomfort. “Nothing. Creepy-crawly mush down my back, that’s all.” She squeezed her shoulder blades together.

“Here.” In three steps he stood behind her and pushed a towel up the back of her tank top. The slimy itching stopped, but his fingers on her upper arm replaced the itch with tremors. “The same thing happened to me. I think I’ve got wet slime halfway down my shorts.”

“Ahem.” A cough sounded from the open barn door. Abby leapt free of Gray’s touch. Her heartbeat raced for her throat. “Everything okay? Or are we interrupting something?”

E
VEN FROM BEHIND,
Gray caught the bright flush creeping up the side of Abby’s face as she stiffened beneath his touch.

“Ed! Sylvia!” Pure chagrin shook her voice.

Gray lifted his gaze to the wide barn door, and there, backlit by a brightening sky, stood some sort of ancient mariner along with a shorter, female sidekick. Gray winced. His shirtless state couldn’t look good.

“Sylvia here said she saw a stranger drive down but never return.” The two figures stepped out of the dwindling storm, the man’s yellow slicker and sou’wester hat streaming, the woman’s familiar square face coming into view as she lowered a flowered umbrella. “Thought maybe you were interviewin’ for the barn-help job, Sonny,” the man said.

Sonny? He hadn’t been “Sonny” since he’d stolen apples from the neighbor’s tree as a kid. Dark eyes bored into Gray’s even as amusement played on the lined face.

“Just what kind of barn help did you t’ink she was looking for?” The woman spoke, her accent charmingly Fargo-ish. “I knew we needed to come check on you, Abigail.”

“Oh, Sylvia. Ed. I’m sorry.” Abby apologized as if to parents. “This must look awful.”

“I dunno.” The man pulled off his hat to reveal a stiff white crew cut and ran a hand over his grizzled chin. “Pretty girl, handsome stranger, a little hay.”

“Edward Mertz.” The woman admonished him with a laser glare that would have cowed a lesser man, Gray was sure.

He grinned. So these were the Mertzes. Maybe not Fred and Ethel, but endearing just the same, in a fusty way. “I’ll get my shirt and we’ll explain our compromising situation,” he said.

He touched Abby’s shoulder. Her eyes had lost their soft mistiness and were once again no-nonsense pools of clear aquamarine. Not without regret, he knew their unexpected, intimate time-freeze was over. More distance would be safer. Still, he’d thoroughly enjoyed watching a sexy little sprite peek out from Abby’s tough-mom exterior.

He forced her sweatshirt over his head. It fit a little like spray paint but was warmer than his bare skin. A grimace tightened his lips when he looked down. To call the saying on his chest “girlie” was an understatement, and, although he wasn’t too concerned about Ed or even Sylvia, he prayed to heaven his bandmates would never, ever,
ever
hear it had been on his body.

He’d greatly underestimated Ed.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, your Barn Goddess-ness.” The old man read the phrase “Barn Goddess” on the sweatshirt with obvious relish. “Since she gave you the uniform, I guess she gave you the job?”

“What’s all this about a job?” Gray turned clueless eyes on Abby.

Sylvia’s eyebrows knotted in concern. “Abby, tell me the truth. Are you all right?”

Abby laughed. “Dear Sylvia, thank you, I’m fine.” She stepped forward and pecked the woman’s cheek. “He isn’t here for a job, but he did work much harder than he needed to.” She indicated the hay. “Ed, Sylvia, this is David Graham. He’s Dawson’s father. David, these are my neighbors and guardian angels, Ed and Sylvia Mertz.”

“Dawson?” Ed asked. “That so?”

“Yes, sir.” Gray reached to take the firm grip he offered. “Pleasure.”

“Dawson’s been a help around here this spring. He didn’t say you were coming to visit. If we’d have known it was you, we wouldn’t have worried about Abby so.”

“He doesn’t know I’m here. It’s . . . it will be a surprise.”

“Ah, well, fair enough.” A quarter-smile quirked the corner of Ed’s mouth as he waved a finger at the sweatshirt. “Color suits you. It’s a little snug.”

Gray folded his arms. “I’d be careful about provoking the Barn Goddess.”

Abby giggled and Ed gazed at the mess of hay on the floor. “I like you. I came to kick you out, but I’ll wait until the rain lets up.”

Gray shook a leg, scowling at the slime. “Hey, I appreciate it.”

“Me, I’ll just watch you till the rain lets up.” Sylvia eyed him with bland skepticism.

Smiling came easily to Gray—a honed business skill. He offered Sylvia one of his best: quick, broad, subtly dimpled, a poster-quality smile. It had, on occasion, made women swoon, but Gray doubted that Sylvia, in her hyper-protective state, would swoon for Valentino.

He was right. She carefully brushed hay goop from Abby’s shoulder, shielding her like a miniature mother bear.

“We should stack this.” Ed regarded the hay again.

“No.” Abby waved away the offer. “It can stay until the kids get home. I’m just going to bring the horses in the back door and take Mr. Graham up to get dry.”

She was? He smiled but she ignored it.

“Well,” Ed glanced outside and removed his yellow slicker, dropping it into a corner. “It’s near done raining. You and Sylvie go get ’em. The Goddess and I will neaten this up.”

“I assumed from your mailbox your name would be Ethel.” Gray shot him a benign smile.

“Just so you know,” Ed replied without missing a beat, “I’m seventy-six years old and you ain’t remotely the first one to come up with that.”

“Darn.”

As they shoved bales closer to the wall, the barn filled with the sweet green scent of fresh alfalfa, as thick and intoxicating as a drug. The rain stopped tattooing on the roof, but new sounds took its place. Doors sliding, horses snorting, Abby’s soft voice, and hooved feet clomping on wood. The not-unpleasant odor of horses mingled with the alfalfa. Working beside Ed, harder than he had in months, Gray hadn’t felt this relaxed in as long as he could remember.

“Horses are in. You guys did a lot.” Abby returned wearing a zipped hoodie, her face pink, her countenance changed, filled with contentment. The sweatshirt’s zipper tab stopped inches above her breasts, and it was clear she’d doffed everything underneath. The gray fleece caressed her curves intimately enough to make any male jealous, and Gray mentally declared the shapeless garment as entrancing as her skimpier tank top.