Cowboy Strong

by Stacy Finz

  “Yep. You want me to nuke some for you in the microwave?” Sawyer went into the kitchen and made Jace up a plate. “What’re you doing home so early?”

  “That’s what I came to talk to you about. I’ve got an interview with what may be our first tenants. Two UC Davis grads who want to lease land to grow and start up a flower stand. Charlie’s sister hooked them up with us. You remember Allison?”

  “The one who owns a nursery in Portland, right?” Jace nodded. “How much land do these Davis grads want?”

  Jace stood sentry by the microwave as if hovering would make the food heat quicker. “A few acres.”

  “A few acres would feed a cow and her calf for a season. That’s money in the bank.” In the scheme of things, 500 acres wasn’t all that much land to run a profitable cattle operation and to lease even a small parcel might not be cost-effective.

  “I hear ya. We’ll definitely have to make it worth our while financially, otherwise it’s a lose-lose.”

  “How much water will they need?” Water was as precious a commodity as land.

  “Don’t know yet. These are questions we need to ask them. But I like that it’ll at least be agricultural. They’re hoping to do flowers for weddings and parties. Also sell to the public. I don’t know how that’ll work. Something else to ask them. But Charlie and Aubrey like the idea. I’m meeting with them in thirty minutes at the girls’ studio. Came by to see if you want to tag along. Cash is in Plumas County today at a cattlemen’s meeting.”

  “Sure, I’ll go.” Sawyer had put in a solid three hours of work after they’d moved the herd and before Gina had shown up.

  The microwave dinged and Sawyer took out the plate of lamb and couscous. He got out the chickpea salad, added a scoop, and slid it down the counter to Jace. “Bon appétit.”

  Jace didn’t waste any time shoveling the food into his mouth. “Wow, this is fantastic,” he said around a mouthful.

  “When was the last time you ate?”

  “Lunch at the coffee shop.” Jace ate there at least five times a week. They all did. “I thought you didn’t like her.”

  “Who, Gina?” Sawyer hitched his shoulders. “She feeds me. I don’t have to like her.”

  Jace pointed his fork at Sawyer. “The question is, Why does she feed you?” And then the moron grinned like he was really onto something.

  “It’s a trade for my kitchen. She doesn’t like hers and she doesn’t like me, either.” Apparently she liked Danny Clay’s dick, though. “And after today I’m pretty sure she’s going to be here forever.”

  “Why’s that?” Jace got up, found a loaf of bread in the fridge, and sopped up some of the lamb sauce with a slice.

  “Someone got ahold of her and that other celebrity chef’s sext messages and plastered them all over the internet. Let’s just say they’re better than anything you get on Pornhub.”

  Jace’s brows winged up. “I suppose sex texts don’t jibe with FoodFlicks’ family-friendly image.”

  “Yeah, not even close. I doubt her sponsors are too thrilled.”

  “She can’t hide here forever.” Jace scraped his plate clean and stuck it in the dishwasher.

  “Let’s hope not.” Though if Sawyer was being truly honest, he hadn’t altogether minded her company. She had a quick wit and was fun to spar with.

  “You ready to go?”

  They hiked across the field to Charlie and Aubrey’s old barn. Whether on foot or horseback, Sawyer never grew tired of the place. The sights and smells changed with the hours. He loved every inch of the land, its rugged hills and rolling pastures and the way they stretched out forever, making everything else seem small in comparison. Most of all, though, he loved the way his family’s history was steeped in these foothills.

  He and Jace caught up with the creek, which wound its way through the property like a snake. Maybe tomorrow he’d sit by the water’s edge with his laptop and do a little writing outdoors, then take a dip. The most popular spot was a swimming hole next to Cash’s old cabin where the water was deep and the current calm.

  But now with Gina living there he planned to avoid the place like the Ebola virus. As much as he appreciated dueling with her, he didn’t want to get sucked into her drama. Not like he had this afternoon. Sure, he’d brought some of it on himself by asking a lot of questions. He tried to chalk it up to the fact that he was a journalist, naturally inquisitive—but that wasn’t completely true.

  For whatever reason he was drawn to her, which was an anomaly. While his parents were fixers, he’d never had a knight-in-shining-armor complex. In general, he steered clear of women with a lot of baggage.

  “What are you so quiet about?” Jace asked as they got closer.

  “Just working out a story in my head and trying to figure out the hook.”

  There was a 1950 candy-apple red Chevrolet pickup parked next to the barn. Sawyer wasn’t an expert on classic cars, but someone had taken real good care of that baby.

  Jace let out a long, low whistle “I like these girls already.”

  They took a few minutes to admire the truck. Yep, the women had good taste in pickups, Sawyer would give them that. But he was still on the fence about leasing them land.

  He and his cousins had to do something to support the ranch, but he wasn’t sure this was the answer. The idea of people traipsing in and out like it was a shopping mall didn’t sit well with him.

  Then again, neither did losing their legacy.

  Voices came from inside the barn. He and Jace climbed over a stack of lumber and circled a sawhorse to get through the entrance. The construction crew must’ve punched out for the day. Either that or the crew had taken a break so they could hold their meeting without the cacophony of buzz saws in the background.

  Charlie and Aubrey were sitting with two young women on a pair of Charlie’s custom sofas in the showroom. Pretty girls, Sawyer thought, though they looked like teenagers. One was blonde, the other a brunette. Both dressed in jeans and graphic T-shirts. The brunette’s had a picture of a John Deere tractor and the words I’d rather be f-ing. Cute, Sawyer supposed, but not the most professional to wear on an interview.

  Damn, I’m getting old.

  “This is Ava and Winter.” Charlie made the introductions while Sawyer and Jace pulled over two chairs.

  “Tell me what you have in mind,” Jace said. He’d never been one for small talk.

  “We need about three acres to grow our flowers,” Ava said and went on to list the genus and species of about a dozen plants in Latin. For all Sawyer knew, they were roses and snapdragons. Both girls vibrated with so much enthusiasm about it that it made Sawyer dizzy. It was if they were talking about the Giants clinching the 2010 World Series after a fifty-six-year losing streak.

  “And we’d need a building we could use as a shop,” Ava continued. “Nothing as big as this, of course.” She looked around the Refind showroom, which used to stable Grandpa Dalton’s horses.

  Before the drought, when the cattle business was booming, he’d built a state-of-the-art barn where the horses currently lived and over time this one had gotten a little long in the tooth. The new construction and addition would return the old barn to its earlier splendor, even if it no longer housed Grandpa Dalton’s prized cutting horses.

  But the rehab cost money, a fact Sawyer couldn’t lose sight of. Hence the meeting with the Powerpuff girls.

  “Just big enough for a couple of refrigerator units, a workspace, and a small showroom,” Ava continued in a way that sounded more like an apology than a business transaction.

  Sawyer supposed he and his cousins were expected to pay for the build-out. Between lumber, labor, electrical, and plumbing, it wouldn’t be cheap.

  “What kind of rent are we talking about?” Sawyer asked.

  Winter cleared her throat. “Uh, what were you thinking?”

 
Sawyer exchanged a glance with Jace and tried not to laugh. Fresh out of college and raring to go without a clue. But so damned earnest that Sawyer had to force himself to stay firm. Otherwise he’d give away the whole damn store.

  “Let’s come back to that,” Jace said. “Right now, I’m more interested in your model and whether it fits in with our vision.”

  “We want to basically be a farmers’ market for flowers,” Winter said. “Straight from the field to the consumer. We’re also planning to do floral arrangements, wreaths, that sort of thing, for weddings and special events and to sell from the shop.”

  Charlie grinned proudly and Aubrey nodded her head as if the graduates had re-created the wheel.

  “You have a business plan with your profit-and-loss projections?” Sawyer asked.

  Both women looked at each other blankly.

  “I could help them with that,” Charlie rushed in. “They’re farmers,” she said, trying to smooth over the girls’ lack of business acumen. But to be a successful farmer you had to have a strategy, not just a dream.

  Jace flicked up the brim of his Stetson and flashed a gooey smile at Charlie while Sawyer threw up a little in his mouth. If Ava and Winter failed they wouldn’t be able to make their rent, which wasn’t going to help Dry Creek Ranch.

  “We could have the plan to you by tomorrow,” Ava quickly volunteered, clearly unaware of how long it took to put together a comprehensive executive summary, market analysis, marketing plan, and sales strategy. Weeks, even months.

  They were so gung ho it was hard to fault them for being in way over their heads.

  He looked over at Jace, who looked back at him. Ah, jeez, they were going to do this. They were going to let these two novices run a flower shop from their ranch because Jace was so in love with his fiancée that he couldn’t think straight and would do whatever she wanted. And she clearly wanted the girls.

  Sawyer was just a sucker, plain and simple.

  Too bad Cash wasn’t here. He was a pragmatist, unlike the rest of them. He would’ve put the brakes on this so fast there would’ve been skid marks all the way to Dry Creek Road.

  “Get us that plan and we’ll take it from there,” Jace said.

  The girls took off in their vintage red truck and Sawyer turned to Jace, Charlie, and Aubrey. “You know this is crazy, right?”

  Jace shrugged. “Farming’s good.”

  Sawyer shook his head and hiked back to his loft apartment where a phone message from his mother awaited. He hit return on her number and she picked up on the third ring, a sign that whatever she had to say was important. Usually, they played phone tag for a day or so before they connected. His father was a little easier to get, but was often too distracted to carry on a coherent conversation.

  “Have you seen Gina?” Sawyer’s mother asked by way of a greeting. “I’m worried about her.”

  “She was here a few hours ago. I assume you know about the texts? She was making phone calls while she was here. I presumed you were one of the people with whom she was talking.”

  There was a silent pause. “I haven’t been able to reach her in the last hour. Would you be a doll and make sure she’s okay?”

  No. He threw his head back and let out a sigh because his mother had the magic touch where he was concerned. She could wheedle him into doing anything. “I’ll do it this time. But Mom, I’m not her keeper. I’ve got a story to write and a ranch to manage.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart. Tell her to call me, please.”

  He tapped his head against the wall in frustration and grabbed his keys off the hook. This time he was driving. It was too damn hot to walk.

  Her BMW was parked in front of the cabin, so why the hell wasn’t she answering her phone?

  He jumped down from his cab, climbed the stairs, and tapped on her door. When she didn’t answer he banged harder. “Anyone home?”

  Still no answer.

  He went around the side of the cabin and found her sitting on the creek bank with her feet dangling in the water. She had on a ridiculous floppy hat and a pair of big red plastic sunglasses, reminding him of vintage photographs he’d seen of Hollywood starlets. He stopped to surreptitiously watch her and despite himself enjoyed the scenery. She looked like a cover shot for Life magazine.

  Sensing his presence, she flicked her head and caught him staring. She pushed the sunglasses down her nose and stared back without saying a word.

  “My mom’s looking for you.” He hiked over to her spot and sank down beside her.

  “Why? Because if there’s more bad news, I don’t want to know about it.”

  “She didn’t say. Publicist-client privilege. But she’s worried about you.”

  She turned her head and looked at him. “I think she’s the only one in the world who is.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or just feeling sorry for herself. He didn’t have time for either but continued to sit there, anyway.

  “You should call her.” He pried off his cowboy boots, slid off his socks, rolled his pant legs up, and dropped his feet into the creek. The water was colder than he expected, but it felt good in the heat.

  She nodded but didn’t make a move to get her phone. “Who were the women in the red truck? I saw them drive toward the gate a little while ago.”

  “Farmers. They want to lease some land from us to grow flowers and sell them from the ranch.”

  “As part of the business plan Aubrey and Charlie have?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Flowers are nice, but they’re not going to turn this place into a destination.”

  “Who said anything about turning Dry Creek Ranch into a destination?”

  “I thought that was part of the plan.” She lifted one foot out of the water and Sawyer watched her wiggle her toes.

  Her nails were painted bubblegum pink. A little cutesy for a woman who ran a multimillion-dollar enterprise, but for some reason he found them hot—and he wasn’t usually into feet.

  “Not my plan,” he said. “I just want something that will bring in a steady income in addition to the cattle.”

  “And you think flowers will do that?”

  No, he didn’t. “Maybe. They just graduated from ag school and they need land. We’ve got it. It’s a win-win.”

  Gina didn’t say anything, just continued to nod her head. But she was skeptical. Sawyer could see that.

  “What would you do?” he asked her.

  “It depends what your objective is. If you’re just looking for pocket change, a flower shop might do the trick. But according to what you told me, it sounds as if you need a steady flow of income. Significant income, right?”

  He didn’t want to go into any more financial details about Dry Creek Ranch with her. Truthfully, he was tired of talking about money. Lord knows he and his cousins had been going around and around about it since the day the lawyers had read their grandfather’s will and trust.

  “Why’s my mother the only one who’s worried about you?” He was violating his don’t-ask, don’t-care policy with her. But surely she had family and friends who realized how precarious her situation was and cared about her. Even though she’d made her own bed—so to speak—it did leave her business on shaky ground.

  Take Paula Deen. The celebrity chef had never fully recovered after her fall from grace. There was no reason to believe Gina would, either.

  “My mother’s dead and even if she were still alive, she’d say I was ultimately destined to be a failure.”

  Sawyer drew back. “Mommy issues, huh?”

  Gina let out a mirthless laugh. “Big-time. I was adopted at birth and a great disappointment to Sadie DeRose. I wasn’t beautiful enough, popular enough, smart enough, social enough to meet her expectations. She thought she and my father had found the perfect mother to birth the perfect child. And it
turned out that I was merely average.”

  Sawyer thought she was far from average. By anyone’s standards she was a huge success. And beautiful. He might not like her, but any objective person could see she was someone special.

  “What about your father?”

  “Gino?” Her face lit up. “He adored me. Unfortunately, he died when I was nine.”

  “The Gino DeRose?” Sawyer didn’t know why he hadn’t put the connection together sooner. DeRose. The man was a legend in the film industry. A director whose body of work had changed the face of foreign cinema. “Wasn’t your mother an actress?”

  She bobbed her head in a combination that was part-nod and part-shake. “Besides a few roles in my father’s films, she never really broke out. By the time I came along, she’d all but given up. I was her great hope.”

  “Did she at least get to see your cooking show?”

  “In its very early iteration. I don’t think she understood the cultural phenomena of FoodFlicks. I may as well have been a car show model to her.”

  Sawyer suspected as many people watched FoodFlicks as they had Gino DeRose’s films. Perhaps even more. “What about your various business ventures? She must’ve been proud of those.”

  “Most of it came later…after she’d passed. It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t her dream for me. She wanted me to be what she couldn’t be. A movie star with a shelf full of Oscars and a face like Angelina Jolie.”

  He turned to her, tilting his head to one side to take a long look. A thorough look. “You have a good face, Gina. I’d take your face over Angelina Jolie’s any day.”

  She leaned back, rested on both elbows, and studied him as if she was waiting for the punch line to a joke. When none came, she said, “That’s the nicest compliment anyone has ever given me. You know what, Sawyer Dalton? You’re okay.”

  “Right back atcha.”

  They held each other’s gaze and moved close enough so that their legs were touching. The heat between them was palpable.