Clay laid a file folder on her desk with a sticky note attached bearing instructions. Then pursing his lips as though hiding a smile, he walked out the door.
Sophie hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath and released it now in a sigh. It was almost as if he knew what she’d been thinking. Impossible. He couldn’t read minds. Could he?
* * *
Clay Everett stood in the massive glass-walled lobby of the main barn at the Flying E Ranch. He was surrounded by countless photographs and awards. In the corner were silver-embedded saddles on their holding racks with matching bridles hanging over the horn. Oversize belt buckles with gold and silver inlays were displayed in black velvet-lined shadow boxes. Trophies and large silver cups, the competition date and event imprinted on the front of each, rested on the enormous mantel of the natural-stone fireplace. Still more lined the bookcases around the large room. In between were dozens of action shots of various bulls and horses as they tried with all their might to tear their equally determined rider off their back. If you looked at some close enough, you could hear the angry cries of the animal, recognize the fury in its eyes. But you could also see the grit and determination in the rider’s eyes. For the bull, eight seconds to kill. For the cowboy, eight seconds to walk away a champion.
Then there were older pictures of a young boy: riding his first bull, roping his first calf, his legs barely reaching the shortened stirrups of the saddle. The largest picture in the room was of a man holding up a two-by-six-foot check, made payable to Clayton Everett in the sum of one million dollars, proclaiming him the new American Rodeo Champion. Standing next to him were his barn manager, George Cullen, and Sophie Prescott, his secretary and maybe his best friend in the world.
He wandered out of the foyer, down the main hall to the east wing. Climbing up a few bleacher steps that overlooked one of the outside arenas and the sloping fertile pastureland beyond, he sat down, marveling at the view all around him. He would never tire of it. Rolling hills, the few that existed in this area, and white pipe fencing as far as his eyes could see. In the distance a herd of longhorns grazed on the irrigated spring grasses. In the first part of October, hundreds of breeders of Texas longhorn cattle would gather at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma, to find out who owned bragging rights to the bull with the longest horns in the world. Word had reached him that his ten-year-old bull, Crackers, had horns three-tenths of an inch longer than his chief competitor’s. That should have made Clay happy. But there was more to life than watching horns grow on a damn cow. No one knew it better that he did.
It had been Sophie’s idea to move his office from his Dallas headquarters to the ranch. At least temporarily. But the arrangement had turned permanent after almost two years. The maze of awards from his cowboy days had been cleared out and moved to the main barn lobby and the workings of his current office had been moved in. Sophie had overseen the move and, as usual, he couldn’t help but be impressed. He’d slid into the burgundy leather chair behind the massive mahogany desk like it was still at the high-rise in Dallas. Everything, from files to computers to office equipment to Sophie’s office, had been arranged almost exactly the way it had been at the other location, thereby eliminating the need to learn a new setup. He could find his way around the new office blindfolded.
He’d given Sophie free license to do what she wanted with the trophies and awards that had hung for years in the current office space. She’d done it all while he was still in the hospital, his gut torn open by an angry bull named Iron Heart, his left leg shattered by pounding hooves. In the blink of an eye, Clay had been thrown from the animal and gorged before landing squarely on his head, the compression causing him to break his neck, barely missing his spinal cord. It had taken less than six seconds, from the moment the chute door opened to the crack he heard from within and sweet oblivion, which brought his days as a superstar in the Professional Bull Riding League to an end. He’d known a bull like that would someday come his way. It was inevitable. Nothing went on forever.
She’d had a glass room built in the foyer of the main barn and moved everything there. She’d set about filling it with memories of his life. From boy to man. From child to champion. It was both shocking and humbling. Lord, he’d come a long way over some of the worst roads in the country. He’d also traveled some of the best. The road to Cumberlin County and the Brahma bull who’d awaited him was a culmination of the worst and the best that could happen to a man. The accident had come as close as possible to ending his life but at the same time, it had brought out the true colors of Clay’s money-grubbing fiancée, who had suddenly lost interest, finally admitting she simply could not marry a man who had to limp to the dance floor. She’d refused to be saddled with a “cripple” for the rest of her life. She had packed her bags and disappeared faster than a cube of sugar in a cup of boiling coffee. And she hadn’t even had the guts to tell him herself. No, the news had been relayed as gently as possible by Sophie.
It had been just one more setback to add to the list. Clay had had to accept that his rodeo days were over and his life was going to change. Hell, it already had. Once he’d been released to come home, it had taken a month of prodding by the stubborn, unshakable, relentless Ms. Sophie to get up off his ass—as she’d put it—and do something. Clay had started tinkering around with some ideas, found one he liked and threw himself into developing it. It was partly to keep his mind off the injuries that were still healing and partly because that was the way he was built; he was a self-made man and risk taker by nature. And Sophie never let him forget it for a second. He loved nothing more than a challenge, regardless of whether it was a two-thousand-pound Brahma bull or a billion-dollar company. A challenge was still a challenge.
He’d set about building a cloud-computing company he named Everest, specializing in providing ironclad infrastructure to corporations. With the usual Everett finesse, it took off like a rocket, making him a multimillionaire almost overnight with no indication it was anywhere near slowing down. And neither was he. No one who really knew him was surprised. He knew only that he wasn’t ready for his life to be over. At thirty-four, it was too soon. But while he was forced to set aside the thrill of bull riding, there were other trials to be fought and won.
Like what to do about his attraction to Sophie Prescott.
As if on cue, she popped her head around the corner.
Two
“I thought I would find you here. What do you want for lunch?”
When he merely shook his head, she said, “Then I’ll have Rose grill a steak and throw some sides together. It should be ready in about thirty minutes.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s too bad. You’ve got to eat. Nothing good is going to come out of you sitting around with your head in the clouds.”
“I was thinking, not daydreaming.”
“Thinking, huh? I’ll bet. More than likely thinking about that old bull and how you would do it better if you had a second chance.”
He glared. “I’ll be in for lunch in a few.”
She tapped her watch as a silent way of saying she would expect him sooner rather than later.
Damn, she was beautiful. For reasons he couldn’t understand, she chose to tone down her natural beauty, pulling the amber hair into a ponytail and using very little, if any, makeup. Not that she needed any. Her sky-blue eyes couldn’t hide behind the glasses always perched on her nose. And those full, slightly pink lips... A man could lose himself in them. And he had done exactly that almost two months ago, the night of the Texas Cattleman’s Club masked ball held at the Bellamy Hotel.
It probably shouldn’t have happened but that was one thing he would never regret. As his eyes had surveyed the large ballroom and the people seated at the linen-covered tables, Sophie stood out like a diamond set against dark granite. He hadn’t been able to resist taking her hand and pulling her out onto the dance floor. Sophie had protested and he understood her side. She felt herself to be only a secretary who had no place dancing with her boss. He didn’t give a damn.
She’d driven him crazy for most of the time she’d worked for the company, deflecting his teasing in complete innocence. If she had given him so much as a wink or a beguiling smile, he would have jumped her bones in a heartbeat. But the ever-proper Sophie never did even though he sensed a few times she wanted to. The attraction between them was there. The sparks went off like static around them every time they got close. He’d just never been able to get her to admit it. At the ball, with her in that dress, he hadn’t cared. He had to have her. Period.
As much as she was beautiful, she was also about as ornery as a mule. His father had called her persnickety. Let Miss Sophie get her hooks into something and she would not let go no matter what. For the years she’d worked for him, those talons had grabbed hold of his hide and she was damn near vicious in her efforts to guide him in the direction she wanted him to go. She’d been there ever since that day in the hospital, his lowest day, when she’d stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, and calmly stated with absolute resolve if for one second he thought he was just going to lie in that bed and rot away, he could think again. Giving up was not an opt
ion. If he didn’t agree with her, he was a jackass. And he was going to have to fight her tooth and nail, day in, day out, before he would be allowed to just give up. It was time for the pity party to end. They had work to do.
She’d never strayed from his side. Even on his worst days when his self-pity and self-loathing overcame his common sense, she was there, taking the verbal punches and flinging back a few of her own. Clay didn’t know of another human being who could talk to him the way she did that day. Not and get away with it.
And it continued through the months of therapy. She accepted no excuses, daring him to shut her out, and with each day his respect for her grew. What she ever saw in this broken-down, scarred ex-cowboy he would never know. It wasn’t about money. She had never asked for a raise in salary and had, in fact, purchased some office supplies out of her own pocket and never said a word about it. He’d happened to find a receipt. When questioned she’d said only that it wasn’t very much so why bother anyone for the money? He had insisted she set up an account at the local office supply store, then had to make her promise to use it.
Most people tended to cower at his anger and between his injuries and the stab in the back of his ex-bitch from hell, he’d had plenty to feel angry about. Rage often filled him but even when he lashed out, Sophie never batted an eye. He owed her his life. That was a fact no one could dispute. And that made her even more tempting than she’d even been before.