Read the book: «The Cowboy And The Debutante»

Chapter One

Anna Murdock Sanders shook her finger at the nervous mare. “Ginger, I can see we need to have a girl-to-girl talk. That stallion is no good. He’ll just take what he wants from you, then be on his merry way. Males are just naturally like that. Believe me, I know. That’s why I’m swearing off men forever!”

Ignoring the warning, the mare nickered flirtingly at the stallion prancing around in the stall directly across from her.

A few feet farther down the long horse barn, Miguel Chavez stopped in his tracks as the young woman’s words echoed back to him. He hadn’t known anyone was in the stables, much less a woman who hated men!

Leaving the stall, he stepped into the alleyway and immediately spotted her lifting a saddle onto the paint’s back. Tall and slender, she was dressed in black jeans and a moss green camp shirt. As she moved about the horse, adjusting blankets and latigo, copper curls danced like flames in the wind against the middle of her back.

She had to be his employer’s daughter. Though Miguel had never seen her before, he’d heard Chloe and Wyatt Sanders speak of her. Anna and her twin brother, Adam, had been adopted as babies years ago by Chloe and Wyatt. Their actual birth parents had been Chloe’s father and Wyatt’s sister, both of whom had died shortly after the twins were born.

From what he’d heard, Anna was unlike her down-to-earth brother, who worked in the oil and gas businesses with his father. She was an accomplished pianist who’d spent the past few years traveling all over the States and abroad, playing concerts with big bands and symphony orchestras—a real debutante, who needed excitement, admiration and bright lights to make her happy.

The news that she was coming home hadn’t reached Miguel. He didn’t know why she was here, but he’d . bet his last dollar it was because she wanted or needed something from her parents. Girls like her were always spoiled. He knew from firsthand experience.

Clearing his throat to warn her of his presence, Miguel moved down the alleyway toward her. Anna glanced up just as he came to a stop a few steps away.

“Hello,” she said coolly as her eyes discreetly traveled up and down the lean length of the cowboy before her. He was dressed in jeans and chinks. Spurs with sunburst rowels were strapped to his black boots, and the sleeves of his heavy, brown cotton shirt were rolled up, exposing his thick forearms. Without a doubt, she’d never seen him before on the Bar M. He was a man not easily forgotten.

“Are you one of Mother’s cowhands?” she asked forthrightly.

A wry twist to his mouth, he stepped forward and offered her his hand, then in a slight Mexican accent, he said, “I’m Miguel Chavez, the ranch foreman. And I don’t think you’ve convinced Ginger that all men are bad,” he said, inclining his head toward the mare. “She still appears to be interested.”

As if to underscore his observation, Ginger once again nickered longingly at the stallion. Trying not to glower at the mare, Anna squared her shoulders and reluctantly reached to shake Miguel Chavez’s hand. “She’ll get past her infatuation.”

Miguel raised his brows at her remark, but he said nothing. No doubt this woman had been infatuated many times. And gotten past it, he thought drily. With her looks she’d probably had men begging for the simple touch of her hand.

The repugnant idea had him quickly releasing her fingers, yet he still couldn’t quite force his eyes to leave her face.

Her smooth ivory complexion told him she was young and also that she was vain enough not to let the bright sun ravage her luminous skin. Her full lips were dusky pink and slightly tilted at the corners. She had a straight patrician nose and pale green eyes that reminded Miguel of a spring aspen leaf. She wasn’t exactly the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen, but she possessed an earthy, sultriness about her that made the man in him want to keep looking. However, the cool expression in her eyes assured him she was not a woman for the taking. By him. Or any man.

Anna’s auburn brows lifted quizzically as she watched the cynical twist to his lips deepen. She didn’t know what the man was thinking. But if it was about her, she certainly didn’t like the idea that he found her amusing.

“I didn’t realize mother had hired a new foreman,” she admitted.

“I’ve been working on the Bar M for nearly a year now,” he told her.

Pink color bathed her high cheekbones and she hated herself for letting him see her discomfiture. “Other than the holidays, I haven’t spent too much time at home these past few months.”

Anna hadn’t deliberately planned it that way. One booking after another had kept her constantly on the road, and she’d been forced to postpone her trips home to a later date. And then, in the midst of all her work, she’d become involved with Scott and she supposed she’d gotten a little crazy after that. More than a little crazy, she thought with a megadose of self-deprecation. Thank goodness she’d gotten over him and canceled the wedding before her father had wasted an exorbitant amount of money on the ceremony...and she’d wasted herself on a man who had never really loved her.

“I don’t need explanations, Miss Sanders,” Miguel replied. “I didn’t expect you to know me. I’m just the foreman around here.”

Was he being impertinent or sincere? Anna’s eyes scanned his dark face beneath the brim of his straw hat. She couldn’t quite gauge his age, but she suspected he was somewhere near thirty-five. His face was lean and angular and had that hard-edged look that assured her his boyish days had long since passed. His nose was hawkish, his chin slightly dented. His eyes were a deep hazel, full of green and brown flecks that glinted beneath thick black lashes. Yet it was his lips that drew Anna’s full attention. The top one was thin and cruel looking while the bottom was full and sensual. It was a hard, masculine mouth and for some illogical reason Anna wondered how many women it had kissed.

Drawing in a deep, needy breath, she glanced away from him and turned back to the mare she’d been saddling. This wasn’t like her, she thought wildly. She didn’t look at any man and think the things she’d just been thinking.

“Call me Anna,” she said curtly. “I’m sure you call my mother Chloe. She doesn’t want anyone to be formal with her. And when I’m here at home, neither do I.”

But when she was out among her fellow musicians, dazzling the crowd, she expected and demanded to be addressed formally. She hadn’t come out and said as much, but Miguel could read the unspoken words very clearly. “Then you must be far more accustomed to being called Miss Sanders.”

She couldn’t stop the parting of her lips or the flare of her nostrils. “Are you always this impertinent?”

So she wasn’t made of pure ice, Miguel decided as his gaze took its time studying her face. “I wasn’t being impertinent. Just stating the obvious. You’re hardly ever home. Otherwise you would have known about me. And I, you.”

Shaking her thick red mane away from her face, she said, “You seem awfully sure of yourself, Mr. Chavez.”

He shrugged, then grinned goadingly at her. Her spine immediately stiffened, and she glanced away from him.

“Are you thinking about getting me fired?”

Her head swung back around and she stared at him in surprise. “I don’t interfere in my mother’s business! She obviously wants you around here. So you must be good for something.”

If Anna had been any other woman, Miguel would have already put her in her place. But she was Wyatt and Chloe’s daughter and because they were such kind, wonderful people, he would not hurt them in such a way. Besides, Anna was from a whole different world than his. For his own sake, he needed to overlook her attitude.

“Oh, you might be surprised at the things I’m good at, Miss Sanders.”

She turned away from him, but not before Miguel could see her lips compress to a thin line. No doubt she thought him vulgar and disgusting, but that was all right, too. He could make it just fine without women like Anna Sanders. And maybe it would be better for both of them if she understood that right now.

“Are you planning to stay long on the Bar M?”

She didn’t answer immediately and Miguel watched her adjust the throat latch on the bridle. Like her mother, she had small hands. They moved with graceful dexterity and he could easily imagine them dancing over a set of ivory keys or a man’s chest. The latter he tried not to dwell on.

She glanced over her shoulder at him and Miguel was intrigued by the knowing tilt to her lips. “I’m not sure yet. It depends on my job. Six weeks perhaps,” she said.

“Then you’re not... home to stay?”

Miguel didn’t know why he’d asked the question, but he was irritated at himself because he had. Hell, it didn’t matter how long the woman was going to be here. If he never saw her again after this moment he would survive just fine.

Home to stay. Miguel Chavez had no idea how wonderful those words sounded to Anna. She’d had years of extensive training in piano, and her parents and the rest of her family were proud of her accomplishments. They would surely be disappointed if she suddenly turned her back on her career.

“No. Only for an extended vacation,” she said bluntly. Then, realizing the saddling was finished and there was no need for her to tarry here in the stables any longer, she led the mare ahead three or four steps and swung herself into the saddle.

Miguel stepped back out of the way and gave her a little salute from the brim of his hat. “Adios, Anna. Maybe before your vacation is over you’ll have Ginger convinced to swear off the male gender, too.”

Pausing, she looked down at him from her lofty perch and hoped he couldn’t spot the faint pink on her cheeks. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone or anything had made her blush. This man had managed to do it twice in less than five minutes. Damn him!

“If Ginger is as smart as I think she is, I’ll have her turning her nose up at that stallion over there.”

“Poor Ginger.”

To Anna’s amazement, she wanted to climb down from the mare, poke her finger in the middle of Miguel Chavez’s chest and tell him exactly what she thought of his raw remark. But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him know he riled her. For years Anna had trained herself to be a cool, sophisticated woman. It was an image she projected to her audience and even her family. She wasn’t about to let this man know he could make her lose control.

“Goodbye, Mr. Chavez,” she said bluntly, then touched her heels to the horse’s sides and left him and the cool, dim interior of the stables behind.

She rode south, forging across the shallow Hondo, then up into the mountains where the pines grew thick and the carpet of needles beneath them silenced the mare’s hooves.

At a rocky ledge halfway up, she reined Ginger to a halt and gazed back down on the valley below.

To Anna there was no place like the Hondo Valley. Santa Fe, where she’d played her last engagement, was known for its art and culture and mysticism, but this was the New Mexico Anna loved. There was everything in the valley. Horses, cattle, fruit orchards, forest and desert and something mixed of the two. And it was home. Nothing was better than that.

Ginger shook her head as a mosquito buzzed around her ears. Anna swatted the insect away, then patted the mare’s neck. As she did, the lean, dark image of Miguel Chavez skipped through her mind.

The man had been a complete surprise to her. Not that having a Mexican-American working on the Bar M was anything unusual. Quite the contrary. Her parents normally hired more Hispanics than Anglos and they were as much a part of this area as the Apaches. When she’d looked into his handsome face, his ancestry had been the last thing on her mind.

There was something about Miguel that had made her feel different in a way she’d never quite felt before. When he’d looked at her and grinned that outlandishly sexy grin at her, all she’d been able to think was that she was a woman and he was a man. It was ridiculous!

But Anna had far more important things to think about than a tough cowboy who was at least ten years older than her and probably married, besides. She had to gather herself together, refuel her mind and her body. Otherwise, after these next six weeks passed, she didn’t know whether she could make herself go back on the road again.

She loved playing the piano, but she was growing weary of the nomadic life and the demands of performing for an audience. The weight of her job was taking a toll on her body. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept the whole night through. Fatigue was her constant companion and her once-healthy appetite had almost vanished.

To please her parents last week, she’d gone for a medical checkup. When the doctor had assured Anna there was nothing physically wrong, both her mother and father had quickly assumed she was still grieving over her breakup with Scott. And Anna had found it easier to let them go on thinking she was simply suffering from a broken heart.

Truth was after she’d gotten over the initial shock of walking in and finding Scott in another woman’s arms, Anna had come to realize she had never loved him with the same wild, deep need that her mother and father felt for each other. She hadn’t been devastated when their relationship ended. She’d been relieved. And that in itself worried her. She was beginning to fear she was going to be like her birth mother, who’d flitted from one man and one bad relationship to the next.

With a heavy sigh, Anna reined the paint away from the ledge and headed her back down the mountain. The sun was dipping lower in the west, and her father would soon be home for supper. For his sake she was going to change clothes, put on her cheeriest face and make herself eat a whole plate of food.

Back at the stables there was no sign of Miguel Chavez. Although there were several wranglers working around the ranch yard doing last-minute evening chores, she unsaddled her mount, then brushed and fed her herself. The last thing she wanted was for word to get back to the foreman that she was a spoiled little rich girl. In her opinion the man was already far too smug. She didn’t want to give him reason to be even more so.

Later that evening after supper, Anna helped her mother clear away the dirty dishes, then Chloe carried a pot of coffee out to the courtyard at the back of the ranch house where redwood furniture was grouped beneath a stand of piñon pines.

Her father had taken about two sips when his pager beeped. Mumbling his annoyance, he checked the number, then rose to his feet. “Looks like I’m going to have to leave you two beautiful ladies. Sander’s Gas Exploration is calling.”

“We’ll try to do without you for a few minutes, darling,” Chloe told him.

Anna watched her father head back into the house, then with a little sigh, snuggled deeper into the cushioned chair.

“Are you cold, honey? Would you rather go back in?” Chloe asked her.

Cooler air had moved in with the night, but Anna had pulled on a sweater before she’d left the house. “No. I’m fine. It’s beautiful out tonight.”

A few feet away an oval swimming pool was edged with huge terra-cotta pots filled with geraniums, marigolds and zinnias. Anna wished the water was warm enough to dive into. She couldn’t remember when she’d taken the time for a leisurely swim. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone at anything in a leisurely way.

A few feet away, Anna’s mother, Chloe, studied her daughter’s quiet profile for several moments, then said, “I wish you were enjoying yourself more. You’ve been back on the ranch for three days now, and I don’t think I’ve heard you laugh yet.”

Anna twisted her head around to face her mother. “I’m enjoying myself, Mother. You know how long I’ve wanted to come home.”

Chloe didn’t look a bit convinced. “Yes. But now that you’re here I’m not so sure it’s what you were really needing.”

Grimacing, Anna rose from the chair and strolled over to the swimming pool. “Mother, please don’t tell me I’d be happier if I were out looking for a man. Men are off-limits!”

Chloe laughed, then just as quickly apologized. “I’m sorry, honey, I’m not laughing at you. I realize you’re miserable, but to hear you say your love life has ended is...ridiculous.”

Kneeling down near the edge of the pool, Anna trailed her fingers through the clear water. Just as she expected, it was still freezing. “I mean what I said earlier, Mother. I’m swearing off men. This last thing with Scott proved to me that they’re not to be trusted.”

She walked back over to where her mother sat stretched out on a chaise lounge, studying her with troubled eyes. “Believe me, Anna, I felt just as you did before I met your father. You haven’t forgotten that a man left me after we’d already planned to get married.”

Anna hadn’t forgotten the story Chloe had related to her years before. “I remember. You told him you couldn’t bear children and he ran out on you. How could you have wanted to marry a piece of scum like that?”

Chloe chuckled. “I could ask you the same thing about Scott? Why fret over someone who isn’t worth it?”

Sighing again, Anna lifted her eyes to the sky. The night was clear, and stars blazed by the millions over the mountains. Deep in her heart Anna was beginning to think this was where she really belonged, not in some civic center a thousand miles away.

“Believe me, Mother, Scott opened my eyes. If it wasn’t for seeing how much you and Daddy adore each other, I think I’d quit believing in love altogether.”

“Anna! You’re just angry now. Besides, what about your aunts, Rose and Justine? They’ve both had long, wonderful marriages. And now your cousins Emily and Charlie are both happily married.”

Chloe was right. Most of her relatives had been lucky in love. But her mother hadn’t mentioned Anna’s birth parents, Belinda and Tomas. The two of them had been terribly unlucky. In fact, Belinda had more or less died from a broken heart and so had Tomas. But Anna loved Chloe too much to bring up that painful part of their lives.

“Mother...I think it’s time I told you...I haven’t been totally honest with you and Dad.”

Chloe’s brow arched with surprise. “What do you mean? About you and Scott?” Before Anna could respond, the older woman’s mouth parted as another thought struck her. “Are you pregnant, darling? Is that why you’re not eating? If you’re worried—”

Anna quickly shook her head before her mother’s assumption got out of hand. “No. I’m not pregnant. Scott and I never... well, I guess deep down, something kept telling me not to sleep with him. But as for a baby, I would love to have a child. Just not by Scott. I’d at least want to respect the father.”

Chloe frowned with bewilderment. “If you’re not pregnant, then what—”

“I’m talking about me being so...so melancholy. I’m not grieving over my ended relationship with Scott. That’s all over and done with. I’m just overworked.”

The tense expression on Chloe’s face eased. “Of course you are, honey. That’s why you’re here on vacation. So you can rest and recuperate. And you will. You’ve only just gotten here. Give yourself time.”

Anna sighed. “I’m not so sure I want to go back, Mother. I’m not so sure I want to keep playing the piano professionally.”

Several moments passed in silence. Then, just as Anna was expecting her mother to burst out with shocked dismay, Chloe gentle smiled.

“Why haven’t you said anything about this before?”

“Because I didn’t want to upset you and Dad. I knew you would think I was losing my mind if I did.”

Chloe shook her head. “Anna, you must live your own life as you want to live it. Not as you think we want you to.”

Of course Anna should have expected her mother would say those words. And so would her father. They would hide their disappointment just to make their daughter happy.

“You would say that,” Anna mumbled.

“Since when have I or your father ever lied to you?”

Anna shook her head. “Not any time that I can ever remember. But I know how much you’ve always wanted my career to go forward.”

“And it has,” Chloe agreed. “You’ve been making a great salary, you’ve traveled all over the world and seen all sorts of sights. But if your job is making you unhappy...then you need to stop and ask yourself what it is you really want.”

Anna went over to her mother’s chair, knelt down at the arm and pressed her hand over her mother’s. “I have been, Mother. And I think I fell in with Scott’s plans to get married not so much because I loved him or even needed him, but because I wanted children and a home and I thought he could give those things to me.”

Chloe’s gentle smile was understanding. “And you want those things more than you want to travel and play the piano.”

Anna’s head bobbed up and down. “Does that sound crazy?”

Chloe laughed softly, then reached over and patted her daughter’s cheek. “If it does then I’ve been crazy for the past twenty-five years.”

She hadn’t really meant to blurt all of this out to her mother this evening, but she felt a bit better for it.

Rising to her feet, Anna said, “Well, it does sound crazy, actually. A woman needs a man to have a home and children. And since I don’t want a man in my life, I’ve got to turn my attention to other things.”

“What other things?”

Anna’s slender shoulders lifted then fell. “I don’t know. Maybe I should just throw myself back into the music and forget about the children and the white picket fence. Maybe after six weeks of rest I’ll be itching to perform again.” A wan smile tilted her lips. “In the meantime, I’m simply going to enjoy being home. It was such a pleasure to ride Ginger this afternoon. Just being with the horses again is therapeutic for me.”

“I’m glad.”

Her lips suddenly thinned to a smirk. “By the way, I met your new foreman earlier before I went out riding. I didn’t realize Lester had left.”

Chloe nodded. “Lester had reached retirement age and he and his wife wanted to do some traveling.”

Lester had been on the Bar M for twenty years. He was a bowlegged, raw-boned, pipe smoker who’d rarely shown the top of his bald head to anyone. He’d been more or less like a grandpa to Anna and Adam and their younger sister, Ivy. Miguel Chavez was nothing like Lester.

“Where did you find Mr. Chavez?”

“Your uncle Roy knew him. Miguel lived in Carrizozo for several years. Before that, Albuquerque, I think. What did you think of him?”

Anna had thought far too many things. In fact, she was still wondering why that idiotic thought about his mouth had ever entered her head.

“Well, I’m sure he’s a strong, capable man or you wouldn’t have him here.”

A knowing little smile on her face, Chloe said, “Miguel is a good man, but he doesn’t profess to know all that much about racehorses. He sees to the cattle end of things and makes sure the cowhands do all the rough stable work for me.”

Anna’s brows lifted. Miguel Chavez possessed more than a striking appearance. Self-confidence oozed from every pore on the man. “He doesn’t know about horses? I don’t believe that for a minute.”

Chloe rose from the chaise lounge and stretched. “Well, of course he knows about horses. He rides like a man who was born in the saddle. But I’m talking about the ins and outs of racing.”

Anna glanced at her as another question struck her. “Is he...Miguel living in the old foreman’s house?”

The place she referred to was a midsize log structure built almost a mile south of the ranch house and halfway up the mountain. Anna had always been fond of the homestead. It was quiet and secluded and had a spectacular view of Sierra Blanca to the west.

Chloe nodded, then with an assessing gleam in her eye, added, “And he’s single. I think he was married years ago. I don’t know what happened. Apparently some woman dealt him some misery. I suppose, like you, he’s sworn off the opposite sex. Since he’s been here I haven’t seen him look sideways at one, much less have one to his house as a date.”

For some reason, Anna didn’t feel comfortable talking about Miguel Chavez’s personal life. He’d seemed a private person, one who kept his deeper thoughts to himself. She respected that, and anyway, it was no concern of hers whether the man was single or married or a masochist. She had her own problems to deal with.

“I’m sure he has his reasons,” Anna said, though she couldn’t help wondering if some woman had left him emotionally bruised and beaten. She sincerely doubted it. Miguel Chavez seemed too tough to have ever suffered a broken heart.

“Yes, I’m sure he’s had his reasons,” her mother said with a sigh. “But it seems such a shame. No one should be that alone.”

Her mother spoke with the same sort of fretfulness she might have used if she were talking about Adam, but that didn’t surprise Anna. Chloe wanted everyone she knew to be as happy as her. And in her mother’s eyes, love and happiness were synonymous.

“Maybe Miguel Chavez simply prefers his own company,” Anna said, then, looping her arm around her mother’s, she urged the other woman toward the house. “Let’s go in. The breeze is getting downright cold.”

“Wait a minute, darling, the coffeepot.” She walked over to a small table and picked up the insulated container, then rejoined her daughter. “Now back to Miguel—he doesn’t know what he prefers. He’s lived alone for so long, he’s forgotten what female companionship is all about.”

Chloe’s candor brought a pink flush to Anna’s cheeks. “Mother, I imagine Miguel Chavez has already forgotten more about women than the average man would know in a lifetime.”

Suddenly Chloe began to laugh, and Anna glanced at her sharply as the two of them entered the back door of the kitchen.

“You find that funny?”

Chloe’s laughter quickly sobered but a wide smile remained on her face. “No, dear. I’m just happy you noticed.”