Cowboy Strong

by Stacy Finz

  The bottom line was Gina had—among other neuroses—abandonment issues, according to Peggy.

  In high school, Sadie had never approved of her friends. Not that she ran with a bad crowd, just mid-listers in Sadie’s eyes. The children of Hollywood and Beverly Hills parents who weren’t household names. Some of Gina’s inner circle didn’t even live in Beverly Hills, but had used the address of employers or relatives to get into the 90210 school district. Sadie considered those kids leeches, too beneath a DeRose.

  So when Gina went to SDSU her mother directed her to rush the most prestigious sorority on campus, a consolation for not getting into USC and for making shitty friend choices in high school.

  Gina’s heart wasn’t in it. Not really. Not when she had next to nothing in common with most of the girls other than wealth and privilege. She’d even overheard two girls in the sorority house whisper behind her back that she wasn’t Alpha Chi material, which everyone knew meant she was either not pretty enough, not popular enough, or not rich enough. Lord knew the last one didn’t apply, leaving Gina to assume it was the first two.

  It came as no shock when she didn’t make the cut. Still, it ruined her freshman year. Her peers’ rejection and Sadie’s stinging displeasure had been overwhelming.

  The experience set Gina’s social course for the rest of her college years.

  Keep my head down, my mouth shut, and get out as fast as I can.

  She’d graduated in four years, a major feat given that it took most students that long to find parking in the overcrowded lots.

  But Sadie was no longer alive to approve or disapprove of Gina’s friends. And when it came to Charlie and Aubrey, Gina wouldn’t have cared, anyway. They were smart, accomplished women, who unlike the rest of the world, didn’t think she was a home-wrecking slut.

  “Enough about me.” The entire point of a girls’ night out was to laugh and eat and drink too much. “Let’s talk about something cheerful.”

  Aubrey and Charlie exchanged conspiratorial glances.

  “You and Sawyer seem to be spending a lot of time together.” Charlie covered the cake with a glass lid, one of her charming, vintage tableware pieces. “I’m saving the rest for the boys. Back to Sawyer. What’s going on with you two?”

  “Uh, nothing,” Gina said too quickly, conveniently leaving out the kiss. “Nothing at all.” Jeez, even to her own ears, she sounded like she was protesting too much.

  “Really? Because it looks like there’s something going on to me,” Aubrey said. Between her and Charlie, she was the more outspoken one.

  “Nope. Just friends. Well, not even friends. More like chef and professional taster. I cook, Sawyer eats. That’s about the extent of our relationship.”

  Charlie’s eyes were laughing at Gina. “He appears to be doing more than just sampling your recipes.” She made it sound sexual. “Hasn’t he been advising you, giving tips on how to avoid negative press? He has to like you, or he wouldn’t get involved.”

  Gina shrugged. “His parents represent me. He’s just taking part in the family business. So what’s the deal with his sister?”

  Again, Aubrey and Charlie exchanged looks. This time, not conspiratorial but surprised.

  “He told you about Angie?” Aubrey lifted the cake lid and took another swipe at the whipped cream.

  “A little. I offered to go with him to New Mexico to check out this commune where she supposedly lived. I mean, it’s the least I can do since he’s helping me out. But he wasn’t interested.”

  “He didn’t tell you the latest? About the email?” Charlie asked.

  Gina shook her head. “No. What email?”

  Charlie turned to Aubrey. “I guess it’s okay if we tell her, right?” Aubrey nodded. “It was an anonymous email, someone saying they were safe and that Sawyer should stop his search.”

  Gina’s mouth fell wide. “Angie sent it?”

  Aubrey hitched her shoulders. “We don’t know for certain. But, yeah, that’s the consensus. Cash is having a friend in the FBI cyber lab see if he can trace it.”

  “Who else could it be?” As far as Gina knew, Sawyer was only searching for one person. His sister.

  “We just don’t want to jump to conclusions,” Charlie said. “Sawyer deals with a lot of weirdos in his line of work. A lot of reporters do. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame.”

  “What if it is her, though?” None of it made any sense to Gina, unless Sawyer’s sister wanted a permanent separation from her family. Then why not just say she didn’t want them to contact her? Period. But from everything Sawyer had said that wasn’t the case. They were close—the whole family was—according to him.

  Charlie blew out a breath. “That’s the big question. It was nice of you to offer to help, though.”

  “Why? He’s helping me.”

  Both Charlie and Aubrey smiled. It was a knowing smile, but they had it all wrong. There was nothing going on between her and Sawyer.

  Except for the kiss.

  “How long until Cash’s friend knows something?”

  “I guess when he can fit it in.” Aubrey gave a half shrug. “Until then, we wait.”

  Sawyer didn’t strike Gina as the type to wait. He’d continue his own investigation until Cash’s FBI buddy came through. That much she knew. She’d offer whatever help she could give, though tracing anonymous emails wasn’t exactly her forte.

  They spent the rest of the evening gossiping about people Gina didn’t know. But she enjoyed the conversation just the same. It was a close-knit town and it sounded like everyone was up in everyone else’s grill. Same as FoodFlicks without the nastiness.

  “Have you signed up the flower growers, yet?” she asked, curious about how this little village of shops and agricultural pursuits would work. The concept very much appealed to her business side and on the nights she didn’t fantasize about Sawyer naked, she played around with ideas of ways this plan of the Daltons could be more profitable.

  “We did.” Charlie pumped her fist in the air.

  “Cash talked to a saddlemaker who’s interested too.” Aubrey cleared the rest of the table and started loading their dinner plates into the dishwasher.

  “Is that very lucrative, saddlemaking?” Gina’s only exposure to horses and saddles had been her sixth birthday party. Sadie had gone with a petting zoo theme, including pony rides. And there had been a lot of protests and tears when her father had tried to hoist her onto the back of a shaggy little Shetland named Mike. Petting had been fine. But riding, a no-go.

  Sadie had pouted and whined that they were missing a golden photo opportunity. Just one of a long list of her mother’s complaints about Gina.

  “Are you kidding?” Aubrey straightened from the dishwasher and stretched. “The price people will pay for a good show saddle is through the roof. Some of those saddles have more sterling silver than a jewelry store. According to Cash, this saddle guy does a lot of custom work.”

  “No question saddles fit in with the ranch motif. As long as the guy can pay his rent. You ever consider talking to Laney and Jimmy Ray? That sarsaparilla they make is a license to print money. Just a stand here, nothing that would cut into their coffee shop business. Can you picture it? Folks browsing in Refined, strolling through the flower shop, popping in to watch the saddlemaker, all the while working up a powerful thirst.”

  “It’s brilliant.” Aubrey clapped her hands. “They could serve it in cute Mason jars, maybe sell slices of Laney’s chess pie or ramekins of her berry crumble.”

  “Do something seasonal for the holidays,” Gina continued. But it was the sarsaparilla that would draw people in. She hated to think of Laney and Jimmy Ray’s winning concoction confined to a life of obscurity.

  “What a wonderful idea.” Charlie turned on the dishwasher and grabbed a pad of paper from one of the drawers. “I want to take notes, share
it with the guys, and then we should approach Laney and Jimmy Ray. They’re spread thin at the coffee shop, so they’d probably have to bring someone else in. We’d have to do the build-out ourselves. Laney wouldn’t have the patience for it and Jimmy Ray has got his hands full. Plus, the money. I’m not sure they’d want to make the investment until they knew it would pay off.”

  “Just a kiosk would do it,” Gina said. “There’s got to be prefab ones you can buy.”

  Aubrey started searching on her phone. “It would have to fit in aesthetically with the ranch. Nothing janky, like the ones you see at the mall.”

  “I’m sure we could get someone to build something. Even Dennis and his crew,” Charlie said.

  Aubrey looked at Charlie and narrowed her eyes. “If we want it done by the twelfth of never. Because that’s how long he’s taking to finish our job.”

  Gina heard the construction whenever she walked to Sawyer’s house. The contractor and his people appeared to be zipping along. But she supposed it was easy to become impatient when you were living in it, trying to run a business.

  “I’m sure one of the guys knows someone.” Charlie dismissed Aubrey with her hand. “The bigger challenge is getting them to go along with it. Not so much Laney, but Jimmy Ray.”

  “I could talk to them,” Gina volunteered, though she was an outsider. The Daltons would probably have better luck. But her mind spun with so many ideas she couldn’t help getting caught up in the planning. And food was her bailiwick. “Or the three of us could, with me explaining the concept. You’ve got to have a concept in the hospitality industry.”

  “If that doesn’t work we can sic Jace on them,” Charlie said. “There isn’t a thing they wouldn’t do for him.”

  “Hey, they stand to make bank on this,” Aubrey added. “It’s a win-win for both of us.”

  Gina didn’t see how Laney and Jimmy Ray’s sarsaparilla could lose as long as Aubrey and Charlie got the kind of traffic they were hoping for. Getting people here was the key, which meant they’d need something significant. Something people would travel for.

  “I’m calling it a night, ladies.” Aubrey wrapped up the last of the quesadillas, stashed them in the fridge, and grabbed her purse.

  Gina supposed it was her cue to leave too, though she was enjoying herself and didn’t relish going back to her hot, empty cabin. The evenings in Dry Creek were cooler than the days. But the temperatures still hovered in the low eighties. Living by the ocean, she’d grown accustomed to cool sea breezes. Here, she had the creek, which didn’t temper the heat but was sure nice to listen to.

  “You want a ride?” she asked Aubrey, who unlike her had walked over.

  “Nah, the exercise will do me some good.” Aubrey patted her belly.

  They walked out together and even though it was closing in on ten o’clock, there was enough moonlight to illuminate the path everyone used for going back and forth between the cabins and the ranch house.

  Gina considered leaving her car and joining Aubrey for the short stroll. But suddenly she had somewhere else she wanted to go.

  Chapter 11

  Sawyer was tweaking his nut graph on the Forbes piece when someone rang the doorbell. He glanced at the clock. The girls were probably still doing their thing and Jace needed a place to hang out until he could go home.

  “Door’s open,” he yelled down.

  The sound of footsteps came up the stairs.

  Sawyer didn’t bother to look up from his computer. “Cash kick you out?” His cousin had adopted the hours of a cow cop. Early to bed, early to rise.

  “How come you didn’t tell me about the email? The one from Angie?”

  He swiveled his barstool around to find Gina in his entryway, not Jace. She had on the same short skirt she’d worn to the barbecue that first week she was here and a stretchy sleeveless top that gave her a boost in the chest department. Not the legendary Gina DeRose rack of cooking show lore, but enough to fill his hands. Instead of the high heels, cowboy boots. That visual alone made his blood rush south of his belt.

  “We don’t know that it’s Angie,” he said, trying hard not to ogle her and failing miserably.

  “Who else could it be?”

  Who else indeed? But it was better to keep his expectations low, that way he wasn’t disappointed. “Don’t know. But the timing seems odd. Why now, after all these years?”

  “Because for the first time you have a solid lead. New Mexico. She likely knows you’ve been talking to people from the commune, asking questions.”

  Beautiful and smart. But Gina DeRose had enough troubles of her own. He didn’t plan to make his her part-time hobby while she waited for the dust to settle on her own situation.

  “Maybe,” was all he said. “Your hen party over?”

  “I hate that saying. It’s condescending. What if I called your night out with the guys a cock party?”

  He eyed her up and down, not even bothering to be discreet about it.

  Cock party?

  His cock wanted to party right now.

  “Did you come over to use my kitchen or to berate me for being a chauvinist?”

  “I came over to find out why you hadn’t told me about the email. We spent all day together and not one word.” She plopped down on the stool next to him. “I tell you all my stuff.”

  “That’s so I can help you go home. Back to the bright lights and glitter.” He winked.

  “You’re being a dick.”

  “Dick is my default.”

  “What’re you going to do if Cash’s friend traces the email to Angie?” She wouldn’t let it go.

  He let out a breath. “It won’t be that cut-and-dried. But if the signs point to it being sent from her, I’ll find her.”

  “Even if she doesn’t want you to?”

  “I don’t believe that,” he said. “There’s more to it, more to the story.”

  “Like she’s in trouble?”

  He nodded and turned away, staring out the window. “Why are you really here?”

  Rarely did women show up at his house after ten p.m. without sex in mind. If that’s why she’d come, he’d send her home. As much a temptation as she was, he’d proven he could restrain himself. The kiss had been a slip, a momentary lapse in judgment. He wouldn’t let it happen again.

  Maybe when she fixed her life and was no longer his mother’s client they could meet up for a drink in Malibu. Tear up the sheets for a night and make a plan to do it again sometime. But not under these circumstances. And definitely not while she was living less than a mile away.

  Sawyer liked his space and freedom too much to hook up with the girl next door.

  “You have air-conditioning and I don’t.” She got up, moved to the living room, and made herself at home on his sofa.

  “If you’re going to suck up the free air-conditioning you could’ve at least brought ice cream.”

  “We ate it all. Now that I’ve got the machine, I’ll make you some tomorrow.”

  He saved his work, shut down his laptop, and joined Gina on the sofa. She kicked off her boots and tucked her legs under her ass, showing more of those glorious legs of hers. He considered moving to the chair but stayed put, either to punish himself or to prove his mettle.

  “What were you working on?” She nudged her head at his computer on the kitchen island.

  “An article for Forbes that’s due next week.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “The fall of globalization.” Normally, he could’ve spent hours talking about his current work. The research, the interviews, the thesis of the story, things that bored his cousins to death. But not tonight.

  Tonight, he was having trouble focusing on anything other than Gina stretched out on his couch in that tiny skirt, wondering what she had on for underwear.

  “It sounds dull as dirt.”


  “It’s my life’s work, so thanks.”

  “It is not. I liked your story about that Malawi kid who studied library books so he could build an electrical windmill to bring water to his home.”

  “You read that?” He’d written it years ago. Since then, the kid—now a man—had been the focus of a documentary and had penned an autobiography.

  “Mm-hmm. You’re a good writer.”

  He laughed because she sounded surprised. “Yeah, I get by.”

  “If you could only be one, which would you pick: cowboy or writer?”

  “Cowboy writer.” He grinned. “How ’bout you? Chef or celebrity?”

  She took a long time to answer. “Celebrity.”

  He’d expected her to imitate his cop-out answer with celebrity chef. But she’d surprised him. “Yeah?” He tilted his head sideways. Why was he not surprised?

  “The thing is I’m a better celebrity than I am a chef.”

  He didn’t know about that. She was quickly on her way to being a washed-up celebrity. But on that, he held his tongue. “Your show is good, Gina. I don’t even cook and I watch it.” He left out that he especially enjoyed the T&A part of the program. “But your cooking”—he held his hand over his heart—“incomparable.”

  “Don’t get carried away. Whatever skills I had I’ve lost. And even when I was good, I wasn’t Thomas Keller or Nancy Silverton good.”

  “I disagree. And I’ve eaten at the French Laundry, Per Se, Bouchon, and Ad Hoc. I freaking lived at La Brea Bakery and spent my childhood eating at Campanile before Nancy and Mark split up. You’re every bit as good as them.”

  “Nancy and Mark?” She rolled her eyes at his familiar use of Chef Silverton and Chef Peel’s first names.

  “Hey, my parents are Wendy and Dan Dalton.” His lips curved up. “They handled the press on the divorce.”