Why was she going to work with him? This was stupid. In fact, it was absolutely ridiculous. Aria had better things to do than babysit Laredo Hernandez at work. Besides, after seeing his “home,” she was pretty sure this was not the man for her. The guy who had sat on that black horse yesterday and had looked so amazing in the saddle was some kind of chimera. He didn’t really exist. That Laredo was a figment of Aria’s imagination. He was a remnant of her desire to somehow recapture the feeling she had experienced on that night so long ago when she was only a teenager. Aria knew this because there was absolutely no way that the Laredo who had kissed her at the rodeo that night would live in a house that looked like it belonged in a magazine or on a movie set.

“Thanks for tagging along to answer my father’s questions.” Laredo wasn’t driving. He was sitting in the passenger seat of her truck, and she was thinking that she should have made him ride in the back.

Aria was not in a good mood. She was mad at herself. For lots of reasons, but a good portion of it involved her inability to stop thinking about what Laredo Hernandez looked like in the shower.

Of course, there had been a lot of steam, which meant that she hadn’t been able to see everything. But still. She had been able to see enough. The man was built like a god. All of that swarthy skin! It was like his entire body was tanned even though there was no way this tailored-suit-wearing office jockey could possibly worry about such things. He even looked as though he got manicures!

“Aria?”

“What?” she snapped. They were close to his office. She could see the sign coming up. At the moment, she just wanted to be done with this.

“I’m sorry that you got called to come and pick up my pieces.”

He was saying sorry. The set of his handsome jaw told her that he was serious about it too. She should have been over it. She should have been able to just look at him and say screw it! But she couldn’t.

“I didn’t do it for you.” She wasn’t so sure that was true. “I did it for Bella. That kid does not deserve to have her world fall apart any more than it already has.”

“You’re right.” He acknowledged that but didn’t say any more. What the hell?

Aria was abruptly fed up. She pulled her truck into the parking garage below the building that housed the corporate offices of the Hernandez Land & Cattle Company. “Did you know that my father was an alcoholic?”

“No. I didn’t know that.”

“He was.” Why was she telling him this? It wasn’t any of his business. It wasn’t any of anyone’s business. That was why she did not talk about it.

He was staring at her. She could feel the power of that blue gaze boring into her. “Is that why you don’t trust men?”

“What makes you say I don’t trust men?” she snapped.

“Because you’ve never been with anyone that I know of.” Laredo was talking slowly, as though he were honestly sifting through his mental database.

“You haven’t even spoken to me since high school!” she burst out. “Why would you know anything about my love life?”

“I think Jesse would have mentioned it at some point.”

“Jesse hates you.”

He shook his head. “Jesse doesn’t hate me, Aria. She just wishes I would lay off of her about the ranch. She knows that my father is putting pressure on me and that it compels me to put pressure on her even though we both know that it won’t change anything.”

“But you just keep blasting her?” Aria cocked her head. She found a parking place and wedged her farm truck into the narrow slot. “Don’t you think that’s a bit unfair?”

“Maybe,” he allowed. “But Jesse hasn’t ever run a ranch.”

“She’ll be fine.” Aria thought about her friend. “Jesse knows people. She has Cal. She has me. We’ll help her. She’ll be just fine. And she’s not the one with the problems. It seems like your precious land and cattle company is the one with the problems.”

He got out of her truck. The two of them had to squeeze past both her side mirrors and the other two cars flanking her truck. It was like navigating around a semi stuck in a compact car slot. Finally, they met around the front of the vehicle. Laredo looked like hell, and yet he still looked good. How could that be?

“What problems do you think we have?” Laredo asked with a frown. He graciously stood aside and opened the door to let Aria into the building’s elevator access lobby.

“Are you kidding me?” Aria snorted. “You have Weatherby threatening to take you to jail and to bump you off of a contract that you really need—and don’t pretend this is less of a big deal than it is!” Aria ticked those off on her fingers. “And you have people stealing your cattle!”

“Cattle thieving is common enough,” Laredo pointed out. “It doesn’t mean someone is out to get us.”

“Unless those are Flying W people who are cutting your fences and stealing your cattle.”

“Paul Weatherby is a pain in the ass,” Laredo agreed. “There’s a huge Cattleman’s Association dinner tomorrow night, and he’s going to be there. We all will be. The reps from both the stock contracting company and the rodeo board will be there too.”

“So, basically a schmooze fest.” The elevator dinged and Aria stepped on board. “That sounds horrible.”

“Really?” Laredo frowned. “I was thinking that you could go with me, as my date.”

“What?” Aria was gaping at him. Had he lost his mind? “Why would I want to go to something like that?”

“You want to build your business and get more clients, right?” Laredo pushed the button for the top floor where his corporate offices were located. “So, this is the way to rub shoulders with the people who have the money to really make that happen.”

Aria didn’t like it. “Nobody is going to send their kids to me for lessons because I show up at some dinner dressed in a monkey suit!”

“It’s called a dress,” he teased. “And yes. Those kind of deals are made at dinners exactly like this one. You think the rodeo board guys don’t have kids?”

The elevator dinged again as they reached the right floor. Laredo again waited for her to step clear of the elevator before he followed her out. Aria felt oddly exposed here at this office. She wasn’t exactly dressed to be in an office. He was wearing a suit and she had on leggings. Why was she here?

“Aria!”

Aria turned around and spotted Joe Hernandez striding down the wide hallway in her direction. She swallowed a thick lump in her throat and forced herself to smile. Like it or not, this jerk was her neighbor and he was also the man who was trying to knock her best friend off her land. In Aria’s opinion, it was more important to have Joe Hernandez’s good favor even if the old guy needed to retire and leave her and Jesse and everyone else the hell alone.

“Hello, Joe.” Aria deliberately used his first name to establish the fact that she was no longer a little girl. For some reason, that was important to her. “How are you this morning?”

“Apparently much better off for having you as a neighbor.” Joe’s face turned serious. He reached for Aria’s hand and gently held it in one of his hands while patting it with the other. “We can’t thank you enough for getting plate numbers on that trailer.”

“Did you find anything out about it?” It was more curiosity than anything else driving Aria to ask that question. “They were certainly making a mess in the pasture. I swear they took out a dozen trees and half the fence.”

“You aren’t exaggerating about that,” Joe muttered. Then he glanced at Laredo. “Have you talked to Cal this morning? He said they had to replace a whole section of fence. There were over a hundred head missing!”

“A hundred!” Laredo frowned. Then he looked at Aria. “I thought you said there was one pretty simple stock trailer. That can’t handle a hundred cows.”

“Are you sure there was only one?” Aria shrugged. “I only saw one, but there could have been a dozen in and out of there, and I wouldn’t have known. It was too dark to see.”

Joe was nodding gravely. “Cal swears there are a hundred head gone, and I don’t doubt him. That boy knows our cattle better than anyone else in the company.” Joe’s gaze flicked to Laredo.

Aria bristled. What was Joe insinuating? She narrowed her gaze at Joe. “That’s probably because Cal is the one responsible for running the cow camps. I bet if you brought him into the office, he’d go cross-eyed trying to decipher the contracts and other business elements of your company.”

“You might be right.” Joe was fighting back a smile. The ass. Then he had the audacity to wink at her. “But then Laredo is a cowboy in loafers these days.”

“I’m wearing boots in case you hadn’t noticed,” Laredo pointed out. “I think we can all get over my choice of footwear. Can’t we?”

“Your footwear choices were the talk of the office yesterday!” Joe said boisterously. “You should have seen the guys laughing over your loafers. They keep wanting to know what store you got them at. Are you shopping in one of those English tack outlets or something?”

“Actually, I have them shipped from Milan, Italy,” Laredo told his father stiffly. “They cost about twelve hundred dollars a pair and are made from real cow hide.”

“Back in my day that was a whole suit of clothes for every day in the month!” Joe guffawed. “But you always were the soft one.”

“Excuse me?” Laredo’s icy tone seemed to make little dent in his father’s derisiveness. “How was I soft?”

“You stopped riding back before you even got married!” Joe reminded him.

Aria couldn’t stand it anymore. “He’s riding now. So, I fail to see how that makes him any different from any other person on your ranch. When was the last time you got on a horse?”

Joe didn’t bother to answer her question. He was obviously too focused on the bombshell of information that Aria had just dropped on him. “What do you mean Laredo is riding again?”

“He’s boarding four different horses at my farm in order to get them ready for competition this summer.” Aria glanced at Laredo. He looked greener now than he had when he was still laying on the countertop with his chin hanging over a sink full of puke.

“You’re competing this summer?” Joe swung around to face Laredo head-on and frowned. “What would possess you to do that?”

“You were the one to say that we needed to compete some horses in order to establish that we were still a viable breeder.” Laredo was struggling hard to sound nonchalant. Aria could hear it in his voice. “I figured this was the easiest way to accomplish that and make you happy.”

Did Joe Hernandez even realize that the last sentence was the most important one that Laredo had said all morning? “Make you happy.” That’s what Laredo had told his father because that was pretty much Laredo’s goal in life. He wanted to make his father happy because only when Joe was happy could Laredo fool himself into believing that his father loved him.

“I didn’t mean that you should compete them!” Joe said angrily. His hot glare was enough to make Aria back up a few steps, but Laredo held his ground. “That’s bound to make the horses look like crap! You’ll make us the laughingstock of every stock show this side of the Rockies!”

“Thanks, Dad.” Laredo’s dry voice was devoid of emotion. “You really know how to instill confidence. It reminds me of my childhood, actually.”

“I was talking about your brothers Cisco and Met.” Joe wasn’t done. “Darren is pretty athletic too.”

“Actually, Darren doesn’t ride very well anymore.” Aria interjected this and wondered if she’d gone too far. “I’ve seen him ride in the last several months at my farm, and he looks like a fumbling infant. I think his son, Jaeger, has a better seat at the moment.”

Now this was not entirely true. Darren had been on a horse once. He showed little to no desire to start riding again. And when he had gotten in the saddle, he did indeed look uncomfortable. But a lot of that had to do with how painful his knee was.

“But your brother Met rides bulls and broncs at the rodeo! He’s be a spectacular person to show some cow horses for us,” Joe tried to point out.

“Actually,” Aria argued again. “A bull and bronc riding won’t have the type of seat he needs at all. It would probably be really hard to stay on a horse when it’s not spinning in circles on you.”

Joe put his hands on his hips. “Woman, you are bound and determined to make me stop picking on Laredo. Huh?”

“Because you’re wrong.” Aria put her own hands on her hips and gave the man glare for glare. “As much as Laredo is on my shit list right now, I cannot fault his seat on a horse. He looks good. He looks confident. And he rides with soft hands and plenty of confidence and balance. I’m just saying you need to cut him some slack!”

Laredo touched her shoulder. “It’s okay, Aria. My father will never honestly believe that I won’t do something to bring shame to the family.”

“Speaking of,” Joe said with the sort of dismissive nonchalance that drove Aria up the wall. “Did you ever find a date for tomorrow night? Or are you going to show up single for the sixth time since Helena dumped you?”

“Nope.” Aria could not believe she was actually saying this out loud, but then Joe Hernandez had really pissed her off. “I’m going with him. You know, because it could help my business to schmooze a little. And also because I’m hoping I’ll get a chance to dump the punch bowl right on top of Paul Weatherby’s head.”

“Well, then.” Joe looked at Laredo with new eyes. “This should be quite the evening.” Then Joe patted Aria’s shoulder. “You just might make things exciting for the first time in years!”