by Joanne Rock
Definitely liking this vision of my future.
“You said in your original email that you hoped to put a tearoom here?” he prodded.
“Yes.” I tried to think about business details and not secret fantasies, but I was really distracted, imagining what he’d look like astride a horse.
Mmm.
“If I sell it to you, I’d need you to commit to that. The contract would include a stipulation that I’d have some say in the kind of business operating here. We can work that out with the lawyers, but I want to be up front with you.”
I had no idea about the legality of that, but I understood why he’d want that kind of control, since my little piece of property would essentially be surrounded by his.
“Certainly.” I set my backpack on the scarred hardwood floor that would gleam after I refinished it. I dug through my things to find my wallet, so I could hand the man my check and unpack a few things before it got dark.
I noticed the electricity had been turned off, so I wanted to get started ASAP, while I could still see.
From outside, a man’s voice called. “Mr. Fraser?”
“In here, Scotty.” Damien backed up a step and opened the creaking front door, allowing a wide swath of sunlight into the main floor.
A wiry young guy stepped inside. He wore a trucker’s cap, with a big pair of old-fashioned headphones clamped around his ears. I could hear the wailing steel guitar and fiddle music from where I stood across the room, so I had no idea how he heard anything else.
I smiled at him, ready to make his acquaintance. But when his eyes met mine, I knew.
I’d been recognized.
My heart sank even as his face lit up.
“Miranda Cortland?” He shoved off his headphones and stepped closer, with the familiarity of someone who’d known me all his life. “No freaking way. The Nebraska Backstabber in my own backyard.”
I swallowed hard, hating that stupid nickname the press had jumped on. Resenting that they’d dug up details about my past, even though I’d listed “Los Angeles” as my hometown.
“Scotty.” Damien did not sound amused. His hazel eyes flashed a deeper brown and he tugged the kid back a step. “What the hell kind of manners are those?”
I would have been touched by that moment of chivalry if I wasn’t sure that Damien Fraser would turn on me in another minute.
“It’s okay,” I rushed to explain. “Just a dumb nickname the media stuck me with after I won a reality TV show.” If I downplayed it, maybe he’d let it drop.
Of course, Joelle had tried ignoring it when I returned to work at her tearoom in L.A. At first, she hoped my notoriety would be good for business. But two weeks in, she was so fed up with the paparazzi harassing the other employees for an “angle” about me, and Hollywood watchers clogging up the tearoom so her real customers couldn’t get a seat, she’d asked me to take a paid leave.
Seriously? I wasn’t about to collect a check I didn’t earn.
“Don’t let her fool you, Mr. Fraser. She’s totally famous.” Scotty shut down his music and reached for his iPod. “See? The Nebraska Backstabber won last season’s Gutsy Girl by stepping back and letting everyone else fight it out. It was totally epic.”
He tried shoving the screen under his boss’s nose, but Damien’s eyes stayed locked on mine. “Maybe later. For now, can you finish up the fence on the northern pasture? I didn’t get to the last couple of acres in the southwest corner by the creek.”
“Yeah, boss, I’m on it. Wait until I tell my girlfriend about this.” He was already texting as he walked out the door.
Belatedly, I remembered that cashier’s check in my hand. More than happy to change the topic, I offered the down payment to Damien.
“I’m sure any way you write the contract will be fine,” I reminded him, all the while crossing my fingers.
Take the check. Take the check.
He didn’t take the check. His square jaw flexed, a five o’clock shadow only making him more handsome. Too bad I knew what that uncompromising look meant.
“Miranda, this is going to be a problem.”
2
HOT WOMEN WERE usually trouble.
Hot Hollywood women? They ought to come with a skull and crossbones taped to their foreheads. The potential for danger was just too damn high.
Damien Fraser knew this firsthand, having been born the son of a prominent American director and a flamboyant Italian actress. Their affair had produced three sons neither had time for, and the boys had grown up without much supervision, which meant Damien had tangled with his fair share of grasping Hollywood actresses who’d wanted to date him because of his famous father. But since he’d moved to Sonoma County and taken up horse breeding—a calculated move to distance himself from the Fraser fame—he’d figured his days of dealing with this kind of crap were done.
“I don’t understand.” Miranda Cortland ran a weary hand through blond curl that went in every direction, her pale blue eyes shadowed with dark circles that didn’t do a thing to diminish her appeal. “I love the place. I’ve got a deposit. You want to make a quick sale, here you go. I’d like to rent out the spot until the official closing, so I can throw in whatever you think is fair for a month’s rent. Or two.”
She dug deeper in her backpack and emerged with a wallet.
Damien scratched his forehead, which was smeared with dirt and sweat from his time in the fields. He couldn’t make the pieces add up here. The woman was sunburned. Her car was old and in need of repair. Actually, all her stuff looked like it had seen better days; the hodgepodge collection of goods that he’d spotted inside the SUV appeared secondhand. She seemed down on her luck for a woman who’d just won a reality game show he’d never heard of—Gutsy Girl. That much definitely fit.
Miranda Cortland showed some serious bravado coming all the way up here to pitch him her idea, when she looked about as far from tearoom elegance as he could imagine. He was pretty sure she had permanent eyeliner tattooed around her lashes. Silver cuffs wrapped around her right earlobe the whole way down.
“The problem is this.” He cracked open a window to let more air into the place and leaned back against a rough support beam. “I’m building a brand with Fraser Farm. And it’s got to be upscale to support the growth I need in the Thoroughbred market.”
He needed word of mouth among a small, elite client base.
“This tearoom will be elegant and charming. A perfect match.” She crossed her arms at her midsection, right where he recalled seeing a silver belly-button ring in the shape of a snake.
Did she have any idea how much she stood out here? Not just in this part of the state, but on his farmland? In his mind? She was so bright and bold—from her yellow flip-flops with the big daisies between her toes to her lime-green lace camisole—it was like she operated on another frequency altogether.
“Unfortunately, the kind of crowd your high profile will draw may not reflect the brand I’m developing.”
“That’s incredibly elitist and also...incorrect.” Her voice remained steady, but he sensed more than heard the strong emotions there.
Chances were good that Miranda Cortland was here only to get close to his famous family. He’d had that happen before. So if she sounded convincingly disappointed, she probably was. But mostly because she wouldn’t be granted her “in” with a famous Hollywood producer-director. Hell, Damien’s father, Thomas Fraser, ran an independent studio, so he was definitely the kind of connection someone like Miranda might seek out.
“Fair or not, I have to think about the growth of my small business, and I prefer to have some kind of store or restaurant on site that will cater to the clientele I want to attract.” He’d posted as much in his Craigslist ad.
When you were starting a business, every dollar counted, so he really wanted to
make this sale. Especially since he refused to take a cent from his obnoxiously wealthy family. He just wouldn’t make the sale to Miranda Cortland.
“Heard and understood, as I explained in my email to you—”
“Yet you did not disclose your celebrity status, and I have personal reasons for not aligning myself with the film industry.” He headed for the door, needing to get back to work. As much as he’d enjoyed the distraction of a female that wasn’t equine, he had ten other places he needed to be. His payroll was already ridiculously high with the specialized talent this kind of operation required, so until he could afford more help, he often had to be everywhere at once. “You’re welcome to leave your vehicle here for as long as necessary. Would you like a ride anywhere?”
“No.” She shook her head and backed up a step, as if she was going to follow him outside. “Can I just—please. Let me just show you one thing before you leave.”
She held up her faded floral backpack, making a barrier between him and the door. He wasn’t sure if she meant to slow him down or if the thing she wanted him to see was inside the bag. He noticed there were pins all over it—a cat with a hair bow in pink crystals, a few metal buttons advertising hole-in-the-wall nightclubs, a miniature L.A. Raiders jersey. The bag looked as if it had been around the world and back.
“I can’t stay much longer.” He held up his phone, showing a video feed of a birthing stable. “I’ve got a mare going into labor.”
“Fine.” Miranda was already setting her pack on the floor again and digging inside the bottomless interior. The sight of her sunburned arms and the bump of each vertebra showing through her tank top felt like chastisements.
What if she really was in need of a break? Something about her bravado—in spite of whatever personal issues she was dealing with—spoke to him on a gut level. He’d gambled everything to escape Hollywood once, too.
“I need some air.” Mostly because the woman smelled like peaches and he wanted to inhale her. He struggled not to feel sympathetic toward her. Or even more attracted. “So let’s talk outside.”
“Yes.” She followed him out onto the narrow porch, where two faded rockers still sat from the building’s long-ago use as a farm stand. “Just take a look at these before you give me your final answer.”
She held two pieces of paper in her hand. Actually, one sheet and one large photograph.
“I drew this last night when I couldn’t sleep.” She flipped the paper and handed it to him. “I think the look is very much in keeping with what you’d want to enhance your Thoroughbred business....”
She kept talking, but he was too distracted by the pencil sketch to pay attention. She’d drawn the farm stand building from the outside, but there was new life in it. Flowers bloomed in boxes attached to the front windows by iron brackets. Pillows and blankets were thrown over more rocking chairs on the porch, while round tables underneath big umbrellas made up a second tier of outdoor seating on a flagstone patio. The sketch was so detailed he could see some kind of flowering moss between the flagstones. A banner blew in an imaginary breeze, the flag depicting a steaming cup of tea and the name Under the Oaks.
“...I couldn’t draw the inside because you hadn’t posted any pictures.” Miranda was still speaking. “I’m not sure I’d really call it Under the Oaks, but it fits because of the trees and—”
“And it’s a racing term. Yeah. I know.” The whole thing was elegant and charming, just as she’d promised. He had to admit the picture she’d drawn was appealing and exactly the kind of operation he’d envisioned to complement his growing business. He actually had a few rooms to accommodate guests who visited their horses on site, but as of now, there were no facilities for feeding visitors.
The tearoom could fill the gap for some food service. Except that she could be full of B.S. about what she’d do with a tearoom. What were the chances a young actress who’d just experienced success on a reality show would really want to come live in the anonymity of Sonoma? No, damn it. She was only conning him, to get close to the Fraser fame.
“You could have input, of course, if my take on this is too cute. I could make it more horse-themed. Lots of hunter-green and burgundy, like a gentleman’s den.” She frowned at her sketch over his shoulder. “Usually tearooms appeal to women, so—”
“It’s great.” He realized how close she stood. Her scent hypnotized him even as her springy blond curls brushed his shoulder. “The concept is well-targeted.” He returned the paper to her and took a step back. “But just because you’ve got the right idea doesn’t promise a successful execution.”
She flipped a large photograph under his nose.
“This is the Melrose Tearoom, where I worked until a couple of weeks ago.” She pointed to the picture of her with two smiling young women, at a table full of fancy silver trays, tiny sandwiches, crystal champagne flutes and porcelain teacups. In the background, a sunny atrium with uniformed waiters and linen-covered tables showed more of the same. “If you’d like to speak to my former boss, Joelle, she’ll tell you I was personally responsible for much of her return business. I’m good at being a hostess, and I helped her stock a lot of unique specialty items that really increased her retail sales.”
“Why did you leave?” He rechecked his phone to make sure the mare in the birthing stall still looked good. Damn it, he needed to just tell Miranda no and get back to work.
Memories of finding her walking north on Highway 1 kept biting him right in the conscience. She had to have been out there a couple hours before he’d found her. He’d been so engrossed getting the fence restrung that he hadn’t checked his messages. She must have been determined to meet with him to make that long trek in the afternoon sun. To risk sunburn on her fair skin, when beauty was such a highly sought after commodity in her world.
“Honestly, I left because...” She met his gaze and bit her lip. “I attracted too much attention from that stupid TV show, but the fascination with stuff like that has a short shelf life. And up here, there are bound to be less tourists purposely looking for a brush with anyone remotely famous.”
He’d heard enough. He handed her back the picture.
“Listen, if this was just some random piece of property, I would sell it to you in a minute.” He tucked his phone in the back pocket of his jeans. “But I’ve got too much at stake in a business where the overhead is staggering. I can’t afford to have any operation on what is basically my property that might detract from what I’m trying to build.”
He’d invested every cent of his finances and himself in the Thoroughbreds. This farm had given him stability and purpose at a time when he needed to escape escalating family drama. He’d built a very different kind of life here. A stable life. There were no more weekend trips to Europe to help his mother solve some so-called urgent crisis that turned out to be an uneven number of men versus women at her latest dinner party. No more scandals involving his father’s revolving door of twenty-year-old girlfriends. Definitely no more would-be starlets who’d do “anything” for a chance to meet his father. Even pretend to give a rat’s ass about Damien.
Now, he kept in touch with his brothers, Trey and Lucien. But he was finished with the movie business and he was done with his high-profile parents.
“Interest in the show is dying down,” she pressed. “And I can make this tearoom kick butt.”
He was already heading for his truck. “I’m sure you could, but I just can’t take chances right now. If I get a bunch of tabloid reporters camping out on the property, it’s going to scare off the clients I’ll be inviting up here to check out the operation firsthand.”
He’d worked too hard to take this place to the next level, and he owed it to the former owner, who was also his mentor—a man who’d been better to him than his own father. Ted Howard had provided a job that allowed Damien to feel productive when he’d parted ways with his family, at
age seventeen. He’d also shown Damien a different lifestyle—one that valued hard work. Physical labor. Mental fortitude. It had been exactly what a screwed up Hollywood kid had needed to reroute his life. So Damien wasn’t going to relax until Fraser Farm was an equestrian showplace and—more quietly, in a new part of the facility—a humane retirement home and retraining center for Thoroughbreds who didn’t achieve racing stardom. That had been Ted Howard’s dream, a dream the guy might not be around much longer to witness.
Damien’s jaw flexed, his shoulders tensing at the thought. He wanted that dream, too. He’d bought into it at seventeen, while working part-time to earn enough to go to college, and he was fully committed now. This life had saved him, so he planned to make the most of it.
“I am not afraid of hard work.” Miranda dogged his steps. “A tearoom has low overhead and I can get this place up and running before your next guests show up. I realize the car breaking down makes me look kind of, uh, low budget. But I’ve got enough investment capital stashed away for the tearoom. I just won’t spend it on fluffy stuff. Like a car.”
“Sorry.” He paused before the driver’s side door. “But the offer stands if you need a ride. Actually, do you want me to take you somewhere now?” He’d been thinking one of his handymen could cart her around, but how rude would it be to just drive off and leave her stranded? Hell. He’d been an antisocial horse breeder for too damn long.
Checking out of the fast lane didn’t mean he could quit society altogether.
“I’ve got nowhere to go.” She stuffed her hands in the front pocket of her jeans, making him realize she was way too thin. Hot, yes. But she definitely looked in need of...
No. He would not think about her needs.
“You can’t be serious. You’ve got a check for ten grand in that backpack, along with God knows what else.” He had the feeling Miranda Cortland, Gutsy Girl winner and—according to Scotty—the famed Nebraska Backstabber, had a wide assortment of talents to fall back on.