Billion Dollar Cowboy

by Carolyn Brown

  Colton turned the truck around and headed toward the house. “Blake Shelton?”

  She nodded. “And the G Kings.”

  “Who or what are the G Kings?”

  “You don’t know?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  She smiled. “That would be George Strait and George Jones. Have you seen Roxie yet?”

  He shook his head. “I hope she gets off that bus with a smile on her face. I want to strangle someone when she’s unhappy. That kid’s been through enough upheaval in her life.”

  “So she’s been in and out of Maudie’s life ever since she was a little girl?”

  “Not a little girl. Ever since she was a three-month-old baby. I was just fourteen the first time Granny brought her home from church. Her momma asked Granny to keep her for the afternoon and didn’t show up to pick her up until Tuesday. It was summertime so it didn’t interfere with Granny’s job.”

  “Maudie’s a good woman to give her support and stability. I hope that she showed Rosalee who is really the boss today.”

  Colton flashed one of his brilliant smiles. “Oh, I’m sure that little girl won’t mess with her anymore, and poor old Dillon better hit the ground with apologies spewin’ out of his mouth.”

  “Bless her heart. It’s not easy growing up. She reminds me so much of Janet that it’s eerie. Who do you think she’ll pair my sister up with for the party?”

  “Who knows, but it’s Cynthia that is going to make her rich. I swear she’s got pure gypsy blood in her. She can figure a way to con a dollar out of anything. Rusty and Andy both will pay her big bucks to keep from having to spend the whole day with Cynthia. I’m going to give her all the names of the folks who’ll be participating in the games tonight. That’ll keep her busy all weekend while we are gone.”

  Roxie bailed off the porch, slung both her arms around Laura, and hugged her tightly. She’d taken the cute little headband out of her hair and had pinned it up off her neck in a messy bun. She’d changed out of her fancy jeans and new shirt and wore an oversized faded Western shirt over a pair of cutoff jean shorts.

  “It worked! You did it! You are a better witch than Rosalee. She called Dillon and admitted that she’d cheated on the test so that he’d notice her. She must’ve thought that would impress him, but he told her that he didn’t like cheaters and he apologized to me. You are a genius,” Roxie said.

  “You are a genius,” Colton whispered.

  “What’s he talking about?” Roxie asked.

  “Nothing. See, I was right. You needed to go to school today.”

  Roxie looped her arm through Laura’s. “It wasn’t easy but you should’ve seen her face when I got off the bus with Dillon this morning. I don’t think she’ll be messing with me anymore.”

  “Sometimes it’s tough wanting what’s not yours,” Laura said.

  “Don’t I know it. Come up to my room with me and we’ll pick out fingernail polish for your trip.”

  “I’m a mess. Why don’t you get the polish and bring it out to my apartment. I’ll get a quick shower while you are gathering it up.”

  Roxie nodded and Laura made her way through the flower beds to her apartment. She’d barely gotten out of the shower and slipped into lounging pants and a tank top when Roxie rapped on the door.

  “Come on in,” Laura yelled.

  Roxie carried a shoebox into the apartment, set it on the bed, and slouched down in a rocker beside the window.

  Daisy pushed through the vent into the room and jumped up on the bed. She curled up on the pillow and eyed Roxie with an evil look.

  “Look at that animal. She hates me and I didn’t do a thing,” Roxie said. “They say that cats don’t like gypsies. Do you think it’s true?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Are you really a gypsy?” Laura asked.

  “Momma says that my daddy’s momma was one and that I look and act just like her. She said that Grandma was horrible and I’d probably grow up to be just like her,” Roxie said.

  “You’ll grow up to be whoever you want to be. Set your goals and keep your eyes right on them. If you fall, get up and go again and don’t let anyone push you around,” Laura said.

  “You believe all that?” Roxie asked.

  “I do because I lived through being sixteen in the same situation you’ve got,” Laura said. “Now I bet Daisy is just playing hard to get. Ignore her. Let’s look at the fingernail polish.”

  Roxie opened the box and picked up a bottle. “Crimson red. You should definitely wear deep red with that dress and your toenails should match. Let’s put diamonds on your big toes. I’ve got some left from the Christmas party.”

  Tears hung on Laura’s lashes and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. It would be wonderful if by magic a person could pour a little bleach or some kind of miracle drug into their gene pool. Roxie would always be plagued by genetics just like Laura was. Neither of them had much to offer when it came to reaching into the DNA pool for parenting role models. But maybe, just maybe, with Maudie’s firm hand and gentle love, environment could override the murky gene puddle enough that Roxie would be a well-rounded woman when she grew up.

  “Are you crying?” Roxie asked.

  “I rubbed my eyes with lotion on my hands and they’re watering. Let me see that crimson red you were talking about.” Laura nodded toward the lineup of polish on the dresser.

  “Okay, but you got to look at a bunch so you know you made the right decision. Starting here, they’re rated from one through ten. I tried to match your dress from memory but red is such a fickle color. This is my favorite.” Roxie held up the first one.

  Laura pulled her dress out of the closet and laid it out on the bed. “Put the bottles right on the dress and see which one is the true match,” she suggested.

  Roxie clapped her hands. “Look at that. I got it right.”

  “Perfect match. You’ve got an eye for fashion.”

  Roxie beamed. “No one says a ranchin’ woman has to look all trashy!”

  Laura giggled. “No, they don’t. And you might turn out to be the first woman in Texas who can work on a ranch and design clothing, too. Tomorrow right after school, I’ll be ready for a manicure and pedicure. Colton says we’re leaving the ranch at five. Does that give you enough time?”

  Roxie frowned. “Remember, we don’t have school tomorrow. We are going to start the beautification at one o’clock. I’ve got it all lined out, step by step.”

  “I’m in your capable hands, but right now let’s look through those magazines over there and see what I should do with my hair,” Laura said.

  The frown turned into a grin and for the next hour they turned page after page, earmarking some to look at later and giggling over some that looked downright ridiculous. It was a few minutes until six when Laura stretched and said that she’d better change into jeans and put on some shoes so that they could go to the big house for supper.

  “I am hungry. I didn’t eat much lunch and we got to talking and I forgot all about an after-school snack,” Roxie said.

  She continued to chatter on and on about what she had planned for the next day as they left Laura’s apartment and went arm in arm across the yard. But Laura heard little of it. Something had triggered a faint memory of Janet standing on a stool, making sandwiches for them. It had to have been before Aunt Dotty took them to Texas because their mother was lying asleep on the sofa.

  Laura tried to hang on to the vision but it faded. The lady on the sofa had long, curly blond hair, and light brown lashes fanned out on a delicate face.

  Colton winked at her from the buffet. Standing there in snug-fitting jeans, a plaid Western shirt, and freshly shaven, he looked like a magazine advertisement for Stetson or maybe Jack Daniel’s. She inhaled deeply and caught a whiff of shaving lotion. All that, plus the sexy wink, was enough to put her firmly in Ros
alee’s boots: she wanted what she could not have.

  Chapter 9

  Laura was nervous but she didn’t panic until the elevator doors slid open. Straight ahead a glass wall gave them a gorgeous view of the sunset behind the Dallas skyline. The bellboy rolled the luggage carrier into the sitting room and set the suitcases beside a brass and glass table with two chairs pushed up under it.

  Colton handed him a bill and he pushed the carrier back into the elevator. Both of them looked at Laura, who was still in the elevator. She managed to take a step forward but it wasn’t without great effort. She wasn’t one to let anything intimidate her but the sight of that room did a fine job of doing so. She did not belong there and worry wrapped its cold arms around her like a blanket of ice.

  The bellboy smiled brightly and pushed the carrier back into the elevator. The doors shut behind her and she whipped around. Yes, there were buttons to open it again if she wanted to run away.

  “It is a two-bedroom suite. Both are exactly the same.” Colton threw open the door to the right of the glass wall. “You got a preference?”

  Laura shook her head. She did but it had nothing to do with which bedroom was hers for the weekend.

  “Then you can have this one.” He picked up her suitcase and carried it inside with her following behind him.

  It was a lovely room with a king-sized bed and a huge bathroom with a Jacuzzi, separate shower, and enormous mirror above a two-sink vanity. It wasn’t the room, the view, or the bathroom that struck her mute. It was a sudden case of acute anxiety about what was in her suitcases.

  She shouldn’t have been so quick to leave Tressa’s Boutique in a snit about the prices. She would look like Cinderella had come to the ball in her scrub rags. She glanced at her hair in the mirror above the dresser and bit back a moan. Jimmy was probably already booked solid so she’d have to manage on her own. Thank God Roxie had helped her pack a curling iron and hair dryer.

  “Is something wrong?” Colton asked.

  “Not a thing. I wasn’t expecting all this.” She took the whole suite in with a wide sweep of her hands.

  “It is a little overpowering, isn’t it? But since I’m the biggest contributor in their scholarship fund, they give me the penthouse suite each year. Granny says it’s sinful to stay in a room that costs more a night than she made in two months when she was cooking at the school, and you got to admit, it’s not nearly as big as the ranch house.” He laughed.

  “I agree with her,” she said.

  “I’ve already ordered room service to be brought up at six.” He looked at the clock beside her bed. “Ten minutes from right now. Then I have a meeting at seven which will last until at least ten. You are invited to go with the wives and girlfriends for drinks at the hotel bar. I’ll introduce you to Karen. She’s the one who plans the itinerary for the ladies. You will like her.”

  “How many ladies are there?” Laura asked.

  “Seven usually, but I understand two didn’t come this year. One is getting over a heart attack and another one just had a baby last week. So that makes five. There are seven on the board of directors. Number has to be an odd one so we can’t hang up a vote. They are all over fifty except me. Most of the women are middle-aged. The one that had a heart attack is about seventy. You will be the youngest one among them.”

  Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “A new baby at fifty?”

  “She’s the third or maybe fourth wife. He’s sixty. She’s about thirty.”

  “Are they all billionaires?”

  “I’m the poor kid on the block amongst them.” He laughed.

  “Are you joking?”

  “Not a bit.”

  “What do their suites look like?” she whispered.

  He laughed so hard that they didn’t hear room service arriving.

  “Excuse me…” a lady said loudly from the elevator doors.

  Laura peeked out around into the sitting room. “Yes?”

  “Your supper, ma’am.”

  Colton brushed past her and pulled a money clip from the pocket of his jeans. He handed the woman a tip and she removed the silver domes from the plates after she set the plates on the small table. “Just let me know if you need anything else, Mr. Nelson, and I’ll get it up here within minutes.”

  “Thank you.” He was already pulling out Laura’s chair when the woman disappeared into the elevator.

  The butterflies in her stomach had to have been feeding on pure sugar, the way they flitted around. There was a steak the size of a plate, baked potato dressed up with sour cream, butter, bacon, and cheese, and steamed broccoli—and she didn’t think she could swallow a single bite.

  “I hope steak is all right? I remembered that you like yours medium well.”

  “It looks delicious.”

  “Butter?” He held up a dinner roll.

  “Yes, please.”

  He split the roll and slathered the inside with softened butter from a crystal dish in the middle of the table.

  She cut off a small bite of the steak and surprisingly enough it chased the butterflies away when she swallowed. “Tomorrow? Tell me what’s going on tomorrow. I feel like I just walked into another world.”

  “I’ll be in meetings all day. Karen plans the day for you ladies so I can’t help you out there. Ask her tonight. Meetings end at five and we’ll have a snack in the room, then at eight we have the formal dinner. After that, there is a dance. Sunday we sleep late and go home in the afternoon. Checkout is at noon.”

  She fidgeted with her hair, curling the ends and putting on makeup. Roxie said that she’d picked Maudie’s brain and on the first night jeans and boots were acceptable. So Laura dressed in starched jeans, a Western-cut shirt in brown silk with lace inserts on the yoke, and brown boots that had been shined.

  Colton whistled when she walked out into the sitting room which helped so much that she wanted to kiss him.

  “Well, don’t you look stunning,” he said.

  “Thank you. I wasn’t sure what your girlfriend would wear to one of these things,” she said. “So I asked Roxie to talk to Maudie.”

  “Honey, you are going to turn heads, believe me.” He smiled.

  She stole glances at him in the mirrored sides of the elevator on the way down to the lobby. She wouldn’t turn nearly as many heads as he would in his creased black dress jeans, eel boots, and white shirt topped with a Western-cut sports jacket. He was today’s modern cowboy all decked out to rub elbows with the Texas elite.

  The doors opened and he threw an arm around her shoulder. It amazed her how well she fit there beside him as they crossed the floor to a table where four women waited.

  “Well, would you look at this, girls,” the oldest of the women said. “Our Colton has done grown up and brought a guest with him. This should be interesting.”

  He said their names but not a one of them stuck in Laura’s head, and she was usually really good at putting names and faces together. Then he said, “Karen, sweetheart, I’m going to leave Laura in your hands. Don’t y’all scare her off now. I kind of like her.”

  He brushed a sweet kiss across Laura’s lips. “See you later, darlin’.”

  She was so nervous that her hands were shaking and his kiss, however sweet, didn’t help a bit when it turned her knees into jelly. A real relationship couldn’t be one damn bit hotter than the false one had been since day one. She watched him disappear behind double doors into a conference room and then turned to face the other women.

  Karen looped an arm through hers and led her to the bar. “I’m Karen and you’ve been left in my care. We’ll take two longneck Coors,” she told the bartender who had stopped at their table. “I hope I’m right in assuming you drink beer.”

  Laura nodded.

  “Good. Then me and you are going to get along just fine, honey.”

  Karen wasn’
t any taller than Laura. Her red hair was ratted up into a French twist and her eyebrows were painted on, expertly arched halfway to her hairline. “These other broads like their Kool-Aid drinks but give me a beer or a double shot of Jim Beam any day of the week.”

  “Don’t pay no attention to her. She’s full of shit. And as fast as Colton said our names I bet you don’t remember a damn one of them. He probably introduced me as Barbara but I’m Bunny to my friends. Bartender, make me a White Russian. Kool-Aid drinks my ass.”

  With her three chins and beady little eyes she looked more like a bulldog than a bunny. Besides, bunnies never prop a boot heel on the bar rail and order up a White Russian.

  “And then whip up two margaritas,” a third woman said before turning to Laura. “I’m Tootsie. That’s not my real name but the only people who know that information is the courthouse personnel where my birth certificate is registered and my parents, and they are both dead. And this is Melanie. Pull up a chair, honey, and tell us how you landed that sexy cowboy. Or maybe tell us how he landed you—that might be a better story.”

  Tootsie was tall, thin, and had blond hair. The wrinkles in her face said that the hair color was right out of a bottle. Next to Laura, Melanie was probably the youngest one of the four and she had to be close to fifty. Her brown hair was cut in chin-length layers, and her hazel eyes were enormous behind thick lenses in her glasses.

  Laura stole a chair from a nearby table.

  Tootsie scooted over to make room for her. “How did all this come about? We figured no one was fast enough to catch Colton Nelson. Lord, that boy has been outrunning women so long, we’d begun to wonder if he was straight.”

  “It’s kind of a long story,” Laura stammered.

  “We ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Bunny said.

  “My cousin is his financial advisor. His name is Andy and he hired me to be his assistant. I met Colton when I went to work at the ranch and this just kind of happened.”