Free Rocky Mountain Valentine by Carol Steward Page A

asked them, they technically focused on business. He’d deliberately ignored those personal issues. He had no choice. The ranch needed an income besides cattle to cover expenses. Ranching just wasn’t enough nowadays. This was a business move he’d had to make, despite his personal hesitancy.
    “Adam?” She looked at him with wide blue eyes.
    Keep your mind on business, old boy. If he could just find a way to tighten the reins on his attraction, they could both get on with their lives. Knowing the problem had to be half the battle, he reasoned. If Lisa wasn’t interested, why was he? “What does my privacy have to do with your article? Maybe it’s time I ask your plans for this story.”
    She grimaced. “Well...”
    “‘Well’ isn’t a good bargaining chip right now, Lisa.”
    She snapped her notebook closed. “Why don’t we finish this later?”
    “Why don’t you answer my questions this time? I deserve to know. After all, this is about my ranch.”
    Lisa stalled. “I want you to understand, this isn’t my idea. I can show you her email to prove it.”
    “‘Her’?” Adam took a quick glance at Lisa. “Give it to me straight. What does ‘she’ want?”
    “My editor wants to focus on the romantic getaway, and...you. About why a single cowboy—”
    “Hold it right there.” Adam slowed to a stop at the traffic light, holding his temper in check. Why was it that he kept getting thrown into situations where business and romance repeatedly became twisted as tight as jute rope? Adam thought he’d finally found a way to avoid getting his professional life all tangled up with his personal life and along came Lisa Berthoff. “Romance is out, and while you’re at it, you can leave me out of it, too.”
    “But...”
    He flashed her a firm but gentle warning. “Those are my terms. Take them, or leave them.”
    Lisa’s gaze didn’t stray. “I’ll make it work.”
    * * *
    L ISA SPENT THE remainder of the afternoon trying to figure out just how to satisfy both Adam and her editor. She knew Adam wouldn’t like any article that put too much emphasis on him, yet her editor wanted a story about the romance of the ranch setting and the single cowboy owner. What a mess.
    As soon as they’d arrived, Adam had changed clothes, started a load of laundry, then disappeared.
    She found a cozy seat in the corner of the great room and tried to work. She scribbled a few notes, then erased them and gazed out the window. Every now and then, she caught a glimpse of Adam. Whether tossing bales of hay from the back of his truck or giving Toby commands, his every movement exuded masculinity.
    He was a man at peace with himself. Everything seemed to go the way he wanted. Did Adam have any clue of the treasure he had here in his retreat from the world? A whiff of burning pine and one look around the spacious lodge, and she realized she was in trouble.
    Lisa shook off the sensation of envy that tended to creep into her consciousness whenever she slowed down for too long. She couldn’t cave in now. She had to stay strong. Had to prove to her mother and sisters and her louse of a father that she had what it took to succeed. She wouldn’t ever let herself depend on anyone else for support.
    Lisa paced, trying to deny the fact that Adam held her future in his hands. The article had the potential to go to several markets, not just for romantic getaways. The key to success in freelancing was to cover every angle in one interview. A little tweak, and the piece was salable to at least a dozen markets, a fact she didn’t dare share with Adam right now.
    Just thinking of him, her heartbeat quickened. She recalled his arms around her, and her face warmed. Much as she tried to tell her emotions that he had only been doing what anyone would have if his dog was mauling someone, it wasn’t working. There was something dangerously different about Adam.
    Despite girlish dreams, Lisa knew better than to think there was a man on the face of