All for a Cowboy

by Jeannie Watt

  Close to dark, about the time Shae was seriously beginning to worry, since his car was there and he was not, Jordan finally showed up, walking into the ranch along the trail leading to the mountains. Clyde lagged behind him with his tongue hanging out, his gait less dainty than usual. The pig rushed to meet them and Jordan said a few words to the animal before continuing to the house. He’d been hiking? Shae shrugged. Why not? It’s what she expected her guests to pay to do.

  * * *

  WHEN SHAE GOT UP the next morning, Jordan was already working one of the horses—the small buckskin that he seemed to be making the most headway with—by the time she finished washing up at the pump. He put a couple hours a day on each of them, starting with groundwork and then getting into the saddle. From day one Shae had recognized that the buckskin was frightened, but wanted to trust. Well, Jordan had succeeded in bonding with the animal and now the filly was willing to depend on him to save her from whatever scary situation she found herself in. The lineback dun was not so trusting yet, but Shae had spent enough time watching Jordan and the horse to see signs of improvement. The older palomino was a strikingly beautiful animal that, in Shae’s opinion, should go directly back where she came from. The animal was not to be trusted.

  But Jordan kept working her, dodging trouble and working some more.

  Stubborn man.

  Shae worked on her notes and maps, filling in the details of plan B while tweaking plan A, as the stubborn man put in his hours on the buckskin, released the animal, and then, instead of catching the lineback dun, as was his habit, put away his gear and headed for the house, Clyde on his heels. Shae stepped back from the bunkhouse window, but he looked straight at her as he walked by, making her wonder if he knew how much time she spent watching him.

  Too much time. But she couldn’t get him out of her head.

  It did appear, however, that he was avoiding her. Soon after going to the house, he and Clyde headed back down the mountain path again.

  Catching up with Jordan was becoming a whole lot harder than she’d thought it would be.

  Finally she ran him down in the late afternoon as he walked down the path from the ponds toward his house, damp hair brushed back from his forehead and a rolled-up towel beneath his arm. She couldn’t help herself. She called his name and when he stopped, she jogged over to where he stood.

  “You have running water, you know,” she said once she caught her breath. She would have given just about anything for running water.

  “I like swimming.”

  “That water’s like ice.”

  “You’ve been to the ponds?” he asked.

  “I’ve been everywhere,” Shae said, her gaze traveling over his face and down his neck, where the angry scars showed. Was it her imagination or did he stiffen? “You know...” she said slowly, not wanting a replay of the horse-trough incident, “...when people look at your scars, they aren’t necessarily being unkind. They just need to process.”

  Something flickered in his blue eyes and for a minute she thought he was going to say something, but in the end he just pressed his mouth more tightly shut.

  “I have some ideas I want to run by you.”

  Instant suspicion flared in his eyes. “Why?”

  “Because you need to know what’s going on,” she said. “Do you want to go to the bunkhouse, or can we talk in your place?”

  “The bunkhouse,” he said after a moment’s pause. “Give me a few minutes. I have some things to take care of.”

  Shae paced the bunkhouse as she waited for Jordan, wondering if he was going to pull a power play and not show.

  He’d show. He wanted to know what she planned to do, and sure enough, a few seconds later he opened the door.

  * * *

  THE BUNKHOUSE SMELLED of strong disinfectant. The ancient flooring had been scrubbed clean, the beaded-pine wall panels had been washed and ten of the small bedrooms had been emptied of their contents and cleaned. The two remaining doors were closed, which, Jordan imagined, was where he would find his tools.

  Shae motioned him over to a small folding table, where she spread out an aerial photo of the meadow with small rectangles inked in.

  She looked up at him, her expression serious. Gone was the bravado, the apparent confidence that everything she did was right, and if it wasn’t, that she’d make it so.

  “One of the plans I’m proposing to Miranda is that we use the bunkhouse only as a gathering place. A common area. Nothing else. I’m proposing that we invest in wall tents with wooden floors, which we’ll set up in the meadow seasonally. I’m proposing changing the marketing focus from the one-percenter appeal—”

  “One-percenter?”

  “This was supposed to be a unique yet rugged experience. Only a few people at a time. Guided fishing trips, hunting trips. Everyone would share the bunkhouse. There’d been excellent food and good beds—which there still will be, even with the tents—but it’d be a very intimate experience and we would have charged top dollar.”

  “How intimate and rugged could it be with me living here? With a poodle and a potbellied pig.”

  Shae drew in a breath. “Exactly,” she said in a more reasonable voice than he’d ever heard from her. His barriers started to go up. Why was she being reasonable? “So I’m suggesting more of a family camping experience.”

  “And is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “I thought it might be more palatable than a bunch of wannabe Jeremiah Johnson types swaggering around.”

  “These are your potential guests, Shae. Should you be talking about them that way?” he said snidely.

  “Are you going to tell on me?” she asked, holding his gaze. As the seconds ticked silently by, Jordan became more and more aware of the fact that at that moment he was seeing a different Shae. A Shae he hadn’t even known existed.

  A Shae who made him feel decidedly uneasy.

  “If we go with this option, I have no plans to renovate,” Shae continued in a reasonable voice. “I’d like to update some things, but it’s just cosmetic. And the camp will be in the meadow over the rise. Out of sight, so you’ll have more privacy.”

  He frowned at her. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why the sudden concern for my privacy?”

  For the first time in the conversation, Shae appeared evasive. “Because I thought it would be easier to make peace than to be at each other’s throats, as awesomely fun as that is and all.”

  “You want to make peace.”

  “Yes.”

  He moistened his dry lips, then asked the question that had been nagging at him for the past few days. “Why is this project so important to you?”

  “It’s my one chance to get my job back,” Shae said matter-of-factly, but he could see that it hadn’t been easy to make that admission. And maybe that was why he decided to tell her the truth as he saw it.

  “You won’t get your job back.”

  Her eyes flashed to his. “How do you know?”

  “Because Miranda is working you, like she works everyone. She’s using you.” He leaned on the table, bringing his face close to hers. “I’d say that the chances of you getting hired back on after completing this project are nil.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” she said.

  He made a dismissive gesture. “You’ll find out the hard way.”

  “No,” she said, laying a polish-free hand with short utilitarian nails—a far cry from the fancy manicure she’d sported her first days on the ranch—down flat on the photo as she leaned toward him now. “I won’t. I got fired because of a mistake I made. The fact that Miranda agreed to give me a second shot speaks volumes.”

  “What kind of mistake?” Jordan asked, his eyes narrowing as he realized that Shae was admitting to being less than perfect.r />
  She met his gaze dead-on. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, carefully enunciating each word. She looked down at his scarred hand, then back at his face. “Some things are private.”

  He looked her straight in the eye as he said, “As long as we both remember that, all should be well.”

  * * *

  AFTER JORDAN LEFT, Shae slowly rolled up the aerial photo, wishing Jordan had taken her peace offering as just that, rather than assuming she had an ulterior motive. For once in her life she didn’t. She simply wanted to do the best job she could here at the ranch without making things worse for him, and she wanted to go back to work at her old job, matching people and ranch properties. If she got that job back, she’d treat it so damned seriously.

  Shae leaned on the table for a moment, thinking about the times she’d spent most of the workday on the phone with caterers and florists. Yes, she’d done her work at home later on, but she could see now how disruptive it must have been to Mel and those around her.

  Mel, whom she hadn’t spoken to in weeks. Did her friend find that alarming or freeing?

  Shae had to admit that she could understand if it was the latter.

  She walked to the window, stared out into the growing twilight. The lights were on in the house.... Thank you, Shae... I appreciate you turning on the electricity for me.... Except he didn’t. He probably could have gone on indefinitely without electricity, swimming in the icy pond and visiting the illegal outhouse. He’d probably kept the power off as an inconvenience to her and here she was, living a more rugged lifestyle than he was.

  And she still wasn’t going home. Miranda was going to have to leave a voice message tonight, no doubt wondering why she’d missed their phone meeting. She’d come up with an excuse in the morning, but right now she wanted more time to figure out what was right, what was wrong...and walk that thin line that allowed her to get her job back without screwing Jordan over too badly.

  CHAPTER TEN

  JORDAN WAS A SURVIVOR—he might not be in top form, but he was a guy who didn’t give up—and he didn’t want Shae’s help or concern. He’d made that more than clear and she needed to step back. But as she showered and dressed for her meeting with Miranda at the ranch in two hours, Shae found it next to impossible to stop thinking about how he’d said he’d come home because he was dying back east. He’d come home to a place where he felt safe. Where he could be alone to heal. And she and Miranda were keeping him from doing that.

  If you don’t work on the High Camp proposal, then someone else will.

  And that person probably wouldn’t care any more about Jordan’s recovery than she had in the beginning. The best thing Shae could think of to do was push the same proposal to Miranda that she had to Jordan—a wall-tent camp, with a cook tent and shower trailer, which was easier to manage than a shower tent. The only option that left Jordan a modicum of privacy. Plus, it was the most cost-effective option, something that usually perked Miranda up. But not this time.

  “A shower trailer?” Miranda said, her voice edged with distaste. “What happened to renovating the bathhouse? I spoke to Noel and he says we can repair anything that’s already in place that we have access to, and the septic system counts as repair. As does refurbishing the bunkhouse.”

  “The plumbing and septic will be expensive.”

  “I think we’ll make it back in no time. And these wall tents you’re talking about—”

  “Yes,” Shae said quickly, passing Miranda a brochure across the desk. “As you can see, with wood floors and half walls, they’re quite nice.”

  “And a dime a dozen in this part of the state.” She tapped her forefinger on the desk impatiently. “I asked for rustic and unique.”

  No...that was my pitch to you.

  “I thought this was supposed to be an exclusive experience,” Miranda continued in a deadly voice. “One-percenters, I believe you said.”

  “Yes,” Shae said, dragging the word out. “That was my initial intention.”

  “And that has changed why?”

  Shae raised her eyebrows. “After spending time at the ranch, I realized that I needed to rethink my initial idea. I think we need to market more toward family camping excursions. There are some excellent ponds nearby where kids can fish—”

  “We offer that at the Cedar Creek.”

  “But this is smaller, and the wall tents will make it more like an actual camping experience. Also, we have the gold mining in the area. I was thinking of some panning...”

  Miranda rolled her eyes. “I want to use the bunkhouse, the bathhouse, the small cabins and the barn. I want this to be a remote ranch experience. Not a family campout.” Miranda leaned back away from the desk, studying Shae with a deep frown. “Tell me how my stepson has influenced your thinking.”

  “Excuse me?” Shae said, wondering if she’d heard right.

  “Jordan. How has he managed to affect your decision making?”

  “He hasn’t.”

  “You’re staying on the ranch together. You must talk.”

  “Not much,” Shae said. “He keeps to himself, works his horses and ignores me.”

  “Works his horses?”

  “He has the right to keep livestock.”

  “Says who?” Miranda asked softly.

  “His lawyer. Emery someone.” Who Shae hoped was correct in his assertion.

  Miranda’s mouth tightened. “You and Jordan seemed to have had some lengthy legal discussions while you were not talking.”

  Shae fought to keep her frustration level from showing. “I hadn’t realized the horses were an issue, but I should have said something. You asked me to work around him and that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

  “Yes.” Displeasure practically dripped from the single word, making Shae’s throat go dry.

  “Jordan keeps to himself. We don’t talk.”

  “You know that he has issues,” Miranda said softly. “From the accident.”

  “The occasional nightmare is understandable given the circumstances,” Shae said, feeling the need to defend him.

  “Are you afraid to be around him?”

  “No,” Shae said, shocked. “Not at all.” She was slipping into trouble here and it was getting worse, so she went for the hard sell for the tent camp. “Here are just a couple more things to think about concerning the upscale wall-tent camp. You have the cost analysis there and if the tents don’t work out, there is a resale market and you’re in a prime position to take advantage of it. The only investments will be the tents and the cooking and shower facilities—all of which have a resale market and some of which can be rented. It honestly makes sense to dip our toes in the water using this strategy.”

  The silence was deafening. Shae slowly rose from where she’d leaned on the table to make her point and waited. Miranda tapped a short polished nail on the table a couple times, then shook her head.

  “You are not accomplishing what I asked for.”

  “I’m delivering other options, as I always do when initially presenting a project.”

  “I’m not interested in other options. By the end of this week, I want detailed plans drawn up for the repair of each cabin. We will proceed with the original plan. We may not be able to knock out walls and build suites in the bunkhouse, but we can still use it. Adding appliances does not count as capital investments, since we can remove then when the time comes. Upgrading electrical—that’s a repair.”

  “All right,” Shae said. “I’ll work up the rest of the costs.”

  “And you may as well start clearing out those cabins. We’re using them.”

  Shae was beginning to get a sense of where Jordan was coming from. She’d never had issue with Miranda until she’d gotten fired, and the woman had a reputation as being tough but fair. Shae was beginning to wond
er about the fair part. What on earth had happened between Miranda and Jordan to foster such mutual hatred?

  She could only think of one thing and she had to admit she didn’t like it.

  Had they had an affair?

  Not cool, but such a scenario would certainly account for the current drama.

  “And sketches. I want sketches.”

  “Done,” Shae said woodenly. Damn. She used to be able to fake things better than this.

  “I plan to meet with Jordan, give him a rundown of what I can and cannot do, according to Noel.”

  And he’ll no doubt say that you can go to hell.

  Shae started gathering her materials, wondering how things had gone so wrong so fast. Damn Miranda and her vendetta against Jordan. Apparently a tent camp set in a meadow wasn’t disruptive enough to his lifestyle for her tastes.

  And it ticked her off to be caught in the middle of a private war.

  “I’m wondering,” Miranda said, “if you need an assistant.”

  “What?” Shae asked, startled. “I’m handling the workload just fine.”

  “Another set of eyes.”

  A spy. Egad. She slowly fed the rolled map into the cardboard tube. “I don’t need an assistant, although I appreciate the offer.”

  Miranda inclined her head. “Fine. When you see Jordan today, would you please tell him to contact me soon, or I’ll have to pop on over to the High Camp and contact him.”

  Oh, yeah. He’d love that.

  “I’ll tell him,” Shae said.

  “And I’ll be in touch with you later.”

  * * *

  DUST WAS COMING UP from the round pen when Shae drove into the High Camp. The pig peeked its head out from around the house as she parked, then trotted over to greet her as she walked down to where Jordan was working the lineback dun, sitting deep in the saddle as he took the horse through a slow spin on her hindquarters. He looked over as she approached, his expression less than welcoming, then took the mare in a circle around the pen, stopping next to where she stood. Seemed she couldn’t please anyone today.