And he was not a Cooper.

She had never seen the man before in her life. He saw her and stopped walking. He lifted his head up, and the moonlight caught his features. His face was sculpted, beautiful. So much so that it immobilized her. That square jaw was visible in even this dim light.

“I… Have you lost your way?” she asked. “The party is that way. Though…I’m fairly certain you’re not on the guest list.”

“I wasn’t invited to any party,” he said, his voice rough and raspy, made for sin.

Made for sin?

She didn’t know where such a thought had come from.

Except, it was easy to imagine that voice saying all kinds of sinful things, and she couldn’t credit why.

“Then… Forgive me, but what are you doing here?”

“I work here,” he said. “I’m the new ranch hand.”

* * *

Damn if she wasn’t Little Red Riding Hood delivered right to the Big Bad Wolf.

Except, she wasn’t wearing a scarlet cloak. It was a scarlet dress that clung to her generous curves like wrapping paper around a tempting present.

Her dark hair was lined silver by the moonbeams and tumbling around naked shoulders.

He could picture her in his bed, just like that. Naked and rumpled in the sheets, that hair spread everywhere.

It was a shame he wasn’t here for pleasure.

He was here for revenge.

And if he had guessed correctly based on what he knew about the Maxfield family, this was Emerson Maxfield. Who often had her beautiful face splashed across magazine covers for food and wine features, and who had become something of an It Girl for clothing brands as well. She was gorgeous, recognizable…and engaged.

But none of that would have deterred him, if he really wanted her.

What the hell did he care if a man had put a ring on a woman’s finger? In his opinion, if an engaged or married woman was looking elsewhere, then the man who’d put the ring on her finger should’ve done a better job of keeping her satisfied.

If Holden could seduce a woman, then the bastard he seduced her away from deserved it.

Indiscretion didn’t cause him any concern.

But there were a whole lot of women and a whole lot of ways for him to get laid, and he wasn’t about to sully himself inside a Maxfield.

No matter how gorgeous.

“I didn’t realize my father had hired someone new,” she said.

It was funny, given what he knew about her family, the way that she talked like a little private school Princess. But he knew she’d gone to elite schools on the East Coast, coming back home to Oregon for summer vacations, at least when her family wasn’t jet-setting off somewhere else.

They were the wealthiest family in Logan County, with a wine label that competed on the world stage.