Free Once Upon a Cowboy by Maggie McGinnis Page B

that made her fully appreciate the way his body fit his Levi’s, but the heat building in certain parts of her
own
body belied that argument.
    “All right, cowpokes!” Cole herded the kids towarda circle of logs. “Who’s ready for a scavenger hunt?”
    A chorus of squeals greeted his question, but two girls Jess would peg at around twelve years old sat with their arms crossed on one of the logs.
Uh-oh.
Apparently scavenger hunts ceased being fun right at about the time you hit double digits.
    Cole held up two pieces of paper. “So we have two jobs today. One is to find all of the things Maput on these lists, of course. The other”—he motioned for Jess to come closer to him—“is to show Jess here that scavenger hunts can be fun.”
    A little pixie with blond braids looked up at Jess, her face quizzical. “Why doesn’t she think they’re fun?”
    “Well, I’ll tell you a secret.” He motioned them closer, then fake-whispered, “She’s not very good at them.”
    “Hey. I’m plenty good at them whensomeone doesn’t alter my map.”
    Cole laughed. “See, last time Jess did a Whisper Creek scavenger hunt, someone played a trick on her.”
    The tiny blonde looked at Jess, her eyes wide. “What happened?”
    Jess smiled. “Lots of things, actually. First, we got lost, and we walked a long,
long
way farther than we were supposed to. And then there was a big storm, so we had to duck down in a stream sowe wouldn’t get hit by lightning—”
    Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cole making strange motions, but something made her keep going anyway.
    “But then, the worst part happened.” Jess paused, and was gratified to see every kid looking straight at her, eyes wide. “Then we saw a great big—”
    “Dog!” Cole broke in, making a slicing motion across his neck, then stepping between her and the kids.“Great. Big. Dog. That’s what she saw. Right, Jess?”
    “Um, right. Yes. Definitely.” Jess cringed, realizing too late what she’d almost done. “Just a dog. Definitely not a bear. No bears here.”
    Cole closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly.
    “You know what really
did
happen, though?” She leaned around him. “I ended up
covered
with mud.”
    “How?” the little girl asked.
    “Because we fell into thecreek. When we finally found our way back to the ranch, Cole here thought my friends and I had been mud-wrestling.”
    The kids laughed, but Jess saw Cole swallow hard at her words.
    He cleared his throat. “Okay, so back to the papers here.” He held up the lists. “Ma hid a whole bunch of stuff on us this morning, and now we have to find it.”
    As Cole went over the rules of the hunt, Jess tried tofocus on his words, but her eyes kept getting stuck on his lips, his biceps, his chest. It was going to be a long afternoon, if it was already this hard to concentrate.
    Two minutes later, he was done. “All right. Boys on one side of the circle, and girls on the other.” The kids scrambled and picked new seats, then waited anxiously to get started.
    Cole pointed to Jess. “I was just going to keepthis a friendly little scavenger hunt, but Jess here thought it should be a competition. So, here’s how this is going to go. I’m taking the boys, and she gets the girls. First order of business is that we each get to add one last thing to the other team’s list, and they have to find it in order to win.”
    He handed Jess one of the lists, and a pencil. “Huddle up and figure out what you’re goingto make us find, gals.”
    As he gathered the boys around him, Jess gingerly approached the girls, who were looking a little bit like they’d much rather be on Cole’s team. She sat down in front of them, scanning the list. “Okay, ladies. If we want to win this, we have to think of something good.”
    The girls threw out ideas—an owl, a rabbit, a three-toed sloth—but as soon as something was suggested,someone else would shoot it down. After a few minutes of trying, they were no