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“No, no, no, no,” shouted Trevor, the photographer who was no wider than a sheet of paper. As thin as he was, it was a wonder he could hold his monster of a camera.
Trevor braced the camera on his knee and snapped his fingers at the model in front of him.
In the background, several cowhands gawked. Jayson needed to pay them a visit since they seemed to be distracted by a slip of a woman in a skimpy outfit, instead of doing what he paid them to do.
Trevor snapped until he caught the model’s attention. “Mina, pay attention. I don’t want to see you staring at any cowboy asses. Leave that to me.”
The young woman smirked and struck some kind of pose Jayson imagined was supposed to be sexy. The blonde wore skin-tight jeans on her Coke bottle hips and a crazy-ass top that bared her belly. This was what was popular now? Jayson knew nothing about fashion and could care less.
Jayson preferred strong women, and the country girls he knew kicked ass and took names. They did not look like they just walked out of a Scottsdale boutique on their way to a spa treatment.
A lot of the country girls around these parts cleaned up real well and were sexy as hell. All without worrying if they were going to break a nail while rounding up cattle.
That fashion designer hell on heels, who’d be arriving tomorrow, ought to be interesting. No doubt, she’d be one of those women who screamed at the sight of a horsefly and couldn’t figure out what to do with a horse if her life depended on it. He wondered what she’d do if she was told she had to shovel shit for a week to do her damned photoshoot here.
Yeah, that might be fun to see.
Thor stayed close and they dodged a hairstylist and a man from the food wagon before ducking into the cool recesses of the barn. Jayson blinked a few times as his eyes grew used to the dim light.
He’d owned the Flying F since he was in his late twenties. Back then he and his buddies thought it sounded flat out hilarious to name the ranch “I don’t give a Flying Fuck,” only shortened to “the Flying F.”
Shiloh snorted from one corner of the barn. The pregnant mare made the sound in a way that told Jayson the horse was concerned about the commotion going on outside.
“It’s okay, girl.” Jayson reached Shiloh and stroked the brindle mare’s nose. “Sorry about that damned mess out there. I’m going fix it, but it looks like I need to talk with the gal running the show tomorrow.” He traced the star on her forehead with his fingertips. “But if it’s too much for you now, I’ll take you over to Justice’s place, where it’ll just be you and a few of your equine pals.”
Shiloh whickered.
“Yes, I mean it.” Jayson nodded. “I don’t want you upset, girl.
She snorted and bobbed her head.
“Deal.” He patted her neck. He normally would have taken her for a ride. But she was so close to foaling, he wouldn’t ride her hard like he needed right now.
Jayson moved to Starlight’s stall. The chestnut jerked her head up and down. The mare was high strung to begin with, and the noise outside the barn wasn’t helping anything.
“Why don’t you, Thor, and I escape this madhouse and go for a ride?” Jayson slid his fingers down her neck.
Thor barked.
Starlight snorted and bobbed hear head again in sharp movements. Yeah, she was going to be one hell of a ride today.
“Well, then. Let’s do it.” He glanced where his cowhands were too busy staring at the model. “But first I need to have a talk with some of my men who aren’t doing what they should be.”
It wasn’t like them, but they had work to do. With the size of his operation, too much needed to be done to stand around doing nothing but looking at a nearly naked woman.
After Jayson gave his men a good talking to, and they were back to work, he returned to the barn.
The Border collie stayed close to Starlight as Jayson grabbed a bridle, a horse blanket and his saddle. When he’d saddled up the mare, he checked her over to make sure she was ready to go in every sense of the word. He grasped her bridle and led her out the rear entrance of the barn, the opposite direction of the insanity that was currently his ranch.
* * *
“Oh, crap.” Celine Northland knelt on one knee to gather the many pages from a stack of scattered papers. They’d slid out of the handbag she’d just dropped in the middle of the ramp leading from the airplane to a place she’d rather not be. “Just one more fantastic thing to add to this absolutely perfect day.”
Not.
Passengers squeezed by to either side of her. Not one person stopped to help her retrieve the sheets of paper.
A child tore by and trampled one of the signature pages of a document she needed to sign and return to Monty, her CFO. The girl left a perfect imprint of a small and very dirty shoe where Celine was supposed to sign.
