The Billionaire Who Saved My Cat From The Mafia (Billionaires of Yosemite Ranch #5)

CHAPTER 1

Special K

Diego Guapo bends his head toward the ground, determined to munch on more cornflowers. I let my red roan stallion have his fun. He’s earned it.

We’ve been out for three hours already this morning, looking for the five head of cattle gone missing. I figure they’re probably doing the same thing we’re doing—enjoying the spring breeze as it flows through the valleys and ridges of Yosemite Ranch.

Can’t say that I blame them.

I tip my head back and close my eyes, feeling the sun’s warmth on my face as it filters down through the pine branches. I inhale the tangy scent of the earth coming alive after a long and brutal winter. The worst anyone can remember. It was a “Blizzard of the Century” kind of season.

We’re all glad to see it go.

This high up on Washoe Ridge, the only sounds I detect—other than DG’s crunching—are the calls of hawks and eagles, the rustle of wind through the evergreen needles, and the creeks flowing with melted snowpack.

I hear the squeak of my boots in the leather stirrups when I shift my weight in the saddle.

I’m in no hurry. In fact, if I could get away with it, I’d stay up here in the quiet for days. Weeks, even. Honestly, I’d prefer to live in this kind of quiet.

This kind of solitude.

For now, I’ll take whatever time I can manage away from the MacLaine compound. There’s too much going on in the residential center of the ranch. It’s too crowded these days. There’s enough happy excitement down there to pucker my sphincter and chap my ass.

Three of my brothers are already married and one is in the middle of wedding preparations. One is expecting a baby.

Cal has Victoria. Finn has Emma. Evander is planning his wedding to Phoebe, and they’re racing against the clock so that her sick father can see his only daughter walk down the aisle. Declan and Summer are parents-to-be.

I don’t even recognize my family anymore.

I’m off balance.

Disoriented.

And I don’t like that sensation. Not one damn bit.

I notice that DG has decided to sample a nearby patch of Lupine, which can be poisonous. “Cut it out,” I tell him, giving a quick tug on one rein. He tosses his head in complaint but goes back to the cornflowers.

DG lives up to his name. He’s a handsome devil, no doubt about it. He’s got an elegant head and a speckled strawberry-blond coat. He’s sixteen hands of solid muscle and possesses impeccable cow sense.

But the guy can be a total butthead sometimes.

Summer says that’s to be expected, since he’s male. She’s always saying shit like that, and I sometimes find myself missing her snarky comments.

Because even that part of life is out of balance now.

Summer’s the finest ranch worker we’ve ever had and my go-to companion for long days working cattle on the range. If things were normal, she’d be up here with me this morning, tracking down the missing head.

But things aren’t normal. She’s far enough along in her pregnancy that her doctor doesn’t want her working on horseback, especially chasing down strays at a full gallop the way she does. She’s restricted to calm trail rides on bomb-proof horses, which means that most days, I’m out here on my own.

I’m okay with that. These days, I seem to enjoy my own company even more than usual.

I think the solitude gives me time to put things in perspective. I don’t have to answer to anyone who asks about what I’m doing or where I’m going or what I’m thinking.

It gives me time to separate how others see me versus what I really am and what I really want. In other words, the more time I have in solitude, the more I can focus on reorienting myself and regaining my balance in a world gone batshit crazy.

I’m the youngest of the MacLaine boys. I’m thought of as the oddball outlier. Too quiet. Too grouchy. Too blond when everyone else has nearly-black hair.

The family still sees me as the baby, even though I’m bigger than every one of my brothers. Nobody even uses my actual name—Kevin—unless they’re giving me shit.

As the story goes, my parents weren’t expecting a fifth kid, and when I arrived as fair as my brothers were dark, my mother said I was her “special” gift. I’ve been known as Special K ever since.

My mother died when I was just nine, but the ridiculous nickname lives on.

I look around and take a deep breath. As tempted as I am to just fuck off and enjoy this early May morning, I know I can’t.

The five missing steers represent a significant investment and a precious Yosemite Ranch resource. We’re lucky that it’s been a successful calving season, since we lost seventy-two head of cattle during the winter’s record-breaking blizzard.

I don’t want to add to that tally.

I click my tongue to get DG’s attention and urge him on up the rocky eastern slope. From this elevation, I can look through the timberline and down onto our vast ranch holdings and the towering Sierra Nevada range just to the west.

I could stay if I wanted. The nights are warm enough to be comfortable with a small fire and my ranch coat as a blanket. There’s fresh water everywhere. Fish in the streams and lakes. All I’d need to do is leave word with my brothers.

Because I’m not in the mood to be the target of a Navy SEAL search-and-rescue mission. I can already picture the combination of men and machinery they’d send out to collect me. Helicopters and drones, ATVs, kayaks, and horses.

I smile to myself. The truth is, I can do whatever I want. So, I change my mind. I’m doing it.

No one will blame me for wanting to escape the family’s domestic upheaval to soak in the wild beauty up here. They’ll understand. I might as well put my oddball outsider reputation to good use.

I reach in my saddle bag. I’m about to remove my walkie-talkie to let Cal know not to dispatch the troops when I hear an odd noise.

I bring DG to a stop on the trail and listen. It’s the sound of knocking at uneven intervals, just at the top of the ridge. I cock my head to listen. It’s not a woodpecker. Not a beaver or the random cracking of a tree limb. It sounds like someone’s trying to chop wood.

Emphasis on the trying.

But that can’t be right.

There’s nothing and no one out here. No one to chop wood and no permission to chop it. Whatever’s going on and whoever’s doing it has got to go.

I nudge DG to continue up the trail toward the sound.

When I reach the summit and peer out from behind a stand of Ponderosa pine, I pull back in surprise. There’s a woman standing in front of one of the old, ramshackle cabins that dot our property. I have to blink a few times to make sense of what I’m seeing.

She’s tall, with a knockout body and shiny blond hair to her shoulders. She’s wearing a crazy-assed getup. White vinyl go-go boots that go to her mid-thigh, short shorts that leave nothing to the imagination, and a halter top that’s defying the laws of physics to hold up those spectacular tits.

And while dressed like this, she’s wielding an axe like it’s a five-iron on the golf course.

I rub my eyes, half believing I’m having some kind of psychotic break. Maybe spending so much time on my own has caused me to hallucinate.

Hallucinating has to be the answer. Because there’s no reality where a woman in a halter top and go-go boots is hacking up wood on a mountaintop in the middle of nowhere.

Sure, I’ve had a few dreams similar to this scenario, but I’m wide awake at the moment.

And I’m not the hallucinating type.

Which means the woman is real. So who the fuck is she?

What the fuck am I even looking at?

DG is just as confused. He tosses his head, snorts, and paws at the ground. This causes the axe-wielder to look up, startled. Her blue eyes go huge. She holds the axe in front of her in a defensive posture and slowly backs away, never taking her eyes from my face.

“Get back!” she yells. “I know how to use this!”

I almost laugh. But I laugh about as much as I hallucinate.

“I have to disagree,” I say.

“I’ll kick you in the balls, then! Trust me when I tell you that I’m an expert at that form of self-defense.”

I walk DG closer, dismount, and throw the reins over a low pine branch. “This is private property.

“You’re damn right—it’s my private property!” She’s breathing heavily. I try not to focus my gaze on the rise and fall of her breasts or the way the muscles of her flat belly ripple. “And if you value your private parts, you’ll get back on your horse and get the fuck out of my space.”