Wish Upon a Cowboy by Maureen Child, Kathleen Kane

kiss her long and deep.
    "I'm not what you think I am, Hannah," he said tightly. "So if you're expecting me to shout hallelujah and go along with whatever you've got in mind, forget about it."
    "But Jonas—" she started.
    He wrenched the door open and spared her a glance over his shoulder. "And for God's sake, don't count on my help for anything. I'd only let you down."
    *  *  *
    In the middle of the night, Hannah went looking for him. She'd waited hours for him to come to the house, but he'd stayed away, apparently determined to avoid her. It was that kiss, she told herself, relishing the memory. All evening, she'd relived that too-brief moment when his lips had touched hers.
    Her stomach still flip-flopped just thinking about it. He'd felt it, too, she was sure of it. Otherwise, he would have returned to the house hours ago. As if hiding would help. Didn't he realize he couldn't ignore his destiny any more than she could hers?
    And he thought her stubborn.
    She wrapped a blanket around her nightgown-clad body and stepped out onto the kitchen porch. Shivering slightly, she looked around the moonlit darkness until her gaze landed on a thin strip of lamplight shining at the bottom of the closed barn doors. She smiled to herself, took a deep breath, and hurried across the yard, her bare feet tingling with cold.
    Hoping the hinges wouldn't creak, giving Jonas warning of her presence, she pulled on one of the heavy doors and opened it just far enough to allow her to slip silently inside.
    She heard him before she saw him. His voice rumbled through the still barn and before she could speak, she found herself caught by his words.
    "It's all right, girl," he was saying in a whispered hush. "No need to worry now. I'll stay right here with you."
    Hannah sidestepped quietly across the dirt floor until she could see into the far stall where Jonas stood beside a chestnut horse in a puddle of lamplight. She watched him running his big hands gently over the animal's coat, smoothing along its long, graceful neck, stroking its muzzle with an almost tender touch.
    "That cut on your leg's already healing," he was saying in the same calm, reassuring tone. "In a few days, you'll be right as rain."
    The horse lifted its head and shook it, sending its mane flying. It moved restlessly in the stall but Jonas stood his ground, murmuring words of encouragement, letting his hands soothe the animal.
    Lamplight gilded his face and hands. Even the tips of his hair seemed to catch the golden glow and shimmer. Hannah watched him, mesmerized by his soft voice, by the gentleness that seemed to flow from him.
    She smiled to herself and branded this image of him into her memory. Years from now, she wanted to be able to recall this night and the gentleness in his features, the quiet strength of him. His tenderness tugged at her heart. His compassion for a wounded animal touched her and made her want to go and offer her help. But she knew he wouldn't welcome her.
    Talking to him would have to wait, she thought and with one last look at the man in the lamplight, she turned and left the barn as quietly as she'd entered.
    *  *  *
    Magic didn't help.
    Three days later. Hannah was forced to admit that things weren't going well at all. Since their kiss in the kitchen, Jonas had avoided her as he would the plague. She only saw him at mealtimes, and then he bolted his food and left again without a word or even a glance in her direction.
    The tenderness she'd glimpsed in him three nights ago seemed to be reserved for the animals in his care.
    Even when she followed him about the ranch, turning up at the corral or the barn, he disappeared as quickly as he could.
    It was as if he was determined to pretend that she'd never told him who he was. That he hadn't kissed her.
    That magic hadn't been born in that brief meeting of their lips.
    "Foolish man," she muttered, looking at Hepzibah who was busy stalking an empty pea pod across the kitchen floor. "Does he think by