Cowboy Strong

by Stacy Finz

  No, Gina thought they needed to negotiate for something higher. But Jace nodded.

  “Then we got ourselves a deal.” Ted shook everyone’s hand at the table. When it came to Gina’s turn, she reluctantly stuck out her hand. It was easier than explaining that she wasn’t part of the deal and no one appeared to mind that she’d been included.

  “So what’s your role here?” he asked her. “You doing a farm-to-table restaurant as part of this project?”

  Shit. He knew who she was.

  Sawyer stepped in before she stumbled over her own tongue, so caught off guard by the question. “Gina’s just visiting for a while. If you could keep that on the QT we’d really appreciate it. Otherwise she gets hounded by the press. The kind of press who peers through your blinds at night or chases you down the highway at high speed, if you know what I mean?”

  Ted stood and swiped his hat off the table. “Never saw her before in my life.” He winked and adjusted his Stetson on his head, then turned to the Daltons. “Looking forward to doing business with you. And by the way, everyone calls me Tuff. T-U-F-F. Not Ted.”

  “Tuff,” Cash repeated and shook his hand. “We’ll get that contract over to you. In the meantime, why don’t you email us the kind of square footage you think you’ll need. You can send it to Aubrey. She and Charlie are heading up this operation.” He looked over at his wife with pride shining in his eyes.

  Oh, to be loved like that. Gina couldn’t even imagine it.

  Tuff took off. At the sound of his truck engine they all started talking at once.

  Jace stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out a whistle. “One at a time.”

  “Fifteen-hundred bucks a month ain’t bad,” Cash said.

  Gina thought it was piss-poor. In LA, people were paying more than three dollars a square foot for crappy locations. West Hollywood and Beverly Hills were fetching as much as nine bucks. Dry Creek Ranch might not have the cachet of Beverly Hills, but the man was selling saddles, for goodness sake. Between a storefront and a studio, she estimated Tuff would need at least a thousand square feet, minimum. Fifteen-hundred bucks a month was a steal, especially with common area maintenance and insurance.

  “I’m going to add my two cents’ here for what it’s worth. Don’t make the lease for any more than a year. Personally, I think you could get twice that rent.”

  Five pairs of eyes stared at her.

  “If the project takes off, Ted…Tuff…will do well. Don’t box yourself into a corner. The first year, fine. It’s still an experiment. But after that, renegotiate.”

  “I think she’s right,” Sawyer said. “I liked him. I like what he does and how it’ll fit in with what we’re trying to do here. But let’s stay fluid as far as the rent’s concerned. Who knows where this thing will lead?”

  “All right,” Cash agreed. “A one-year lease for now. Then we’ll reassess. We’ve got to come to terms on the build-out, especially if we’re planning to have this done by winter. Do we want new construction or something already built? We’ll also have to put in some kind of parking. A weedy lot isn’t going to suffice, especially when the rain comes and we’ve got mud. There’s also a separate road to consider. I’m not exactly thrilled about a parade of cars going up and down our driveway. This will all cost money. Money we don’t have.”

  “We can do a gravel lot,” Jace said. “I know a guy who can do it cheap. I think we hold off on a new road until we see what kind of traffic we get. As far as our storefronts, we build them ourselves. Use Jeb Guthrie to do the plumbing and Cole Electric to wire the places. Money? We get a loan.”

  Cash let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t like borrowing against the land. Look how well that worked out for Randy Beals. How much do we stand to make from the cattle this year?”

  Sawyer reached inside his pocket for his phone and did a quick search. “It should be good as long as these beef prices hold. But if we use the revenue for the business center we’ll clean ourselves out. No reserves. I don’t like that, either.”

  “Nope.” Cash shook his head.

  Jace leaned back in his chair and laced his hands behind his head. “Did you think this would be completely risk-free? Maybe Gina here could tell you how businesses work.”

  Sawyer laughed and elbowed his cousin in the ribs. “Listen to you. And here we all thought you were just a dumbass cowboy. Jace is right. No pain, no gain. Let’s use the cattle money and build this thing as frugally as possible. Worse comes to worst, we go belly-up and have to borrow a little money to get us through the next year. Just enough to make ends meet.”

  “Okay,” Cash said. “Let’s do this.”

  “I’ll have Mike draw up plans.” Aubrey scrawled a note on her legal pad.

  Gina knew Mike was a local architect and Aubrey’s former employer. Despite her going out on her own, the two still did business together.

  “Make sure we get the friends and family discount,” Cash said.

  Aubrey reached over and kissed him on the mouth. “You got it.”

  “Does that mean this meeting’s adjourned?” Charlie checked her watch. “I’ve got a client who needs furniture for a four-thousand-square-foot home in Tahoe in a few minutes. I’d like to get started pulling things before she gets here.”

  “Go.” Jace kissed the top of her head. “Make us rich, baby.”

  There was so much love in the air, Gina could choke on it.

  The room quickly cleared out, everyone having somewhere to be, leaving her and Sawyer alone.

  “You’re up early,” Sawyer said. “I snuck out about five and you were still sound asleep.”

  “I have news. But first, what the hell kind of name is Tuff? He doesn’t even spell it right.”

  Sawyer chuckled. “According to Cash, he used to ride the rodeo circuit. Tuff, Rope, Slim, Ty. Pretty par for the course. And if you ride seventeen-hundred-pound bulls for a living, spelling’s probably not your strength.”

  “I don’t know, he seemed like a pretty smart guy.”

  Sawyer hitched his brows, his blue eyes twinkling. “Why, because he knows who you are?”

  “No, because he had you at fifteen-hundred dollars a month. You didn’t even blink an eye. Just gave him what he wanted.”

  “He said that’s all he could afford.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “What did you expect him to say? ‘I can do a lot more but you look like a sucker.’”

  “That’s not the way it works out here, Gina. We take a man at his word. It’s not like the guy is a major leather manufacturer. He probably makes two saddles a year. But your advice on keeping the terms of the lease to one year has been noted. Now, what’s your news?”

  “I’m not pregnant,” she blurted.

  He was quiet for a long time. Almost stoic. “That’s good.”

  The two words were simple enough but he’d sounded somewhat ambivalent. Though she’d probably imagined that and was hearing what she wanted to hear. She told herself to stop overanalyzing things. Of course he was relieved, elated, liberated.

  “Yep,” she said. “And Candace Clay is in production on her new show and is trying to steal my time slot on FoodFlicks.”

  “How’d you find that out?” He pulled her out of the sleek cowhide chair, undoubtedly a Charlie creation. “Let’s walk.”

  The temperature had more than likely climbed to a less-than comfortable ninety-something degrees. Hardly walking weather. But she followed him anyway. They took the route that led to the creek.

  “My agent called. She was at a party with Skyler Rome and he let it slip. Candace and he share the same agent.”

  “How good is your time slot?”

  “Pretty damn good. I started with the Saturday-night death slot. They thought I was just another dump-and-stir demonstration show and wouldn’t rack up enough ratings to make it past my first thirteen-epi
sode season. They were wrong. Now, I’ve got Sunday and Monday nights, considered prime FoodFlicks viewing time.”

  “How significant do you think it is that Candace is homing in on your territory? Or is this typical jostling for dominance? At newspapers and magazines everyone is trying to get their story on the front page or the cover. Seems like this is the same thing, no?”

  She shrugged because he was right. It was dog-eat-dog in TV land. “It just feels like she’s trying to steal my life.”

  “Given that she thinks you stole her husband, can you blame her?”

  “I guess not.” The bottom line was Gina didn’t care whether Candace’s motives were revenge or ambition. Either way, she was in serious jeopardy of losing her time slot. Hell, she’d probably lose her show altogether.

  When they got to the creek, Sawyer sat on the flat head of a boulder and pulled her down into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and they sat like that, swaying a little. There was a slight breeze coming from the west, tempering the heat.

  “How do you know you’re not pregnant?”

  “The same way every woman knows.” She glared at him.

  “From peeing on a stick or because your period came?”

  “The latter. But I’ll take a home-pregnancy test if it’ll make you feel better.”

  “Not necessary.” He leaned down, picked up a stone, and flicked it with his wrist over the water. It skipped at least five times.

  “How’d you do that?”

  “Practice and mad skills.” He sorted through a small pile, found a flat rock, handed it to her, and held her wrist. “Like this.” He demonstrated a few times, then let go of her hand so she could try on her own.

  She tossed the stone the way he’d shown her, but it made a loud plop and sunk to the bottom of the water. “You make it look easier than it is.”

  “I used to sit out here for hours with Angie, skipping stones. She was even better at it than I was. Jace was the best, but Angie came in a close second.”

  “No new news?”

  “Still waiting for Cash’s friend to trace that email.” He leaned back and took her with him.

  The air smelled green, like grass and sage and mulched leaves, with a trace of honey. The creek gurgled quietly, like a song. And for a few seconds Gina lost herself in the tranquility of nature and Sawyer’s arms.

  “Tuff. That thing he said about a restaurant. You interested?” He skipped another stone. This time it bounced across the surface all the way to the other side.

  “I don’t know the first thing about the hospitality industry.” She tilted her head back and rested it against his chest. “Fresh out of culinary school I went the home-chef route and worked for the Hollywood elite, thanks to my father’s contacts. And unlike Emeril, Gordon, Giada, and the slew of other celebrity chefs who opened restaurants, I went the prepared-food route. I steered away from frozen pizzas because Wolfgang had that market sewn up. But there was plenty of room for frozen Italian entrées. That’s where I excel. Restaurants? Uh-uh.”

  “It seemed like a good idea when he brought it up. Our beef, the local bounty of produce, your cooking skills. You’d kill it.”

  “So next to wine country with Keller…Chiarello…Morimoto, I’d be a laughingstock.”

  He clasped her shoulders and forced her to turn around. “The hell you would.”

  She looked away and muttered, “I thought you couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”

  “Ah, I see you’re going for classic avoidance. Look, if you don’t want to do it, don’t think it’s your thing, don’t believe Dry Creek is the place for it, don’t want to take the risk—I get it. I really do. But this other crap…you not being good enough…me wanting to be rid of you…it’s bullshit, Gina. And you know it.”

  It wasn’t bullshit, it was the God’s honest truth. There’s a reason she’d gone with frozen foods. Surrounded by mass-produced garbage that had been around since man walked on the moon, it wasn’t difficult to stand out. To be better than the rest. But a restaurant in Northern California, the food mecca of the country? Ha. It would be like a skating enthusiast competing in the winter Olympics.

  She started to ask him if he was trying to benefit the ranch by riding on her famous—now infamous—coattails, but stopped herself. That was unfair. He’d never once taken advantage of her celebrity. Just the opposite, in fact. He’d shielded her from the public, helped her try to find the culprit who’d made up the lies about her, and believed her when most would’ve laughed her to kingdom come.

  “I want my old life back.” Because even if she didn’t miss it now, she would. It was proof that contrary to Sadie DeRose’s pronouncement that Gina would never amount to much, she was a rock star. “A new restaurant is a full-time job. I can’t do that and run my other businesses and produce a thirteen-episode show a year. Not when Dry Creek Ranch is more than four-hundred miles away.”

  “I get it.” Sawyer got to his feet, taking her with him. “Let’s go. It’s hot.” He didn’t wait for her, just walked away.

  “Where are we going?” she called to his back.

  “I’m going home. I have an article to write.” The context of those two sentences were clear.

  “Seriously? You’re angry because I don’t want to open a restaurant?”

  He stopped and turned around. “No.” There was a long pause. “Okay, I’m angry. But it’s not because of the restaurant. I don’t know why I’m angry, but I am. I’m going home to figure it out. I’ll call you later.”

  She watched him follow the creek at a brisk pace, then started back to her own cabin. Halfway there, her phone vibrated inside her messenger bag. She’d turned it to silent during the meeting.

  By the time she wrenched it loose from its compartment, the call had gone to voicemail, where it was marked urgent. Gina found a tree to stand under while she listened. Cell service on the ranch could be spotty but today her manager’s voice came through loud and clear.

  “I’ve tried calling you three times,” she said in the message. “Call me as soon as you can. It’s not good news.”

  Gina squeezed the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming on, then hit the return button on the phone.

  Chapter 16

  Sawyer found Cash sitting in his living room with the AC turned up when he got home.

  “I let myself in when I realized no one was home. Your truck was still here, so I figured you were either taking your time walking home or you were with Gina.” His mouth quirked to show that he knew that Sawyer had been spending a lot of time over at her place. It was impossible to keep anything a secret on the ranch. Or in all of Dry Creek, for that matter.

  “What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure.” Cash lost the grin and his expression turned sharp. “My buddy, Ken, got squirrelly all of a sudden.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s not returning my calls, which isn’t like him. The guy’s solid, not flaky. Initially, I feared he had some kind of family emergency…something that took precedence over sending me a quick text that he was still working on tracing the email, or whatever. But I checked with another friend who says Ken’s been at work every day this week. That everything seems fine.”

  “So what do you think’s going on?”

  “Don’t know.” Cash shook his head. “It isn’t like him to say he’s going to do something and then not do it. Even stranger is the radio silence. He knows Angela is my cousin. We worked cases together when she first went missing. Knew the toll it took on me. On our family. This isn’t something he’d blow off.”

  “Maybe his supervisors told him he couldn’t use Bureau resources.”

  “There’s so much going on in that lab, no one knows what anyone else is doing. Ken spends his day in a cubicle the size of a shoebox, doing cyber searches. Most of it sleep-inducing. That’s not it.”

 
“Sounds like you might have a vague idea.”

  “Yeah, I think he found out something he doesn’t want to share. Why? That right there is the million-dollar question.”

  “Or are you reading way too much into it? The guy could’ve just gotten busy.”

  “Maybe.” But Cash wasn’t buying it, Sawyer could tell. “If I don’t hear anything in the next day or two, I’m taking a little trip. A little face-to-face time with Ken.”

  “You have time for that?” Sawyer walked to the fridge and grabbed two bottled waters and tossed one to Cash. His cousin spent the good part of the day driving across Northern California, investigating livestock thefts.

  “I’ll make time.” Cash took a swig of the water and put the bottle down on Sawyer’s coffee table.

  “Speaking of…Aren’t you working today?” It was after ten.

  “Yep. I left the morning clear for the meeting with Tuff. At noon I have a cattlemen’s lunch in Placer County.” Placer was just next door to Mill County. When Grandpa Dalton was alive he sometimes went to the Placer cattlemen’s lunches at the Auburn Fairgrounds. A few of those times, he’d taken his grandsons with him.

  Sawyer took a sip of his water and eyed Cash over the rim of the bottle. “What are some of the things your friend Ken could’ve found that he wouldn’t want to pass on to you?” Sawyer couldn’t let it go.

  He had his own ideas, like maybe Angie had been the victim of someone on the FBI’s radar and agents didn’t want to blow their case. Hell, for all he knew, Angie was involved in something illegal and was under investigation. But that didn’t sound like his sister. She’d been caught up in some wacky causes but none of them were criminal. Perhaps Ken’s reticence had something to do with the New Mexico commune. The timing was certainly suspect. Sawyer had gotten the email about the same time he’d been trying to unearth information about the farm. Or whatever the hell it was. Could be that the FBI was interested in the commune too. For all Sawyer knew the Bureau was dealing with another Branch Davidian situation.

  “Why speculate?” Cash let out a sigh. “There’s dozens of reasons. Let’s see what I can find out.”