What the Bachelor Gets

by Kristina Knight

  It actually did make things simpler, because if the meeting went as Gage expected, he’d have plenty to do tonight without running back to the ranch to pick up Callie and then driving back into Vegas.

  “Great. You’re okay, Rollie?”

  Rollie waved them off, still mumbling about proper pets and rescue organizations, and adding in a few how-to-run-a-ranch barbs.

  When they were back in the truck, Callie asked about his meeting.

  “Buying an old dude ranch for development.” Gage realized how that must sound to Callie, especially since her father had sold their ranch to a developer just a few years before.

  “So you’re not just an angel, then?”

  Gage couldn’t resist shooting her a flirtatious look across the cab of his Escalade. “Oh, I’m an angel all right. But I’ve been called a devil, too.”

  She laughed. “I’ll just bet.” They drove a few more miles in comfortable silence. “So the property group?”

  “We want to create a green resort, eco-friendly and self-sustaining.”

  “You can call it whatever you want.” Callie folded her arms over her chest. “But the last thing the valley needs is another resort or more people trampling over the grounds.”

  “More people trampling over the grounds is exactly what your business needs. Tourists. Customers here on vacation.”

  “My business caters to people who are already here. Yours will bring in more and more every single day.”

  “They’d come with or without my buying the dude ranch.”

  “Really? Environmentally conscious people would come to one of the big hotels on the Strip? Hotels that use excess water and electricity just by being open?”

  Gage winced. “More people come to Vegas every year. This will give them an alternative, and it’s a start. As more green resorts open and the public demands the same amenities, the older hotels will follow suit.”

  “Or so you hope.” Callie shrugged.

  “Bet your ass.” He did hope. He more than hoped. Gage was leading by example—hadn’t he just rescued a coyote pup and promised to find it a safe place to live? When his father and grandfather had run the ranch, coyotes found on the property were immediately put down. Baby, adult, didn’t matter. Reeves Brothers Entertainment led by example, too, and if Callie didn’t believe him, it was her problem. The fact he wanted her to believe him caught Gage off guard. He hadn’t cared what anyone thought of him for as long as he could remember.

  They pulled into the town limits, and Gage made a left at the caution light. A few miles down the road, he made another left, onto a one-lane strip of dusty road leading into the desert. Over the ridge, the ranch house came into sight: a single story with a few dusty outbuildings nearby. A straight line of cabins sat back from the main house under a line of oak trees that offered shade from the harsh desert sun.

  The cabins would have to be completely renovated, but the thought was energizing rather than overwhelming. It had been quite a while since Gage undertook a project like this one.

  He stopped the Escalade and turned to Callie, but she seemed engrossed in her file folder. Besides, what was he going to say, “We’re here”? That was obvious from the stopping of the truck, so he merely left the vehicle running for Callie’s comfort and started for the front door.

  Walt Heck opened the door as Gage stepped onto the porch. “You’re almost late.”

  Gage glanced at his watch and pasted a charming smile on his face. “Made it with two minutes to spare. I remembered how curmudgeonly you are about time.”

  Walt belted out a harsh laugh that ended on a wheezy cough. “Curmudgeonly. That’s what Wanda called it, too. Come on in. Let’s talk about this resort you have planned for my ranch.”

  Fifteen minutes later, it was clear Walt was having second thoughts about selling his home. Gage couldn’t blame him. The old ranch might be on the dilapidated side now, but it was still a beautiful place. Surrounded by desert on all sides, the main buildings sat in a fertile circle ringed with trees and native grasses. It really would be the crown of his holdings. If he could get the man to sign.

  “People don’t come to Vegas to hike or enjoy the scenery, not anymore,” Walt said for the fourth or fifth time. “They come for the cheap drinks, the shows, and the gambling.”

  “Some come for those reasons. We want to bring more than gamblers to the area. Nevada has a lot to offer off the Strip.”

  The older man coughed again and then wiped his mouth with a tissue before sitting back in his weathered recliner. “But you’ll still have to develop the property.”

  “We will. The cabins need renovating. The main house, too. You built a good place here. I’ll be as environmentally conscious as I can with the renovations and new buildings. We’ll use reclaimed lumber as much as possible. I want to make this place great again, Walt.”

  The front door opened and closed as Callie came into the house. “I’m sorry. I … um. Could I possibly use your restroom?” She offered an embarrassed smile to Walt.

  Gage stood, leading her into the room. “Callie Holliday, meet Walt Heck, the owner of Heck’s Dude Ranch.”

  “Mr. Heck.” Callie held out her hand and gently shook the older man’s.

  “Callie and I rescued a coyote pup from a parking garage this morning.” Callie shot him an annoyed look, but before she could correct him, Gage went on. “We were just on our way back from setting the pup up at my family’s ranch, which is why I cut our meeting so close.”

  “Holliday. Harley’s girl?”

  Callie nodded, but the smile on her face looked fake. “He’s my dad.”

  “A good man. But even if he wasn’t I’d still let you use my facilities. Down the hall and on the right.”

  Callie disappeared into the corridor. Gage returned his focus to Walt.

  “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t all that thrilled about saving the coyote. They’re not good for ranches. Or city neighborhoods, for that matter. But I had to try.” He was surprised to find the words rang true. Sometime between wanting to leave the pup where they had found it and crating it up at the barn, Gage had changed his mind about the baby. He couldn’t leave it to die. “Just like I can’t promise your ranch will be the same place once we’re finished with development. But I can promise we will do everything we can to preserve the area.”

  Walt looked out the window, as if he saw something other than an empty, dusty ranch yard. For a long time he didn’t say anything. “I’m certainly not the man to bring this place back to life,” he finally said. “And Wanda wants it brought back to life.”

  Yes, Gage thought, giving himself a mental high five. Five minutes more and the papers would be signed and Reeves Development would be the proud new owner of a dusty, in-need-of-repair dude ranch outside Las Vegas.

  Callie returned, and Walt focused on her.

  “Your dad sold his ranch a couple of years ago. How does he like retirement?”

  “Loves it, although I wouldn’t call living in an RV and traveling all over North America ‘retirement’ exactly.” Callie laughed. “He and my mom stay busy.”

  Walt turned back to the yard. “I thought he was living in the city now.”

  “He was, for a while.” Callie looked at Gage, curiosity in her gaze.

  “What changed?”

  Callie turned her hands palm up toward Gage, as if asking him what to say.

  Anything except that line about hating to see his land developed.

  “I guess … he changed?” The statement was a question, but at Gage’s nod, Callie continued. “I don’t think Dad was made for city life, and Mom was ready for some new scenery. They bought the RV, and now they can go wherever they want, whenever they want.”

  Walt nodded and turned back to Callie. “What did he think about how they developed your ranch?”

  Callie swallowed, looked from Gage to Walt and back again with panic in her eyes. She pressed her lips together and shook her head. Gage’s hopes for the project fell int
o his stomach.

  “He hated it. Every two-by-four of it.” I’m sorry, she mouthed to Gage.

  He couldn’t blame her. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. Wanting Callie to back him up was different than wanting her to lie for him. Gage didn’t lie. He skirted the hard facts from time to time, but he didn’t lie.

  “We’ll do everything we can to protect the integrity—”

  Walt waved a hand, cutting him off. “I don’t doubt that. But all the same, I can’t sell.”

  Chapter Three

  Callie couldn’t stand the silence inside Gage’s SUV a second longer. He had driven down Mr. Heck’s narrow lane, through the tiny town outside Vegas, and now they were headed back down U.S. 95 toward the north edge of the city. The afternoon sun beat down hard on the desert surrounding them, but the interior of the truck was cool.

  It would be a lot more comfortable, though, if Gage would say something.

  She gave him a sidelong glance. One hand was on the wheel, the other massaging his temple. There was a hard set to his mouth. She’d seen that expression a few times over the years—on the football field when a play didn’t go his way. After their SATs, and again when he got his scores. That afternoon at his father’s funeral. Jase and Connor each put a shovel filled with dry Nevada dirt into the grave while neighbors wiped their eyes, wondering what would happen to the three sons Caleb left behind. Then Gage picked up the shovel and ruthlessly drove it into the churned earth, tossing shovelful after shovelful into the hole. Conner had led everyone into the big ranch house for lunch while Jase watched over their younger brother. Callie had wanted to step in at one point, but when she stepped forward, Jase shook his head. Gage had been so angry that day. Angry at Caleb for dying, angry with their mother for not staying for the funeral.

  All Callie had wanted to do was stop the anger, so she followed him out to the lake, let him vent, and then took him back to her house for dinner. They never talked about the funeral again, and a few months later, Callie was in Philadelphia at college. Ten years had passed, but the angry vein in his temple still throbbed the same way and the set of his mouth was determined.

  Oh, yeah, Gage was ticked. Not at her; she had never seen Gage get angry with another person. His anger was always self-directed, always pushing himself to do better than before. She wondered where his drive would take him this time, and hoped he would let her come along for the ride—and then immediately unwished the words. She was on her own journey, and it would take all her focus just to get her spa off the ground. She shouldn’t allow Gage to distract her.

  Not with the way he looked in the Hugo Boss suit. Not the way his voice was just a little bit deeper than it had been in high school, and the way that slight timbre seemed to caress its way over her ears every time he spoke. Not the different Gages she’d seen glimpses of from the second she walked through his office door. The old Gage was her friend. This new Gage was very definitely not. He wanted to be her business partner. She had no business wanting him at all.

  That was all there was to say about that.

  “I’m sorry.” She said aloud the words she had mouthed less than a half hour before.

  “It isn’t your fault.” The words were kind, but the stiff set of Gage’s shoulders inside his navy suit made her wonder if, for the first time, he was placing blame somewhere besides himself. She hoped she wasn’t to blame.

  After all, he’d agreed to invest in her business, and he’d helped her save the coyote pup. All she’d done was ask for money and possibly thwart his plans for the old ranch.

  “I’ll buy you an ice cream,” she said. “There is a little drive-in up ahead. Best fro-yo in Vegas.”

  “I don’t need ice cream.”

  “You’re so frosty right now you could be made of ice cream.”

  Finally, he glanced her way. “What did you expect? Cartwheels off Walt Heck’s porch when he turned down my offer?”

  Callie blanched. “I said I was sorry.”

  “And I never said it was your fault. There was a sixty-forty chance going in that he would turn me down.” Gage blew out a breath. “The man’s dying, Cal. His wife passed a couple years ago. He was diagnosed with cancer a few months back. He can’t run the place any longer, and if he dies without selling, the land will go into probate and there will be a bidding war.”

  “You don’t think you could win the war?”

  Gage scoffed and this time it was his arrogance that made the muscles in her stomach clench. Arrogant Gage was so much more enticing than Angry Gage or Business Partner Gage or any other Gage he’d presented thus far. “Please. I’ll make sure I win. But it will cut into my profit margin.”

  “And profits are all that matter?” She knew this. It had been drummed into her throughout college. Somehow, she kept forgetting the number-one rule of business was to make money. Callie sighed. Maybe she should cut this dream loose and go back to working for other people before she made a complete fool of herself in front of all of Vegas.

  “No, but they damn sure make everything else more comfortable.” He grinned, and for a second she saw the Gage she remembered—the boy who loved ranching and the land, who didn’t like seeing all of Southern Nevada developed. But that old Gage was gone in an instant, leaving behind the stranger in the truck beside her. More controlled. More alpha-male than anyone she had ever met.

  More beautiful. Come on, Cal, stop going back to the way he looks in the suit.

  “So you are angry.”

  “At the situation, not at you. The old buzzard isn’t holding out for a better offer. He just can’t let go of the past.”

  Like her father. He’d thought he could let go of the ranch, be a little more free with his time, but seeing the land developed was more than he could stand. That’s where the RV idea came from. Driving away so he could remember things the way they had been.

  Never mind that Callie was still here, struggling to get her own future off the ground, missing talking her plans over with her dad and having her mom cheering her on. If she made this happen, though, they would have something to come back to. A little piece of the Nevada they loved would still be here, in her.

  “Still, I’m sorry if I helped sway Mr. Heck onto the no sale side.”

  Gage reached over and chucked his knuckles under Callie’s chin, and she felt a spark at the contact. “No worries. I’m the only developer interested in Heck’s Dude Ranch, and I plan to keep it that way. This isn’t finished just yet.”

  Callie twisted her hands together to keep from running her fingers over his chin. She watched him for a long moment; he was focused on the road ahead of them, but from the set of his square jaw and the glint in his eyes she knew Gage’s mind was also focused on buying the ranch and building the eco-friendly resort he’d described just an hour before. He took her breath away, and that was a problem. Eddie had taken her breath away so fast and so hard that she didn’t realize until after their honeymoon she was one of many women in his life. He’d thought their marriage vows meant a joint bank account. She thought they meant love, fidelity, and support. Her focus had to be Holliday Spas, not another man who made her heart beat fast, because even with the investment, it would take a huge amount of work to get her business off the ground.

  Gage distracted her from thinking about the past. “I’m sticking with ice cream. Full fat, chocolate, nutty, and a little whipped cream on top. But if you want fro-yo, be my guest.”

  “Oh, we don’t have to stop—”

  Gage slowed the truck and pulled into the small drive-in she’d mentioned a few moments before. He put the truck in park and then helped Callie out and into the hot Nevada sun. She blinked, glad for her sunglasses, and followed him through the door.

  They ordered and took their ice creams to a bench under an old cottonwood tree.

  Gage licked at his cone, which was topped with chocolate ice cream and miniature SweeTarts, hard candies that started out sour and turned almost sickly sweet. Callie made a face.

  “I can
’t believe you still put those on your ice cream.” She swiped her tongue over her own peanut butter cone and pulled a single Reese’s Pieces into her mouth with the ice cream. Pre-packaged peanut butter ice cream had nothing on this little stand, she thought. “You could break a tooth.”

  Gage shrugged and happily chomped a couple of candy pieces. “I drink plenty of milk for calcium. Brush regularly. I figure my teeth can stand a little sugar.” He offered an exaggerated grin that showed off his pearly whites, and Callie couldn’t help herself. She giggled.

  “You’re incorrigible.” And distracting, but, for this moment anyway, she didn’t care. Might as well enjoy the ice cream and then refocus on work when he dropped her off at the parking garage. “Is it okay if I go out to your ranch sometime to check on the pup?”

  “Sure, I’ll take you.” He paused. “And I’ll look around for a rescue organization or re-homing group.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “It’s important to you.” The words blossomed in her chest. “Plus, it will keep me out of trouble with the other ranchers if I can say from the start we’re already looking for a solution to the little guy’s home.”

  He was making everything easier. Only, this was her life. Her business. Her responsibility. Rescuing the pup was her attempt at recapturing one of the best memories she had from her childhood. And was it so bad if a part of her hoped that if her business was a success her parents might come back to Vegas, just as she had?

  “Why is the pup so important to you?” he asked.

  She didn’t want to go into that, not when she wasn’t sure herself. Yes, the animal was too small to survive on its own, but she knew the dangers of coyotes. They were scavengers, pillaging whatever and wherever they could to survive. Leaving it to die, alone, seemed inhumane somehow. “You should send the annoyed calls to me.”