A Kiss on Crimson Ranch

She sniffled and Josh turned to Sara. “Your grandmother and I were opening a guest ranch. She owns the house, but I have the twenty-five acres surrounding it. We back up onto the National Forest so it’s the perfect location for running tours. I’ve been here since the fall working on renovations and booking clients. Guests start arriving in a couple of weeks.”

Sara looked from Claire to Josh, her gaze almost accusatory. “Does it make money?”

He tried to look confident. “It will. I’ve sunk everything I have into the place.” Everything I had left after medical bills, he added silently. “Trudy was going to help for the first season. I planned to buy her out with my half of the profits.”

“But now the house is mine.”

Josh nodded. “I don’t expect you to hang around. I’ll cover the mortgage. At the end of the summer, I can take the whole place off your hands.”

“Why can’t you buy it from me now?” Her gaze traveled around the large room.

“The bank wants to see that it’s a viable business before they’ll approve my loan. Trust me, it’s a good plan. Trudy and I worked it out.”

She looked him up and down. “Trudy isn’t here anymore.”

“I know,” he agreed, feeling the familiar ache in his chest as he thought of the woman who’d been more of a mother to him than his own. He wondered how difficult Sara was going to make this for him. He’d known Trudy’s granddaughter had inherited the house. Josh had gone directly from the funeral service to the bank to see if he had any options. He didn’t. He needed time and a bang-up summer to make this work. Otherwise, he might as well burn his savings in a bonfire out back. There was no Plan B.

“What if I want to sell now?”

His gut tightened. “Rose got to you already.”

“How do you know my mother?”

“She and her land-developer boyfriend have been here a couple of times. The guy wants to tear down the house and build luxury condos on the property. Make Crimson a suburb of Aspen. What an idiot.”

Claire took a step forward. “Are you going to let us stay or should I start packing?” She eyed both Sara and Josh as she bit her lip. “Because all my stuff is folded and in drawers where I want it.”

He heard the desperation in her voice, knew that despite her smart mouth, his daughter was hanging on by a short thread these days. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, they had that much in common. He’d promised to take care of her, make up for his past mistakes. The ones he made with her and those he’d buried deeper than that. He needed this summer to do it.

“Claire, I told you—”

“I know what it’s like to want a place to call home,” Sara said quietly, her attention focused completely on Claire. Her eyes had gentled in a way that made his heartbeat race. For a moment, he wished she’d look at him with that soft gaze.

Claire blew out a pent-up breath and gave Sara a shy smile, not the sarcastic sneer she typically bestowed on him. His heart melted at both her innocence and how much she reminded him of another girl he’d once tried to protect.

Sara returned the smile and his pulse leaped to a full gallop. Don’t go there, he reminded himself. Not with that one.

“Can you give your dad and me time to talk?” Sara asked. “To work things out? Maybe you could show April around.” She pulled her friend forward. “She’s into nature and stuff.”

“Come on,” April said. “Can we walk to the pond I saw on the way in?”

Claire nodded. “It’s quicker to go out the back.”

As she passed, Josh moved to give his daughter a hug. She shrugged away from his grasp. One step at a time. He’d seen her smile, even if it wasn’t at him.

“Thanks,” he said when the back door clicked. “I’m sure we can—”

“Cut the bull.”

So much for the soft gaze.

She folded her arms across her chest. Josh forced himself to keep his eyes on her face.

“I don’t want to hurt your kid, but I don’t have time to play Swiss Family Robinson for the summer. I need money and I need it now. If you want to make a deal, what do you have to offer?”

His adrenaline from a moment ago turned to anger and frustration. “I put everything I had into buying the land and fixing up the place. I’ve paid for marketing, a website, direct mail. We’ve got a real chance of making this work.” He raked his hands through his hair. “It has to work.”

“I’m not about to...” She stopped and cocked her head.

“What? Not about to what?”

“Do you hear that?”

A sudden sound of pounding filled the air.

“That sounds like—”

He turned as Buster, his oversize bloodhound, charged down the hall, galloping toward the kitchen.

“Buster, sit.” The dog slid across the hardwood floor and ran smack into Josh’s legs, all enormous paws and wiggly bottom.

“Buster’s harmless.”

He looked back at Sara, now crouched on the butcher-block counter with wide eyes. “Keep that thing away from me.”

He felt a momentary pang of sympathy for her obvious fear, then glanced at Buster and smiled. “Looks like I’ve got you right where I want you, Hollywood Barbie.”

Chapter Two

So much for being cool, calm and in control.

“This isn’t funny.” Sara hated that her voice trembled.

Josh bent to rub the giant beast’s belly. The dog was deep brown with a wide ring of black fur around the middle of its back. Its eyes were dark, at least what she could see under the wrinkles that covered its head. It yawned, displaying a mouth full of teeth and flopped onto the wood floor. One pancake-size ear flipped over his snout. Outstretched, it was nearly as long as she was.

“This is Buster,” Josh said with a laugh. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“That dog looks like he could eat me for breakfast.”

“Lucky for you, it’s nearly lunch.”

“You are so not helping here.”

“I like you better up there. You’re not chewing me out.”

“I wasn’t chewing—” She stopped and met his gaze, now lit with humor. “You’re living in my house.”

“I explained that.”

“I need to sell it.”

“Sell it to me.” He stepped closer. “At the end of the summer.”

Fear had taken most of the fight out of her. “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

He held out a hand. “You could start by climbing off the counter.”

She watched Buster, who’d begun to snore. “I don’t like dogs.”

Josh’s low chuckle rumbled through her. “I never would have guessed.”

She didn’t move from the counter. “The fourth season of the show, I got a dog.” She closed her eyes at the memory. “My character, Jenna, got a dog. It hated me on sight. The first day on set it bit me. Twice. I wanted to get rid of it, but the director’s girlfriend was the dog trainer. She said it could sense my fear. That it was my fault the dog growled every time I came anywhere near it. Of course, the thing loved Amanda. Everyone loved Amanda.”

“Who’s Amanda?”

“Amanda Morrison.”

“The movie star?”

“Highest-paid woman in Hollywood three years running. Back in the day, she was my sidekick on the show.”

She expected a crack about how far the mighty had fallen. He asked, “How long was the dog around?”

“Lucky for me, the director was as big of a jerk with girlfriends as he was with me. By the end of the season, the dog was gone.”

“Did it ever warm up to you?”

She shook her head. “I got faster at moving away after a scene. I never realized how much my fingers resemble bite-size sausages.” She blew out a breath. “Animals and me, we don’t mesh.”

She looked away from the sleeping dog, surprised to find Josh standing next to her beside the kitchen island.

This close, she could see that his dark brown eyes were flecked with gold. A thin web of lines fanned out from the corner of them. He was tall, well over six feet, with broad shoulders that tapered into a muscled chest under his thin white T-shirt. Unlike most guys in Southern California, Josh didn’t look like he’d gotten his shape with an expensive gym membership or fancy trainers. He’d clearly worked for it. Real sweat kind of work. He wasn’t bulky, but solid. Although he wore faded cargo pants and gym shoes, he still gave off a definite cowboy Mr. Darcy air.

If Mr. Darcy had an unnervingly sexy shadow of stubble across his jaw, a small scar above his right eyebrow and a bit of a crook in his nose like he’d met the wrong end of a fist one too many times. A dangerous, bad boy Mr. Darcy.

It was one thing to slip on giving up chocolate; bad boys were quite another. She’d had enough of bad boys in her time. They swarmed L.A. like out-of-work actors.

His gaze caught hers, and it took her a moment to remember what she was doing in this house in the mountains, cowering on the kitchen counter.

He reached out a hand and she took it, still a little dazed. “It’s not going to come after me?” she asked, throwing a sharp glance at the dog.

“I’ll protect you,” he answered, his tone so sincere it made her throat tighten. Among other parts of her body.

Off balance, she scrambled down, the heel of one shoe catching on the corner of a drawer and sending her against the hard wall of his chest. She stepped back as if he’d pinched her, but he didn’t release her hand.

His calloused fingers ran the length of hers. “Nothing like sausages,” he said with a wink.

She snatched her hand away and moved to the other side of the island, thinking the altitude was making her light-headed. Praying it was the altitude.

“Where’s Claire’s mother?” she asked. As she’d hoped, the spark went out of his eyes in an instant.

“She was having some problems—personal stuff—needed a little time to get herself back on track. So Claire’s here with me.”

“For how long?”

He shrugged. “As long as it takes. Why do you care?”

“I have experience with bad parents. It can mess with you if you’re not careful.”

“Are you careful, Sara?”

“I’m broke,” she said by way of an answer. “Like I said before, I need the money from the sale of this house.”

He hitched one hip onto the island. “You own the house, but it’s only on a quarter-acre lot. I’ve got all the land surrounding it. Your part isn’t going to be worth much without the land.”

Crenshaw hadn’t mentioned that. “Then why is my mother’s latest boyfriend so hot for it?”

Josh took a moment to answer. “Basically, I’m hosed without the house. I can’t run a guest ranch without a place to put the clients. If he gets you to sell to him now, I won’t have an income stream this summer. And without money...”

“I know what happens without money.”

“Right. Here’s the deal. Assuming things go well when the season starts, I can pay you double the mortgage for the next three months. That should get you through until I can secure the loan.”

“Why should I do it your way?”

He lifted one brow. “Because you’re a kind and generous soul,” he suggested.

She answered with a snort. “Is that the best you’ve got?”

“It will make your mother crazy mad.”

“That’s a little better.”

“Listen, Sara. Your gran was one of the best. She was nice to me when I was a kid and a good friend since I got back. While I don’t know the terms of her will, it doesn’t surprise me that she left you the house. She loved this place and she talked about you a lot.”

“I barely knew her.”

He nodded. “One of her biggest regrets was that she didn’t do more for you. Help you out when things got rough.”

“Woulda, shoulda, coulda,” Sara said, but turned away when her voice cracked. “You know, I spent a summer here right before the show got picked up.”

“Trudy told me.”

“It’s funny. I don’t remember a thing about that time.”

“Look around the house...maybe it will come back to you. I’m going to find Claire. Whatever you decide, Sara, your grandmother did love you. You should know that.”

She waited until his footsteps faded, then let her gaze wander after quickly checking that the dog remained sleeping on the floor.

The house was more an oversize log cabin, exposed beams running the length of the walls and across the ceiling. Their honey color gave the interior a cozy warmth in the late-afternoon sunlight. Across from the kitchen was a family room with high ceilings and a picture window that framed a million-dollar view of the craggy peaks surrounding the valley.

An overstuffed sectional and several leather armchairs sat in front of a wall of bookshelves with a large flat-screen TV in the center. Nothing looked the least bit familiar to her, and she wondered whether Josh had gotten the new gadgets or if her grandmother had been into cutting-edge electronics.

Did all of it belong to her, or would he strip the house if she sold? Maybe she should have spent a little more time with the attorney. Sara had been so angry when her mother had shown up that she clearly hadn’t gotten the whole story about this place.

Couldn’t anything be easy? she wondered as she made her way up to the second floor. She peeked her head into the first bedroom. Posters of pop stars and young actors lined the walls. A blue-and-purple comforter with peace signs covered the bed. Claire’s room.

Next to that was a bathroom, and then came the master bedroom. She stayed at the threshold, not wanting to venture into the room where Josh slept. Even from the doorway, she could smell the same scent he’d had today—a little woodsy, a little minty and totally male. She didn’t want to be affected by his scent, by anything about a man who was entirely too rugged and rough for her taste.

She stepped quickly to the end of the hall. The final bedroom had soft yellow walls with lace-trimmed curtains, a four-poster bed and an antique dresser next to a dark wood ladder-back chair. She took a breath as she walked to the front of the dresser, skimming her fingers across the lace doily that covered the top. Framed photos lined one side, mostly her grandmother with people she didn’t recognize, friends probably.

A few showed her mother as a girl, and in one she was a young woman carrying a baby: Sara. Sara was just a toddler in the photo and she smiled at the camera, one hand raised in a wave. Sara didn’t remember a time before the endless rounds of auditions, cereal commercials and eventually prime-time celebrity. She’d been ten when Just the Two of Us first aired. The next seven years had been spent in a constant cycle of filming, promotions and off-season television movies.

It surprised her that her grandmother had none of her promo photos displayed. The only photos Rose had framed in their two-bedroom condo were publicity shots. Sara’s hand trailed over a photo album that sat in front of the frames. She traced the jeweled beads that had been glued to the cover in the shape of her name. A sliver of memory trailed through her insides.

She sat down on the bed and flipped open the album. Her heart skipped a beat as she gazed at the first page. It was a picture of her holding a giant ice-cream bar, mouth covered in chocolate, grinning wildly at the camera. In the next picture, she was on a trail, her blond hair pulled back in two pigtails and wearing an oversize cowboy hat. Her jaw dropped as she continued to turn the pages. Pictures of her feeding horses, a shot of her curled in a tight embrace with her grandmother. She read the caption below the photo: “Sara’s first annual summer visit” written in Trudy’s loping penmanship.

As she’d remembered, her mother had gotten a small part in a blockbuster Steven Spielberg movie that year. A part that had ended up on the cutting room floor. Shortly after that movie, Rose had switched her considerable energy to Sara’s career. Which explained why first annual had quickly become one and only. Although Sara had no memory of this place, clearly she’d spent some happy times here.

And that was what her grandmother knew of her: Sara as a normal girl, before Rose had created Serena Wellens, deeming Sara too basic a name for the superstar she was destined to become. Even at the height of her fame, Sara had never identified herself as Serena. She’d been content with plain old Sara, although her mother had reminded her on a regular basis that fresh-faced Saras were a dime a dozen in Hollywood.

She’d had to become someone else, someone more special than who she was.

Being Sara wasn’t enough.

She sniffed as a tear fell onto the photo, then wiped at it with her thumb. Taking a deep breath, she stood. One thing she had in common with her more glamorous persona was that neither one of them did tears.

She placed the album back on the dresser and started down the hall, but her gaze caught on a poster on the far side of Claire’s bedroom wall. It was a picture of Albert Einstein with a famous quote underneath.

Sara wasn’t one for inspirational quotes. Actions spoke louder than words in her world. She didn’t know any details of Josh and Claire’s relationship, but it had been very clear that it wasn’t good. As she looked around the bedroom, she wondered what would happen if they didn’t get this summer together.

She shouldn’t care. Neither of them were her business. A month ago when she’d landed back on the tabloid covers and lost her most recent waitressing job, she’d vowed to mind her own business. Take care of herself. She was number one.

But she’d seen something in Claire’s eyes that she hadn’t remembered feeling for way too long. Hope. Even as the girl had looked at Josh with anger and resentment, there’d been a spark of something that said don’t give up on me. Josh didn’t seem like a quitter, so maybe they’d have a chance. The chance Sara had never had for a normal life.

How could she take that away?

Her heart raced as she made a decision. She hurried down the stairs and out the back door before she came to her senses.

Josh, Claire and April were walking across the field behind the house. She waited until they got close. “Good news,” she announced. “I’m staying.”

Josh stopped dead in his tracks. “What do you mean staying?”

“Here. For the summer. I’ll make sure you have a good season, and then sell it to you in September.”

Claire did a little dance around him, making his head spin more than it already was. “That’s so great,” she gushed. “Now maybe this summer won’t be as awful as I thought.”

“Hey,” he said, pulling her around to look at him. “You think it’s going to be bad?”

She shrugged then wiggled out of his grasp. “Not as much as before.”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and counted to ten. When he looked at Sara again, she’d walked toward April and taken the other woman’s hands in hers. “I know I messed up and I’m going to make it right for you. The cowboy here offered to pay me double the mortgage for the next three months. That should at least cover your expenses for the summer. If Ryan ever calls...”

He didn’t bother to try to follow their conversation. “I said I’d pay you double to leave. Go back to California. Let me run things here. You’ll get your money.”

She shot him a dubious look. “Hell, no, partner. I’m sticking right here, and I’m going to make sure things go right.”

“I’ve got it under control,” he ground out.

“Oh, yeah? That kitchen looks pretty decked out. I’d guess my gran was going to do the cooking.”

He nodded, not liking where this conversation was going.

“Best blueberry muffins ever,” Claire added.

“And now?”

“I’m interviewing people,” he admitted. “Do you cook?”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s not my point.”

“Which is?”

“You need help.”

“Not from you, I don’t.”

“I could handle the kitchen,” April offered quietly.

His gaze shot to April, who was looking at Sara.

“You don’t have to do that,” Sara told her. “You have a life.”

April smiled. “I could use a little break, and I’m sure I can sublet the beach house for the summer.”

“Is this because of losing the studio? You could teach some other place. Rent another space. You know your clients would follow you anywhere.”

“That’s the beautiful thing about yoga. I can take it anywhere, too.” She gave Josh a hopeful smile. “I could even offer a few classes on the ranch. To start the morning, maybe.”

Sara glared at him over April’s shoulder, nodding vigorously. “That would be perfect,” she said. “Your veggie burgers are the best. Josh, is there a Whole Foods anywhere around here?”

“A whole what?”

“They just opened one on the way to Aspen,” Claire piped in. “But Dad only shops at the Red Creek Market.”

April nodded. “It’s important to support local businesses. I’ll drive into town tomorrow morning and see what we can work out.”

“When are the first guests arriving?” Sara asked no one in particular. “We’ll need time to plan out the right menus. Do you have lists of food preferences and allergies? That sort of thing?”

“Hold on,” Josh bellowed, raking his hands through his hair. “Hold on! No one is making veggie anything at my ranch. People book trips looking for action and adventure, not airy-fairy spa treatments and yoga classes. They want to fish and race ATVs, hike fourteeners and mountain bike the local trails. I’m the boss around here. I do the hiring. I make the plans. I’m the one—”

He looked at the three women, April’s gaze a little hurt, Claire’s eyes narrowed and Sara shaking her head just a bit as she chewed on her full lower lip.

“I’m the boss,” he repeated quietly, willing it to be true.

“Don’t be a hater,” Claire mumbled.

“A what?” He rubbed his temples. “Never mind.”

“You don’t have a chef, do you?” Sara asked, her voice too knowing for his taste.

“I’m interviewing cooks.”

“And who’s planning all the so-called adventures?”

“I am.”

“And leading the fun?”

Was it his imagination or did her gaze stray to his knee? “That’s me, too. Got a problem?”

She took a step closer to him. Across the bridge of her nose, under who knew how many pounds of makeup, he could see the faint outline of freckles. Distracting freckles. Freckles he wanted to trace, wondering if her skin was as soft as it looked.

“Face it, cowboy,” she said, bringing him back to the moment, “you need us.”

“I don’t need anyone.”

He heard Claire snort.

“Jerk,” Sara said under her breath.

A dull pounding started behind his left eye, matching the throbbing of his leg. “Fine. But this isn’t the Ritz. If you’re here, you work.”

She tossed her streaked hair. “I’ve been working since I was eight years old.”

He suppressed a growl. “Not the kind of work that involves a catered lunch.”

“You think you know me so well.”

“I know your type.”

“We’ll see about that.” She gave his shoulder a hard flick. “I’ll give it until Labor Day, Lone Ranger. If you can’t get the bank loan approved by then, I’m taking the next best offer.”

He studied her luminous blue eyes, their depths cold as an alpine stream. “Deal.”

They glared at each other, and though he kept his eyes on her face, he noticed that her chest rose and fell unevenly and a soft pink flush rose to her cheeks. His own breath quickened, and without knowing why, he leaned in and enjoyed watching her big eyes widen.

The hippie chick clapped a few times, breaking the weighted silence. “If that’s settled, we should think about planning. I’ll start with dinner.”

He forced his gaze from Sara’s. “The local diner has decent takeout.”

April laughed. “I’ll cook tonight. Think of it as an official interview.”

He nodded. “There are six smaller cabins on the property. Four of them are two bedrooms. You can have your pick.”

“Can’t they stay in the house with us?”

“No,” Josh and Sara said in unison.

“Whatever,” Claire mumbled.

Sara turned to his daughter. “Would you show me the other cabins?” She glanced warily at the thick pine forest that surrounded his land. “I want the one least likely to be invaded by critters.”