"No. Until your ankle's had more time to heal. Doc Landers said three days, today's barely day two and you were on it more than I like yesterday. There was nothing I could do then, other than leaving you here alone, and I didn't want to do that to you."
She watched him for a several seconds, remembering again why she was even considering his offer.
"All right." She closed her eyes a moment. "I'll think about it."
"Thank you. That's all I can ask for." He leaned in and dropped a quick kiss on her lips before standing and going around the bar, gathering her plate and putting it in the sink with the other dishes. "Make yourself at home. Feel free to use the tv, raid the fridge or pantry, whatever. I've got somethings I need to take care of. If you need something, anything, pick up a phone and dial eight. That will ring the kitchen. Lewis should know where to find me."
Mariah frowned, wondering why he couldn't just tell her where he would be.
"I've got several things to do, I'll be in and out of the dining hall all day as I work. We have more guests coming in this weekend and I need to make sure we've got things in place. Oh. Can you get on the laptop in the office and do a little research on solar stake lights? I want to get the paths between cabins and up to the dining hall lit before the next group gets here."
Her frown deepened. "It's already Wednesday, how will you get them here in time?"
"Amazon, sweetheart. You've got to love prime. Almost anything you could ever want in two days." He grinned. "I'll come back around lunch time, we can order whatever you find and see about something to eat." He disappeared through the door.
Mariah was left staring after him, wondering how he had so much energy after so little sleep.
* * *
She sat on the front porch, her injured leg propped up in the seat of another chair as she gazed out as the skyline, lost in thought. When she'd found out about the trip, she'd dreaded it. Being stuck out in the middle of nowhere with people who actually liked it out here. She couldn't imagine. Now, she could see the draw. It was peaceful in a way she'd never known or imagined. And the people who liked it out here, they were worlds different than she'd expected.
She didn't know why, but she'd expected backroads hicks, extreme redneck to all the stereotypes, not that she'd admit that to anyone. But the people she'd met here, she couldn't imagine them being like the so-called friends she'd left behind in LA. She'd sent several texts and messages to those friends, but hadn't heard a peep in two days.
It crossed her mind what people might say if she moved out here. It would depend on what she told them. If she told her mother she was moving across three states to move in with a man she'd known for three days, her mother would call the hospital and try to have her committed. But if she said she'd gotten an amazing job and was moving for the opportunity, her mother would cheer her on and wish her luck. Mom had never been impressed by Mariah's working in the LA.
Or she could go back to LA and hope she still had a job. Or try to find another job there, hoping the whole time that Mr. Sheppard hadn't black balled her or that her next boss wasn't the same kind of asshole he was. Neither option sounded great. What appealed even less was going back to her minuscule apartment. But did she want to stay here, to live on the goodwill of Levi?
As she sat there, staring out at the mountains, her phone chirped. Ready for something else to think about, she picked it up and found a text message, not from any of her suddenly silent friends, but from her mother. It wasn't what she'd been hoping for but she opened the message anyway.
How are things with you?
She only talked to Mom about once a week and she hadn't told her about the trip to Wyoming, Mariah hadn't wanted to think about the trip that she'd been convinced at the time would be torture.
Okay, I'm trying to figure out my next move.
Would it help to talk it out some?
Mariah dropped the hand holding the phone in her lap as she thought about it. Would it help? Maybe it would help. But she'd have to be careful about what details she gave her mom.
Maybe it would. She quickly outlined where she was and that she'd taken the trip with work, but left out the whole event with Mr. Sheppard and the others.
So my options are go back to a teeny apartment that costs an arm and a leg, with a job I've discovered isn't at all what I want to do. Or I can stay in a place that I've really started to love, doing a little accounting, which I don't love but don't mind, in trade for room and board, leaving me a great deal of time to pursue more personal marketing work like I've really wanted to do. Mariah hoped she'd given enough information without giving too much. She didn't want to spend the next three hours making her mother feel better about the situation, and she knew if she gave her too much, then that's exactly what she'd do.
It seems you've already made your decision. You know which is the better job.
It's not the better job I'm debating. It's more picking up my life and moving everything. Changing my whole life on the off chance it works.
Her phone was quiet for a few minutes and she wondered if her mother was typing a response or if she'd forgotten her. She added her mother's opinion that she'd likely made her decision to her mental debates as she turned her attention back to the horizon. She'd been staring into the distance for a while, her mind looping over and over her reasons to stay as well as her reasons to go when her phone vibrated again. She picked it up and found another message from her mother, it was simple but made her totally change the way she was thinking about this.
Which option will you regret the most if you don't do?
Mariah stared at the phone for several seconds, blinking at the simple words and yet it was brilliant. She didn't have to think long before she knew the answer to that. If she stayed in LA, she knew she'd regret not taking the chance here, not seeing if she could make things work with Levi and here in Hawthorne. Put that way, she decided she would be foolish to turn Levi's offer to stay down.
Now she needed to figure out the logistics of moving out of her apartment and getting the rest of her things here to Wyoming.
Chapter 31
"Were you serious about your offer to let me stay?"
Levi turned to stare at Mariah where she sat at the kitchen bar, her injured foot propped up on another barstool while he cooked.
"Of course I was. I wouldn't have made the offer if I wasn't." He went back to slicing potatoes to go with the steaks he planned to toss on the grill for dinner.
"What would you say if I decided to take you up on it?"
He froze. The only thing that moved was his eyes as he looked up at her, half way afraid to move for fear she'd say she was joking. He'd made the offer because he really did want her to stay, but he didn't think he'd had much chance she'd say yes. Why would she leave a fancy job, even if it was for a serious asshole, to come live in the middle of nowhere with him?
"Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously. What would you say?"
He laid the knife on the cutting board and rounded the bar to stand next to her.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you." He ran one hand along her cheek then slowly lowered his lips to hers. "I'll make sure you never regret this," he said as he slowly broke the kiss and pulled away.
Mariah laughed. "That's not what I was expecting, but I'll take it."
"What were you expecting?" He went back to his side of the counter, picked up the knife and went back to work.
"I didn't really know, but that was way better."
"Happy to be of service, ma'am." He gave her a half bow and was rewarded by another laugh. He liked the sound and wondered what it would take to hear it far more often.
"Well, if you want to be of service, you can help me figure out how I'll get my stuff here."
"Have you checked to see if your plane ticket is still good?"
"Not yet. I should do that." She pulled out her phone and it took her a few minute but she found the answer.
"It says it's still good right now."
"Can you c
ash it out?"
"Let me try." It took her several minutes of furious typing on her phone, but she looked up after a while. "I did. I got them to issue a refund, but it will take a while to send me the money. They wanted to refund the money to the original card, but I talked to a customer service rep and talked him into issuing a check to me instead."
Levi glanced up, unable to keep from noticing her pink cheeks. "Did you have to flirt to get him to do it?"
"No, I told him the truth, including that the boss brought me out here and attacked me. He said it's completely against company policy, but because he wouldn't want to work for someone who would do that either, he'd make an exception."
"All that without a call?"
"I used the message a representative app. I love that thing. I use it whenever I can."
Levi couldn't help but smile.
"Now that I have money on the way for that, how do we get my stuff here?"
"We drive to LA and get it."
She stared at him open-mouthed for several seconds.
"Drive?"
"Sure. It's the cheapest way to do it. We could fly to LA, but then you'd probably have to rent a truck to bring it all back." He paused and looked up at her. "Do you have a car?"
"Yeah, but I'm not sure I'd trust it to go from there to here. It's not a bad car, but it's older and once in a while it just refuses to start."
"Decide if you want to keep it or if you want to sell it and look into getting something different here. It might take some shopping, but we could pick you up a decent used car."
"If I want to keep it?"
"Then we tow it back. I can have the mechanic in Hawthorne take a look at it and see if he can figure out what's wrong."
She fell silent as she watched him move around the kitchen getting their dinner ready.
"When? You have guests coming next week, we can't do it then."
Levi shoved one hand through is hair as he mentally went through the guest schedule.
"This group is only here for three days. After them I don't have another group arriving for a week and a half. We can leave shortly after the guests do a week from today." He met her gaze. "Is that too long to wait?"
"No, I think that will work." She sighed. "We need to make sure no one books a visit the time we'll be gone, though."
"Go get the laptop from the office and I'll walk you through it. You might as well start learning the system, you're going to be taking it over anyway."
She gave him a look he wasn't sure how to interpret, then climbed down and went to get the computer.
Chapter 32
Mariah unplugged the laptop sitting on the desk in the library turned office and carried it and the small mouse into the kitchen. Learning the booking system wouldn't be the most fun thing she'd ever done, but it wouldn't be the least either. Bypassing the bar where she'd been, she took the computer to the kitchen table where she could work and Levi would be able to see the screen when she needed help, without having to turn the whole thing around. Plus, these chairs were easier to get in and out of, and more comfortable with her foot propped up.
"Where to first?" she asked after waiting for the computer to boot. "You know you really should have a password on this, you keep sensitive information on it."
"No one's gonna come in my house and take it, besides, a password is a pain in the ass." He told her how to get to the booking site and log in. Once she was in, it didn't take her long to figure things out and block off the time they were planning to be gone.
"Are you sure you don't mind coming to LA with me?" she felt bad taking him away from the ranch and his business, especially for so long. "Who will take care of the ranch and the animals?"
"I'll talk to Lewis, Billy and Tyler and line them up on what needs to be taken care of. I'll also talk to Joe and have him come out and check on things while we're gone, just to make sure it's all taken care of. Lewis can handle most of it, but I'm sure he'll like having Joe to turn to if something goes wrong."
"So you don't mind?"
"Honey," he looked at her with eyes filled with exasperation, "I wouldn't have offered if I minded. You need to stop worrying so much." He shook his head, picked up a tray and went to the back door. "I'm gonna put these on, then I'll be back in. If you'd like, I can show you a few more things on there while they cook."
She nodded but didn't say anything as he stepped out, she was busy looking over the booking site and the way it advertised the ranch, at the same time wishing she had a notebook so she could make notes on changes and improvements she would make if it was entirely up to her, instead she knew she would need to run them by Levi first.
"What do you want to see first?" he asked when he came inside.
"I'm looking at your booking site now. Do you have a notebook or something I can write on? A pen would be great too." He handed her a legal pad and a pen and she soon lost herself in the site.
* * *
"Push that back for a few minutes and eat." Levi set a plate on the table beside her and slid into another chair, setting his own plate down. "You want something to drink?"
"I can get it, you don't have to wait on me." Mariah pushed the laptop and legal pad she'd been using for notes out of the way and turned to him.
"You're still recuperating, besides, you've been busy working on my business. It doesn't hurt me to wait on you once in a while."
"You've been waiting on me for three days."
"And I'll continue to wait on you as long as I want to." He crossed his eyes at her as if daring her to stop him. The childish action made her smile as she shook her head and gave up.
"Water would be nice."
"Coming right up."
While she waited, she sliced into her steak and took a bite. The taste was amazing, far better than she'd had anywhere but here and it was so soft she didn't need the steak knife he'd given her, she was sure a table knife would do the job.
"What do you think?" Levi asked as he set a glass filled with ice water in front of her.
"Wonderful. I'm not sure how you do it, but all the food I've had here is better than the same thing somewhere else. Especially the meat."
"The beef is raised here. We don't do store bought, why would we? We raise it here, butcher it here, why not serve it here? It's premium beef and because we've cut out all the in between steps, it's cheaper for us to serve it too."
"But it's not just the beef, it's everything you serve."
Levi smiled. "Nearly everything we serve on the ranch is local. I may not grow it here on the ranch, but someone in the area does. I took the things for dinner from the dining hall kitchen because I didn't have much here. I wasn't planning to eat here this week." He sliced his steak and took a bite.
"Where were you planning to eat?" She frowned. He had to eat.
"In the dining hall. What better way to show guests we have confidence in the meals we serve than to eat them ourselves? Besides, why cook two meals when one will do for everyone. And the adviser I talked to when I decided to do this told me to spend as much time being available to my guests as I could, eating with them just seemed like a good way to do that to me."
Mariah nodded as she listened to his reasons, they were good ones. Making one meal was a money saver, and spending the time with his guests was a good plan.
"Do you feed your hands too? Your help?"
"Lewis lives here and is the head cook, he eats every meal he makes, as do the kitchen help. Tyler and Bobby eat lunch, sometimes breakfast or dinner, depending on what they're doing and if they're here. Stephie gets a meal on days she works. She's the housekeeper so she's here every day if we have guests, once a week if we don't and she'll come in an extra time if the cabins have been empty more than a couple days to dust and make sure everything is in top shape when the guests arrive."
She saw the wisdom in his plan, feeding the help kept them from being tempted to go somewhere else, especially since everything was so far away and would take them most of an hour to get into to
wn and back, leaving them with little time for actual food. Keeping them on the property got them back to work faster and likely got better work, as they got good food and were happy employees.
She ate several more bites trying to figure out how to ask him. "Would you be open to my changing your website some?"
"I'm open to it, but I want to discuss the changes. This is not just my business, it's my ranch, my home. I know it's a pain in the ass, but I'm particular about what I want said and how."
"I totally get that. I'm working on a list of changes and improvements and I'll go over every one of them and why I think they'll help. I'm also working on a list of places to look into advertising. I'd like to get a good feel for the way things run here, maybe make a few changes to the cabins if you don't mind, then invite a few key reviewers, bloggers and the like, out for a complementary stay. If we can impress them and the write good reviews, they'll be worth more than what it cost to have them here."
Levi frowned. "What kind of changes to the cabins?"
"I'm not certain exactly what yet. I noticed when I got here that they felt new and unused. While the house is a home and comfortable. I want to see if I can figure out how to make the cabins feel more homey and less like sterile hotel rooms. I like them, but I think we can make them better, maybe hang some old fashioned photos on the walls. I don't mean of your family, though we could do that too, but you can find old photos in thrift shops and antique stores all over. Put some in frames and hang them, it will make it feel more like someone lives there than just a temporary stopping point."
"I like that. I knew something was missing, but I haven't been able to figure out what."
"I love that you stock the cabins with soap, shampoos and bath salts from a local artisan, it's a great way to make the place unique and help locals at the same time." She didn't want everything they discussed to be changes and what's wrong with what he's doing and she felt like she was picking on him and his business, which wasn't what she was intending at all. She wanted to do what she could to help him to get the business to grow.
The Cowboy Way Page 12