Cowboy Strong. Stacy Finz

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      “Son of a bitch!” She slammed her laptop closed, scrambled off the bed, and swiped a smartphone off his dresser—which was now covered with women’s lingerie—punched in a number and started yelling at someone.

      He listened in because he was nosy and because she made it difficult not too. People on the other side of the continent could hear her, she was that loud. From her side of the conversation he extrapolated that it was a business situation. Someone was pulling out of a deal and she was going apeshit over it.

      He searched his duffel for his own phone and took it into the living room. Sure enough, there were four missed calls from his mother and a CALL ME ASAP text.

      He took a long, calming breath and dialed.

      She answered on the first ring. “How’s London, darling?”

      “The trip was great until I got home.” He leaned against the wall and cradled the phone to his ear with his shoulder. “Who is she and why is she here?”

      “Oh, boy.” Long pause. “You said you’d be overseas until August.”

      “I got all my interviews done for the piece I’m writing and came home a week early. Who is she, Mom, and why have you foisted her on Dry Creek Ranch?”

      “You didn’t recognize her?” His mother was pacing now; Sawyer could hear her high heels clicking on the marble floor in her office. “I guess that’s good. She’s Gina DeRose.”

      “That FoodFlicks chick?” Sawyer had caught her food show a few times. Not because he liked to cook, but because Gina DeRose was hot. At least on television. It was amazing what makeup and good lighting could do.

      “Not just FoodFlicks. She owns an entire culinary empire. Cookbooks, kitchenware, pots and pans, her own line of seasonings, cake mixes, and packaged frozen foods.”

      He moved to the kitchen and rummaged through the fridge, looking for a bottle of water. They seemed to have all disappeared.

      “What did she do, murder someone?” If Sawyer’s parents were representing DeRose, she had to be dealing with a professional crisis of significant proportions. Dalton and Associates wasn’t your garden-variety publicity firm. His parents’ company specialized in making career-killing mistakes go away for anyone rich enough to afford its services.

      “She’s accused of having an affair.”

      “People still care about that?” Call him jaded, but show him a celebrity, politician, or sports figure who hadn’t been caught with their pants down. He wasn’t condoning it, but society seemed immune, especially in the Hollywood-type world Gina DeRose ran in.

      His mother sighed. “She broke up Candace and Danny Clay’s marriage. There are pictures circulating all over the internet.”

      Sawyer knew the Clays also had a cooking show, kind of a Lucy and Ricky bit. He’d caught fleeting minutes of the program while channel surfing.

      “It’s a mess,” his mother continued. “Candace’s fans, of which there are legions, called for a boycott of Gina’s show. When sponsors started pulling ads, FoodFlicks canceled the rest of the show’s season, including reruns, and suspended negotiations for next season. Investors are talking about walking away from the retail end: the cookware, the prepared meals, and all the rest of it. And—”

      “Okay, okay.” He was too tired to hear anymore. “What do you want me to do?”

      “Let her stay on the ranch. Everywhere she goes, she’s chased by paparazzi. Your father and I just want her to lie low while we manage the bad press and stop the bleeding. And a hotel or a resort…she’s too recognizable. I know I should’ve gotten your permission first. But we were desperate. She can’t even leave her house without being ambushed. And Jace said it would be okay.”

      “When did you talk to Jace?”

      “When I couldn’t reach you. He let her in…gave her his spare key.”

      Sawyer rubbed his hands down his face. “I’ll find her something,” he said, though he didn’t know what. “But she can’t stay in my place.” Besides the fact that he only had one bedroom, the apartment was also his office and writing cave. Then there was the fact that he’d never been good with sharing his space.

      “Somewhere on the ranch, please.” When he muttered that he would, she said, “Thank you, Sawyer. You’re a good son.”

      “You mean I’m a sucker. Bye, Mom.”

      Gina came into the kitchen, looking like a bird had nested in her blond hair. She had bags under her eyes and the cleavage she was famous for was hidden underneath an oversized T-shirt. Either that or she wore a really good push-up bra on her television show.

      “How’d you get here?” he asked, suddenly realizing he hadn’t seen a car.

      “To the kitchen? Or here to Timbuktu?”

      He rolled his eyes and stifled a pithy comeback. The sooner he got her settled, the sooner he could sleep. “Did you drive and if so, where’s your vehicle?” He said it slowly, enunciating each word.

      “In the garage or barn, or whatever is below us.” She pointed at the floor. “We’ll need to keep the door closed at all times. I don’t want the vultures to know where I am.”

      “And who would the vultures be?”

      “Reporters. Bloodsuckers, every last one of them.”

      He reached into his back pocket, held his press pass in front of her face, and hitched a brow. “Don’t worry, I only cover real news. Let’s go.”

      For a second, she looked afraid, like he might root through her garbage or snap pictures of her naked. Then she must’ve realized that his mother—her crisis manager—wouldn’t have sent her to the lion’s den, and she went back to copping an attitude.

      “Where?” She folded her arms over her chest.

      “To your new safe house.”

      She perked up. “I hope it has a pool. It’s hot here.”

      He was pretty sure that was her lame attempt at sarcasm.

      “Yep. Five-star accommodations,” he tossed back. “Pack up your stuff.”

      He got a fresh shirt from his closet, sent the rest of her luggage down in the hay elevator— one of the things he’d kept before the redo—and met her at the bottom of the stairs. She scrolled through her phone while he loaded her baggage into the back of his Range Rover.

      “Careful with that,” she said as he hefted one of her suiters. “My laundry service pressed everything and I doubt there’s a good dry cleaner’s anywhere around here.” She stared out over the pastureland and shuddered as if she were stuck in a hellhole.

      He held his tongue, looking forward to being rid of her. Never mind that the ranch was his lifeblood, everything that mattered.

      “Hop in,” he said, blasted the AC, and got on a rutted dirt road that followed the creek through a copse of trees that opened СКАЧАТЬ