Cowboy Strong. Stacy Finz

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СКАЧАТЬ A gentleman would’ve kept his mouth shut and been gracious. But for some reason she pushed his buttons.

      “I didn’t want to be rude,” she said, as if she was doing them a great favor by gracing them with her presence. Bringing the cake, though, had been nice. And unexpected. Gina DeRose struck him as a taker, not a giver.

      Maybe he was making a snap judgment based on a paltry two meetings—at least the second one had been more positive than the first—but he was a trained observer, after all. And so far he took her for a narcissist. Weren’t most celebrities?

      “Gina, you want a steak or a burger?” Jace put a row of burgers on the grill and began to arrange the buns.

      “A burger would be great.” She slid a glance at the patties resting on the top rack where they could cook slowly without burning.

      Jace was merely adequate in the kitchen, but his burgers were legendary. At least in Mill County.

      “How do you want yours?”

      “Medium rare,” she said and gestured at the patties. “How’d you prepare them?”

      “Egg, pepper, garlic salt, chili powder, and my secret weapon.” When she arched a brow in question, Jace said, “Panko instead of bread crumbs.”

      Sawyer watched her nod approvingly. The women pulled her over to the picnic table, where they plied her with questions about FoodFlicks. No one mentioned the elephant in the yard and Sawyer couldn’t help but wonder whether she was still seeing Danny Clay. Whether they were in love or just having sex.

      Cheating sex.

      “She seems nice,” Cash said.

      Sawyer just shrugged and changed the subject. “Any news on Beals Ranch?”

      Randy Beals, their neighbor, was upside down on his cattle spread. The Bealses and the Daltons had been friends for generations. But like everyone else who ran cattle in the Sierra foothills, the struggle to keep afloat during drought years was slowly killing them off. Unlike Grandpa Dalton, Randy had borrowed against his land to keep his operation alive instead of culling his herd. Now he couldn’t afford to pay the monthly mortgage bills.

      “Haven’t heard anything,” Jace said. “I expect one day we’ll drive by and there’ll be a sold sign on the gate. What happens after that is anybody’s guess.”

      “Anybody’s guess?” The vein in Sawyer’s neck pulsed. “What’ll happen is a big-ass development. You know it, Cash knows it, everyone on Dry Creek Road knows it.”

      Cash let out a breath. “Not much we can do about it, Sawyer. It is what it is.”

      “We can buy the damn place ourselves. Randy said he’d give us first dibs when he was talking about selling last winter.” But even as he said it, he knew how unrealistic it was. Beals Ranch was twice the size of Dry Creek Ranch and twice the price. They could barely afford the bills on what they already owned.

      “Let me know when you win the lottery.” Jace sandwiched the burgers between buns and brought the tray to the trestle table, calling, “Food’s up.”

      The kids raced over and Sawyer grabbed the medium rare burger and brought it to Gina. The steaks followed and everyone helped themselves to sides.

      “Nice spread.” Gina sidled up next to Sawyer. “Does your family do this a lot?”

      “Most Sundays, as long as everyone’s here. Jace is the county sheriff and Cash is an investigator for the Bureau of Livestock Identification, so they get called out fairly often.”

      “What does a livestock investigator do?”

      “Among other things, solve cattle rustling cases.”

      “Is that even a thing outside of old Westerns?”

      “Like I told you, beef is a billion-dollar business in California. So, yeah, stealing livestock is a thing.”

      “No need to get huffy about it.”

      “Huffy?” Sawyer quirked a brow. “There was nothing remotely huffy about that statement.”

      “Good, then can I borrow your kitchen tomorrow?”

      At least this time she was asking. “Why? You planning to go into the catering business now that you’re unemployed?”

      “Ha-ha, very funny. I’m testing a new recipe and it took me two hours to bake a simple sponge cake in the cabin’s poor excuse of an oven.”

      “Don’t show up before one. I’ve got writing to do.” If she was testing, he was tasting. A guy had to eat, right?

      Chapter 4

      Gina awoke to loud whoops and barks. For a second, she thought she’d died and gone to hell. Then she remembered where she was and realized she hadn’t died. But the rest of it was true.

      It’s temporary, she reminded herself.

      She crawled out of bed, padded to the window, and peeked through the blinds. In the distance, past the creek, close to a hundred cows lumbered across a field. Three men on horseback rode in formation, driving the cattle forward, whistling and shouting to keep them in line. Two dogs zigzagged in and out of the herd.

      It was a sight to behold, even if it had roused her from a sound sleep. She stood at the window, watching. It was beautiful the way the cowboys seemed to have a sixth sense about which way the cows would move, turning their horses to and fro to keep the animals from straying. She’d never seen anything like it.

      Gina grabbed her phone from the nightstand and wandered out onto the porch to snap a few pictures. She zoomed in with the lens and noticed that one of the cowboys was Sawyer. He didn’t look so surly on the back of a horse. No, he was actually smiling. And the cowboy hat…it was hot.

      She was just about to post the picture to her Instagram account when she remembered that Wendy had warned her to stay off social media. So many haters had come out of the woodwork that she didn’t dare even lurk on Twitter or Facebook.

      Her mother was probably laughing in her grave. How did someone like me wind up with someone like you? Gina forced her mother’s favorite refrain from her head and snapped a few more photos.

      For the first time since she’d gotten here, she took the time to look around. Really look. The cabin was a squalid POS, but the land was gorgeous. The creek, the gentle rolling hills, the trees, and the mountains in the distance. And so green. Southern California was a sea of brown in July.

      She looked for a place to sit to take it all in, started to take a spot on the upside-down wine barrel and thought better of it. All she had on was a nightshirt and the wood looked like it was splintering. Judging by the bottle rings on the oak, someone had been using it as beer rest, not a chair. Later, as soon as she showered and dressed, she’d do a little shopping on the Internet. Maybe buy a rocker.

      The sun had made a full appearance, shining like a big orange ball in the sky. Gina went inside to look at the time. It wasn’t even eight o’clock. She thought about getting back in bed but was already wide awake.

      She СКАЧАТЬ