Betting on the Cowboy

The old man never had been able to tolerate being thwarted. He’d run his cold eyes over Gray’s expensive suit, and then over the equally expensive red dress Gray’s girlfriend was almost wearing.

“If you honestly believe you can make your own way, without the safety net of the Harper name, you’re going to have to do a hell of a lot of growing up.”

Gray had yawned and gone back to knotting his tie. He and Carla had reservations at nine, and she was eyeing him appraisingly, obviously wondering if he had the starch to stand up to the old tyrant.

So Gray had met his grandfather’s gaze in the mirror and grinned. “Oh, dear. Will I have to become like you?”

His grandfather’s mouth had tightened. “You couldn’t be like me if you tried, you insolent whelp. But, like it or not, if you’re going to be poor, you will have to get serious. You will have to get focused. And by God, for once in your spoiled life, you will have to get dirty.”

Well, the old man hadn’t been lying about that, as Gray had soon discovered. But he’d been wrong to assume that getting dirty would bother him. He’d thrived on it, actually, and kept himself so focused that it had been a very, very long time since Gray had found any female special enough to take his mind off “real life.”

The subtle stirring of interest Bree Wright had just set in motion...well, frankly, it felt darn nice.

Still, she was talking, and he should be listening. He caught up with her and kept his eyes sensibly on the path as they made their way toward the stables. He tried to pay attention as she detailed the ranch’s horsemanship program.

They had built fifty stalls, she explained, because, though they had only twenty horses at the moment, the plan was to increase to fifty head within a year. They also had three ponies for young riders and a “bring your own mount” option for guests who preferred a familiar seat.

“Nice,” he said appreciatively as they entered the large, well-designed stables and heard the soft nickering of the animals. He gazed down the wide, clean walk between the stalls. Half a dozen horses poked their heads out, and his practiced eye evaluated them quickly. All excellent specimens, as far as he could see.

Bree didn’t seem inclined to take him in any farther, though he was itching to get a closer look. Apparently this was only the nickel tour, skimming the high points until she could turn him over to Rowena.

Or else she simply wasn’t a fan of horses. He allowed himself a quick up and down while she was consulting her watch. That hairdo wouldn’t survive five minutes on horseback, and those high heels had definitely not been bought with the thought of tramping through sawdust and hay. Maybe more than a decade on the East Coast had eradicated her inner cowgirl completely.

After a few seconds, he realized he was still staring at her impossibly long legs, so he yanked his gaze up where it belonged and said the first thing that came into his mind. “Are you a good rider?”

She glanced at him, as if surprised by the question, and lowered her arm, letting her watch fall over the back of her hand.

“I haven’t ridden in years, but I used to be all right,” she said, but she touched her earring when she said it, and he had already learned that the gesture was her tell. The question had made her uncomfortable. “I was nothing compared to Ro, of course. She was the horsey one.”

He winced, hearing in her voice that she still accepted the childhood labels without question. Big mistake. Labels, he knew all too well, had a way of being self-fulfilling. He had been “the spoiled brat.”

“Really.” He tilted his head. “And which ‘one’ were you?”

Her eyebrows drew together gently. Then she smiled. “I was the prissy one. The ice queen. I thought you might remember that.”

Well, that brought the elephant out and plopped it on the table, didn’t it? He admired the cool aplomb that allowed her to mention it first. Maybe the episode really didn’t bother her as much as it bothered him. Maybe it was easier to live with the memory of having looked foolish than to live with the memory of having been cruel.

“I do remember,” he said flatly, without any attempt to make light of it all. Yes, they’d been kids. But even ninth graders bled when they were cut. “I remember that I was an insensitive jackass. You deserved better, and I knew it, even then. It may be sixteen years too late, but I want you to know I’m sorry.”

When he had started his speech, she had already begun to exit the stables. At his final word, sorry, she stopped walking and gazed placidly back at him, her elegant, symmetrical features half in shadow, half in sunlight.

“Thanks,” she said, but he didn’t know her well enough to guess whether the simple word was sardonic or sincere.

Truth was, “jackass” might be an understatement. He and his friends had always made fun of girls like her, the ones who were so bloody virtuous and civic-minded, always on committees to organize this and decorate that. But then, that January, just a month or so before her mother’s death, she had ratted on his best friend for smoking behind the bleachers.

Irked, Gray had decided she needed to be taken down a peg.

So, inspired by the instructions on one of his grandfather’s housekeeper’s frozen foods, he had printed out bold red letters on a piece of plain white paper. Then he’d recruited the girl who sat behind Bree in biology to surreptitiously tape it to the back of her shirt.

Caution: Contents Are Frozen. Thaw Before Eating.

She’d worn it for two whole class periods, in which apparently she had no allies. Finally, after school, one of her buddies saw it and yanked it off. By that time, the joke had made its way around the building like a virus, becoming more vulgar by the minute. Even Gray had felt naive when he realized some of the nasty interpretations that could be applied—though of course he pretended to have meant them all along.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, though,” she added with a smile. “You had good reason to be rebellious. What happened to your parents...it was so unfair. I didn’t understand anything about it that day, of course, but I found out soon enough. When you’re furious with life, with fate, with everything, it can make you...” She seemed to search for the right way to express herself. “Less than kind.”

He nodded. “True. Although in some ways isn’t that just a cop-out? People still have choices about how they’ll express their anger.” He appreciated her generosity, though. “I have to say,” he added, “that tragedy doesn’t seem to have had a similar effect on you.”

Flushing, she rolled the pearl of her earring between two fingers and laughed softly. “That’s nice to hear. But then, you’ve known me all of...ten minutes? I suspect that the people who know me better would emphatically disagree.”

People who knew her better... He wondered whom she meant by that. A husband...an ex-husband? A lover?

Or...he glanced toward the pine-dappled path they’d taken to the stables, and saw Rowena striding briskly toward them, her black hair blowing out behind her in the breeze.

Or a sister?

“Gray!” Rowena met them at the stable door and held out her hand. “Gosh, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? But you haven’t changed a bit! I would have known you anywhere.”

He accepted her warm, welcoming handshake. He would have recognized her, too, of course. Those eyes. Those cheekbones. But he couldn’t say she hadn’t changed. Though she had been in the eleventh grade the last time they met, and she was now probably nearly thirty-two, a married stepmother juggling family and business, she didn’t look a day older. Instead, she seemed, paradoxically, to have grown younger. Softer.

Was that what marriage to Dallas had done for her? Had love really erased all that dangerous tension that had once tightened the muscles in her face and in her body, until she had seemed a hairsbreadth away from exploding?

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” she went on. “You’ve seen the stables, then? I hope Bree has been persuasive. Her mission was to convince you that Bell River Dude Ranch is the perfect place to work.”

Bree frowned, as if this was the first she’d heard of such a mission, but Gray spoke up quickly. “Absolutely. She’s made it sound terrific. I’d want to work here even if you weren’t the only place in town willing to hire me.”

Rowena laughed, but Bree’s deepening furrow told Gray that she hadn’t been brought in on the joke. When Gray and Rowena had spoken on the phone yesterday, he’d laid everything out frankly, black sheep to black sheep, and asked for her help. In the strictest sense, this meeting wasn’t even really an interview, because she’d already offered him the job.

“I was just about to show him where the Phase Two construction will start,” Bree said, obviously treading carefully. She pointed west. “We’ll be adding a pool and a lodge, just over there. Both of them will allow us to offer many more activities. Your position would be greatly expanded during Phase Two, I’m sure, and—”

Rowena laughed again, reaching out to touch Bree’s upper arm gently. “I don’t think Gray really cares much about Phase Two,” she said. “He’ll be long gone by then.”

Bree’s face went very still, and she twirled her left earring with a studiously careless motion. “Long gone?” she repeated without inflection.

He glanced at Rowena, who nodded subtly, giving him permission to tell Bree the details. “I talked to your sister yesterday, and I explained my situation. I need the dirtiest, most menial job she has, but I need it for only a month. Four weeks, to be exact.”

“Only a month?” Bree raised her eyebrows. “And that’s because...?”

“Because that’s what my grandfather requires, before he’ll put me back in his will.”

She stared at him a long minute, and the expression in her eyes subtly hardened as she did so, as if she was revising down her estimation of him.

Finally, she turned to Rowena. “You think this is the best decision for the ranch?”

“What do you mean?”

Bree glanced once, quickly, at Gray, then returned her gaze to her sister. “Shouldn’t we have employees who really want to work at a dude ranch? At this dude ranch? Surely that’s in our best interests. And yet, knowing that Gray wants this position for his own personal agenda, and no other reason, you hired him anyway? Sight unseen?”

“Not exactly unseen,” Rowena corrected, a slight edge creeping into her voice. “We’ve known Gray for years, Bree. But otherwise, yes. I knew, and that’s exactly what I did.”

“Why?” Bree’s one-word question dripped disapproval.

As Rowena prepared to respond, Gray thought he detected a spark of the old firebrand. Her green eyes narrowed, and they seemed to blaze hot inside her thick fringe of black lashes.

“Because he is willing to work for practically nothing, which is about what I’ve got left in the budget. Because a month will get me through the soft opening and give me time to replace him. Because he’s handsome and smart and charming, and the guests will be eating out of his hand.”

“But, Ro, he—”

“I’m not finished.” Rowena’s syllables were crisp and staccato, and Bree subsided. “Most important, I’m hiring him because no one else will. Because I know what it’s like to try to outrun a reputation that got tied to your tail so long ago it feels grafted to you. In a town like Silverdell, that’s pretty darned hard to do.”

Gray watched as Bree tried to swallow her opposition—a self-control that seemed to be something of a struggle. As complex emotions swept across her classically beautiful features, rendering them infinitely more interesting than perfection ever could, his curiosity was piqued.

Though of course everyone had gossiped about their mother’s murder, Gray hadn’t really known the Wright sisters very well. Rowena had been older, too sophisticated to bother with a boy like him, and Bree had always seemed too deadly wholesome to be worth his time. The little one...he couldn’t remember her name...hadn’t registered at all.

Now, though, he sensed layers and textures in Bree’s personality that went far beyond “prissy” or “icy” or “dull.” And layers between the two sisters, too. Undercurrents both deep and powerful—and touchingly human.

He suspected that, at its heart, this mini-confrontation had very little to do with Rowena’s choice for a job as insignificant as the part-time assistant social director...and much more to do with years of unresolved family baggage.

Well, okay, then, maybe he knew them better than he had realized. They all belonged to that sorry club—the children who had survived the unsurvivable and didn’t really know why. Or where to go from there.

A large bird, maybe an eagle, landed somewhere high in the pines over their heads, causing the sunlight to shift as the branches swayed. For an instant, the light seemed to catch on two crystal sparkles at the outer edges of Bree’s cool blue eyes.

Tears? Gray frowned. Was the ice princess fighting back tears?

She blinked, then, and the illusion disappeared. But he was left with a sudden, inexplicable hunger to know her better, to find out more about her.

A lot more.

And...just his luck. He had only four weeks to do it.

CHAPTER FIVE

WHILE ROWENA WENT over the payroll paperwork with Gray, Bree decided to head up to her room and regroup. In the early planning stages, they’d all agreed that one of the upstairs rooms should be set aside for family, always to be left unrented, in case Penny or Bree wanted to visit.

The sister suite, Penny had called it. Because of its size, the space they’d chosen was Rowena’s old room. All the upstairs bedrooms had been subdivided to create more guest space. In this one spot, though, they hadn’t formed two separate rooms, but one suite with a connected sitting area and a bedroom.

Bree entered slowly. In the old days Rowena had been possessive about her private sanctuary. Her younger sisters had been forbidden to enter without permission, which she rarely granted. Even now, the remnants of inhibition were so strong that Bree felt odd waltzing in as if she belonged there.

Once in, Bree almost imagined she could detect a hint of Balenciaga Paris in the air. Rowena had received a bottle of the expensive perfume from some secret admirer that Christmas—the last they’d ever celebrated in Silverdell.

Ro had pretended to scoff at girly things like perfume, insisting that she preferred natural scents...wildflowers, the wind coming off the river or rain. But Penny, who sometimes crawled into one of her sister’s beds after a nightmare, had innocently told Bree that she chose Rowena now, because Ro always smelled of the pretty perfume while she slept. Ro had denied it, but she had clearly felt embarrassed and exposed. She’d been huffy, even with Penny, for days.

Bree knew the smell was only her imagination, of course. Old ghosts were stirring.

She went to the window of the sitting room. It overlooked the back parking lot, but it also had a peaceful view of the misty salmon-and-sapphire-tinted mountain line in the distance, and the view called to her. The physical beauty was shockingly different from anything in Boston, and at the same time it was deeply, hauntingly familiar.

She was still standing there when Gray and Rowena came strolling outside, their paperwork obviously completed. She moved an inch to the right so that the curtain veiled her, embarrassed to be caught watching.

But she needn’t have worried. Neither Rowena nor Gray looked up toward the second-floor windows. They seemed completely engrossed in their conversation. Bree couldn’t make out words, but occasionally Rowena pointed to various buildings, as if describing the activities planned on the property. Gray occasionally pointed, too, clearly adding suggestions of his own.

Lots of nodding and smiling, interspersed with laughter. They seemed to communicate awfully well for people who hadn’t seen each other in more than a decade.

But then, Gray had chatted comfortably with Bree, too, in spite of their touchy history. Obviously the man possessed formidable people skills. He always had, even in high school, which was probably what had allowed him to be so rough and rebellious without ending up expelled or slapped in jail.

Leaning easily against the driver’s door of his white truck now, he suddenly tilted his head back and laughed at something Rowena said. Bree smiled wryly, aware of a quick, supremely female reaction deep in her own body.

Okay, so it wasn’t just his people skills that gave him power. He was also dangerously sexy. His body was a six-four, athletic arrangement of rippled muscles and animal grace. She wondered what he did for a living, when he wasn’t in Silverdell, trying to vacuum out his grandfather’s wallet. Did he do some kind of serious labor? Or did he simply live at the gym?

And his face...she studied it now, trying to pinpoint where exactly its appeal lay. His golden-brown whisker stubble, square jaw and sun-weathered smile lines were all male, hinting at long days on horseback or wielding a jackhammer. But his lush eyelashes, the waves of chestnut hair that tumbled over his broad forehead and those sensually bowed lips belonged in an art gallery, a pirate ship or an eighteenth-century duchess’s boudoir.

Above the rest, his intelligent, honey-brown eyes simply said he found the whole question absurd. He was who he was.

Finally, he pulled his keys out of his pocket and beeped open the truck’s auto lock. For the first time, Bree actually paid attention to his vehicle. It was nice, a shiny new model, but somehow she’d expected something glitzier. Like maybe a purring silver Jag with a vanity plate that read GRAYT.

He and Rowena hugged goodbye—Bree couldn’t help shaking her head at that. When had her prickly older sister developed a warm fuzzy side? Then he climbed into the truck’s cab, cranked the engine, executed a deft three-point turn and guided it out of the parking lot and around the house, heading back to the main street.

She wondered where he was staying...and where he would stay, once he reported for work. Phase One of the dude ranch had included creating staff quarters out of the old stable, but she had the impression that, with at least a dozen employees already hired, those bunks were full.

Minutes later, she heard a low rap at her door. She braced herself, assuming that Rowena had come to finish their argument. She moved from the window and shot a glance into the dresser mirror to be sure she didn’t look frazzled.

“Come in,” she called, trying to sound as benign as possible. She didn’t want to fight with Ro. She’d come to Bell River for one reason only...to see if she could start repairing their relationship. The last thing in the world she wanted was to add to the destruction.

But when Rowena entered, her body language was surprisingly relaxed. Bree had always imagined she could see invisible sparks shooting from her sister when she was angry, but she sensed nothing like that now. Nothing but the fatigue she’d noticed earlier.

Apparently Rowena came in peace. Bree hadn’t realized she’d been clenching her midsection until the muscles released.

“I showed myself around up here,” she said quickly, determined to start right. “Everything looks fabulous, Ro. You’ve done a masterful job with the guest rooms.”

Rowena’s smile broadened. “It did turn out well, didn’t it? I had a lot of help. Did you know that Cindy Sedgwick got two-thirds of the way through architecture school before she found herself pregnant with twins and had to come home to marry Joey Incanto?”

Bree only vaguely remembered who Cindy Sedgwick was, but she made an impressed face, anyhow. “Cindy designed the rooms for you?”

“Yes, and the new guest cottages, too.” Rowena glanced at her watch. “I don’t have another interview until eleven-thirty, so I could give you a tour, if you’d like. I figure you might as well see them now, before guests come in and the Trash Clock starts.”

Bree chuckled, but to be honest, the joke surprised her. That had been one of their father’s favorite lines. He’d always complained that he’d rather postpone buying new equipment as long as he could, because the minute he made the purchase the Trash Clock began ticking, and the new stuff started turning to garbage that would, in its turn, have to be replaced.

Was Rowena really ready to start quoting their father’s cranky humor so casually? But then Bree corrected herself. Ro wasn’t quoting their father—just Bree’s. Rowena had found out last year that mad murderer Johnny Wright’s DNA didn’t match hers in any way.

Zero percent probability that Johnny was Rowena’s real dad.

To which Bree and Penny had said...lucky Ro. Penny had no hope of a similar reprieve, because she was Johnny Wright’s spitting image. But Bree had sent a sample of her DNA off, too, crossing her fingers and saying a prayer.

Her results had been very different. Percent probability of a match? Ninety-nine percent.

Unfortunately, she was the old bastard’s daughter through and through, and she’d simply have to live with that. Must be where her grudging, judgmental streak came from, and her difficulty trusting anybody.

But, damn it, DNA wasn’t destiny. She was her own person, and if she wanted to be more tolerant and trusting, then she could make it happen. Starting right now.

“I’d love to see the cottages,” she said.

For the next hour, her positive attitude was easy to maintain. Four new guest cottages—one that slept six, one that slept four and two smaller units that slept two—had been built as part of Phase One. And each cottage was a perfect jewel.

She loved every detail. She loved their names...River Run, River Song, River Moon and River Rock. She adored their quaint exterior styles, each one unique—some quaint, like fairy-tale storybook cottages, some rustic, like log cabins, and some a hybrid of the two.

And she adored the floor plans, which all included great rooms with big windows overlooking the stunning views. Even the interior decorating was perfect, cozy without being cliché.

Kudos to Cindy Sedgwick. And, of course, to Rowena.

No wonder Ro looked tired. Having staged so many events, Bree understood that every room in every cottage represented about a hundred decisions to make, a hundred details to oversee. She was deeply impressed and didn’t pass up any opportunity to say so.

Even cynical Rowena, whose antennae had always been finely tuned to detect empty flattery, was glowing under the effusive compliments by the time they stopped at the last cottage.

“Enough.” She smiled, holding out her hand. “I believe you’re sincere right now, but one more and I’ll start to think you’re blowing smoke.”

Bree laughed. “Okay. Nothing but insults from this moment on.”

She could hardly keep that promise, though. River Moon, built right at the edge of one of the small creek offshoots of Bell River, was a storybook charmer. This cottage, with its round blue door, steeply pitched, sloping roof and climbing yellow roses, would probably be used as the honeymoon suite. Phase Two included marketing the ranch for destination weddings.

They wandered through the adorable rooms, all the way to the sunny bedroom at the back.

“Oh, this quilt is—” But somehow Bree bit her tongue, holding back the word fabulous.

Rowena smiled, shaking her head. “I mean it, Bree. Enough.”

But the quilt, which had been draped over a Bentwood rocker, was fabulous. Bree ran her hand over the intricate blue-and-yellow pattern of entwined hearts. Each cottage bedroom had its own signature antique quilt, the one theme that ran through all four cottages, but this was the most beautiful of them all.

If Bree had wanted to say something less fawning, she might have voiced the one doubt that had niggled at her throughout the tour. Were the interior decorations maybe almost too beautiful?

Too beautiful for their tight budget, anyhow.

But obviously she didn’t utter a peep about that. She might have reached her limit of compliments, but she hadn’t reached the point at which she could dare to express a criticism.