Cowboy Tough

by Stacy Finz

  “Nevada City. Dad knows the people.”

  “Well, good luck. Make sure you tell her Amigo’s the head honcho in the stable.” He gave her another tweak.

  Cash’s daughter had only come to live with them on the ranch last summer when her mother had died of breast cancer. It had been rocky at the start, but Ellie had fallen in love with the Daltons as much as they’d fallen in love with her.

  “I will.” She stood next to the front porch, waving, as they drove away.

  “Aunt Aubrey said Travis and me can be in the wedding,” Grady said, and continued to talk their ears off all the way to Tiffany’s house.

  “I’ll just be a few minutes.” Jace hopped down from the cab. “As soon as I load up the campaign signs, we can go eat.”

  Tiffany’s house was on one of the most prestigious streets in Dry Creek, which wasn’t saying all that much. But the homes on Deer Lane were what Jace called mini mansions, with a lot of slick landscaping, swimming pools, and three-car garages. Most of them were built by Mitch, who lived a few doors down from Tiffany.

  Tiffany’s garage door lifted and she came out onto the driveway wearing half of Fort Knox around her neck. Her jewelry was kind of legendary in Dry Creek. Gold chains as thick as lassos, pendants as big as Jace’s fist, and earrings the size of the chandeliers at the ranch house. Her husband was loaded.

  He used to own an insurance agency near Sacramento, sold it for a bundle, and they’d decided to retire to the country. Tiffany whiled away the time doing volunteer work. For some reason she’d taken a shine to Jace and had appointed herself his campaign manager.

  “You brought the whole family.” She blew air kisses at the boys, who lowered their eyes, pretending to find something inordinately interesting on the back-seat floor. When her gaze landed on Charlie, her eyes widened. “Aren’t you going to introduce us, Sheriff?”

  Jace walked Tiff to the passenger door and Charlie lowered her window. He introduced the two, and after sensing Charlie’s discomfort managed to lure Tiffany away with campaign talk. Her sole experience in politics was running one successful campaign for an obscure candidate’s bid for the state legislature. Now, she thought she should have her own political talk show.

  But she was a hard worker and even better, her services were free. Because unlike his opponent, Jace didn’t have deep campaign coffers. Most donations came in as fungible goods. Homemade muffins from the Mill County Cattlewomen for a campaign rally, wine from a local vintner for a meet and greet, and once, Bobby Briggs lent them his Santa Maria open-pit adjustable barbecue for a tri-tip fundraiser. Jace had provided the beef.

  They’d managed to raise a whopping $865.82.

  Tiffany put her hand on his arm and pulled him farther from his truck and out of earshot of the others. “The polls aren’t looking too good.”

  “What polls?” The primary wasn’t until June and no one did political surveys in Mill County. Jace didn’t know why because it would be real easy. Pollsters could call every household in Mill County in less than three hours.

  “I’ve been conducting my own and …” She stretched her bottom lip wide, leaving a smudge of red lipstick on her two front teeth. “Not good. Those shenanigans last summer left a bad taste in voters’ mouths.”

  “Shenanigans? Are you talking about that bullsh…nonsense with Aubrey and Mitch?” Aubrey and Mitch’s breakup had been as explosive as the Fourth of July and the rumor mill had put Jace square in the middle. By now, he would’ve thought the good folks of Mill County were over it. “You telling me that people still believe I stole Aubrey from Mitch? Give me a damn break. She’s marrying my cousin, for God’s sake.”

  “Don’t shoot the messenger.” Tiffany put her hands on her hips. “I warned this would come back to haunt you.”

  “What?” he raised his voice. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” It was Mitch and Jill who’d been screwing around.

  “Of course you didn’t,” she said in a voice that sounded a lot like recrimination to Jace. Of course you didn’t. “But people believe what they want to.”

  It was absurd.

  “Exactly what kind of poll did you conduct?”

  “Okay, maybe it’s not what you would call the true definition of a poll, but I’ve been taking the pulse of the county.” Whatever the hell that meant. “And there’s mixed feelings about you. Sally Reynolds has never forgiven you for her son’s breakup with Aubrey and has made it her business to bad-mouth you all over town. And Jacob Jolly is popular around here. Everyone loves Jolly Hardware.”

  Yeah, especially the pot farmers.

  “First of all, I didn’t break up Mitch and Aubrey. I didn’t have a damn thing to do with it, though I’m glad she dumped his ass. Sally should thank her lucky stars her son’s not doing five years hard time in a state prison, instead of harping on his failed engagement. As for Jolly, he has zero experience in law enforcement, unless you count the year he dressed up as McGruff at the Halloween festival at the Mill County Fairgrounds.”

  “Jace, as your campaign manager it’s my duty to give you the facts, whether you like them or not. We’ve got to ramp up our campaign, schedule more engagements, maybe get you on This Week in Northern California.”

  Jace had never heard of it, but was pretty damn sure whatever it was wasn’t interested in the Mill County Sheriff’s race.

  “You’re probably the hottest sheriff in America,” Tiffany said. “I shouldn’t have any trouble getting you oodles of television exposure.”

  Jace looked up at the sky, holding on to his patience. “Tiff, no television appearances. Let’s just run a good, honest campaign. Okay?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I’m going to load up the signs now and then feed my kids.”

  “Fine.” She folded her arms across her chest. “It’s your political funeral, not mine.”

  She led him inside the garage, where he grabbed a stack of placards. Before he could walk them back to the truck, she cornered him.

  “Who’s the woman?”

  “Charlie?” He wasn’t about to get into details. “A friend.”

  “What kind of friend? I’ve never seen her around here. Does she live in the county?”

  “She’s just passing through, Tiffany.”

  “Are you sure? I might be able to work with that.” She bobbed her chin in the direction of Charlie. “I couldn’t help but notice that she’s quite attractive, though it was difficult to tell for sure with those sunglasses on. If you two were, say, about to get engaged, that could erase the whole Aubrey issue.”

  “There is no Aubrey issue, Tiff. And I’m not about to get engaged. So you can put that idea out of your mind like, say, yesterday. Gotta go.”

  He quickly stashed the signs in his pickup storage box and backed out of the driveway as fast as he could.

  “Jeez, Dad, it took you forever,” Grady whined. “I’m so starved I could eat two orders of chicken and waffles, plus two mud pies.”

  Jace’s lips quirked. The kid had eyes bigger than his stomach. “We’ll see how you feel after your first order.”

  “Was there a problem?” Charlie asked.

  “Nah. Tiffany likes to talk.”

  He took a shortcut through the residential part of Dry Creek to Mother Lode Road, slipped into a parking space in front of the coffee shop, and cut the engine. The restaurant had been a mainstay of Dry Creek since his grandfather was a boy. Sometime in the ʼ80s, Jimmy Ray and his wife, Laney, took it over. They were getting on in years but nothing seemed to slow them down, though the restaurant could use a fresh coat of paint and the grease-stained pictures of cattle on the walls needed to be put out to pasture.

  Still, the old-style diner was Jace’s home away from home. It’s where he and his grandfather had Saturday lunches at the counter together for nearly thirty years. It’s where he’d continued the tradition with his own sons. Same for ce
lebrations. Junior rodeo and high school football game victories. And gatherings with the local cattlemen to discuss the price of beef.

  Jimmy Ray’s restaurant, which as far back as Jace could remember was simply called the “coffee shop,” was the epicenter of life in Dry Creek.

  Laney was at the cash register, ringing up a customer, when they came in. Jace greeted her with a wave and hung his cowboy hat on the coatrack. He pointed to an empty booth in the far corner and she nodded, letting him know it was okay for them to sit there.

  Charlie glanced around the dining room. Jace couldn’t tell if she was turning up her nose at the restaurant or was merely curious. She hadn’t struck him as a snob, but based on her wardrobe and the fact that she’d owned a fancy store made him think she was used to restaurants with white tablecloths that didn’t serve truck-stop food.

  “It doesn’t look like much, but my cousin Sawyer, who’s a total foodie, eats here nearly every day,” he told her as they squeezed around the booth. The boys took one side, leaving Jace to share the other bench with Charlie.

  “It certainly smells good.” She ogled the baked goods in the case, sounding genuine, then studied the menu.

  “I’m getting chicken and waffles, a side of fries, and an Oreo milkshake,” Grady announced, going up on his knees to get the attention of a boy from his class who was sitting with his parents across the room.

  “Hey, buddy, sit down. You’re not at home, okay? You can talk to your friend later.”

  Grady flopped down on his butt, practically landing in Travis’s lap. Travis pushed him and Grady started to sock his brother back when Jace reached across the table and grabbed his fist.

  “Behave or we’re going back to the ranch,” he said in a low, menacing voice reserved for handling tough situations while on patrol. Flipping on the badass usually—not always—worked on the boys too.

  Charlie shrunk back and everyone got quiet.

  He put his hand on her leg the way he would with a spooked horse, then quickly realized he shouldn’t be touching her and pulled it away.

  “We Daltons are loud, but it’s all bark, no bite,” he said apologetically. A man in his position couldn’t afford to be too soft or too sensitive. Still, he didn’t like to see her scared. Not of him.

  She pretended she didn’t know what he was talking about, a serene smile affixed to her face, replacing the abject fear he’d seen only a few seconds ago. “I can’t decide between the chicken and waffles and the chicken fried steak.”

  The boys shouted, “Chicken and waffles!”

  “They’re both good,” he said, tempted to brush a stray strand of hair back under her hat.

  Her cheeks were rosy from the cold and she’d taken off her sunglasses. Two ranchers sitting at a table across from them had checked her out as they’d come in. Jace wasn’t sure if it was because Charlie was nice to look at or if they were curious. Other than Aubrey, he hadn’t been seen with a woman at the coffee shop in recent history.

  “Since Travis and Grady like the chicken and waffles so much, I’ll go with that.” She closed her menu.

  Laney came over to take their orders and wasn’t subtle about her interest in Charlie, giving her, then Jace, a thorough examination. He could’ve sworn he heard her hum approval. Great, between Laney and Tiffany the whole town would have him engaged by tomorrow.

  “Where’s your manners, boy?” Laney slapped Jace on the head with her order pad.

  His reflexes kicked in and he moved before she could smack him again. “Charlie, this is Laney. She and her husband, Jimmy Ray, have owned and operated the coffee shop since dinosaurs roamed the earth.”

  She pretended to take another swing at him, winking at the boys. “Pleased to meet you, Charlie. Where you from? I haven’t seen you around here before.”

  “I’m just passing through on my way to Colorado.”

  Laney didn’t miss the way Charlie had sidestepped the question and wasn’t about to let it go. Jace could see her getting her interrogator on and jumped in before she put Charlie under the hot lights.

  “Hey, Laney, you think we can get something to eat before my kids starve to death?”

  “They don’t look like they’re starving to me.” She rested her hands on her hips. “What can I get you hooligans?”

  There was a chorus of “chicken and waffles.” Grady also asked for French fries and a shake.

  Laney shook her head, then her eyes lit on his cast. She’d missed it when they’d first walked in, focusing instead on Charlie. “Little man, you could eat the north end of a southbound polecat. Now what on earth happened to your arm?”

  “I broke it.” Grady told her the story of how he fell from the fence, adding sound effects for color. Then he segued back to lunch. “Want to bet me ten bucks I can eat it all?”

  She put her hands back on her hips. “You’re on. I’ll bet you a slice of my chess pie.”

  “Yes!” Grady stood on the seat and waved his cast in the air.

  Charlie laughed. For a moment, the sadness was gone. And Jace got a little lost in her deep brown eyes. Maybe spellbound was more like it.

  Laney cleared her throat—she wanted the rest of their drink orders—and Jace was forced back to earth.

  And that’s when he knew he’d let her stay the week.

  At the back of his mind there was Angela. But even if his cousin had never gone missing, Jace didn’t have the stomach to throw out a woman in trouble. It wasn’t in the Dalton DNA, or the cowboy creed, or the reason he’d gone into law enforcement.

  But he’d keep his eyes on her. And that right there was the problem, because from the moment she’d arrived in his life he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her.

  Chapter 7

  On Monday, Charlotte woke up bright and early. Jace had given her a week’s reprieve from running, and she planned to earn her keep. After a quick shower, she dressed, put up her hair, and even applied a little makeup before going downstairs.

  By the time Jace came into the kitchen, she had the table set, the bacon sizzling, and a bowl of pancake batter waiting.

  “You’re up early.” He poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “Ready for some breakfast?”

  He noticed the griddle and the maple syrup out on the counter. “Pancakes and bacon, huh? That’s Sunday morning food.”

  She couldn’t tell whether he was pleased or being critical. Yesterday was Sunday, and they’d had eggs and sausage.

  “Would you prefer something else?” She started to cover the batter bowl with cellophane.

  “Hell no.” He grinned and she felt something in the pit of her stomach stir. Relief, she told herself. Relief that he wasn’t angry. “I love pancakes. I just never have time to make them on weekdays.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about it now. I’ve got you covered.” She turned the flame up under the griddle. “What would you like me to do while the boys are at school?”

  “Some laundry would be good, but for the most part the time is yours. They need to be picked up at three and Travis needs to be run over to a junior rodeo meeting. He can show you where it is. Grady has to do his homework before TV, video games, or anything else. He’ll try to tell you otherwise. Stand tough or he’ll run roughshod over you.

  “And, Charlie, the job comes with a salary, not just room and board.”

  “No salary. I mean it. I’m just happy to be here.” And she was. A week without running.

  She poured four large dollops of batter onto the pan and waited for the pancakes to form tiny bubbles before flipping them over.

  Jace walked down the hallway and yelled to the boys, “Rattle your hocks.”

  What an odd expression. Charlotte assumed it meant that the boys should hurry up. It was getting late.

  “Your pancakes are ready.” She stacked them on a plate and served him at
the table.

  He called one more time to the boys and tucked into his food. She stood by the range top, watching him out of the corner of her eye. He buttered the front and back of each pancake with great efficiency, then doused the stack with syrup.

  “Mm, these are great,” he said around a bite, cutting another with the side of his fork, eschewing the knife.

  She liked watching him eat. Heartily and without self-consciousness.

  “Oh, I forgot the bacon.” She quickly plucked a few strips from the pan onto a plate she’d lined with a paper towel and served him the pieces.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Aren’t you going to sit down and eat too?”

  “As soon as I feed the boys.”

  On cue, they bustled in, sniping at each other. Jace looked up from his plate, lifted an eyebrow, and they immediately stopped fighting.

  “We’re having pancakes?” Grady joined Charlotte at the range and sniffed the bowl. “I love pancakes.” He did a little dance and wrapped his arms around her waist for a hug.

  Travis stole a strip of bacon from the pan. “We’re gonna be late.”

  “And whose fault is that?” Jace motioned for both boys to sit down.

  Charlotte made them each a stack of pancakes and brought the rest of the bacon to the table.

  “Mrs. Rogers is going to take you to school and pick you up.” Jace pinned Travis and Grady with a look. “Be sure to mind her, you hear?”

  Both boys nodded. She just prayed that no one broke any more bones on her watch.

  Jace finished his breakfast, loaded his plate and mug into the dishwasher, and took off for work. Charlotte, clutching a mug of hot coffee, watched from the window as he climbed into his police vehicle and drove away.

  She’d been both surprised and relieved when he said she could stay. Now, she’d have to break the news to Meredith. Charlotte had promised Jace she’d give him seven days of employment and she planned to stick to her word, even if Meredith found her housing and work in another state.

  “You guys almost ready?” she asked, glancing at the clock.