The Cowboy Who Broke the Mold Read Free Page B

woodenly in defense of herself.
    Judson raked his fingers through his dark hair and sighed in exasperation. A man of few words who en- joyed his solitude, he found superficial chitchat a waste of energy. Certain that a litter of kittens would prove less curious than this contrary female, he decided it was time to put a stop to her endless questions.
    “Are you going to ask me the name of every plant and animal in the Wind River Mountain Range?”
    “Maybe,” she said, gracing him with an acerbic smile.
    Grudgingly Judson acknowledged how a smile could transform the uptight schoolteacher beside him into a lovely woman. Carrie Raben was something all but- toned up, he decided, and wondered just what kind of a man it would take to get those buttons undone. Aroused at the thought, he grimly reminded himself of the cost of such yearnings.
    Nonetheless the young woman’s interest in the native flora and fauna evoked in him something that at last put the two of them on peaceable terms: his love of this untamed land.
    The further away from the city they traveled, the less Judson resembled a cornered mountain lion. As he pointed out coyotes and deer and red-tailed hawks, Car- rie was impressed both by the depth of his knowledge and his uncanny eye. Where she could discern only landscape, he unerringly uncovered camouflaged wild- life. Clearly this man was on a spiritual plane with his fellow creatures. Knowledge tempered by respect and reverence was evident in the way his eyes held this vast wilderness that he called home, and Carrie found herself wondering if any woman would ever be able to compete with such a rival.
    In a cloud of dust they passed a weathered, old gold mine claiming “The Carissa” as its name. Rounding the top of the next hill, Carrie was astonished to find herself in the midst of an actual ghost town. Little more than an outcropping of historic buildings, Atlantic City was still functioning—in a desolate, halfhearted sort of way.
    “Almost there,” Judson said, pulling up in front of the local mercantile. “Time to stop for lunch.”
    Climbing out of the pickup, Carrie thought to herself that there could not be enough liquid refreshment in theold establishment to put out the fire inside her. She fol- lowed Judson through the swinging doors and into the past. A 1912 calendar hung on the wall along with a collection of mining relics. The smell of whiskey min- gled with dust, and Carrie almost expected an old-time saloon girl to step out from behind the antique bar and offer her a shot of whiskey.
    Judson ordered a hamburger platter, and Carrie did the same. Looking over the rim of the old preserving jar in which her soft drink was served, she studied him closely. In the vehicle she had been nervous and re- served. In the dimly lit mercantile she felt more at ease in scrutinizing her driver. His face was lined with the telltale signs of a life of hard work beneath the sun, and it seemed to Carrie that the harsh exposure to the ele- ments had given him an aura of determination and dig- nity. The lines around his eyes belied the sun-squinted curiosity of looking so far to see so little in these wide open spaces. Slightly off center, his nose had been bro- ken a time or two, and a ridge of scar tissue ran along his left jawbone. Clearly there was as much hard living as hard work written on Judson Horn’s handsome face. This was definitely a man who knew his own mind.
    He was slightly older than she had first thought. Per- haps it was his lean body that had initially duped her into thinking him to be less than ten years older than she. Or maybe those incredibly tight-fitting jeans had deceived her. Was it merely the unusual combination of blue eyes set against such dark skin that made the man so phenomenally attractive? Or the sense that no woman would ever be able to tame him?
    When her eyes fell upon that all-knowing smile of his, Carrie quickly diverted her gaze to a whimsicallookingcreature hanging upon