Cowboy Strong

by Stacy Finz

  “The woman isn’t wasting any time capitalizing on her victimhood, is she? It gives a suspicious person license to wonder, doesn’t it?”

  “What are you saying?” She grabbed a light throw blanket and wrapped it around her like a shawl and curled up on the couch again. Just hearing Sawyer’s voice went a long way to taking the sting out of the day.

  “Someone set you up. Opportunity stands out as a good motive, don’t you think?”

  “Are you saying Candace is the one behind the picture, the texts, the gossip? Seems like a cheating husband is a humiliating way to enhance your career.”

  “In the beginning I would’ve agreed,” Sawyer said. “But I’m starting to wonder. She definitely appears to want your life in a big way. Your time slot on FoodFlicks. Replacing you at ChefAid. Either it’s payback because she believes you slept with her husband or she’s one cunning woman.”

  “So you think this is all a publicity stunt to bolster Candace’s career? Wow, it seems a little out there.”

  “Perhaps. Nothing wrong with considering all possibilities. When are you coming home? Or are you?” His voice trailed off, almost like he was holding his breath.

  “I don’t know yet. We’re trying to decide whether to move up our meeting with ChefAid. It would help if I could prove that this whole thing with Danny is a hoax. He’s still trying to call me, by the way. Did you ever get in touch with him?”

  “Nope, he’s not taking my calls. He probably knows I’m a reporter and thinks I’m using you to get a story. I’ll keep trying.”

  “What about my manager? Could she reach out to him? Or Wendy?”

  Sawyer appeared to be mulling it over and finally said, “Before we found the original picture, I would’ve said no. They’re your employees, after all. If the press caught wind of it they would’ve thought you were setting up trysts with him through your staff. Now, though, you’ve got a legitimate reason to talk. Yeah, have one of them reach out to him. See where that goes. But Gina, don’t trust him.”

  “I don’t trust anyone.” That was the truth. And wasn’t that a sad statement about her life?

  “You can trust me.”

  “Can I?” Or would he break her heart?

  Besides the fact that I wasn’t looking for a relationship, our lives don’t mesh. Not even a little. His words reminded her that she couldn’t rely on him. His infatuation with her was as fleeting as her stardom had been.

  “Yes. I’ll come if you want me to.”

  She’d never wanted anything more. But what was the point? He couldn’t fight her battles for her and she didn’t want him to. “I’ve got this. But thank you.”

  The moments stretched between them.

  “Right,” he finally said. “I’m around if you need me.” He sounded disappointed or perhaps that was what she wanted to hear.

  She didn’t need a savior. I can handle this myself.

  Worse comes to worst, she’d lose it all and rebuild. She’d done it once; she could do it again. Gina still had her business sense and a knack for predicting trends. No one could take that away from her.

  “Thanks for calling, Sawyer.” She started to tell him she missed him and stopped herself.

  Our lives don’t mesh.

  “Yup” was all he said and clicked off.

  She lay on the couch, conjuring his blue eyes. The ones that saw right through her. No one had ever read her the way he did. No one had ever called her out on her insecurities and told her that he believed in her.

  “Why do you always do that? Why do you always have to belittle what you do?”

  Focus, she demanded. Right now, she needed to focus on saving her business, not on Sawyer. Though his voice alone had given her a second wind to climb back to the top of the mountain and take her rightful place as queen.

  She got her laptop from her office and began to furiously take notes. There were a thousand ideas floating around in her head.

  If she lost her ambassadorship with ChefAid, she’d start her own appliance company. And when she was done, she’d bury the big guys. If she lost her show, she’d make a new one. Sell it to the DIY channel. Hell, screw cable. She’d go network. Look at Rachael Ray and Martha Stewart. Both had had their own syndicated talk shows.

  This was exactly what she loved. Empire building. Once again, she would prove Sadie wrong. Show her dead mother that she was the daughter Sadie had always wanted.

  A star.

  “To hell with you, Mother.” She ripped the throw blanket off, rolled it into a ball, and chucked it at the wall, tears streaming down her face. “I’ll show you.”

  Her head continued to pound until she thought it would explode. In search of aspirin, she tore through two medicine cabinets like a wrecking ball.

  “I live in a damn palace with every modern convenience. Yet, not one goddamn over-the-counter painkiller,” she muttered to herself, before finally finding a bottle of Tylenol in the kitchen.

  She washed down three tablets with water and wiped the snot from her nose. Her quiet tears had turned to wracking sobs.

  Before Gina knew what she was doing, she reached for a mixing bowl. Next, the eggs and milk, which Jessica delivered every week from the farmers’ market, removing the old. There was flour in the cupboard and vanilla beans from Madagascar.

  She thought about Laney’s chess pie and started with her crust. Flour, butter, salt, Crisco, and ice water. Home cooks were afraid of pastry dough, but it was easy as pie. She laughed to herself and swiped her hand across her cheek to wipe away a stray tear.

  With the whir of the food processor, she started to feel better. And when it was time to hand-stir the filling, she’d become so lost in the task that her sadness had diminished. There was just this: The solitude of her kitchen and the warmth and comfort of making something from her heart.

  An hour later, the pie came out of the oven, looking as beautiful as Laney’s. Gina planned to bring it to work in the morning. Sustenance for the troops on a busy day. But she never got that chance.

  At seven sharp there was a pounding on her door loud enough to wake Forest Lawn cemetery. She threw on a robe, padded across the white ash floors in her bare feet, and opened the front door only to have a dozen camera strobes flash in her face.

  “Ms. DeRose, is it true you and Danny Clay plan to marry in the fall?”

  “Are you two doing a cooking show together?”

  “Does Candace know?”

  Like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights, Gina stood in the doorway of her house, frozen. It was only later that she realized that whoever set her up wasn’t done with her yet.

  Chapter 18

  Sawyer waited in a San Francisco Starbucks while Cash ambushed his friend, Ken, outside the Phillip Burton Federal Building on Golden Gate Avenue.

  The coffee shop was the closest Cash would let Sawyer get to the courthouse. Even so, Sawyer was grateful for the concession.

  Afterward, they were meeting Cash’s parents, Aubrey, and Ellie for dinner. Cash had grown up in the West Portal neighborhood, eighteen miles away from the federal building. His dad—Sawyer’s uncle—was a retired SFPD homicide lieutenant. Law enforcement ran through the family’s blood as much as ranching.

  Sawyer stared out the window, sipping his third cup of coffee, wondering what was taking so long. Cash had been gone nearly two hours.

  He checked his phone in case Cash had tried to call or text. And while he was at it, he scrolled through his Gmail account for a message from Gina. He hadn’t heard from her in days, not since they talked on the phone. According to his mother, Gina was holed up in a hotel because the paparazzi had made it impossible for her to stay in her own home.

  Maybe she’d come back to Dry Creek Ranch, maybe she wouldn’t. Sawyer told himself he was beyond caring. Unfortunately, he’d never been a good liar.

  On a lark
, he’d called that blogger friend of his who worked for Eater and left a message. Sawyer wanted to run a few things by him on the latest tabloid BS that Gina and Danny were engaged. What a joke. Why didn’t these asshats check their facts?

  He glanced at his watch again and peered outside at a group of tourists in shorts and freshly purchased fleeces from Fisherman’s Wharf to keep them warm.

  “The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.” The quote had been attributed to Mark Twain, but no one knew if he’d actually said it. Regardless, there’d never been a truer statement. Even in August.

  Occasionally, the sun would peek out from the overcast sky and heat the City by the Bay for a few hours. Then, back to the fog. It was as different from Los Angeles as the West Coast was to the East Coast.

  Although Sawyer had been raised in Beverly Hills, he liked San Francisco better. The people were more interesting, the city was more diverse, and more important, it was closer to Dry Creek Ranch.

  His phone dinged with a text and he quickly put down his coffee.

  On my way, Cash had written. That was it. No hint of what he’d found out, which Sawyer assumed was nothing. Two hours of wasted time, though he’d managed to send his article off to his editor and had made deadline. At least by California time.

  Six minutes later, Cash came through the door. He’d dressed for the city. No cowboy hat; just jeans, boots, and a windbreaker, tossed over his arm.

  “Well, you get anything?” Sawyer stood, but Cash motioned for him to sit back down.

  “I want to do this before we meet with my folks.” He eyed Sawyer’s coffee. “Hang on a second.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

  Cash ignored him and joined the coffee queue behind a kid with purple hair and enough piercings to open his own earring shop. Sawyer would’ve given Cash his cup. Another sip and he’d swim home.

  Cash returned with a frappuccino and Sawyer rolled his eyes.

  “There’s something to the email.” He sat next to Sawyer at the counter. “Ken was tight-lipped at first…afraid someone might see us together. Maybe waylaying him outside the federal building wasn’t such a good idea. Especially because I’m persona non grata around there.”

  “I would think you’d be a goddamn hero after what went down.”

  Cash had tried to save the Bureau’s ass on a serial-murder case that had consumed the nation. The killer had targeted female joggers in the Presidio. Naturally, the Bureau’s top brass wanted to tie up the case in a neat little bow as fast as possible. They didn’t want a serial killer tainting a national treasure. Despite Cash’s warning that they had the wrong guy, his bosses made an arrest anyway.

  The problem was Cash was right. The guy they’d nabbed was a scumbag to be sure—an ex-con with a rap sheet for sexual assault—but not responsible for the Presidio killings.

  Cash shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anyway. What Ken learned is classified.”

  Ah, jeez. It was just as Sawyer suspected. Whoever Angie had gotten caught up with was being investigated by the feds. What the hell had his sister gotten herself into?

  “Is she alive? Please tell me he at least told you that much.”

  Cash blew out a breath. “He wouldn’t go there. But what I was able to wheedle out of him was that the email address is a burner used by the US Marshals Service.”

  “How do they fit in?” Sawyer asked, perplexed. Marshals provided security in the federal courts, transported criminals, apprehended fugitives, forfeited assets, and performed tactical operations. What on God’s earth did they have to do with Angie?

  “So it wasn’t Angie reaching out, it was someone from the US Marshals Service with a wrong email address?” He tried not to sound flip but it didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense.

  “I may be wrong here but, yeah, I suspect it was her.” He pinned Sawyer with a look, waiting for him to catch on.

  “WITSEC?” Sawyer exhaled, because the US Marshals Service also relocated witnesses in important federal cases. He tried to wrap his head around the implications. “You think she’s been in the Witness Protection Program all these years?”

  “Not all of them, not if you believe she was on that Taos commune two years ago. But she may be in WITSEC now. It’s the only thing I can come up with that would involve the marshals. And when I asked Ken point-blank, he got real squirrelly.”

  “Classified. That’s what he told you?”

  “Yep.” Cash tilted his head to the side. “WITSEC is about as classified as you can get, short of national security.”

  “Holy shit.” Sawyer scrubbed his hand over his eyes. “What about the first three years she was missing?”

  Cash shrugged. “Don’t know. Clearly, she was involved in something she shouldn’t have been. Something dangerous.”

  “You make it sound as if she was running around with the mob. This is Angela. The same Angela who spent a year in Japan, protesting the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji. The same Angela who chained herself to a Shell oil drilling rig in New Zealand. The same Angela who thinks she can change the world. Not Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano.”

  “WITSEC isn’t just for gangsters, Sawyer. These protest groups may seem benign, even heroic, but some of them are breaking the law. Some are even committing acts of domestic terrorism. The feds take that shit seriously.”

  “So Angela turned state’s evidence against the followers of the Dalai Lama?” Sawyer didn’t know why he was reacting with such vitriol and sarcasm. If Cash was right, he should be thanking his lucky stars that his sister was alive.

  Safe.

  “Don’t kill the messenger.” Cash took a sip of his Frapuccino, put the cup down, and hitched his shoulders. “I don’t even know for sure that this is the case. It’s only a theory.”

  “How can we confirm it?” Sawyer had sources on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He didn’t like to use his influence as a journalist for personal reasons, thought it was unethical. But for the sake of his family he would. He would move mountains if it meant getting his sister back.

  “I’ll make a few calls. Ken’s a mid-level analyst. I doubt he even knows the full story. More than likely he set off alarm bells when he traced the email to the marshals and was told to keep his nose out of it. There are higher-ups who owe me favors. Let’s see what strings I can pull.”

  Sawyer started to say “thank you” and stopped himself. Cash had been right to complain the last time Sawyer had thanked his cousin. This is what the Daltons did. They looked out for one another.

  Cowboy strong.

  “This is good news.” Sawyer chucked Cash on the shoulder. His findings filled Sawyer with so much hope that he’d nearly wrapped his cousin in a bear hug. But not in the middle of a Starbucks.

  “We don’t know that yet,” Cash cautioned. “This is merely speculation. But we’re on the right track. I feel it in my bones.”

  Cash had always had good instincts. That’s why he’d been such a successful agent in the FBI. And now, a badass investigator for the Bureau of Livestock Identification.

  “How soon until we know more?”

  “I’ll do my best, Sawyer. But greasing the right wheels takes time. In the meantime, let’s not tell my folks. My dad’ll go apeshit and start making a lot of noise. This needs to be done quietly, with discretion.”

  Sawyer nodded. “Until we know more, I won’t say anything to my folks, either. I don’t want to dare to hope yet.”

  “And even if it’s true, Sawyer, the likelihood of a big, happy family reunion is next to nil. For her own safety, she may have to stay lost to us forever.”

  The answers could be bittersweet for sure. But Sawyer could only focus on one thing at a time. Right now, proof of life would be a major victory.

  * * * *

  The next day, Sawyer returned to Dry Creek Ranch. Cash, A
ubrey, and Ellie stayed behind to take advantage of summer vacation and spend a few more days in the city. His aunt and uncle wanted to take Ellie to the zoo and to Alcatraz.

  He’d been invited to stay but had declined, yearning to get home and begin hunting down the US Marshals’ lead. Cash wasn’t the only one with friends.

  He pressed his back against the lumbar support of his leather seat to soothe the ache from sleeping on his aunt and uncle’s sofa sleeper. All night, a metal bar had pressed against his vertebrae. He’d offered to get a hotel room but his family wouldn’t hear of it. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t slept in lots worse places. Besides, it had been a fun evening. They’d all stayed up late, playing a rousing game of Texas Hold’em, eating popcorn, and sipping his uncle’s killer martinis. Ellie, of course, had stuck with grape juice.

  It was a damned good visit.

  But as he drove through the Dry Creek Ranch gate, his mouth ticked up and he got that feeling he always did when he saw his family’s land stretched out before him. It was pretty damned awe-inspiring and it made a man happy to be home.

  As he passed Gina’s cabin, he slowed. Her BMW was parked where she’d last left it before leaving to go back to Los Angeles.

  At his own home, he decided against parking in the garage and cut his engine in the driveway. Later, he might head to the coffee shop for dinner. Or raid Jace’s refrigerator.

  He grabbed his duffel from the back seat and climbed the stairs to his apartment. A gush of cool air and loud music hit him as soon as he walked inside.

  He dropped his bag on the floor and followed the smell of browning onions. In the kitchen he found Gina at the stove with her back to him, dancing to a Rolling Stones song. Her hips swayed back and forth while he stood silently watching her, mesmerized.

  As if sensing someone was there, she turned and jumped when she saw him. “Way to scare the shit out of me, Dalton.”

  “I see you’re back in my kitchen.” His eyes moved over her, taking in the clingy T-shirt and cutoffs.