So far, so good, I’d say. Gazing toward the front door, she saw Chet emerge to stand on his porch, hitch his fingers in his jean pockets and watch her with a lopsided grin. His easy grace had the possessive look of a lover.
She quivered at the remembrance that she had made love to this man, not once, but three times in the space of as many hours.
“Shana? Are you there?”
“Yep. Gotta go, Jeff. Talk to you later.” She powered down her phone.
She had better things to do with her time than listen to Jeff Wentworth grouse at her. She headed for the house.
“So your boss is upset with our deal?” Chet asked as he drew her inside the front door.
She draped her arm around Chet’s hips and admired his cool, handsome face. “Yeah, he loves being in charge.” Come to think of it, he may even enjoy letting off steam.
Chapter Three
Chet climbed into his truck, shut the door and hung his white Stetson up in his visored, overhead hatrack. He pulled out of his driveway and they zoomed down the road. “You are gonna charm the pants off Sam Trunbridge.”
She grimaced. “Oh dear, I hope not. One man with his pants off today is more than enough for me.”
“I’m making certain this man with his pants off is all you’ll ever need.” He grasped her hand, lifted it to his mouth and put the tip of his tongue to the center of her palm.
She yelped and pulled her hand back. “You better stop this or I won’t have my right mind for this meeting.”
Chet grinned, eyes on the road. “Trunbridge will be easy for you to persuade. He liked your proposal. Loved it, in fact. His big problem was the retainer. And now that you’ve reduced that, he’ll be ready to sign on the dotted line—provided you kill the bit about the headliners.”
“But that’s crazy. Big names are what we need.”
“Yeah, well, you are not going to change Sam’s mind.”
“Why not?”
“Personal history.”
“Really? What?”
Chet shot her a glance. “Sam doesn’t talk about this.”
“Okay then. Only you and I do.”
Chet nodded. “Sam is the third richest man in Texas.”
Shana shrugged. “Meaning?”
“He’s got money, land, cattle, horses, looks and a saddlebag full of charm.”
Now she was puzzled. She shook her head. “And?”
“He keeps it all for himself and his daughter.” Chet grimaced as he looked in the rearview mirror and turned a corner onto a feeder road. The land ahead was bound by an electric, barbed-wire fence. A huge white sign with a gold lone star at the entrance read, “Welcome to Trunbridge Ranch. Home to Angus and Cutting Horses Since 1876.” Beneath stood the ranch’s brand, a Rocking Bar T.
Chet drove up to the electronic code box, rolled down his window, punched in a few number keys then called into the audio box. “It’s Chet Stapleton, Willa. Comin’ in to see your dad.”
As the giant iron gate swung wide to let them in, Shana fingered a wisp of hair back into her ponytail. “Tell me what else I need to know about Trunbridge before I go in here and stick my foot in my mouth.”
“You’ll have your work cut out for you on the Nashville headliners because years ago Sam Trunbridge bought into Dell-a-tone Records and met a singer who took his heart and stomped on it. Or so he tries to say now with a big dose of false objectivity and Texas humor. And just who is that heartthrob? Well, god. None other than Kylee Farrell.”
At the mention of the three-time Grammy award-winning singer, Shana dropped her mouth open.
“Yeah. My reaction too.” Chet nodded at Shana with poignant humor. “Sam does not mention it to many. He told me only after we’d read your proposal and Kylee’s name was on there as a possible for the grand opening.”
Oh, boy. “But she—”
“Doesn’t have to be the opener.”
“Well—”
“You can get someone else. Kylee might not want to come anyway, if she knew Sam was involved. Plus, she’ll think we’re small potatoes and—”
“No.”
“And she won’t see any profit in coming to Hayward. So that lets us open for—”
“Stop!” she yelled at Chet.
He jammed on the brakes. “What’s the matter?”
“You have to understand that Kylee is the grand opening act.”
“What? How can that be? If you and I have just agreed to work together this morning, then she’s—”
“Committed to starring in the season opener October twelfth.”
“That’s crazy.” Stunned, he shoved the gearshift to neutral.
“Tell me about it.” She nibbled on her lower lip.
“You can cancel the contract,” Chet said, waving a hand.
“Can’t.”
He scowled. “Why not?”
“She was in our office the day Jeff and I talked about our draft of our proposal.”
“How’s that?”
“She was in San Antonio because she’d done a concert at the Alamo Dome the night before. She dropped in to see Jeff, who used to live next door to her in Abilene. He told her about this, that we needed a headliner. It would help sell the proposal, he told her. And she volunteered.”
“Oh hell.” Chet stared straight ahead.
“Tell me more about their relationship,” she said, her eyes outlining the yellow-stone ranch house that rambled over the acreage in front of her.
“Honey, that’s all I know.” Chet turned to her. “You’ve got to forget you have her. You won’t get him to agree. He won’t sign your contract.”
Her heart fluttered in fear. She’d come this far to help Chet, she wasn’t going to let some man’s old, failed love affair stop her from fixing what she’d done. “Drive on up there, Chet. Let’s do this.”
“Shana, if you have a plan I’d like to hear it.”
She faced him. Her mind was blank. His face was lined with anxiety and concern for her. She dissolved in delight and smiled at him. He was so sweet, she could eat him with a spoon. If she could meet this man and instinctively care for him so strongly, maybe, just maybe, she could employ her instincts to wipe away this last obstacle to her plan. “Just help me with him, Chet. Help me.”
* * * * *
Sam Trunbridge should have been in westerns. Tall, rawhide tan, lanky, with black hair and a devil’s shock of white at the temples and over his brow, he was the personification of a filthy-rich, movie screen, come-to-daddy cow man. With hand-tooled, Lucchese brown boots, jeans that fit like his skin, and a snowy shirt starched to an inch of its life, the rancher walked and talked no-nonsense wealth and acid-tongued humor.
“You two look hungry. Had lunch?” he asked, ushering them into his living room, the walls of which were studded with one stuffed bobcat, a javelina’s head and more than a dozen whitetail deer antlers. Shana smiled to herself, knowing this kind of hard-drivin’ Texan like the back of her hand. She took one of the two brown leather chairs, while Chet sank into the other and crossed his long legs with his cowboy hat perched on his knee. Across from them on the sofa, sat Sam’s statuesque daughter, Willa, who dissected Shana with the skill of a surgeon.
“Yes, we’ve eaten,” Chet told him. “Thanks.”
Sam inclined his head toward Chet as he gazed at Shana. “Did he cook for you?”
Shana tried not to blush. Did he suspect she and Chet were already lovers? “Yes, sir, he did.”
Willa looked stricken, but she tossed her silky black hair over her shoulder and came out like a whiplash. “He cooks for only a few people. Special ones. Right, Chet?”
Shana examined the young woman openly. Probably slightly younger than she, twenty-two or so, Willa Trunbridge had all the earmarks of a Texas heiress. Proud as whiskey. Straight as a ramrod. Impeccable grooming of her straight waist-length raven hair and porcelain-doll-like complexion. Designer jeans that looked as if they’d never ridden a horse. Red-lacquered nails that might never hav
e washed a dish. And darting black eyes that focused daggers of interest on Chet Stapleton. An interest that Chet, thank you, God, ignored.
“Practice,” Shana responded, as if it were quite natural for him to cook for her, “does make perfect.” Then she crossed her legs and smiled at Chet who acknowledged her praise with a grin.
Willa arched a brow. “And you two got to talk business?”
“Willa,” her father sounded rueful, “mix us a couple of drinks.”
“Margarita?” Willa asked Shana. “I know Dad will have one. You?”
“No thank you,” Shana refused politely. “I don’t drink before sundown.”
Sam hooted. “Well, Shana, in this part of Texas that means you’re not drinking until after nine. Too long to wait for me. Mix us up some margaritas, Wil.”
Willa turned her attention to Chet, her expression sultry and wicked. “Lemonade, still, for you, Chet?”
“Yep. Thanks, Willa.”
“Oh, come on, Chet. You can climb down off that high-and-mighty wagon.”
Her father glared at her. “Willa, you heard the man. If he doesn’t want to drink, so be it.”
“Sure.” Her resentment of her father and Chet hardened her fine features. She turned on her heel and walked toward the built-in bar that commanded the entire wall of the living room.
“First time in west Texas, Shana?” Sam sat back in his own leather chair.
“No. I was born in Marathon near Big Bend but grew up in Uvalde County, in fact.”
“Is that right?” Sam chuckled.
Chet widened his eyes, smiling. “You didn’t tell me that.”
You didn’t give me time. She grinned at him, then Sam. “Yes, I went to high school there.” She was happy to break the ice talking about what had become a very happy four years. “My aunt and uncle took me in after my parents died. They raised Angus, like you.”
“I’ll be damned,” Sam laughed, then looked at Chet. “You know any of this?”
“No, sir. First time I’m hearing it all. And so I would guess this means you’ve been to lots of rodeos?” Chet prodded.
She was tickled to reveal more. “Been a competitor too.”
Chet arched both brows. “Is that right.”
Sam chuckled. “What as? Rodeo Queen, I bet.”
“Once,” she admitted. “But twice, I was the barrel-racing queen of the Uvalde Country Fair.”
The men slapped their thighs.
Willa chimed in with, “So this qualifies you to do public relations and improve our rodeo?”
Shana fought the impulse to ask this petulant child where her manners were.
“Willa,” her father scolded with a low tone, “do hurry up with those drinks, and just listen, will you?”
Shana would tell them all her background and Willa would have to eat crow. “I went to UT Austin and majored in communications, worked for a newspaper for about a year then went to Wentworth and Associates more than three years ago. Yes, I am new at what I do, but I do know the rodeo. Well. My uncle competed for a few years before he quit. And my dad too, before he died.” She considered her hands in her lap for a moment. She hadn’t spoken of her father in years. More than a decade.
She felt Chet’s eyes on her for a long minute. If he detected a change in her tone, he only blinked. “Well, I am pleased to hear this. Now that really helps with what you are going to do for us.”
Sam looked at him, confused. “Is she? You made her an offer?”
Chet shook his head. “No, Sam. She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.” Then he gave him the details.
Sam’s black brows knit together as he accepted his margarita from his daughter. “That’s mighty generous, Shana. Why?”
“Thank you, Willa.” She took her lemonade from the tray then looked Sam in the eye and gave him all the details in her arsenal. “I want this job. I can do it. I can do it for a sum that you can afford. There is no one who can do it for a comparable fee and bring you the kind of results I can in a limited time period.”
“Well!” Sam chuckled. “Guess that says it all.”
She took a sip then put her drink down on the coffee table in front of her. “Except for one thing.”
“Which is?”
Chet flinched.
Shana sat forward. “One of the reasons I’m going to be able to help you build this rodeo in less than a year is because our events department has strong relationships with three major Nashville talents who can be your headliners.”
“I understand your reasoning, Shana,” Sam said with a tone of stone-cold finality. “But those three you listed don’t work for me.”
“No. They work for the audience we’re trying to build for you. For the reputation we want the Hayward Rodeo to have. For the traffic we need to—”
“I will not do this.” Sam cursed beneath his breath. “I told you, Chet, none of this.”
“Hear me out, Sam,” Shana insisted.
“No.” Sam almost spit out the word.
“For your opening, I have Kylee Farrell.”
Sam vaulted to his feet. “But I won’t have her.”
Willa stared at her father’s back as he walked toward the window. She tipped her head, frowning at him.
Shana swallowed her trepidation, this one piece was vital to their quick success. “Kylee wants to come, Sam. I never invited her. She volunteered. In fact, she demanded that Jeff Wentworth write her in.”
“She did, eh? Well, good of her,” Sam rasped. “But I don’t want her.”
“Daddy?” Willa cooed, so saccharine in her attempt to draw out her father that Shana’s teeth got cavities. “Not want Kylee Farrell? How could you not? She is the hottest thing on the circuit.”
“Leave it alone, Willa,” he warned.
“Why?” Willa persisted and got no response from her father.
Shana licked her lips. “Sam. I don’t know why Kylee insisted she do this. I didn’t ask her, and I didn’t ask Jeff. I just know they grew up together in Abilene, she came to see him one day when she was in town and he happened to tell her we were bidding on this project for you. Kylee is asking for only one-tenth of the ticket price for her one performance. She’s also asking for accommodations in town for that night. We could not ask for a bigger name, Sam. Couldn’t want for a better financial split. And if you don’t want her, we won’t be able to find anyone of her caliber to fill the spot. Not on such short notice and not for such a small share of the take. Money is money, Sam.” She’d get him where he lived with that. “And I do hear you are a man who knows money.”
When he turned, his face was harder than rock, his eyes a shade of hell.
Desperate now, Shana continued with other arrows in her quiver. “Kylee’s appearance would make the difference between Hayward Rodeo’s success and Hayward Rodeo’s instant huge success.”
Sam shook his head.
The silent room seemed hollow.
Shana felt gut-punched. If Sam didn’t agree to this, not much else would make as much difference. She glanced at Chet who nodded at her.
“So, Sam,” Chet tapped his hat on his knee, matter-of-factly, “this means there’s only one thing left to do.”
Sam set his jaw. “Yeah? Tell me.”
Chet grinned. “Let Kylee come. Just stay away from her.”
“Easy to say.”
Chet stared at him. “What’s it worth to you to forbid her to come? Thousands of dollars you won’t earn or Kylee’s reaction to your rejection—a rejection that you will never see?”
Sam grumbled over that for long minutes while he slugged back his margarita and considered the land outside his big window. “Fine. Fine. You two caught me between my damn money and a hard place.” He gazed at Shana. “Where’s your contract?”
* * * * *
“Oh, thank you for that, Chet!” Shana beamed at him as he climbed into his seat, put up his hat and slammed closed the truck door. “He never would have come along unless you’d found a way.”
&nb
sp; “You’re welcome, honey, but what I suggested wasn’t brain surgery. I know Sam’s hardheaded, but when you’re talking money, Sam always wants a way to win. Plus this thing with Kylee, well, it’s complicated.”
She squeezed his arm, ecstatic she was hired, officially. “You’re the magician who got him to sign.”
“Not hard to do.” He traced a finger down her cheek as he spun to back the truck out of the driveway. “But whatever happened between him and Kylee was explosive. As much as I know is that it happened more than a decade ago, but Sam has never let it go.”
Shana didn’t want to probe. She had enough of her own history she didn’t talk about, let alone prying into someone else’s. Still, the fact that Sam could hang on to anger for ten years upset her and reminded her that Chet, if he knew who she really was, might carry a grudge bigger than Sam’s. “Sam loved her badly.”
“Yeah, plain as the nose on his face, isn’t it?”
“How tough will it be to keep them apart?” She had to know.
“A tall order, I’d say,” Chet said as he drove them down the road. “From what I can piece together, his wife had been dead quite a few years when he met Kylee. Fast love affair, so say a few folks in town. Anyway, Sam loved her more than a lot. And she walked out on him. Don’t know why or how. But she left, no explanations. Few people have ever stepped on Sam’s toes and lived to tell the tale.”
“Willa doesn’t seem to know anything about it.” Shana scolded herself at the mention of the young woman, whose immature possessiveness of Chet had riled her so that she’d wished she hadn’t had to bring her up.
“Willa thinks she knows more than she does—and she’s always surprised when the world doesn’t turn precisely the way she expected.”
Shana stared straight ahead, refusing to ask anything about his involvement with Willa. Just because I’ve made love with this man three times today does not mean I have the right to ask anything about a woman who obviously cares for him.
Do Him Right Page 5