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its advantages,” Hank replied with a smile.

Three
    F resh air gave Carly headaches. At least, that’s what she told herself when she awoke the next morning and decided that a twinge in her forehead was probably the first sign of a major thumper.
    Certainly her headache had nothing to do with a poor night’s sleep thanks to an overactive imagination.
    Dreaming about cowboys and wild horses hadn’t given Carly her usual night’s rest. She had tossed and turned for hours, sweating profusely when she woke up with thoughts of Hank Fowler dancing in her unconscious mind. She had envisioned him strolling into her bedroom, scooping her up out of the covers and striding off into the wilderness with her naked body in his strong arms. After all, isn’t that what cowboys did with their women?
    “He’s gorgeous,” she murmured to herself on a sigh, snuggling contentedly into the bedclothes. Those shoulders, that delicious mustache and his smoldery blue eyes!
    Last night they’d talked for more than an hour on the porch, listening to the lone wolf howling in the distance. By candlelight, Hank’s rough-hewn features had looked as devastating as any Hollywood hunk’s, and Carly had gone to bed more infatuated than ever.
    After that, her subconscious took over, and the resulting dreams had been deliciously erotic.
    Too bad Hank hadn’t tried to kiss her last night.
    If he had, Carly might have hog-tied the man and dragged him up to her bed.
    But no such luck.
    The fragrance of hot coffee penetrated Carly’s fogged brain at last, and she crawled out of the bed to check her wristwatch. Nine-thirty, California time. She had no clue what time it was in South Dakota, but the sun that streamed through the thin calico curtains seemed dazzlingly bright.
    Groping on the nightstand, Carly discovered that her last pack of cigarettes was still empty. “Oh, damn.”
    She fell back into the pillows and groaned. “Why did I come all the way out here just to frustrate myself? It’s obvious Hank Fowler thinks more about his horse than women—and now—no cigarettes!”
    Grumbling, Carly climbed out of her bed and into her ancient pair of faded blue jeans. She added sneakers and a crisp white shirt purchased at an exorbitant price from a Western-style shop on Rodeo Drive. She fluffed her hair in the bathroom mirror and applied a light version of her usual cosmetic routine before grabbing a sweater and descending the narrow staircase of the Fowler house.
    Today she left her red bandanna upstairs. She had a feeling it looked silly.
    In the kitchen she found a note propped by the coffeepot. “If you’re awake before noon, join us outside.”
    Smart mouth.
    The note was signed in an illegible, but unmistakably confident scrawl that Carly assumed was Hank’s mark.
    “If I’m awake before noon,” she muttered grumpily, her pnde stung. “What’s he trying to do? Challenge me to get up with the chickens?”
    She poured a mug of coffee for herself and made a cursory search of the various kitchen drawers in hopes that the clean-living Fowler family might have stashed some cigarettes someplace. No luck. With a sigh she strolled out onto the porch to sip her coffee.
    The sunlight was so blazingly clear that she fumbled in her shirt pocket for her sunglasses and put them on. The coffee, thick and strong, evaporated her headache at once.
    The ranch was a hive of activity. Carly could see Becky riding a large black horse around the corral, separating cows that fled before her like frightened wrens. A handful of men stood around a battered horse trailer, laughing as they unloaded their saddled horses. Clearly, they had been hired for a hard day’s work, and they didn’t mind a bit.
    Hank detached himself from the group of men and sauntered across the dusty yard to Carly.
    “’Morning,” he drawled, coming to a halt and propping one boot on the bottom porch step. He was a vision of manliness in jeans and a red flannel shirt under a tight-fitting