Free Mountain Heiress: Mountain Midwife by Cassie Miles Page B

“So are you. You’d make a terrific model.”
    Parading around in dress-up clothes sounded like the worst kind of punishment. “I’m just a cowboy.”
    “That’s why you’d be great. Women love cowboys.”
    He was saved from further speculation when their food arrived. As he dug into his burger, he watched her. You could learn a lot about a woman from how she ate. Gabby had ordered a feminine choice with the mushroom sandwich, but she wasn’t afraid to pile on the pickles and tomatoes, pick up the whole thing and open her mouth wide to take a chomp. She attacked her food with the kind of gusto he’d seen in her before. She definitely wasn’t shy. As she chewed, she moaned with pleasure. It was an animal sound that he associated more with the bedroom than the lunch table. Not particularly ladylike. She swabbed her French fries through a glob of ketchup and popped them into her mouth. Not ladylike at all.
    “You’re staring,” she said.
    “I like to see a woman who enjoys her food.”
    “My manners aren’t the greatest. Back in Brooklyn, I usually grab something from a corner bodega or a fruit stand and eat on the run.”
    “Do you cook?”
    “Not without setting fire to the dish towels.” She washed down the fries with a swig of her beer. “That’s one of the great things about living in a big city. You’re never far from a place that serves something yummy. And there’s so much variety—Italian, Asian, Mexican, Greek. I love all the different tastes. How about you?”
    He looked down at his cheeseburger. “I’m a meat-and-potatoes guy. On occasion, I’ll try something different.”
    “And I like nothing better than a big juicy steak.”
    He could tell she was fibbing, trying to fit in with her new surroundings. He doubted she could change that much. She came from a different world. At her core, Gabby was a city woman who dreamed of visiting Paris and ate sushi with chopsticks.
    Despite their differences, he wasn’t willing to step aside and let her get railroaded. If anything, she needed his protection more than a cowgirl who was born and bred in the mountains. Glancing over at the file folder, he said, “Don’t worry. We’ll figure out what Fox is after.”
    She wiped the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “I barely had a chance to check out the numbers, but I noticed in the art portfolio that Michelle’s work was selling for big bucks. The real wealth in her estate might not be the property. It could be her paintings.”
    “You’re right.” He hadn’t considered the artwork. Living so close to Michelle and watching her work, he’d come to take her art for granted. “While we’re in town, we should pay a visit to her agent.”
    Their meeting with Fox couldn’t have been much worse. He hoped Osborne would be more helpful.
    * * *
    T HE O SBORNE G ALLERY wasn’t easy to find. Instead of being located among the high-rent retail boutiques, the gallery was on the outer edge of town. If there hadn’t been a sign by the edge of the road, Zach would have thought this place was a private residence with an overabundance of weird lawn sculptures. He parked the truck in a small gravel lot where there were two other vehicles.
    Gabby unsnapped her seat belt and peered through the windshield at a huge gray-ish statue that must have been ten feet tall. “What do you think that’s supposed to be?”
    “Looks like a tree with wings.”
    “Four sets of wings,” she said. “Maybe it’s supposed to represent motion, like a tree springing into the air.”
    Either way, the thing was damn ugly. He shoved open his door. “Let’s get this over with. Bring the portfolio.”
    “Don’t forget to lock the doors to the truck. Fox made me promise that I wouldn’t lose the legal papers, even if these are only copies.”
    Under his breath, he muttered, “And we wouldn’t want to disappoint Fox.”
    He’d never been good at dealing with people in authority, especially those who enjoyed lording it