They were almost to the highway when Jake told Rhys, “I give him ten minutes before he hauls ass over to the Rock and River Ranch. Stupid kid.”
Whoo-wee, Sam hadn’t been kidding. The man had loads of tattoos.
“Hello,” Tawny called out, and watched the cook nearly hit his head on the top of the oven, he jumped so fast. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“No problem.” He straightened and Tawny could see that Sam had been right about another thing. The Lumber Baron’s chef was indeed one fine specimen of a man. About six feet tall; thick, wavy brown hair; and hazel eyes.
“I just came by to bring this back”—she handed him the casserole dish—“and to thank you for the delicious gratin.”
“You must be Tawny.” He shut the oven door, gestured for her to take a seat at the center island, and poured her a cup of coffee. Apparently she was staying. “How’s your little girl?”
“She’s doing okay. Thanks for asking . . . Brady, right?”
“Yep.” He came around to where she was sitting. “Nice boots. I hear you make them.”
“Mm-hmm.” She gazed around the kitchen. “I’ve never been back here before, just the public rooms. It’s nice.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s fantastic. Best kitchen I’ve ever worked in. Not as big, or as high-tech, but really functional.”
“Yeah, I’m not much of a cook, so I wouldn’t know.”
“What kind of stuff do you make?” he asked, and she laughed.
“Mac and cheese from a box, Hamburger Helper . . . like that.”
He made a face. “Wow. That’s terrible.”
“Not the best,” she admitted. “My daughter seems to like it, though.”
“I guess I kind of liked it too when I was a kid. Now, not so much.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing you can cook.”
“Anyone can cook,” he said. “But not everyone can make boots like that. Let me get a look at those up close.” Brady went down on his haunches to check them out.
Day of the Dead boots. A little wild, but Tawny liked them.
“Nice,” he said, examining the hand-tooled, brightly colored masks that covered the shaft of each boot. “How long does it take you to do something like this?”
“These took six months, but they’re pretty detailed. Most boots take five months or less, depending on the design.”
“That’s a lot of time.”
“Everything’s made by hand. So how you liking Nugget so far?”
“I like it pretty well.” He got up, walked to the big industrial stove, put a slice of quiche on a plate, and slid it in front of Tawny along with a fork. It smelled too good to pass up, so she dug in. “Nice folks. A little on the gossipy side, though.”
“Get used to it. It’s Nugget’s favorite pastime. But for the most part, people mean well.”
“A couple of the ladies asked me to join their cooking group, the Baker’s Dozen. I don’t know. You think it’s weird?”
“Why would it be weird? You like to cook, right?”
“A: They’re all women. B: Most of them are old enough to be my mother. C: They spend more time talking about Clay McCreedy than they do about cooking. What is it with that guy?”
Tawny had to keep from giggling. “He was a navy fighter pilot and a war hero. But mostly they’re just obsessed with him. Now that he’s married, they’ll probably find someone else to lust after.”
“He’s married to Emily,” he said, and shook his head. “She’s in the group. They talk about him like she’s not even there.”
“I know.” She finished the quiche and before she could stop him, Brady put another slice on her plate. “They’re funny that way. But harmless.”
He leaned against the island. “Why don’t you join?”
“Uh . . . I thought we went over the fact that I don’t cook. Besides, I’m sort of overwhelmed these days.”
“I can see that. It’s gotta be tough with your daughter being so sick.”
“Katie’s dad and her grandmother are a big help.”
“Lucky, huh?” Brady bobbed his head.
“Mm-hmm. He says you’ll be doing the catering at the cowboy camp for Lumber Baron events?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Where’s your accent from?” Tawny thought it was nice. Not like her dad’s Oklahoma accent, which was more guttural but also nice. This one was lower in the throat, looser and more musical.
“South Carolina,” he said. “I grew up in the sticks but cooked in Charleston. Where are you from? I hear a hint of something that’s not California.”
“Here. Born and raised. My father’s people were from Oklahoma, so maybe that’s what you’re hearing. But to tell you the truth, this is a lot of the way we talk here.”
“Unfortunately, my idea of a California accent is the Valley girl thing. Drove me nuts when I worked in LA.”
She laughed. Brady was fun and funny and attractive . . . and not Lucky. How screwed up was that? So screwed up that when Raylene Rosser wandered into the kitchen in a pair of cut-off jean shorts, Tawny wanted to scratch her eyes out. It was October, for God’s sake. In a couple of weeks they could have snow.
“Hi.” Raylene scanned the room and let her eyes fall on Tawny, then summarily ignored her. “Do you know where Samantha Dunsbury-Breyer is? I’m supposed to be meeting with her.”
“You check her office?” Brady asked, and Tawny had to give him credit for not gawking at Raylene’s mile-long legs.
“The guy at the front desk did. He said to check back here.”
“That would be Andy,” Brady said, and let out a sigh. Apparently he didn’t think too highly of the reservationist. “It’s not like Sam to miss a meeting. Let me make a few calls.”
While Brady got on the phone, Raylene stood awkwardly to the side. “How are you, Thelma? It’s been a long time.”
Well, knock me over with a feather.
“Yes, it has. I’m good. Thanks for asking. How are you?”
“You’ve probably heard that I’m going through a bad divorce. Butch cheated on me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tawny said, and felt like a heel for being disingenuous. “Are you planning an event at the inn?”
“A few friends are coming from Denver. I wanted to book a block of rooms.”
Tawny wondered why they wouldn’t stay at the Rock and River. “That sounds nice.”
“I met Katie yesterday.” Raylene tugged down her top, which was showing a sliver of midriff. “Lucky took us to lunch. She’s a nice little girl. I’m so sorry she’s sick.”
Uh-oh. If Raylene kept it up, Tawny might have to like her. “I appreciate it.”
“Raylene?” Sam came rushing into the kitchen, carrying her jacket and briefcase. “I am so sorry. Our plane got detained on the runway in San Francisco. Fog. I tried to reach you, but your phone kept sending me to voice mail.”
“I left it at Lucky’s the other night,” Raylene said. “That’s okay. You’re not that late.”
“Let’s go in my office and see what I’ve got open on that date.” On her way out she waved at Tawny and mouthed
Sorry
.
“I’ll catch you on my way out,” Tawny told her.
After they left, Brady said, “So that’s Raylene Rosser?”
“Yep. I’m impressed. You didn’t even ogle her.”
He chuckled. “She looks like every other blonde chick channeling Daisy Duke in Los Angeles. Seen one, seen them all.”
Refreshing
, Tawny thought. “I’m guessing that you’ve heard a lot about her?”
“She’s a mythical figure in this town. Cheerleader, homecoming queen, rodeo queen. Although to hear it from Donna Thurston, the woman has turned a little
Girls Gone Wild
. Supposedly, she made quite a scene at the Gas and Go the other night. Donna is chalking it up to the fact, and I quote, ‘that her no-good husband screwed her best friend.’ ”
Now Raylene gets to screw Lucky. Tough life.
“Yeah, poor Raylene Rosser.”
“Don’t like her much, huh?”
“When we were kids she wasn’t the nicest—a bully, really. But everyone thought she was so wonderful—girl most likely to succeed and all that. Today she seemed decent, though. Perhaps she’s changed.”
“There’s always that possibility,” Brady said. “Why’d she call you Thelma?”
“That’s my real name. I changed it for my business. You can’t make cowboy boots for the stars with a name like Thelma.”
Before Brady could respond, Maddy brushed into the kitchen holding Emma. She was officially back from maternity leave. Tawny knew that Cecilia had volunteered a few times to take Emma while Maddy and Rhys continued searching for a nanny or full-time babysitter.
“You guys hear the news?” she asked, her brows knitted. “Lucky just got arrested.”
Chapter 9
“I
can’t believe you,” Tawny said in a hushed voice, and Lucky knew that she wished she could scream at him. But Katie was in the next room. “After Jake tells you to stay away from Ray Rosser, what do you do? What the hell, Lucky? How long do you think it’ll take before Katie hears about this at school?”
Lucky leaned back on the couch and put his foot up on his mother’s coffee table. “Just relax, would you? The asshole had it coming—accusing me of being a drug dealer.”
“I noticed Raylene was quick to run home—to Daddy.”
“She went home to defuse the situation and to let him know that he can’t come between us again.”
“You’re just very lucky that Jake is on your side. Otherwise this could’ve turned out a lot worse. And if I know Ray Rosser it’s not over yet. Lucky, you need to be focusing on our daughter. You can’t be a donor if you’re in jail.”
“Tawny, honey, sit down. All that pacing is driving me up the wall.” He checked out her jeans. They were tighter than usual with white stitching up the sides. “Raylene said she saw you at the Lumber Baron, hanging out with Brady.”
“I was returning his gratin dish. Don’t try to change the subject.” She sat next to him.
For some reason it bothered him that she got herself all duded up to meet the Lumber Baron chef. She smelled good too, like that Stetson perfume in the magazines.
“It’s gonna be fine, Tawny. Hell, all I did was yell at him.”
“You trespassed on his property and in front of his ranch staff called him a child abuser and a wife beater. Jesus, Lucky.”
“Shush.” He held his finger to his mouth. “They’re in the kitchen, probably hearing every word we’re saying. My ma doesn’t like swearing.”
“As soon as Katie and I leave, your mother is going to kill you. I’m just sad I can’t watch.”
“When did you get so dramatic? And bossy? You used to be so sweet—and quiet.”
He saw Tawny try to contain a smile. “Will you promise to stay out of trouble?” she asked. “At least until we know whether you’re a match. Then you can do whatever the hell you want. Trespass. Get in people’s faces. Accuse them of horrible crimes.”
“I promise.” When she looked at him dubiously, he held up his hands, palms up. “I swear. It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have gone over there.” And Ray Rosser shouldn’t have been allowed to treat his family the way he had. Not Raylene or her mother. Why either of them still lived with him was a mystery.
“I’m going home now.” Tawny got up from the couch, but he pulled her down.
“Stay for dinner.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I’ve got tons of work to do.”
“You’ve gotta eat, Tawny. Ma made chile relleno. You haven’t lived until you’ve had her chile relleno.”
“Katie can stay without me. Just bring her home after dinner.” She started to get up again, but he wrapped his hand around her arm.
“Just stay. Today was a crappy day. You make it better.”
She stared into Lucky’s face like she was trying to figure him out, and in a reconciled voice said, “Fine.”
They sat for a few minutes in companionable silence. “Did you like Brady?” he finally asked.
“He’s nice.” She said it so neutrally that Lucky couldn’t get a read on her.
“You ever remember that night we were together?”
“Yes,” she said so quietly he could barely hear her. “You were drunk.”
“I wasn’t an asshole or anything, was I?”
“No.”
“That’s all?
No
.”
“What do you want me to say? We had sex behind a swing set while you cried over Raylene.”
“I didn’t cry,” he said.
“You may as well have.”
“Were you, like, into me?” Because why else would a seventeen-year-old virgin have sex with him? According to his mom, she’d had a crush on him.
“Wasn’t every girl?” Her way of saying
you conceited jackass
.
“I remember you being nice.” Maybe the nicest anyone besides his mother had ever been to him. “And really smart. You’re the one who came up with the plan of how I should rack up enough wins riding the circuit to get noticed by the PBR. It changed my life.” Lucky paused. “Were you in love with that park ranger guy?”
She seemed to be contemplating the question. “I think so.”
“He should’ve stuck by you then.”
“Like you have with Raylene?”
He let out an audible breath. “No question, she’s my crack cocaine. I think the first time I saw her I fell in love with her. Even out on the road I thought about her a lot. I wanted to hate her when she married Butch, but I couldn’t.”
“So what’s his deal?” Tawny asked.
“Butch?” Lucky shrugged. “I don’t know anything about him other than he’s a cheating piece of crap. And a cheap bastard who won’t give Raylene her fair share.”
“According to Raylene, that is.”
Lucky pushed a wisp of hair that had come loose from Tawny’s ponytail behind her ear. “I know you don’t like her. I know things were tough for you as a kid, with your dad sick. And there she was, looking like she had everything. But you don’t know what it was like for her growing up in that house. Ray Rosser treated her mother like dirt, he treated his employees even worse than dirt, and he put so much pressure on Raylene to be his showcase daughter that he broke her.”
“You ever think that you might have a hero complex?” Tawny asked.
“Doesn’t every guy? For the sake of Katie and me, you think you can give her a chance?”
Tawny slowly nodded her head. “She was nice today, I’ll give her that. It was a little creepy.”
Lucky leaned his head back and laughed. “When she wants to, she can be a real sweetheart. She liked Katie a lot.”
“What do you think she’ll tell Ray?”
“That we’re together and there’s no way he’ll be able to pull us apart. If he gives her a hard time, she’s planning to move in with me. I’ve gotta get out of that damned trailer.”
“You think there’s a chance Ray’s telling the truth about some of your crew dealing drugs?”
“I don’t know. But Ray made it sound like I’m running a drug operation from my ranch. And that’s a load of crap.”
“What do you think set him off?”
“I don’t think it has anything to do with you or Katie, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s pissed about Raylene and me. Everyone in town has seen us together and it’s put him over the edge.”
“What about Raylene’s mom?” Tawny asked.
“She’s so afraid of Ray, she’ll go along with anything he does or says. Ten years ago the woman was a total knockout. Now she looks like she’s aged fifty years.”
“Just stay away from him, okay?”
“I said I would.”
“You also told Jake you would, and look how well that worked out.”
The woman was a bit of a ballbuster, but Lucky liked her loyalty. Of course her top priority in this was Katie—as it should be—but Lucky got the sense that she was looking out for him too. Under different circumstances he could see himself being attracted to Tawny Wade.
After dinner, Lucky went home and got a good night’s sleep. But by seven in the morning someone was pounding on his door. Raylene, he figured. Without bothering to get dressed, he marched to the front of the single-wide to let her in.
Jake pushed passed Lucky. “Ray wasn’t lying.”
“What are you talking about?”
“People have been coming and going all morning. I’ve had the place under surveillance since five, when your crew first got to work.”
Lucky, a few inches shy of Jake’s height, got up in his face. “You’ve been spying on my ranch?”
Jake stepped away to gain some distance. “I went to the mat for you yesterday—for Cecilia. Now I want to know what the hell is going on here. So cut the attitude and get dressed.”
Lucky went into his bedroom and threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. When he came back out, Jake had brewed a pot of coffee.
Jake poured them both mugs and said, “It looks to me like either you’re involved in something you shouldn’t be or you’ve got a real problem on your hands.”
“Why don’t you start by telling me what you saw this morning?” Lucky hooked one of the dinette chairs with his foot, pulled it away from the table, and sat.
Jake joined him, but continued to scrutinize him like they were in an interrogation room. “Any of these look familiar?” Jake pulled out his phone and started showing Lucky pictures of cars, zooming in on each one’s license plate.
“I don’t know.” Lucky shoved his hand through his hair. “There’s a lot of people in the crew. I don’t pay attention to what they’re driving, especially not their license numbers.”
“Well, if they’re working for you, you’re paying them too much. They were in and out of here in less than five minutes.” Jake cued up another picture. “You know this guy?”
“That’s my foreman, John.”
“What about him?” Jake showed him another photo of a man leaning into the window of a pickup truck.
“It’s difficult to tell from the picture, but it looks like Gus. He’s been mending fences on the property.”
“By my count, six different vehicles came up your driveway this morning, only to turn around and leave. Each time, one of these guys stuck his head in one of their windows. So either you’ve got yourself some Walmart greeters, or these guys are doing some quick transactions.”
“Maybe the drivers were just lost and John and Gus were giving them directions.”
“Six of them lost? Yeah, and I’m the tooth fairy. I plan on running these plates. But, Lucky, if you have something to do with this, now is the time to come clean.”
“What are you saying, Jake? That you think I’m running a dope operation out of the cowboy camp? Why the hell would I do that?”
“You tell me. But usually it’s the universal reason. Money!”
“I don’t need money,” Lucky said.
Jake flipped his gaze around the single-wide. “No?”
“No. And if I did, that’s not the way I’d get it.” Lucky got to his feet and paced the small kitchen area. “What kind of drugs do you think they’re selling?”
Jake watched him for a few seconds. “There’s a lot of meth up here, pot, maybe cocaine. I wasn’t close enough to see if anything exchanged hands. And this”—he held up his phone—“doesn’t have a strong enough zoom lens.”
Lucky continued to pace. “Shit. What do I do, fire these guys just on the suspicion that they’re up to no good?”
“No. You let us run a small sting operation on the ranch. We get a couple of guys pretending to be buyers.”
“Right.” Lucky laughed. “Because John and Gus and God knows who else won’t recognize you, Rhys, or Wyatt.”
“We’ll use people from Plumas County Sheriff.”
“Ah, crap.” Lucky tilted his head back. “This is so messed up. I should’ve just gone with Pat Donnelly’s crew.”
“Why didn’t you? He’s the go-to guy for construction projects around here. Trustworthy as hell.”
“Because these guys were cheap—and supposedly fast. What’ll happen to me, to my place, if it turns out that they’re dealing?”
“As long as you’re not involved, nothing,” Jake said. “But, Lucky, if you’ve got even a minor stake in this game, this won’t go well for you. Your reputation in this town will be shot.”
“I’m not involved, Jake. I swear to you.” A thought suddenly occurred to Lucky. “What about Katie? She’s supposed to come over today for a tour. I don’t want her here if the place isn’t safe.”
“Hold off a few days. Let me run these plates and talk to Rhys. I’d like to set something up in the next week or two.”
“I’d like to fire their asses,” Lucky said. “I don’t have time for this bullshit.”
Jake stood up and put a fatherly hold on Lucky’s shoulder. “If they’re dealing drugs in this community, we’d like to get them. This is our best opportunity, Lucky.”
“It’s a good opportunity for
you
. For me, it’ll be the worst kind of publicity. I’d rather just be rid of these yahoos and hire Donnelly. He’ll put Colin Burke in charge and I won’t have to worry about drug deals going down on my property.”
“Obviously, we can’t force you to employ people you don’t want to employ,” Jake said. “But Ray Rosser is shooting off his mouth. You suddenly fire a bunch of people and it’ll look suspect, Lucky. Like maybe you had something to cover up. We take these guys down with your help and you’ll look like a hero.”
“I don’t want to be a hero. I just want to get this damn project off the ground. I want my daughter to be able to visit without having to worry about criminal activity on my land. And if these people are dealing drugs right under my nose, who knows what else they’re doing? I’ve got hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of livestock on this ranch.”
“Give us two weeks. I think we can take them down fast—and quietly. In the meantime, we’ll watch your place twenty-four-seven.”
Lucky let out a breath, unable to believe he was even considering letting the police do a sting. “So how would it work? These sheriff’s deputies would pretend to be buyers?”
“The less you know about it the better. Just stick to your regular routine and let us handle it. Before you know it, it’ll be over. But, Lucky,” Jake said, “you can’t tell anyone. One person knows and the whole operation is shot. That means definitely not Raylene. Not even Tawny.”
“I won’t tell them,” Lucky said.
“No one. Not even your most trusted employee. It would not only blow the operation, but it could put our people in danger.”
“I’ve got it, Jake. Unlike the rest of this town, I know how to keep my mouth shut. So what do I do? Just continue with the construction like everything is hunky-dory?”
“That’s exactly what you do. At some point we might pull you in, but for now you go on like it’s just another day. The last thing we want to do is arouse these guys’ suspicions.”
Tawny wandered into the living room, wrapped in nothing but a towel, to find Lucky lounging on her ratty recliner. She dashed back into her bedroom and yelled from the door, “A little warning next time.”