Chapter 20
That evening, Sawyer was sitting on Jace’s front porch, drinking a beer, when they saw a yellow Lamborghini coming up the road.
“Who the hell’s that?” Jace looked at his watch. “Too late to be one of Charlie’s customers. Besides, she’s at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. And Aubrey’s still in San Francisco with Cash.”
Sawyer took another swig from his bottle. “Sweet ride.”
Jace hitched his shoulders. “Kind of douchey, if you ask me.”
Yeah, Sawyer could see that. The car was a little loud. And the driver was stirring up enough dust to choke every living thing on the ranch.
Jace got to his feet and stood at the railing, shielding his eyes against the sun. “We should probably start locking the gate in the evening.”
Sawyer nodded and finished his beer as they both watched the sports car wend its way up the road to the ranch house. Brakes screeched when the driver spotted them and the passenger-side window came down.
“You lost?” Jace hollered.
“Not sure. I’m looking for Gina DeRose. She’s staying on the Dry Creek Ranch. That’s what the gate said off Dry Creek Road. Is there a resort around here by the same name?”
Sawyer and Jace exchanged glances, then Jace said, “Nope.”
The guy sat there, waiting for Jace to say more, but he didn’t. Sawyer smothered a laugh. His cousin could be a real son of a gun.
“Then this is the only Dry Creek Ranch?” the driver finally said.
“Yep.”
When it was clear it was all he was going to get, the man got out of his car and approached the porch. That’s when Sawyer got a good look and instantly recognized him. Medium height, medium build, medium shoe size.
It had probably not been his dick in the picture.
“Is this where Gina DeRose is staying?” Danny Clay flipped up his designer sunglasses.
Jace started to respond but Sawyer stuck out his arm.
“Why do you want to know?” Sawyer asked.
That seemed to throw their uninvited guest off. “I have business with her.”
“No, you don’t. Want to try again?”
Danny appeared flummoxed. “Are you a friend of Gina’s?”
“Yes, and you’re on private property.”
“I need to talk to her. It’s imperative.”
“Okay. Tell me what you’ve got to say and I’ll pass the information along.”
“It’s of a personal nature.” Danny squinted up at Sawyer with the sun in his eyes.
“Sorry, that’s the best I can do.”
Danny took a look around, first at the house. Then he turned in a circle, taking in the pasture, the horse barn, and the mountain range in the distance. “What is this place?”
“Cattle ranch.”
“Is there a hotel around here?”
“A few,” Sawyer said. “Want directions?”
“Not until I talk to Gina.”
“We already went over that.” Sawyer leaned against the rail, crossing his arms over his chest. “Who told you she was here?”
Danny contemplated the question, giving Sawyer the sense he was deliberating on how much information to disclose. “A tabloid photographer. He said he’d been here and that a couple of cowboys roughed him up. At the time I thought he was using the term cowboy figuratively.”
“Nope,” Jace said.
“Are you friends with this photographer?”
Danny gave a mirthless laugh. “No, my wife—soon to be ex-wife—is.”
That caught Sawyer’s attention. “And she sent him here to take pictures of Gina?”
“That’s what I need to talk to her about.”
Sawyer had absolutely no reason to believe him.
If the rumors were correct, Danny was a vindictive son of a bitch, who’d had no qualms destroying Gina’s career just so he could get even with his wife.
But something about the defeated way he was standing there, like a boy who’d just lost his dog, made Sawyer willing to listen to the man’s story.
Then he could kick Danny’s ass all the way back to Los Angeles.
“Why don’t you come up on the porch, have a cold one, and tell me what this business is you have with Gina?”
“You’re not going to tell me where she is, are you?”
“Not in this lifetime, buddy.”
Jace went inside the house, brought out a couple more beers, and pulled over one of the rocking chairs. “Take a load off,” he told Danny, using his sheriff’s voice, which pretty much translated to “Sit your ass down.”
Danny hesitated at first, pacing in front of his car. But when the realization finally sunk in that this was his best—and only—option, he reluctantly climbed the stairs. “I would really rather say what I have to say to Gina herself.”
“We got that, Danny.”
Danny hadn’t registered even an iota of surprise that Sawyer had used his name.
Fucking famous people.
If he’d come to confess and apologize, it was best that it went through Sawyer. He would only beat Danny up. Gina would kill him.
Jace handed him one of the brews and motioned to the rocker.
Danny kept looking around as if he’d driven to the ends of the earth and now it was about to swallow him whole.
He had trouble getting the cap off his beer.
Jace took the bottle from him, placed the edge of the cap on the top of the porch railing, held the neck, and slammed the bottle down until it popped off.
“Here you go.”
The Daltons weren’t anything if they weren’t hospitable.
Sawyer didn’t push. He’d learned from being a reporter that silence was the best way to get someone to talk. Long spells of quiet made people uncomfortable so much so that they filled the gaps by spilling their guts.
So the three of them just sat there for a while, staring off into the distance.
It was a beautiful evening. Warm, but not hot.
Jace had lit one of those bug candles from Charlie’s shop to keep the mosquitos away.
The sun was still another few hours away from setting, leaving the sky a cloudless dark blue and the fields bathed in sunlight.
“You mind if I use your bathroom? The last time I stopped was Harris Ranch.”
“Sure,” Jace said. “Inside, through the hallway to the right.”
“You want me to take a walk?” Jace asked when Danny was gone.
“You can stick around. The asshole’s going to confess to making up the whole bullshit story about him and Gina as part of a warped plot to get back at his wife for divorcing him.”
“And you know this how?”
“I don’t for sure, but that’s what I suspect is going to happen. If he does, I’d like you to be here. You’ll make a good witness when my mom takes it public.”
Jace leaned back in his chair, propping his boots on the railing. “Then Gina will be able to go home…resume her life.” He looked at Sawyer and bobbed his chin. “You going to be okay with that?”
“Yep.”
“Liar.”
“Of the worse kind.”
Jace chuckled. “You try asking her to stay?”
“In a roundabout way.” He blew out a breath.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I told her she should open a restaurant on the ranch…be our anchor.”
Jace let out a whistle and shook his head. “That sounds like a business proposition to me. Real romantic, asshole.”
Sawyer didn’t bother coming clean with Jace about telling Gina that he was falling for her. Why belabor his humiliation? “She can’t be Gina DeRose in Dry Creek Ranch, Jace. Her life is in Los Angeles. Her life is being on television.”
“So? Your life is traveling to the ends of the earth and writing stories about it. If you want her bad enough, you make it work.”
“That’s the thing, Jace. She’s a one-woman rodeo.”
Before Jace could respond, Danny came outside. He sagged into the rocking chair and took a long pull on his beer.
“My wife set us up.”
* * * *
For the second time that day, Danny told his story while Gina sat in Jace and Charlie’s living room, listening raptly.
At first, she hadn’t believed him. But he had a sworn statement from Candace’s assistant, who knew everything.
She’d been afraid of getting caught in the middle of the sham and had come clean to Danny.
Furthermore, Danny had managed to hack into Candace’s computer and had found that she’d been corresponding with a reporter from TMZ and had been the source of the pictures and the texts.
“Why me?” Gina asked. Of all the women to throw under the bus, why had Candace chosen Gina?
“She wanted everything you had,” Danny said.
“Jesus, if you could hear her whine about how you had used your father’s name to claw your way to the top.
She hated how FoodFlicks favored you over its other stars, how ChefAid had chosen you as brand ambassador because of your youth and beauty.
She called you a no-talent, convincing herself that your success was based on your connections and looks instead of merit.
Her jealousy of you kept her awake at night. It was sickening.”
Gina had been clueless about Candace’s animosity. Every interaction she’d ever had with the woman had been cordial, even friendly. Turns out, Candace Clay was a colossal phony.
As far as Gina’s success, it had been hard-won.
Her father’s name had certainly gotten her foot in the door.
She didn’t take that for granted. But if her ratings had fallen, FoodFlicks would’ve canceled her show without hesitation.
ChefAid had partnered with her because she was a trusted name in the business—her frozen food line and kitchenware were top sellers—not because an appliance company needed sex appeal to hawk stoves and dishwashers.
“Why you, then? Why the divorce?” It was a personal question that under ordinary circumstances Gina wouldn’t have dared asked. But because the divorce was the impetus for Candace to concoct Gina’s downfall, it seemed only fair that she get answers.
Danny’s expression grew sheepish as he fiddled with a loose thread on the hem of his polo shirt. “I wasn’t exactly an exemplary husband.” He paused as three pairs of searching eyes bore a hole through him. “Candace’s best friend and I have been carrying on an affair for years.”
Everyone knew that Candace’s best friend was Valerie DeWalt, whose cookbooks were legendary. Valerie was a regular fixture on the Clays’ TV show.
“Candace found out at Christmas. As soon as our divorce is final, Valerie and I are getting married. This is Candace’s payback.”