Chapter 13
“Go ahead and call her,” Sawyer said. It was the first words he’d spoken since they’d left the cabin.
He’d taken her keys and deemed himself the designated driver, mostly because he liked driving her car. But partly because she had a lousy sense of direction and he wasn’t in the mood for getting lost on the way to Mama’s.
He only half-listened to Gina tell his mother the details of their morning trespasser.
He was too busy revisiting his and Gina’s bedroom scene.
Clearly, there was something seriously wrong with him.
It was bad enough that he was having sex with his mother’s client and a woman with enough issues to fill the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Sawyer didn’t do issues. He didn’t do anything that required even a modicum of complications. He got enough of that from his work.
And then to add to his stupidity, he forgot to wear a damn condom.
It wasn’t like he never fucked up. He did, more than he’d like to admit.
But forgetting protection…That had never happened.
Ever. Then again, he’d never been this sexually caught up.
It wasn’t to say he didn’t like sex. He liked it.
A lot. Had it as often as he could. But this was… different.
Ever since that morning he’d come home to find her hunkered over her computer in his bed, there’d been this charged electricity between them.
She pushed his buttons, even though he wasn’t the kind of guy to rouse easily.
It was sort of a love/hate thing, though that was a little strong.
More like an admire/you-bug-the-shit-out-of-me thing.
What it had proven to definitely be, though, was a I-have-to-have-you thing.
Which had disaster written all over it. And now he had to worry about…babies. He had nothing against them per se as long as they were someone else’s.
“We didn’t use a condom, you know,” he said the second she hung up with his mother.
“I know.”
He waited, hoping she’d say she was on another form of birth control. But she said nothing.
“We’ll have to monitor the situation,” he said and realized he’d made it sound like he was talking about North Korea and its nuclear weapons cache.
“Yep,” was all she said.
At the last minute, he decided to ditch the highway and take a circuitous route of back roads to Mama’s. Traffic, he told himself. But it was eleven o’clock and it was freaking Dry Creek, not the 405 at rush hour.
“What did my mom say?” He’d circle back to the condom dilemma in a few minutes. Give her time to absorb how irresponsible he’d been.
“That she heard through the grapevine that Candace is pitching a new show to FoodFlicks.”
“Yeah, so?” It hardly seemed newsworthy. “Stands to reason that without her husband in the picture, she’d want a new gig.”
“It just seems kind of soon, don’t you think?”
“Not if it’s her livelihood.”
Gina let out a breath. “I guess.”
“What? It seems opportunistic to you?”
“No, you’re right. What is she supposed to do? Sit home and collect unemployment?”
“Did my mother think it was odd?”
“No, just interesting. She’s meeting with my manager next week to strategize how to deal with ChefAid.”
Hopefully by then he’d hear back from Shooter about the photo. “She say anything else or have any ideas how our lowlife friend found you?”
Gina shook her head. “I’m wondering if someone recognized me at the kitchen store. Maybe the cashier wasn’t as oblivious as she seemed.”
“Could be.” He took a right on Gold Trail, an old mining road.
When they were kids, he, Jace, and Cash used to ride their horses out here and shoot beer cans with their BB guns.
“Someone had to have recognized you when you were out with me and put two and two together. Otherwise, how would they have found you on the ranch?”
“You don’t think it was Laney or Jimmy Ray, do you?”
“No way. They and my grandfather go back to when dinosaurs roamed the earth. They can keep a secret. You think Tiffany might’ve recognized you?” Jace’s former campaign manager wasn’t a malicious person, but she did have a big mouth. Pretty much everyone in Dry Creek did.
“I don’t know. She seemed too wrapped up in you to even notice me.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it. Tiffany may seem oblivious, even like one of those vapid ladies who lunch. But she’s sharp as a steak knife. I learned that during Jace’s campaign.”
“If it is her, do you think someone—maybe even Jace—could ask her to zip it? I’d like to not have to move again.”
He glanced over at her. “Thought you hated it here and were dying to get back to civilization.” He mimicked the way she’d said it when she was trying to provoke him.
“I do and I am,” she said. “But who’s to say that the next place your mother finds for me to hide isn’t Siberia. At least Dry Creek Ranch has Wi-Fi.”
Hell yeah, it did. He’d emptied his bank account to get high-speed internet on the ranch. If Jace and Cash had had their druthers they would still have dial-up.
“Besides,” she added, “I’d miss Charlie and Aubrey.”
He slid her another glance, this time hitching his brows above the rim of his sunglasses.
“Charlie and Aubrey, huh?” He was flirting when what he should’ve been doing was putting the skids on whatever this was that they were doing.
Yet, he couldn’t help himself. Just like he couldn’t help himself from tearing off her PJs this morning after watching her bounce around the kitchen, making him crazy with those long legs of hers.
“I might miss the sex.” She flashed him a cheeky grin.
He started to say that she was going to miss it all right because they weren’t having any more. But he knew the words for what they were: Lies. As long as she lived here, they were having sex. Lots of it. The sooner he came to terms with that the better off he’d be.
“I’ll ask Jace to feel out Tiffany,” he said. “If he thinks she knows something, he’ll tell her to keep it on the down low.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now put on your disguise, we’re almost there.”
* * * *
That evening he took the situation up with Jace and Cash. Both agreed that it could’ve easily been Tiffany. Sawyer thought Jill was also a possibility and kicked himself for exposing Gina that way.
“Nah,” Jace shook his head. “Even if Jill had recognized Gina, it wouldn’t have occurred to her to call the National Enquirer or any of those other rags. I’ve known her all my life. What she did to Brett…but this thing with Gina doesn’t have her mark. Take my word for it.
“Tiffany is the more likely culprit. If it was her she didn’t do it to be spiteful.
” Jace had a soft spot for his old campaign manager.
“There’s not a mean bone in her body. She just likes to talk, like everyone else in this town.
She also likes to one-up everybody with the quality of her gossip.
I suspect finding out that Gina DeRose is hiding at Dry Creek Ranch was quite a nugget.
More than likely she told a friend, who told another friend, who knew someone who works for one of the tabloids.
She wouldn’t have intentionally sent a stranger with a camera to our back door. ”
Sawyer hung his arms over the top rail of the fence as they watched the horses graze in the pasture. It was a pastime they’d adopted when he and Cash had moved to the ranch. The women did their wine and cheese; he and his cousins watched the livestock and pretended to be masters of their domain.
“Could you talk to her, express how important it is that she not tell anybody else?”
“Yup.”
“What did you do with the camera guy?”
“Cited him for trespassing, gave him a stern lecture about how lucky he was that he didn’t get his ass shot off, and sent him on his way. He whined about getting his memory card back. I ignored him.”
“What do we do about the gate?” Cash held out a slice of apple to Ellie’s horse, Sunflower. “I figure these paparazzi guys are like cattle, they travel in herds. We can keep it closed but that won’t help Aubrey and Charlie’s business.”
“I say we keep it open for now.” Sawyer didn’t think the gate would keep out a determined reporter or photographer anyway. A fence never kept him out.
“What about Gina? Did the dude freak her out?” Jace toed a clod of dirt with his boot.
“Nah, she took it pretty well. But if this becomes a bigger situation where there’s press camping outside her cabin she’ll have to relocate.”
Jace patted Sawyer’s back. “That’ll suck for you.”
Sawyer flipped his cousin off. The truth hurt.
He didn’t know how it had happened, but he’d done a complete 180 where Gina was concerned.
Cash, who pretended he wasn’t amused by Sawyer and Jace’s back-and-forth, said, “You have any luck with analyzing that picture?”
“I haven’t heard back from my photographer friend yet. How about you? Have you gotten in touch with your FBI friend about the email?”
“Yeah, I just made contact. He’s going to get to it when he can. I’ll give him at least a couple days before I harangue him again.”
Sawyer nodded. He couldn’t ask for anything more than that, though he was anxious to get to the bottom of the strange, anonymous note.
The sun had started setting, streaking the sky in a palate of reds, oranges, and blues.
There was nothing like a sunset on Dry Creek Ranch.
The three of them stared up at the sky for a while, each lost in its beauty.
It was times like this when the ranch stole his breath away.
He’d seen a lot of magnificent places—Amalfi Coast, Mt.
Fuji, Big Sur, Lake Louise, Pamukkale, Monteverde.
But nothing stirred him the way the land of his ancestors did.
His feelings for the ranch were deep and visceral.
The soil, the trees, the hills, the creek, it was in his blood.