Emotionally exhausted and coasting on self-pity, I pulled out my phone to search for the resort’s phone number. At that moment, a well-worn Suburban with filthy mud flaps roared past me at a dangerously high speed. The driver slid up to the curb and lurched to a halt. If this was how people drove around here, it was a good thing I hadn’t rented a car to drive to the resort.
A man stepped out of the desperately dirty vehicle, yanked his t-shirt over his head, balled it up, then tossed it into the far depths of the backseats.
Ew. But also…wow.
For a man who looked to be around my age, he was in great shape—muscular back, broad shoulders, toned arms. Interesting…
I stared with growing curiosity as he took a new t-shirt from the front seat and slipped it over his head, his muscles flexing as he slid his arms through the holes and pulled the fabric to his waist. Then he grabbed a tan cowboy hat from the dashboard and put it on before slamming the driver’s side door. Mesmerized by this display of casual masculinity, I finally dragged my gaze away so I wouldn’t get caught gawking. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him walk toward me, and my heart rate quickened. Shoot. Had he seen me watching him?
“Howdy, ma’am.”
He was definitely speaking to me because I was the only one in the vicinity, so now I had to turn back and look at him again. Damn. He had the faded jeans and worn-in boots to pull that whole rough-and-ready look together.
“Hello.” I gave him a tight, closed-lip smile that said I was being pleasant, but wasn’t interested in whatever he was about to offer. Then I snapped my eyes back down to my suitcase. As a wary New Yorker, my guard went up when male strangers approached me, no matter how sexy they might be. Ted Bundy was handsome too, and look how that turned out.
“Are you heading to Silver Sage?” he asked, stepping closer to me.
And now I felt silly. “Oh. Yes, I am, actually.” I finally noticed that under the dirt on the green SUV there was faded white lettering that read Silver Sage Ranch. “Are you here to pick me up?” It was a stupid question that I regretted the second it was out of my mouth.
“I sure am.” He strode toward me, extending his hand for a shake, while I fanned my overheated face with my phone. “Matthew Hart, owner and manager of Silver Sage Ranch. Please excuse the dirt on the vehicle and”—he looked down at his jeans—“on me. A fence needed mending this morning, and I didn’t have time to change after seeing to it.”
Owner? That was a surprise. Didn’t they have someone lowlier who could shuttle guests to the ranch, not to mention deal with fence repairs? I took a moment to drink him in—lean body, chiseled jaw, chestnut hair streaked with silver at the temples. His denim-blue eyes were the same color as his jeans. If Tori were here, she’d make a joke about forgetting the truck and riding the cowboy, but I was in this alone.
“I’m Lauren Wagonblast,” I said, using my new alias. “Nice to meet you.” He clasped my hand in a firm grip, the calluses on his fingers playing roughly against my skin. I ignored the little tingle that shot through me at his touch because, seriously, I wasn’t falling for his humble cowboy act. He was probably wearing that hat to play a part for the sake of a tourist.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Wagonblast.” Amazingly, he didn’t crack a smile at the ridiculous last name Tori had given me when she had Sully arrange my stay at the ranch. Next time, I was making my own reservation.
He walked around to the back of the SUV and opened the door to the trunk area. “Are those your only bags?”
I looked down at my carry-on bag and oversized suitcase on wheels. “This is it. The bigger bag is really”—he easily hefted the sixty-pound suitcase the airlines charged me extra for and tossed it into the back of the SUV—“heavy.”
Not for him, apparently. He placed my smaller bag on top of the bigger one and slammed the two back doors.
“All set?” he asked.
I blinked up at the man in front of me, backlit with sunlight, and wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into. He could be driving me anywhere for all I knew. Maybe he wasn’t even from the resort, and I was being kidnapped and taken north or south over the border, never to be seen again...
I seriously needed to get a grip.
He took my hesitation the wrong way. “I promise the car is cleaner inside than out.”
“No, it’s not that.” Okay, that was an issue, but I didn’t want to seem prissy. “I was wondering if there were other guests coming with us?” I looked behind me but, alas, there was no one coming out of the doors of the airport.
“Nope, only you.”
Only me and this stranger who could clearly overpower me if he chose to do so. He had the correct name on his truck, but something about this situation still felt off.
“Alright then. Let’s go.”
As we drove down the highways of southeastern Wyoming, I found out what was meant by big sky country. Previous ski trips to Colorado hadn’t prepared me for the vastness of the Wyoming landscape. Three-hundred and sixty degrees around us was an impossibly blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds that Bob Ross himself could have conjured. There was open land as far as the eye could see, dotted with conifers and low-growing scrubby bushes. Here, the trees didn’t obstruct one’s vision like they did on Long Island, where I grew up. You could see far and wide, all the way to the foothills of tawny, rugged mountains in the distance. Behind those stood what Matthew told me were the majestic Sierra Madres, capped in white even in the summer.
At one point, we passed a sign for a town called Elk Mountain, population one hundred and fifty-one. I’d been to Peloton classes with nearly that many people.
“It certainly is sparsely populated out here,” I said, stating the obvious.
“That’s the beauty of Wyoming. The cows outnumber the people. Kind of like subway rats in New York City.”
I pointed a finger at him. “Hilarious, but I actually read a report that said the rat population is only one-third of the human population in the city.”
