THE COWBOY FLING

by Dawn Atkins

  He took a sip of the coffee. "Mmm, mmm, good," he said, sounding like Andy Griffith in a coffee commercial A mercy compliment, she saw with dismay, since the coffee looked a little thin to her.

  "How about some of Jasper's famous strawberry-rhubarb pie?"

  "This is plenty," he said, holding up the cup.

  "I insist. Snake-handling is hungry work." Without waiting for a reply she cut a big hunk of pie, nuked it in the microwave and set it before him. "On the house."

  He put a small bite in his mouth and chewed tentatively. "It's good!" he said, blinking in surprise.

  "Don't sound so amazed. You won't believe the desserts we'll have when I'm finished with the place."

  Before she could elaborate, the phone rang and she moved to the end of the bar to answer it. "Wonder Café and Amazatorium."

  "What's wrong?" her brother snapped.

  "Nothing's wrong, Wade."

  "You sound tense."

  No kidding. She'd just been through the Great Snake Escape and the Sexy Cowboy Rescue and Once-Over, along with a twinge of self-doubt about her mission. But she'd die before she'd tell him that. "You're such a worrywart," she hissed, turning away so Max couldn't overhear her conversation.

  "You're my baby sister. It's my job to worry about you."

  "Not anymore. Please." Wade couldn't stop being her stand-in parent long enough to see she was a capable professional. Of course, it was partly her fault. She had deferred to his advice up until now. But not anymore. Now that she had her M.B.A. – her certificate of professional approval – she was going to make her own decisions.

  "So, how's it going?" Wade asked. "Any problems?"

  "Of course not," she said. If you didn't count the running-of-the-snake incident. "What could happen here?" Wade had deliberately sent her to the quietest restaurant of all those the company owned around Arizona so she'd get bored and come home. She'd almost blown up at him until she'd done a little research and discovered what a diamond-in-the-rough the place was. All the better to amaze him with her expertise. Once she showed him what she could do with the place, he'd be kicking himself for neglecting it.

  "And Uncle Jasper?"

  "Feisty as ever. I don't know where you got the idea he was getting feeble." Jasper's supposedly declining health had been Wade's excuse for sending her to the boondocks. It also proved to be his ace in the hole, because he knew how much she loved Jasper. After their parents died in a boating accident when Lacey was ten and Wade sixteen, Wade had taken on the role of parent, and Uncle Jasper became the older brother Wade was too serious to be.

  Lacey had loved staying with Jasper in one of the tiny trailers beside the café, loved being terrified and enthralled by the Amazatorium's gruesome and fascinating exhibits. Together, they'd played hide-and-go-seek in the diner and gone on scavenger hunts for the rusted tools and machines Jasper used in his sculptures.

  Her favorite thing had been watching him work at his found-art sculptures. Three years ago, he'd broken his leg and stopped working on the big stuff – calling it semiretirement. She'd been busy at school, and had hardly seen him in all that time, so this was a great chance to catch up with him.

  "I'm fine, Jasper's fine, the café's fine, the weather's fine, everything's fine, Wade, so if that's all you wanted…"

  "Hold on." Wade chuckled. "No need to get snippy. I just wanted to remind you we should book the Biltmore for your engagement party. The fall calendar fills up fast."

  "Wade." She carried the phone further out of Max's listening range and whispered, "Don't book an engagement party. No one's engaged."

  "It's just a formality, Lace."

  "Pierce hasn't said word one." Because he didn't think he needed to. Pierce took her for granted, like she was a perk that came with his vice presidency. Actually, it wasn't his fault. They'd fallen into couplehood not long after Wade introduced them. They got along and he was a pleasant companion at social events. There was nothing wrong with Pierce. He was smart and handsome and he meant well, even if he was a little self-involved. But you were supposed to light up when the man you loved entered the room, weren't you? She just felt ordinary with Pierce. Very ordinary. Bored even.

  He didn't feel strongly about her, either, she was sure. He liked her because she conveniently filled the "girlfriend" space in his daybook, not because the sun rose and set in her eyes.

  "You know he wants to marry you," Wade insisted.

  "And what if I don't want to marry him?"

  "Don't reject the man just because I happen to like him," Wade said wearily. "Pierce is good for you."

  "Maybe I want someone who's bad for me." Her gaze flew to Max McLane, swallowing his pie. She'd never thought of eating pastry as particularly manly, but Max McLane was changing her mind. Muscles fanned across his cheek as he chewed and his biceps swelled as he lifted the coffee cup to his strong mouth.

  "How can I take you seriously when you say things like that?" Wade said. "You sound like a rebellious teenager."

  "Never mind." She sighed. Was he right? Was she just rebelling? Maybe she was being too romantic about love, but she was pretty sure she wasn't in love with Pierce. She certainly didn't want to marry him. "Just don't schedule anything. I'll talk to Pierce. Right now I've got work to do."

  "Work? The only people who stop in there are tourists lost on their way to the Desert Museum. What are you trying to prove, Lacey? You don't need an apprenticeship. There's a place for you here in the company."

  "I don't want a little froufrou marketing job."

  "You'll do great. You've got fresh ideas. Remember that dinner-in-a-movie idea?"

  Okay, she hadn't always been wise. Enthralled by a class in "guerrilla marketing" she'd taken as an undergraduate, she'd turned her final project into a proposal to Wellington. The idea was to combine a movie theater with a restaurant, so people could eat dinner and watch feature films, but she hadn't done enough research. Costs were prohibitive and the logistics impossible. Wade had pronounced it "cute," a verbal head-pat that still embarrassed her.

  But things were different now. She had her M.B.A. She'd interned at a software company and a bank. She knew about marketing plans, business projections and project management. She'd even turned down two job offers at high-tech firms because she wanted to contribute to the family business, be part of something that mattered, not just a cog in a corporate wheel. But even that hadn't been enough to change Wade's mind.

  "You don't want the kind of headaches I have," Wade said. "Believe me. They paint an idealistic picture in business school. This is the real world. There are pressures and risks. We set tough goals and when we don't meet them, we make hard decisions."

  Wade thought he was protecting her. The truth was he didn't think she could handle being on his management team. The problem was he didn't respect her, pure and simple.

  Well, she was through asking for his respect, she was going to earn it. The hard way. With her own money and her own sweat. When she was finished, the Wonder Coffeehouse would be filled with wall-to-wall customers dipping almond biscotti in mocha lattes, enjoying scintillating entertainment and meeting new people.

  Then Wade would welcome her to the management team – grateful for her expertise – and she'd be part of deciding the future of her family's company. But, first things first. She had a pie-eating cowboy to handle.

  "I've got to go, Wade. My customers are waiting." Rather, customer.

  "Okay, but keep me posted."

  "You never quit, do you? What can go wrong?"

  "Okay, okay."

  "Bye, Wade." She hung up and turned to watch Max McLane. He was just wiping his mouth with a napkin, but he looked rough and tough doing it. And bad. Very bad. He probably had a tattoo. On his chest maybe. Yeah. What did it say? Born To Break Broncs. Or hearts. She shivered and felt heat rise to her cheeks. She definitely had a thing for cowboys.

  Max was so wild Wild West, so not Pierce. She'd bet he didn't fold his clothes at the foot of the bed before sex like P
ierce did. He probably just threw his jeans across the room, the woman across the bed – or the bay – and went at it. Oooh. The idea made her insides vibrate. She'd bet he used women like tissues.

  And suddenly, she wanted to be next.

  As if he'd read her mind, Max looked up at her from across the room, and smiled a slow, crooked smile. "Anytime."

  "What?" She blinked, then realized he'd actually said, "Good pie."

  Max pushed to his feet, slapped a bill on the counter, situated his Stetson hat at an angle that made him look so good her heart did a little hop, and started toward the door.

  As the door danged shut behind his perfect rear, she remembered she'd meant for the pie and coffee to be free. She hurried to the counter, snatched up the ten-dollar bill – way too much, definitely a mercy payment – and ran to the door.

  "Mr. McLane," she called from the doorway, waving the money, her voice wobbly now that she'd thought of him naked. "It was on the house!"

  He turned. "No thanks. With your cash flow, you can't afford any inventory shrinkage."

  For an instant she wondered why a man who probably lived from paycheck to paycheck would say something like inventory shrinkage, then she got absorbed in the way his swagger emphasized his legs and backside. Criminy times ten!

  She didn't know what had come over her, but a woman whose knees went weak watching a cowboy eat pie was not ready to get mated, that was certain. She'd have to talk to Pierce and clear the air. Besides, she had too much on her mind with the café. The café and the cowboy. Oh, yeah, the cowboy.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  «^»

  The taste of strawberry-rhubarb pie and weak coffee still in his mouth, Max winced as he stepped onto the porch of the ranch house. He hurt all over. No wonder cowboys were bowlegged. Amazing any of them managed to have kids the way the saddle horn messed with a man's equipment. The tumble into the irrigation ditch yesterday had twisted something in his back, and there were still some cholla cactus spines in his butt from the day before. He'd had enough of barbed wire, blisters and cow manure to last a lifetime.

  For a fleeting minute, he missed having a nice clean spreadsheet and a snarled budget to work on, but he pushed that thought from his head. He'd wanted out of meaningless number crunching. He wanted the satisfaction of working with his hands like his father had.

  As soon as he finished this job and the favor that went with it, he had work lined up with a construction crew to learn the trade. So, just a couple of months of barbed-wire scrapes, boot blisters and bruised tailbones, and he'd be doing what he wanted to do.

  Speaking of bruised tailbones, had he left the liniment in the bunkhouse? Buck, the foreman, got a big guffaw about him being such a candy-ass city boy. Okay, so he didn't have a cowboy's soul. He hadn't known 'til he tried it. And he'd wanted to try.

  He stopped in the doorway as a whiff of Lacey Wellington lifted off his shirt to his nose – exotic and fresh, like spicy daisies. He smiled, remembering how good her body felt draped over his shoulder – compact and muscled.

  Forget it, McLane. The business he had with Lacey Wellington left no space for anything remotely sexual, except in restless dreams in that fly-buzzed bunkhouse on that rock-hard cot.

  Right now, all he wanted was a hot soak and a bucket of liniment, but he had a duty to perform first. He grabbed the phone in the kitchen and dialed the number. In seconds, the secretary put him through. "It's Max," he said to Wade Wellington. "Your sister's settled in here, safe and sound." And sexy as hell.

  "You met Lacey?" Wade asked.

  "Yeah. We met." They'd met, all right. Face to thigh.

  "And she thinks you're just a hand from the Rockin' W?"

  "That's what I am. And I've got the rope burns and bruises to prove it."

  Wade chuckled. "So ranch life's not what you expected?"

  "I'm getting the hang of it. I only got tossed on my ass once yesterday." Clint Eastwood he was not. If his luck held, he wouldn't get kicked in the face again by a steer annoyed at having his hoofs checked for rot. Hoof rot, for Christ's sake. Ranching was a nasty business.

  Wade laughed. "Good. Truth is, I'm hoping this stint will get the work-with-your-hands nonsense out of your system, and you'll come back to us. We need you down there."

  "Like I said, Wade, I appreciate everything you've done for me, but I'm done with accounting."

  Six months ago he'd volunteered at No Place Like Home, a charity that built houses for low-income families using donated materials and labor. Just after his father died, an invitation to participate had come in the mail addressed to his dad, a skilled carpenter. When Max called to decline on his father's behalf, he'd learned that unskilled workers were also needed, so on a whim, and in honor of his father, he'd signed up to be on the weekend crew. He'd loved every minute of it – smashed thumbs notwithstanding – and it had been a way to feel closer to his father.

  After he'd seen the joy on the faces of the people he'd helped put in a home, a balanced spreadsheet seemed completely void of satisfaction. He'd wished like hell his father hadn't kept quiet all those years about the joy of his carpentry work. Anxious for his son to get further than he had, Max's father had pushed college, college, college, and downplayed his own work as menial and mindless. So now, Max would follow in his father's footsteps – if not as a carpenter, at least in construction.

  "But you're a damn good accountant," Wade said, continuing the discussion they'd had three weeks before, when he'd resigned his job as accounting manager at the Tucson office of Wellington Restaurant Corp. "Why not go with your strengths?"

  "I know what I'm doing, Wade." He owed Wade a lot, but it was time to do what Max wanted, not what Wade preferred or what his dad had expected. Money wasn't an issue, either. He'd paid off his father's hospital bills and his own needs were modest. "Besides, my accounting background hasn't been completely wasted. I did a feed-cost analysis that could save some money in the winter, but Buck's not interested in anything a city boy has to say."

  "Don't feel bad. From what I've heard, Buck doesn't respect anybody who can't down a quart of tequila, then shoe a horse blindfolded."

  "I think I lost all credibility when I asked him where the nearest laundry was. 'What the hell you doin' changin' shirts?' he said. 'You think them animals care what you smell like?' He's sure I'm gay."

  "You should have told him you just wanted to get laid. Weren't you the guy who told me a freshly laundered shirt is one of the top ten turn-ons for women? You were the one guy in the frat house I could count on to borrow a clean shirt from when I wanted to get lucky."

  "Consider it my legacy." There wasn't much else he could contribute to the self-assured, trust-funded guys in the fraternity. A working-class kid, he'd been at Claremont College by grace of a scholarship. That hadn't seemed to matter much to Wade and the others, who valued him as a study partner and liked his sense of humor. When they planned ski trips and jaunts to Europe Max couldn't afford, he just claimed family or study obligations.

  It hadn't mattered until Heather, of course. Heather had shown him the uncrossable chasm between them with knife-to-the-heart precision. Max had been okay to play with, but when things got serious – graduation and marriage – she zeroed in on someone who belonged in her world. Max had walked away a better man for the lesson she'd taught him, though: Always remember who you are. Of course, he hadn't been that happy about it at the time.

  Now he was certain that when he settled down, it would be with someone who shared his values, who knew what really mattered in life. Someone who'd be proud of what Max could do, not what he owned. Someone who knew who he was, and knew herself, too.

  Not that he was looking. He had a new life to explore. He was only thirty. He had plenty of time to fall in love with the right woman.

  "Actually, Buck told me he's glad you're there," Wade said, bringing Max back to the present. "You remind him of his son, who used to come out and work the summers on the ranch."

 
"His son gay?"

  "Not so far as I know." Wade chuckled. "Just keep the pumps in your footlocker and you'll be okay." Then he paused. "Seriously, though, Max, it means a lot to me, your keeping an eye on Lacey. Jasper's too absentminded to be much help."

  "Glad to do it," he fibbed, more uneasy than ever now that he'd met Lacey. Max had been glad of Wade's offer of the ranch job helping the shorthanded Buck. He could always use the income until the construction job came through, and the idea of being a temporary cowboy had appealed to him, with all it offered in terms of working outdoors and physical challenges.

  Then Wade threw in the catch – he expected Max to secretly keep an eye on his sister, Lacey, until she wearied of making bad coffee and selling tarantula bola ties and came back to a nice safe job in Phoenix where she belonged. He'd made it sound like Max would be performing a public service. Max felt he owed Wade for making a high-paying place for him in the Tucson office three years before, when his dad got sick and needed him nearby. A little bit of secret sister supervision had seemed a small favor for an old friend. From what Max could tell, Lacey did need somebody to keep an eye on her. The woman couldn't make coffee.

  "So, how's she doing?" Wade asked. "Any problems?"

  Max thought about the snake over the door, the plastic puppet Lacey had meant to catch it with and her improbable plan to give the café a makeover. "Headed that way," he said. "She wants to turn the place into a coffeehouse."

  "She what?"

  He repeated what Lacey had told him.

  "Oh, for God's sake," Wade growled when he finished. "That's so like Lacey to come up with some grandiose plan. I should have sent her to the Scottsdale property, where they'd have kept her busy. She thinks she has to prove herself to me. I just want her to have a nice job, get married and be happy. But she wants to be a player. Where the hell did she get the idea that place could be a coffeehouse?"