For a year, Bo Lawson has tried to get closer to his boss, Backbreaker Ranch foreman Rance Benning, but the stubborn ex-rodeo champion refuses to be swayed. Bo can't understand Rance's aversion to being alone with him. Could it be Bo's HIV status?

Rance noticed Bo the first day he laid eyes on him at Brynn's Bakery. Since that time, he's done anything and everything to stay away from the dangerous-looking gardener with the chiseled six-pack and tight-fitting jeans. Rance has seen what pity in a lover's eyes looks like, and he doesn't plan on ever putting himself in that position again.

When one of the ranch's prize bucking bulls breaks through the fence and disappears, Rance and Bo are thrust together to help find the one ton money-maker. Although Bo sees their forced time alone as an opportunity, Rance sees it as torture. Every minute with Bo threatens the secret Rance won't tell anyone, least of all this dangerously sexy man.