7. Cash
CHAPTER 7
Cash
GIDDYUP
Not gonna lie, my heart skips a beat at the fire that ignites in Mollie’s brown eyes at the insult.
“I’d prefer you not call me names,” she clips, crossing her arms.
Didn’t think it was possible, but she’s wearing an even more ridiculous outfit than the one she wore to Goody’s office last week. Today, it’s a very short, very tight dress, huge earrings, and a pair of tall purple boots.
I still can’t believe that this is the owner of Lucky Ranch. Hundreds of thousands of acres, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Her.
Mollie’s outfit shows too much leg and not nearly enough judgment. Way too much leg.
Or maybe not enough.
Ignoring that thought, I hand Ella back to Sawyer. “I’d prefer you get back in your big, fancy car and go back to your big, fancy city.”
“Cash.” Patsy gives me a warning glare. “You best mind your manners, cowboy, or you won’t be welcome in my kitchen. ”
It’s actually Mollie’s kitchen now. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Because now that she’s here to stake her claim, she’s one step closer to selling the place. Which means I’m likely one step closer to being out on my ass, along with my brothers.
Who knows if Lucky Ranch’s new owners will want to keep the cattle operation? In all likelihood, they’ll split the ranch into parcels, selling them off piece by piece until there’s nothing left but the house and the pool.
What will we do then? Far as I know, no one in the area is hiring—at least not five cowboys at once. I refuse to break up our family. But cowboying is all we know. If we can’t do that and we can’t pay the bills at Rivers Ranch…
We’ll have to sell that too.
Despite the panic swirling in my gut, I manage to grunt, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Mollie, I apologize,” Patsy continues. “Cash sometimes takes a minute to warm up to strangers. These are his brothers. Cash is the oldest, and that there is Wyatt—he’s next in the birth order. And then there’s Sawyer, who you’ve already met. Then Ryder and Duke, the twins.”
Mollie blinks. I imagine she’s doing the math, figuring out exactly how horny my parents were back in the day. “Five of y’all? No girls ever came along?”
“We felt sorry for our mama too.” Ryder shakes his head. “But if anyone could handle us, it was her.”
“Your mom, she?—”
“Passed.” Wyatt runs a hand over his face. “Twelve years ago this October. She and our dad died in a car accident.”
Mollie blinks again. She looks up, her eyes catching on mine for a beat before she looks away. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Y’all must’ve been really young.”
“Ryder and I were fourteen, yeah,” Duke says. “Didn’t seem young at the time, but looking back… ”
“I can’t imagine how awful that must’ve been,” Mollie says. “I don’t know what to say.”
My heart twists. I don’t know why— I hate this woman and her fake sympathy, I hate how the grief is still there, I hate that I don’t know what to do next and how that scares the shit out of me —so I ignore it and glare at Mollie while I think of another rude thing to say to her.
When she glares back, I swear she looks just like she did in one of Garrett’s pictures. In the photo, she’s giving the camera a look that could kill while Garrett squats in the dust beside her, a huge smile on his face in a clear attempt to cheer her up.
Goody glances at me, then at Mollie. “Why don’t we have some lunch? I think y’all must be…hungry. Then the three of us can sit down and talk about the transition.”
“Is there anyone else I can talk to?” Mollie doesn’t break eye contact with me. Girl ain’t afraid—I’ll give her that. “I get the feeling Cash won’t be exactly helpful in showing me the ropes.”
I feel my brothers watching us. Duke even has the balls to smile.
Ignoring them, I say, “The help you need ain’t the kind of help I can provide, Mollie .”
“You can call me Miss Luck, Cash . And that’s too bad, isn’t it, considering I’m your boss now?”
Wyatt rubs his hands together. “I like where this is going.”
“Shut up.” I turn back to Mollie. “Miss Luck, with all due respect?—”
“Lord save us, here it comes,” John B mutters.
“I really do think it’s best you go back to Dallas. You clearly don’t belong here?—”
“Enough.” Patsy’s voice cuts through the tension in the room like a warm knife through butter. “Goody is right; let’s eat. Maybe with a full belly, Cash will recognize that his mama—God rest her soul—raised him better than this. If he doesn’t, well…” She thwacks her wooden spoon against her palm.
“Not the spoon,” Ryder whispers.
Wyatt arches a brow and looks at me. “Dude, don’t tempt her. I’ve felt the business end of that thing, and lemme tell you, it ain’t an experience you wanna have.”
“Mom really beat you with a spoon?” Sally wrinkles her nose.
He grins. “Only once, but I deserved it.”
“He was runnin’ across the yard, naked as the day he was born,” Patsy says. “I was right here, having my coffee, when I looked up and saw a full moon—and not the pretty kind. Only way I could get him back to the bunkhouse was by chasing him down. I just so happened to have a spoon in my hand.”
I stare at him. “Jesus Christ, Wyatt.”
“Are you surprised?” Sally says with a grin.
“Hey, I was twenty-two and stupid. Drunk off my ass. But I can reenact it for you if you’d like.” Wyatt reaches for his belt buckle.
The room erupts all at once.
“No!”
“Please, God, don’t.”
“Someone get the bleach for my eyes.”
Sally’s gaze dances when she says, “Tempting, but I’ll pass.”
“Offer always stands, sunshine,” Wyatt says. “Just say the word, and you got all the moon you want.”
“Good night, moon,” Ella singsongs.
Duke grins. “The nickname is cute, y’all.”
“No, it’s not,” I grunt.
I glance at Mollie and see her watching us, arms still crossed, her lips twitching.
City Girl’s loving this, us acting like the idiot cowboys she assumes we are .
I give Wyatt a discreet kick to the shin. Not only do I need him to behave in front of City Girl, but I also need him to cool his jets with Sally.
They’ve been friends since they were kids, so I don’t mind a little flirtation. But ever since she got back from her residency, he can’t stop looking at her. I know that gleam in his eyes. It ain’t friendly—I’ll say that much.
Casanova can have anyone else in Hartsville. Probably has. No wonder he mentioned going to Vegas; he’s probably looking for new girls to chase. But he’s gonna keep his mitts off Sally. He so much as lays a finger on her, he puts our relationship with her parents, John B and Patsy, at risk. We lose them, we lose very important allies in keeping the ranch afloat. More than that, we’d be losing family, because that’s what the three of them have become to us.
Then again, Lucky Ranch may well be in its final days anyway.
Whatever the case, I hope Sally starts hanging out with Beck Wallace a lot more and my brother a lot less.
John B claps his hands. “All right, y’all, dig in. We got a real treat today. Patsy made her famous chicken-fried steak with white gravy. The potato salad’s got eggs in it, Ryder, so you wanna stay away from that. Brownies are Sally’s recipe. No, Cash, you can’t have more than three. I think that covers it?”
I extend my arm, holding my brothers back as I nod at Mollie. My eyes slip to her legs again. They’re long. Flawless. Not a freckle or scar in sight. “ Ladies first.”
When I look up, I see her eyes are narrowed.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re insulting me?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Miss Luck. I’m just being polite. That’s how my mama raised me.” I nod at Patsy, who’s shooting daggers at me with her eyes.
There’ll be hell to pay after this. But it’ll be worth it when Mollie leaves. Someone punches my shoulder. Duke, if I had to guess.
“Excuse my brother.” Yep, it’s Duke. “He doesn’t know how to act around beautiful women. Last girl he was with?—”
“Don’t.” I curl my right hand into a fist. Pray for the patience I need to handle my brothers without committing an act of homicide.
Sally loops her arm through Mollie’s and pulls her to the food. “Ignore them. Sometimes, there’s a bit of a Seven Brides for Seven Brothers vibe going on here.” She tosses me a look over her shoulder. “Some people forget how not to be heathens. They’ll get better, I promise.”
I watch Mollie pick up a plate, which she fills with a big pile of Patsy’s green beans and…nothing else. Skips the steak, the potato salad. Even the brownies, which she looks at longingly before turning away.
If I didn’t hate Mollie Luck before, I despise her now. She won’t even try the brownies? Why the fuck not? Her Pilates instructor threaten to excommunicate her or something if she eats chocolate? And what about Patsy’s steak? How rude to not even put one steak on her plate.
I’m starving, so like everyone else, I pile my plate high: two chicken-fried steaks smothered in gravy, three brownies, and plenty of green beans too.
Goody, being the consummate lawyer she is, takes over the conversation at the table. She fills Mollie in on things the owner of a ranch should already know: staff, seasons, equipment we own, equipment we lease. Goody goes around the table and has each of us describe what we do and the tasks we complete on a daily basis.
Mollie nods politely as she chews on her green beans. She doesn’t say much. Doesn’t ask any questions. A couple of times, I catch her glaring at me over the rim of her water glass.
And a couple of times, I catch myself wondering how far up her legs that little dress of hers rode up when she sat. If I looked under the table, what would I see?
Christ, I need to get laid. Been too long, clearly, if I’m fantasizing about City Girl’s legs.
But the fact that they’re flawless means she’s not used to manual labor. Or being outside, for that matter. My brothers and I, we’re beat up and bow-legged from spending most of our time on horseback.
I smirk as the idea takes shape.
Tossing my napkin onto the table beside my empty plate, I clap my hands against my thighs. “Welp, Miss Luck, since you’re here to see your ranch, let’s get to it. Sawyer, tack up an extra horse.”
I bite back a laugh at the flicker of panic in Mollie’s eyes.
“A horse? For me?”
“Cash,” Wyatt says. “Just take the ATV. It’s too hot?—”
I hold up a hand. “ATV can’t get where we’re goin’.”
“I don’t ride,” Mollie says. “Or I haven’t ridden in…a really long time.”
“You best pick it back up if you wanna run this ranch.”
She stares at me, nostrils flaring. That fire . Fuck me if it don’t make my skin feel two sizes too tight?—
I shove the thought aside. Gotta keep my eyes on the prize: chasing this brat off our property before she takes a shine to it. Because that’s always what happens when visitors come to Lucky Ranch.
It’s what Garrett admitted happened to him as a kid following his daddy around the property.
“What about taking my car?” she asks. “It’s got four-wheel drive?—”
“Too big.” I shake my head. “Ask anyone in here. You wanna get the lay of the land, you gotta do it on horseback.”
Mollie glances at Goody, who grimaces.
“He’s not wrong. But the tour can wait perhaps? There’s some paperwork we should go over?— ”
“Don’t have time. We either go now or we don’t go at all.” I get up and start grabbing plates, stacking them on my forearm.
I’m shocked when Mollie pops up and starts doing the same, piling her plate with silverware and water glasses. “That was delicious, Patsy. Thank you.”
“You sure you got enough to eat?” Patsy asks.
I step around Mollie and head for the sink. “There’s no food court on the ranch, Miss Luck. You get hungry, you’ll be SOL.”
“Oh? So no Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, then?” She cocks her head, spearing me with a glare. “Never would have guessed. I’ll be fine.”
Duke chuckles. “You’re a feisty one, ain’t you, Miss Luck?”
“I prefer the term spirited .”
“Self-possessed,” Goody adds.
I turn on the faucet. “You know what we do with spirited horses here on the ranch?”
Mollie lets her plate fall with a clatter beside the sink. Leaning her hip into the counter, she crosses her arms. “I’m not a horse.”
“We break them.”
She gives me a tight smile. She’s close enough that I can smell her perfume over the clean-water scent of Ivory dish soap. “And you know what happens to people who are out of a job? They go broke.”
Sawyer claps his hands. “Dang, she’s clever.”
“I told you to tack up the horses.”
Mollie purses her lips. “You’re really doing this.”
“Yes, I’m really taking time out of my day to show you around your ranch. You’re welcome.”
“Fine.” I feel her looking at me for a beat as I bend down to load the dishwasher. “I’ll ride. But Goody comes with us. Whatever plan you had to ditch me or feed me to a bear or whatever isn’t going to happen.”
Straightening, I take the dirty silverware she holds out to me and return her smile. “We don’t have bears on the ranch. But we do have bobcats. And coyotes. And rattlers big enough to take out you and your horse.”
“Won’t be the first snake in the grass I’ve encountered here.”
The reply is quick, a slap just firm enough to make my skin tingle.
Sally grins. “I like her.”
I don’t. But with a little luck and a lot of help from the South Texas heat, this will be my first and only ride with City Girl.