Ride 'Em (A Giddyup Novel)

by Delphine Dryden

  “I just don’t have time to eat.” It was the airy stock response she always gave. Everyone said it, nobody meant it. In her world, the statement was code for I count every calorie, and spend an hour a day at the gym or in spin class. I have nightmares about hidden carbohydrates. I would kill somebody for a truly guilt-free piece of chocolate cake.

  “That’s a shame.” In Lamar’s world, apparently it just meant you didn’t have time to eat. “You’ll eat good here, Robert knows what he’s doing in the kitchen. And you’ll have time. Enough to do some riding, too. I can see you’re rusty.”

  “I haven’t been on a horse since the summer before I left for college. I’m lucky I didn’t just fall right off,” she joked.

  She was also rusty with the tack, apologizing to Lamar and Poppy several times in the course of unsaddling as she flipped straps the wrong way and dropped things everywhere. What had once been second nature now felt as awkward as toddling. By the time she slipped the reins back on their hook in the tack room, she felt curiously exhausted.

  Lamar was quick to reassure her. “You’ll pick it back up. By the end of the week you’ll be helping me give the lessons again.”

  Mindy laughed, recalling all the times she’d helped Lamar and his wife at their boarding stables near her home, giving lessons to younger kids in between training sessions. She’d ridden Western and English dressage back then, back before high school. Before cheerleading and unexpected popularity had siphoned away her free time, and her parents began to push so hard to move away from Bolero. At one point in seventh grade or so, she was sure she and her horse, Jimbo, were destined for international competition, with Lamar as her coach all the way. That seemed like another life entirely now. She’d heard her father had sold Jimbo to some family with a little girl.

  “You and Margaret still have the stables?”

  The old man tugged at his beard. “Naw, we sold out a couple years ago. Bewliss owns it now. Along with about half the property on Jackson Street. But his daughter, Jane, is doing a good job running it, and she has some good folks giving the lessons. Not too bad.”

  “Mr. Bewliss . . . he isn’t still the mayor, is he?”

  “Who else? Nobody but him wants the job.”

  “Jeez. Things really are just the same.”

  “They get more the same every year,” Lamar agreed with a snort. “Maybe you should head into town some time this week, see for yourself.”

  Mindy shrugged, noncommittal. She might drive into town—some time when she wasn’t trying to talk herself into doing the job she’d come here for. “We’ll see.”

  “You’re wasting your time, you know.”

  She was startled enough to stop in her tracks for a second. Lamar kept on walking, and she trotted after him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me, missy. Logan may not know who the Valek girl ended up going to work for, but I sure do. It’s a small town, and your daddy’s people are still from here, even if your daddy moved away and left you and your momma high and dry. We still get the gossip. I’m happy to see you again, but if that’s your plan for the whole week—nagging my boss about a mineral lease—then you might as well grab your bags and head on out right now, ’cause it ain’t happenin’. Ain’t nobody gonna talk Logan into selling away them rights.” His tone was sympathetic, even if his words were harsh.

  “It’s not nagging. It’s negotiation, and it’s what I do for a living.” It was at least what she hoped to do for a living, even if she wasn’t quite there yet. And damn the tiny town grapevine. “And a lease isn’t a sale.” This was technically true—although in Texas, once those rights were leased away and oil exploration started, they were nearly always gone for good in practice. Especially if the exploration was successful.

  Lamar shot her a look full of subtext she didn’t want to read. “Suit yourself, then. Guess you’ve changed, after all. Have a good night, Miss Mindy.” It was clearly a dismissal.

  “Oh. Well, you, too, Lamar.” After another few steps, she stopped and let him go on without her.

  He was clear of the stable yard before she allowed herself to acknowledge what was about to happen. He was going to tell Logan. She’d missed her window. Now Logan would be suspicious of her motives—rightly so—and she’d never even get the chance to sell him on the benefits of a deal. She’d lost, because she hadn’t even realized the game had started long before she stepped foot on the ranch.

  Should she have tried to deny it? Claimed that the reasons she’d given Logan for her stay here—which were, after all, completely true—were the complete truth?

  And not only had she screwed up, but she’d gambled a sizable chunk of her savings to pay for this now-pointless “vacation.” Almost a month’s rent, or a few months’ worth of car payments. If she lost the job, though, that month or so of extra cushion really wouldn’t help her much anyway. Or so she tried to tell herself, since she was stuck here now either way.

  Fuck. Stuck, and kind of lost. She should have gotten directions from Lamar. Now she wasn’t even sure which way her cabin was.

  Trying to get her bearings, she turned in a slow half circle, taking in the distant barn and stable buildings, the wide lawn and scattered trees in front of the main house . . . and yes, the head of the gravel path that led down the hillside and off toward the guest cabins. Everything was lit in shades of rose gold, as the sun melted into the hilltops. The breeze carried a hint of something sweet and spicy, magnolia maybe, and the soft churring symphony of the evening creatures was tuning up. Despite those noises, it was quiet, so quiet—a deep-in-the-bone stillness that Dallas could never offer her.

  Mindy shook her head and cast off the spell of the sunset. She made herself move, setting out for her cabin to get a flashlight before she returned to the main house for dinner. Her practical, analytical mind told her she was too young to be sentimental, and reminded her that even if she lost her job, she’d find another one in Dallas because it was the land of opportunity. Bolero, conversely, was the armpit of Texas, and she’d been thrilled to get out.

  Her senses, meanwhile, rejoiced in coming home.

  * * *

  Logan wanted to punch something.

  Jameson. He wanted to punch Bud fucking Jameson, for spoiling his mood and sending his luscious lackey to spy. If it hadn’t been for Jameson, Logan wouldn’t have seen Mindy Valek again, wouldn’t have thought there was a spark there, wouldn’t have made an idiot of himself staring at her like a lovestruck schoolboy.

  Wouldn’t have entertained the notion that she might be staring back. Wouldn’t have ever seen her ass, much less gotten fixated on the idea of taking his hand—or a paddle, or maybe even a bullwhip—to it.

  What the hell was he thinking? He should have suspected something was up from the first moment he recognized her. A girl like that didn’t come to a dude ranch for a vacation, especially not alone. Former homecoming queens came back to town in state, guest-starring at people’s baby showers and holding court at class reunions. They didn’t need to sneak into the outskirts of town and hide out on a guest ranch, riding horses and shooting guns for a week. There were horses and shooting ranges in Dallas, if Mindy really wanted to do those things.

  Of course, there had been horses and ranges in Houston, too, but here Logan was. Almost out of money, certainly out of his depth. But strangely enjoying himself despite the tension. He wanted the ranch to work out, and today he’d actually felt for a time like it might after all. He’d liked meeting the guests, making them comfortable. He was looking forward to the week, getting to know these folks and helping them find things to do with their time at the ranch. He’d been nervous, but it felt right all the same, greeting the little crowd and giving them the rundown. Orchestrating things. It had been fun.

  Until Lamar had broken the news that Mindy Valek was an agent of the devil.

  Logan didn’t know why she’d bothered to lie about it, to pretend she was here for a vacation. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got
at that part. Jameson had obviously gotten tired of the runaround on the phone and sent somebody to confront Logan in person. Somebody who seemed ideal for sweet-talking Logan into this scheme. What would she have told her boss? That Logan Hill was the dweeb who used to tutor her in math? That she could have him eating out of the palm of her hand?

  The cynic in him wondered how far she’d intended to go to secure the deal. Flirting? Seduction? Maybe he should milk the situation a little before flat-out telling her it was a waste of her time. He’d come into his own now, figured his shit out, and he was no slouch at mind games; he could have had little Mindy eating out of the palm of his hand if he’d wanted to, even without the overtly kinky stuff that would no doubt horrify her.

  “Who am I kidding?” Logan mumbled, jerking the refrigerator door open and extracting a frosty longneck. People didn’t do that sort of thing. He didn’t do that sort of thing. The cynic in him existed, but it was a puny thing, easily overwhelmed by the manners and values instilled in him since birth. Besides, he was a Dom, not a pickup artist. Mindy might be a manipulative liar, but that didn’t mean she was a tramp bent on sleeping her way into business deals. And even if she was intent on that, it didn’t mean Logan was ever going to take advantage of it. Of her.

  Even if it had been a while. Far too long, in fact. Months. Jesus.

  He took a long pull off his beer and thought about Allison, his ex-girlfriend, currently on a cruise in the Bahamas with the guy she’d started seeing after she left Logan. She’d thought the whole guest-ranch scheme was insane, and she’d told him so. The lack of support had come at the worst possible time; their breakup after that conversation would have been inevitable even if she hadn’t been stuck in Houston for her job. Not that he’d asked her to come to Bolero with him; he’d never even considered that. But he would have been fine with a long-distance relationship. Except it wouldn’t have lasted long, anyway, because he and Allison were already nearly at the end. Knowing that didn’t make the end any easier, though. She hadn’t just scoffed at the plan, she’d scoffed at Logan, calling him a loser and an idiot.

  Logan realized soon after she left that Allison had always been kind of a bitch, and that she’d been unpleasantly inclined to top from the bottom. Not that she’d necessarily been wrong about the relative sanity of the scheme to start the ranch back up. And she’d almost certainly been right to assess his use of his life savings for this purpose as less than wise. But she’d been, to his mind, needlessly blunt in her response. He’d seen that quality in her before, but it was different being on the receiving end of it in a non-sexual context.

  Allison would definitely call him some choice names for refusing to even discuss a mineral lease with Bud Jameson. It was money on the table, there for the taking, and all he had to do was sign away some rights to parts of his land he never saw anyway. Except that he would see it being wrecked when the oil company inevitably used those “sub-surface” rights to destroy the land in their quest to get at the black gold underneath. He knew exactly what the land was worth, and what would happen to it . . . though he was glad Mindy had no idea just how well he knew. Glad he hadn’t told her what kind of engineer he was: a petroleum engineer. God only knew who Jameson would’ve sent in her place if she’d reported back that little tidbit.

  Logan knew what drilling would do to the place, because he’d been around it all his professional life. Fracking would be even worse, if they went that route. He didn’t want that to happen to his own land. Even so, from a partial lease the money could help keep him afloat awhile longer. He’d given a lot of thought to leasing.

  Not to Jameson, though, who’d taken an all-or-nothing approach to every offer he’d made Logan, and who’d made it clear he would keep hammering away until Logan cracked. And he wouldn’t lease to anybody who worked for Jameson, no matter how perky her boobs were, no matter how rounded her ass. No matter how bright a toothpaste-commercial smile she flashed his way. No matter how sweetly she wrapped her plush, curvy lips around his—

  “ ’Bout ready for dinner, sir?”

  Robert’s entrance broke Logan’s train of thought and deflated his unfortunate response to the unexpectedly vivid image he’d been conjuring.

  “Sure, let’s get it set out. And remember, cool it with the ‘sir.’ This isn’t the club or a leather household. ‘Boss’ will do just fine.”

  Robert grinned and fluttered his startlingly long lashes. “I’ll do my best . . . boss. But old habits, and all that.”

  “Consider it an order.”

  “Ooh, hot. I always did yearn for you to give me orders, s—boss.”

  Robert knew he wasn’t Logan’s type, but Logan didn’t mind the teasing. His Domly ego enjoyed a little unrequited adulation now and then, regardless of the source. If only Robert’s demure eyelash-flickering didn’t recall an almost identical look from a certain strawberry-haired princess earlier.

  Logan grimaced and adjusted his jeans once the cook’s back was turned. He couldn’t seem to help himself where Mindy Valek was concerned. Even after all these years, just thinking about her still gave him an almost instant boner. It had been horrific in high school, the stealthy dance of arousal and secrecy he and so many other guys played in the halls and under their desks, particularly on game days when the cheerleaders wore their uniforms to class. Oh, the lurid classroom-set spanking fantasies of his high school days! He had more control now, but not nearly as much as he’d thought.

  Logan helped lay out the settings on the long farmhouse table that had been in the dining room since the early days of his grandparents’ marriage. The guests started to arrive, and he put his raconteur smile back on for the duration. Each flap and clap of the front screen door opening and closing drew Logan’s eyes to the end of the dining room. When he realized he was waiting for Mindy to arrive, he forced her out of his mind and focused on the business at hand. He had a whole week to address that other business. And address it he most certainly would.

  Chapter Four

  She hadn’t anticipated a roommate.

  Apparently the spider hadn’t anticipated Mindy, either. It had retreated to the corner of its enormous web when Mindy breezed into the cabin, and now they were simply staring at each other, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

  Or at least Mindy thought the spider was staring at her. It was hard to tell with spiders. Even one as big as this one.

  It was an orb weaver, she knew that much. Its web spanned one corner of the bedroom ceiling in an elegant sweep, looking for all the world like a Halloween decoration. The spider looked like one, too. It was nearly as big as her hand, with striking black markings on its leg joints. There were already a few mosquitos trapped in the web.

  “Where’s a broom when you need one? Or a vacuum cleaner?”

  The spider didn’t answer. Mindy pulled out her phone and found just enough signal to search the internet. Yes, it was an orb weaver. No, it wasn’t likely to bite her. It would probably just stay in its web over in the far corner, gorging itself on mosquitos, which would then not have the opportunity to suck her blood.

  “Okay,” she conceded. “You can stay. But only because I don’t have a good way to kill you without you falling down on my head. And only because you didn’t build the damn web right over the bed. Smart spider.”

  Aside from the unexpected additional occupant, the cabin was nicer than she’d expected. Rustic log walls appeared worse for the wear outside, but were smoothed and nicely weatherproofed inside. It wasn’t quite hot enough yet to make the window unit air conditioner a necessity, but at least there was one. The mattress on the queen-size bed was nicely made, the bed linens fine hotel quality. All the rough-hewn log furniture was meticulously cleaned and dusted, and the few accent pieces in the room were charming. A vase from a local pottery, a pair of watercolors of San Antonio landmarks. Even the towels in the tiny bathroom were thick and soft, and there was a basket of toiletries on the counter, also from local companies.

  Al
l in all, it seemed like a lovely place to spend a week of vacation. In other circumstances she thought she’d really enjoy it. She unpacked her things, laid her cosmetics out in the bathroom, and reminded herself that the trip was an investment in her future career.

  She’d intended to head for the main house for dinner after she’d unpacked, but once outside the cabin, her feet took her back to the stable. A few solar lights were staked around, and she hoped they’d be enough to help her navigate back to the cabin once full dark fell. She was hungry after the afternoon’s exercise, the long drive—the general stress of the day. For the moment, though, she was more in need of another taste of the stable’s comfort: the familiar, hazy smell of horse and hay and . . . home.

  Poppy accepted the handful of sweet feed Mindy grabbed from a bin near the main door. The horse’s long, elegant face was shadowed, nearly black in the gathering gloom. Mindy wondered if lights for the stable were on the to-do list, or if Logan planned to keep things as dark as possible. A break, for his guests, from the light pollution of Texas’s cities and seemingly endless suburbs.

  “Come for the horseback riding, stay for the view of the Milky Way,” she murmured to Poppy. Her voice sounded harsh and out of place against the almost-disquieting stillness, and a prickling sensation ran up her spine, prompting her to glance over her shoulder in age-old instinct. Nobody was there. Just more horses, neatly stabled, innocently browsing for scraps in their feed bins.

  It’s quiet. Too quiet.

  She thought about every horror movie she’d ever seen, and recognized that if she were in one of them, this would be the scene where the insane killer ambushed her in the barn with a pitchfork.

  Across the aisle, one of the horses snorted and twitched at a fly, the stamp and swish filling the dead air in a comforting way. Mindy shook her head at her own foolishness, and proceeded into Poppy’s stall with a curry comb. As she passed the bristles over the dark hair, Mindy mused on the power of guilt to mess with a person’s mind.