Kitabı oku: «Charm School For Cowboys»

Chapter One

“I wouldn’t date you if you were the last man in Texas, Hank Timber!”

Jake Morrow glanced up in time to see Fern, a neighboring rancher who’d dropped off the four billy goats he’d purchased for the Full Circle Ranch, scowling at his foreman. Fern stomped to her truck and sped off, dust and gravel flying in her wake.

Hank didn’t even bother waving away the dirt and grit that now covered him. He shoved his hands in his pockets, his expression forlorn as Jake approached.

“Didn’t go so well, huh?” Jake asked his foreman. Hank, twice divorced, had mentioned at breakfast this morning that he thought Fern was “darn pretty and had a way about her” and planned to ask her out to dinner at Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen, everyone’s favorite restaurant in Blue Gulch.

Hank sighed. “I thought that rancher to rancher, I could ask her out by joking that we already had something in common—how we’d both stink of cow dung while chowing down on supper. Then I sniffed around her and nodded and laughed. Instead of saying yes to a date tonight, she got all mad.” He shrugged, watching Fern’s truck disappear down the Full Circle’s long dirt drive.

Jake refrained from slamming his palm against his forehead. At this rate, Hank would be single forever. Of the four cowboys working for Jake at the Full Circle Ranch, his foreman wasn’t even the most clueless when it came to women. No, Jake would say it was a four-way tie. Forty-two-year-old Hank had been in love with Fern since he laid eyes on her a month ago while listening to her presentation on calving season at the local rancher’s association meeting. Twenty-five-year-old Golden, who’d earned the nickname from the motto about silence, was so shy and quiet he turned away any time the young woman he had a mad crush on, a Hurley’s waitress, was around. Fifty-two-year-old Grizzle, who hadn’t shaved or had a haircut in years, maybe a decade, spoke wistfully of his late wife and how he wished he could find someone as special, but had scared a little girl at the feed store in town with just the sight of him. Then there was Jake’s own brother CJ, ten years his junior at twenty-two, who took full advantage of his good looks and ranch-honed muscles to play the field. CJ had left a trail of broken hearts and parents, older sisters, and bffs to storm up to Jake in town and let him know just what a “no-good lying player” his brother was. Charles John Morrow was a good guy, Jake knew that more than he knew just about anything, but when it came to love and romance, CJ was an absolute hot mess, a train wreck, as his neighbor’s teenage daughter would put it. CJ would just say, Well, what was I supposed to do? Propose? She just wasn’t the one. The Morrow brothers had been in Blue Gulch all of one month, and at least ten young women hadn’t been “the one.”

Jake couldn’t relate to all this hankering for “the one.” He’d been able to once, though. Five years ago he’d even gotten down on one knee and proposed with a skywriter spelling out the words in puffy white across the dusky sky. But his girlfriend Samantha wouldn’t say yes without certain conditions being met, difficult conditions that Jake had realized she was probably right about and so had tried to meet. Jake was adopted and had no knowledge of his medical history. Samantha didn’t feel comfortable starting a future, which would include children and a lifetime together, without knowing what was in that history. And so Jake, not quite comfortable with digging into a past he wasn’t all that interested in, had gone through his late parents’ documents, looking for information on the adoption agency that had handled his case so he could contact them.

What he’d found among those papers had shocked him.

Jake had a biological twin brother who’d been adopted by another family. The scrawled notation on a document didn’t say anything else.

A twin brother—out there in this world.

Jake had lain awake night after night, thinking about the twin, wondering if they were identical or fraternal. If they were similar despite being raised apart. His curiosity burned with a fundamental need to know more. And so five years ago, he’d written a brief letter to his birth mother, sent it to the adoption agency to be placed in his file, and put the search in motion.

CJ had freaked out. He’d only been seventeen then and they’d recently lost their parents; suddenly his older brother wanted to find his birth mother and twin. It had been too much for CJ. Samantha had thought that CJ was being a spoiled brat who would simply have to deal with it. Problem was, Jake had understood both sides. They’d both been right—CJ to feel...threatened, and Samantha to want to know how her future, how her children, might be affected by Jake. But after CJ had broken down one night, sobbing, unable to even speak, his grief, his fear speaking for itself, Jake had told Samantha now wasn’t the time for him to find his birth mother, that maybe in six months, he could broach it again with CJ.

Samantha had flipped. You’re putting CJ first, she’d shouted, pointing a long nail at his chest. The man I marry will put me first. She’d stormed out, and that was the last Jake had seen of her.

But his birth mother hadn’t responded to the letter anyway—until just two months ago. Out of the clear blue sky on a rainy March afternoon, he’d received a call from a private investigator in Blue Gulch about how his birth mother had read his letter five years ago, was sorry for the long delay and hoped to make contact. At first Jake had said he wasn’t interested and practically hung up on the investigator. But then his birth mother, Sarah Mack, had written him a short letter, assuring him that when he was ready she’d be there, and he’d been unable to stop thinking about her. Who she was, what the circumstances of his birth were, what she might know about his twin. And so he’d called Sarah Mack, who lived clear across Texas. Three meetings in Blue Gulch later, Jake had developed a real kinship with Sarah and with the quaint ranching town. And since Jake had been dealing with a bitter uncle who felt the Morrow family ranch should have passed on to him and was constantly filing lawsuits, Jake brought up the idea to CJ of just walking away and starting over in Blue Gulch; he’d seen a ranch for sale that had felt like home the minute he stepped on the land. CJ, who as usual had been dealing with an angry ex who liked to pass by with a rifle out her car window, had quietly agreed but had made it crystal clear that Jake’s birth family wasn’t a subject he wanted to talk about.

Sarah Mack had told him the only thing she knew about his twin was that they were fraternal. Thirty-two years ago, at a home for pregnant teenagers, she hadn’t been able to hold either baby, let alone see them, but she’d overheard a nurse comment on it. She didn’t know anything about who might have adopted him. There was nothing in the twins’ file to indicate he wanted to make contact, but Sarah had left her own information for him. Lately, the idea of finding his twin was consuming Jake to the point he couldn’t sleep at night.

Now he glanced over at CJ in the barn, his brother grinning while telling a dirty joke that had even shy Golden doubling over with laughter. Jake wasn’t sure if he should start the search on the down low or talk to CJ about it first. Since his brother had agreed to move to where his birth mother lived, where her family lived, CJ had to have come around somewhat. But something told him his brother wouldn’t be comfortable about Jake trying to make contact with his twin, even if CJ wasn’t that grieving seventeen-year-old kid anymore.

“Speaking of dinner tonight, who’s on duty to cook?” Jake asked Hank, gesturing at the other cowboys; CJ and Golden were checking on Frodo, the very old gelding Jake had rescued, while Golden cleaned up the barn for the night.

Hank pulled out the little notebook he carried everywhere. A folded up schedule of the month of May. “Tonight is CJ. Guess we’re having burned burgers and charred beans.”

Again. Except last night, on Golden’s turn, the burgers were mostly raw and the beans hard as a rock. “I need to find us a cook,” Jake said for the hundredth time. He’d put an ad in the local free weekly and stuck a notice up on the town green’s bulletin board, but none of the applicants were right for the job, and Jake wasn’t all that picky. Most had issues with the early morning breakfast hour, which was five sharp at the Full Circle, meaning arriving for work at four thirty before the birds were even awake. He’d added “live-in” to the ads, noting the job would come with room and board, but of the bunch who’d applied, two had turned up drunk for the interview and five had no cooking experience and couldn’t even tell Jake how to make scrambled eggs. The last applicant, a woman with real experience as a sauté cook in the steak house in town, broke into tears during the interview and confessed she didn’t really want the job—she only wanted to be close to CJ, who’d dumped her after two dates.

“Oh hell, I’ll cook tonight,” Jake said, craving a steak grilled just right, a baked potato with sour cream and chives, and cold, fresh salad with croutons and his favorite dressing, blue cheese. All that times five meant dinner would be a while, and he still had phone calls to return, invoices to pay and auction sites to look over for livestock.

He sent Hank to tell Golden, still a rookie, that he’d put Starlight’s saddle backward on its stand, then turned toward the house and the kitchen. He had a mind to sneak into Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen tomorrow and offer to pay any one of their cooks double their salary to come work for him. But then he wouldn’t be able to show his face there again, and he craved their po’boys too often for that. Plus, no one messed with Essie Hurley, who owned the place.

His phone buzzed with a text—from Fern, who’d sold him the goats earlier. That flock of sheep we talked about? I’m selling it to the LoneStar Ranch instead. Their foreman doesn’t tell me I smell like cow crap.

Oh hell, he thought for the millionth time, shaking his head.

* * *

Emma Hurley had been through a trying time or two in her twenty-six years, but nothing compared to locating one very handsome, slippery cowboy who clearly did not want to be found. Well, I finally did find you, Joshua Smith, and I’m coming whether you like it or not!

She’d been trying to track down the guy for six weeks now, ever since she’d discovered she was pregnant. Once the shock had worn off she was filled with a deep-down happiness about the baby, but she still wondered how on earth she could have been so careless to sleep with a stranger—a ridiculously good-looking, smooth-talking stranger who’d said all the right things, including that of course he would use a condom. The condom had torn, apparently. If Joshua had noticed, he hadn’t said anything. But maybe he had noticed. And maybe that was why he was gone without a word in the middle of the night, no note, no cell phone number, no nothing.

Once she knew she was pregnant, she tried to find him by asking around the rodeo circuit, where they’d met, but no one seemed to have heard of a rookie bull rider named Joshua Smith. Finally, another cowboy said he was pretty sure Joshua worked on a ranch in Blue Gulch, which had been a relief—Emma had family in that town, a great-aunt, Essie Hurley, who owned a popular restaurant, and three cousins. But after weeks in Blue Gulch, staying at Essie’s and working part-time at Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen when it was clear Essie didn’t need the help, Emma still hadn’t tracked Joshua down.

Until this morning—when she’d been waiting on her iced mocha at the coffee shop and overheard two men talking about the rodeo as they were walking out. She’d asked them if they knew of a cowboy named Joshua Smith and she’d expected the usual, “No, sorry.” But a funny look came over one of the men’s faces and he said, “Joshua Smith? Do you mean Tex? Bull rider, right?”

Emma had almost dropped the iced mocha the barista had handed her. Apparently, Joshua had recently gotten a job at the Full Circle ranch ten miles out of town and only went by Tex. He probably switched to his given name for women he wanted to seduce. Joshua Smith sounded like a man who’d be there in the morning; Tex, more like a good-time guy. Nevertheless. She’d found him!

Now, as she followed the directions her great-aunt had given her to the ranch, she thought about how easy it had been for Joshua—Tex—to fool her. The day she’d met him, back in late January, she’d had a whopper of an argument with her father, a CEO whose photo should appear beside the dictionary definition of the word controlling. Reginald Hurley was upset that she wouldn’t quit her job as a short-order cook in an all-night diner, a place she loved working, with coworkers she adored and a manager who liked coming up with funny names for the specials. You’ll never meet an appropriate man in a greasy spoon like that, Emma, her father always said. Let me get you a job at Le Vieux—it’s a four-star restaurant.

Emma had tried that already; after culinary school she’d worked in three fancy restaurants. In one, the chef screamed in her ear to the point she’d drop expensive cuts of meat. In another, the sous-chef would slap her on the butt everytime he passed her, then lied about her work performance when she reported him to the owner. In the final one, a customer had sent back his salmon three times; it wasn’t “just right” and he couldn’t explain why, and she’d been fired on the spot. The next day she’d seen the help-wanted sign in the diner, noticed that the cooks visible through the open area behind the counter were whistling and chatting away, and she’d gone right in. The manager liked to give awards to the staff to keep them happy. She’d won Best Burger, Best Flapjacks and Best Attitude on Busy Sunday Mornings.

She’d tried to explain to her father that she wasn’t necessarily looking for a man or a husband; she had a dream of becoming a personal chef but wanted more experience first and loved the diner, where she made comfort food and smiley face meals for kids. His response? Frankly, Emma, it’s embarrassing that you work in that dump. It’s bad enough you live in an apartment above a pizzeria. Come on.

After that argument, she’d taken herself to the rodeo to lose herself in an afternoon of watching hunky cowboys in action, only to be sweet-talked by the hunkiest about being true to herself and living her own life and no one else’s. She’d said yes to an impromptu invitation of dinner and slow dancing with the blue-eyed cowboy. They’d talked and talked and talked through dinner, looked deeply into each other’s eyes as they’d danced, and then they were holding hands and kissing their way to her hotel room, where she forgot everything that had been troubling her. When the dawn woke her up, her cowboy was gone and Emma had lain there wondering if she’d daydreamed the whole thing. Six weeks later, when a pink plus sign appeared in the home pregnancy test window, she knew she hadn’t.

Emma drove on, thinking about what she was going to say to Joshua. I just wanted you to know. I don’t expect anything from you. And she’d see what he said.

A few feet up on the left, near a big weeping willow, just like Aunt Essie—who Emma had confided in—said to look for, was a sign for the Full Circle Ranch. She turned and headed down the drive, tall oaks lining her path, the green canopy of leaves barely letting through the bright May sunshine, going strong close to six o’clock in the evening.

Up ahead she could see a stately house, almost a Colonial style with white pillars and a red door, the same red that matched the big barn behind it and another farther down. There were pastures as far as the eye could see, some containing bulls, some smaller areas with goats and sheep. Two cats were chasing after something flying low, a butterfly, maybe, until a black goat suddenly booked out of the barn, headed west. Suddenly, the cats flew behind the barn and the front door of the house opened.

A tall, dark-haired man in his early thirties, wearing a white apron and carrying a pair of silver tongs, rushed out, a cell phone to his ear, a piece of paper in his other hand. His gaze was on the runaway goat.

“Oh hell,” she heard him mutter as she pulled up. “No, not you, Anderson,” he said into the phone. “Yes, I want the three heifers. Friday’s fine.” He pocketed the phone. “CJ!” he called out.

Emma glanced around. A younger man, with a shock of glossy dark hair, came out of the house behind him.

“I’m texting Stella,” the younger guy said. “Can it wait?”

“Do you think Goatby can wait?” he asked, pointing at the goat halfway across the open field.

“Oh hell,” CJ said, and Emma had to smile. He’d said it just like the man in the apron had.

Emma stepped from the car, the scent of burned meat in the air. “Is something burning?” she asked the man. He was tall, at least six foot two, with dark brown hair and green eyes, and muscular and handsome in the way of the old Westerns her grandmother used to watch on TV when Emma was young. That combined with the apron and tongs made her smile.

“Oh hell!” he grumbled. He pivoted, but then turned toward the guy chasing the goat, then turned back toward the house. “I’ve got five steaks on the grill out back.” He threw up his hands, clearly torn between chasing after the goat and saving dinner.

She’d waited six weeks to tell Joshua that she was pregnant with his baby; she could wait another ten minutes to ask for him. “I’ll take care of the steaks. I’m a cook at Hurley’s. Go get Goatby.”

He stared at her, his eyes crinkling in confusion, and then he shook his head as if to clear it and raced after the younger guy and the goat. She could hear it bleating.

Emma followed the scent of the burning steaks into a large kitchen with gorgeous gray cabinets and stainless steel appliances, and then out through the open sliding glass doors to a patio that led to a big backyard. An orange cat was curled up under a shady tree, its eyes slitting open for a brief look at the visitor.

The steaks still smelled good, which meant they might be salvageable. If it’s one thing her great-aunt Essie had taught her: a good barbecue sauce could save just about anything.

She found another pair of tongs and turned the steaks. Was this a family dinner? She had no idea. Back inside the kitchen she peeked inside the oven and saw five potatoes baking in foil; a timer was ticking with two minutes to go. She gave one of the potatoes a gentle squeeze, then took off the foil and chucked it, brushed olive oil on the skins and set the timer for ten more minutes. There were the makings for salad on the counter. A head of romaine lettuce, a cucumber, two tomatoes. She opened the refrigerator and found a store-bought blue cheese dressing. She gave it a little taste. Not bad, but nothing compared to her aunt Essie’s homemade dressings.

By the time the oven timer dinged, she had the dining room table set for five, the salad tossed in a big silver bowl, and butter and sour cream and chives on a serving tray awaiting the potatoes. She headed out to the patio with a platter for the steaks. Perfect. The slight char on one side would just make them that much better. She found some sauces in the refrigerator and set them out too.

She heard voices and looked out the dining room window. The man in the apron and the younger guy were heading back with the goat. She smiled at Goatby, who looked quite pleased with himself and his little escapade. Three other men, of various ages and all in cowboy hats and jeans, were coming from one of the other barns.

She stepped outside. “Dinner’s on the table.”

The five men stopped and stared at her. The one in the apron said, “Dinner’s on the table?”

“Sure is,” she said. “Come see for yourselves. I wasn’t sure what y’all wanted to drink so I set out the beer and the pitcher of iced tea.”

He stared at her, then switched the tongs from his right hand to his left. “Jake Morrow,” he said, stretching out his right hand.

She shook it. “Emma Hurley.”

The men followed her into the dining room. She heard someone whisper, “She’s a Hurley, and all Hurleys can cook.”

“Hank,” Jake said, stopping in front of the table. “Do you see what I see or is this some kind of mirage?”

“Oh, I see it,” said the fortyish one with the thick red hair. “I don’t believe it, but I see it.”

The eldest one, with the wild gray-brown hair and beard, added, “Me too, Boss.”

Emma smiled at them. “Sit and eat before it all gets cold.”

They sat down, stared at the food for a moment, then grabbed at sauces and filled their glasses with beer or iced tea.

“Are you some kind of fairy godcook?” Jake asked, taking a bite of the steak. “I thought these were goners.”

She laughed. “Does wonders for my ego to hear.”

“Please, sit down,” Jake said to her. He went to the sidebar and got a plate, then cut his steak in half, split his potato and handed her the plate. “Least I can do.”

That sure was nice. “Thanks. I’m starving.”

“Hey, Jake, I thought you said no one had answered the ad for a cook since the last fake who was really one of CJ’s broken hearts,” said the eldest of the five men, the tall, large one with the unruly hair and beard.

CJ shot the older man a glare with his very blue eyes.

Jake took a bite of salad. “No one has.”

“Then where did this gorgeous creature come from?” CJ said, sliding a killer smile over to her.

She ignored the faux flattery and swiped her bite of potato in sour cream. “I’m staying with my great-aunt Essie—she owns Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen in town. Know of it?”

Jake smiled. “Know of it? We’re there half the week.”

“I work in the kitchen part-time,” she said, then took a sip of her iced tea. “But the reason I’m here is that I heard a cowboy named Joshua—Tex—works at the Full Circle. I’ve come to see him on personal business.”

Every one of the men stopped eating. Stopped talking. They looked at one another, then at her.

“Miss—ma’am,” Jake said. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but Tex had an accident about three weeks ago. He didn’t survive.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

She felt Jake’s hand on her shoulder. “Miss?”

She closed her eyes and put down her fork. “Oh.” That was all she could manage.

“Was Tex a friend of yours?” another of the men asked. “I’m Grizzle. We’re the crew here at the ranch,” he added, gesturing at the guys at the table. “We all became great buddies with Tex, even though we’d only been working here together for about a week when he died.”

“I’m Hank Timber,” said the redhead with a nod at her. “The foreman at the Full Circle.” He tilted his head and stared at her. “His death left us dumbstruck too back when it happened.”

“I’m pregnant with his baby,” she blurted out. Five set of eyes stared at her, a few open jaws. She hadn’t meant to say it, but it just came out. “I’ve been looking for him ever since I found out. We met at the rodeo in Stockton in January, but then...lost touch. When I found out I was pregnant, I tried to track him down but I only knew his given name.”

“Joshua Smith,” Jake said. He had a look of reverence in his expression that told her he’d gotten close to Joshua too. Based on how close she’d felt to the guy in one night, she could imagine how these men had felt after even just a week of working long days together on a ranch.

The cowboys ate quickly, then all nodded at her, said they were “real sorry for her loss,” and practically ran from the dining room, leaving her and Jake Morrow.

The foreman, Hank, came back. “Sorry for the baby’s loss too. That’s real sad.” Then he turned back and hurried from the room.

Jake turned to her, his green eyes full of sympathy. “I own the Full Circle. That was the entire crew, including my brother CJ. He’s the one who helped me bring back the goat. Tex—Joshua—was one of the hands and we all liked him a lot. He was an old soul and wise for his age, all of twenty-seven. Even though his nickname was Tex, Grizzle referred to him as Owl.”

She found herself unable to speak again. She hadn’t even been sure what to expect when she would finally lock eyes with Joshua again and tell him she was expecting his baby. She’d been pretty sure he’d run for the hills, disappear the way he had after their one great night together. But part of her thought he wouldn’t, that he’d at least say, “Okay, this baby is my responsibility, and I don’t duck out on that.” Of course, now she’d never know.

Jake stared at her for a moment. “He talked about you.” He seemed to be remembering something, then nodded. “One morning he was preoccupied, and that wasn’t Tex’s way. He finally told us he’d sneaked out on a woman in the middle of the night without leaving his name or a number and that he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He’d said if he’d been a settling down guy, he would have chosen that ‘smart, interesting woman with the honey-colored hair and the biggest blue eyes he’d ever seen.’ That was exactly how he put it.”

Emma did have honey-colored hair, or so Joshua had referred to it many times the night he’d run his fingers through it. And she did have big blue eyes, like her mother’s. So he must have been talking about her. She appreciated the “smart” and “interesting.” Plus the timing was right.

And now the rancher knew every detail of her failed romance with Joshua Smith.

“I’m very sorry,” Jake said again. He seemed about to say something, but then took a gulp of beer.

Now it was her turn to say “oh hell,” except the two words just kept echoing in her head. Along with Now what?

She didn’t want to leave. She still had her apartment a town over in Oak Creek, but her lease was ending this month anyway, and when she thought of Oak Creek she thought of her father and how he’d reacted when she told him she was pregnant, that she was keeping the baby and, yes, she knew who the father was but not where, exactly.

Oh for God’s sake, Emma, Reginald Hurley had said. Now you’ve really done it. A baby out of wedlock. What the hell will people think? He’d shaken his head, a few times for good measure, then had added, I’ll start a list of colleagues who might come to your rescue. Of course, most will be a bit lacking in some area or another to take on a pregnant woman. But they’ll all be solvent and ambitious. I’ll set up some dates for you and I’m sure you’ll hit it off with one of them.