Chapter 2
The place was a mess.
To call it a ranch was a stretch. The house was... It was damn near falling apart. The porch was sloping on one side. He didn’t want the place for its current assets, though.
He wanted it for the location.
This property was the best and only way for him to increase his spread, and that was what he needed to do. He wasn’t going to spend his life working on his father’s legacy.
He wasn’t his father.
And when that screen door opened, and Cricket came out, she looked like the feral pirate queen of a sinking ship.
She had a hat on over frizzy blond curls, and a tight white tank top and denim shorts. She also had on cowgirl boots. She was quite unintentionally the very image of a sexy, tousled cowgirl, and he knew that she hadn’t done that on purpose. Not at all.
Her legs were long, endless. Her curves were slight, but they were ripe. She had no makeup on her face, but she was damn pretty. Unique looking, that was for sure. But he liked her look, he found. At least, he had been liking it more and more lately, which he didn’t really care to dive into.
He wasn’t here to look. He was here to educate.
In such a way that she might realize the subject matter was not for her.
“Reporting for duty,” he said.
“Excellent,” she responded, grinning.
“So what is it you had in mind, because this is way more than a month’s worth of work, I can already tell.”
She looked immediately crestfallen and he had to wonder if she was going to make it easy for him. “Why? What do you see?”
“You’re liable to fall right through that porch if somebody doesn’t get in there and reinforce it. I have some concerns. Are you living in this heap?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s fine. I just avoid the saggy boards over there.”
“Cricket,” he said. “You’re about to slide through the whole damn thing.”
“I won’t.”
“Okay. Maybe you won’t, because you probably don’t weigh a buck and a quarter soaking wet. Somebody like me is going to fall right through.”
“Well, sounds basically like the equivalent of a cowboy moat to me. And I may be okay with that.”
“You got something against cowboys? Because it seems to me that you need one to get this place going.” He looked around and affected an expression he hoped looked something like overwhelmed.
He’d never been overwhelmed a day in his life.
“You might need more than one cowboy, realistically,” he added.
“Nothing against. Just don’t need one in my house.”
“I also suspect that isn’t true. Because I’m thinking you probably need some things fixed in there.”
She looked stubborn for a moment. But under that he could see...she was wary and he wasn’t sure why. He’d never given her a reason to be wary. “Well, maybe a few things. But I can call someone else out for that.”
“Why?” he asked. “You’ve got me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You know how to repair things?”
“I sure as hell do.”
“Well... All right. I’ll let you come take a look then.”
“Lead the way. Point out the mushy boards.”
He walked up the steps and through the front door, into the tiny, shabby entryway.
Cricket held her arms out. “Well, this is it.” She smiled. “What do you think? Just kidding. I don’t care.”
He looked around, turning in a circle. “It’s...something, Cricket.”
To tell the truth, the little farmhouse wasn’t so bad. It was worn with years, and a bit shabby, but it was definitely repairable.
What he couldn’t imagine was a girl like Cricket—who’d grown up in a monstrosity of a mansion that was doing a poor imitation of a Tuscan villa—settling into it.
“I thought so. It’s a ranch. I feel like... That’s what I feel like I want to do. Wine’s not really for me.”
“Yeah, I noticed you were never all that into any of the Maxfield events.”
But there was a lot of ground between not wanting to be part of the winery and wanting to run a ranch. She might not know it yet, but he did.
He’d spent years working the ranch at Cowboy Wines. Years. Pouring blood and sweat into his father’s land. His father’s legacy.
Until he’d found out the truth about Cash Cooper. And then he’d just...
He’d wanted his own.
Now, he still worked at the winery. He wouldn’t cause a rift. His mother wouldn’t have wanted that. She’d spent years working to make sure she kept the family together at the expense of her own happiness and he wouldn’t be the one to wreck that.
But he didn’t have to make his father’s life his own.
“No, I was really not,” she said. “And this has always been kind of my dream. So...”
“Why ranching?”
Her expression suddenly went shy, then sharp. “I don’t know. I feel like it’s in my blood. Which is weird, because my family doesn’t do it. Is that how you feel? Like ranching is in your blood?”
He shifted. Shrugged. “Can’t say as I know. It’s just something I do. I can’t see doing any different.”
“Yeah. That’s exactly it. Except, it wasn’t just right there for me, so I had to figure out what that meant. What it might mean for me that I dreamed about having my own little house out in the middle of... Well, just like this. A field all around. I want horses.”
“How are you going to make money? Are you breeding horses?”
“Well...”
“Cattle?” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “Dairy or meat? Have you thought about dealing with slaughtering cows? With getting to the nearest USDA station and the cost of it all?”
“I...”
“If you decide to do horses are you going to keep studs or have sperm brought in?”
“Well,” she sputtered again.
“Doing produce? More of a farm? Have you thought about CBD? That’s a growing industry.”
“The thing is,” she sputtered, her manner that of a wet hen. “I haven’t exactly decided. I don’t really know what I want to do with the place. But I kind of feel like until I get a bit more... Until I get it into shape, I’m not going to know.”
“I don’t know how that’s going to work,” he said, like he was honestly doing her a favor. The girl had no idea what she was getting herself into. She’d be in water five feet high and rising. Before she knew it, she’d be in over her pretty head.
This was practically a rescue mission.
Yeah, don’t go that far. You’re being a dick. Own it.
Sure, he’d own it.
Like he’d own this ranch in the end.
But Cricket suffered from the overconfidence of the young and inexperienced.
Jackson Cooper hadn’t been young or inexperienced for a long time.
The problem with someone like Cricket was she was sure she knew exactly what was happening, exactly what she was doing, and she was also certain no one could possibly know better than her.
“I mean, I’ll be honest,” she said. “I don’t know if I have the fortitude to do beef. But it seems to me that the overhead with horses is really high.”
“Horses are expensive. Getting into good ones... That’s pricey. But it might be more what you’re looking for. Breeding good horses.”
“Maybe that’s it.” That she seemed to be considering anything he said shocked him. “I’ll think about it. I’ll spend some time reading.” She sighed. “Fundamentally, I have time. This place is paid for. And I have some reserves.”
“From your dad’s estate?”
“Pretty much. I sold my stake in the winery. I wanted out. I wanted to...follow my own path, and I knew I wanted out. So... I sold my stake. I got some cash.”
“And you’re using me for slave labor.”
“Well, since I had the opportunity, that just seems like good business. Why pay for something when you can get it for free?”
“Let’s start with the house,” he said, walking from the little sitting room into the kitchen. There were spiderwebs in the corner. “Have you cleaned?”
“A little,” she said.
He said nothing, he just kept on looking. At the dust, the peeling paint.
She wrinkled her nose. “Okay. I’m not really used to doing any of my own cleaning.
I’m not opposed to it. There’s nothing wrong with being prepared.
It’s just... I haven’t really done it, so I don’t really think of everything.
And I hate that, because I don’t feel like I’m a spoiled rich girl, but I guess to an extent I am.
I feel like I can do all these things, but I never have.
It’s all based on... Well, basically nothing.
Just my feelings about the fact that I can do this. But that has to mean something. Right?”
Granted, he was here to try and give her advice. Advice that would discourage her from all this. The truth. He was here to give her the truth, but she was suddenly looking at him like he might contain the answers to the mysteries of the universe, and he had no idea why.
He didn’t like it either.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I do know that it is always a good time to learn to take care of your own damn self. So go get a broom and clear your cobwebs. I’m going to evaluate.
” He began to walk the perimeter of the room, making note of places where it felt like there might be water damage.
Right by the sink. He wasn’t surprised. It was an old farmhouse, and it was easy to believe it hadn’t been worked on at all, judging by the rest of the place.
He was surprised when Cricket did what he asked, and went into the small pantry, grabbed a broom and began to harass the spiders in the corners.
“Granted,” she said. “I can keep the spiders.”
“I would’ve thought you and spiders were natural enemies.”
“Why?”
“Don’t they eat crickets?”
She rolled her eyes. “Funny.”
Her name was just another thing that didn’t quite fit with the rest of the Maxfields. A name with bounce and humor. And he didn’t think anyone in her family had an ounce of either. “Why did they name you Cricket?”
“Why is your sister named Honey?”
“Well, that’s easy. Mom picked it, and my dad agreed because it was so sweet to finally have a girl.”
She frowned. “He sounds nice.”
That was the problem. Cash Cooper was nice. A good father in many ways. It would have been easier if he was an out-and-out asshole. He wasn’t. Jackson resented him plenty sometimes, carried a lot of anger toward him.