Cowboy Strong

by Stacy Finz

  “We do.” Charlie nodded. “Especially if we make the ranch part of the Sierra foothills experience. Of course, we’ll have to offer more than just a home furnishings store and design studio to make Dry Creek Ranch a destination.”

  “Like what?” Gina was curious.

  “Perhaps a country mercantile, a farm stand, a bakery, even a florist,” Aubrey said. “We’re still working out the details but we have plans. Big plans.”

  Gina liked the spirit of it, but Dry Creek Ranch was pretty off the beaten track. Turning it into a destination would need more than a few cutesy country stores. Maybe a theme park, like Knott’s Berry Farm, but her gut told her Sawyer and his cousins would never go for that.

  Who would?

  “Why do you want to turn it into a destination?” Gina had gotten the impression that the Daltons only cared about raising cattle. At least that’s how Sawyer had made it sound when he’d snidely pointed out that the ranch wasn’t a resort.

  Thanks, Captain Obvious.

  Charlie exchanged a glance with Aubrey and let out a breath. Clearly, they were deliberating on what or what not to say. For all intents and purposes she was a stranger, after all.

  “We’d like the ranch to bring in more money,” Aubrey finally said, trying to sound as if it wasn’t critical, which only made Gina think it was.

  “Money’s good.” She gave a nonchalant shrug. The Daltons’ finances were their business, not hers. And currently she was the last person to give advice.

  She ran her hand over a cowhide ottoman to see if it was genuine, which of course it was, and moved on to a sofa that was upholstered in a complementary fabric to the club chair.

  “How hard would it be to move all these pieces to the cabin?” She waved her hand at the collection. If she was going to be here for a few weeks she might as well furnish the place in stuff she loved, instead of the whole homeless encampment theme the former tenant had going on.

  “Not hard,” Charlie said. “I could borrow Jace’s truck and between all of us we could carry everything.”

  Gina rummaged through her wallet for her gold card. “Let’s do it.”

  A few hours later, she sat in her new living room, admiring the changes. They’d managed to heft the old sofa into Jace’s truck for a dump run. The cabin still suffered from neglect and someone’s love of dirty beige. But the couch, chair, and ottoman were fabulous.

  At two, she loaded her BMW and made the short drive to Sawyer’s. As usual, the front door was unlocked and she let herself in, hugging a boneless lamb shoulder and a bag of groceries.

  Sawyer sat at the center island with his laptop. He lifted his gaze as she came in and went back to whatever he was doing.

  She scanned the kitchen. “Do you have a tagine?”

  “I left my last one in Morocco.” He rolled his eyes.

  “How ’bout a Dutch oven?” She didn’t wait for him to answer and searched his cabinets, finding a nine-quart Le Creuset pot. “This’ll work.”

  He shut the laptop and peered at her over his coffee mug. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Spiced lamb tagine with couscous and a chickpea salad.” She found a cutting board in one of the drawers, put it on the counter, and eyed his plaid Carhartt short-sleeved shirt. “I see you have clothes on today.”

  “Disappointed?”

  The truth? Yes. He had lots of faults—crabby personality, for one—but the man had an extremely fine chest. Broad, bronzed, and cut. The rest of him wasn’t too shabby, either. Thick dark hair that begged for fingers, blue eyes that reminded her of a trip she’d taken to the Aegean Sea, and a body that was made for sin. Okay, she’d ripped that last line off from Working Girl, but it definitely applied to Sawyer.

  “Not on your life, bucko.”

  “Bucko?” He arched a brow, then turned his attention to the groceries she was spreading out on the countertop. “For the tagine, I presume. Didn’t know you did Middle Eastern food.”

  “Just playing around with some new ideas.” For her show, everything had to be Italian, so it was nice to try something else for a change. Then there was the fact that there was nothing better to do here than cook. Unless, of course, she counted watching the toppling of her hard-won empire. She might as well test recipes. “I’ve got to let the lamb come to room temperature. It’ll take about an hour.”

  In the meantime, she got to work on the chickpea salad, sliding a glance every now and again to Sawyer, who’d once again become engrossed in his laptop.

  “What’s so interesting?” she asked.

  “Working on a few things.” He flipped the cover down again, got up, and stuck his head in the fridge. “How long until that’s done?” He bobbed his head at the lamb.

  “At least two hours, I’m afraid.” She shoved him out of the way, opened the fridge, and peered inside. There wasn’t a whole lot there, not even the leftovers from her soufflé. “I could make you a couple of eggs.”

  “Nah, I’m not that hungry. The fridge thing is out of force of habit. I had a big breakfast over at Jace and Charlie’s after we moved the cattle this morning.”

  “I saw you,” she said. “You woke me up.”

  He looked at her and shook his head. “In the immortal words of my grandfather, ‘This ain’t no country club.’ Get used to it, princess.”

  He let his eyes wander over her cutoffs. She couldn’t tell whether he was sneering or checking her out. Whatever. She didn’t care, she told herself, and finished making her chickpea salad.

  “You have any plastic wrap?”

  He got off the stool, rummaged through one of the drawers, and pulled out a box. She covered the salad and stowed it in the refrigerator.

  “You don’t ever have to go into an office?” she asked, wondering how his journalism job worked.

  “Nope. I’m freelance, so I mostly work from home when I’m not on assignment.”

  “What does an assignment entail, exactly?” Most of the journalists she’d had experience with considered camping on her front lawn an assignment. She considered it trespassing.

  “I spent much of last year embedded with Special Forces in Afghanistan. The year before, I lived in India for three months while working on a piece about sex trafficking and two months in Brazil, chronicling the start-up of a fair-trade coffee plantation owned by the workers. It just depends on what the story is and how deep my editor wants me to go.”

  “It sounds dangerous.”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes it’s following a politician around and sleeping in a Marriott every night.”

  “And you moonlight as a cowboy.”

  “Not moonlight.” He jutted his chin at her. “Cowboying is a way of life. It’s what my family has done for more than a hundred years. It’s what we’ll continue to do long after I’m gone.”

  Journalist-cowboy. Interesting combination, Gina thought. “Not your dad?” Gina had only met Dan Dalton a few times; she mostly worked with Wendy. But he was about as citified as you could get. Designer suits and shoes that had never touched a cow patty.

  “Nope. My grandfather swore that ranching skipped a generation. Unlike his children, his grandkids were infected with the bug.”

  “And turning the ranch into a business court…you’re okay with that?”

  Sawyer jerked his head in surprise. “How’d you hear about that?”

  “Charlie and Aubrey.” She didn’t think she was divulging secrets. Aubrey had made it seem that everyone in the Dalton clan was onboard with the idea.

  “Let’s just say it’s a necessary evil to keep the place running.”

  “I thought beef was a billion-dollar industry.” She put her hands on her hips, enjoying turning his own words on him. Just a reminder that she could out-condescend him any day of the week.

  “It is. But on our scale—we only run about a hundred head—it’s barely eno
ugh to keep us afloat. Until we figure out a way for the ranch to make more money…we’re in the poorhouse.”

  She was surprised by the revelation as much as she was by his honesty and felt a twinge of guilt for taking a shot at him. “Are you at risk of losing it?”

  “Not yet,” he said and left it at that, making Gina wonder if the money situation at the ranch was more dire than he was even letting on.

  She didn’t press. It wasn’t any of her business. Besides, she didn’t have any sage advice to dole out. Don’t get accused of screwing someone else’s spouse or you’ll lose everything.

  Gina slid the lamb in the oven to bake for an hour and got started on steaming the couscous using one of Sawyer’s colanders snugly fitted over a pot. In her Malibu kitchen she would’ve used a traditional couscoussier to steam the wheat semolina. But here she had to improvise.

  Sawyer rested his elbows on the counter and followed her step-by-step. Even though millions of viewers tuned in every day to see her cook, something about him watching so closely unnerved her. It was as if he knew she was a colossal phony and he wanted to catch her using the wrong ingredient or burning something.

  “Anything new from ChefAid?” he asked, handing her the small box of star anise as she reached for it.

  “Like what? I told you we were meeting in September.”

  “Just wondered…you know, after the latest.”

  “What latest?”

  “You didn’t hear?”

  Gina cut him a look and his face went slightly pale.

  Shit.

  She lunged for his laptop.

  He rested his hand on the top before she could grab it.

  “Hear what?” she yelled, her pulse doing a tap dance. It was a pretty good guess that whatever Sawyer was talking about was more bad news. Perhaps staying off the internet to avoid the haters wasn’t such a good idea.

  She searched through her handbag for her phone. It had only been four or five hours since she’d last scrolled through her messages. But she’d seen lives ruined in the mere click of a keyboard.

  She tapped on her phone and sure enough, she had five missed calls, ten texts, and at least six emails marked urgent. She sat on one of the stools, girding herself for whatever new crisis was about to get thrown at her, reading each message.

  Sawyer stood over her shoulder. “Sorry, I thought by now you would’ve heard. But this time you’re not sticking me with the dishes.”

  Chapter 5

  Gina DeRose was a walking disaster. Like an eight on the Richter scale of calamities. While some men—like Sawyer’s two cousins—ran to women in trouble, he looked for the nearest exit. Unfortunately, in this case that would mean leaving his own house, which he’d actually considered the minute she’d gotten the news and subsequently blew up like a bottle rocket.

  She’d hightailed it into his bedroom and for the last twenty minutes had been yelling at someone—maybe his mother—on the phone. From the kitchen, he tried to listen, but was having trouble following the conversation.

  He’d give Gina credit, though. She’d rattled off a litany of curse words that he, a lauded wordsmith, would never have thought to string together in quite the way she had.

  Impressive.

  An entertainment magazine had gotten hold of her and Danny’s text messages and had plastered screenshots of them, including a picture of Danny’s dick, all over the internet.

  Who the hell did that? Sawyer had sexted a time or two, or even three. Especially when he was away on assignment and in the throes of a new relationship. Who hadn’t? But why would anyone on God’s green earth commemorate his junk in a picture and then hit the send button?

  Hey, here’s a shot of my penis. Wish you were here.

  What Sawyer did know was that the dick pic and the texts, which he’d read and were pretty raunchy, weren’t going to play well with the ChefAid suits.

  Not well at all.

  Sawyer’s mother had her work cut out for her. And Gina would have to continue hiding here, coming in and out of his house like it was a revolving door. He wasn’t too thrilled about that, but at least he’d eat well.

  He checked the oven to make sure the lamb wasn’t burning. The whole house smelled like Moroccan spices, which for some reason reminded him of Christmas. Maybe it was the cinnamon. The aroma made his mouth water and his stomach growl. He didn’t know whether the couscous was overcooking, but decided to leave it alone.

  “Can you freaking believe this?” Gina came back into the kitchen, waving her phone in the air.

  “I learned a long time ago to never put anything in writing that you didn’t want people to see. Privacy is a myth.”

  She started to say something and seemed to reconsider. Then, because she had to have the last word, said, “You would know, being a professional bloodsucker.”

  “According to those text messages, I’m not the only one who’s sucking, if you know what I mean.”

  She flipped him off and turned to the stove. “The couscous is going to taste like mush.”

  “Was that my mom on the phone?” He returned to his seat at the island.

  She let out a breath. “My agent, my manager, my assistant. Cynthia Grossman, my publicist, who I’m about to fire.”

  “What’d she do?”

  “Nothing. That’s the problem.”

  Sawyer laughed, though what was she supposed to do? The texts spoke for themselves. “How do you think they leaked out?”

  “Obviously not from me.”

  There was nothing obvious about it. Anyone who had access to her phone, which he assumed her staff did, could be the culprit, but he didn’t say anything. Surely someone in her position was smart enough to realize that. “So you think it came from Danny Clay, huh?”

  “That would be…I have no idea. All I know is someone is out to get me.”

  Sawyer had to keep from rolling his eyes. Wasn’t that just like a narcissist? She has an affair with another woman’s husband, yet someone was out to get her? What a piece of work.

  “What?” She squinted her eyes at him.

  “I didn’t say a word.”

  “You don’t have to. I can hear your judgment from here.”

  He stood up and leaned his hip against the counter. “Yeah, what am I thinking, then?”

  “That I’m a terrible person. But you don’t know the first thing about me.”

  “Nope.” Nor did he want to—too much to unpack, he thought, as his eyes did a covert slide down her body. “Hey, I’m staying in my lane. No judgment.” Which wasn’t altogether true.

  “Good, because you don’t have a clue of what’s going on here.”

  A lot of bumping and grinding, according to her texts. Hell, she’d sounded like a veritable sex machine.

  Really, he didn’t know why he was even getting involved. He wrote about peoples’ problems for a living, he didn’t need to do it in his spare time. But something about her made him want to figure her out. She was like the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle, a challenge. And there was nothing Sawyer loved more than a challenge. Even one who was a full-time pain in the ass.

  They wound up eating her lamb tagine between phone calls and temper tantrums. He could only imagine how she must’ve reacted to the photo, which he’d finally gotten around to searching on the internet. It had been your typical paparazzi wide-lens beach shot. Grainy but clear enough to make out Gina and Danny having a good time. The photo wasn’t as salacious as the texts, but it was provocative enough to leave no doubt that the subjects were involved romantically.

  Gina cleaned up her dishes and went home, leaving him enough leftovers to last the week. Not such a bad deal. He considered calling his mother and getting her take on Gina’s situation, but it would probably be hopeless. Dalton and Associates had a strict confidentiality policy when it came to their clients, as
they should.

  Instead, he went over the notes he’d taken from interviewing a woman who’d lived on the commune with Angie in New Mexico to see if he’d missed anything.

  Five years ago, his sister, Angela, had dropped off the edge of the earth. Angie had always been unreliable, jumping on every cause known to mankind, joining up with fringe groups and traveling to remote areas, living a nomad’s life. High-risk? Maybe. But his sister lived by her own rules. It wasn’t uncommon for her to disappear for a while, then reemerge a few months later.

  But not this time. This time, she’d completely ghosted them, which was so out of character for her that they’d assumed something terrible had happened.

  He and his parents had filed missing person reports, hired private investigators, and offered large monetary rewards for any information that would unravel the mystery, without any success.

  Then, a few months ago, Sawyer had gotten good information that Angie had been living on a commune in Taos, New Mexico. He continued to plumb the lead but so far had come up dry.

  In June, he’d met a woman from the commune who was now living in Santa Fe. But she’d been reticent to talk. It was almost as if she was afraid of something or somebody. She’d been visibly uncomfortable throughout the entire interview, which told Sawyer she knew more than she was saying.

  He was considering taking another stab at her, but had a sinking feeling it was hopeless.

  He’d lost count of how many times he or his parents had dropped everything to hop on a plane or get in a car and chase down another fruitless tip.

  “Hey,” came Jace’s voice from the bottom of the stairs. “Anyone home?”

  “Come up.” Sawyer quickly flipped his reporter’s notebook closed. His cousins were of the opinion that Sawyer should stop turning his life upside down every time a private investigator found a trail to follow.

  But it was his baby sister, for God’s sake.

  A few seconds later, Jace joined Sawyer at the dining room table. “Damn, it smells good in here.”

  “Chef Boyardee was over to cook.”

  “Chef Boyardee is welcome at my house anytime,” Jace said while sniffing his way to the inside of Sawyer’s refrigerator. “This it?” He held up a covered glass dish with the leftover lamb.