Page 1 of Blue Moon Cowboy
Chapter One
Joy, swift and undeniable, swept across the weathered features of a face that had endured eighty-one years of triumphs and tragedy, happiness and sorrow, hope and loss. As Liz Charles beamed at her approaching great-granddaughter, photographer Lainey Collins adjusted her focus and captured the moment with her camera.
She snapped a few more images as the child, wearing pink boots and a matching pink tutu over her denim leggings, climbed onto Liz’s lap.
It was a precious moment of pure love and adoration, and Lainey felt honored to preserve it in the photos she would later send to Liz.
The beautiful older woman looked like western royalty with white hair curling around her ears from beneath the brim of her wide-brimmed cream cowboy hat. Her ice-blue eyes matched the satin shirt she wore with a cream vest that featured a tone-on-tone embroidered paisley pattern. The lines around Liz’seyes and bracketing her generous smile told stories about the woman every bit as much as the scar on her chin and the age spots on her arthritic hands.
Liz might be the honored guest of the day’s festivities, but she wore cowboy boots, jeans, and a buckle proclaiming her the champion of a team roping competition she’d won with her daughter fifteen years ago. The rancher was the epitome of a western woman, and the parade committee had recognized it since they’d asked her to be their grand marshal.
Earlier, Lainey had found a good spot along the parade route to take photos of Liz waving to the crowd gathered on the sidewalk as she rode in the gorgeous blue velvet seat of an open carriage pulled by a matched set of black horses. Lainey had even caught one of the miniature Snickers bars that Liz’s son had tossed out by the handful as he and his sister rode on either side of Liz.
The parade had ended, and now Liz waited to be introduced to the spectators watching a rodeo. Lainey had never been to a rodeo and hadn’t planned to attend this one, but Liz’s son had given her a ticket. As soon as she finished photographing Liz, she planned to go find her seat and take advantage of the opportunity to experience something new.
The crowd seemed lively, and the weather on the sunny April day was perfect, with hardly a cloud in the sky.
With all the traveling she’d done recently, taking photos of western women, Lainey had to glance at a banner on the rodeo arena fence to recall the name of the city. She’d spent two months driving around Texas, then another month in New Mexico and two weeks in Utah, before she arrived in Arizona to meet Liz and her family.
Lainey snapped a few more shots of Liz with her cute great-granddaughter, then moved back, her attention focused on getting the whole carriage in the frame of her photo.
She’d just pushed the shutter button when she bumped into a wall that smelled like leather with a hint of sage and something unexpectedly enticing. Then the wall shifted slightly, and Lainey spun around to look into the handsome face of a cowboy who could only be described as a frosty fox, with silver touching the dark hair at his temples. She realized she’d backed into him, and from the way muscles filled out his western shirt, she assumed their hardness had led to her confusion about backing into a wall.
Her mind felt utterly befuddled when he smiled and tipped his head in the polite gesture she’d observed most cowboys exhibited when greeting someone. She tried not to stare, but his face was positively intriguing, and not just because he was ridiculously good-looking. Laugh lines formed deep canyons around eyes that were a soft shade of grayish-blue that made her think of stormy spring skies. He owned a strong chin, a full bottom lip, and the kind of facial symmetry that painters and photographers pine after.
Lainey couldn’t help it if she wanted to take dozens of photos of his face. It was close to male perfection, even though she assumed he had to be somewhere around sixty. Then again, perfection was rather ageless.
She was far from perfect, or young. Not when she’d turned fifty-four on her last birthday.
Still, she hadn’t felt this drawn to a man in … well, she couldn’t remember the last time. The more likely reason was that she’d never felt so immediately attracted to anyone, but that wasn’t important.
Right now, she had a job to do, and letting a charming smile distract her wasn’t acceptable.
“Pardon me,” she said, offering the cowboy a brief nod of her head. She noticed then that he loosely held the reins of a horse inhis left hand. He looked far too old to be competing in the rodeo, but he did appear to belong there.
“Be careful, ma’am. It’s not safe to move around here without a little situational awareness. You never know what you’ll bump into or step in.” His smile broadened as he glanced down at her feet.
The boots that had been new eight months ago when Lainey had purchased them specifically for working on her current photography project were coated in manure and looked like they’d been involved in a stampede.
It was the first pair of cowboy boots Lainey had ever owned, but she didn’t think they’d be the last. In fact, she’d been drooling over a few pairs she’d seen at a vendor booth yesterday. They were too expensive to wear to stomp around in manure, but it hadn’t kept her from looking at them. Just like she couldn’t stop looking at the cowboy.
Looking was fine.
Anything beyond that was definitely … dangerous.
Before she begged the cowboy to let her take a photo of him, she offered him a reserved smile. “Thank you for the warning. I was just trying to get the carriage in the shot.” Lainey held up her camera and shrugged.
“If you want to take a photo, I’ll keep an eye out for you.”
Lainey might have refused, except she really wanted the shot of Liz in the carriage.
“Thanks.” She quickly framed the image, took several photos, then glanced over at the cowboy who stood guard behind her.
If life were different—if she wanted to get involved with a man again, if she weren’t leaving tomorrow to photograph her next subject—she might have paused a moment to get to know the cowboy.
But life wasn’t different, and she had appointments lined up for the next month with no time for distractions. Especially distractions who smelled irresistibly masculine and divine and looked like they should be on the cover of a western magazine.
She nodded to the cowboy. “Thank you for your assistance.”
