Justin Hartford was a jerk.
Ashley Barnes leaned against the hood of her car glaring at the locked gates to the sprawling Blue Sage ranch and repeated the words like a mantra. Jerk. Jerk. Jerk.
He was a narcissistic egomaniac who thought the entire world had nothing better to do but impinge on his personal space. Of course he would have locked gates. He wasn't about to give mere mortals easy access to him.
Too darn bad. She had to talk to him today. If repeated phone calls, letters and emails weren't going to do the trick, she would just have to bust down these gates until the man agreed to talk to her.
She sighed. Well, okay, that probably wasn't the most brilliant idea she had ever come up with. As much as she adored her lime green VW bug, she was afraid it didn't have the necessary gumption to break through a couple of eight-foot-high iron gates.
Failure was not an option, though. She and the jerk in question had been heading for this shoot-out for three weeks. Whether he knew it or not — or whether he even cared — she had given Justin Hartford an ultimatum in her mind. His time for avoiding her had just run out.
She eyed the gates, all eight menacing feet of them. She hadn't grown up on a horse ranch with four older brothers without learning a thing or two about hurdling fences, shinnying up trees and swinging out of barn lofts on old, fraying ropes. Climbing the man's gate wouldn't exactly be easy, but he wasn't giving her a lot to work with here.
She sighed, grateful at least that she was wearing jeans. She had to jump three times before she could reach the crossbar on the fence. From there, it was easy enough to hoist herself up. She perched along the top bar for just a moment — only long enough to catch a terrifying glimpse of a horse and rider heading toward her at a neck-or-nothing pace.
Rats. It was too far to jump unless she wanted to risk a broken ankle, so she had to slither down like one of her kindergarten children on the monkey bars. She hit the ground and turned around just as a gorgeous Arabian raced up in a swirling cloud of dust.
Ashley caught a quick glimpse of the horse's rider and her pulse rate kicked up a notch. Her mouth suddenly felt as dry as a Cold Creek tributary after a three-year drought. It was the jerk himself. She couldn't mistake those chiseled features and that strong jaw for anyone else.
She had a quick mental picture of him in Last Chance when he had played a wounded outlaw with a tragic secret. She loved that movie. She loved all his movies.
Too bad they were all Hollywood make-believe.
Justin reined the horse in and tipped his hat back. Ashley took an instinctive step back at the menace on his features. Had she ever really been so young and so stupid to think she was hopelessly in love with him?
"You've got two choices here, lady," he growled. "You either climb back the way you came or we wait here until the sheriff shows up to arrest you for trespassing. Which one do you prefer?"
A chorus line of nerves started tap-dancing in her stomach, and she couldn't seem to think straight with those midnight blue eyes boring into her.
"Go ahead and call the sheriff, Mr. Hartford. In fact," she added brightly, "I can do it for you if you'd like, since I've got him on speed dial on my cell phone. I have all my brothers on speed dial. Luke is #2, right after Mom and Dad. It's only fair, since he's the oldest and that seemed the easiest way to keep the numbers straight. I should probably put Evan at #2 since I call him most often. He's the brother just older than me. We're only two years apart so we are probably the closest. Still, he's at number three. I don't call the twins very often since they live on the coast so they're at five and six. But like I said, Luke is #2 so it would be easy to get him here fast if that's what you want to do —"
By the time she had the sense to realize she was rambling and could manage to clamp her teeth together to stem the gushing flow of stupidity, Justin Hartford's famously gorgeous eyes had started to cross.
This was all his own fault, she thought, crabby all over again. He didn't need to sit there on his horse and glower at her like she was the treasonous spy in one of his movies.
"I'm sorry," she said stiffly. "You don't care about any of that. When I'm nervous I ramble."
"I hadn't noticed," he muttered, with such condescension she wanted to smack him.
"Enlightening family history aside, you're still trespassing — an eight-foot-high locked iron gate is usually a big tip-off there."
She drew in a cleansing breath and let it out again. This wasn't going well. She needed to put aside her instinctive nervous reaction to her silly teenage heartthrob and focus on the crisis at hand — the reason she was there.
"It's your own fault. If you weren't such a …a darn hermit maybe I wouldn't have to resort to such drastic measures."
He blinked. "A hermit?"
"Yes! How am I supposed to talk to you if you hardly leave the Blue Sage?"
"I happen to like my privacy, Ms…"
She drew herself up to her full five-foot-three inches tall and glared at him with all the frustration that had been burning through her for three weeks. "Ashley Barnes. Ruby's kindergarten teacher. Whether you want to be bothered or not, it is imperative I talk to you about your daughter."
Justin looked down at the soft little blond peach in the dusty pink sweater who had just scaled his gate like some kind of Olympic gymnast. Ruby's kindergarten teacher. He winced, embarrassed he had mistaken her for an obsessed fan.
Though he had walked away from Hollywood six years ago and moved to eastern Idaho without a backward glance, away from the attention he had never wanted, sometimes it followed him. He wasn't obsessive about security. But what else was he supposed to think when he spied a woman climbing over his gate?
"Kind of drastic measures to take for a parent-teacher conference, don't you think?" he asked as he slid down from his horse.
Her hazel eyes narrowed at him and he had to admit, up close she was seriously cute. Small and feminine, with short blond curls held back in a headband and dimples that appeared even when she was glaring at him.
She looked like a cream puff. Like a delicious, sugary, melt-in-your-mouth confection. He had sworn off sweets a long time ago, but that didn't make the sudden intense craving any easier to ignore.
"I wouldn't have had to resort to such drastic measures as climbing your stupid gate if you could be bothered just once to answer one of my dozens of pleas to set up a meeting."
She didn't let him answer — not that he had the first idea what she was talking about.
"I realize you're a very busy, very important man," she snapped, her hands fisted on her hips.
How did the curl of those luscious lips make the words sound like an epithet? he wondered.
"I'm sure you must have scores of people to see and all that," she went on. "But you're an actor — or you used to be, anyway. Couldn't you at least pretend you care about your child?"
He jerked his attention from her lips as her words filtered through. "Excuse me?"
"You probably pay more attention to that horse of yours than you do to your own daughter!"
Justin was usually pretty good at keeping his temper under wraps. But he wasn't about to let some sanctimonious schoolteacher question how he raised his daughter. Ruby was the most important thing in his life. The only thing that mattered. Everything he did was for her and he didn't take kindly to anyone insinuating otherwise.
"You don't know anything about me or about my daughter if you can say that."
The cream puff didn't exactly deflate in the face of his anger, but she did back down a little.
"I'm sorry," she said stiffly. "But for three weeks I have been trying every method under the sun, except carrier pigeons, to get your attention, and you have ignored every single one of my attempts to contact you. If you were in my shoes, wouldn't you have the same impression, of an uninvolved parent who doesn't care a hill of beans about his daughter's education? I finally decided I would talk to you today, even if I had to climb your gate to do it."
He tipped his hat back farther, completely baffled by the obvious concern in her voice. "I'm sure this is some kind of a mistake. I haven't heard anything about any problems Ruby might be having in school. Did you talk to her great-aunt about it?"
She moved forward, so close he could smell her, like vanilla and almonds. His mouth instantly watered but he pushed it aside.
"Several times," she answered, oblivious — he hoped — to his sudden hunger. "Lydia has promised me that she and Ruby talked about it and Ruby promised her things would change. But nothing has."
The school term had been underway for a month now and he had been under the impression everything was fine. Pine Gulch, Idaho, wasn't exactly overflowing with educational opportunities and the local public school was the only option for his five-year-old daughter. He could have hired tutors for Ruby when she reached school-age, but he wanted her to have the most normal life possible. To him, that meant school lunch and recess and spelling bees.
All the things he never had.
It was tough enough on a kid having a dad who had once been a celebrity. He hadn't wanted to make things harder on Ruby by showing up at her school all the time and reminding everyone of it, so he and his aunt had agreed she would be his go-between with the school.
Lydia served as his housekeeper, nanny and confidante. She had raised him, after all, and had been the logical person to turn for help raising Ruby the day she had been dumped on him when she was only two months old.
He loved Lydia dearly, but she did have a bad habit of trying to solve all his problems for him.
"Lydia or Ruby never said a word about any trouble at school. In fact, all I hear from Ruby is how much she loves it. She talks about it all the time. About her friends and how much she's learning and how much she loves her teacher. I guess that would be you."
Miss Barnes had been the major topic of conversation since school started a month ago, he reflected. Ruby had jabbered endlessly about how pretty and nice and smart her teacher was, until he had begun to dislike the woman before he'd even met her.
Just now the nice, pretty teacher was staring at him like he was the alien space creature from the single sci-fi picture he'd made.
"She said she loved her teacher? Are we talking about the same child here? Mr. Hartford, your daughter hates school! And me! Or at least she manages to give a very convincing impression of a child who does."
"Hates it? You've got to be kidding! She doesn't talk about anything else!"
"The first week of the school year, things seemed fine. Ruby was making friends, she was enthusiastic about learning, she was attentive in class and participated in discussions. Then three weeks ago, everything changed."
"Three weeks ago?"
"Right. I've seen a dramatic turnaround. Ruby has gone from being a sweet little girl to one who seems absolutely miserable, from the moment she arrives at lunchtime to when she leaves at the end of the day. She is sullen and uncooperative. If I call on her in class, she clamps her lips together and she turns every assignment over on her desk without even putting her name on it."
He stared, his mind churning to make sense of this. "That's not like Ruby at all. This can't be right."
"Look, Mr. Hartford, I'm only trying to get to the bottom of the rapid change in Ruby's behavior. Have you noticed a similar change at home?"
"No. She's been the same as always — energetic, curious, a little on the mischievous side, maybe. But over all, she's a great kid."
Her prickly attitude seemed to soften a little at his words. "I'll admit, I'm stumped. Did anything happen about three weeks ago that might have contributed to her acting out?"
He wracked his brain, trying to think back. They had made a quick weekend trip to L.A. to visit a friend who was having an engagement party to celebrate her second marriage. That was the only thing that came to mind. "I don't know. I can't think of anything specific."
"I must tell you, I'm wondering if perhaps Ruby is not quite ready for kindergarten. Some children take longer to mature than others, especially if there is some…upheaval in their lives."
She said the last part with such subtle contempt that he simmered. She didn't know anything about him — except maybe what she read in the tabloids.
"You're wrong, Ms. Barnes. Ruby has been ready for kindergarten since she was three years old. She is smart and precocious and curious and loves learning. I can't imagine what's happened since she started in your classroom to change that."
Her gaze narrowed and he realized how his words could be misconstrued. "You can bet I intend to find out," he said quickly. "I'm sure once we sit down together we can figure out what's going on. Ruby and Lydia have gone to Jackson shopping for the day or I would go grab her right now and have this out. Any chance you can come back later?"
"I have plans tonight," she said stiffly, a hint of color in her cheeks. A hot date? he wondered, and was stunned at his disappointment.
"We can make an appointment to meet one day this week after school," she offered.
"I'm leaving Monday to go to Denver on a horse-buying trip until Friday. What about tomorrow night? We'll even throw in dinner for your trouble."
A host of emotions flashed through those expressive eyes — reluctance at the forefront among them, something that suddenly annoyed him. "I…yes. I suppose that would be all right."
"Does seven sound okay?"
She nodded those soft curls. "Yes."
"This has got to be a big misunderstanding. Ruby is a great kid. You'll see. We'll get to the bottom of it."
"I hope so. Ruby's negative attitude is becoming disruptive to the entire afternoon class."
"I'll see you tomorrow night, then. Oh, and Ms. Barnes," he said with a smile as he pushed the button to open the gate, "perhaps it would be better if you rang the buzzer when you arrive for dinner tomorrow. I wouldn't want you to fall from the top of the gate next time and miss the appetizer."
He laughed at the hot glare she sliced at him. As he watched her march back through the gates and climb into her fluorescent car, he was aware of the unwilling attraction settling low in his gut.
Nothing could come of it. He knew that. Miss Ashley Barnes had commitment written all over her cute little face and he had a terrible track record in that department.
He had decided after Ruby came into his life that he just had to close the door on anything long-term. He had been burned too many times. He picked the wrong kind of women to tangle with and then ended up paying for it.
Ruby's mother had been the final straw. Tamara Drake had been an aspiring actress he met at a party and dated a few times, unaware that underneath her fun, sexy act was a predatory woman who thought trapping him by becoming pregnant with his child would seal her celebrity status. Tamara's pregnancy and her increasingly strident demands on him had been Justin's wake-up call that his life was not traveling a course he wanted. He had fathered a child with a woman he barely knew and one he had come to despise, and the grim reality of it all forced him to take a good, hard look at himself.
He hadn't been very crazy about what he saw. He was just like Tamara, he had realized. He had become selfish, materialistic, shallow. He went after what he wanted at the moment without thought of the consequences, and he knew he couldn't continue on that road.
He started looking for a quiet western town to settle in, told Tamara he was leaving Hollywood and offered a financial settlement and annuity in return for her signing over parental rights to Ruby to him. Though she had been livid at him for walking away, she certainly hadn't wanted to be saddled with a baby. She agreed with alacrity and died a year later of a drug overdose.
It was an ugly story, one that still made him ashamed of the man he had been six years ago.
He had changed. Ruby had seen to that, but he still didn't trust his own judgment about women. Tamara had just been the last in a long line of mistakes, and with a child's fragile emotions to consider, he couldn't afford the high price, anymore.
He avoided the spotlight now as much as he could but to his jaded eye, it seemed like every woman he met since Tamara was mostly interested in him for his ex-celebrity status, enthralled, for some crazy reason, to be seen with a man who had once been moderately famous.
It turned his stomach. He wanted them to see beyond the image that had appeared on far too much movie-related merchandise. To see the man whose favorite things now were mowing the lawn on a warm summer afternoon, playing outside in the sunshine with his daughter, training a good horse.
He didn't trust many women and he certainly didn't trust his own judgment. This way was better. Just him and Ruby and Lydia. They made a good team and there just wasn't room for any more players.
Not even cute-as-pie schoolteachers with dimples and hazel eyes and blond, starlit curls.
"All a big misunderstanding. Right. Can you believe that man? Does he think I don't know what's going on in my own classroom?"
"The nerve!" Josie Roundy exclaimed.
"He should be horsewhipped," Marcy Weller agreed.
Her two best friends looked at each other and grinned, and Ashley fought the urge to bean them both with the wok she was setting up on the stovetop.
She should be grateful they were there, she told herself. They had both agreed to her last-minute invitation so she wouldn't be consumed with guilt for lying to Jason Hartford.
She hadn't wanted to tell him the truth — that she had no plans other than lesson prep work — but she also hadn't been ready to turn around and drive back to the Blue Sage that night, not without a little more time to psych herself up to facing him again. As salve to her conscience, she had called Josie and Marcy over for an impromptu party watching movies and making Chinese food and venting about the man himself.
"You should have seen the way he looked at me, like I was some deranged fan come to steal his boxers or something. Good grief."
"Well, you did climb over his gate," Marcy pointed out from the sink where she was washing vegetables. "You can't blame the man for being a little suspicious about you."
"If I were going to become a stalker, why would I pick a washed-up recluse of an actor?"
"Because he's a big hot bundle of yum?" Josie suggested.
Marcy made a face. "Yum factor aside, you know perfectly well he's not washed-up, Ash. He walked away at the top of his game. I bet right this minute he could still step into any role he wanted and find himself back on the A-list. He just doesn't want to be there."
She had to admit, Marcy was right about that. Justin had the intensity and range of a truly great actor. And the cameras had loved him.
"I still cry every time I watch him in Warrior," Josie said.
Ashley didn't want to admit that she did, too — and that she'd watched the DVD just the other night.
"How many times did we drive to Idaho Falls to see Last Chance when we were sixteen?" Marcy laughed. "At least a dozen. Remember how you used to have that picture of him in your locker with his shirt half ripped off and his sexy black Stetson and that hard look in his eyes?"
Josie snickered as she twisted another egg roll. "If there was ever an obsessed stalker fan back then, it would have been you, Ash. I seem to remember you writing Mrs. Justin Hartford on everything from your algebra homework to the pizza napkins at Stoneys."
"Will you two just forget about that? For heaven's sake! It was more than a decade ago. Marcy's already given me a hard time about my stupid crush."
She loved her friends dearly. They had been friends since they were all in kindergarten and she found great comfort in that kind of continuity. She just sometimes wished they didn't know every single detail about her life.
"You're supposed to be sympathetic here. I was a silly teenager. What did I know about what to look for in a man? All I cared about ten years ago were dreamy eyes and six-pack abs."
"Two things Justin Hartford still has," Josie pointed out with a slightly overheated gleam in her own eyes. "He came into the hardware store last week for hex screws and I just about drooled all over his cowboy boots."
"Dreamy eyes are fine but not when they come as a package deal with a man willing to abdicate his responsibility to his child."
"That's unfair," Marcy spoke up as she drained the vegetables. "He invited you to come back and talk to Ruby about her behavior, didn't he? I wonder if you would be so mad at him right now if you hadn't had such a crush on him back in the day."
"Yeah," Josie warmed to the theory. "Maybe you built him up in your wild little fantasy world for so long that finding out the real man is just a struggling father with the same problems as the rest of us has left you heartbroken and disillusioned."
She had to admit, there might be some truth in what they said. She had this image in her head of him as the hard-driving, hard-living hero he played so well. It was a little hard to reconcile that with the father of her biggest behavior problem.
She sighed. She was not looking forward to dinner the next night. How did a girl dress to have dinner with her teenage crush?
By the next evening as he was prepping the steaks for dinner, Justin still didn't have a clue what was going on with Ruby and school.
He had tried to talk to his daughter about it a dozen times, but she had been acting strangely ever since she found out Miss Barnes was coming to dinner. She was popping out of her skin with an odd kind of excitement and every time he tried to bring up school, she made some excuse to escape.
He hadn't pushed it, though he knew he should. He didn't really have a good handle on the extent of the problem, and he thought maybe it would be better if he waited until the teacher was there.
Lydia hadn't been much help, either. When he talked to her the night before, he found his aunt was firmly of the opinion that Ruby was only misbehaving as a coping mechanism to adjust to school. She wasn't used to being around other children all the time, everything was new and she had the added complication of being the daughter of the town's only celebrity, which automatically set her apart, Lydia thought.
She had talked to Ruby several times and the girl had promised she would do better. Lydia wanted to give her a little more time to adjust and she hadn't wanted to bother Justin with it, especially as they had agreed she would be the liaison with the school.
She had nothing but praise for the teacher, though. Justin had had just about enough of hearing about all of Ashley Barnes's wonderful qualities.
He sighed. He already had enough trouble with the females in his life. Why did he even think for a moment he needed to add more? Still, he hadn't been able to get the teacher out of his mind. He had dreamed of her last night and had awoken aroused and embarrassed and with an intense hunger for cream puffs.
He jerked his mind away from those unruly images. "Ruby, you need to set the table," he called. "Your teacher will be here any minute now."
"Coming, Daddy," she called from the other room and a moment later she flounced into the room. Flounce was exactly the word for it — she was wearing the ruffly girly dress she and Lydia had bought the day before in Jackson.
She was all taffeta and lace, with mismatched ankle socks and her favorite sparkly sneakers.
He hid a smile. "Honey, you can't wear that. You'll ruin the pretty dress you and Aunt Lydia bought to wear to Sierra's mom's wedding next month."
"I want Miss Barnes to see it. She'll like the way it twirls. See, Daddy?" She spun in a circle, eyes wide with delight, and a lump rose in his throat. He loved this crazy, funny little thing so much it was a physical ache in his chest sometimes.
"You're having a hotdog, though, and you know how messy those can be. You wouldn't want to spill mustard on your dress, would you?"
Her brow furrowed as she considered and he pushed his advantage while he had it. "Set the table out on the deck and then go up and change into something else. After dinner maybe you can change into your new dress to show Miss Barnes."
He knew before too much longer, he wouldn't be able to convince her of anything so easily, but for now his logic could still sway her.
"Okay." She ran to the cupboard for the plates then stopped and gave him a considering look. "You should wear your blue shirt, Daddy. The one that's soft and silky. Aunt Lydia said you turn all the ladies to mush when you wear it."
Before he could ask why she might want him to turn her kindergarten teacher to mush — a task he doubted he had the ability to perform, much as he and his libidinous dreams might like to — she rushed outside with an armload of plates and silverware.
She had just returned for glasses when the buzzer on the front gates rang. Ruby shrieked with excitement. "She's here! She's here! She's really here!"
Ruby raced to the intercom and control console for the electronic gates. "Miss Barnes! Miss Barnes! Hi, Miss Barnes! I'm going to push the button and open the gate, okay? Okay?"
There was a slight pause then Ashley's voice filled the kitchen and even through the intercom he could hear the amusement in it. "Thank you very much, Ruby."
She pushed the button then jumped away from the console. "You let her in while I go change, Daddy. I'll be right back."
He started to call her back — since she was already in the dress, she might as well show it off now instead of later — but she was gone, heading up the stairs at a full-out run.
The doorbell rang and Justin was startled at the way his pulse kicked up against his will.
He walked out to the entryway and opened the door then forgot to even say hello. She looked sweet and lovely and delicious enough to gobble up in one bite. He was so busy trying to convince himself he wasn't hungry that he almost missed the wary look in her eyes.
"Hi. I'm early. I'm sorry."
He was a little rusty as a host but he tried to do his best. "Not at all. Come in. Ruby's gone to change her clothes and I'm not sure where my aunt has vanished to. I'm sure she'll be along soon."
She held out something in a white box wrapped in string. "I brought dessert. I didn't know what you were serving so I didn't know what kind of wine would be appropriate. And, anyway, I thought Ruby might enjoy something sweet more."
"What is it?"
"Raspberry ribbon cheesecake. It's my mom's recipe."
"Ruby will love it. I'll just put it in the refrigerator. Why don't you come outside with me while I put the steaks on?"
"You're cooking?"
He had to smile at the utter disbelief in her voice. "I'm grilling. There's a world of difference between the two. Throwing a couple steaks on the grill doesn't exactly take much except a good spice rub recipe and a meat thermometer."
She still looked flabbergasted as he gestured her ahead of him into the kitchen. She walked past him and again the tantalizing scents of vanilla and almonds — with a hint of raspberry now — teased him.
He closed his eyes, stunned by the overwhelming urge to lean forward and bury his face in her curls and just inhale.
It had been far too long since he had been with a woman. Months. That must be the reason for this sudden fascination with this soft schoolteacher.
One of the downsides of being a responsible single father was the serious crimp it put in any casual encounters. It never seemed right to bring women home for the night with Ruby in the house and lately he had been taking her along on the few trips he took out of town.
He had entertained some vague idea about calling Lexie Walker when he went to Denver on the horse-buying trip next week to see if she might be interested in flying out to meet him, as she had done a few times before. Lexie was a producer he had known in L.A. She was sharp, beautiful and sexy as silk sheets.
Oddly, the idea suddenly didn't appeal to him at all. He didn't have to look far to figure out why.
"This is lovely," Ashley exclaimed when they moved out onto the wide deck overlooking the western slope of the Tetons. With delight evident on her delicate features, she took in the twinkling lights in the trees shading the deck, the swimming pool with its waterfalls and spa and the outdoor fireplace where a merry blaze took out the slight chill of the September air.
Beyond the backyard, horses grazed near the whitewashed barn, and in the evening everything looked peaceful and still.
"We live out here when the weather is nice," he admitted. "And even sometimes when it's not. With the fireplace, we can enjoy it from March to early December sometimes, until the snow gets too deep on the deck."
"She must adore it out here! My word, look at that play set. I think it's more elaborate than the playground equipment we have at school."
He smiled at her enthusiasm. "We'll have to have your class out for a party in the springtime when it's warm enough to swim again. Ruby would love it."
Her eyes glowed at the idea and she smiled, the first genuine, heartfelt smile she had ever given him.
He couldn't seem to look away from it, at the curve of her lips, at the way the left side lifted just a little higher than the right, at the dimples he suddenly hungered to taste.
The heated dreams of the night before suddenly rocketed through his brain and in his mind he was once more tangled in all that softness, touching his mouth to hers, tasting that sweetly curved mouth.
He heard a ragged-sounding breath and managed to drag his attention from her mouth — and from his own feverish imagination — to meet her gaze. Her pupils were wide, her color high, and thick, heady awareness suddenly bloomed between them.
He needed to kiss her. He didn't want to, he knew he shouldn't, but he had to know if she tasted as delicious as he had imagined. He couldn't seem to stop himself from leaning forward.
An instant before he reached her, he heard the bang of the screen door and jerked back just as Ruby raced out of the house.
"Here I am! I changed and everything. Hi, Miss Barnes!" She hugged her teacher's legs and Ashley looked dazed — whether from Ruby's affection or their almost-kiss, he couldn't guess.
"Do you want to come see my bedroom? It's pink and green and my bed is in a real playhouse!"
She cast a furtive look at him, her color high. "I…of course," she murmured, looking relieved at any excuse to escape.
"The steaks won't take long," he said, calling on all his long-neglected acting skills to keep any trace of embarrassment from his voice.
She nodded and walked out with Ruby's hand tucked in hers, leaving him alone in the starlight to wonder what the hell had just happened.
Justin Hartford had nearly kissed her. If his daughter hadn't come bursting out onto the deck, Ashley had no doubt that with a half-second more alone with him, she would have been in his arms.
She followed Ruby up a sweeping staircase constructed of hewn half-logs, painfully aware of the way her knees trembled and her stomach still felt jittery and weak.
Justin Hartford. Almost. Kissed. Her.
He had wanted to, anyway. She had seen the sudden heat in those heartbreaking eyes of his, the slight parting of his lips, and hadn't been able to stop her body's instinctive sway toward him.
What a jerk, she thought, but the familiar imprecation held no heat whatsoever. She had wanted him to kiss her. Another minute or two and she probably would have begged him to.
They reached Ruby's bedroom and she could only stare. "Wow. This is your room?"
"Yep. It's cool, huh?"
"Very cool." It was a dream of a room for a little girl. Everything was pink and flowery and Ruby had told the truth — her bed was built into a massive playhouse built into the center of the large room. It was like a room inside of a room, with a door and windows and a gabled roof that touched the ceiling.
"Daddy and me built the playhouse. I helped hammer the nails and measure the wood and everything."
"Oh?" It was very hard to dislike a man who could create such a wonderland for his child.
"Yep. My daddy makes really good things. My Aunt Liddy says he has always been good with his hands. She said when he was a kid, he was always making stuff from junk wood he found around. And he's strong, too. When we builded my bed, he carried all the wood in by himself."
Ruby frowned for a moment, her brow furrowed in concentration, then it cleared and she smiled. "Oh, and he makes up funny stories. My favorite is about the ugly hedgehog. Daddy does all kinds of voices when he tells stories and he always makes me laugh. You should hear him."
"Oh?" She tried to pretend disinterest, but in truth she was fascinated to hear about Justin's interactions with his daughter.
"Yeah, and he can swim super fast! You should see him. And he rides horses better than anybody else in the whole wide world. I have my own horse, but my favorite is when I ride with my daddy."
Why did Ruby suddenly remind her of a used car salesman trying to unload a junker? Ashley wondered uneasily. She really shouldn't be listening to all these things about Justin. It made him seem too real, entirely too likable.
Still, she forced herself to smile. "It sounds like you have a lot of fun with your dad."
"We're best buds. Me and Daddy and Aunt Liddy are a team. Daddy says so. I love him a ton."
She suddenly gave Ashley a funny sidelong look she couldn't quite interpret. "Except I think maybe he's lonely."
Justin Hartford lonely?
She couldn't even imagine it. Still, the conviction in the girl's voice set off warning bells. "Ruby, is that why you've been misbehaving in class? Because you think if you're naughty enough in school and don't do your work, you'll be sent home to the Blue Sage where you can be with your father?"
Ruby's big blue eyes opened wide and she looked so genuinely startled at the suggestion that Ashley knew she must be completely off the mark.
The little girl giggled. "No! That's not why. You're silly."
Oh, she certainly was, especially if she thought a gorgeous, compelling man like Justin Hartford could ever be interested in a boring, naive schoolteacher like her.
"Will you tell me the reason?" she pressed. "I don't think you really hate school, even though you pretend you do."
"I don't hate it," she whispered. She looked down at the thick carpet of her room, digging the toe of her sneakers into the floral pattern.
Ashley paused, totally at sea to figure out what all this was about. "Is it me you don't like? Perhaps we could switch you to the other kindergarten teacher's class."
"Noooo!" Ruby looked horrified by the very idea. "I don't want another teacher. I have to be in your class. Please, Miss Barnes. Please don't make me go to another class!"
She was trying to process that impassioned plea when she heard footsteps in the hallway and a moment later, Justin stuck his head in.
He looked incongruous in the girly room, dark and gorgeous and über-masculine and her heart gave a foolish little thump just at the sight of him.
Ruby jumped into his arms. "Hi, Daddy. I've been telling Miss Barnes about all the fun things we do and how you're such a good swimmer and a good horse rider. I bet she'd like to see you sometime."
He raised an eyebrow and Ashley refrained from commenting that she had seen his particular riding style when he had nearly mowed her over the day before.
"Oh, and Miss Barnes thinks the playhouse you made for me is cool," Ruby added.
He managed a smile. "Good to know. Uh, dinner is ready. I just checked on Lydia and she said she's feeling a little under the weather tonight so it's just the three of us, I guess. I hope you're hungry."
"I'm starving!" Ruby said with so much pathos in her voice, Ashley had to assume she had inherited more from her father than midnight blue eyes and dark hair.
The little girl skipped ahead down the stairs, leaving the two of them alone.
She was intensely aware of Justin as they walked down the stairs. They didn't say anything, but the thick awareness flowed between them, leaving her jittery and unsettled as they walked out into the moonlit night.
Dinner would live on forever in her memory as one of the most surreal experiences of Ashley's life. She was having dinner with Justin Hartford — and not just any dinner, but one he prepared with his own hands. The fourteen-year-old girl who — she was ashamed to say — still sometimes popped up in her psyche, wanted to swoon.
She found the whole experience disorienting. It was extraordinarily difficult to reconcile her different images of him — sexy, intense Big Screen hero, then disinterested father — with the man who cut his daughter's hot dog and did really lousy impersonations.
Somehow they managed to put aside their discomfort over that awkward scene before dinner as they talked and laughed and listened to Ruby's apparently endless repertoire of bad knock-knock jokes.
She was charmed by both of them. This Ruby was a far different girl at home than she had been the last three weeks. Here was the girl she had met those first few days at school and Ashley wanted to know why she had disappeared.
And Justin. Every once in a while she would find him watching her with a baffled kind of heat in his eyes and her insides would flutter and sigh.
She was doing her best to ignore it, but she had never been so fiercely aware of a man.
Her heart was in serious danger here. She realized it sometime before they finished eating and he brought out her cheesecake. The man across the table was exactly the kind she dreamed of now, and that scared the heck out of her.
"I'm all done eating," Ruby said after she had all but licked her dessert plate clean. "Can I go change into my party dress to show Miss Barnes, Daddy? Can I?"
He looked reluctant but he nodded. "Go ahead. Hurry, though."
Without the buffer of Ruby and her chatter, Ashley's awareness of him became almost unbearable. She couldn't shake the disbelief that she was actually sitting on a starlit deck with Justin Hartford, a man she was finding increasingly attractive.
Without thinking, needing only to move suddenly, she stood up and started to clear away the dinner dishes.
"You don't have to do that," he said. "We usually don't make our guests clean up."
She felt her face heat. "Habit. Sorry. With five kids in my family, we all had to pitch in to help. I don't mind, though. Really I don't. This way you don't have to clear them yourself later."
He rose and started helping her, and they worked in a silence that would have been companionable except for the vibes zinging between them like the kids on the zipline at the school playground.
"The sheriff is really your brother?" he asked after a moment.
She nodded. "He's always been good at telling people what to do. I guess that's because he's the oldest."
"I've met him a few times. He's a good man. Does that mean you grew up around here?"
She searched his rugged features for any clue that he might be patronizing her, but all she saw was genuine interest. "I've lived here all my life, except for the years I spent in college in Oregon. I suppose that must seem pretty provincial to someone like you."
"Not at all." He gave an almost bittersweet smile. "I envy you."
She blinked. "Me? I'm a boring kindergarten teacher. I've never done anything exciting in my life."
Before tonight, anyway, she corrected to herself.
"Climbing over my gates doesn't count?"
She smiled. "Well, there was that. And the time I drove my dad's pickup over the mayor's mailbox."
His laugh did funny things to her insides. "I'm serious," he said. "It must be wonderful to have roots in a nice town like Pine Gulch. When I was looking at property to purchase, I knew the moment I stepped into town that this was what I wanted for Ruby."
"You didn't? Have roots, I mean?"
He was quiet for a long moment, leaning against the railing of the deck with the stars spilling across the sky behind him. "No. I grew up living out of suitcases and cheap hotels and sometimes even the backseat of my mom's old Pontiac. She was a wanderer who didn't like to stay in one place very long. When I was twelve, she dumped me off with Lydia in Chicago and never bothered to come back."
She heard the old pain in his voice and her heart ached with sympathy.
"I'm so sorry," she murmured, leaning against the railing beside him. "But I'm glad you had Lydia. I've taught children with no one at all to call their own."
"You're right. I was lucky, though I didn't think so at the time. Lydia tried. But by age twelve I had been basically on my own for a long time and didn't want much help from her. I equated caring with smothering. I took off when I was seventeen and headed for sunshine. L.A. I worked odd jobs for awhile and ended up doing some stunt work as a favor to a friend and before I knew it, I was in movies."
She remembered the bones of his story from those early days when she used to scour People and Us Weekly looking for information about him, in the days before the Internet would have put all those details at her fingertips. But, of course, she couldn't tell him that.
"What about you?" he asked. "What led you to teaching?"
"It's all I've ever wanted to do. I love children. I always have." She smiled. "I was the world's best babysitter because I could have done it all day for free just for the fun of it and everyone knew it. There is something so magical about early childhood, the innocence and the wonder and the sheer delight of it. I love watching them grow and start to test life. Setting them on a path to discover the world of possibilities waiting for them."
Her voice trailed off and she flushed. "I'm sorry. I'm rambling again."
"Not at all. I could listen to you all night."
Her gaze flashed to his and the heat in the midnight depths sent those nerves twirling through her insides again. She swallowed hard and had time only to wonder if this could possibly be real, when his mouth captured hers.
Ashley froze, the breath caught in her throat and her pulse thundered in her ears.
Oh. Oh my. His kiss was unbearably soft, almost tender, and she leaned into it, into him. Her hands rested on the hard muscles of his chest and she could feel the jump of his heartbeat beneath her fingertips. His arms slid around her, pulling her close, and she surrendered to the magic and wonder of his kiss.
She could definitely fall hard for this man.
His kiss suddenly deepened, his tongue licking at the corner of her mouth, and she lost any chance at coherent thought for several long, drugging moments.
"Okay, get ready!" she suddenly heard Ruby call from inside the house and the two of them sprang apart, both breathing hard, just as the girl burst through the door in all her finery.
What in the hell was he doing?
He invites the woman to dinner to talk about his daughter's problems in school then ends up dumping his life story on her before all but jumping her on his back deck.
The crazy thing was, he wanted to do it all over again. The kissing part, anyway. Justin could still taste her on his lips, that subtle, sweetly erotic taste of raspberry and cream and Ashley.
It was crazy. He knew it was impossible, but he ached to taste her again.
Focus, he chided himself and jerked his attention back to the conversation between Ruby and her teacher.
"See how twirly it is?" Ruby exclaimed, her arms wide as she did circles around the living room, where they had adjourned since there was more light to show off the sparkles.
Justin wasn't sure he was prepared for this primpy stage to start. Ruby was showing all the signs of someone who would be seriously girly and he had no idea how to handle the rest of it. Just thinking about makeup and boyfriends and hairspray made him break into a cold sweat.
At least he had a few more years before he had to worry about that.
"You look just like a princess," Ashley assured Ruby. Her color was high, he saw, and she didn't look at him as she spoke.
Ruby preened, oblivious to the tension between them. "I'm going to wear it to a wedding. My friend Sierra's mom is getting married next month and we're going to Hawaii for it and I get to swim in the ocean and maybe see a dolphin."
She had been delirious with excitement about the whole thing, from the moment Natalie Brooks invited them along. Nat was his first leading lady and one of the few people he stayed in touch with in Hollywood.
"I don't get to be the flower girl because Sierra does," Ruby went on, "but I can wear my new dress and maybe have a lei, too."
Ashley gave a smile that looked forced and he would have given just about anything to know what was running through her head right about now. "How fun," she murmured. "You and your father will have to take lots of pictures so you can bring them back for the rest of the class to see."
"Okay. I will." She looked thrilled at the idea for just a moment before she frowned and her excitement slipped away. "Um, I'll have to see. I'll probably forget."
Right. Ruby remembered the names and birthdays and favorite colors of everyone she had ever met. This sudden reluctance was part of whatever game she had been playing at school. He sighed, knowing the time for socializing was over.
"Ruby, if you're done showing off your new dress, we need to talk about what's happening in school. You know that's why Miss Barnes is here."
Panic flared in her eyes, suddenly, and she started edging for the stairs. "I better go change out of my dress before I get it all dirty."
"Come back here," he said, his voice stern. "We're going to sit down right now and discuss how you've been acting."
"Do I have to?" Ruby asked, looking suddenly miserable.
"Yeah, you do, shortcake."
"You'll be mad."
"Probably. But we still have to talk about it."
She perched on the edge of a leather ottoman, her hands tightly folded on her lap. He sighed, not sure where to start.
"I thought you loved school," he finally said. "You talk about it all the time. But Miss Barnes says you're not doing your work and you're not participating in class. What's going on?"
"I was just pretending I didn't like school," she said, her voice small. She lifted her gaze to give her teacher a look of earnest entreaty. "I really do, Miss Barnes. I promise. I love playtime and I love circle time and I love snack time. My favorite is story time. I love, love, love story time."
Ashley gazed at her, her lovely features baffled. "Why would you want to pretend you don't like it? It's wonderful to love learning!"
Ruby's chin wobbled. "It was Sierra's idea. She's my friend in California. She said if I was bad in class, my dad would have to come to school for a conference. And then he would fall in love with you and you would get married like Sierra's mom is getting married and then you could be my new mom."
Okay. This was just about the most horrifying moment of his life. A dead silence greeted Ruby's stunning declaration and Justin couldn't think what to do, what to say. He risked a look at Ashley and saw her features had leached of all color. Not a good sign.
He knew he had to step into the terrible silence. "Ruby…" he began, then faltered as he found himself at a loss for words. "People don't, uh, fall in love like that," he said after a moment. "You can't manipulate them into doing what you want just because you want it. Life doesn't work that way."
Sometimes it did, though. He had to be crazy, but he suddenly knew he was in serious danger of falling for this soft, sweet woman who loved children and smelled like a dream.
"But Miss Barnes already loves you, Daddy. You just have to fall in love with her."
"What?!" Ashley exclaimed. To his somewhat thunderstruck fascination, all the color soaked back into her cheeks in a hot, relentless tide.
Ruby fidgeted, looking almost as miserable as Ashley. "I heard Miss Weller in the school office talking to you about Daddy a few days after school started. I had a stomachache and went to lay down in the sick kid place, and I heard her ask if you had met Daddy yet and you said no and Miss Weller asked if you would mention at parent-teacher conference that you had his picture in your locker in school and that you used to write Mrs. Justin Hartford on things."
He heard a soft sound of distress coming from somewhere in Ashley's vicinity, but he didn't dare look at her.
"So then I thought how nice you are," Ruby went on, "and how I wanted you to be my mom but I didn't know what to do. I told Sierra when we went to visit them and she thought I should be bad in school. It was really hard and I didn't want to. But I wanted you to be my mommy really bad, so I did it, anyway. I'm sorry."
After she finished, there was a long, terrible silence and all Justin could focus on was how much he would have preferred it if Ashley hadn't known who he was back then. He had a wild, sudden wish that she had only met him the day before.
He wanted her to only know the man he was today, not some image on a screen that had never been real. His chest ached suddenly and he had to fight the urge to rub his hand against it.
Finally, he managed to speak. "That was very wrong of you, Ruby. I'm disappointed that you would be so deceitful. You've wasted three weeks of the school year for nothing and now you're going to be behind all the others in your class."
"I'm sorry. Daddy."
"I don't think I'm the one you need to apologize to."
Her chin quivered but she rose and stood in front of Ashley, who looked close to tears herself. "I'm sorry, Miss Barnes. I do like you and I can be good. I promise."
Ashley cleared her throat, still not looking at him. "Does this mean you're going to do better from now on? No more of these…these crazy ideas?"
"I promise. You'll see. I'll be the best kid in the whole class! I'll do all my work on time and I'll raise my hand and everything."
"Good. I'm, uh, certainly glad to hear that." She rose abruptly. "I…now that we've cleared that up, I should go."
"You don't have to," Justin said.
"Yes. I do."
He couldn't argue with the vehemence in her voice, and in truth he knew he would be relieved when she was gone. She still didn't look at him once as he and a now-dejected Ruby walked her to her impractical little car.
"Ruby, I'll see you Monday in school," she said, with what sounded like false brightness in her voice. "Thank you again for dinner."
She climbed into her car, started it and took off down the driveway. He hit the buzzer to open the gates just as she reached them, wondering if it could possibly be only a day since he had found her climbing over them.
As her taillights headed down Cold Creek Road, he held Ruby's hand and watched them disappear.
How insane. She only blew into his life the day before, but he knew as he watched her drive away that she had left footprints on his heart. He would miss her laughter and her softness and her sweet, infectious smile.
He had to let her go. He had no choice. Anything between them was impossible. Even before he found out she had once been a fan of his movies, he knew he could never do anything about this terrifying tenderness growing inside him.
That didn't make the regret any less bitter.
She was going to die — just pull her Bug over somewhere along the banks of the Cold Creek, curl up in the front seat and wither away from absolute mortification.
But Miss Barnes already loves you, Daddy. You just have to fall in love with her.
Oh, this was the most awful moment of Ashley's life. It was bad enough that he should find out from his daughter about the crush she used to have on him. It was far worse that she had to be sitting three feet away from him when he did!
She forced herself to concentrate on the driving until she had reached the town limits and her own little white clapboard house. Once home, she pulled into her driveway and buried her face in her hands. She felt miserable. Completely wretched. All she could think about was the soft, seductive heat of their kiss and the way she wanted to lean into him and let him hold her forever.
Tears burned behind her eyes. She used to have a crush on a one-dimensional image on the screen, gorgeous and strong and heroic. But she was very much afraid she had lost her heart to the man behind that image. Even through her absolute horror as she had listened to Ruby's scheme, as the girl had talked about how much she wanted a mommy — how much she had wanted Ashley for a mommy — she had wanted it, too.
She still did. She ached with it, with the possibilities he had stirred up inside her by the tender heat of that kiss. She indulged in those possibilities — okay, those impossibilities — for only a moment then she dropped her hands and squared her shoulders.
It was over. She had shared one wonderful starlit night with him and with Ruby and that was all she would ever have. She just needed to put the whole humiliating experience behind her, forget about her teenage crush and the wonderful man she had found in real life, and figure out how to move on.
The weather turned cold and grim the next day as an icy rain blew down out of Montana to soak the mountains. It matched her mood perfectly, but did nothing to help lift her spirits.
As promised, Monday saw a dramatic turnaround in the Ruby Problem. The girl reverted to the sweet, sunny child she had been the first few days of school. No more belligerence or defiance. She handed in perfect assignments, she answered more questions than anyone else in class, she sat as still as a five-year-old could possibly manage during circle time.
The only black mark Ashley could have put in the Ruby column was that the girl apparently hadn't given up her ridiculous matchmaking. Every day at recess, she would hover around Ashley, filling her ears with stories about her father that only made Ashley fall deeper for him. She tried her best to discourage her, but Ruby wouldn't be deterred.
She could only wonder what kinds of stories about her Ruby was carrying back to Justin.
She had to admit, she was always glad to see the last of the girl when her Aunt Lydia arrived to pick her up every afternoon in a sleek Range Rover.
On Friday, though, Ruby was the last child waiting at pick-up and Lydia and her Range Rover were nowhere in sight. The cold, relentless rain dropped in sheets and even under the awning in front of the elementary school, it was miserable.
"Let's go inside and wait," she said to Ruby. "We can go back to the classroom and call your aunt to find out what's going on."
To her dismay, Ruby looked thrilled for a little more time in her company and Ashley sighed. She was growing to care far too much about the little girl, too. She set Ruby up with crayons and paper and looked through her files for Ruby's contact information so she could dial Lydia's cell number. She had just found the right paper and pulled it out when she heard a noise by the door and Ruby shrieked with delight.
"Daddy! Daddy!"
Ashley jerked her gaze up, just in time to see Justin standing in the doorway, looking strong and masculine and wonderful, before Ruby rushed to him and threw her arms around his waist.
"I missed you so much, Daddy. Did you buy a new horse on your trip?"
"A couple of them." He hugged his daughter, but his gaze rested on Ashley and she felt hot and cold at the same time.
"Are they pretty?" Ruby asked.
"Beautiful," he murmured, but his gaze never left her. A wild heat flared inside her and she couldn't seem to catch her breath. Try, she ordered herself harshly. The last thing she needed right now was to hyperventilate and pass out at his feet. Then he would really think she was an obsessed fan.
"I was really good for Miss Barnes all week," Ruby told him. "Wasn't I, Miss Barnes?"
She cleared her throat and tried to force her oxygen-starved brain to function again. "Uh, yes. You were wonderful."
"Oh!" Ruby said suddenly. "I forgot my leaf pictures. I left them in Mrs. Cook's classroom in art class so they could dry, but I need to take them home and show Aunt Liddy."
In a heartbeat, she rushed out the door, leaving the two of them alone.
Ashley couldn't look at Justin, but she was aware of him moving into the classroom and walking closer to her desk.
"How are you?" he asked.
She finally lifted her gaze at the quiet sincerity in his voice. "Still more embarrassed than I've ever been in my life," she admitted.
"You have no reason to be embarrassed. It was my daughter who tried to play matchmaker."
"Ruby would never have gotten the crazy idea in her head if I hadn't been talking about you with Marcy." She sighed, knowing she had to confront this or she would never be able to look him in the eye again. "Marcy has been my best friend since second grade. She knew all about my silly crush on you. Everyone knew. I'm afraid I was a little obsessed. I was fourteen and you were, well, you. You were heroic and passionate and…and gorgeous."
Her face flared with color and she knew she had to be beet-red, but she cleared her throat and plowed on. "Marcy thinks it's a hilarious twist of fate that I'm teaching your daughter, all these years later, and she's been teasing me about it since school started. That's what Ruby overheard, just two old friends remembering something that seems another lifetime ago."
He was quiet and she thought she saw something like pain flicker in his eyes. "You know I'm not that man, right? I hated being a celebrity. I never wanted it, everything just sort of fell into my lap. I was more surprised than anybody when I turned out to be moderately good at making movies, and for a while it was heady and addicting and I got sucked into the whole thing. But for my own survival, I had to get out when I did and I've never been sorry."
"I know. I don't see that heartthrob, anymore, when I look at you, Justin. Not after the other night."
He seemed to absorb that for a moment, then to her shock, he reached for her hand. "What do you see?" he asked, and the sudden intensity in his voice snatched away her breath again.
Ashley's heart raced and she was certain Justin must be able to hear the blood pulsing loudly in her ears. "I see a man who loves his daughter. Someone trying to do his best by her. I see someone funny and sweet who cooks a mean steak and does a lousy John Wayne impression. And I see someone who made me forget my own name when he kissed me," she added in a whisper.
His fingers tightened on hers. "I've spent six days thinking about that kiss, Ashley. Thinking about you."
She blinked as his words soaked through her lingering discomfort. He had thought about it, too? About her, about the magic she thought she had only dreamed?
"Oh?" she managed.
"For years I've been telling myself I didn't need a woman in my life, that Ruby and I were doing just fine on our own. Suddenly, I'm not so sure."
"You're…not?"
He shook his head and pulled her to her feet. "I don't know how it happened, and I certainly wasn't looking for it. But when you climbed the gates of my ranch, somehow you climbed through the walls I've built around my heart."
As his arms slid around her, a heady kind of joy flooded through her like that rain outside, only this was sweet and cleansing. He kissed her, his mouth strong and warm, and she sighed a welcome.
This was real, she realized with shock. Real and right and worlds better than anything she could have imagined as a silly, giddy teenager.
She lost herself in the kiss, yanking off his Stetson and burying her hands in his thick hair as she poured all the emotions of her heart into her response. When he pulled away, they were both breathing hard. Through the delicious haze, she sensed movement in the doorway and they both turned to find Ruby standing there.
Her leaf pictures were scattered at her feet, her clasped hands were pressed to her heart and her wide eyes glittered with a thousand stars.
"It worked," she breathed. "It really worked!"
Justin groaned. "I think we've created a monster."
Ashley smiled, happier than she ever dreamed she could be. "That's all right. I'm a kindergarten teacher. Taming monsters is part of the job description."
The End