Читать книгу The Cowboy's Million-Dollar Secret - Emilie Rose - Страница 8

One cowboy.

One final request.

Fifteen million dollars.

Leanna Jensen smiled and congratulated herself on finding a way to tie all three into a neat package. “You won’t regret giving me the job, Ms. Lander.”

“Call me Brooke. If you’ll follow me into the kitchen I’ll introduce you to my brother-in-law.” Leanna’s new boss led the way across the expansive common room, calling over her shoulder, “I forgot to mention when we spoke on the phone that Patrick will be managing the dude ranch while my husband and I are away.”

Leanna’s steps faltered. She hadn’t expected to meet the star player of her adolescent daydreams so soon. Would he measure up to her high expectations or disappoint her like every other man? “Patrick is here? Now?”

“In the flesh.” The deep voice drew her gaze to the cowboy already occupying the spacious dude ranch dine-in kitchen. Slumped over a glass of iced tea at the end of the long pine table, he slowly straightened. His twinkling dark eyes and charismatic grin stole her breath.

Brooke motioned her forward. “Patrick, this is Leanna Jensen. She’ll be filling in for me as hostess for the next month. Leanna, Patrick.”

Pressing a hand over her leaping heart, Leanna moved farther into the room. Her feet practically floated above the floor. She’d waited nine years to meet the son Carolyn Lander had described in her letters to her lover.

At thirty-six, the man unfolding inch by muscular inch in front of her was ten times more potent than the lean and lanky sixteen-year-old he’d been in the last photo Arch had received.

“I-it’s n-nice to meet you.” She never stuttered or stammered, but Patrick in the flesh was much more manly than she’d imagined. Taller. Broader.

Sexier. She pushed that unwelcome thought aside.

Her gaze raced over his features like a runaway roller coaster. Patrick’s dark, smoldering looks were the complete opposite of his biological father’s, but his classically honed features and sensuously full mouth were the same ones Arch Golden had parlayed into a fortune on the big screen. He’d left that fortune to Patrick, the son he’d never met, but had worried about up until his last breath.

The ache in her heart over losing Arch momentarily overshadowed the thrill of finally meeting his son. Perhaps once she and Patrick became friends they could curl up by a campfire and exchange stories—his exciting tales of life on a ranch, rescuing animals and fighting wildfires and hers about the incredible man who’d fathered him. She especially wanted to make sure Patrick knew that his father—his real father—had loved him even though the two had never met.

She hadn’t been as lucky.

Squaring her shoulders, Leanna met the gaze of the man she’d driven over a thousand miles to meet, and eagerly reached for the hand he extended. She’d read so much about him in his mother’s letters that meeting him was almost like meeting an old friend, and yet an old friend wouldn’t make her fingers tremble.

As if he knew the unsettling effect his good looks had on her, Patrick’s grin deepened, crinkling the laugh lines around his dark eyes and deepening the grooves bracketing his mouth. His warm, slightly rough grasp seemed to reach right down inside her and squeeze her already nervous stomach tighter.

Dear heavens, he was handsome. Her mouth dried and her knees wobbled.

“Hey, there. So we’re gonna play house?” He waggled his dark brows and gave her a slow wink.

Her stomach bottomed out. A tiny drop of doubt threatened to rain on her parade. Was Patrick a charmer and a flirt? Surely the man she’d waited so long to meet wasn’t the very type she’d spent most of her life avoiding?

“I’m going to be keeping house, not playing.” Nervousness made her voice come out sterner than she’d intended. She sounded like a schoolmarm. Embarrassed, she tugged her hand free. Witty, be witty. She’d learned social repartee at her mother’s knee. What was her problem?

He rolled his wide shoulders in a shrug. “‘All work and no play…”’

“Is a good way to get ahead.” Rats. That sounded worse than before, but her insides jangled like loose change in a jogger’s pocket. She fought the urge to wring her hands, shoving her fists into her pants pockets instead. Her palm continued to tingle.

The wattage in his lady-killer grin dimmed. Leaning a hip against the table, he crossed his scuffed and dusty boots. “I can tell you’re going to be a load of fun.”

His sarcasm stung, like tearing a scab off a nearly healed wound. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard that from a man.

He folded his arms and turned a long-suffering look toward his sister-in-law. “You and Caleb did this on purpose, didn’t you?”

Brooke’s eyes widened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Sure you do. You and big brother hired a straitlaced baby-sitter to keep me in line while you’re off on your book tour.” And he wasn’t pleased.

Hurt that he’d pigeon-holed her so easily and that he obviously wasn’t as thrilled to meet her as she was to meet him, Leanna clenched her teeth. “I’m a hostess, not a baby-sitter.”

He shoved a lock of hair off his brow, yanked his black hat from the hook beside the back door, and parked it on his head in one smooth, choreographed move. “Right.”

With his hat pulled low on his forehead, Patrick Lander looked like the real deal as far as cowboys went. She’d bet the muscles straining the shoulders of his plaid shirt and the thighs of his faded jeans hadn’t come from a personal trainer, and his tanned skin looked genuine, not the result of some expensive cream. There wasn’t any Hollywood in him.

Yet. She chewed her lip.

Would a multimillion-dollar inheritance change him? She certainly hoped not, because thanks to her mom, she’d already had a parade of Hollywood phonies and live-for-the-minute men in her life. What she needed now was a man she could trust, a friend to replace the one she’d lost. She hoped to find one in Arch’s son.

He turned for the door, but she wasn’t ready to let him go. She had a zillion questions to ask. None of which she actually could ask without giving too much away too soon. But she had to think of something to keep him from walking out. “Do you need someone to watch your every move?”

Patrick paused and slowly pivoted. An assessing light entered his eyes and then he chuckled. The sound slid over her nerve endings like the scrape of a cat’s tongue. “If I did, it wouldn’t be some gal half my age. I could run circles around you without breaking a sweat.”

She swallowed hard. Gaining his friendship wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d hoped. “How old do you think I am?”

His dark gaze fastened on her with the sharp focus of a paparazzo’s zoom lens. He took in the stick-straight brown hair she’d pulled back with a barrette, her beige shirt and slacks, and her sensible shoes in a look so slow and thorough she grew warm all over.

The flash of vanity making her long for something besides her baggy traveling outfit was totally ridiculous. The last thing she wanted to be was attracted to a charmer, or worse yet, to have to dodge one’s advances.

The corners of his mouth curled upward, and her stomach fluttered. Then, when his smile twisted into an irritated expression, her hopes sank.

“You can’t be more than eighteen, kid. It’s likely I’ll end up hauling your butt out of trouble every time I turn around. Between corralling the dudes and keeping Dad from working himself to death over on our place, I won’t have time. We’re short-handed and there’s no room for dead weight.”

The “kid” comment rankled. She’d been looking after herself and her mother for as long as she could remember. Stretching up to her full height, which left her a head shorter than Patrick, she threw back her shoulders.

“I’m twenty-one. I don’t need looking after, and I’ll carry my share of the load. As for you running circles around me…you’ll be lucky if you can keep up with me.”

She bit her tongue and took a calming breath. When backed into a corner she tended to get smart-mouthed, but now was not the time to wise-off. Arguing in front of her new employer was likely to get the job offer rescinded. She glanced at Brooke.

Her new boss watched the byplay with an interested and amused expression on her face but made no comment.

Leanna forced a smile. “I came here to work, Mr. Lander, not to have fun.”

“You might not be looking for fun, but our guests will be. From sunup to bunk-down, fun is our profession. And the name’s Patrick. I don’t answer to anything else except in the bedroom. And, kid—” his lips curled in a sly, knowing smile that twisted her insides in a peculiar way “—you and I won’t ever be in the same one at the same time.”

At least they agreed on one thing. Relieved, she smiled back. “Not unless you’re pushing the vacuum.”

He didn’t smile, but his lips twitched, and a spark danced in his dark eyes. She thought she detected a trace of grudging respect. “Where are you staying?”

She blinked at his change of topic and bit the inside of her cheek. Glancing from Patrick to Brooke and back, she shrugged. “The job description was a little unclear. Aren’t accommodations part of the package?”

Brooke shook her head. “The only staff member who lives on-site is Toby, the head trail boss.”

Patrick faced Brooke. “Your painters will be in first thing tomorrow morning. The Double C’s booked solid. She can’t stay here.”

An unexpected twist, but she’d sleep in her car, if necessary. It wouldn’t be the first time she made her bed in a back seat. Leanna asked, “Painters?”

Brooke nodded and rested a hand over her stomach. “Caleb and I are expecting. We decided to have our private quarters redecorated while we’re traveling, because we didn’t want the baby exposed to the paint fumes or the dust from the floor refinishers. Maria, our housekeeper, offered to keep an eye on everything, but she’s been unexpectedly called away.”

Brooke crossed the room and pulled a phone book from the drawer. “Patrick’s right. We can’t house you at the Double C, but there’s a rooming house about ten miles from here. I’ll write down the address and phone number for you—if you’re still interested in the job?”

“I’m definitely interested.” She couldn’t imagine anything more wonderful than spending the next month learning more about the Lander family. Carolyn Lander hadn’t been happy in this remote section of Texas, although she’d stayed there till she died twenty years ago. But to Leanna, who’d spent years dodging paparazzi as part of her job with Arch, wide-open spaces sounded like heaven.

Besides, someone had to help Patrick deal with the devastating news she was about to deliver. And maybe, just maybe, he could fill the void Arch’s death left in her life.

“In that case,” Brooke continued, “I’ve left a thorough description of my job duties for you along with Maria’s daughter’s phone number.” She pointed to a piece of paper pinned on the bulletin board above the counter. “She said you could call her if you had any questions. I don’t think I left anything out during our tour of the facilities, but why don’t you look over the list while I get the boarding house address?”

Patrick intercepted Leanna before she could reach the bulletin board. He moved so swiftly she had to put up her hands to prevent a collision. Her fingertips grazed his firm chest and a tingle jolted clear to her elbows. His cedar and citrus scent teased her senses. Disconcerted, she took a quick step back.

“Maria has her hands full with her grandkids while her daughter’s recuperating from surgery. Don’t bug her. You need anything, you whistle for me. Got it?” His voice was low and intimate, as if he didn’t want his sister-in-law to overhear.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Patrick didn’t think she was qualified for the position of hostess. Mentally dusting off her hands, she met the challenge in his eyes.

“My former employer had a forty-room home with an in-house staff of four, along with an outside staff that varied depending on the season. I supervised them all. Guests were always coming and going. I can handle the dude ranch.”

Her words had no visible effect on him, but she held her ground. Experience had taught her not to respond to intimidation.

Brooke’s voice intruded on their staring match. “I’m sorry Arch Golden’s death forced you to seek other employment, Leanna, but his attorney—who coincidentally used to be mine before I moved to Texas—gave you a glowing reference.”

He would. Phil knew the role Leanna had played in his client’s life, as well as the one she’d now been assigned to play as the executrix of Arch’s estate. Sitting in Phil’s office it had sounded relatively easy to fulfill her executrix duties. All she had to do was contact Patrick and tell him about his real father and his inheritance before the press crashed down on him with the news.

Arch’s last request was a little more complicated. He’d asked her to explain to Patrick that although he’d never tried to contact his son, he had loved him. In return, Arch had promised her enough money to finish college and keep her mother in rehab. She would have agreed without the promise of money, because the stories Carolyn had written about Patrick’s boyhood escapades had whetted her appetite for adventure—cowboy-style.

Patrick Lander, according to his mother, was a man of the land and good with animals and children. He had a family history—something Leanna sorely lacked—and he’d lived in the same place since birth. Compared to her life, his sounded like a fairy-tale, and compared to the court jesters she’d dated, he sounded like King Arthur. The tales of his gallantry had certainly spoiled her for every man she’d met.

“You worked for a movie star?” Patrick stepped back, looking and sounding repulsed rather than impressed, the way most people were by her former employer.

She sighed. Her friendship apparently didn’t rank high on his list of things to accomplish today. Well, tomorrow was another day, as Scarlett had said. “Yes, but managing staff and making guests comfortable, whether it’s paying customers or just friends dropping in, are universal skills.”

“Right.”

She’d never known one word could carry so much sarcasm, and she’d lived with an actor for the last six years. Pivoting on his worn-down boot heel, her quarry opened the back door but paused in the threshold. “Brooke, tell Caleb I’ll catch up with him later.”

“Patrick.” Brooke hurried across the kitchen and stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I know the extra work is going to be tough on you while we’re away, and I want you to know how much Caleb and I appreciate you allowing us this time together before the baby comes.”

A flush darkened Patrick’s neck and cheekbones. Looking decidedly uncomfortable, he shifted from one boot to the other. “You haven’t been married to my brother long enough to know there’s nothing I won’t do for family.”

Leanna’s heart soared with hope. Family loyalty. She’d sell her soul for it. Oh, how she longed to be a part of a big clan like the Landers’. She crossed her fingers and said a prayer that her announcement wouldn’t test Patrick’s family bonds.

Brooke went up on tiptoe to plant a kiss on Patrick’s flushed cheek. “Well, this is certainly above and beyond the call of duty. Thank you.”

His blush intensified. “No big deal. Caleb would do the same for me.” He ducked out quickly and closed the door.

What was Caleb thinking to hire a kid to baby-sit him?

All right, Patrick admitted as he crossed the yard, maybe his past escapades might lead some to think he needed a watchdog. But a kid? Okay, so Leanna wasn’t exactly a kid, but she was too damned young to have the experience necessary to handle the huge responsibility of hostess on a dude ranch during peak season no matter what she said.

He glanced back over his shoulder and there she stood, framed in the kitchen window. Big hazel eyes. A pouty mouth. Curves a man would need a road map to get around. Attraction was a distraction he didn’t need right now.

It didn’t help that she had a sense of humor. He chuckled. Vacuum. Right. He’d been trying to warn her off and she’d put him in his place.

He made a beeline for the barn to escape the sun baking his hide and spotted a station wagon parked near his truck. Probably hers, judging by the out-of-state tags.

Slowing his steps, he looked through the windows. Had she packed everything she owned into the back of her wagon? You’d think the gal didn’t have a home to return to. He shook his head and shrugged off the questions piling up in his brain. Not his problem. She’d hostess awhile and then haul her load back to California. End of story.

The barn was dark, but still hotter than Hades, and the humidity was thick enough to drown in. The windows to the tack room were open, but that didn’t matter since not even a hint of a breeze stirred the stagnant air. He swiped the sweat from his brow, snatched up the phone and punched in his home number. His father picked up.

“What’re you doing, Pop?”

“Same damned thing I was doing last time you called.”

“Well, take a break and get out of the heat. It’s hotter than the devil’s hearth today.”

“You’d be more likely to know about the devil than most of us, I reckon, but I ain’t got time for lollygag-gin’.”

“And I don’t have time to haul you to the clinic for heat stroke. It’s your turn to fix lunch. Why don’t you head inside and make us a couple of sandwiches and a cold drink. I’m on my way.”

Patrick hung up on his father’s grumbling and hiked toward his pickup.

Stubborn ol’ coot. His father was aging right before his eyes. The workload was too heavy for just the two of them, but his dad was as obstinate as a mule about hiring anyone to help. Said money was too tight to squeeze in another salary. Swore he’d pick up any slack his sons’ marriages had created.

Not without killing himself. Maybe both of them.

Patrick couldn’t refuse his brother’s request to manage the dude ranch while he and Brooke were away, but he sure didn’t know how he’d juggle the family spread and the Double C Dude Ranch and keep his father from working too hard at the same time. But he would. Dammit, he would.

It meant temporarily giving up poker, beer and women until Caleb returned, but he could handle hard work and celibacy for a short spell without going insane. Probably.

He’d call Caleb later and ask him about those college kids he’d turned away. Hiring them would be another bone of contention between him and his father, but what was one more? It seemed these days he and Pop fought about everything.

He jerked to a stop at the sight of a set of prime hind quarters bent over the open hood of the station wagon. Leanna might wear baggy clothes, but nothing could conceal those curves. Not to a man with eyes in his head, anyway. He tamped down his reaction and reminded himself that he had no time for detours.

“Problem?”

She spun around and a shy smile turned up the corners of her mouth. “The engine smelled a little hot when I arrived, but everything looks and sounds okay now.”

He bit down on the urge to flex his muscles and smile back. Something in the way the Double C’s newest employee looked at him made him feel ten feet tall. She was definitely too darn young for him.

So why did one shy glance from her hit him like a sucker punch in the gut?

He stifled the urge to help. This wasn’t his problem, even though damsels in distress were his number-one weakness. Heck, women period were his weakness, but starting today, he was on a woman-free diet.

A quick check of her car’s reservoir told him it held plenty of antifreeze. The engine wasn’t in danger of overheating and it sounded normal. “Pete’s Garage is on the way to the Pink Palace. If you’re worried, get him to take a look.”

“The Pink Palace?”

In the bright sunlight he noticed the dapple of faded freckles on her nose and cheeks and the golden streaks in her light-brown hair. She was cute, in an all-American girl-next-door kind of way. He preferred women with a little more flash and a lot more experience, but heaven help the men on the spread—and him—if she ever slapped on a layer of war paint or squeezed herself into tight blue jeans.

“Penny’s place. It used to be a whor—brothel.”

A blush crawled up her neck and spread to her hairline. That blush was a sure sign she was out of his league. Only virgins blushed like that, and he adhered to a strict no-virgins policy. Virgin hearts broke too easily. Virgins expected a guy to be loyal, but he was his mother’s son. Loyalty wasn’t encoded on his DNA.

Leanna was off-limits. Taboo.

If he repeated the words often enough he might remember ’em.

“I’ll be staying in a whore house?”

Aw, heck, she wasn’t going to get prudish on him, was she? “Used to be one, but the sheriff closed down that side of the business years ago. It’s been a rooming house all my life.”

She slammed the hood and grimaced at her dirty hands.

Patrick pulled his bandanna out of his pocket and offered it to her before he could stop himself. Even good habits were hard to break. “Don’t let Penny put you in room ten.”

Her chin jerked up and suspicion dimmed the gold flecks in her eyes. “Why?”

“It’s haunted.”

Instead of looking at him like he was a couple of bales short of a trailer load, he noted a spark of interest. “You’re teasing me.”

“No, ma’am. Story is that one of the madam’s customers wanted to take her away from her business. He proposed. She refused. He offed her because she loved her, ah…work more than him and he didn’t want to share.”

Her eyes widened, and then she beamed like he’d just handed her a winning lottery ticket. He staggered back a step. That smile of hers nearly blinded him. Leanna Jensen wasn’t just cute, she was damned dazzling. Put a cork in it, Lander. He tried to shake off the unwanted attraction.

She practically danced with excitement. “Get out of here. A ghost? Really?”

He hesitated to tell her the local legend, fearing she’d misread any effort at conversation as sign of interest, but he couldn’t resist the questions in her eyes. “Folks say that if you make love in room ten your partner won’t be the only one with you.”

Ghost stories creeped him out. He’d never had the desire to investigate the madam’s story or any of the others his mother had told him on those long nights when she’d dragged him out of bed, strapped him into the car and circled the Palace time and time again. Whatever it was she thought she’d see, she’d always gone home disappointed, and he’d always crawled into bed and cowered under the covers, waiting for the nightmares her tales conjured up.

“A haunted whore house.” Leanna’s delighted chuckle drew him back from his bitter childhood memories. The sound, combined with the anticipation lighting her up like a neon sign, made him wonder if she might not be a straitlaced stick-in-the-mud after all. His body responded in a way it shouldn’t, considering he had no intention of following where it urged him to go.

“I love ghost stories.” Her smile widened and mischief made the gold flecks in her eyes sparkle. Pink tinted her cheeks as she peeked at him from beneath her gold-tipped lashes. She lowered her voice. “Have you ever tested the tale? You know, to see if there’s an amorous ghost?”

Too cute. Too young. Into ghosts. And testing his temporary vow of celibacy. Just his luck.

“No.” He took a long stride backward, opened his truck door and put it between them.

In the past year, wily women had shanghaied two of his brothers into marriage, and while Leanna didn’t seem to be the wily type, he wasn’t taking any chances. Brand and Caleb were happy enough, but marriage wasn’t for him. His mother hadn’t had a faithful bone in her body, and as far as he could tell, he was just like her. More’n one woman had tried to put a ring around his finger—a noose around his neck, to his way of thinking—but he wasn’t promising forever to anybody. He’d disappointed enough people in his life.

“Penny can probably tell you more about it. Don’t forget to stop by Pete’s. See you tomorrow.” He climbed into the cab and backed out of the space before he did something stupid like ask her to dinner.