The Rancher's Wager Read online

  “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.

  But Honey adored him. Creed had been so mired in his own issues he’d never gotten to know their mother as an adult the way Jackson had, and she’d certainly never confided in Creed.

  Jackson was the only one who knew.

  “He has his moments,” he said. “I mean, he’s a crusty old man.”

  “Yeah, well, James Maxfield is a little more than crusty.”

  James Maxfield had been unveiled as an unrepentant sexual predator. One who’d gotten a girl pregnant and cast her aside, left her a shell of herself after a mental breakdown. A man who’d blackmailed any number of employees who’d felt harassed by him. A serial cheater, liar and all-around asshole.

  Cash might have his flaws, but he wasn’t that.

  “Right. Sorry.” Then, he did feel bad, because she looked so lost.

  And the way she looked reminded him of how he’d felt when his mother had died. It had been...a hell of a thing to lose her. The entire family had done what they could to stay strong in the aftermath and they had each other. But he remembered that feeling. Cricket was hollow-eyed, and he had to wonder if James’s behavior was as shocking to her as it had been to her sisters. It hadn’t shocked him. The way his father had always carried a grudge against James Maxfield had made Jackson suspect there was a very serious reason for it. Of course, there would be. His father wasn’t the kind of man who disliked somebody just because.

  “It’s okay. So, how did your dad get interested in wine? You know, since he was a cowboy first.”

  Jackson peeked under the sink, frowning when he saw water. Then he turned on the water so that he could try and figure out the exact source of the leak. “Well, he didn’t like your dad. And I think his aim was more or less to try and prove that he could do exactly what your dad did. But better.”

  “That’s a pretty powerful dislike. To do something just to prove you can. I mean, I respect it. That’s exactly the kind of thing I can understand. Needing to prove yourself that much. It makes perfect sense to me.”

  “A little bit vindictive, are you, Cricket?”

  She shrugged. “I think so. I mean, in seventh grade Billy O’Connor made fun of my buck teeth, and then I got braces, and two years later I made him think I wanted to go to a school dance with him, only so I could turn him down.”

  “That’s pretty stone cold.”

  “He shouldn’t of made fun of my teeth. Did you have buck teeth?”

  He frowned. “No.”

  “Did Honey?”

  “If so, I don’t recall.”

  “Oh. Well, I do. And no one else in my family does. I think that’s kind of weird.”

  “Families are different.”

  “Of course. I’m not saying they aren’t. I’m just... I dunno. Sometimes I try to see something in common with my sisters, and I just can’t. But I don’t know. That feeling kind of goes away here. Spiders or not.”

  “Well, good to know.” He knelt down, had a good look at the pipe. “I have some plumber’s tape in the truck. But I’m going to need to go get a part from town to actually fix this.”

  “Can I go with you?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Great.” He headed back out toward the truck, and he could practically hear her holding something back. “Yes?”

  “It just occurred to me that maybe I should go out to the bunkhouse with you. Show you around.”

  “Okay.” He looked at her. “Are you really going to make me sleep in the bunkhouse?”

  If he were another kind of man he’d sneak across the field and into his own house. But he was honorable with his dishonor. They’d had a bet.

  He was sticking to it.

  “Absolutely. It was part of our bet. You’re going to be my ranch hand.”

  She didn’t elaborate. Didn’t offer any sort of reasoning behind why she needed him here. He just had a feeling it amused her.

  Cricket was a bloodthirsty little thing.

  He had to grudgingly respect that.

  She led the way down a trail that had been worn into the grass, and he followed. And groaned when the very rustic-looking house came into view. “You’re not serious.”

  “I am absolutely serious. What’s wrong with it?”

  “If the house is dilapidated, how bad is this going to be?”

  She kicked open the door, and inside was... Well, pretty much nothing. There were bunks, but they looked like they were moldier than not.

  “Cricket,” he said.

  He’d slept i
n worse, that was for damn sure. But not for as long as a month.

  “Okay,” she relented. “All right, I have a better idea. You can sleep in the house.”

  * * *

  The look he gave her was full of skepticism, but his skepticism wasn’t her problem. She was enjoying talking to him. Trying to get a sense of what he thought. What he knew. If they were alike.

  And when he had talked about his dad...

  She had wanted to know more. She was jealous. Because her own father had never cared for her at all. What would it have been like to grow up on the ranch? To have a place where she belonged. It had actually become something of a cherished fantasy.

  The idea that James Maxfield wasn’t her father. The idea that she made sense.

  “Sleep in the house.”

  “Yes. There’s an extra bedroom.”

  “Great.”

  They went back toward the house, him with his sleeping bag in tow.

  “There’s a quilt,” she said.

  “Is it full of dust?”

  “Don’t be silly.” She waved her hand. “I beat the blankets out. I looked that up online. I’ve got this, I really do.”

  “Right.”

  “This place wasn’t totally unoccupied until recently. The older lady who lived in it passed away. I don’t really know why my dad owned it. He wasn’t charging her very much in rent, which honestly doesn’t seem like him. It leads me to believe that one of his business managers must’ve bought it and he didn’t remember. Or even know. That does sound like my dad. He doesn’t really notice people.”

  It was weird to call James Maxfield her dad. She had suspected he wasn’t for at least six months. Not since she found out that the reason for the feud between the Coopers and the Maxfields was that her mother had once been in love with Cash Cooper.

  It had all made so much sense then.

  Her mother hadn’t felt like she could get married to Cash, because he was penniless. And so, she had chosen to marry James Maxfield, and signed on for a life of misery. But Cricket had long suspected that the reason she existed, the reason she was a late-in-life child, was not because her parents had suddenly found a way to rekindle their romance ten years after her sisters were born. No.

  It made much more sense to her that her mother had gone straight back into the arms of Cash.

  It was just Cricket wanted to tread lightly in finding out the truth. Because his wife had passed away not that long ago, and she imagined it would be very painful for Creed, Jackson or Honey to accept that their father had had an affair.

  From her point of view, it was pretty romantic. But then, her father wasn’t heroic to her. Cash seemed much nicer. Though, she knew the Coopers loved their mother very much, and she’d seemed like a nice woman. Cricket didn’t like the idea that Cash might have done her wrong.

  For all that Cricket could see the affair as a forbidden romance, she imagined the Cooper children wouldn’t view it in quite the same way.

  So she had to tread carefully. Treading carefully wasn’t her strong point. Never had been.

  She tramped up the steps again. And Jackson cursed sharply. She turned just in time to see his foot go through the second step.

  The only problem with all of her theories had been Jackson. And the way she’d felt about him for the last ten years. And the way her suspicions had forced her to...

  Well it was a relief, really. She’d always hated how Jackson made her feel. Like her heart was too big for her chest and her breath was too big for her lungs. She’d felt connected to him, from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him, and she’d hated it. Especially as she’d gotten older and seen how badly a relationship could hurt a woman. Her parents’ marriage was toxic. She’d never wanted anything like that, but her heart had attached itself to Jackson all the same.

  That connection had made a strange, dizzying sort of sense when she’d realized. When she’d figured it out. Because, of course.

  Of course she wasn’t so foolish as to fall in love with him.

  Of course love at first sight wasn’t real, especially not as a kid.

  Of course that connection was something else.

  Of course.

  Cricket didn’t trade in uncertainty. And for years, the intensity of the emotions she’d felt around Jackson Cooper had felt uncertain.

  It was a relief to find certainty.

  It was.

  “I’ve never had that problem,” she said.

  “Like I said. Not more than a buck twenty-five soaking wet.”

  “Can’t help it.” She scampered the rest of the way up the steps and into the house. He followed her, and she noticed that he didn’t lighten his footsteps at all to make allowances for the fact that some of the boards were iffy. He got what he got. If he ended up severing a tendon it wasn’t her fault.

  “Thank you for the wild goose chase around your property.”

  “No, that wasn’t a goose chase. We’ll goose chase later. There’s a pond.”

  “Do geese favor a pond?” he asked.

  “Mine do.”

  “You have geese?”

  “A few domestic. One Canada goose. He has a broken wing. It’s flipped kind of upside down. He can’t fly.”

  He frowned. “You have a Canada goose?”

  “I do. His name is Goose.”

  “Creative.”

  She arched a brow. “Do you have a problem with a Canada goose?”

  “No. Not at all. But you can’t exactly make a ranch off of them.”

  “I’m not suggesting that it be a goose ranch. But my point is that tomorrow we’ll go on an actual tour. No drama. This was just a walkabout.”

  “I can’t believe you were going to throw me in the bunkhouse without ever having looked at it.”

  She shrugged. “I figured you’re tough. And you can take it.”

  “I could sleep there.”

  “This will be more comfortable,” she said. “Just down the hall.”

  She didn’t really want to alienate him. She also didn’t quite know how to wrangle him. She had a feeling that if she suddenly started being extra nice to him, he would only be more suspicious than not. So she was trying to be measured in her interactions with him. She had to...get to a place where she could talk to him. Where they had a little bit of trust. Perhaps like training a dog. She’d done that. That she understood. She might not have any experience with men, but she did know animals pretty well. Her dad might have spent a lot of years ignoring her, but she also hadn’t been denied much. And when she’d asked for animals, she’d gotten them. She’d had several dogs growing up, and still had her favorite old ranch dog, Pete.

  Perhaps Jackson would be like Pete.

  If only she knew how to cook. Then she could feed him. Dogs really responded well to food as an incentive. Perhaps men did too.

  She’d heard that. That old-fashioned saying about the way to a man’s heart being through his stomach. Not that she wanted Jackson’s heart.

  Well, she sort of did. She needed him to feel something for her. Some sort of connection. Without that, he would just think she was crazy and reject everything she had to say. Without that, he might just think she was trying to ruin his family. And that wasn’t it. Not at all. She had no designs on causing any kind of trouble in his family.

  But her own family was broken. Smashed all to pieces. And her place, it had never been secure. She wanted to find her place.

  She pushed the door open to the small bedroom. The bed was tiny, shoved into a corner, brass rails surrounding a thin mattress that might just as likely be stuffed with corn husks as anything. The quilt that was placed over the top of it was threadbare and worn.

  “It’s simple,” she said. “But hopefully adequate.”

  “Adequate.” He set his sleeping bag down, and looked around. “It’l
l do just fine.”

  “Yeah. I suppose.” He looked absurd, too tall and too broad for the space. His feet were going to stick through the rails at the end of the bed. And the little lace curtains behind him... Well, they seemed absolutely ridiculous.

  The sun shone through the window, catching his face, highlighting the stubble on his jaw. His hair was dark, his eyes a startling blue. The same color as the bluebonnets on the quilt fabric. She didn’t look like him. Not even a little bit. Her eyes were somewhere between pine cone brown and green, depending on how the sun shone. Her hair was light. But his sister had lighter hair. He was so tall. Cricket was fairly tall for a woman. About an inch above average. He was...massive. His hands were bigger, his shoulders muscular. His chest broad. He looked like a man who did hard labor all day, every day.

  She felt a strange sort of cracking expansion happening in her chest.

  Then he turned and looked out the window, squinting against the sun, and something in her stomach leaped. And fear gripped her.

  He was just very handsome.

  Of course he was. It was one of those things that was indisputable. And her feeling about that was...pride. She could see that now.

  She was...proud of him.

  When she was twelve years old, she’d realized it. The girls in her class were all giggling over Ryan Anderson and his floppy blond hair and she’d been fixed on Jackson Cooper. She’d been a little embarrassed about it. She’d told no one.

  She knew she was a girl and he was a man and there was no way they could ever...

  She’d never been silly enough or brave enough to write about him in her diary. To have a diary at all. But she’d thought of him every night and wove stories where they could be together, on a ranch.

  Him all rugged and handsome and her riding a horse right alongside him. There had been freedom in those fantasies. In this idea that her place in the world, her real and rightful place, was alongside this forbidden man whose family her father hated.

  She’d never let on how much it bothered her that Wren had swooped in and taken up with Creed. Cricket had been the one full of forbidden desire for years and years.