Cowboy Up

by Stacy Finz

  “Let’s just say the words aren’t coming to me as fast and furious as I’d hoped.” Sawyer let out a hard breath. “At this rate, I’m pretty sure I won’t make the deadline.”

  “Can you do that, miss the deadline?” Jace asked.

  Sawyer lifted his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. “There’s some time built in, but it’s better if I don’t. More than likely I’ll wait until the eleventh hour, tank up on a week’s worth of coffee, and write like a fiend.”

  Cash lifted a brow, because it sounded insane to him, not to mention irresponsible. But that was Sawyer for you.

  He stepped into the hallway to make sure he could hear the kids. They were in the family room, watching a movie. Ellie was laughing at something Grady said, and he smiled. He was still wearing the smile when he returned to the kitchen.

  “They remind me of us when we were kids,” Jace said.

  Yep, except there were four of them with Angie.

  Cash pulled out a kitchen chair and straddled it. “Mitch came to see Aubrey today. During the course of their meeting, Aubrey saw a map in his truck. She says it was plans for a development on Beals Ranch.”

  Two blank expressions stared back at him, then Jace’s became mottled with anger.

  “What do you mean, a development?” he asked in a raised voice.

  “A housing development, like a planned community.”

  “That’s impossible.” Jace stood up and started pacing the floor. “No way the city signs off on that without getting input from the neighbors. Hell, I’m not even sure the land is zoned for a housing division.”

  “Could Aubrey be wrong about what she thought she saw?” Sawyer was the voice of reason in the family. Cash suspected it was because he was a journalist and was very analytical and methodical in his thinking. “Was this something that looked official or was it drawn on the back of a napkin?”

  “Nope, she’s pretty emphatic that what she saw was a plat, like a blueprint. It could just be that Mitch is delusional. Maybe he thinks that after the Bealses’ recent bad luck, they’ll sell.” Cash looked at Jace, who knew their neighbors better than he and Sawyer did.

  Jace shook his head. “The Bealses said nothing to me about selling, and Mitch is an asshole, but he’s anything but delusional. If he went to the trouble and expense of having formal plans drawn up, there’s something going on. And if Aubrey says she saw plans, she saw plans. She lived and worked with the guy. She knows Mitch’s business and how he operates.”

  The reminder that Aubrey had come close to walking down the aisle with him made Cash’s stomach pitch. He didn’t want to think about her being with another guy, let alone being engaged to him. And what did that say about him? It said he was screwed, that’s what it said.

  Jace went to the mudroom and grabbed his hat. “You guys stay with the kids while I go over to the Bealses’. If they’re selling, we have a right to know, goddamn it.”

  Both Cash and Sawyer jumped up at the same time.

  “Slow down, cowboy.” Sawyer moved in front of Jace to block him from leaving. “Not a good idea. It would be better if Cash or I did it, not the sheriff. Get my drift?”

  “No, I don’t.” He pushed Sawyer out of the way.

  But this time Cash blocked him. “Sawyer’s right. Now’s not a good time, not when you’re up to your eyeballs investigating something that happened on their property.”

  “I’m going over there as a neighbor, not as the sheriff.”

  “Don’t you see, Jace, you can’t separate the two. If they are selling and they know you’re angry about it, they’ll accuse you of shortchanging the investigation out of spite. It’s a classic conflict of interest.” Cash stood his ground, even though he could see Jace was fuming. They all loved Dry Creek Ranch, but for Jace, the place had been his home all his life, and a haven after his parents and little brother died. He took anything that threatened the ranch and their grandfather’s legacy as a personal affront. “Let Sawyer go. He’s the most diplomatic of the three of us, and he has no conflicts of interest.”

  Sawyer would handle the situation without letting emotions enter into the equation. He’d been raised by parents who dealt with controversy for a living.

  “I don’t want to be diplomatic. A housing development…do you know what that’ll be like? It’ll be like living in the goddamn city. Next thing you know, the new neighbors will be complaining about the horse and cow shit and the tractor noise, and fighting over water rights. I don’t want to be diplomatic, Cash. I don’t want them ruining our way of life. The life Grandpa gave us.”

  “I don’t see how you can stop them from selling if that’s what they want to do.” Cash had proposed the same thing. “But you…we…could fight the development.” He didn’t know what good it would do. He suspected Mitch knew city and county zoning better than they did. But the Dalton name did hold weight in this county, or at least it used to.

  “Let me go, Jace. Let me see what I can do,” Sawyer said. “There’s a chance this is all a big mistake.”

  Cash had a more cynical take on it, but he’d save that information until he had more facts in evidence. Again, he didn’t believe in coincidences. And the timing of the Bealses losing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of cattle and Mitch’s plans for a planned community raised a million warning bells in Cash’s head.

  Jace threw up his arms in defeat. “Fine, you go. But I want a word-for-word account of what Beals says.”

  “It’s suppertime,” Sawyer said. “Why don’t I go tomorrow?”

  Jace shook his head. “They’ll be at Jill’s birthday party tomorrow. Go now, or else I will. I don’t need a goddamn sleepless night. I get plenty of those being sheriff.”

  Sawyer tacitly agreed and Cash followed him to the front door.

  “Don’t bring up the cattle-theft investigation,” he told Sawyer. “If they bring it up, act like you only know what you’ve heard through the grapevine.”

  “I won’t have to act,” Sawyer said and grabbed his hat off the hall tree. “All I know is what Jimmy Ray and Laney told me. Pretty wild, huh? Cattle rustling.” His lips curved up in amusement. “Thought that only happened in old Westerns.”

  “It happens more than you think. Sheep and goats too. Anything worth money.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Sawyer nudged his head toward the kitchen. “Between the Aubrey rumor and him going ballistic over Beals Ranch, he’s going to screw himself in the upcoming election.”

  “Let’s take it one step at a time.”

  “Okay, but you know I’m right.”

  “What I know is that people have short memories. Let’s hope for Jace’s sake that by the time the primary rolls around, all this will be old news.”

  But if the Bealses were truly selling and a housing division was in the works, Cash knew Jace would go to war. And Cash and Sawyer would be loyalty bound to go with him.

  Life was already too complicated. Next week, he had to sell the agency he’d given his life to down the river. He had a daughter who didn’t want anything to do with him. He had no job and no prospects for one. He had a ranch he loved but no way to pay the taxes or the upkeep on it. He had a next-door neighbor he couldn’t get out of his mind when all he should be doing was focusing on fixing his broken life.

  And tomorrow, he had to pretend to be her boyfriend.

  Chapter 20

  Cash waited by the door while Ellie took twenty minutes longer in the bathroom than usual. He didn’t want to embarrass her, but they were going to be late to pick up Aubrey for the party.

  “Ellie, are you okay in there?” He could hear her moving around, so at least she hadn’t cracked her head on the tub. The water went on, but she still didn’t answer. “El, honey, what’s going on?”

  Silence, then what sounded like a whimper. He deliberated on whether to force open the door.

&nbs
p; Finally, in a small voice, she said, “I need Aubrey.”

  “Is it something I can help with?” He was her father after all, not Aubrey.

  “No,” came a quick response. “Don’t come in here.”

  He leaned sideways against the door, resting his arm on the frame header. “Sweetheart, I won’t come in. But I need to know if you’re okay.”

  “I’m okay.” But she didn’t sound okay; she sounded distressed.

  Whether that was because she was having a bona fide emergency or something as frivolous as a wardrobe malfunction he didn’t know, because Cash’s experience with twelve-year-old girls could fit in a thimble. But if it was indeed a problem with a zipper or a button, he was handy with a needle and thread.

  “Please get Aubrey.”

  He didn’t want to get Aubrey. If his daughter had a problem, he wanted to be the one to fix it. He wanted to be the one she turned to.

  “Just tell me what’s going on. Is it another spider?”

  The toilet flushed and the water in the sink went on again.

  “Ellie?”

  “No, it’s not a spider. Just get Aubrey.”

  He went to jiggle the doorknob. If his daughter was sick, he didn’t want a locked door between them.

  “Don’t,” she shouted, and there was rustling, like she was hurrying to cover herself.

  He deliberated on what to do, reluctant to relinquish his parental duties to someone else. But whatever drama was playing out in there, Ellie didn’t want Cash’s help. She’d made that abundantly clear. She wanted Aubrey. Or maybe she just wanted a woman. It was that last revelation that made him give in and finally call Aubrey and explain the situation.

  Not five minutes later, she appeared at his front door in a backless, armless dress that took his breath away.

  “Wow! You look fantastic.” He wanted to linger on the dress, on Aubrey’s rocking body in the dress, but his kid was waiting.

  “Thanks.” Aubrey gave him a peck on the lips and brushed by him, going straight to the bathroom. “Hey, Ellie, can I come in?”

  The door opened a crack. Ellie stood behind it with only her head poking out. She ushered Aubrey in and closed the door behind them. Cash paced the hallway, wondering what the hell the crisis was and why he wasn’t the one tending to it. There was a lot of whispering going on inside, none of which Cash could actually make out.

  A few minutes later, Aubrey emerged.

  “Well?” He scrubbed his hand over his face.

  “I’ll be right back,” she informed him but gave nothing away, which was starting to piss Cash off.

  Aubrey wasn’t gone long, and when she returned she had a tote bag with her. It better not be filled with makeup was his thought as Aubrey slipped back inside the bathroom. Cash didn’t want his little girl wearing any of that stuff until she was eighteen. Or twenty.

  Another fifteen minutes passed. At this rate they’d be late to the surprise party, not that Cash even knew these people. But he liked to be prompt. Tired of wearing out the wooden floor, he moved to the living room and waited on the couch.

  “We’ll be ready in a sec.” Aubrey popped her head in and just as quickly disappeared.

  Cash could hear activity in Ellie’s bedroom. A short time later, they came out as if nothing had happened. Ellie was dressed in a pair of jeans, not the white ones he’d laundered. Something in Aubrey’s body language told him to leave it alone and not make inquiries. He followed her lead, though a small part of him was perturbed that he was being left out of the loop.

  “Shall we go?” Aubrey smoothed her dress and grabbed the pie she’d brought over and had left on the table by the front door.

  Cash fetched his hat and trailed the ladies to his SUV. “Where’s the house?”

  Aubrey gave him directions and they headed out to Highway 49 into town.

  Cash checked the clock on the dash. “We’re cutting it close.”

  “We’ll be fine.” She smiled at him, and Cash could’ve sworn his heart stopped.

  Something about the way Aubrey sat across from him, a commanding yet calming presence, felt so right. With Ellie in the back seat, the ride reminded Cash of his childhood when his own parents used to load him into the car to make the two-hour trek from San Francisco to Dry Creek Ranch.

  “Turn right here,” Aubrey said as they entered a residential section less than a mile off Main Street.

  The homes were modest but well-kept, with grassy front lawns and attached garages that backed up to open fields where cattle grazed. A few kids ran in and out of the spray of a garden sprinkler.

  “The Tuckers are up there on the corner.” Aubrey pointed to a one-story ranch house where the paint job had faded to a dull yellow and the flower beds had turned weedy. There was a pickup with a wheelchair lift parked in the driveway, next to a pole flying the American flag. In the front yard, someone had posted a sign that read, “A combat veteran lives here. Please be courteous with fireworks.”

  Cash parked in the cul-de-sac. Together, the three of them walked to the house. Brett greeted them at the door in his wheelchair.

  Aubrey leaned down and gave him a hug and introduced him to Cash and Ellie. “We’re here; put us to work.”

  “Mercedes and Laney are in the backyard, setting the tables. The kids are putting together some kind of horseshoe arcade kind of thing on the side of the house. Travis and Grady are out there if you want to join them.” He smiled at Ellie, who ran off to find her cousins. “If you two wouldn’t mind carrying the drinks out to the ice chests, that would be a great help.”

  Cash followed Aubrey into the kitchen. She seemed to know the layout of the house fairly well. Then again, it was your basic California rambler, one long rectangle. There were cases of soda, beer, and bottled water stacked near the pantry.

  “Hey”—Cash reached for Aubrey’s arm as she put the pie down on the counter and started to lift a case of cola—“what was that about with Ellie?” He took the case from her and rested it on the counter.

  “She started her period. First time.”

  “Oh” was all he managed to say, because that possibility hadn’t even occurred to him. But yeah, it made sense now why Ellie had insisted on Aubrey coming to her aid instead of Cash. Shit, would he have even known what to do? “Uh, did she have what she needed?” Another thing he was ill-equipped for. He hadn’t thought to buy those kinds of supplies.

  “No, but I took care of it. We should probably stop off at the store later to stock her up. Try not to make a big deal out of it, though. She’s shy about it and just a wee bit hormonal.”

  “Okay, but should I at least mention something about it?” Not that he had the foggiest notion what was appropriate to say when a young woman got her period. He inwardly groaned, because he didn’t want to think of Ellie as a young woman. It was bad enough that he’d missed her first step, her first word, her first lost tooth. He still wanted to get to know his daughter as a little girl.

  Stop complaining, he told himself as a wave of guilt hit him. At least he was a part of this milestone for Ellie, unlike Marie. Marie would never get to see her daughter go to the prom, graduate from college, walk down the aisle, and all the other momentous things mothers longed to witness their children do.

  “It’s probably best if you don’t say anything. Maybe buy her a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and call it a day.”

  He nodded, deferring to her recommendation, secretly feeling relieved. He gathered up a second case of soda and carried them both to the ice chest outside. There was a small crowd of helpers in the yard, tending to various party tasks. Cash couldn’t help but notice that as soon as they spotted Aubrey, they started whispering behind her back. Angry, he slipped his arm over her shoulder. The move was intentional, a signal to the others to back off.

  Without any conscious thought about it, he kissed her. The move was also
intentional, a signal that he couldn’t keep his hands off her. She kissed him back, of course, but he wasn’t sure if she was merely playing to the crowd.

  Brett called out that it was ten minutes until show time, and everyone went back to their respective party preparations. A couple of kids streaked by, and Cash grabbed Grady’s collar.

  “Hi, Uncle Cash. I can’t talk to you now, I’m in the middle of something.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of interrupting you. Where’s Ellie?”

  “She’s working with us on it.”

  “What’s it?” he asked, just in case they were playing with matches or cooking meth in one of the bedrooms.

  “We’re building a game out of horseshoes and bowling pins. It’s so awesome.”

  “All right, just checking. Look out for her, okay? She doesn’t know the other kids like you and Travis do.”

  “We will.” He took off. The kid had so much energy, it was a wonder he didn’t ignite into a burst of flames.

  He helped Aubrey spread out the drinks, cognizant of the fact that the other partygoers were staring. Cash recognized some of them, including Laney, Jimmy Ray, and Mrs. Jamison, aka Yoda.

  Jace was at the barbecues—there were at least three of them at last count—preparing the coals and woodchips.

  People continued to trickle into the yard with salads, casserole dishes, bowls of guacamole and bean dip, and desserts of all varieties. Someone came with a crate of stone fruit from his orchard. Another guest brought six bottles of Bordeaux from his winery. Jace had evidently supplied the burgers and tri-tip from the ranch. It was how Cash remembered life in the country, where everyone shared Northern California’s food bounty.

  Jace waved Cash over, and he left Aubrey alone to chat with Mama.

  “You talk to Sawyer?” Cash asked Jace out of earshot of the others.