A Cowboy and a Promise

by Pam Crooks

  The invitation insinuated she meant more to them than she really did. That she held some kind of elevated position out here on the ranch when, in truth, it was nothing like that all. Her real place was in New York City.

  But a promise was a promise, wasn’t it? She had a job to do, and part of that job couldn’t mean getting chummy with the Paxton family.

  “Thank you, but I can’t,” she said, following him anyway. “First day on the job. I’m swamped.”

  Brock set the box down and lifted out a big Crock-Pot. One step took him to his father’s side to help him settle on the bench seat.

  “Got a folding chair in the truck, Dad,” he said. “Stay here, and I’ll get it.” He straightened, turning toward her. “But I want to meet Ava first.”

  He had gray eyes, just like Beau’s. About as tall, too. Muscled and lean. Just how similar were those two? Would they combine forces and use twice the firepower to fight her on the guest resort?

  Since he was staring at her, most likely sizing her up, too, she stared right back. If nothing else, she found only curiosity in his Beau-like features, as if he wanted to decide for himself what kind of enemy she’d prove to be.

  One thing for sure. She couldn’t sense any of the resentment that matched his twin’s.

  Yet.

  She extended her hand. “You’re Brock?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And you’re Ava Howell.” He took her hand into his own, and a tiny, hidden part of her expected to feel the same zing she’d felt with Beau. But she was wrong. Not even a flicker. “Glad to meet you.”

  This early in the game, was he really?

  “Likewise,” she murmured.

  “I didn’t know your dad and you were coming out, Brock,” Ginny said, pulling plates and silverware from the box. “This will be nice, having dinner out here. Ava, are you sure you can’t join us?”

  Why would she, especially since four-fifths of them considered her the enemy? She took a step back from Brock, who, with a polite nod, headed to the pickup for the chair he’d promised Duane.

  “Come on, Ava,” Duane said, waving her over. “Get a bite to eat.”

  “I can’t,” she said firmly. “Really, I have too much work to do. But thank you both for the offer.”

  “Another time, then,” Ginny said.

  “Sure.”

  Ava didn’t want them to see how eager she was to depart nor sense her relief that the male Paxtons spared her their protests. She pivoted, kept her stride normal and casual. She rejoined Roger and immersed herself in a discussion over the blueprints, her fingers tapping efficiently on her tablet’s screen.

  Until another pickup pulled up.

  This one red.

  And Beau got out.

  Chapter Five

  Campers, trailers, and motor vehicles of every make and model were parked in a maze, taking up space on Paxton land like a used-car lot. Worse, a crowd of men sitting on the ground and at picnic tables were eating dinner, talking and laughing as if they had nothing else to do with their day, and the whole damn thing worsened Beau’s mood.

  He strode toward his parents and Brock. They looked relaxed, too, with a plate of chocolate cake in front of them and a fork in their hand, and didn’t anyone have any work to do today?

  “You look madder’n a rattlesnake on a hot skillet, Son,” his father drawled, eying him over his Styrofoam coffee cup. “Something wrong?”

  Beau scowled and lifted the lid on the Crock-Pot. The familiar casserole smelled good as always and convinced him he might as well eat, too.

  “Been a hell of a morning,” he muttered, filling a plate before his mother could do it for him.

  “What broke this time?” Brock asked, fork in midair.

  “Chain on the hay monster.”

  “Again?” With a grim shake of his head, Brock shoveled a chunk of cake into his mouth.

  “Can’t run a conveyer without a chain,” Beau said, driving his point home with a hard glance at Ginny. “Can’t load hay bales without a conveyer.”

  “Don’t start, Beau,” she warned.

  “Equipment’s getting old.” His father joined in, for all the good it would do. “How long do we have to keep repairing machinery around here, Ginny? Comes a point we have to bite the bullet and buy something more dependable.”

  “And pay for it how?” Her back turned rigid, her chin lifted, and her shoulders squared, each part working in tandem the way they always did when she was convinced she was right, and no way, no how, was anyone going to persuade her otherwise. “Once this resort is up and running, you’ll be able to buy what you need, Duane. I promise.”

  “That’s what you keep sayin’, and I don’t have to tell you again I’m skeptical. It’s a harebrained idea.”

  “Be skeptical all you want,” she said with a meaningful look at the three of them. “I have complete faith in Ava. She’s going to make my project the best it can be. You just wait.”

  At the mention of her name, four heads turned toward her, but it was Beau’s stare that lingered the longest. She was standing differently than she was when he’d driven up, her back to him, like she didn’t want to look at him. Avoiding him.

  That was all the challenge he needed.

  He stood.

  “A hard worker, that girl,” his mother said. “She wouldn’t even take time to eat.”

  He took a plate, loaded it with casserole, and grabbed a fork. Ginny handed him another plate with a slice of cake.

  “Make sure she eats it all,” she said.

  He ignored her, his focus planted on Ava as he strode over. Roger saw him first.

  “Hey, Beau, how you doin’? Good to see you again, man.”

  Beau set one of the plates down on the rolled-out blueprints and shook his hand. “Rog. Been a while. You ramrodding this deal?”

  “Foreman, yeah. Ava here, she’s the one in charge.”

  She straightened and finally met his gaze straight on. Beau could have blamed it on the heat, but he’d swear her cheeks turned a little pinker.

  “Hello, Beau.”

  Her voice sounded stiff. Her back was even stiffer. Might be she was flustered with him or, given she was paired up with his mother, gearing up to clip his horns in case he put up a fight, just like Ginny had.

  Either way, he seemed to affect her, and that was a good thing, considering.

  “You need to eat,” he said, indicating the casserole.

  “I told your parents I don’t have time for lunch.”

  She probably thought he was their errand boy, which rankled. Beau gestured to Roger with a quick chin nod toward the group of men huddled around tables.

  “Time for your dinner, too,” Beau said.

  “Don’t mind if I do.” Roger patted his abdomen. “Belly’s been rumbling.” He acknowledged Ava with a respectful incline of his head. “Be back in thirty minutes, ma’am, if y’all don’t mind.”

  “Make it twenty,” she said crisply.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Exchanging a reserved glance with Beau, he turned on his heel and left.

  “We call it dinner out here,” Beau said to her. “Not lunch. Best get used to it.”

  “Let’s get one thing straight right now,” she said, her voice low enough to let him know she intended to wallop him with a good airing of her lungs. “I give the orders around here. Not you. When I say it’s time for dinner, then it’s time, and not a minute sooner.”

  He kept his mouth shut. Best to take the wallop now so she wouldn’t have to get it out of her system later.

  “And another thing. Just because you’re a Paxton doesn’t mean you have the authority to throw your weight around out here. You have something to say, you say it to me first.”

  He refrained from telling her she was on Paxton land and that trumped any sort of authority she might have over him or his family. He hadn’t come to spar with her.

  She was, he conceded with some serious reluctance, just doing her job. Setting boundaries came wit
h the territory.

  “Anything else?” he asked, his voice quiet.

  Her chin lifted even higher. “No.”

  “Then you’d better eat.”

  She didn’t move, as if unwilling to forfeit even that much control over to him.

  “You pick the place,” he added.

  “All right, I will.” Her jaw cocked real pretty, and she whisked the plate off the table. “Over there on the grass.”

  She took a few brisk steps in that direction, leaving him uncertain about what he should do next.

  “Mind if I join you?” he dared to call after her.

  She paused and tossed him a glance over her shoulder. There was that little bit of pink again in her cheeks.

  “You’re welcome to, yes,” she said, with less hostility.

  She chose a patch of green a quiet distance from the crew and dropped cross-legged onto the ground with an agility that spoke of her athleticism. He sat, too, taking care not to get too close, leaned back on one hand, and drew a knee up. He tipped the brim of his Stetson higher on his forehead.

  Beau gave her time to dig in, which she did with surprising enthusiasm. Might be she was hungrier than she let on. Or maybe she just didn’t want to talk to him yet.

  “My mother’s favorite casserole,” he said into the silence. “She’s made it a million times. Calls it cowboy stew.”

  “It’s very good.”

  “Meat loaf, carrots, and potatoes. Damn right it’s good.”

  She fell silent again, her head lowered, as if finishing her dinner was a lifeline. Casserole gone, she went for dessert next.

  But before taking the first bite, her gaze lifted to his.

  “Look, Beau. I know how hard this is.”

  His mood turned serious. “Do you?” He jerked a thumb toward the maze of vehicles. “Strangers invading your home turf, cluttering up your land with enough automation to fill a warehouse, making all kinds of noise and scaring the wildlife away. You really think you know how hard it is?”

  “It’s only temporary. Three months at the most.”

  “People will still come. Different people.”

  “Yes. Guests. That’s the whole idea.”

  He set his teeth and glanced away. The whole damned thing was hopeless. If a buyer didn’t step up—and soon—the ghost town project would go on, no matter how much he fought it, and he didn’t want to argue with her. He was sick of arguing. Seemed it was all he did, not only with her but his mother, too.

  “You feel like it’s an invasion of your privacy, don’t you?” Ava said after a moment.

  Her intuitiveness made him squirm, and he kept his stare on the Texas landscape. He took comfort from that craggy horizon, the pure, never-ending wildness beneath an azure, never-ending sky. How often had he craved seeing what he saw now, all those weeks when he was held captive in that underground shithole in Afghanistan?

  Had it only been last year?

  It was what kept him from going insane, thinking of Texas. Dreaming of it. Needing it.

  His home.

  His family.

  With great effort, he dragged himself out of his miserable past. It was easier these days, overcoming the nightmares. Once, they’d threatened to destroy him. Now, Texas helped him heal.

  Would this damned resort take away what he needed most?

  The uncertainty scared the hell out of him.

  He swiveled his gaze back to Ava, watching him with what he could only identify as concern in her features.

  “Yes. An invasion,” he said roughly. “Strangers and all the traffic and who knows what else they’ll bring with them.”

  “I’ll do everything I can to keep the guests far away from the Big House. Of course, your family needs privacy. It’s a no-brainer. I’ve been working with the county—”

  His brow shot up. “Why?”

  “To build a new road.”

  “And how much will that cost?”

  Her lips tightened.

  A sign Beau took to mean a lot.

  He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Damn it.”

  She cocked her head. “You need to change your thinking, Beau.”

  “Nothing wrong with my thinking.”

  “Look at this project as a labor of love from your cousin and your mother. If you succeed in selling these three hundred acres, they’ll be gone forever. You’ll have sold away a part of your family’s history.”

  The hay monster and this morning’s frustrations were all the signs he needed to know he was right in wanting to sell. “Can’t argue with money, honey. This property has been appraised at almost a million dollars. ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,’ or so they say. No guarantees this resort will make that kind of money anytime soon.”

  And he wanted the money now.

  She sighed, a windy gust.

  “No reasoning with you, is there? I have to get back to work.” The tone of her voice warned she was gearing up for another lung-airing. “I don’t have time to sit here and argue with you.”

  Two wallops in a matter of minutes, and the reality stung. She should have been able to relax and eat her dinner like anyone else. He hadn’t intended to spar with her, and now he’d gotten her riled up, and he hated how that made him feel.

  Guilty.

  Ava balanced her uneaten cake and plate on the casserole one. Before she could stand up in that graceful, athletic, miffed way of hers, his hand closed over her wrist.

  “Hey,” he said in a low voice.

  He had her attention, at least, and her gaze clashed into his. The bill of her Giants baseball cap shaded her eyes, but he could see they were a turbulent blue-green. Stormy and troubled.

  Suddenly, he wanted everything changed back to the way they were when she’d shown up at the gas station in Paxton Springs. He wanted to yank off her hat and fluff up her hair, feeling the short, blond strands slide through his fingers. He wanted her out of those jeans; he missed her in shorts, revealing those long, shapely runner’s legs. Nix the work boots, too. He wanted to see flip-flops and pink-painted toenails.

  Want, want, want.

  Beau swallowed. Was Ava right? Was he as selfish as she claimed?

  “What, Beau?” she asked.

  The words he thought he wanted to say evaporated, leaving him empty. A little angry. Frustrated as hell.

  He released her wrist.

  “Never mind,” he said roughly.

  Without a word, she stood and pivoted away from him, taking quick steps back to the trailer where Roger stood waiting under the awning, right on time, just as she’d ordered.

  Beau scowled. He’d gotten himself caught in his own loop, making a mess of things with her, and damned if he knew what to do about it.

  Chapter Six

  Ava treated herself to an extra hour of sleep Saturday morning. After a week of pre-dawn alarms, fourteen-hour days, and nonstop, bone-weary work under the hot Texas sun, God knew she’d earned it.

  Amazing what a difference an hour made. More vim and vigor for a morning run, a decent breakfast, and a no-rush drive out to the jobsite. She arrived refreshed and ready to go.

  She was the first, but Roger and the rest of his crew would be over soon. She stood in the morning quiet with her hands on her hips and surveyed the week’s accomplishments. Each guest unit—the shotgun houses that could be salvaged—sported new foundations, which allowed the plumbers to move in and begin their work. The electricians and HVAC guys would follow next week. Foundations had been laid and framing started on the new units Ginny wanted added, too.

  The resort was taking shape. Beautifully and on schedule.

  If she could keep up the momentum, she’d meet her three-month deadline. The project was her biggest achievement so far and definitely the most dramatic and viable in this part of the state. Everyone said so.

  But one person likely wouldn’t agree.

  Beau Paxton.

  Her mood mellowed. She hadn’t seen him since that first day, which meant five m
ore thinking of him. Keeping her up at night. Expecting him to appear when she least expected it. Every pickup that drove in grabbed her attention in hopes it would be big, new, and red.

  None of them were.

  Ginny had mentioned he’d gone out of town for the rest of the week. Some stock show in Austin. Evidently, Jace was there, too, and the brothers were going to get together for a little R and R. Whatever.

  Beau would only distract her from her mission. She had way too much to do, and if there was a silver lining in her Cowboy Beau obsession, that was it.

  Work, work, work.

  Today would be no different, and she wasn’t going to think about him. She headed to the jobsite’s mobile trailer, unlocked the door, and went in search of her tool belt. The makeshift office was Roger’s territory, and it smelled of cigarette smoke and sweat. She found it much too cluttered to work in, however, but she located her gear right where she’d left it. After strapping the belt around her hips, she relocked the door and went on the hunt again, this time for a ladder.

  Last night, Roger kindly had offered to set it up for her against the soon-to-be restaurant. Old Man Rupert’s place. But the ladder wasn’t there, so he must have forgotten, which meant she’d have to track it down and lug it herself.

  Ava found the extension ladder behind the building, half immersed in the weeds. If there was one thing she’d learned in the construction business, being female didn’t mean being a weakling. She had to work as hard and as well as the men. Waiting for Roger wasn’t an option. She hefted the ladder and traversed the rocky ground with care, and by the time she reached the front, her muscles were feeling the strain.

  She nearly missed seeing the man on a horse.

  The rising sun circled him in shadow, and the brim of his Stetson shadowed his face even more. She needed the barest of seconds to decide for sure it was who she thought it was.

  Beau, in all his muscled, broad-shouldered, come-out-of-nowhere sexiness.

  She stumbled, the ladder wobbled, and one end hit the ground hard.

  “Careful,” he said in his low voice that haunted her nights and inflated her fantasies like propane in a hot air balloon.