Cowboy For Hire

by Victoria James

  But he kept thinking about her, about how she’d let him in and told him about her brother and her family. He could hear the pain in her voice, could see the sadness in her eyes, and he remembered how she’d felt against him.

  Which was his other problem—the attraction. It had been a PG-13-rated experience, and yet it had been one of the most memorable nights of his life. He wanted her with a part of himself he usually didn’t put into the game—his heart.

  He leaned back in the leather chair of Sarah’s father’s office and stared at the numbers in front of him. He had a stack of papers, bank statements, which he’d been going through for the last few weeks. Operating on a hunch, and with the proof the bookkeeper provided, he was pretty certain he knew why the last foreman had up and left.

  The ranch was in the red and had been for years, thanks to her father.

  His muscles protested after hours of sitting hunched over the desk as he stood. He needed something strong to drink while he came up with a plan. Obviously, he had to tell Sarah. He poured himself a whiskey, his gaze lingering on the handful of family pictures on the bookshelves.

  His mind drifted to Sarah telling him about Joshua…and then to her migraines and Mrs. Casey’s urgent warnings about Sarah’s health. He rolled his shoulders and leaned against the bookcase ledge. That time, she said the migraine had been triggered by bad food. But she had also said that stress was a trigger when she used to have them frequently. How was she going to react when she found out just how deep in debt her father had gotten the ranch? She’d feel stupid, knowing her. She’d feel betrayed and panicked. That wouldn’t be good for her health. As foreman, it was his responsibility to solve these kinds of issues.

  He was going to have to tell Sarah eventually, but first, he needed to make sure there wasn’t something he could do to make the situation a little better. The last thing he wanted was to ever inflict the kind of pain in her that he’d witnessed last weekend.

  It was well past nine at night, a Friday, and this had been his routine for the last couple of weeks since starting on at Joshua Ranch. He’d put in a full day with the men, then shower, eat dinner with them, and put in an evening at the office. While the business side of ranching wasn’t new to him and he’d done most of these tasks at Tyler’s ranch, it was still a new operation to him, and he was essentially teaching himself.

  He glanced at the clock and forced himself to get back to work. Time to stop daydreaming about Sarah like a teenager. He was hired on as a foreman, and he’d never disappointed any employer with his work.

  The printer signaled it was out of paper and Cade sighed, standing. He was pretty sure there were a few more packs of paper in one of the rows of cabinets across the room. After looking through three and finding none, he came across a stack of printer paper. As he was pulling a bunch out, his gaze came across a stack of picture frames, leaning against the inside of the cupboard. He wasn’t a snoop and it wasn’t any of his business…but the people in the picture were Sarah and her brother. He gingerly pulled out one silver-framed picture, and Sarah as a child stared back at him, her smile wide and laughing. It was a smile he’d never seen on her. She was sitting confidently atop a horse, and her brother was beside her. He had the same blond hair and green eyes and the same smile.

  A stab of sadness came over him. This wasn’t his business. He slipped the picture back in the cupboard and shut the doors.

  He was my best friend. He was funny and wild and loved life so much. Cade pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to quell the emotion that gutted him whenever he thought back to Sarah telling him about her brother. It wasn’t fair, what that accident had done to her family, to her. She deserved more than to be held back because of fear. No one had held him back; he’d gone on to live life fully. Or so he thought. Maybe he had been missing out on the deeper connections, on the things that mattered.

  He was attracted to Sarah on so many different levels that he’d never experienced before, and he’d barely touched her. Just one hot, very controlled kiss. Even after their disaster of a weekend, he found himself looking forward to his mornings, to seeing her smile, to listening to her soft voice as she asked him questions or having her by his side at the ranch. She was a quick learner and didn’t shy away from hard work, never complaining that something was too difficult or that she was tired. She kept on going right along with the rest of them, never giving up.

  The sound of his phone ringing in the quiet office jarred him, and he glanced over to see Dean’s number on the display. For the last five or so years, he and Dean had spent most Friday nights together unless Dean was on call at the hospital. Now that Tyler was back home, the three of them had picked up where they’d left off before Tyler had left Wishing River.

  He hesitated a moment before answering, for the first time in a long time not wanting to spend the evening at River’s Saloon in town. River’s was like a second home to him and home to many a cowboy in Wishing River. Everyone knew you went to Tilly’s Diner for some real comfort food, but you went to River’s when you were looking for the solace found in a bottle or fun for the night. He didn’t really want either.

  The ringing stopped for a moment, and a twinge of guilt hit him. He’d call his friend back. Dean had been there for him, and he knew that his friend’s life was pretty stressful keeping up with the demands of his job at the hospital and the demands of his tough father at the family ranch. Dean’s family almost made him glad he didn’t have one of his own to worry about anymore.

  The ringing started again, and this time it was Tyler’s number on his display. All right. Maybe he should force himself to go. He smiled. To him, his best friends were family; they were the closest to family he’d ever get. Despite the fact that he really wanted to finish up in here and go to sleep, he picked up the phone.

  Maybe a night at River’s was exactly what he needed. Sarah would never go there.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sarah leaned forward in her chair at River’s Saloon, almost giddy with excitement. This place was amazing. She kept looking around, trying to soak in the atmosphere. The saloon was exactly like something out of a movie—rustic and old, with black-and-white pictures of Wishing River, dark tables and chairs, and what seemed like a mile-long bar with a polished but worn counter. The two levels of tables were completely full, and there was an area with pool tables, a stage for a live band, and even a floor for dancing.

  This was the best thing she’d ever seen.

  “So what’s it like working with Cade?” Hope asked.

  Sarah shifted in her chair, definitely feeling like she was in the hot seat and not really knowing what to say. She took a sip of the wine Hope and Lainey recommended, very aware she would have to drink this slowly and definitely not have more than one glass. They hadn’t ordered food yet, but Hope had informed her that she’d made the owner add gluten-free-bread options for their famous burgers.

  This morning, she’d received a text from Lainey out of the blue, asking if Sarah wanted to meet the two of them for dinner. She’d been giddy like a schoolgirl to receive the invitation and had looked forward to it all day.

  Sitting across from the two of them, having easy conversation, she realized how much she’d missed women her age.

  Before her brother’s accident, she’d had tons of friends. She hadn’t been shy and had no trouble fitting in with the kids at school. After Joshua, when her parents had pulled her from school, her closest friends had tried to keep in touch. She even remembered her best friend’s mother coming over for tea with her mom and gently telling her that it would be good for Sarah to see her friends again. Her mother had been polite but noncommittal.

  Slowly, everyone stopped trying. Sarah felt like they had become the weird family who didn’t socialize anymore. They didn’t go to town events, they didn’t go to church events…they didn’t do anything. She’d been so consumed by the loss of Josh that at first she didn’t m
iss her friends. But as the months grew into years, she realized how wrong her parents had been. Isolation should have been temporary, but the company of good people and good friends could have helped them heal. Her parents had destroyed all her relationships.

  Now, here she was at twenty-six, learning how to make friends again. And she really liked Lainey and Hope. She didn’t want to blow this.

  “Please tell me you’re not going to leave us hanging,” Lainey said with a smile as she picked up her glass of wine.

  Pushing aside what happened last weekend, she focused on their working relationship. “There’s not that much to say, honestly. You guys probably know Cade better than I do. He’s hard-working, and everyone seems to like him. It’s been going much smoother than I could have hoped.” Except between the two of them, but she couldn’t get into that with women she barely knew. She didn’t know what she and Cade were now. He’d been distant but polite the entire week, and she’d had to fight to keep focused on ranch tasks and not on how dejected she felt. He’d told her they could never go anywhere, but the reality of it was much harder to take.

  There was so much about him that she admired, and having to work beside him all week as though they hadn’t shared a room together was painful. She regretted divulging all that personal stuff about her family and Josh. Doubt started trickling in, making her wonder if it was easier for him to blame it on the job than admit he didn’t have feelings for her. Maybe he was just letting her down gently—after all, she came with a lot of baggage, and she wasn’t exactly fun, even though the whiskey had made her foolishly boast that she was.

  “That sounds like résumé-ish stuff. Cade is great, don’t get me wrong. But I could have sworn I saw a little spark of something at Lainey’s party,” Hope said with a mischievous glint in her eye.

  “We both hate prying. But we just thought…or maybe hoped, since you came to my party together, that something might be going on between the two of you. Tyler claims he knows nothing about you and Cade and sadly, I believe him,” Lainey said with a laugh.

  Sarah toyed with the bowl of nuts on the table, trying to process her surprise that they noticed something between her and Cade. They were obvious? At that point, she hadn’t assumed she had given off any vibes. Obviously he hadn’t told his friends about going away with her that weekend, because then Tyler would have told Lainey. At least she didn’t have to be worried about any of them knowing the extent of her humiliation.

  She glanced up at the two women, wanting to be open and honest but not knowing how much to reveal because Cade was their friend, too, and he worked for her…but she also didn’t want to shut them down and ruin this opportunity to have real friends. True friends shared things about relationships. “We… He’s a really great guy and we work together. We both kind of agreed that nothing could ever happen between us,” she said, hoping that would end the discussion.

  Unfortunately, it seemed to pull Lainey and Hope deeper into it. Hope frowned. “That doesn’t sound like Cade. I mean, okay, maybe the Cade we all knew, but I really sensed something between the two of you. He never brings dates to any of our events.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t an actual date. Just him pitying me for not knowing anyone my own age.”

  Hope was tapping her chin. “Okay, but the fact that you two had this discussion means there is something between you. Wow, I’m being way too nosy.”

  Sarah cringed. She wanted to open up to them the way real friends did, but it felt so awkward, since they were his friends, not hers. “You’re not. I get it. You guys go way back. Honestly, he totally bailed me out of a bad situation, and I don’t know where I’d be without him. Obviously he’s…”

  “Hot,” Hope supplied.

  They laughed, and Sarah nodded. She didn’t want to gush and come across like this was a high-school crush, but she also didn’t want to not say anything and seem closed-off. These were women who had lived a lot more than she had. Hope had been married, had a child. Lainey was married and ran her own business and had even graduated from an art school in Italy. Sarah had just been…hiding. “Cade and I aren’t really anything. I mean, anything other than coworkers.”

  “I always thought that Cade needed someone different from him to ground him a little,” Lainey said before taking a sip of wine. Hope nodded.

  “Ground him?” Sarah asked, leaning forward. She was not above getting some insider info about Cade.

  Lainey shrugged. “He was always kind of a loner, the guy who didn’t really care about getting into trouble. He’s stayed under the radar for years and has been best friends with Ty and Dean forever, but he just had an edge to him. It was like one day he just showed up in town with no history, no family, nothing. Tyler doesn’t really say anything about Cade’s past, and I think it’s because he honestly doesn’t know much.”

  Sarah processed that bit of information and thought back to the night at the motel. She had done all the sharing. Mrs. Casey had also mentioned that he said he had no family. None of this scared her, but it did make her heart ache just a little for him, and it made her wish that he felt she could be trusted enough to open up. “He hasn’t said a thing to me.”

  Sarah took another sip of wine and forced herself to relax. She needed to learn how to open up to people, to share, to talk. He’s the best thing that ever happened to my ranch, she would have added, but that would be premature, and she wouldn’t want it to get back to him yet. “All the guys like him; it’s as though he’s been there for years. I interviewed so many and no one was right, and then he walked in…”

  Hope leaned forward. “And?”

  “He didn’t patronize me, his references were glowing, and he knew his way around the ranch right away.”

  Lainey smiled. “So you’ve become…friends?”

  “I guess,” she said. She was disappointed in herself. She should tell them. She didn’t need to go into details, but she should admit that she had feelings for him. Putting herself out there was something she’d have to get used to if she wanted real friends. Maybe she could just swear them to secrecy.

  “Okay, so maybe it’s not Cade. We need to find you someone else,” Lainey said.

  Sarah cleared her throat, trying to shove away the awkwardness. “It is Cade, but he kind of turned me down.”

  Hope’s mouth dropped open, and Lainey frowned. “What?”

  Sarah nodded, deciding she might as well lay it all out there. “Yup. There was no mistaking it. It was a rejection.”

  “Did he say why?” Hope asked.

  Sarah shrugged. “He didn’t want to jeopardize his job at the ranch if things didn’t work out well between us.”

  “That doesn’t sound like him,” Lainey said.

  “Oh great, maybe he was just saying that as an easy out, then?” Sarah asked, taking another drink of wine. That’s what she’d been worried about. From what they were implying, he didn’t say no to too many women.

  Hope waved a hand. “No, no, of course not. Maybe he does have feelings for you. Maybe he just thinks you want different things than he does. I never pictured him as the type to settle down.”

  “I look like that type?”

  “It’s not a bad thing! But maybe he wants someone for a night and that’s all. He can’t really do that with you, since you’re his boss,” Hope said.

  Which was exactly what he’d said.

  She must have looked as forlorn as she felt because Lainey jumped in. “It’s not a bad thing. At least not about you. I know that Cade has always worked. Tyler’s dad is always going on about how he was the hardest-working cowboy he ever hired. He has no family to fall back on, and maybe that’s it. He can’t afford to lose a job like that for a chance at a relationship.”

  Sarah nodded, knowing Lainey was right. “It makes sense. And honestly, the more I think about it, the more I realize we’re probably not right for each other anyway. He’s saving us a
lot of awkwardness at work, and I should be grateful for—”

  She sat up straight, feeling something shift in the room. She turned in the direction of where Lainey’s gaze had drifted. Her stomach dropped as she spotted Cade, Tyler, and Dean walking toward them. “Great. Your new friend and foreman just walked in, looking about as hot as a man can get,” Hope said with a wink.

  Sarah held her breath. The last thing she wanted was to sit with the man she’d just been talking about… But of course they would, she thought with a sinking stomach as Tyler waved at Lainey.

  The three of them definitely turned heads as they made their way through the bar to where the women were seated. The guys pulled another table over once hellos were exchanged. Tyler and Lainey sat together, while an odd shuffling from Hope had Sarah sandwiched between Dean and Cade. After a round of beers were ordered among them, easy conversation started. Sarah tried not to turn too much toward Cade but didn’t want to look obvious.

  “Have you met Aiden?” Hope asked as the handsome server walked away.

  Sarah shook her head. “I’ve never been here before.”

  “Aiden Rivers, the owner of this place, keeps a box of imported wine for us,” Hope said with a smile. “I’m not sure if that’s really sweet or really sad.”

  The three of them laughed. “Let’s go with sweet,” Lainey said.

  She took another sip of wine, wanting to be done with this conversation. “I really like this.”

  “Well, he’s…great, and so is the wine,” Lainey said with a funny smile.

  Hope let out a strangled laugh. “Yes, let’s just say that Aiden is also responsible for drawing a crowd.” Sarah looked at him again and noticed that as far as looks went, the man had something impossibly attractive about him, almost a roguish look.