Cowboy Strong. Stacy Finz
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.