The Devil in the Saddle

by Julia London

  “You don’t have to make it sound so weird,” Charlotte said.

  “Just repeating what you said.”

  “So what if I was looking into sperm donation? I’ve changed my mind. Will you please move?”

  Nick took one dramatic step back. He gestured for her to go ahead. Charlotte brushed past him, her shoulder making contact with his chest in a move he was certain was purposeful. She walked to the filing cabinet and pulled out a drawer.

  Nick took the opportunity to look at his traitorous dog, who, fresh off her belly rub, had settled in under the desk as if she weren’t going anywhere. He shifted his attention to the computer screen. Charlotte had closed one tab, but not another.

  Google: how to freeze my eggs

  PEOPLE ALSO ASK:

  Is freezing your eggs painful?

  What is the best age to freeze your eggs?

  How much does it cost to freeze my eggs?

  Is egg freezing covered by insurance?

  He was startled by a slap to his arm and turned around. “What’s this?”

  “The ledger. You’ll need it to meet with the banker. It’s our accounts. All of them, clearly labeled and color coded. You might notice that everything to do with the oil wells is purple. Yellow for cattle. Blue for minerals. Red for monthly finance reports. And if you forget, there is the chart that I taped to your wall so you wouldn’t forget. We’ve talked about this.”

  The chart was right next to a calendar and a poster of Angus steers. It was a lot of wall noise, which he’d pointed out during their staff meeting. At the time, he’d somehow been convinced to give the color system another two weeks. “Thanks.” He glanced at her computer, then at her, and went back to his office.

  He hadn’t even opened the folder—how could he, when the words how to freeze your eggs were dancing around in his vision—when he heard the door of the office open.

  “Hello!” Charlotte said cheerfully. “You must be Mr. Rivers.”

  “Oh, please call me Colton,” a deep male voice said.

  He didn’t have a Texas accent, Nick noted. He didn’t sound like he was from around here.

  “I’m Charlotte, the office manager of this little barn.”

  Interesting. Charlotte’s voice was different. About an octave higher than it normally was. He opened the ledger and flipped to the red tab to quickly review what was in the accounts.

  Out in the reception area, Mr. Rivers said, “Very nice to meet you, Charlotte.”

  “Oh! This is Pepper. She’s a great cattle dog, but horrible with her social skills. I’m not going to lie, her training was terrible. But I’m working with her.”

  Nick rolled his eyes. Charlotte happened to share a little house with the laziest Labrador Retriever in the history of man, and she could not claim that Rufus was well trained.

  “I’m so sorry! It looks like she got mud on your pants. Let me get a wet cloth.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Mr. Rivers said. He was laughing. “It’s nothing.”

  Nick heard the treat drawer slide open.

  “Are you new to town?” Charlotte asked.

  “Fairly new. I moved here about two months ago. Are you from around here? Looks like it’s growing pretty fast.”

  “I was born and bred in Three Rivers,” she said cheerfully.

  Why didn’t she just bring the guy back to his office? Nick stood up, rubbed his hands on his jeans, then walked out into the reception area.

  The first thing he noticed was that Colton Rivers had not been branding or tagging cattle this morning. He hadn’t been anywhere near a ranch, that much was obvious. He was wearing a suit. And not an ill-fitting kind of suit that men sometimes pulled on for Sunday services, either. This was a tailored suit with cigarette trousers and a tight coat, and a stylish tie. His gold brown hair was brushed back behind his ears. His goatee was perfectly trimmed. His tortoiseshell glasses framed his eyes and made them look fairly large. He was tall and trim, and had the physique of a quarterback. If Nick was a woman, he’d be attracted. Hell, he was a little attracted as it was. And clearly, so was Miss Egg Freezer over there.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  Mr. Rivers glanced up and cast a brilliant and dazzling smile that knocked Nick back a mental step or two. “You must be Nick Prince. I’m Colton Rivers.”

  “Good to meet you,” Nick said, and walked forward, hand extended, to greet him.

  Colton Rivers tried to move to meet him, but Pepper was not ready to let him go, and she put herself in his path. Rivers laughed and went down on one knee to greet Pepper properly. Points for liking dogs.

  Mr. Rivers stood up and took Nick’s extended hand, and Nick wished he’d listened to Charlotte and cleaned up a little. “Come on back,” he said. “Sorry about my appearance—we’re branding cattle today.”

  “Tough work,” Mr. Rivers said.

  Nick gestured to the door of his office. “Pretty awful,” he agreed. “Charlotte, will you get us some coffee please? How do you take yours?”

  “Black, thanks,” Mr. Rivers said.

  Nick looked at Charlotte. “Two blacks.”

  “Sure,” Charlotte said, and resumed her seat and swiveled around to her computer.

  In his office, Nick asked Colton Rivers to take a seat. The young gentleman settled in. “What can I do for you, Mr. Prince?”

  “Nick, please,” Nick said.

  “Great. And I’m Colton. I always feel like someone is looking for my dad when they call me Mr. Rivers.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Nick agreed. “Speaking of my dad . . . I’ve got some wells I need to pay for.” He looked around the desk. Where were the invoices for the wells? He’d just had them here yesterday. He lifted up some papers and quickly looked through them. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I’ve got it right here somewhere.”

  “Take your time,” Colton said. He reminded Nick of James Bond, all cool and collected while Nick searched his desk.

  “Hey, is that a Learjet?”

  Nick looked up. Colton had stood to look at a picture of the jet Nick used to own but had to sell after his father died. He had one plane now that he used to fly around the state. “It is.”

  “Nice,” Colton said. “Is it yours?”

  “It was mine. That is, it belonged to Saddlebush Land and Cattle, but I had to sell it when some of our financial woes became apparent.”

  “What’s the range on this one? About two thousand nautical miles?”

  That was not the standard question people asked him about planes, and Nick was impressed. “Do you fly?”

  “Me? No,” Colton said, and smiled. “I wish. I’ve always had a fascination with planes, to be honest.”

  “I still have a Cessna,” Nick said. “A single engine turboprop. Good utility plane.”

  Colton turned from the picture and sat again, crossing one leg over the other. “That’s awesome. I’d love to have a look at it sometime.”

  Nick was liking this guy. Most people he knew didn’t care much about planes, only that they got them from one place to another. “It’s at our airstrip on the ranch. You need a plane to have a look at a ranch this big.”

  “I bet that’s right,” Colton said. “You shouldn’t have told me you have it close by. I don’t want to blow up your phone, but . . .” He grinned and shrugged.

  They both laughed. “I get it,” Nick said. “I love planes, too.”

  “So what can I do for you?” Colton asked.

  “Yeah, about that. My dad drilled some water wells. Charlotte?” Nick called.

  Charlotte appeared at the door. “Inbox,” she said.

  Nick looked at his inbox. He could have sworn he just looked at it, but there it was, the plain manila folder in his inbox. “Great, thanks. And the contract with the drilling company?”

  He did
not miss the look she gave him as she walked to the filing cabinet and opened it. She pulled out a folder and handed it to Nick. “Current contracts are green,” she said, and pointed to the chart on the wall.

  Damn color chart. “Thanks, Charlotte, you’re a lifesaver. And the coffee?”

  “Oh, sorry,” she said with a slight wince, on her way to the door. “The machine is broken.”

  This was news to Nick. Hadn’t he spotted a cup of coffee on her desk? “It is?”

  “Yep. Won’t work.”

  “Probably just as well,” Colton said. “I had plenty this morning.” He patted his very trim belly and smiled at Charlotte.

  Charlotte smiled back with a thousand watts, then glanced at Nick and dimmed that smile to about seventy-five watts before walking out of the office.

  With all the papers he needed, Nick began to explain his dilemma to Colton. In the middle of his explanation, he saw Charlotte stroll by his door carrying a coffee cup. She went to the coffee bar, made a cup, and then walked back to her desk. On her way past his door, she flashed him a smile.

  He’d handle her later. Right now, he had to convince his new friend that he should loan him some money.

  When Nick had finished going over everything, Colton nodded. “I think we can work something out. I should probably have a look at the wells.”

  “Want to fly?”

  “That would be awesome,” Colton said, and smiled boyishly.

  Together, Nick and Colton walked out of his office. “I’ll give you a call in a day or so,” Nick said. “I’ll give you a fly around and we can look at the wells.”

  “Sounds great,” Colton said as he shook Nick’s hand. “You really ought to consider the idea of putting a development out there. There is a lot of business going up on the road to Victoria. It could be that’s what your dad had in mind.”

  “I’ll run some numbers,” Nick lied. There was no way his mother and his grandmother would ever agree to develop prime ranch land.

  Colton paused at Charlotte’s desk and smiled. “Very nice to meet you, Charlotte.”

  “Likewise,” she said.

  Colton started for the door, and Nick went with him. So did Charlotte. So did Pepper, for that matter.

  “You should check out the Magnolia Bar and Grill if you haven’t already,” Charlotte said to Colton. “They have some fantastic craft cocktails. I know the bartender there. He’s always experimenting.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start,” Colton said. “I’d need a guide to the craft cocktail section.”

  “Well, lucky you!” Charlotte chirped. “My friends and I hang out there at least once a week. Maybe I’ll see you there and introduce you to a few drinks.”

  Colton smiled, all snowy white teeth and dimples. “That could definitely be arranged. Thanks. Have a good day.” He walked out of the office with a wave.

  Nick and Charlotte stood silently at the door and watched Colton jog to a sporty BMW.

  “He’s hot,” Charlotte said. “He’s got a swimmer’s body.”

  “I’d say it’s more of a quarterback’s body,” Nick said as Colton got in his car and drove away.

  “Swimmer,” she insisted.

  “Quarterback,” he countered, not because he was really invested in Colton Rivers’s level of hot, but he wished Charlotte wouldn’t drool like that. He looked at her. “Laying it on a little thick, weren’t you, with the craft cocktails? Why didn’t you ask for his number if you’re so interested?”

  She tilted her head back and smiled up at him. “What’s the matter? Afraid I’ll intrude on your budding bromance? You sounded a little breathless in there.” She arched a brow that dared him to deny it. “Why didn’t you ask for his number?”

  “Because I already have it,” Nick said.

  She gave him a knowing little smirk, then walked back to her desk and picked up her coffee cup and drank.

  “I thought you said the coffee machine was broken.”

  “That’s right, I did,” she said, as if mystified by that. “But I guess it wasn’t.” She smiled.

  Nick put his hands on his hips. “Charlotte, I swear—”

  “I know, Nick, because you swear about something most days. But I’m not your maid, remember? We agreed on the ground rules. Your ground rules. You said we had to have ground rules. You said this has to be a professional working relationship and whatever happened in the past has to stay in the past, and I said, I am the office manager here, not the maid, and you agreed. I should have been in that meeting.”

  Nick clamped his jaw tightly shut. He couldn’t argue with her. He had indeed set ground rules when he told her that there could never be anything between them, that he was leaving as soon as he could get out of here, and that they ought to keep it professional. And then, just like the putz he could be definitely be at times, he’d laid out all the ways they could keep it professional.

  “I know more about those wells than you do,” she added irritably.

  He wanted to say something like, You’re right, you should have been in the meeting, or I don’t know why I don’t think of things like that, or I was too wound up about having to borrow money, or I own this pop stand, don’t tell me what to do, or Why didn’t you say something if you thought so, or Why are you freezing your eggs? What happened to the sperm donor? But instead he said, “Fine. I stand corrected.” He stomped to the coffee bar, poured himself a cup of coffee, and stomped back to his office. At the door, he glanced over his shoulder. “Pepper, come!”

  Pepper leaned against Charlotte. Charlotte put her hand down and scratched Pepper’s ears as if assuring her they were united against Nick.

  Sometimes it felt like the whole damn world was against Nick. He started for his office.

  “By the way, I’m leaving early today,” Charlotte announced.

  Nick paused and glanced back at her. “You are?”

  “Yep. I’m leaving at four.”

  “Doctor’s appointment?”

  “No.”

  “Something to do with your family?” There were a lot of Baileys in town. Like on every corner.

  “No.”

  “So . . . ?”

  “So, if you must know, I have a date. In San Antonio.”

  “You have a date?” he asked, perhaps more incredulously than he should have. Charlotte had seemed so hell-bent on the sperm donor thing, he thought she’d given up on dating.

  “Yes, Nick, a date. Will you please stop looking at me like that?”

  He blinked. “I’m not even looking at you. I mean, I’m looking at you, but not like . . . that.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re looking at me like you can’t believe someone would ask me out on a date. Either that, or you don’t remember what a date is, and you’re trying to remember.”

  He snorted. “I know what a date is, Charlotte. I just didn’t know you were dating.”

  She folded her arms. “News flash—not all of us are fine with sleeping alone night after night.”

  There it was, the Jabba the Hut–size tension rearing its big ugly head. He couldn’t even say why, but it had something to do with sleeping and alone and night that reminded him of the night they hadn’t slept alone. Hadn’t slept at all, really.

  Charlotte was thinking of it, too. He could tell by the way her cheeks turned pink. “Anyway, just so you know,” she said. She sat heavily and swiveled back around to her computer screen. “And Buck will be here to fix your door at nine on Monday.”

  Nick stood there. He wanted to say something. Like, I think about it, too. But he didn’t see what good that would do. So he slowly turned around and went into his office and looked around for the drilling reports. Lord. What color would that be? He squinted at that damn chart on the wall and tried very hard not to think of someone else between Charlotte’s thighs.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR


  Julia London is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of numerous romance novels and women's fiction. She is also the recipient of the RT Bookclub Award for Best Historical Romance and a six-time finalist for the prestigious RITA Award for excellence in romantic fiction.

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