Cowboy Up

by Stacy Finz

  The exposed ceiling beams were freshly stained in a clear varnish, the pine floors polished to a high sheen, the kitchen cabinets painted in a shade of green Cash had never seen before. A cowhide rug anchored the living room where two sofas faced each other and a large antler chandelier hung over the coffee table. There were drapes on the windows, paintings on the walls, and pictures on the fireplace mantel.

  She laughed at his expression of awe. “This is what I do for a living.”

  “You’re good. I don’t know anything about interior design, but I know you’re good.”

  She laughed again, a musical sound that was the nicest thing he’d heard in a long time. Except for Ellie’s giggle that morning. The sound of it had hit him in the gut like a cannonball.

  “Spread the word, because it appears I’ve been blacklisted by my old clients.”

  “Blacklisted?” He pushed aside a couple of the colorful pillows on Aubrey’s couch and made himself at home. She had one of those window fans going, and the cool air was a welcome relief from the triple-digit temperature. He tilted his head and rested it on the back of the couch, taking a second to enjoy the breeze. The couch was comfortable and the cabin was a nice respite from his clutter. He just wanted to sit and take it all in. “Why’s that?”

  She huffed out a breath. “Mitch.”

  “Because he thinks you left him for Jace?”

  She was quiet for a minute. “He knows I didn’t leave him for Jace. He knows Jace and I aren’t together. But he believes spreading rumors about us helps him save face.”

  “Save face because you dumped him?” It seemed extreme to Cash, not to mention a shitty thing to do to your best friend, but some guys didn’t take rejection well, he supposed.

  “It’s a long story.”

  She clearly didn’t want to talk about it and Cash was only too happy to avoid the topic. He tried to steer away from other people’s love lives whenever possible, though he did admit being mildly curious. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was a natural-born investigator or because Aubrey intrigued him.

  In any event, it was easier not to get involved. He had enough swirling around in his own head. His grandfather’s death, the Presidio murders, and losing his job. And Ellie. But it stuck in his craw that Jace was the innocent party here and the rumors could hurt his bid for reelection.

  Cash would have to ask his cousin later why Mitch had dragged Jace into his and Aubrey’s breakup. In the meantime, he continued to check out Aubrey’s place, finding something new to look at with every glance. He’d never cared much about his living spaces, viewing them as just a place to lay his head. If they were clean, with fresh sheets on the bed, he was content. But he was impressed with the way Aubrey had transformed the cabin.

  “You’ve only lived here a few weeks.” Before she’d moved in, it had been in as bad a condition as his. Maybe worse.

  She sat across from him, and he forced his eyes away from her legs. Long, lean, and tan. The denim shorts she wore weren’t what he would call Daisy Dukes, but they had his attention just the same.

  “I got sort of manic about it,” she said, her eyes taking a turn around the front room. “And I’ve had a lot of free time on my hands.”

  Yeah, he could identify with that. Though he’d spent his drinking and plinking.

  Despite resembling a spread in one of the home magazines his mother collected, the rooms were accessible. He could live here without being afraid to touch anything. It wasn’t a museum. “It’s remarkable.”

  “Thank you.” She beamed, and the way her face lit up, the way her green eyes sparkled, had more of his attention.

  Damn, she was beautiful.

  And he needed to get out of here before he did something stupid. “Shall we get the rollers?”

  He rose, waiting for her to point him in the right direction for the rest of the supplies. She clearly had no idea of the effect she was having on him. Cash told himself he’d gone too long without a woman, that was all. Still, for the first time since the Presidio case, he was thinking about sex, which should be the last thing on his mind in the middle of decorating his twelve-year-old’s bedroom.

  “They’re in here.” She led him to a storage closet in the hallway.

  Once they returned to Ellie’s room, she gave him instructions on how to prep the walls for priming. He found a ladder in the shed and hauled it into the house.

  “You know, it wouldn’t take all that much to fix up the rest of the cabin.” Aubrey stood below the ladder as he filled holes with spackle.

  “One room at a time.” He had to conserve his money until he found work. Besides, as soon as he persuaded Jace and Sawyer to sell, he and Ellie would be moving on.

  “Okay, but I’ve got ideas.”

  He leaned down from the ladder. “Like what?” He was interested to hear what she would do with the place. If he hadn’t seen her cabin, he wouldn’t believe there was any help for his.

  “I’d paint your kitchen cabinets like I did mine.”

  “What’s wrong with my cabinets?” He patched another hole, dabbing spackle in with his finger.

  “They’re great if you’re nostalgic for the eighties.”

  “Hand me one of those rags.” She bent down and her shorts rode up. And despite himself, he stared.

  “I’d paint them blue.” Aubrey handed him up one of the cloths she’d brought. “Not sky blue, something deeper but not quite navy. Then I’d replace the tile countertops with a solid surface.”

  It sounded expensive to Cash. “What about the floor?” he asked, merely to hear her talk. She had a nice voice, sort of husky.

  “Refinish ’em.”

  “Is that what you did to yours?”

  “I just gave mine a light sanding and a coat of polyurethane. That’s what I’d do to yours.”

  He could do that himself. “Not a bad idea. Painting the cabinets…I’m not too sure about, though I liked yours.”

  “It changed the whole kitchen. Your living room just needs new furniture and maybe some window treatments. That’s all.”

  “Maybe,” he said and got down from the ladder so he could move it to the other wall.

  “I think it would be good for Ellie if you made the place a bit homier, don’t you think?”

  He climbed up again. “I’m not sure we’re staying.” Cash didn’t want to go into details. The last thing he needed was everyone in Dry Creek thinking they were selling the ranch, which they weren’t. Yet.

  “No? Why’s that?”

  She was a nosy little thing. “At some point I have to start working again. Dry Creek doesn’t have a lot of options jobwise.”

  “Tell me about it. Sounds like we’re in similar situations.”

  Except she had a vocation. He had to find one. Law enforcement was out of the question. “Why don’t you go out on your own? What do you need Reynolds Construction for?”

  “I don’t. But Mitch has a lot of influence in this area. I’ve already had a couple of cancellations because of him.”

  “The rumors will die down, don’t you think?” He finished the wall he was working on and moved to the next one.

  “Hopefully, but maybe not soon enough for me to support myself.”

  “You got this job.” Not that his measly two thousand bucks would go far. He grinned to let her know that he knew the bedroom assignment was peanuts in the scheme of things. Now, if he gave her the rest of the cabin to decorate, it might be helpful. The question was, to whom? He’d be lying if he said he didn’t like looking at her. She was a nice distraction from everything else going on in his life. She was also a distraction he didn’t need.

  “One more wall and we’ve got the spackling covered.”

  She nodded. “We can have it primed today, and in this heat, it’ll dry quickly and we can do at least one coat of white before I start taping
off the stripes.”

  Cash stared at the wall where the stripes were going. “I’m not exactly seeing your vision for that, but you’re the expert.”

  Her mouth curved up like he was being a typical guy. “When it’s finished you’ll love it, you’ll see.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” Pink and white stripes weren’t his thing, but if they were Ellie’s, he was happy. “What’s important is that Ellie loves it.”

  “She will. I have yet to disappoint any of the children of my clients.” She helped him move the ladder to the last wall. “She looks like you.”

  “You think?” People kept saying that, but he suspected she looked more like Marie, though she did have the Dalton blue eyes. “She seems small to me. You think she’s small for her age?”

  “I just think she’s petite. Was her mother petite?”

  Cash shook his head. “Tall, medium build. My mother’s small, though.”

  “What about her family?”

  “Don’t know. Marie and I hardly knew each other. I never met any of her people.”

  “Did you keep in touch over the years?”

  “No. I didn’t even know I had a daughter until Marie called me a few weeks ago. She was dying and needed to resolve Ellie’s future. That’s when she told me.” He didn’t know why he was sharing such deeply personal information with her. He supposed it was because she’d been so free in discussing Mitch.

  “That had to have been…complicated,” she said.

  “The situation or the conversation?”

  “Both.”

  “Yep.” He was still grappling with the fallout. Anger, denial, and fear continued to hit him in waves. “Under better circumstances, the conversation might’ve gone differently. But it seemed wrong to lay into a woman with stage four breast cancer. Marie had suffered enough.”

  Aubrey reached over and touched his arm. “I can understand why you would be angry. Anyone would be if they were kept from their child. I guess the fact that she was on her deathbed made her want to clear her conscience.”

  “Probably,” he said. “Unfortunately, Ellie is the one to suffer. She’s living with a stranger now, a stranger she’s afraid of. My whole adult life I’ve lived to protect and serve, and my own daughter is afraid of me.”

  “Nah.” Aubrey shook her head. “She’s a kid in completely new surroundings. Her mother’s gone and she feels alone. That’s what it is. Try not to take it personally.”

  He gave a humorless laugh and climbed the ladder. “Working on it.”

  Around one, they stopped for a lunch break, and Cash went to the kitchen to fix them sandwiches. “Turkey or ham?”

  “Uh, turkey, please.”

  “You want avocado?”

  “Hell yeah, I want avocado.” She came around the counter to help. “You have a well-stocked pantry.” As soon as the words left her mouth, her face flushed.

  He cocked his brows. “You think so?” She’d gotten a look at the full monty, after all, and he wanted to rub it in.

  “Your kitchen.” She elbowed him in the arm. “So you can get over yourself.”

  By three, they had the room primed, working well as a team. They stood back to appraise the job they’d done. Just that little bit of primer and already the room seemed cheerier, less dingy. Cash eyed Aubrey, wondering if she still wanted to paint and tape off the stripes. The afternoon sun beat down on the cabin, making it steamy as a sauna.

  “Come here.” Cash crooked his finger at her. “You’ve got paint on you.” He took a lock of her hair and wiped away a smudge of white.

  “Is it gone?”

  Slowly, he let a few silky strands sift through his fingers. So soft. “Yeah, I think so,” he said, and she looked up at him, her eyes widening a little. He bent lower, wanting so much to taste her lips.

  A car door slammed, and he abruptly pulled away.

  Chapter 6

  Travis and Grady’s dad told her she should call him Uncle Jace, but she didn’t want to. He wasn’t even really her uncle, just a distant cousin. What did Sawyer call it? First cousin once removed. Whatever that was. She didn’t exactly know how she was related to Travis and Grady either. But they all kind of looked the same, except she was a girl and they had darker hair than hers. They were nice, though, even if Grady talked too much.

  The whole time they were out on the boat, Grady made duck noises until Jace told him he was scaring away the fish. They all caught a fish, even her. But Jace said hers was too small to keep and threw it back in the water. She was sort of glad because a) it was gross, and b) the poor fish didn’t deserve to die.

  Jace caught two big ones and Travis a medium-sized one, and they were going to eat them for dinner, which sounded disgusting.

  “Tell Cash we’re eating at five,” Jace called out his truck window.

  “Okay.” She started for the porch, then turned around and shouted, “Thank you for taking me fishing.” It’s what her mom would’ve wanted her to say, because it was bad manners not to. But she had had a good time on the lake.

  It was something she could add to her bucket list before she went back to Boston. Fishing.

  Tomorrow, if Travis and Grady’s babysitter said it was okay, they were going to ride horses. That was pretty much her favorite thing to do in the world. Her mother had worked an extra job doing off-duty security for some rich lady so she could afford Ellie’s stable and riding fees. Troubadour hadn’t been hers, but she’d gotten to ride him whenever she wanted, including in equestrian events. Now, someone else would get him.

  “Hey.” Her father came out onto the front porch. “You have fun?”

  “I guess. They want us to come over for dinner at five. Fish.” She made a face.

  “That sounds nice, I mean, besides the fish part.” He grinned at her like he was the funniest guy in the world, which he wasn’t. “You want to see what Aubrey and I have been doing?”

  Not really, but she followed him inside anyway. Aubrey was in the hovel, otherwise known as Ellie’s bedroom, painting the walls white.

  Aubrey straightened up and stretched her back, and Ellie caught her father checking out Aubrey’s boobs. Ew.

  “What do you think so far?” Aubrey asked.

  Ellie looked around the room and had to admit it looked brighter. It smelled better too, like paint instead of moldy yuckiness. “It’s good.”

  “I’ll just finish up and get out of your hair,” she said, and Ellie wished she’d stay.

  But Aubrey finished the last section of wall, packed up her stuff, said she’d do the taping on Tuesday, and left.

  “You want to shower and change before we head over to Jace’s?”

  “I’m good.” The tub in the cabin gave Ellie the willies. There were spiders everywhere and the toilet didn’t flush right.

  “Okay. I’ll wash up and we can go. On the way over, you can tell me all about the fishing trip.”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” she said. If her mom was alive, she would’ve described to her the fish she caught and how Jace taught her how to bait a hook and cast a line. And how Travis had done a giant belly flop in the water.

  “You catch anything?”

  She hitched her shoulders. “We threw it back.”

  “You caught one your first time out? That’s great, Ellie.”

  God, he was such a phony. What did he care whether she caught a fish or not? She waited for him to leave her room and threw herself on the bed. It was hot and she was pretty sure she smelled like trout and lake water. Her mother would’ve made her bathe.

  She got up and found her suitcase in the closet. In the front compartment, she pulled out the pictures. The framed ones were coming with the boxes. But Linda had printed Ellie a few from her computer. She traced her mother’s face in the first photo with her finger. “I miss you, Mom. I miss you so much.”
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br />   As soon as she heard the water shut off in the bathroom, Ellie shoved the pictures under her pillow and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the new white walls.

  “You ready to go?”

  She scrambled to her feet and waited by the front door.

  “You sure you want to wear that sweater?”

  Could he just leave her alone about the sweater? He was so annoying. She nodded and hopped into the passenger side of his SUV.

  “Did you guys go for ice cream?”

  “Yes.” She’d gotten two scoops. Mint chip and strawberry.

  “Did Jace feed you any real food?”

  “We had sandwiches on the lake.”

  “That’s good. Do you like fish?”

  She scrunched up her nose. “Not really.”

  On Fridays at her school, they had a fish fry. She liked the breading, but everything else she left on her plate, even though Father John said it was wasteful.

  “Neither do Travis and Grady. Jace’ll make burgers on the grill. You like burgers?”

  She nodded. She wasn’t that picky, not like Mary Margaret O’Malley who had to become a vegan because she hated everything under the sun, even chocolate milk.

  When they pulled up to Travis and Grady’s house, the dogs started jumping on the truck, barking like crazy. She opened her door slowly, hoping they’d go away.

  “They won’t hurt you, Ellie. They’re all bark and no bite.” He came around to her side and lifted her out of the passenger seat.

  “I’m not a little kid.” She pulled away and went to the front door on her own.

  Grady let them in. “Hey, Uncle Cash.”

  “Hey, pardner. How was the fishing?”

  “Great. Ellie caught a baby fish and we had to throw it back.”

  “I heard. What about you?”

  “I didn’t get anything. Dad said it’s because I talk too much. We’re in the backyard.”

  They followed him through the house, to the kitchen, and out a side door to a big picnic table. There was a big rock fireplace and a built-in barbecue where Jace was cooking. Sawyer was there too. He waved and made room for them on the bench.