Forget bad hair days. Cassidy Harte was having a bad everything day.

The ancient commercial-grade oven had been giving her fits since lunch, the produce manager at the grocery in town had messed up her order, and her best server had decided to run off to Jackson Hole with a hunky, sweet-talking cowboy.

And now this.

With a resigned sigh, she set the spoon down from her world-famous scorching-hot chili bubbling on the stove and prepared to head off yet another crisis.

"Calm down, Greta, and tell me what's happened."

The high schooler Jean Martineau had hired for the summer to clean rooms and wait tables at the Lost Creek Guest Ranch looked like she was going to hyperventilate any second now. Her hair looked even spikier than normal, her eyes were huge with panic behind their horn-rimmed glasses, and she was breathing harder than a bullrider at the buzzer.

"He's here. The new owner. A whole week early! What are we gonna do? Jean and Kip took the guests on a trail ride before dinner and there's no one else here but me and I don't know what to do with him," she finished on a wail.

Is that all? From the way the girl was carrying on, Cassie would have guessed a grizzly had ambled into the office and ordered a room for the night. "It's okay. Calm down. We can handle this."

"But a whole week early! We're not ready."

It was pretty thoughtless of the Maverick Enterprises CEO to just drop in unexpectedly like this. But the man hadn't done anything in the usual way, from the moment his representative made Jean Martineau an offer the septegenarian couldn't refuse for her small guest ranch in Star Valley, Wyoming.

All of the negotiations had been handled by a third-party -- the few negotiations there had been, anyway, since the company hadn't so much as raised an eyebrow at Jean's seven-figure asking price.

She turned her attention back to Greta. "We'll just have to do our best. Don't worry about it. Maverick obviously wants the ranch pretty badly. The company has already invested buckets of time and money into the sale. As far as I know, it's basically a done deal. I don't think we can possibly blow it at this late date, even if we tried."

The teen still had the wide-eyed, panicky look of a calf facing a branding iron. "But if he doesn't like the service here, couldn't he still fire every single one of us after Maverick takes over?"

True. And Cassie would really hate to lose her job cooking meals for the guest and staff at the ranch. Finding a well-paying job she was qualified for in rural Wyoming wasn't exactly easy. She could always move to a bigger town but she didn't want to leave Star Valley, even though the idea of crawling back to the Diamond Harte and her family appealed to her about as much as sticking that proverbial branding iron in her eye.

Besides that, she loved working at the Lost Creek. These last few months on her own had been so rich with experiences that she couldn't bear the idea of losing it all, just because some spoiled, inconsiderate executive decided to drop in on a whim.

She sighed. What a pain in the neck. He ruined everything. She thought with regret of the great menu she had planned for the new boss's first night at the ranch -- rack of lamb, caramelized pearl onions and creamed potatoes, with raspberry tartlets for dessert.

Tonight's dinner was good, hearty fare -- chili, cornbread, salad and peach cobbler -- but it was nothing spectacular. It would have to do, though. She didn't have time to whip up anything else.

"You have to help me," Greta pleaded. "I don't know what to do with him and I'm afraid I'll ruin everything. You know how I get."

Cassie winced at the reminder. Two week before, the head of a movie studio had rented the entire ranch for a family reunion and Michelle had ended up short sheeting his bed, leaving out towels altogether and overcharging his credit card by a couple extra zeros. Then at breakfast she'd topped it off by spilling hot cocoa all over his wife.

"Where is the new guy now?"

"I left him in the gathering room. I didn't even know which cabin to put him in, since that doctor and his family have the Grand Teton for another two nights."

Their best cabin. Rats. "What's left?"

"Just the Huckleberry. One of the very smallest cabins."

And the one next to hers. She blew out a breath. "That will have to do. He can't expect to drop in like this and have the whole world stop just for him. Check to make sure the whole cabin sparkles and then take one of the horses up the trail after Jean. I'll go out and try to keep him busy until she gets back."

With a last quick stir of the chili -- and a heartfelt wish that she were wearing something a little more presentable than jeans and a T-shirt with her favorite female country band on the front -- she headed for the gathering room.

It didn't matter what she was wearing, she assured herself. He was probably a rich old man who only wants to play cowboy, who wouldn't notice anything but the ranch unless a stampede knocked him over. He had to be. Why else would his company go to so much effort to buy the Lost Creek Guest Ranch?

The ranch consisted of a dozen small guest cabins and the main ranch house that served as lodge and dining hall. The centerpiece of the split-log house was the huge two-story gathering room, with several western leather couches set up in conversational groups, a huge river rock fireplace and a wide wall of windows overlooking the beautiful Salt River mountain range.

At the doorway, Cassie found the new owner standing with his back to her, gazing out at the mountains.

Okay, she was wrong.

This was no pudgy old cowboy-wannabe, at least judging by the rear view.

And what a view it was.

She gulped. Instead of the brand-spankin'-new western duds she would have expected, the new owner wore faded jeans and a short-sleeve cotton shirt the same color as the sagebrush covering the mountain. Dark blonde hair touched with gold brushed the collar of his shirt and broad shoulders tapered down to lean hips that filled out a pair of worn jeans like nobody's business. The long length of faded denim ended in a pair of sturdy, battered boots built more for hard work than fashion.

Whoa, Nellie.

By sheer force of will, she managed to reign in her wandering thoughts. What in the world was the matter with her? She wasn't the kind of woman to go weak-kneed at a pretty, er, face. She just wasn't.

Standing in a hot kitchen all day must have addled her brain. Yeah, that must be it. What other excuse could there be? She couldn't remember the last time she'd experienced this breathless awareness.

On some weird level, she supposed it was kind of comforting to know she still could. For a long time after Zack, she'd been afraid that part of her had died forever.

Still, it was highly inappropriate to entertain lascivious thoughts about her new employer, tight rear end not withstanding.

She pasted on what she hoped was a friendly, polite smile and walked toward the man. "Hello. You must be from Maverick Enterprises," she said. "I'm Cassidy Harte, the ranch cook. I'm afraid you caught us by surprise, but welcome to the Lost Creek Ranch."

Oddly enough, as soon as she started to speak, the man completely froze and she saw the taut bunching of muscles under the expensive cotton of his shirt.

For one horrified moment, she wondered if he was going to ignore her. When she was within a half-dozen feet of him, though, he finally began to slowly turn toward her.

"Hello Cassie."

The world tilted abruptly and she would have slid right off the edge if she hadn't reached blindly for the nearest piece of furniture, a Mission end table that luckily was sturdy enough to sustain her weight.

She couldn't breathe suddenly. This must be what a heart attack felt like, this grinding pain in her chest, this roaring in her ears, this lightheadedness that made the whole room spin.

Even with the sudden vertigo, she couldn't take her eyes off of him. In a million years, she never would have expected him to show up at the Lost Creek Guest Ranch, after all this time.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" her former fiance and the man who had destroyed her youth and her innocence asked her with that same damn lopsided smile she fell in love with ten years before.

She gulped air into her lungs, ordered oxygen to saturate her brain cells once more. Still gripping the edge of the oak table, she finally forced herself to meet his gaze.

"What are you doing here, Zack?"

Zack Slater -- ten years older and worlds harder than he'd been a decade ago -- angled his tawny head. "Is that any way to greet me after all these years?"

What did he want from her? Did he honestly think she would embrace him with open arms, would fall on him as if he were a long-lost friend? The prodigal fiance?

"You're not welcome here," she said, her voice as cold as a glacial cirque. She had ten years of rage broiling up inside her, ten years of rejection and betrayal and loss. "Please leave."

Get out before I throw you out.

For just an instant she thought she saw the barest hint of a shadow creep across his hazel eyes, then it slid away and he gave her a familiar, mocking smile. "Funny thing about that, Cass. Welcome or not, I'm afraid I won't be leaving any time soon. I own the place."