Cowboy Strong (Dry Creek Ranch #3)

Chapter 1

It was midday and Sawyer Dalton desperately needed a shower and eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. He’d caught a red-eye from Heathrow to Sacramento after a four-day journalism conference where he’d spent his nights drinking and telling war stories into the wee hours of the morning.

As he pulled past the ranch gate, his chest gave a little kick, like it always did. Five hundred acres of the most pristine land in the Sierra foothills. Okay, he was biased. But Dry Creek Ranch, a working cow-calf operation, had been in his family for four generations.

On a clear day, you could see all the way to Banner Mountain. And the green, grassy hills rippled through the valley like a storybook version of the countryside. A series of gable barns, worn and weathered, dotted the landscape, their rooflines often hidden in the tall pines.

Now, the ranch belonged to Sawyer and his two cousins, Jace and Cash, an inheritance from his late grandfather. And while the ranch had fallen into disrepair, Sawyer and his cousins had big plans to someday restore the place to its former glory.

They just had to keep from losing it first.

He didn’t bother with the garage, just parked his Range Rover in his driveway.

Slinging his duffel strap over his arm, he climbed the stairs to his apartment.

It had once been the hayloft of an old livestock barn.

He’d hired a San Francisco architect to convert it into 2000 square feet of kick-ass, mostly open, living space with lots of windows, open-beam ceilings, and modern amenities.

The bottom had been turned into a garage and workspace, while still preserving the barn’s rustic charm.

When he wasn’t traveling for work—which was all the time—the ranch and the loft were home sweet home.

He made it to the top of the stairs and tripped over a pile of luggage on the landing.

Louis Vuitton. Not his—he’d be the laughing stock of the press corps—and sure the hell not his cousins’.

None of them owned anything remotely designerish, unless you counted Levi’s and Stetson.

Besides, Cash and Jace both had their own homes on the ranch.

“Hello?” He craned his neck around the corner to find the house empty. Someone, however, had left a pile of dishes in the sink and cooking accoutrements all over the counter. It wasn’t like Cash or Jace, or their women, to lend out Sawyer’s house without permission.

Yet, there were people camping here and they weren’t cleaning up after themselves.

He supposed the mystery would soon solve itself when whoever it was returned to claim the luggage.

Unable to keep his eyes open, he headed to his bedroom, dropping his duffel on the floor.

On his way to the bathroom, he dragged his T-shirt over his head, tossing it somewhere in the vicinity of the hamper.

Next, he went to work on his belt, looking forward to cranking up all six jets in his walk-in shower.

The water pressure in his London hotel had sucked.

“Who are you?”

He jumped at the voice, then whipped his head around to find a woman sitting in his bed with her legs drawn up and a laptop perched on her knees. She looked vaguely familiar, but not familiar enough to be in his bedroom.

Yep, apparently he’d missed the memo that his home had been turned into an Airbnb in his absence.

“I’ll ask you the same,” he said. “And since this is my house, you go first.”

She flicked her gaze at his bare chest, then went back to studying her laptop. “You must be Wendy’s son,” she said, distracted by whatever was on her screen. “She’s been trying to reach you.”

Ah, his mother.

Why she’d sent a complete stranger to his apartment was beyond anyone’s guess. “I’ve been on an airplane for the last fourteen hours.”

“That’s probably why she couldn’t reach you.” She tapped the space bar on her keyboard, completely absorbed in whatever she was looking at. “She said you’d be gone awhile and it would be okay if I stayed here.”

“She did, did she? Well, I’m home now, so that obviously won’t work.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. That’s what she said. I saw a big house on my way in. Can’t you stay there?”

The question threw him for a second. “Uh, no, because I live here.” What part of that was she having trouble understanding?

“Okay, then I’ll stay in the big house.”

Wow. He shook his head.

“Yeah, I don’t think so. My cousin and his two kids and fiancée live in the big house. Last I heard, they weren’t taking in boarders. Why don’t we start with you telling me who you are?” He’d take up the rest of this freak show with his mother.

“Son of a bitch!” She slammed her laptop closed, scrambled off the bed, and swiped a smartphone off his dresser—which was now covered with women’s lingerie—punched in a number and started yelling at someone.

He listened in because he was nosy and because she made it difficult not too.

People on the other side of the continent could hear her, she was that loud.

From her side of the conversation he extrapolated that it was a business situation.

Someone was pulling out of a deal and she was going apeshit over it.

He searched his duffel for his own phone and took it into the living room. Sure enough, there were four missed calls from his mother and a CALL ME ASAP text.

He took a long, calming breath and dialed.

She answered on the first ring. “How’s London, darling?”

“The trip was great until I got home.” He leaned against the wall and cradled the phone to his ear with his shoulder. “Who is she and why is she here?”

“Oh, boy.” Long pause. “You said you’d be overseas until August.”

“I got all my interviews done for the piece I’m writing and came home a week early. Who is she, Mom, and why have you foisted her on Dry Creek Ranch?”

“You didn’t recognize her?” His mother was pacing now; Sawyer could hear her high heels clicking on the marble floor in her office. “I guess that’s good. She’s Gina DeRose.”

“That FoodFlicks chick?” Sawyer had caught her food show a few times. Not because he liked to cook, but because Gina DeRose was hot. At least on television. It was amazing what makeup and good lighting could do.

“Not just FoodFlicks. She owns an entire culinary empire. Cookbooks, kitchenware, pots and pans, her own line of seasonings, cake mixes, and packaged frozen foods.”

He moved to the kitchen and rummaged through the fridge, looking for a bottle of water. They seemed to have all disappeared.

“What did she do, murder someone?” If Sawyer’s parents were representing DeRose, she had to be dealing with a professional crisis of significant proportions.

Dalton and Associates wasn’t your garden-variety publicity firm.

His parents’ company specialized in making career-killing mistakes go away for anyone rich enough to afford its services.

“She’s accused of having an affair.”

“People still care about that?” Call him jaded, but show him a celebrity, politician, or sports figure who hadn’t been caught with their pants down. He wasn’t condoning it, but society seemed immune, especially in the Hollywood-type world Gina DeRose ran in.

His mother sighed. “She broke up Candace and Danny Clay’s marriage. There are pictures circulating all over the internet.”

Sawyer knew the Clays also had a cooking show, kind of a Lucy and Ricky bit. He’d caught fleeting minutes of the program while channel surfing.

“It’s a mess,” his mother continued. “Candace’s fans, of which there are legions, called for a boycott of Gina’s show.

When sponsors started pulling ads, FoodFlicks canceled the rest of the show’s season, including reruns, and suspended negotiations for next season.

Investors are talking about walking away from the retail end: the cookware, the prepared meals, and all the rest of it. And—”

“Okay, okay.” He was too tired to hear anymore. “What do you want me to do?”

“Let her stay on the ranch. Everywhere she goes, she’s chased by paparazzi.

Your father and I just want her to lie low while we manage the bad press and stop the bleeding.

And a hotel or a resort…she’s too recognizable.

I know I should’ve gotten your permission first. But we were desperate.

She can’t even leave her house without being ambushed. And Jace said it would be okay.”

“When did you talk to Jace?”

“When I couldn’t reach you. He let her in…gave her his spare key.”

Sawyer rubbed his hands down his face. “I’ll find her something,” he said, though he didn’t know what.

“But she can’t stay in my place.” Besides the fact that he only had one bedroom, the apartment was also his office and writing cave.

Then there was the fact that he’d never been good with sharing his space.

“Somewhere on the ranch, please.” When he muttered that he would, she said, “Thank you, Sawyer. You’re a good son.”

“You mean I’m a sucker. Bye, Mom.”

Gina came into the kitchen, looking like a bird had nested in her blond hair. She had bags under her eyes and the cleavage she was famous for was hidden underneath an oversized T-shirt. Either that or she wore a really good push-up bra on her television show.

“How’d you get here?” he asked, suddenly realizing he hadn’t seen a car.

“To the kitchen? Or here to Timbuktu?”

He rolled his eyes and stifled a pithy comeback. The sooner he got her settled, the sooner he could sleep. “Did you drive and if so, where’s your vehicle?” He said it slowly, enunciating each word.

“In the garage or barn, or whatever is below us.” She pointed at the floor. “We’ll need to keep the door closed at all times. I don’t want the vultures to know where I am.”

“And who would the vultures be?”

“Reporters. Bloodsuckers, every last one of them.”

He reached into his back pocket, held his press pass in front of her face, and hitched a brow. “Don’t worry, I only cover real news. Let’s go.”