The Rancher's Wager Read online

  But Cricket wasn’t so different from her family that she would simply be able to step into ranching life. And he’d be right on hand to show her just how much work it was. He wouldn’t have to do anything. Wouldn’t have to sabotage her in any way.

  She just needed a dose of reality.

  And then she’d be willing to sell him that property.

  He’d bought his own ranch and transitioned from working the one at Cowboy Wines after his mother died. And yes, he had people who helped him, so they would cover the slack of him not being there.

  And that was the thing. Ranching never took time off. That was something he understood, and well.

  “Report for work first thing on Monday,” Cricket said. “And bring a sleeping bag. I don’t have any extra and the bunkhouse gets cold.”

  She did not shake his hand. Instead, she clamped down on that unlit cigar, scrunched up her nose, grabbed the brim of the black cowboy hat and tipped it.

  And right then, he vowed that no matter that Cricket had won the pot, he was going to win the whole damn thing.

  Whatever that looked like.

  * * *

  “You what?”

  Cricket looked at Emerson, keeping her expression as sanguine as possible. She wasn’t going to get into the details of any of this with her sisters. Not now. Not just yet.

  “Well, you would have known if you would have gone.”

  “I’m a whale,” Emerson said, gesturing to her nine-months-pregnant stomach. “And my ankles were so swollen, I couldn’t get my shoes on. So I didn’t go.”

  “And I didn’t tell her,” Wren said, grinning. “Because I wanted her to hear it directly from Cricket’s mouth.”

  “I won him in a poker game,” Cricket said. “I won him fair and square, and now he has to come work on my ranch.”

  Triumph surged through her again. Her plan was working out perfectly, and she had a handle on it. All of it.

  “Your ranch.”

  “And I won a pony,” Cricket said, grinning with glee. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Because,” Emerson said. “Jackson Cooper is a tool.”

  “So is Creed Cooper, but Wren married him.” Cricket’s teeth ground together as she said that. The whole thing with Wren and Creed had come as a shock, and like with all things Cooper-related, Cricket had kept that shock completely to herself, but she was still struggling with it a bit. “Come to that, your husband is kind of a tool,” Cricket said to Emerson. “Just not to you. Also, I’m not marrying Jackson, I’m just having him work for me. For free.”

  She was practiced at pretending she didn’t think much of Jackson. But this conversation pushed her thoughts in strange directions. Directions she’d been actively avoiding for months now.

  “All right, I have to hand it to you, it’s a little bit brilliant.”

  “I’m just happy to see you’re doing something,” Wren said. “Unfortunate double entendres aside. We’ve been worried about you.”

  “I know you have. For more than a year now. But you are both too afraid to say anything to me.”

  They didn’t know how to talk to her. That was the truth. They might never admit it, but Cricket knew it. Fair enough, she often didn’t know how to talk to them either.

  “We never know what’s going to make you run further and faster,” Emerson said. “I’m sorry. But you know... You’re not a little kid anymore. But I think it’s easy for us to think of you that way. There’s no reason for that.”

  “Glad to know that I’m finally getting a little respect.”

  “I did question your sanity when you asked to take on the ranch.”

  “It’s paid for. I mean, there’s definitely a lot of work to be done on it, but there was no reason to just let it sit there going to seed. And this is something I’ve always wanted. My own place. Wine isn’t my thing and it never has been. I know you’re shocked to hear that.”

  “Yeah, not so much,” Emerson said.

  “We’re just different,” Cricket said.

  Honestly, she and her sisters couldn’t be any more different if they tried. Emerson was curvy—though sporting an extra curve right now—and absolutely beautiful, like a bombshell. Wren was sleek and sophisticated. Cricket had always felt extremely out of place at Maxfield events. It was like her sisters just knew something. Innately. Like being beautiful was part of their intrinsic makeup in a way it would never be for Cricket. And she had never really cared about being beautiful, which was another thing that had made her feel like the cuckoo in the nest.

  So she just hadn’t tried. Emerson and Wren had. They’d tried so hard to earn Jameson Maxfield’s approval. Cricket had hidden instead. Had flown under the radar straight into obscurity.

  She could remember, far too clearly, asking her father about college four years ago.

  “You didn’t particularly apply yourself in school, did you?”

  “I...”

  “What would you want to do?”

  She’d been stumped by that. “I don’t know. I need to go so that I can figure it out...”

  “Emerson and Wren contributed to the winery with their degrees. Is that what you plan to do?”

  There had been no college for Cricket.

  She knew her dad could afford it. It wasn’t about the expense. It was about her value.

  Both of her parents had always been so distant to her. And it wasn’t until later that she’d started to understand why.

  Started to suspect she was not James Maxfield’s daughter...

  Well, the suspicion had made her feel like she made some sense. That her differences made sense. There were things that hurt about the idea, and badly. But she’d put those things in their place.

  She’d had no choice.

  “I appreciate it. I do.”

  “And whatever you think about our husbands,” Emerson said, “they’re both cowboys, and they would be happy to help you with the ranch.”

  “I know that. And when I’ve exhausted my free Cooper labor, I may take them up on it. But for now, I’ll solve my own problem.”

  “Well done, Cricket,” Emerson said, sounding slightly defeated. “I can’t even see my toes.”

  “You’re not supposed to,” Wren said.

  Wren’s baby was three months old now, and of course, her slim figure had already gone right back into place. But even slightly built Wren had been distressed about the size of her stomach at this stage in her pregnancy.

  It was weird to see her sisters so settled in domesticity. Having babies and all of that. They had never seemed particularly domesticated to Cricket, but they had fallen in love, and that had changed them both. Not in a bad way. In fact, they both seemed happier. Steadier and more sure of themselves. But that didn’t make any of that racket seem appealing to Cricket.

  Who just wanted...to be free.

  To not feel any of the overwhelming pressure to fit into anything other than the life she chose for herself.

  Maybe she’d wanted something else when she’d been young and silly and hadn’t understood herself or her life.

  She was the awkward sister. The ugly sister, really. She didn’t mind at all about her looks. She was tall, and she was thin, and her curves weren’t anything to write home about. But while that seemed elegant and refined on Wren, with her somewhat bony shoulders and knees, Cricket had always just thought her thinness seemed unfortunate on her. Her cheekbones were sharp, and she had freckles. Her top lip was just a little bit more full than the bottom one, and even though she’d had braces to solve the buck teeth situation, the gap between her two front teeth hadn’t closed entirely, and it remained.

  Her features were... Well, they were strong. And like everything else about her, kind of a love or hate situation.

  Cricket didn’t much care how she looked. She cared about what sh
e could do. She was good at riding horses. She could run fast; she was strong. Her hair was a little bit wild, but she didn’t much mind. No, she didn’t mind at all. Because it made her look like she was moving. Made her look like she was busy. And that was what she liked.

  That was the thing. As much as the Coopers were supposed to be rivals of her family, in some ways, she could identify a little bit more closely with them than she did with the Maxfields. They had country roots and sensibilities. That was what she understood.

  It was what she connected with.

  Country strong was hard to break. And that was what Cricket wanted to be.

  It was what she was.

  “I plan on making good use of Mr. Jackson Cooper,” Cricket said triumphantly, immediately picturing the man, his broad shoulders and large hands.

  Good for work.

  And a good place to start when it came to figuring out how to...how to broach the topic of what she thought might be true between them.

  “Yes indeed,” she said to herself.

  Her sisters exchanged a glance. “Just be careful.”

  “Why?”

  “The Coopers are a whole thing,” Wren said.

  Cricket blinked. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “You start talking about making full use of Cooper men, and I’ll tell you, it gives me ideas,” Wren said.

  Cricket still didn’t get it.

  “Sex, Cricket,” Wren said. “Some people might think you mean sex.”

  Cricket was suddenly made of heat and horror. “No! No. Not at all. Never. How could you... Look, Wren, I’m not you. When I finally do decide to take on a man, and I’m going to need to get my actual life in order a whole hell of a lot better before I do, it is not going to be... He’s old.”

  Among other things.

  Wren laughed. “Right. So old. Like two whole years older than my husband.”

  Cricket sniffed. “And I’m several years younger than you.”

  Wren seem to take that as a square insult, her lips snapping shut.

  Fine. Cricket wasn’t old enough to take age commentary as that deep of a wound yet.

  “This is strictly a business arrangement,” she said. A fluttering grew and expanded in her chest. Evidence of her dishonesty. “He’s going to help me with my ranch. And that’s it.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I absolutely do.”

  “The one thing I know about you, Cricket. When you set your mind to something, you do see it done.”

  And what she had her mind set to, was finding out for sure if she wasn’t a Maxfield at all...

  And hiring Jackson Cooper was the best way to do that.

  Two

  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.”