Cowboy Strong

by Stacy Finz

  “You’re here late.” He took a seat at the island. “Are you baking bread?”

  She blew out a breath. “Yeah and it sucks. It’s tough and flavorless. Nothing is coming out right. Maybe it’s the altitude.”

  “We’re only at a little more than twenty-four-hundred feet, hardly Mount Whitney.” He got himself a beer out of the refrigerator, popped the cap, and took a long drag. “You want one?” He figured if she did, she would’ve helped herself, since she’d helped herself to everything else in his house. That is, everything but him. Not that he was interested.

  “I’m good.”

  He tipped the neck of the bottle back to take another swig and held her gaze, letting his eyes slide down her torso. “Are you?”

  What the hell was he doing? After the creek-bank moment he thought he’d gotten clarity.

  Gina DeRose was off-limits.

  First, because she was his mother’s client. Second, because she was involved with another man. A married man. And third, because he didn’t particularly like her kind.

  “Not really.” She sank into one of the barstools. “In fact, I’m pretty shitty. Last I looked, I lost two thousand Twitter followers. My Facebook wall is covered in hate posts. And don’t even get me started about the memes.”

  He could only imagine. “Not good for your bottom line, huh?”

  “Nope.” She looked so defeated that he almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

  She went to the refrigerator, took out a casserole dish, and set it on the counter while she preheated the oven. When he pulled back the foil she said, “It’s baked ziti. I made it yesterday, but it’s usually better the second day. Where have you been, anyway?”

  “Work trip,” he lied because he didn’t want to discuss Angela right now.

  “What kind of work trip?” she pressed.

  “It’s a long story.” He took another pull on his beer and reclaimed his stool at the kitchen island. “And I’m done with work for the day.” He gave her a pointed look.

  She dropped it, launching into a litany of complaints about being exiled to Timbuktu. “There’s no place to buy decent cheese around here. And good almond paste? Forget about it.”

  “I don’t know about almond paste, but there’s a goat and sheep farm on Cattle Drive Way where they make their own cheese. Technically, they’re not allowed to sell it to the public. I think it has something to do with it not being pasteurized. But I’m guessing a crafty woman like yourself could get your hands on some. You won’t be disappointed.”

  She perked up and just as quickly lost her enthusiasm. “I can’t be seen in public, remember?”

  “You went to the kitchen store.”

  “In a hat and glasses with the rest of the badly dressed tourists. But at someone’s farm? I’d look like a freak.”

  He’d seen her in her getup. Not a freak. More like a Hollywood type, trying to hide her identity, only to call more attention to it. He knew the drill; he’d grown up in Beverly Hills, after all. Probably not far from where she’d grown up. They definitely hadn’t gone to the same schools—his was private—because he would’ve remembered meeting Gino DeRose’s daughter.

  “What? You want me to go there and buy the damn cheese for you?”

  She flashed her TV smile. “Yes, please.”

  “And what will you do for me?” He hitched his brows.

  The oven bell dinged and she slid the baked ziti in. “Feed you.”

  “You do that in exchange for my kitchen. Time is money, honey. You want me to buy you cheese, you’ve gotta do something for me in return.”

  “Like what?” She lifted her chin in challenge as if to say, bring it on.

  About a thousand things, all of them sexual, came to mind. “I don’t know yet. Give me time to think about it.”

  “Take all the time you need,” she threw back.

  He got another beer out of the fridge and his stomach growled. “Can I have a slice of that bread?” He nudged his head at a loaf wrapped in a towel, resting on the countertop.

  She cut a few pieces, arranged them on a bread plate, and slid it over to him. “Eat at your own risk.”

  He grabbed the butter out of the fridge, slathered a pat on one of the slices, and took a bite. She hovered over him, watching.

  “Nice and soft, just like Wonder Bread,” he said as he chewed off another bite.

  She snatched the plate away and elbowed him in the arm. He chuckled because he liked getting a rise out of her.

  “It’s too tough, isn’t it?”

  Was she kidding? The bread was freaking fantastic. Crusty on the outside, soft in the middle, and still warm from the oven. “Nope. Now give it back to me.” He reached out and tugged the plate back.

  “What about the flavor?”

  “It tastes like bread.”

  She put her hands on her hips and glared at him.

  “Okay, fine. I taste malt and maybe a little honey. Not too yeasty. I actually think it’s bold in the flavor department. Yet, it doesn’t overwhelm the palate.” Oh, for Christ’s sake, he sounded like one of those douchey foodies who were always talking about mouthfeel and throwing around words like artisanal and curated.

  “Wow, you got the malt. Is it too much?”

  Jeez, how was it that one of America’s most famous chefs was so damned insecure? “Nah, I thought it was pretty balanced.”

  “I used less yeast and I retarded the fermentation by refrigerating the dough to help the flavor stand out more. But I still think it sucks. You don’t, huh?”

  “Nope. Then again, I wouldn’t turn down a Little Debbie variety pack. So what the hell do I know?”

  He saw her face fall and kicked himself for being an asshole.

  “It’s as good as anything I’ve ever had at La Brea, Röckenwagner, Tartine, Acme,” he quickly amended, ticking off every great California bread bakery he could think of. “You planning to bake bread full-time?” When she shook her head, he said, “So what’s the big deal?”

  She deliberated, then said, “I’ve got a thing about being perfect.” She took a long pause as if she’d just come to that revelation, then added, “It’s sort of exhausting, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Yeah, I would imagine so. I’m guessing this has to do with your mommy issues.” He wasn’t much for armchair analysis, but it didn’t take Carl Jung to figure out that Gina’s mom had turned her daughter into a head case.

  “Probably” was all she said about it. “What about you? What’s your kryptonite? Or are you perfect?”

  “Pretty much.” He winked and then for no reason at all said, “My sister went missing five years ago. The thought of her out there, alone and in trouble, keeps me up at night. The alternative, that she’s dead, is even worse.”

  Gina jerked back in surprise. “My God, Wendy never said anything. How…what happened?”

  That was the question he’d been asking himself for years. “One day she just stopped calling. It was as if she vaporized. No money trail, no social media presence, no contact with her friends, no nothing.”

  “Do you think…could it be that someone hurt her?”

  “Maybe. But there’s information to indicate that two years ago she was involved in this group, some kind of communal farm that was off the grid in New Mexico. As far as I can tell it doesn’t exist anymore. And that’s where the trail ends.”

  “Was she close to your family? I mean, why wouldn’t she call?”

  “We were close. That’s why none of it makes sense.”

  She pulled the baked ziti out of the oven and served them both before joining him at the counter. “What about that communal farm? I mean, not to judge, but it sounds kind of sketchy. Especially because it’s the last place she wound up.”

  You think? “Yup. Angie has always been attracted to weird shit. Normally, I wouldn�
�t find a communal farm all that weird, or sketchy, just a bad remnant of the seventies. But I’m with you on this one. I just spent the last two days digging around Taos and there’s nothing on these people. Not so much as a footprint. They were either ghosts or shady as hell.”

  “That’s where you were, huh? Maybe you and your family should hire a private investigator.”

  “We have. At least a dozen of them. The last one came up with the Taos lead. I confirmed it with a former resident of the commune, who had a picture of Angie. But she’s not saying much.”

  “What about the police? Can’t they get this woman to talk?”

  He shook his head. “There’s no law that says she has to speak with us.”

  He took a bite of his ziti and another one after that. Maybe somewhere an Italian grandmother made it better, but it was the best ziti he’d ever had. For all her nutty insecurities, Gina DeRose could cook.

  “This”—he stabbed his fork at his plate while he chewed the rest of his mouthful—“is incredible.”

  “It’s in my frozen food line.” She ladled a second helping onto his plate. “Back to your sister. I think we should make another trip to New Mexico.”

  He swiveled to the side to look at her. “We?” He was unaware that they’d suddenly become a team.

  “Yes. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m on sabbatical from life. I’ve got time for this.”

  “Gina, this isn’t a cozy mystery novel where the celebrity chef moonlights as a detective. The best investigators in the business, including me, have failed to find Angie. This is my baby sister, not some game to keep you amused while you deal with the fallout of your affair.”

  “There was no affair,” she blurted.

  He stopped eating and put his fork down. “What are you talking about?” In his line of work, people liked to manipulate the facts by twisting words. Maybe a blow job or tantric sex wasn’t an affair in her book.

  It damned well was in his.

  “I’m saying I never slept with Danny Clay.”

  “Well, your texts say differently.”

  “I know what they say. The problem is, I never wrote them. In fact, I’ve never texted Danny in my life. We’re barely acquaintances, let alone sex-starved love bunnies. I’ve maybe met him three times at most—once on set of the FoodFlicks’ Junior Chef Competition and twice at Tyler Florence’s annual Feed the First Responders event. That’s it.”

  “What about the picture of you two on the beach?”

  She squeezed the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know. But I’ve never been on a beach with Danny Clay. Not ever.”

  Sawyer didn’t know what to think. The evidence spoke for itself. “Did you tell my mother this?”

  “Of course I did. She believes me.”

  His mother believed whatever the client paid her to believe. “Yet, she hasn’t launched this as a defense, has she?”

  Gina pinned him with a look. “It’s pretty hard to prove a negative.”

  Or an out-and-out lie, especially when there was proof to the contrary. Photos. Texts. “Why would someone set you up like this? Or him?” It seemed like a lot of trouble to go to. And what was the motive?

  “I don’t know.” She began rewrapping the baked ziti. Sawyer got the impression it was an excuse to keep busy and not to have to look him in the eye. “I certainly know people who don’t like me. Television is a cutthroat business. But this is extreme.”

  “Yep. And methodically planned. What about Clay? Does he have enemies?”

  “Like I said, I barely know him. All I know is that he and Candace used to own a catering company, shopped a pilot about entertaining to FoodFlicks in the early days, when the network was just starting. And it’s been a runaway hit ever since.”

  Sawyer took another bite of his ziti, weighing the credibility of Gina’s story. The texts could easily have been manufactured. But the photo of her and Danny Clay together? He supposed it could’ve been photoshopped. But it seemed pretty far-fetched.

  Then again, her defense was so implausible that it just might be true.

  At the start of his journalism career, when he covered the night crime beat at the New York Times, he’d quickly learned that liars typically went with believable stories. It was the crazy stories, the ones that were stranger than fiction, which almost always turned out to be true. And Gina’s bordered on nuts.

  “So someone randomly decided to blow up your life?”

  “That’s what it looks like.” She put the casserole dish in the refrigerator. “You don’t have to believe me, but it’s true.”

  “What’s the strategy, then?” He got up and tossed his empty beer bottles in the recycling bin.

  “Your mom says we should wait it out. That going on the defensive will only call more attention to the situation.” When he pulled a face, she said, “What? You think we’re doing the wrong thing?”

  “No, not without proof that you’ve been set up.” It bothered him, however, that if this really was a frame job the person responsible would get away with it.

  “You’re the investigative reporter; how do I get proof?” She stood with her back pressed against the counter, looking determined.

  “I would start by making a list of people who would stand to gain from your fall or from hurting the Clays.” There was the possibility that Danny and Candace had been the intended targets and Gina was merely collateral damage.

  “That would be a very short list,” she said. “I don’t have partners and even if I did, the business’s success rides on the Gina DeRose brand. If I go down, the business goes down. It’s that simple.”

  Sawyer agreed. That’s why her story didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Unless, of course, someone was exacting a personal vendetta. “Then who has an ax to grind?”

  She threw her hands up in the air. “No one off the top of my head. But who knows? I run a multimillion-dollar enterprise; there’s bound to be people I’ve pissed off along the way.”

  “There you go. Those are the names that should go on your list.”

  She nodded, but her expression told Sawyer she thought a list was a waste of time. “When are we going to New Mexico?”

  Her intentions were genuine. She was high-maintenance, but at her core she was a good person. If nothing else, he’d learned that about her over the last couple of weeks. But this was his cross to bear, no one else’s.

  “You and me?” He shook his head. “Try never.”

  Chapter 8

  The next morning, Sawyer met with his cousins at the coffee shop. The topic of where he’d been the last couple of days hadn’t come up and Sawyer steered clear of the subject. Cash and Jace would only accuse him of being compulsive.

  Laney sat them at their usual table in the back of the restaurant, near a bull horn hat rack where they could hang their Stetsons. Not five minutes passed when she returned with coffee. A chorus of chicken and waffles went around the table as she took their order.

  With Gina using his house as her personal test kitchen, it had been days since he’d eaten at the coffee shop. It was usually his home away from home.

  “How’s our friend?” Laney asked in a whisper.

  Cash passed a glance at Sawyer and Jace. “What friend?”

  Laney poked him in the arm. “Don’t be coy with me, boy. I know who you’re harboring over at the ranch. I’ve got her recipe for strawberry shortcake to prove it. Now don’t tell me you think I’d run to the tabloids?”

  Not to the tabloids. Laney had more class than that. But Sawyer wouldn’t put it past her to blab all over town that Gina was holing up with the Daltons. Dry Creek didn’t know from discretion. The entire town ran on gossip.

  When none of them responded, Laney put her hands on her ample hips. “Fine, be that way. I have half a mind to drive out there and pay her a visit. As for you boys, no chess pie. I’ve got th
ree pieces left and none of you are getting any of it.” She walked off in a huff.

  “How long are we supposed to keep Gina a secret?” Cash asked. He and Jace turned to Sawyer.

  “How the hell should I know?” Then, apropos of nothing, he huffed out a breath and blurted, “She says she didn’t do it.” Cash and Jace looked at Sawyer like they had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Did what?” Cash asked.

  “She didn’t sleep with Danny Clay.” Sawyer didn’t know why he was telling his cousins. It wasn’t like they could give two shits. But for some unfathomable reason it seemed important to him that they know Gina was innocent. “The whole thing was fabricated by someone who is either out to ruin her or the Clays.”

  “That’s what she told you?” Jace arched a brow. “And you actually believed her? Man, you’ve got it bad for the woman.”

  He didn’t have anything for Gina DeRose. Well, maybe he wanted to get inside her pants. He chalked that up to being a guy. And hormones. Nothing more. Gina might be attractive, even amusing, but she was a head trip. Spoiled, self-centered, and a headache. He liked no-drama women.

  “She told my mom the same story.”

  “And does she believe Gina?” Cash asked, demonstrating the same open skepticism as Jace had.

  That’s what Sawyer got for having two damn cops for cousins. If someone said the sun was up, the two of them went outside to check.

  Sawyer started to hedge, then realized: What was the point of obfuscating? “I didn’t talk to my mother about it. Crisis manager-client privilege and all that shit. But I believe Gina.” He locked eyes with Jace, who was shaking his head. “Give me a little credit, asshole. I’m an investigative journalist, for God’s sake.”

  Jace threw up his arms. “Seems like there’s a lot of evidence to the contrary. Just saying.”

  “Just saying. What are you? A fifteen-year-old girl?”

  Cash chuckled at Sawyer’s quip, but made it clear he agreed with Jace. “Aren’t there pictures? Texts? The dude’s dick?”