Rode Hard, Put Up Wet: Cowboy Romance (Rebels & Outlaws 2)

Because she's got to be up here to make sure that the plant gets built right. The managers in Nevada and Colorado know what they're doing. Morgan's father wouldn't have hired them if they didn't. And Morgan wouldn't have kept them on if they didn't know how to handle themselves without too much supervision.

Because she was expanding, and that meant that the work back home needed to watch itself for a while. Just like the work here did, today.

And if the crew manager, who's supposed to be keeping an eye on the new guys to make sure that they're not fucking it up, is hanging out here inside the trailer waiting for someone to bring problems to his attention, she can't exactly trust him to do his job when she's away for a day or two getting the Callahan ranch.

Morgan takes a deep breath. Maybe this is a mistake. Maybe she shouldn't be leaving. After all, proof right there—the man apparently thinks having tits took too much brain power by itself, so she doesn't have much left to run a business with.

But there are plenty of bigger mistakes that she could be making, and the biggest one would be not going to close this deal, and do it fast.

The Callahan ranch would mean being able to double or triple the size of the Lowe Industrial campus, because they own the land to the east, and they own the land to the west.

You own the space right in the middle, and now it's not two small campuses. It's the largest campus in the country, and for someone who only took the company over, officially, four months ago…

That would be a real feather in Morgan's cap, no doubt about it.

Chapter Three

Visitors to the ranch aren't common. So though he can hear the sound of the engine driving up, Philip Callahan doesn't see much need to go out and see what was going on.

The boys are already here, after all. He hadn't called anyone to come out and take a look at the horses, and nobody had called him to schedule something, either.

That means that they were some kids who'd gotten hopelessly lost and were trying to find some space off the road to look at a map, or it was someone trying to sell something. In either case, Phil wasn't interested.

He shifts another bundle of stretchers onto his shoulder. The weight hits him all at once, and then his body adjusts. Nice and easy, and then it's just a matter of keeping his steps short and his stride even on the way out to the truck. No problem.

The problem comes in when you damn near take some woman's head off with your hundred-pound bundle of ties. She lets out a yelp and Philip jerks to a stop, steps back, and dumps them off his shoulder. They land with a loud bang that makes her yelp again.

"Jesus! I'm sorry, I didn't see you, on account of the—"

"No, I'm sorry. I'm Morgan Lowe. I've been trying to reach you?"

Philip's face hardens. He has been avoiding calls from a woman, that's true.

And what a woman. If he weren't a married man—well, once a married man—then she'd be somebody he would certainly want to talk to. His breathlessness might not entirely be the result of the exertion, nor entirely the result of the scare, either.

"I'm not selling. Sorry you had to waste your time comin' out here. You need directions back to the highway?"

"I'm not leaving without at least talking to you."

"We've talked. I'm not selling. I've got work to do."

Almost as soon as the words are coming out of his mouth, she's shrugging off her jacket and hanging it on one of the hooks, over the horses' bits and bridles.

"Fine. We'll get this taken care of, then we'll talk."

What exactly she intends to do isn't immediately clear. The woman probably only weighs as much as the whole bundle. How she plans to carry it is beyond him.

"I don't need any help."

"You're gonna take that from the ground onto your shoulders?"

He looks down at it.

"Well, I guess I'm gonna have to, ain't I?"

She picks up one of the ties at the far end. "Two people, half the effort. Come on."

Philip rolls his eyes. "Fine."