Finding Hope (Nugget Romance 2)

by Stacy Finz

  “It’s okay. We probably won’t need it for what I have in mind. Then at least we can eat them afterward.”

  Colin came barreling up the road in an old pickup, lifted the table out of the bed, and placed it where Emily pointed. He also had one of his rockers, so Emily asked if she could borrow that too.

  “I’ll put your contact info in the source section of the book,” she told Colin. “It’ll be good publicity for your furniture business.”

  He seemed content with that and joined Clay in ogling Della. Emily had to admit that she was very pretty and wondered if she resembled Clay’s late wife. Although the Baker’s Dozen had voiced their dislike for the woman on a number of occasions, everyone had agreed that Jennifer McCreedy had been a knockout. Emily had never seen a picture of her, but knew that she had been blond and buxom—not unlike Della. The only male who didn’t seem taken with Della’s looks was Hayne. Bless his heart.

  She looked over his way and saw that he was ready to go, so with Donna’s help they set the scene to look like a country bake sale, using the weathered stable as a backdrop. The plan was to have Hayne work his magic and somehow incorporate Della on horseback into the frame.

  “This is good, Em.” Hayne examined her work. “Yep, I see what you’re thinking here. This will be a beauty.”

  Emily basked in the praise and looked over at Clay, who nodded that he too thought she’d done good. Then he ruined it by holding on to Della a little too tight when he helped her onto the horse. It was clear she didn’t know how to ride, clutching the saddle horn in fear. Even though the horse—Roxy, Clay had called her—was much shorter than Big Red, it was still a long way down.

  Clay led Roxy where Hayne directed and helped Della sit right. After he told her how to place her feet properly in the stirrups and how to hold the reins, Della looked like a bona fide horsewoman.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” Hayne said while he clicked away. When he finished with those shots, he took a few close-ups of just the pies. The man knew his stuff. They’d already decided that they’d do the technique and detail shots another time, without Della. Emily would drive into the city, where they could rent a commercial kitchen with studio space for the day.

  “I think we’re good here,” Hayne said, and waggled his brows playfully. “Should we take a pie break?”

  Donna, the best assistant ever, gathered up paper plates, plastic forks, and a knife and proceeded to serve the pies. Although they’d been baked the day before, they were still pretty tasty. Emily noticed that Clay tried all four.

  “Della,” he said. “These are the best damn pies I ever had.”

  And Della actually had the nerve to say, “They’re my Maw Maw’s recipes, but I perfected them.” Emily noted she was nibbling on the buttermilk pie. Whatever happened to being a vegan?

  When Della slipped away to reprimand one of her lackeys for forgetting her cell phone at the house, Emily sidled up to Clay. “You do know these are my pies? My recipes? Not her Maw Maw’s,” she said mockingly.

  “Of course I know that.”

  “Then what’s up with the ‘Best damn pies I ever had, Della’?”

  “I’m just trying to butter her up for you,” Clay said defensively.

  “For me? Or for you?” She walked away in a huff.

  Hayne intercepted her. “Great pie, Em.”

  “I appreciate that,” she said. But thanks to Clay, hers were now flavorless.

  The rest of the day continued in a blur, with Della having only two epic meltdowns. Hayne had smoothed them over by pacifying her, and when that failed, he pandered to her baser instincts. Pretty much the way to Della’s heart, Emily had learned, was to tell her how hot she was. The woman was horribly insecure. Her only redeeming grace was that she really did have talent.

  A few folks from town had found flimsy excuses to visit the ranch to get a glimpse of the star. And Della had serenaded them with a short medley of her greatest hits.

  Hayne had come up alongside Emily and in a hushed tone said, “If only we could keep her singing.”

  After the pie incident, Clay had made himself scarce. Emily found that not having to watch him sniff after Della gave her a second wind. But by the end of the day her feet had blisters, her head throbbed, and she could probably sleep standing. Donna, bless her heart, had done much of the cleanup and the crew had made short work of devouring any of the dishes that were still safe to eat after sitting out for hours. Or hadn’t been fluffed with toxic chemicals.

  “Looks like your old house again,” Donna said.

  The Town Cars had shuttled Della and her “A Team” to the Lumber Baron. The rest of her entourage was staying in Reno for the night. Emily had made the local guests reservations at the Ponderosa for dinner. Spreading the wealth was important to Emily. Even Colin had wound up selling the rocking chair to one of Della’s people, who was having it shipped to Nashville.

  “I’m taking off, if you don’t mind.” Donna had already gathered up her Bun Boy equipment.

  “Donna, you were a lifesaver today. Seriously, I couldn’t have done this without you.”

  “Are you kidding?” Donna said. “This was the most exciting thing I’ve done all year. All decade. That Della is a piece of work.”

  Hayne came back in from stashing his gear in his car, lifted Donna off her feet, and gave her a twirl. “You were the bomb, girl.”

  “Don’t forget to tell Guy Fieri about the Bun Boy.” Donna slapped his butt, and they both helped her load her truck. Emily and Hayne watched her drive off as the sun faded and a mild breeze tempered the day’s lingering heat. The sudden coolness gave Emily a momentary burst of energy.

  “Let’s have some supper,” Hayne suggested. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.”

  “I could make us something,” Emily offered, although the idea of getting anywhere near a stove had about as much appeal as changing a flat tire.

  “Nah. Let’s go out. What do you have around here?”

  Since Hayne was also booked at the Lumber Baron, they should stick to Nugget. “The best place is the Ponderosa. But that’s where Della and her posse have reservations.”

  “Big place?”

  “No,” Emily said. “But luckily I know people. I could probably snag us a table out of the way.”

  “That works for me. Why don’t I meet you there in forty-five minutes? It’ll give me time to check in and store my equipment in the room.”

  “Perfect,” Emily said. As tired as she was, it would be fun to have a quiet dinner with Hayne and run through a postmortem of the shoot. All things considered, working with him had been a dream. And she knew Hayne felt the same way about her, because he’d already talked about doing other gigs together. He probably knew as many people in their industry as Marge did. So having another advocate would come in handy, especially since Emily had been away from the business for so long.

  After taking a quick shower, Emily perused her closet for something to wear. The only halfway decent thing she had was the black sheath dress. She shimmied into it, put on a drop of makeup, and twisted her wet hair into a knot. It was the best she could do on short notice.

  She jetted out the door, careful to take the driveway slowly. At eight o’clock, without a moon, she only had her headlights to guide her. When she passed Clay’s house, she forced herself to keep her eyes straight on the road. She didn’t need to know whether his lights were on or whether he was home. But she found out, anyway.

  Because when she got to the Ponderosa, the idiot was sharing a table with none other than the incomparable Della James. They were tucked in all cozy at a banquette for two, a votive candle burning romantically in the middle of the table. Della had on a low-cut number, her blond hair as big as Montana, and a pair of strappy icepick heels. Clay seemed to be hanging on her every word.

  Mariah greeted her at the hostess station. “Heard you had a big day.”

  Emily exhaled. “More like a crazy day. Thank goodness it’s over. I’m meeting the p
hotographer—”

  “Over there.” Mariah pointed. She bent over the counter and nudged her head in the direction of Della and Clay’s table. “He asked to be as far away from them as possible. I assume he meant Della James, not Clay.”

  If she only knew.

  Clay couldn’t fathom why he’d agreed to this dinner. In the end, he supposed—and he wasn’t proud of it—that he’d been thinking with his little head. Certainly not with the big one, which was about to burst from the inanities that came out of Della James’s mouth. The woman nattered on endlessly about nothing. Well, to be precise, she nattered about herself. And despite all her CMA and Grammy awards, she wasn’t the least bit interesting.

  There was a time when he would’ve been content to just stare at her rack. But as mind-blowing as it was, it wasn’t working for him. And her incredible, you-can-bounce-a-quarter-off-it ass? Again, not working. The poufy blond hair reminded him a little too much of Jennifer—so definitely not working.

  If he put in an hour more, he could sleep with her. He knew that by all the lame double entendres she was throwing out, the flirtatious flips of her hair, and the way she touched him constantly. But that wasn’t working for him either. For some crazy-ass reason, the woman, by most men’s standards a complete sex bomb, couldn’t so much as make his dick twitch. And he knew it wasn’t a malfunction on his part. When he’d ridden home from Reno with Emily on the night of her meeting, he’d sported a hard-on to rival all hard-ons. Luckily it had been dark and he’d been sitting under a steering wheel.

  He’d wanted something to happen that night. A make-out session or even a kiss. Emily just did something to him. Clay had felt a little guilty about it, because he knew the meetings were hellish for her. But during dinner and that forty-five minute drive back to Nugget, his body had responded to her. To the smell of the powdery perfume she wore that reminded him of flowers. To the sweet lilt of her voice. To the unfailing grace she showed under horrible circumstances.

  But Emily had put up her wall. He’d come to believe that she used it as a fortress against pain. If you didn’t care, you couldn’t lose anything important—like Hope. So he’d ended the night frustrated and his ego bruised. Rationally, Clay always knew that his attraction to her didn’t fit. She was nothing like the women he’d been drawn to in the past. And by the next morning, he’d concluded that it was best to stick with friendship. The electricity he felt whenever he got near her was sure to go out, and where would that leave them, living so close together on the same piece of land?

  Today, he’d just wanted to help her as much as possible, knowing that she was stressed out over deadlines and that Della would be trying. It would be a lie to say he hadn’t gotten a kick out of flirting with a big country-music star. But after the first hour or so, the woman had started bugging him.

  Then that oily photographer showed up, calling Emily “Em,” and “babe,” and he’d wanted to beat the crap out of the guy. Instead, he’d gotten a little antagonistic and had hurt Emily’s feelings, particularly when he’d complimented Della about the pies. He’d known full well that the idiot woman hadn’t had anything to do with those pies and that Emily had put in endless hours developing the recipes. He knew that because he’d been the recipient of her many trial runs.

  Not cool.

  He lifted his eyes from Della’s cleavage in time to see Emily joining Oily at a table way over in the corner. She was wearing the black dress he liked, apparently hoping to impress Hayne the asshole, because it was the only pretty thing she owned. She saw him looking, waved, and then turned a beautiful smile on the photographer. Hayne stood up and hugged her. It was a friendly hug. Nothing remotely sexual, but Clay found it highly annoying. Why was it that she let her guard down for him?

  Della snapped her fingers in his face. “If you’d rather sit with them, I could go back to my room with someone else.”

  Could the woman be any more clueless? “Nah, don’t do that,” he said halfheartedly, thinking that the night was still young. Maybe he’d sleep with her after all.

  He ordered them a couple more drinks—her a Sex on the Beach (who the hell drank cocktails called that?), him a Jack neat. He noticed that Emily and Oily were drinking wine and wondered if she planned to go back to the Lumber Baron with him.

  When the waitress returned with their beverages, Clay knocked his back in a single gulp.

  “Don’t want to waste any time, do you?” Della cooed, and flashed him a coquettish smile.

  Still not working.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Emily hit the head, and excused himself to do the same. He lingered outside the ladies’ room until she came out. Startled, she jumped.

  “Hi,” Emily said, trying to gather her composure. “Is the men’s occupied?” Clay knew that Emily knew that it wasn’t, because the door was partially ajar.

  “Just wanted to see how you were doing.” That sounded pathetic even to his ears, but a hell of a lot less pathetic than “Please don’t sleep with him, Emily.”

  “I’m good,” she said, checking the hallway to see if anyone was coming. “How ’bout you?”

  “Good. Good.” He jammed his hands in his pockets, wondering how many more times he could say “good” without sounding like a complete douche bag. “You and the gay guy having a nice time?”

  She squinted her eyes at him. “Hayne’s not gay.”

  Clay cocked his head and arched his brows. “You sure about that?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I’ve been working in the food industry my whole adult life. I know when a man is gay.”

  “Well, I was in the navy for nearly seventeen years if you count Annapolis. So my knowledge of gay men trumps yours.”

  “You’re a complete moron.” She walked off, shaking her head, leaving him feeling like a lovelorn fifteen-year-old.

  Yet it still didn’t stop him from listening most of the night for her van coming up his driveway.

  Chapter 18

  On her way to the Lumber Baron to meet the Baker’s Dozen for a gabfest, Emily grabbed her laptop. Maddy and the rest of the women were dying to hear about the Della James photo shoot, and pictures were worth a thousand words. Or so the saying went.

  Apparently, Donna had been too busy the last few days to regale them with stories. And Emily had been holed up on the ranch, putting together the first draft of Le Petit Déjeuner to send to Marge.

  Hayne had emailed the photos just this morning and they were absolutely gorgeous. Better than she could’ve imagined. Even Della seemed pleased.

  Two guests were checking in when she got there, and not for the first time Emily marveled at Maddy’s thriving business. Even on a weekday the place was packed. She’d managed to persuade Della that Nugget, including McCreedy Ranch, the Lumber Baron, the Bun Boy, and the Ponderosa, should be mentioned in the book’s preface. Initially, Della had thought she could pass the location off as her Maw Maw’s farm, but both Emily and Hayne had balked at the obvious lie.

  “Gotta keep it real,” Hayne had said.

  Emily had done one better. Della was now under the impression that Nugget was the new “it” spot for the rich and famous. Emily had let it drop that she’d heard from Griffin Parks that Taylor Swift was buying a place at Sierra Heights. According to the tabloids, the two had quite a rivalry.

  “Hey.” Maddy waved. “We’re in the kitchen.”

  She found the ladies already sipping wine—Maddy ginger ale—and noshing on snacks. The innkeeper had finally started showing, her rounded belly pressing against the thin material of her blouse. With Hope, Emily had pooched out early. The curse of being petite.

  “It looks like you survived Della James.” Maddy chuckled. “Donna says she’s a bitch.”

  “Crazy is more like it.” Emily grabbed a goblet and poured herself a glass of the Viognier. “And believe it or not, completely insecure.”

  “Well, thank you for referring the Lumber Baron,” Maddy said. “We hardly saw her, but having this place booked sol
id on a Sunday night has made Nate a very happy man.”

  “I’m buying a new washer and dryer with all my loot,” Donna bragged. “Between the Bun Boy catering the event—and make no mistake about it, it was an event—and my gig as an assistant, I’m as much in the black as I’m ever going to be.”

  “Even the store benefited,” Ethel added. “Those people were in and out all day.”

  “We got no action over at the feed store,” Grace complained, putting on a frown.

  “Ah, poor Gracie. Here, let me buy you a drink.” Donna topped off her glass.

  “I’m just glad it’s over,” Emily said. “My feet still haven’t recovered.”

  “Whose book are you doing next?” Ethel wanted to know.

  These women warmed Emily’s heart. It felt good to be around them, like a blossoming friendship that would survive the long haul. Even though they varied in age, they had cooking in common. And of course, this town. This fresh, wonderful town. “I sent the first draft of the French book to my agent today. I still have work to do on Della’s book and only have a couple of weeks before the deadline.”

  She shook her head. The book had been ridiculously rushed. But hey, her name wasn’t going on it. “I brought pictures.”

  She opened the computer, tapped into her email and showed them the photos.

  “Lordy,” Donna said, staring at the rows of images. “That man is a miracle worker. Della actually looks classy, instead of like a two-dollar hooker.”

  “I think with inflation it might be up to twenty dollars now,” Amanda said. “My God, is that Clay?”

  “What?” Emily hadn’t noticed any pictures of Clay. Then again she’d only flipped through them quickly. Sure enough, there he was, helping Della onto Roxy, sort of staring off into space, a silly look on his face.

  “He’s gazing at you,” Donna said, pointing. “You were right here, setting up the pie table.”

  “He was not,” Emily protested. “It’s probably one of the few times the lens didn’t catch him staring at Della’s ass. Or her boobs.”