Falling Fast

by Cerise DeLand

  “But that’s crazy. Big names are what we need.”

  “Yeah, well, you are not going to change Sam’s mind.”

  “Why not?”

  “Personal history.”

  “Really? What?”

  Kade shot her a glance. “Sam doesn’t talk about this.”

  “Okay, then. Only you and I do.”

  Kade nodded. “Sam is the third richest man in Texas.”

  Shana shrugged. “Meaning?”

  “He’s got money, land, cattle, horses, looks and a saddlebag full of charm.”

  Now she was puzzled. She shook her head. “And?”

  “He keeps it all for himself and his daughter.” Kade grimaced as he looked in the rear-view mirror and turned a corner onto a feeder road. The land ahead was bound by an electric, barbed wire fence. A huge white sign with a gold lone star at the entrance read, “Welcome to Trunbridge Ranch. Home to Angus and Cutting Horses since 1876.” Beneath stood the ranch’s brand, a Rocking Bar T.

  Kade drove up to the electronic code box, rolled down his window, punched in a few number keys then called into the audio box. “It’s Kade Stapleton, Willa. Comin’ in to see your dad.”

  As the giant iron gate swung wide to let them in, Shana fingered a wisp of hair back into her ponytail. “Tell me what else I need to know about Trunbridge before I go in here and stick my foot in my mouth.”

  “You’ll have your work cut out for you on the Nashville headliners because years ago Sam Trunbridge bought into Dell-a-tone Records and met a singer who took his heart and stomped on it. Or so he tries to say now with a big dose of false objectivity. And just who is that heartthrob? Well, god. None other than Kylee Farrell.”

  At the mention of the three-time Grammy award-winning singer, Shana dropped her mouth open.

  “Yeah. My reaction, too.” Kade nodded at Shana with poignant humor. “Sam does not mention it to many. He told me only after we’d read your proposal and Kylee’s name was on there as a possible for the grand opening.”

  Oh, boy. “But she—”

  “Doesn’t have to be the opener.”

  “Well—”

  “You can get someone else. Kylee might not want to come anyway, if she knew Sam was involved. Plus, she’ll think we’re small potatoes and—”

  “No.”

  “And she won’t see any profit in coming to Hayward. So that let’s us open for—”

  “Stop!” she yelled at Kade.

  He jammed on the brakes. “What’s the matter?”

  “You have to understand that Kylee is the grand opening act.”

  “What? How can that be? If you and I have just agreed to work together this morning, then she’s—”

  “Committed to starring in the season opener October twelfth.”

  “That’s crazy.” Stunned, he shoved the gearshift to neutral.

  “Tell me about it.” She nibbled on her lower lip.

  “You can cancel the contract,” Kade said, waving a hand.

  “Can’t.”

  He scowled. “Why not?”

  “She was in our office the day Jeff and I talked about our draft of our proposal.”

  “How’s that?”

  “She was in San Antonio because she’d done a concert at the Alamo Dome the night before. She dropped in to see Jeff who used to live next door to her in Abilene. He told her about this, that we needed a headliner. It would help sell the proposal, he told her. And she volunteered.”

  “Oh, hell.” Kade stared straight ahead.

  “Tell me more about their relationship,” she said, her eyes outlining the yellow-stone ranch house that rambled over the acreage in front of her.

  “Honey, that’s all I know.” Kade turned to her. “You’ve got to forget you have her. You won’t get him to agree. He won’t sign your contract.”

  Her heart fluttered in fear. She’d come this far to help Kade, she wasn’t going to let an old, failed love affair stop her from fixing what she’d done. “Drive on up there, Kade. Let’s do this.”

  “Shana, if you have a plan I’d like to hear it.”

  She faced him. Her mind was blank. His face was lined with anxiety and concern for her. She dissolved in delight and smiled at him. He was so sweet, she could eat him with a spoon. If she could meet this man and instinctively care for him so strongly, maybe, just maybe, she could employ her instinct to wipe away this last obstacle to her plan.

  “Just help me with him, Kade. Help me.”

  * * * *

  Sam Trunbridge should have been in westerns. Tall, rawhide tan, lanky, with black hair and a devil’s shock of white at the temples and over his brow, he was the personification of a filthy rich, movie screen, come-to-daddy cowman. With hand-tooled Lucchese brown boots, jeans that fit like his skin, and a snowy shirt starched to an inch of its life, the rancher walked and talked no-nonsense wealth and acid-tongued humor.

  “You two look hungry. Had lunch?” he asked, ushering them into his living room, the walls of which were studded with one stuffed bobcat, a javelina’s head and more than a dozen whitetail deer antlers. Shana smiled to herself, knowing this kind of hard-drivin’ Texan like the back of her hand. She took one of the two brown leather chairs, while Kade sank into the other and crossed his long legs with his cowboy hat perched on his knee. Across from them, on the sofa, sat Sam’s statuesque daughter, Willa, who dissected Shana with the skill of a surgeon.

  “Yes, we have eaten,” Kade told him. “Thanks.”

  Sam inclined his head toward Kade as he gazed at Shana. “Did he cook for you?”

  Shana tried not to blush. Did he suspect she and Kade were already lovers? “Yes, sir, he did.”

  Willa looked stricken, but she tossed her hair over her shoulder and came out like a whiplash. “He cooks for only a few people. Special ones. Right, Kade?”

  Shana examined the young woman openly. Probably slightly younger than she, twenty-two or so, Willa Trunbridge had all the earmarks of a Texas heiress. Proud as whiskey. Straight as a ramrod. Impeccable grooming of her straight waist-length raven hair and porcelain doll-like complexion. Designer jeans that looked as if they’d never ridden a horse. Red-lacquered nails that might never have washed a dish. And darting black eyes that focused daggers of interest in Kade Stapleton. An interest that Kade, thank you god, ignored.

  “Practice,” Shana responded, as if it were quite natural for him to cook for her, “does make perfect.” Then she crossed her legs and smiled at Kade who acknowledged her praise with a grin.

  Willa arched a brow. “And you two got to talk business?”

  “Willa,” her father sounded rueful, “mix us a couple of drinks.”

  “Margarita?” Willa asked Shana. “I know Dad will have one. You?”

  “No, thank you,” Shana refused politely. “I don’t drink before sundown.”

  Sam hooted. “Well, Shana, in this part of Texas, that means you’re not drinking until after nine. Too long to wait for me. Mix us up some margaritas, Wil.”

  Willa turned her attention to Kade. “Lemonade, still, for you, Kade?”

  “Yep, thanks, Willa.”

  “Oh, come on, Kade.”

  Her father glared at her. “Willa, you heard the man. If he doesn’t want to drink, so be it.”

  Her resentment of her father and Kade hardened her fine features. “Sure.” She turned on her heel and walked toward the built-in bar that commanded the entire wall of the living room.

  “First time in west Texas, Shana?” Sam sat back in his own leather chair.

  “No. I was born in Marathon near Big Bend but grew up in Uvalde County, in fact.”

  “Is that right?” Sam got a kick out of that.

  Kade laughed. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  You didn’t give me time. She grinned at him then Sam. “Yes, I went to high school there.” She was happy to break the ice talking about what had become a very happy four years. “My aunt and uncle took me in after my parents died. They raised Angus, lik
e you.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Sam laughed. “You know any of this?” he asked Kade.

  “No, sir. First time I’m hearing it all. And so I would guess this means you’ve been to lots of rodeos?” Kade prodded.

  She was tickled to reveal more. “Been a competitor, too.”

  Kade arched both brows. “Is that right.”

  Sam chuckled. “What as? Rodeo Queen, I bet.”

  “Once,” she admitted. “But twice, I was the barrel-racing queen of the Uvalde Country Fair.”

  The men slapped their thighs.

  Willa chimed in with, “So this qualifies you to do public relations and improve our rodeo?”

  Shana fought the impulse to ask this petulant child where her manners were.

  “Willa,” her father scolded with a low tone, “do hurry up with those drinks, and just listen, will you?”

  Shana had the need to counter Willa’s charge and establish her credibility. “I went to UT in Austin with a major in communications, worked for a newspaper for about a year then went to Wentworth and Associates more than three years ago. Yes, I am new at what I do, but I do know the rodeo. Well. My uncle competed for a few years before he quit. And my dad, too, before he died.” She considered her hands in her lap for a moment. She hadn’t spoken of her father in years. More than a decade.

  She felt Kade’s eyes on her for a long minute. Then he said, “Well, I am really pleased to hear this. Now that really helps with what you are going to do for us.”

  Sam looked at him, confused. “Is she? You made her an offer?”

  Kade shook his head. “No, Sam. She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.” Then he gave him the details.

  Sam’s black brows knit together as he accepted his margarita from his daughter. “That’s mighty generous, Shana. Why?”

  “Thank you, Willa.” She took her lemonade from the tray then looked Sam in the eye and gave him everything in her arsenal. “I want this job. I can do it. I can do it for a sum that you can afford. There is no one who can do it for a comparable fee and bring you the kind of results I can in a limited time period.”

  “Well!” Sam widened his eyes. “Guess that says it all.”

  She took a sip then put her drink down on the coffee table in front of her. “Except for one thing.”

  “Which is?”

  Kade flinched.

  Shana sat forward. “One of the reasons I’m going to be able to help you build this rodeo in less than a year is because our events department has strong relationships with three major talents who can be your headliners.”

  Sam cursed beneath his breath. “I will not do this. I told you, Kade, none of this.”

  “Hear me out, Sam,” Shana insisted.

  “No.” Sam almost spit out the word.

  “For your opening, I have Kylee Farrell.”

  Sam vaulted to his feet. “But I won’t have her.”

  Willa stared at her father’s back as he walked toward the window, bewildered at his reaction.

  Shana swallowed her trepidation, this one piece vital to their quick success. “She wants to come, Sam. I never invited her. She volunteered. In fact, she demanded that Jeff Wentworth write her in.”

  “She did, eh? Well, good of her,” Sam rasped. “But I don’t want her.”

  “Daddy,” Willa cooed. “Not want Kylee Farrell! How could you not? She is the hottest thing on the circuit.”

  “Leave it alone, Willa,” he warned.

  “Why?” Willa persisted and got no response from her father.

  Shana licked her lips. “Sam. I don’t know why Kylee insisted she do this. I didn’t ask her, and I didn’t ask Jeff. I just know they grew up together in Abilene, she came to see him one day when she was in town and he happened to tell her we were bidding on this project for you. Kylee is asking for only one-tenth of the ticket price for her one performance. She’s also asking for accommodations in town for that night. We could not ask for a bigger name, Sam. Couldn’t want for a better financial split. And if you don’t want her, we won’t be able to find anyone of her caliber to fill the spot. Not on such short notice and not for such a small share of the take. Money is money, Sam.” She’d get him where he lived with that. “And I do hear you are a man who knows money.”

  When he turned, his face was harder than rock, his eyes a shade of hell.

  Shana continued with her biggest reason. “Kylee’s appearance would make the difference between Hayward Rodeo’s success and Hayward Rodeo’s instant huge success.”

  Sam cursed under his breath.

  The silent room seemed hollow.

  “So Sam,” Kade interjected, matter-of-factly, “that means there’s only one thing left to do.”

  Sam set his jaw. “Yeah? Tell me.”

  Kade grinned. “Let Kylee come. Just stay away from her.”

  “Easy to say.”

  Kade stared at him. “What’s it worth to you to forbid her to come? Thousands of dollars you won’t earn or Kylee’s reaction to your rejection—a rejection that you will never see?”

  Sam grumbled over that for long minutes. “You two caught me between my damn money and a hard place.” He gazed at Shana. “Where’s your contract?”

  * * * *

  “Oh, thank you for that, Kade!” Shana beamed at him as he climbed in his seat, put up his hat and slammed closed the truck door. “He never would have come along unless you’d found a way.”

  “You’re welcome, honey, but what I suggested wasn’t brain surgery. I know Sam’s hardheaded, but when you’re talking money, Sam always wants a way to win. Plus this thing with Kylee, well, it’s complicated.”

  She squeezed his arm, ecstatic she was hired, officially. “You’re the magician who got him to sign.”

  Kade turned the ignition. “Not hard to do.” He traced a finger down her cheek as he spun to back the truck out of the driveway. “But whatever happened between him and Kylee was explosive.” He pulled out onto the main road, frowning. “As far as I can tell, it happened more than a decade ago, too, but Sam has never let it go.”

  Shana didn’t want to probe. She had enough of her own history she didn’t talk about, let alone prying into someone else’s. Still, the fact that Sam could hang on to anger for ten years upset her and reminded her that Kade, if he knew who she really was, might carry a grudge bigger than Sam’s. With one difference. “Sam loved her badly.”

  “Yeah, plain as the nose on his face, isn’t it? From what I can piece together, his wife had been dead quite a few years when he met Kylee. Fast love affair, so say a few folks in town. Anyway, Sam loved her more than a lot. And she walked out on him. Don’t know what or how. But she left, no explanations. Few people have ever stepped on Sam’s toes and lived to tell the tale.”

  “Willa doesn’t seem to know what it was.” Shana scolded herself at the mention of the young woman, whose immature possessiveness of Kade had riled her so that she’d vowed not to bring her up.

  “Willa thinks she knows more than she does—and she’s always surprised when the world doesn’t turn precisely the way she expected.”

  Shana stared straight ahead, refusing to ask anything about his involvement with Willa. Just because I’ve made love with this man three times today does not mean I have the right to ask anything about a woman who obviously cares for him.

  Kade took Shana’s hand. “Shall I tell you about Willa and me?”

  “No, you don’t have to.”

  “How about if I want to?”

  Shana shook her head. “You don’t owe me, Kade. But yes, I’d like to hear.”

  They were approaching the turnoff to his house, headed back toward Main Street

  and the B&B, but he pulled over into a grove of live oaks and pampas grass. In the leafy seclusion, he parked and put his arms around her shoulders. “Look at me, Shana. There. God, I love your blue eyes, honey. Don’t be sad or mad or jealous. Truth is, Willa has dreams that aren’t gonna come true. Ever since I got here, she’s set her sig
hts on me, and I am not a man to be led. Besides, she is just not my type. She’s too bossy. She’s too spoiled. And the owner’s daughter.”

  “She’s lovely.”

  Kade moved closer, thumbing her lower lip. “Not as lovely as you, darlin’.”

  Shana took that compliment with a tiny smile. “She’s determined.”

  “She’s not sweet. Not honest.”

  Shana froze. I’m not honest.

  “What’s more, she’s never moved me like you do.”

  Shana tilted her head to one side. “Why is that, I wonder?” she whispered in awe.

  “Our electricity, honey. It just is what it is,” he explained against her ear. Then he pulled away and looked down at her. “What other kinds of reasons do I need to list for you, Shana?”

  “No. But you must have dated other women,” she trailed off.

  “Others who have tried to tie me down? Is that what you’re asking?” he persisted, chuckling under his breath. “Well, hell, yes. What of it?” He spoke on her lips and ran one of his hands up into her hair, wrecking her ponytail. “Tell me you don’t like my kisses.” He took her mouth and claimed it all with a spearing tongue. “Tell me you don’t want my hands all over you.” He cupped one breast and rubbed her nipple with one demanding thumb. “Tell me you don’t want me inside you, here, riding you long and hard.” He thrust his hand between her legs, and she felt her pussy become drenched in new desire for him.

  “Oh, I do! I just need to know what to do about Willa.”

  He hooted. “Ignore her. She’s such a baby.”

  “I’m not much older,” she pointed out.

  “But more mature. And sad, too. I want to learn how that happened. Long talks and long nights, loving you.” Kade reared back and took a gander at her through narrowed eyes. “Okay, I see I need to ask. So how old are you?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “A mere child,” he feigned distress.

  Ten years younger than you. She cuffed him. “And Willa?”

  “Twenty-one, maybe. Hell, I don’t know. Whatever she is, she’s not for me. She’s got no soul.”

  “How do you know I do?” Shana shot back, partly amused but damn frightened to hear how she differed from the rich belle of the county.