Читать книгу Cowboy Strong - Stacy Finz - Страница 12

Chapter 3

Something smelled fantastic and for a few cloudy seconds Sawyer thought he was still at the Park Plaza and room service had just been delivered. He rolled over, squinted at the clock on his nightstand, and tried to go back to sleep.

But there were sounds coming from his kitchen. Water running. Pots banging. The beeping noise his refrigerator made when the door remained open for too long.

He tossed his head against the pillow, let out a groan, and swung his legs over the side of his bed. Slipping on a clean pair of jeans, he ducked inside the bathroom to brush his teeth and strode into the kitchen in his bare feet.

“I thought we were clear on the fact that I live here and you don’t,” he said to Gina DeRose’s ass. She was bending over to put something in his oven.

“Ow.” She hit her head on the counter. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

He started to tell her that she was the one sneaking around his kitchen, uninvited, but got distracted by the smell again. Whatever it was, it was making his mouth water. He sat at the breakfast bar and watched her work.

She was dicing onions with a utility knife. Not his. His were Henckels and hers didn’t have a brand or a logo. There was an efficiency and grace to the way she sliced. Like a choreographed dance with her hands.

“Pass me those carrots, would you?” She nudged her head at a colander filled with vegetables.

He slid it across the granite countertop. “What are you making?”

“Spinach and cheese soufflé for breakfast and chicken stock to freeze.” She lifted her gaze and stared at his chest. “Do you ever wear a shirt?”

“Not if I can help it. What’s wrong with your kitchen?”

She snorted again. “You’re kidding me, right? Hand me that, please.” She pointed with her chin because her hands were full of chicken.

He reached across the counter and handed her a box of kosher salt. There was fresh coffee and he got up to pour himself a cup. She had a knack for making herself at home. Since he planned to get a meal out of it, he wasn’t about to complain. But she couldn’t just come and go as she pleased in his apartment.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Collecting information for your next exposé?”

He laughed. “You’re a little obsessed with yourself. I write exposés about totalitarian governments that starve their people, drug cartels that rule entire countries, contaminated water supplies that kill children—not about fallen celebrity chefs.”

She had the good sense not to respond.

He continued to watch her over the rim of his cup. She looked better today than she had yesterday. The dark circles under her eyes were mostly gone and she’d combed her hair and tied it back into a smooth ponytail. Her shorts were white and her legs Coppertone bronze. Sawyer suspected it was either a spray-on tan or Gina had a standing appointment at a tanning salon. She had on a low-cut tank top. But the spectacular rack that had made her a household name with men who couldn’t care less about cooking was missing in action.

Then again, so was that breezy, charming personality that had netted her a couple of Emmys. The moral of the story was don’t believe everything you see on television.

But if someone was holding a gun to his head, he’d be forced to admit that Gina DeRose was a beautiful woman. Blond, blue-eyed with a mouth that was slightly too large for her heart-shaped face. It was sexy as hell and made her stand out from all the other beautiful blondes he’d known in his lifetime.

“The soufflé will take another twenty minutes if you want to get dressed.” She zeroed in on his chest again.

“My body too distracting for you?”

She snorted. “Right.”

He went back to his bedroom, took a ten-minute shower, and dressed. By the time he wandered into the kitchen, she had his large stockpot on the range top with her chicken broth simmering. He wasn’t crazy about soup, especially in summer, but the fragrant smell was driving him crazy.

She gave him a sideways glance. “You have a lot of nice equipment.”

“That’s what I’ve been told.” He flashed a salacious grin.

She shook her head and, yeah, it had been a cheesy line. “Why do you have all this stuff?” She eyed his pot rack. “You don’t even own a bottle of olive oil, yet you have enough All-Clad to open a Williams Sonoma store. Why?”

“I got it in the divorce.” He’d never been married and the expiration date on most of his relationships was two months. His job didn’t leave a lot of time for romance and so far, he hadn’t met a woman who’d made him want to slow down. “I like good food. Someday, I plan to spend more time on the culinary arts.”

She quirked a brow, like she wasn’t buying it. “When were you divorced?”

“Never, I was joking. The pots and pans were a gift from my mother, a not-so subtle hint that I eat like shit.”

“Did she get you the knives too?” She perused his block of Henckels.

“I got those, figuring I’d look like a poseur with top-of-the-line pots and pans and only crappy knives.” He bobbed his head at the soft case on the counter. “I assume those are yours. What’s the brand?” He didn’t recognize the logo, not that he was into that kind of stuff.

“Gina DeRose. But ChefAid actually makes them. I’m ChefAid’s brand ambassador…or at least was. We’re…in talks about my contract.”

“Ahh.” From his mom, it sounded like most of her talks weren’t going too well. “May I?” He lifted the chef’s knife to feel the weight of the handle in his hand. “Light, but it’s got heft. Nice.”

“Accessible to a home cook, right?”

“Seems like, yeah. Is that who you’re targeting?” The black faux leather case seemed a little fancy for Suzy or Sam homemaker. But what the hell did he know?

“Uh-huh, but the experienced home cook. Someone who spends a lot of time in the kitchen.”

Sawyer nodded. It sounded like she had done a full demographic workup, though he wouldn’t have expected anything less. According to his mother, Gina had built quite a franchise, which meant she had to be a savvy businesswoman.

“I didn’t know ChefAid made knives, just appliances.” Refrigerators, ovens, microwaves, range tops, mixers, food processors, and built-in coffee makers. Half the shit in Sawyer’s loft.

“They don’t. We rolled them out a couple of years ago as part of a marketing campaign to announce that I’m the new face of ChefAid.” She paused, then quickly amended, “I’m not sure if it’s still working out for me.”

“For you?” He cocked his head and suppressed a laugh. Never bullshit an investigative reporter. “You mean your relationship is no longer working for ChefAid, right?”

She stalled and finally said, “I’ll win them back.”

“How?” As long as she was mired in controversy, Sawyer didn’t see it. Then again, look at Martha Stewart. A stint in the joint for insider trading hadn’t tarnished her silver star.

Gina shrugged. “I’m meeting with them in September to discuss our five-year contract.” She emphasized five years as if that meant ChefAid was locked in.

Sawyer knew most endorsement contracts could be nullified if the personal life of the company’s representative embarrassed the shit out of said company. That gave Gina less than six weeks to brush up her image.

“Please don’t tell me that’s how long you’re staying?” He tried to sound as if he were joking, but he wasn’t.

The oven timer dinged and Gina gingerly pulled out her soufflé. It was impressive. Puffy and a pale shade of yellow.

She examined the egg dish and pulled a face.

“What?” he asked. It looked perfect to him.

“It could’ve risen more and it’s sinking too fast. Floppy egg whites and I left it in a tad too long.” She turned it slightly, examined it some more, and then, as if to herself, said, “I’m so damned out of practice.”

“Why’s that? Don’t you have to do it every day as part of your job?”

She let out a bark of laughter. “You mean for my show? Here’s a little secret for your exposé. I have twenty assistants. By the time I walk onto the set, everything is done for me.”

He wasn’t surprised and since they were being honest was tempted to ask if she had a body double for the cleavage shots. But decided against it, fearing that the soufflé would wind up in his face.

“It looks pretty good to me,” he said. “You think we can eat it any time soon?”

She reached into one of the top cabinets for two plates and dished them each a serving. He took one bite and thought maybe they could be friends after all. Because if this was what “out of practice” tasted like, he wanted to be around when she got her groove back.

“It sucks,” she said. “Dry and overpowered by the basil.”

Dry? He’d thought it was quite moist. And the basil…well, he’d only caught a hint. He thought it was just right. Better than right. Superb.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” He forked up another bite. “I’m managing to choke it down.”

She shot him a dirty look. “You also just admitted that you’ll eat anything.”

That wasn’t exactly what he’d said. He ate like shit, no question about it. But he’d also dined all over the world in Michelin-starred restaurants, at nearly all of Michael Bauer’s top 100 restaurants in San Francisco and anything the late Jonathan Gold or the living Bill Addison, of the Los Angeles Times, liked. Some would even call him a foodie.

“Okay, you’re right, it sucks. You should redeem yourself by making something I can bring to my cousin’s barbecue this evening.”

She perked up. “What kind of barbecue?”

Wasn’t there only one kind? “It’s a thing here in…I think you called it Timbuktu. We light up a grill, put meat on it, drink a couple of beers, and eat. People do it all over the country, especially in summer.”

She shot him another one of her looks and he was mesmerized by her blue eyes. They were like topaz.

And before he could stop himself he said, “You’re invited if you want to come.”

That seemed to fluster her. “Today? I’ve got a thing.”

A thing? He hitched his brows but withheld comment. What the hell did he care whether she came? “Okay. It’s over at the big ranch house if you change your mind. Can I have more of the soufflé?” He’d cleaned his plate.

She pushed the crock toward him and stirred her pot on the stove. “Knock yourself out.”

“What’s the soup for?”

“It’s not soup, it’s stock. It’s good to have as a base.” She put her spoon down and came back to the breakfast bar. “How come you live here instead of LA?”

“Like it here better,” he said as he wolfed down his second piece of soufflé.

She took a visual stroll down his Levi’s to his cowboy boots. “Why? You seem more sophisticated than your average cowpoke.”

“You know a lot of ranchers, then? Because beef is a two-and-a-half-billion-dollar industry in California. We cowpokes are pretty damned sophisticated.”

“If it’s so lucrative, why do you have to moonlight as a journalist?”

Because he loved being a journalist and because Dry Creek Ranch took every resource they had just to keep the lights on. “Someone’s gotta make the world a better place.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “A little high on yourself, aren’t you?”

Her stock bubbled over and she hustled over to the stove to turn the flame down. “Is there a kitchen store around here?”

“There’s Tess’ in Grass Valley. Why? What do you need?”

“Just wondering,” she said. “Are there any good gourmet markets?”

“There’s a number of farmers’ markets in the area. But as far as a Dean and DeLuca, you’d have to go to St. Helena for that. But there’s the internet. They do deliver out here—in Timbuktu.”

She blew out a breath and sank into one of the barstools. “I’m trying to cut the cord with the World Wide Web these days.”

“My mother said something about pictures.”

A splotch of pink crept up her neck until it reached her cheeks. “Did you see it?”

“I didn’t look.” Though he’d thought about it a few times. He found a roll of cellophane he didn’t know he had, wrapped up the rest of the soufflé, and put it in his fridge. A little presumptuous, but the price of using his kitchen without his permission was excellent leftovers. “Don’t you have people who can get you the things you need?”

“Your mother told me not to tell anyone where I am. My staff all signed NDAs but…you know how that goes.”

He nodded, because he did. People liked to talk for all kinds of reasons, including for money, which the tabloids would pay. Handsomely. “How long are you planning to stay in hiding?”

She hitched her shoulders. “Your mom thinks I need to lay low and stay out of the spotlight at least until the meeting with ChefAid.” Staying out of sight might quell some of the chatter.

And that’s what he was afraid of. Because it meant she’d be here for thirty-eight more days. Even if her soufflé was out of this world, he didn’t want to like her. Besides making herself too at home in his loft, she hadn’t shown the least bit of remorse for screwing around with someone else’s husband. She was just sorry she got caught.

That told him a lot about her character and character was everything to Sawyer. His grandfather used to say, “A man without character is a man without a soul.”

“How much do you have riding on the ChefAid gig?” It had to be a lucrative deal. But according to his mother, Gina had a large portfolio. Maybe a few days from now, she’d come to the conclusion that living in the sticks wasn’t worth it and crawl back to wherever she came from.

She sighed, deliberated for a moment, and finally said, “A nice piece of my net worth, especially now that my show might get canceled for good and I have investors pulling out left and right.”

Well, there went that theory.

Her handbag began to chirp and she stuck a spoon in his hand. “Stir that.” She fished her phone out of her purse and took it inside his bedroom, leaving him alone with her chicken stock.

A short time later she appeared, her lips pressed in a grim line. “I’ve got to go.”

Before he could ask her if everything was all right, she jogged down the stairs and let the screen door slam. From his window, he watched her BMW jackknife on the dirt road, leaving a cloud of dust behind her.

He turned the stock to simmer. One look around the kitchen and it didn’t take long for him to realize that she’d stuck him with all the dishes.

* * * *

That evening Sawyer drove the half mile to Jace’s. He would’ve walked, but he had a case of beer and a few bottles of wine. The gang was out back where Jace had the grill fired up. Sawyer stowed the beverages in the outdoor fridge and uncorked a bottle of Napa Cabernet to let it breathe.

Charlie and Aubrey would appreciate the wine. Jace and Cash, on the other hand, would drink swill from a paper cup.

Once his hands were empty, Ellie and Grady tackled him. They liked to stand on his feet while he walked like a robot. Jace’s oldest boy stood back. At fourteen, Travis was too cool to be demonstrative. He bobbed his chin at Sawyer, instead.

Sawyer broke away from the little ones and put Travis in a headlock. “How you doin’, pardner?”

“Good. Dad says a movie star lives here now.”

“Not a movie star. She’s on TV, though. And she’s only here temporarily.” Hopefully more temporary than thirty-eight days.

Cash cuffed him on the back. “Welcome home. Jace says you had a successful trip.”

Sawyer shrugged. “The work half of the trip was productive. The other half was a lot of drinking and catching up with old colleagues. You know the drill.” He grinned because Cash, a former FBI agent, had had a one-night stand with a cop at a law-enforcement conference and along came Ellie.

Sawyer suspected there was more sleeping around at law-enforcement conferences than there was at journalism conferences. Either that or Sawyer was an unlucky bastard.

“You met your new neighbor yet?” Sawyer probably should’ve talked to Cash before foisting her onto his cousin’s side of the ranch.

“Not yet. We saw her car parked at the cabin this morning and Aubrey’s been hanging out on the porch in hopes of catching a glimpse of her.” Cash rolled his eyes. “Have you ever seen this cooking show she’s so famous for?”

“A few times.” More than Sawyer liked to admit, given that his idea of cooking was nuking a frozen burrito in the microwave or driving over to the coffee shop in Dry Creek.

“I guess I’m the only one on God’s green earth who hasn’t seen it. Even Ellie knew who Gina DeRose was.”

If her reputation continued to take a beating, she’d be filed away in the unemployed has-been pile. She was perilously close now. Then her name would be as obscure as one of those one-hit wonders who no one remembered except for the song.

Sawyer suspected the only reason she’d survived thus far was because Dalton and Associates—i.e. his parents—were master crisis managers.

“No great loss,” he told Cash and stifled his own eye roll.

“Who wants burgers and who wants steaks?” Jace called. He was wearing his Mr. Good Lookin’ is Cooking apron that Aubrey had given him years ago and that he hauled out at every barbecue. The thing had been washed so many dang times the letters were starting to fade.

“Steaks,” Aubrey and Charlie shouted from the picnic table, where they’d already made a good dent on a bottle of Pinot Grigio.

The kids all called for hamburgers. Sawyer checked out the offerings that had been laid out on an old wooden trestle table: At least three different salads, a fruit platter, snacks of assorted varieties, and a dozen condiments. He filched one of the bags of chips and joined Jace and Cash at the grill.

“Any of you have time tomorrow to help move the herd to the lower south pasture?” Jace asked. “I took the morning off but could use a hand or two.”

“Sure,” Cash and Sawyer said in unison.

Sawyer was gone the most and tried to make up for ranch work whenever he was home by doing double duty. They couldn’t afford hands and for the most part did everything themselves, including mending the never-ending deterioration of fencing across their 500 acres.

There wasn’t anything Sawyer wouldn’t do to save the Dalton legacy. Besides a truckload of happy childhood memoires of weekends and holidays on the ranch, it was their grandfather’s dying wish that they hold on to the land and make it prosper again.

Jasper Dalton had been larger than life, an almost mythical figure. Cowboy. Rancher. A symbol of honor and integrity and all that was right in the world.

When Sawyer’s job took him to the dankest, darkest places on earth, all he had to do was think of his grandfather to keep him centered. To give him hope.

They stood over the fire, eating chips and drinking beer in companionable silence. Cash and Jace had always been more like brothers to Sawyer than first cousins. And with them all living on the ranch together, the three of them had grown even closer. But now that both men had women in their lives, Sawyer sometimes felt like a fifth wheel.

Jace raised his chin and shielded his eyes with his hand to block the sun as he stared out over the fields. “Looks like we’ve got one more.”

Sawyer followed Jace’s gaze. Gina was crossing the field, carrying something in one hand and swatting the air with the other. She didn’t seem too steady on her feet and Sawyer wondered if she was drunk. “I sort of invited her.”

“I thought you didn’t like her.” Jace jabbed Sawyer in the ribs with his elbow.

“I don’t. But she showed up this morning to use my stove and somehow I let our barbecue slip out. What was I supposed to do; say you can’t come?”

“Nope. You did the right thing.” Jace exchanged a glance with Cash and the two of them grinned.

Sawyer shook his head and stared out over the pasture. Gina had stopped dead in her tracks. Big Bertha stood about a foot away, her bovine nostrils sniffing the air, curious about the interloper crossing the field. The old Angus was well past her production days, but had more than earned her keep on the ranch.

Grandpa Dalton had never been sentimental about his breeding herd. When his cows stopped producing calves, he culled them. But Big Bertha had worked her way into his heart and he’d turned her loose on the ranch to live the rest of her days, grazing under the Sierra foothills sun.

Nice work if you could get it.

“What’s she doing?” Cash watched Gina with a quizzical expression on his face.

“I think she’s afraid of Big Bertha,” Sawyer said.

She continued to stand in the grass with one arm extended as if she was warding off a mugger in downtown LA.

“Hey, Justin,” Jace called. “Go shoo Big Bertha away from our guest.”

Travis, who’d been practicing his lasso skills on a roping dummy, stopped, and like the rest of them squinted out over the pasture. “Is that her? The movie star?”

“That’s her,” Jace said. “Go help her out.”

Travis trotted across the field while Sawyer laughed his ass off. “I don’t know what my mother was thinking sending her here. She’s afraid of a goddamn cow.”

Jace shook his head but did his best not to join in Sawyer’s laughter. Cash being Cash took the high road.

“Leave her alone,” he said. “She’s clearly not used to ranch life.”

They stood, watching as Travis and Sherpa herded Big Bertha away and as Gina continued to totter across the field.

Jace did a double take as she got closer. “Is she wearing high heels and a skirt? You better tell her about the tick problem here.”

The woman already had Lyme disease of the brain. “Who the hell wears high heels to hike across a cow pasture?”

Charlie and Aubrey slipped between the fence railings to welcome her. And the three women huddled together, talking.

“You’re burning the steaks.” Cash nudged his chin at the grill and Jace quickly flipped the fillets.

Sawyer turned his attention to Gina. Despite dressing like she was on her way to happy hour instead of traipsing through cow shit, she looked sexy as hell. Long, shapely legs and today she had her hair down and had actually combed it. It fell in soft waves just above her shoulders. And those blue eyes…they glittered.

Charlie brought her over and introduced her to Jace and Cash. “She brought her famous strawberry shortcake.”

Sawyer’s cousins greeted her with handshakes. Gina eyed the setup and Sawyer noted the gleam in her eyes. Before his grandmother died, Grandpa Dalton had built the summer kitchen, which rivaled most people’s indoor kitchens. Sleek stainless-steel appliances, a pizza oven, wood grill, and smoker. Big log gazebo and a bar. For big events, like Jace’s election fundraisers, they set up rows of barbecues to accommodate the crowd. But for anything under a hundred guests, this was more than sufficient.

“I thought you had something else today.” A gentleman would’ve kept his mouth shut and been gracious. But for some reason she pushed his buttons.

“I didn’t want to be rude,” she said, as if she was doing them a great favor by gracing them with her presence. Bringing the cake, though, had been nice. And unexpected. Gina DeRose struck him as a taker, not a giver.

Maybe he was making a snap judgment based on a paltry two meetings—at least the second one had been more positive than the first—but he was a trained observer, after all. And so far he took her for a narcissist. Weren’t most celebrities?

“Gina, you want a steak or a burger?” Jace put a row of burgers on the grill and began to arrange the buns.

“A burger would be great.” She slid a glance at the patties resting on the top rack where they could cook slowly without burning.

Jace was merely adequate in the kitchen, but his burgers were legendary. At least in Mill County.

“How do you want yours?”

“Medium rare,” she said and gestured at the patties. “How’d you prepare them?”

“Egg, pepper, garlic salt, chili powder, and my secret weapon.” When she arched a brow in question, Jace said, “Panko instead of bread crumbs.”

Sawyer watched her nod approvingly. The women pulled her over to the picnic table, where they plied her with questions about FoodFlicks. No one mentioned the elephant in the yard and Sawyer couldn’t help but wonder whether she was still seeing Danny Clay. Whether they were in love or just having sex.

Cheating sex.

“She seems nice,” Cash said.

Sawyer just shrugged and changed the subject. “Any news on Beals Ranch?”

Randy Beals, their neighbor, was upside down on his cattle spread. The Bealses and the Daltons had been friends for generations. But like everyone else who ran cattle in the Sierra foothills, the struggle to keep afloat during drought years was slowly killing them off. Unlike Grandpa Dalton, Randy had borrowed against his land to keep his operation alive instead of culling his herd. Now he couldn’t afford to pay the monthly mortgage bills.

“Haven’t heard anything,” Jace said. “I expect one day we’ll drive by and there’ll be a sold sign on the gate. What happens after that is anybody’s guess.”

“Anybody’s guess?” The vein in Sawyer’s neck pulsed. “What’ll happen is a big-ass development. You know it, Cash knows it, everyone on Dry Creek Road knows it.”

Cash let out a breath. “Not much we can do about it, Sawyer. It is what it is.”

“We can buy the damn place ourselves. Randy said he’d give us first dibs when he was talking about selling last winter.” But even as he said it, he knew how unrealistic it was. Beals Ranch was twice the size of Dry Creek Ranch and twice the price. They could barely afford the bills on what they already owned.

“Let me know when you win the lottery.” Jace sandwiched the burgers between buns and brought the tray to the trestle table, calling, “Food’s up.”

The kids raced over and Sawyer grabbed the medium rare burger and brought it to Gina. The steaks followed and everyone helped themselves to sides.

“Nice spread.” Gina sidled up next to Sawyer. “Does your family do this a lot?”

“Most Sundays, as long as everyone’s here. Jace is the county sheriff and Cash is an investigator for the Bureau of Livestock Identification, so they get called out fairly often.”

“What does a livestock investigator do?”

“Among other things, solve cattle rustling cases.”

“Is that even a thing outside of old Westerns?”

“Like I told you, beef is a billion-dollar business in California. So, yeah, stealing livestock is a thing.”

“No need to get huffy about it.”

“Huffy?” Sawyer quirked a brow. “There was nothing remotely huffy about that statement.”

“Good, then can I borrow your kitchen tomorrow?”

At least this time she was asking. “Why? You planning to go into the catering business now that you’re unemployed?”

“Ha-ha, very funny. I’m testing a new recipe and it took me two hours to bake a simple sponge cake in the cabin’s poor excuse of an oven.”

“Don’t show up before one. I’ve got writing to do.” If she was testing, he was tasting. A guy had to eat, right?