Chapter 8
The next morning, Sawyer met with his cousins at the coffee shop. The topic of where he’d been the last couple of days hadn’t come up and Sawyer steered clear of the subject. Cash and Jace would only accuse him of being compulsive.
Laney sat them at their usual table in the back of the restaurant, near a bull horn hat rack where they could hang their Stetsons. Not five minutes passed when she returned with coffee. A chorus of chicken and waffles went around the table as she took their order.
With Gina using his house as her personal test kitchen, it had been days since he’d eaten at the coffee shop. It was usually his home away from home.
“How’s our friend?” Laney asked in a whisper.
Cash passed a glance at Sawyer and Jace. “What friend?”
Laney poked him in the arm. “Don’t be coy with me, boy. I know who you’re harboring over at the ranch. I’ve got her recipe for strawberry shortcake to prove it. Now don’t tell me you think I’d run to the tabloids?”
Not to the tabloids. Laney had more class than that. But Sawyer wouldn’t put it past her to blab all over town that Gina was holing up with the Daltons. Dry Creek didn’t know from discretion. The entire town ran on gossip.
When none of them responded, Laney put her hands on her ample hips. “Fine, be that way. I have half a mind to drive out there and pay her a visit. As for you boys, no chess pie. I’ve got three pieces left and none of you are getting any of it.” She walked off in a huff.
“How long are we supposed to keep Gina a secret?” Cash asked. He and Jace turned to Sawyer.
“How the hell should I know?” Then, apropos of nothing, he huffed out a breath and blurted, “She says she didn’t do it.” Cash and Jace looked at Sawyer like they had no idea what he was talking about.
“Did what?” Cash asked.
“She didn’t sleep with Danny Clay.” Sawyer didn’t know why he was telling his cousins.
It wasn’t like they could give two shits.
But for some unfathomable reason it seemed important to him that they know Gina was innocent.
“The whole thing was fabricated by someone who is either out to ruin her or the Clays.”
“That’s what she told you?” Jace arched a brow. “And you actually believed her? Man, you’ve got it bad for the woman.”
He didn’t have anything for Gina DeRose. Well, maybe he wanted to get inside her pants. He chalked that up to being a guy. And hormones. Nothing more. Gina might be attractive, even amusing, but she was a head trip. Spoiled, self-centered, and a headache. He liked no-drama women.
“She told my mom the same story.”
“And does she believe Gina?” Cash asked, demonstrating the same open skepticism as Jace had.
That’s what Sawyer got for having two damn cops for cousins. If someone said the sun was up, the two of them went outside to check.
Sawyer started to hedge, then realized: What was the point of obfuscating?
“I didn’t talk to my mother about it. Crisis manager-client privilege and all that shit.
But I believe Gina.” He locked eyes with Jace, who was shaking his head.
“Give me a little credit, asshole. I’m an investigative journalist, for God’s sake. ”
Jace threw up his arms. “Seems like there’s a lot of evidence to the contrary. Just saying.”
“Just saying. What are you? A fifteen-year-old girl?”
Cash chuckled at Sawyer’s quip, but made it clear he agreed with Jace. “Aren’t there pictures? Texts? The dude’s dick?”
Yep, there was all that. Still, Sawyer believed her. Her story was too ludicrous not to.
“You and I both know with good photo software anything is possible. Hell, William Randolph Hearst knew how to do it more than a hundred years ago. Remember: ‘You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.’”
From Cash’s expression he still seemed dubious. “How does she plan to prove it?”
Sawyer shrugged. “We’re working on it.”
“We’re?” Jace’s brows shot up again. “Now you’re her champion. Just the other day you couldn’t stand her.”
Cash, the grown-up in the room, ignored Jace and asked Sawyer, “What would be the motive to spread rumors about her? Who has that big of a grudge against her? Or something to gain?”
These were all questions Sawyer had asked himself. Gina sure didn’t think there was anyone who would go to this end to ruin her. “It might be someone out to get the Clays and Gina was just an unintended casualty.”
“Sounds a little out there to me. But if your instincts say she’s telling the truth, I’ll go with it because you’re usually right. Not always, but usually.”
Jace glanced at his watch. As Mill County sheriff, he usually had meetings and briefings in the morning. “You have a thing for this woman?”
“Hell no,” Sawyer said and even to his own ears sounded too defensive.
“For a guy who isn’t into her, she sure spends a lot of time at your place.” Jace topped off his cup from the carafe on the table.
“She likes my kitchen.”
“Are you sure that’s all she likes?”
Sawyer was preparing a pithy comeback when Mitch Reynolds walked in.
Jace bristled. The two of them used to be best friends until Mitch started screwing Jace’s other best friend’s wife.
At the time, Mitch had been engaged to Aubrey.
The whole ordeal had ended in a complicated mess that had almost lost Jace the sheriff’s race.
On top of that, Mitch, a developer, had been caught up in a scam to swindle Randy Beals out of his ranch so he could build a golf-course community. Jace had arrested him, but Randy wouldn’t press charges because his kids had also been involved in the conspiracy.
Mitch bobbed his head at them. Sawyer wasn’t sure if Mitch was being cordial for appearance’s sake or if the gesture was his equivalent of waving his middle finger. Whatever. The guy could go screw himself for all Sawyer cared.
A few minutes later, Randy came in the coffee shop and joined Mitch at his table.
“What the hell’s that about?” Sawyer said.
Jace watched the two men across the restaurant. “What do you think it’s about? Randy’s so desperate to sell, he’s willing to make a deal with the devil.”
“I don’t want that asshole as a neighbor.” Sawyer drained the last of his coffee and poured himself another cup.
“Are you kidding?” Cash said. “You said it best, Sawyer. When he’s done with Beals Ranch, it’ll be half-acre lots with mini-mansions and an eighteen-hole golf course. Our neighbor won’t be Mitch, it’ll be two thousand new families.”
“Who’ll complain about the smell of our cattle,” Jace added and rubbed his hand down his face. “Shit.”
Maria, who’d been working at the coffee shop as long as Sawyer could remember, brought their food while Laney took orders at another table.
Jace doused his chicken with hot sauce. “Our only hope is that the city won’t allow Mitch to develop the land, that it’ll have to stay agricultural.”
Jace was delusional. The tax revenue alone would be difficult for any municipality to turn down. And then there was the fact that it was happening all around them. The land was just too damn valuable for ranching or farming.
“Any way we can appeal to Randy?” Sawyer asked and looked to Jace because he’d known Randy his whole life and had grown up with the Beals kids.
“It’s not like I can tell him who or who not to sell to. He’s got to do what’s best for him and Marge. And last time I talked to him they were drowning in debt.”
Basically, there wasn’t a whole lot they could do to prevent the inevitable.
They ate and moved on, talking about Sawyer’s article, a cattle-rustling arrest in Texas that Cash was keeping tabs on, and eventually came around to the topic that was supposedly the reason they’d met for breakfast in the first place.
The flower farmers.
“Well, are we going ahead with letting them lease the property or not?” Sawyer looked to Cash, who’d been briefed.
There was no question Jace’s vote was yes. Whatever Charlie wanted, he wanted. And Charlie was in favor of a flower shop. Aubrey, too.
“I don’t see how it could hurt.” Cash pushed his empty plate aside. “If they don’t pay their lease, we own their crop.”
“Flowers?” Sawyer pulled a face.
“I did a little research and cut flowers are damned profitable,” Cash said. “On average, about thirty thousand in sales per acre.”
Jace perked up. “No shit?”
“Maybe we should eliminate the UC Davis girls and plant them ourselves.” Sawyer was joking, but he had no idea flowers grossed so well.
A cow-calf pair needed roughly two to five acres of land.
Without doing a lot of fancy math, Sawyer was thinking the flowers had a bigger return. At least in the short term.
“You want to be a farmer?” Cash didn’t have to ask because the answer was a resounding no.
They were ranchers, born and raised, even if Sawyer and Cash grew up in the city. As Grandpa Dalton used to say, it was in their DNA and nothing could change that, not even Beverly Hills. Or in Cash’s case, San Francisco.
“What about the shop they want?” Sawyer supposed the three of them could build it themselves to save on labor costs.
“If we’re planning to lease out business space, we’ll have to supply the infrastructure,” Jace said. “No way around that, right?”
Cash nodded. “It doesn’t mean we have to supply them with a refrigeration system or any of the other bells and whistles they need for a floral shop. Just bare bones is the way I see it. The rest is up to them.”
Sawyer agreed. “What about fencing for their fields? Anything deer-proof will cost a hell of a lot of money.”
“I think that’s on them, too,” Cash said.
“The big question is water.” Jace looked from Cash to Sawyer.
“I say we give them two price options,” Sawyer said. “One with water, one without. They could always truck in their own tank.”
“Yeah, I’m good with that.” Jace glanced at his watch again. “We’ll have to come up with some numbers.”
“We might also offer profit sharing.” Cash hitched his shoulders. “Farming’s always a gamble, but as far as the flowers, I like the returns. Something to think about, anyway.”