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her sides.
    â€œBut I brought you a present,” he protested.
    â€œLet me guess—boxes of dynamite to blow us back to Beverly Hills? ”
    Ignoring the sarcasm, Cody set his load down. Nestled inside were sacks of flour, sugar, and salt, some dried meat, powdered milk, molasses, a burlap bag filled with fruit, a similar one of potatoes, an odorous lump of sourdough, and lots and lots of beans.
    Dumbfounded, Danielle looked down at the contents and back up into pair of eyes so blue it hurt to gaze at them too long.
    â€œYou were expecting takeout maybe?” he asked.
    That damned grin of his could have buttered a Thanksgiving turkey.
    â€œHardly,” Danielle snapped, the reference to fast food making her stomach grumble.
    Unable at the moment to cope with fixing anything that didn’t come straight out of a microwave, she proceeded to pass out fruit and jerky to the girls, promising them a more filling dinner later.
    Cody couldn’t help but compare Danielle’s carefree attitude with his late wife’s preoccupation with fixing three balanced, nutritional meals for her family every day. Here was apparently yet another modern woman willing to put her own needs before those of the children depending on her. What was most puzzling to Cody was why he was at all attracted to someone who was the exact opposite of what he admired most in a woman.
    Swinging himself back into the saddle, Cody started to leave but was detained by a small hand pressed lightly upon his knee.
    â€œExcuse me, sir,” Sheila Pooly said in a squeaky voice. Undeniably the prissiest girl in the troop, she was squinting up at Cody’s sunlit profile as if he were God Himself.
    â€œYou can just call me Cody,” he said with an encouraging smile.
    Scanning the vast expanse of the plains, Sheila posed her question as delicately as possible. “Where’s the...ah... Porta Potti?”
    Like resounding thunder, their wagon master’s laughter exploded across the prairie.
    Overhearing the conversation, Mollie, too, burst out laughing, and soon everyone within earshot was privy to the city girl’s faux pas. The native Wyomingites hooted with glee as their wagon master pointed to a thick clump of sagebrush.
    â€œOver there,” he guffawed.
    The location to which he pointed hardly provided any privacy. Sheila blushed furiously, and Danielle’s eyes flashed like summer lightning, burning a hole right through Cody.
    Keenly aware that he had just wrinkled the suit of armor in which these girls had dressed him, Cody felt a stab of guilt at the wounded look in Sheila’s eyes. Maybe he was being too rough with Troop Beverly Hills. The disconcerting thought took him back in time to his own callow youth. How many times had he himself been ridiculed as a country bumpkin when he had been lost in the big city trying to peddle those first humble, heartfelt songs?
    Remembering his promise never to become such a selfindulgent big shot that he was beyond simple kindness and common courtesy, Cody hastened to lessen the sting of Sheila’s humiliation.
    Bestowing a slow smile upon the girl that made her blush from the top of her blond head to the bottom of her boots, he said with a wink, “I’ll tell you what. There’s a rest stop just over the next hill. If you’d like, you can hop on back of ol’ Champ, here, and I’ll tote you on over there.”
    That wink was Sheila’s undoing. She nodded her head gratefully. Cody reached down and in one graceful move pulled her up behind him in the saddle. Squealing with delight, the girl waved to her friends as they galloped over the hill.
    When they returned a few moments later, Sheila wore a look of simpering adoration. Danielle thought it obvious that she couldn’t wait to share every heart-quickening minute with her friends who were certain to be green with envy.
    That their wagon master had assuaged Sheila’s feelings only slightly