When we left Beth, she had just wrecked her car in a thunderstorm . . .

“Ma’am! Ma’am! Are you okay?” The cowboy shouted over a clap of thunder.

She nodded slowly, admiring his strong, angular face and dark, brooding eyes. She sighed when she realized he was wearing a black cowboy hat, and a leather duster. Perfect. The door swung open and suddenly the cowboy was only inches away. She smiled in what she hoped was a seductive way, and brushed a stray tendril of hair out of her face.

“Hi.” Her voice sounded hollow.

“Hi, yourself. Are you sure you’re okay?” His voice was deep and warm, a nice contrast to the cold, blowing rain. Frown lines creased his tanned forehead. She didn’t know cowboys were still around, rescuing damsels in distress. A giggle escaped at the thought that she was a damsel in distress.

“I had an accident,” she answered.

“I see that. What happened?” the cowboy asked. His eyes were roaming over her. Maybe checking her out, maybe looking for blood. She shrugged.

“An animal ran in front of me and I swerved. I guess I’m in a ditch. My car’s stuck.” Beth smiled and took a shaky breath. He didn’t smell at all like cigarettes. He smelled good. It sort of reminded her of fresh grass.

“Don’t you know you should never swerve to miss an animal? It’s dangerous.” He reached in and took her gently by the arm, to help her out of the car. She thought that being so close to him was pretty dangerous, too. Her experience with men was limited to city types, mostly accountants and lawyers. No cowboys that she could recall. He helped her up to his truck, both of them slipping and sliding up the rain-slicked grass, the rain relentless in its pursuit of them, and put her in on the passenger side.

She watched as he slipped back down the bank and walked around her car, leaning down a couple of times to take a closer look at the damage. It was hard to see his ass because of the long duster, but she was pretty sure it was nice. The water pouring down the glass distorted everything, and it all seemed like a dream. She sighed and let her head fall back against the rough cloth of the seat.

Her head was starting to throb, and she was so, so tired. She didn’t hear him open the door, and didn’t feel the truck start to move.

Beau slowed when he spotted the black and white Domino Ranch sign swinging in the wind, marking the entrance to the ranch. He swung into the long, curved driveway. The rain was still coming down so hard, he could barely see. The only way he stayed on the drive was by watching the white fencing that lined the drive. He glanced over at the woman he had rescued. She must have had quite a bump to the head, but at least it seemed to have stopped bleeding. He still wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing by bringing her to the ranch. He maybe should’ve just taken her straight to the hospital in Moscow. Or called for an ambulance. Charlotte would probably give him a dressing down for moving her.

He parked in his usual spot, just to the right of the steps of the big house. He was glad to see Charlotte’s black Suburban there. She’d know what to do. She was good with people. He wasn’t. He beeped his horn several times and the massive front door opened. Charlotte’s short, stout figure was outlined in the doorway for a moment as she peered out, probably trying to figure out why he was raising such a racket on a dark, rainy night. Beau jumped out of the Chevy and ran around to the passenger side.

“Charlotte! This woman had an accident out on the blacktop!” he shouted as he pulled the still-limp redhead from the truck. He picked her up like she was nothing and quickly strode up the wide steps and into the house. He sat her down on the bench under the coat rack, and he and Charlotte leaned over the stranger, checking her for injuries. Charlotte pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed gently at the gash on the young woman’s forehead. Suddenly, Charlotte gasped and grabbed Beau’s arm.

“Dear Lord, boy! Do you know who this is? This is Elizabeth Pickard!”

“Oh?” Beau looked at the woman he’d rescued. Her red curls were escaping from the loose ponytail, and wet tendrils stuck to her round face. There were freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks. Her pink tongue poked out and she licked her full lips slowly. This certainly wasn’t the prissy ice queen he had been expecting. For one thing, she looked younger than he expected a high-powered city accountant to be. For another, this woman seemed, well, warm. Soft. And she had a wonderful smile, even though she had looked a little dizzy when she was smiling at him. She had seemed so sweet. Then again, she had just whacked her head in a car wreck. Put her in a power suit and tame that hair in a tight bun and she might be one tough customer.

“Beau! Snap out of it! Go get some towels. We’ve got to get her dried off.” Charlotte started mumbling to herself. Something about concussions and screwing up first impressions. Beau escaped to find towels.

When Beau returned, the young woman was smiling that wonderful smile again, only this time it was directed at Charlotte. She shrugged self-consciously, “. . . so, I swerved. Not the best response given the situation, I know, but I just reacted.” Beth shook her head slowly, “It would just kill me to hurt an animal, though.”

“I’m the same way,” Charlotte confessed. “I even cry if I hit a squirrel or a ‘coon.”

“You’re at Domino Ranch, and I brought you here.” Beau handed a big, thirsty towel to the woman, careful not to let their fingers touch, and laid another on the bench next to her. “You had an accident and I stopped to help. You were pretty shook up, so I brought you here for Charlotte’s expert nursing advice.”

Beth nodded slowly, blotting her hair with the towel. “I’m glad you stopped.”

Beau shrugged, “That’s what folks out here do. I’m just glad I happened to be driving by. Wouldn’t have been out, ‘cept I ran into town to get some antibiotics from the vet for a mare that just lost her foal.”

She frowned and said, “A minute ago, um, did you say Domino Ranch?”

He nodded, but Charlotte answered. “Yes, Mr. Cooper called ahead and told us to expect you tonight. It was getting late enough, I actually thought you might have decided to spend the night in Moscow before coming on out to the ranch.”

Beau cleared his throat, “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you sooner, Miss Pickard.”

“Please, call me Beth.” She looked from the older woman to the cowboy. She blushed as she remembered thinking he was the Marlboro man. Hopefully, she hadn’t voiced those particular thoughts. “You have me at a disadvantage. You both know me, but . . . ”

Beau quickly introduced himself as the ranch foreman, and then excused himself after he was sure the accident victim he’d saved wasn’t going to keel over and didn’t need a ride to the hospital.

Beth looked around the large living room, which was dominated by a large stone fireplace. Above the mantle hung a huge portrait of her father kneeling on one leg with his arm around a black and white dog. A chandelier made from antlers hung from rough-hewn beams. The exposed log walls added to the rustic feel of the room. The furniture was mostly brown leather. Definitely masculine, and not a touch of feminine anywhere, she noted. She looked down at the hardwood floors and realized that rain water was pooling at her feet.

She said softly, “I’m sorry, I seem to be getting everything wet.”

The older woman helped Beth to her feet and led her through the living room and the arched doorway on the left. “Quite all right, quite all right. Let’s go find you some dry clothes and a warm bed. Oh! And I guess you’ll want to be knowin’ who I am. I’m Charlotte. Don’t have a title. We’re pretty informal around here. I just sort of take care of everything around the houses. I cook, I clean. Whatever needs to be done, I do it.”

“I see. You must have known my father well, then.”

Beth said it as a statement, but Charlotte took it as a question. “I did, and I wish to extend my deepest sympathies to you. Your father was a wonderful man, and he will be – I take that back – he is missed deeply. I apologize for not extending my sympathies to you at the funeral. You just seemed so overwhelmed, I didn’t think you needed to be bothered with an old woman like me,” Charlotte said as she stopped in the third doorway on their left.

“You came to the funeral?” Beth asked, wondering what else she had missed that day. It had been such a blur. Such a shock. The whole thing had been so strange. She hadn’t seen her father in, goodness, probably three or four years, and hadn’t talked to him on the phone since he called her on her birthday last spring.

“Of course, Beau and I both did. Your father was like family,” Charlotte motioned for Beth to enter the room first. “I know you’ve had a long day, so I won’t keep you. I think you’ll find everything here that you’ll need. Just look through the drawers, and the closet. Towels are in the linen closet. Extra things like toothpaste and shampoo are under the sink.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Beth answered, as she took in her surroundings. This room was more of a suite, with a sitting area by the bay window. It was larger than most hotel rooms she had stayed in, and was much larger than her own bedroom in her condo in Overland Park. Her gaze settled on the beautiful wrought iron canopy bed that dominated the room.

“Breakfast is at 7. Hope you like bacon, eggs and flapjacks,” Charlotte said as she turned to leave.

“I don’t usually eat breakfast,” Beth said.

“You may want to eat a big breakfast while you’re here. Beau will look after your car for you in the morning, but then I’m sure he’ll want to show you around the ranch. You’ll be needin’ your strength to keep up with him!” Charlotte frowned as her gaze settled on the discolored egg rising on Beth’s forehead, “That is, if you feel up to it.”

“Yes. He is – was – pretty much your father’s right hand man.”

“Oh,” Beth said, not sure what else to say. She had a sudden mental image of the Duke boys sliding over the hood of the General Lee. A different image from the cowboy, but still, pretty sexy. She gave her head a little shake. That bump to her head must have been worse than she thought. Either that, or the whole episode with her fiance – ex-fiance, she reminded herself sternly – had gotten to her more than she wanted to admit.

Charlotte said kindly, “Now you just holler if you need anything, I am in the room just kitty-cornered across the hallway.”

Finally alone, Beth stared at the closed door for nearly a full minute, just trying to take it all in and convince herself that this was real. She was honestly standing in the – correction, a – guest bedroom at her father’s ranch. She turned to take a closer look at the room. The furniture was beautiful, an eclectic mix of antique and new. Her favorite part was the tall canopy bed, covered with a double-wedding ring quilt and several pillows of different sizes, shapes and all different shades of pink. Even the dust ruffle and the tulle wound around the canopy frame was pink.

She caught herself smiling as she realized that there was no way her father had decorated this room. Most likely, he’d never even been in here if the living room was any indication of his decorating tastes. Her smile faded as she wondered if this room had been set up for his mistresses. Though her mother had tried to protect her from the rumors, she had always heard that her father was quite the playboy. Ever since her parents had divorced when she was ten, her mother had told her that her father was too busy with his various women to spend time with his daughter.

She shook the mental image from her head and began searching through chest of drawers, surprised to finds clothes in several styles, sizes and colors. She settled on a pair of gray sweats and a gray T-shirt, glad to be out of her wet clothes. At least the rain hadn’t soaked through to her panties, for which she was very thankful. After she got ready for bed in the equally feminine bathroom, she set the old-fashioned alarm clock on the nightstand. The pale pink flannel sheets were wonderful, soft and comforting as she slipped into bed, and drifted off to dream of cowboys hoodsliding across the General Lee.

Tune in next Friday for episode 3! If you can't wait, the book Denim & Diamonds is available here or can be ordered through your local bookstore.