“Remember when you said we should get a masseuse?” Beau smirks. “Well, I put an ad in the paper a few weeks back. We’ve got a taker.” He gestures at the van, which has completed its laborious climb up the long sloping drive and halted at the edge of the pasture behind my shiny red truck. “I tried to discourage her, but you said you wanted to upgrade the Ranch’s offerings, and besides. My back has been killing me.”
Yeah, I wanted to upgrade the Black Diamond’s offerings as Beau phrased it—but right now, I can’t offer any services at all. No lodging. No rides. Forget fucking massages; we don’t have customers to buy them.
“You’re a real idiot sometimes, Beau. It’s a good thing your face is so pretty.” This is a running joke between us. He really does look like a movie star, and when we’re not digging fenceposts, he’s every bit as much of a dandy as you’d think considering his name.
The van looks even worse up close. The make is Chevrolet. It’s dented at the back fender and the scratched white paint is tinged yellow with age and sun. Curiously, the windows are covered with curtains, as if someone’s been living in it.
I am not prepared for who gets out.
Black boots send puffs of dust into the air, followed by legs that don’t quit. Our visitor peels herself out of the car. It’s ninety-five degrees and I don’t care who says it’s a dry heat; it’s still fucking hot. I try to swallow past the parched desert of my throat.
You know that scene with Megan Fox working on a car in the Transformers movie?
I didn’t even like that flick, but I’m hearing music. Time slows. Whoever she is, our visitor looks like a downtrodden Mikaela Banes—what I can see of her, anyway. Her face is diligently obscured by a folded bandana as a makeshift mask.
She wears cutoff jeans cropped to the upper thigh and a black tank top that clings to the nip of her waist and the slight mounds of her breasts.
My stomach sinks.
This unfortunate young woman has arrived to interview for some cockamamie job description Beau cooked up during better times, all of a month ago, when the outbreak was only a worrisome headline and before panicked cancelations cascaded through the booking system. So much has changed, so fast. I wonder what the date is on the paper where she saw the advertisement. I’d guess it’s a couple of weeks old.
My bodyguard is the one who put his name on the want ad, and he is the one who’s been texting with her. I drop the tool and say, “This is your show, Beau.”
My friend heaves a sigh of exasperation. Too damn bad. I’m not bailing him out.
“Miss...”
“Sadie Banes. We texted about the massage therapist job?” she says, shifting her weight nervously from foot to foot.
My spine goes rigid. So does my cock. No way is the fucking Transformers movie going to be a sign, of all movies. I deserve better quality signals from the universe. Then again, the way this year is going...maybe I should count my blessings that I’m not getting signs from Godzilla.
“You have your license?” Beau asks.
What is he thinking? I can’t afford to hire anyone—and if I did, it would be someone to help repair these damn fenceposts, not a woman that makes my whole brain light up with the word sex in neon letters.
He’s thinking about his bad back, that’s what. Beau took a fall several weeks ago from my horse, Diablo, and while the doctor says the underlying injury is healed, there’s lingering pain. That’s why I’ve been the one wielding the post digger, when I should be exercising the horses or arguing with my accountant over video conference.
“Right here,” Sadie Banes says. She bends over the seat of her van to produce a manila envelope. “I’ve completed my training hours. I was just let go from the parlor I worked for because of the pandemic.” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, and clarifies, “Not for anything performance-related.”
She holds out the folder of her credentials. Beau drags his mask up over his face and takes it. Unlike me, he’s still relatively clean and wearing his shirt. Anyone would think he runs the place. I can’t be too offended that Sadie barely looks at me. Damn, though, I wish I’d made a habit of asserting myself with Beau before this moment.
Sadie gives me a quick, sneaky once-over while he flips through the papers. Never mind the dirt—even though her furtive up-and-down scan is lightning-quick, I can tell she likes what she sees. As her gaze slides away, I catch her eye. Her green eyes, the exact shade of a desert spring, meet mine.
Desire slams through my midsection. I’m sipping air. I feel as if sparklers are shooting embers through my veins. My body is on fire. I don’t care what the rest of her face looks like.
“Well, everything looks good.” Beau is putting up a good front, but it’s obvious to me that my friend is experiencing a similar reaction to our visitor. He barely read her resume and hasn’t asked a single question about her experience. He pats the papers back into the envelope. Then he passes it back to her, arms stretched to the max to try and maintain distance. “But we’re not hiring now.”
Sadie goes very still.
“Was there another candidate?” she asks quietly. “Maybe, if they don’t work out—”
Beau cuts her off. “There’s no other candidate. We’re just not hiring.”
He looks at me for confirmation. I nod. Sadie just looks confused.
“But you said there was housing and three hundred dollars a week,” Sadie pleads. She rakes her hair back and inhales, resigned.
“I said if we hired you—” interjects Beau. He doesn’t look at me.
I’m annoyed with him. This bait-and-switch was a cruel thing to do, and he knows it. I’m sure Beau is just doing what he thinks I want. I don’t much appreciate the position he’s put me in.
“Your text messages made it sound as though there was at least a possibility of that happening.” She’s fuming. In her shoes, I would be too. “What about just housing for the first month? I’ll quarantine for two weeks. I won’t even leave my room. And then I’ll work for two weeks for free as a trial.”
It’s a ridiculous thing to offer. Now I know she’s desperate. Sadie could be the worst massage therapist in the world and I’d still be tempted to let her stay here. Right this moment, the only part of my body that aches to be stroked is my cock.
“You don’t have anywhere else to go?” I ask, imitating Beau’s slow drawl. I’ve picked up this manner of speaking ever since I moved here from Chicago.
Sadie shakes her head once, stubbornly mute. After a beat of silence, she says, “I’ve been living out of my van.”
In the middle of a pandemic.
I know she isn’t the only one, but until this moment it’s been an abstract problem. Aw, hell.
I catch Beau’s eye. “Let her stay.”
Crinkles pleat his brow. “Are you sure?”
“You’re the one who brought her here,” I mutter. “I bet she can’t even afford enough gas to get back to the city.”
Sadie, standing ten feet away, must have overheard me. She scowls and kicks a rock into a cactus.
“All right, Miss Banes. Let’s get you settled in,” Beau says with resignation.
Her head jerks up. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he says. “You can stay for a month. Once you’re done with quarantine, we’ll give you a two-week trial to win us over. Deal?”
“Yes. Sure. Thank you, Mr...”
“Beau Reed.” He doesn’t offer to shake hands. “This is Dakota Wilson.”
I notice he doesn’t identify me as the CEO. While I’m sure my friend has his reasons for the oversight, it makes me wonder what game he’s playing. It’s his job to protect me, and belatedly, he is trying to do that. I’d say he does not entirely trust our guest.
Maybe I don’t, either. But I’m a softie for a damsel in distress, which Beau knows damn well. Sadie has the attitude of a stray dog who’s been kicked around—wary, but still hopeful for a treat or a friendly pat. It takes a lot of courage to get through this world when n
othing ever seems to go your way. I can’t just kick her to the curb when she’s come all the way out here.
“Put her in the cottage,” I tell Beau quietly. I pick up my tools and cast a glance at the line of fence posts still needing to be reset after a recent rainfall washed them out. “Get her settled in and come back to get me.”
“The cottage?” Beau asks. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” It’s our best guest lodging. It’s a private building with two bedrooms, two baths, a galley kitchen and a washer-dryer. There’s even a courtyard with a firepit. Sadie will be comfortable there. Besides, it’s not like we have any paying guests who might want it.
Beau tosses me two water bottles. He hops behind the wheel of my red pickup truck. It starts easily. Sadie’s van grumbles before turning over. It pulls out after him, making a high-pitched whine, leaving me alone with the wide blue sky, a fence post digger, and a desert cottontail eyeing me from a distance.
“Yeah, so what,” I tell it. “I’m a fool. It’s only a couple of weeks, though. You’ll be lucky to avoid being eaten by a rattlesnake for that long.”
Clouds puff and gather overhead. Even a full hour of hard manual labor isn’t enough to make me stop thinking about Sadie’s gorgeous body and green eyes. By the time Beau comes back to get me, purple stains the horizon. We ride home in silence.
3
Beau
The new girl parks her van behind the cottage. It’s a freestanding gray adobe building with a walled courtyard. Ordinarily Dakota rents it out for a tidy $400 a night; stay for a week and he’d discount the rate. It was always booked months in advance—until the world went on lockdown and guests vanished like ghosts at daybreak.
Now a homeless girl—woman—is living in it for free. I feel a lot of ways about this.
I totally fucked up by inviting Sadie out here. First off, I know perfectly well that Dakota’s heart is as soft as his head is hard. As soon as this chick got out of her decrepit Chevy, I knew he was going to let her stay. Dakota is the best human being I’ve ever met. That’s why he needs me.
Not that he listens to my advice very often.
For example, last year we found out that the administrative assistant who had been managing our bookings had bilked him out of nearly twenty thousand dollars. Dakota chose not to press charges—a decision I did not agree with. He reminded me, gently, that I’m not his business manager. I admit I’m still salty that he didn’t take my counsel.
That’s between him and his accountant now, I guess.
I still feel I ought to have protected him better. My job here is to keep him safe physically. Frankly, this has been harder than I’d like ever since I took a fall from that devil horse Dakota rides. Never should’ve tried to clamber up on that horse’s back. Thought I could hack it, but I’m eight years older and decades less experienced with horses than he is.
“’Scuse me, Mr. Reed,” Sadie asks. She gestures to the keypad. “Is there a code to the door?”
Right. I shake my head to clear it. I’ve just spent several minutes ruminating about how bad I’ve messed things up. Dakota and I were supposed to quarantine together here. No guests. Just the Hinson family living in the apartment above the barn, helping to care for the horses, until this pandemic is over.
Six weeks, they said. The experts had better be right because otherwise Dakota risks losing the Black Diamond. I overhear his conference calls with the accountant from time to time. A lot of people will be hurting if we don’t get the virus under control.
“Four, seven, five,” I tell her absently, still stuck in my thoughts. Sadie applies this newfound knowledge. The cottage grants her entrance on the first try. Sadie drags her heavy backpack up her back but hesitates at the threshold.
“Thanks. What should I do if I need anything?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Food.” She shrugs. That bandanna she has tied around her face obscures her features. From the way her clavicles stick out I’d guess it’s been a while since she’s had a decent meal.
Sadie reminds me of my mom—only rougher. For one thing, she has tattoos. Not a lot of them, but a colorful one trails down her left arm. Mrs. Reed would never. My mama might look as delicate as a gauze curtain in a spring breeze, but that woman is as indestructible as her favorite cast-iron pan.
One day, that pan will be my inheritance. In the meantime, she made sure I have her genteel manners and a decent education to get by.
“Text me. We’ll see to it you’re supplied.”
She holds up a phone with a screen so spider-webbed with cracks that I bark a startled laugh.
“We have a spare one lying around somewhere. I’ll bring it over.”
“I can’t pay for it,” she says quickly, wary of my offer.
I don’t know what possesses me to say it. “Send me cute selfies once in a while. That’s all I ask.”
Her green eyes glint with unreadable emotion before she glances away. Is it laughter? Or is she offended? I can’t tell.
“I may do that,” she says evenly. “Thank you, Beau. For everything.”
It’s more gratitude than I deserve, considering the way I brought her out here and then almost sent her packing. “Sure thing. I’ll let you get settled in now.”
It’s not the last I see of her for fourteen days, but it’s the last time we get within ten feet.
“How’s she going to eat if she never goes to the grocery store?” I ask my boss that evening when he’s grilling burgers for dinner. We are debating whether to bring her a burger. Or rather, I have proposed the idea and Dakota has given me a speculative look. That’s as far as the argument has gotten. We can’t decide what to do about Sadie.
“She’s your pet,” Dakota reminds me. “You feed her.”
“I’m not the one who adopted her,” I snipe, grumpily.
It’s my fault she’s here. But it’s Dakota’s fault she stayed. As far as I’m concerned, we share equal blame. I go inside and put together a bag of groceries, which I leave on the stoop outside her door. I ring the bell and stand back. It’s dusk and the last glow of sunset casts long shadows over the courtyard. A lizard on the wall moves.
She answers wearing nothing but a loose T-shirt and a towel wrapped turban-like around her hair. The lower half of Sadie’s face is dutifully covered by a clean bandana. I call out, “I thought you could use some food.”
“Thanks so much. This is really kind of you, Beau.”
She isn’t wearing a bra beneath the shirt. The peaks of her nipples tent the fabric ever so slightly. Liquid heat steams in my veins until I force myself to look away. I’m not trying to make her uncomfortable. Yet my voice is rough when I say, “My pleasure. Don’t be afraid to text me, especially if you get sick, okay?”
“I don’t want to be a bother. I had food. You know...” She hesitates. “In my van. But this is a really big help.”
My gaze skims up her slim legs to the hem of her shirt. My throat tightens and turns parched.
“You’re no bother, Sadie. Holler if you need anything.”
“I will,” she says hastily. “I’d better get these in the fridge. Thanks again, Beau. Tell Dakota thanks too.”
I can’t read the emotion in her eyes. It could be wary hopefulness. Clearly, she’s a woman who doesn’t like to show her feelings. The door closes and locks before I can figure it out. Nightfall paints the sky turquoise and orange.
Over the next two weeks, Sadie becomes as much a part of our landscape as the cacti and scrub brush. We see her at odd times, walking around in her private courtyard for exercise, waving to us quickly before she disappears back into the cottage.
If only it weren’t for the damn mask. It’s like Scheherazade and her veils. I know Sadie has the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen. She has a dancer’s figure—and I don’t mean tutus and ballet. I mean that after glimpsing her in tank tops and cutoff jeans, which is all she seems to wear, my feverish imagination has started imagining her working a stripper’
s pole in nothing but a thong.
I don’t know what the rest of her face looks like, because every time I see her, Sadie’s is covered by a couple of layers of fabric. I want to see the precise slant of her nose. I am consumed with the need to study her lips and the angle of her chin. Her ears are slightly too large, and they stick out a bit at the top. I think it makes her look like a fairy.
And then I tell myself I’m being stupid. But it’s clear I’m not alone in my curiosity.
Being trapped alone in the desert for weeks with nobody but Dakota for company is getting to me. It’s getting to him, too. I see the way he times his daily trail rides to coincide with her fresh air time.
I see the way he looks at her. My friend is as enthralled with Sadie as I am.
“So, what are the rules about our guest?” Dakota asks casually one afternoon when he’s done riding for the day. Sadie’s quarantine ends tomorrow. I’m planning a welcome-to-the-family supper. Cornbread, fried chicken and collards. Dakota let me set up a small greenhouse with a dedicated watering system. I grow all kinds of things on raised planter beds. It makes me feel useful, since my back is still giving me trouble. My doctor told me that regular massages would help. Another 24 hours and we can get started.
I don’t tell him about the text message Sadie sent me. She’s wearing bright lipstick and a tank top that’s pulled down almost to her nipples, and nothing much else as far as I can tell from the close shot. The first thing I note is that she’s put a little weight on her in all the right places. It’s better than any internet porn I’ve watched recently. But I still can’t see her entire face because of the angle of the photo, which drives me crazy.
“Hands off,” I grunt. I don’t tell him about the messages Sadie has been peppering me with. Questions about the ranch, but mostly about us. She is interested in the horses, but I get the sense she’s keener to ride my friend and me. The sexy selfie confirmed it.
I, for one, would not object.
Dakota’s white teeth flash in a grin. “Does that mean you’ve got claims on her affection?”
Confined with the CEO and the Bodyguard Page 2