Rebel Cowboy Read online

  No. She was not this girl. Even before, when she’d had the time and inclination for that sort of thing, tongue-tied and blushy had never been her MO.

  Everything with her one and only romantic entanglement had been easy and sweet and not…confusing. She did not do confusing.

  So, yes, they needed to start over.

  She took a deep breath, trying to push the nerves away. “The first thing we should do is take a ride around. Get the lay of the land. Then I can help you draw up an overall ranch plan, a daily schedule.” She handed him his coffee—black, because he hadn’t had any cream in his old, whirring, rusty refrigerator.

  She’d been surprised to find the house in about the same shape as that refrigerator. Old, poorly running, heavy with disuse. Every part of the place she’d seen was kind of a dump, really. She’d expected a famous hockey player who could drop a bunch of money on a consultant would also drop a lot of money on fixing up a place before he stayed in it.

  “You’ll also want to go grocery shopping, if you have any hope of eating today. Have you spent any time getting acquainted with Blue Valley?”

  “Is there much to get acquainted with?”

  She shook her head. While she hadn’t expected the disrepair, she wasn’t surprised to find Dan Sharpe was kind of useless. She pulled the little notebook and pen that she used for taking notes around the ranch out of her front pocket.

  “You eaten breakfast?” she asked.

  “Nope. Just crawled out of bed, remember?”

  “What were you planning on eating?”

  He glanced around the kitchen with a thoughtful look on his face. “You know, I hadn’t given it much thought. McDonald’s nearby? I haven’t had one of their hash browns in years.”

  She stared. And stared. And stared a little more.

  Dan grimaced. “No McDonald’s, huh?”

  “Buck said this was your family place. They didn’t clue you in to anything?”

  “My grandparents moved to Florida over twenty-five years ago, and they aren’t in the best shape to clue me in.”

  She scratched her pen across the top of the page until the ink gave, then she started her list. “We’ll go to town first. We should go ahead and pick up some fencing supplies—from the looks of it, that’ll be your first order of business. Then we can do a grocery run before coming back.”

  “Fencing?”

  Jeez. He really was clueless. As much as she’d expected him to be spoiled by money and fame, she thought if he wanted to run this place, he’d actually know something.

  “Maybe, before we do anything, we should figure out just what you’re wanting to do here.”

  “I want to start a ranch.”

  “In your mind, what does that entail?”

  He shrugged, starting to paw through cabinets. “I dunno. Riding a horse. Humming the Bonanza theme song.”

  She swore under her breath, but when he lifted one eyebrow, she knew he’d heard her. “I need the twenty grand, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not here to get your ranch going only to have you screw it six ways to Sunday once I’m gone. Or once you are.”

  He found a tin of crackers and pulled it out, lifting the lid and sniffing before slapping it back shut and tossing the whole thing into the garbage can.

  The garbage can that didn’t have a garbage bag in it. This guy was a serious mess. Twenty grand. Twenty grand. She needed to repeat that over and over. Nothing mattered. Nothing but getting to the end of this three-month job and getting that paycheck.

  He closed one cabinet and opened another, but it was empty. So he turned to her, leaning against the counter. He had a habit, already, of looking directly at her when he spoke. All charm and smiles and green eyes and…stuff. But this was different. No smiling. He wasn’t even making eye contact.

  “Look, I get it. I don’t know a thing about anything. That’s why I hired you. I haven’t the first clue what I’m doing. All I know is my grandpa always made it sound like… He made it sound like ranching meant something. Gave him a purpose or whatever. He said this place was his heart. And, the fact of the matter is, my entire life’s purpose is hockey, and whether or not I’m going to be involved in hockey in any capacity for much longer is questionable right now, so I want something. I want something that’s going to matter if the one thing that does gets taken away from me. Grandpa suggested this—his heart—so here I am.”

  She didn’t dare move, or speak. She absorbed those words. The honesty in them. “Why not ask your grandpa for the advice, the help? If he loved it so much, why did they move away?”

  Dan stared hard out the dusty, filmy window. “He’s not doing so hot these days. Neither of them are, actually, and it’s been a long, slow road to not really being all there. They moved to a warmer climate for Grandma’s health, and it killed him a little bit. Never been the same. In fact, his suggestion for me to take this on probably wasn’t even a rational one, but it stuck with me.”

  She could feel the sadness coming off him in waves. Or was that her own sadness? Dad might still be mentally there, but that was about it. He mainly wheeled around the house like a ghost, barely speaking, never getting involved. So, she was pretty familiar with that heavy bleakness of not knowing how to fix someone you loved.

  Then his eyes did meet hers, that cocky grin back in place. The only hint he had just spilled his guts was the fact that his hands were gripping the counter. Which made his biceps stand out, and those shoulders…

  “I’m at your mercy, Cowgirl,” he drawled. It didn’t matter that the drawl was fake, or the words were goofy, she could very much imagine him being at her mercy. Or her being at his as he pushed off the counter and walked toward her.

  “It’s no accident I’m dropping a pretty penny on you. Just about anyone I talked to brought up your name. Told me to get Mel Shaw, not Caleb. So, here I am, having Mel.”

  If he hadn’t brought up Caleb’s name, she might have dissolved into a pathetic puddle of lust. But the mention of her brother—and people warning Dan away from him—undercut any fantasies Dan having her might have brought up. All that was left was determination.

  She’d done a lot in the way of mending her brother’s burned bridges, but the fact of the matter was, every time Caleb had stolen from one of the businesses in town, every time he’d crashed his pickup into someone’s fence, the people of Blue Valley put a little black mark against the Shaw name. People might like her, respect her, but none of them would give an inch when it came to helping with the ranch, because Caleb was a part of it. No matter what Caleb had done to try to make amends.

  At least the town respected what she’d done enough to give her this. She couldn’t ignore that it was something.

  So, she’d do this. She’d do a hell of a job helping Mr. Hockey Player become Mr. Awesome Rancher. Or at least Mr. Doesn’t Embarrass Himself Rancher.

  She slid the notebook and pen back into her pocket, fixing Dan with her best I’m-the-boss glare. “Grab your wallet, moneybags. We’ve got some errands to run.”

  His grin changed, from that cocky “I’ll get the best of you” quirk to something softer and more genuine. “You’re really going to do this?”

  “Paying me, aren’t you?”

  “I figured when you heard how much work teaching me a thing or two was going to be, you might bail.”

  “That’s one thing you’ll learn about me pretty damn quick, Sharpe—I don’t bail.” She grabbed her Stetson off the counter and pulled it low on her head. Then she marched out the door to her truck.

  She was here for the money, and she wouldn’t leave without that, but at least she had enough insight into Dan’s motivations to care. Care that he got off his feet and running, care that as oblivious as he seemed, he was in it for the heart of the ranch. She knew how much that could mean.

  So, nope, she wouldn’t bail. And maybe it wouldn’t be th
e worst thing in the world to get a deserted ranch back and running again.

  * * *

  Dan watched Mel from his seat in an uncomfortable vinyl booth while she chatted with two sheriff’s deputies at the diner counter.

  She smiled at these guys. Laughed at their lame jokes. Not that he could hear their jokes, but they were cops. How funny could they be?

  Even after his rather personal revelation of why he was here, and her dragging him around all morning, spending his money on all means of supplies, she didn’t smile or chat with him like that. She gave orders. She muttered under her breath.

  She didn’t laugh at one of his jokes.

  It took him a few minutes to realize he was jealous. It was a foreign emotion for him. He hadn’t had a lot to be jealous of over the years. Sure, there’d been a few times in his younger days he wished he hadn’t been the son of a famous hockey player, because of the way people sometimes treated him, but he was also smart enough to know his dad’s name had paved a few bumpy roads for him.

  It also helped that his dad wasn’t a prick—that he was, in fact, an all-around decent guy. So any jealousy on the “famous hockey player dad” front had faded.

  This? This was new—and almost kind of nice. Knowing Mel was something he couldn’t have. Like he was practicing for all the other things he couldn’t have.

  Are you really sure you can’t have her?

  He ignored that asshole thought as she made her way back to the table with two glasses of water. She slapped one on the table then slid into the booth across from him.

  “No waiters in Blue Valley?”

  “Georgia’s understaffed right now, and I was already up there talking to Garret and Al.”

  “Yes, I noticed. Talking, chatting, laughing.”

  She gave him a “what the hell are you talking about” kind of look, but he kept his gaze on the counter and those two cops as he took a sip of the water.

  “I think we’re good on fencing supplies and basic tools.” She got her little notebook out of her pocket—such a nerdy move, but it always drew his gaze to her breasts, which made him wonder about her breasts…which probably wasn’t okay.

  Luckily a harried-looking woman set two plates down in front of them before disappearing behind the counter again, distracting him from that dangerous line of thought. His mouth watered at the plate piled high with fatty food.

  “I’m thinking we get the place looking better, then make a plan where to go forward. So, menial stuff first. And since you have no food, we hit the grocery store next.” Mel unrolled her silverware from the paper napkin. “Then it’s back to your place. I’ll help you unload, we’ll check out the storage situation. That will probably finish up today. There’s a lot of work ahead of us, but I’m not putting in overtime unless you pay overtime, got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am. You’re the boss, ma’am. Anything you say, ma’am.”

  “It’s good you think so much of yourself. It must make up for all the people who want to smack you upside the head.”

  He stiffened, because that hit close to home. A home she didn’t know about. Or, if she did, at least didn’t feel the need to point out. Thank goodness for that. He forced a smile and a flip comment in return. “Doesn’t it just.”

  He picked up the burger, stomach rumbling. The breakfast apple pie snack cake thing from the convenience store had been lackluster at best. This burger was huge, thick slices of bacon and cheese hanging off the sides. At least he wouldn’t starve thanks to his lack of cooking skills. “This is not on my diet.”

  She looked from her burger, eyebrows raised. “Your diet?”

  “So to speak. When I’m not skating every day, I tend to have to be a little more careful about what I eat. Thank you turning thirty.”

  “You’re only thirty?”

  “Only? How old do you think I am?”

  “I thought I read that you were—” She cut herself off, immediately taking a too-large bite of hamburger.

  “Oh, you read about me? Do tell.”

  She shook her head, chewing, then swallowed it all down with a gulp of water. “I just wanted to make sure you were who you were supposed to be and all that.”

  “Right. So, what did you read?”

  He had to admit, he enjoyed watching her squirm. It was a nice dinner show to go along with his hamburger. Which was delicious.

  He would need to find some kind of workout regimen for when he was here. Once they proved him innocent, some team would sign him. They’d have to, and he couldn’t have gained twenty pounds in the off-season.

  She popped a fry into her mouth and took another bite of burger, stalling for as long as she could, but he wasn’t giving in. He kept eating, watching her, waiting for an answer.

  “Look, I read a few articles about…the game, and that article in Bright Lights. Which said you were thirty-five, by the way.”

  He let the first part slide off his shoulders. She looked more embarrassed by it than accusatory, and he didn’t feel like dwelling on the bad. Not when she’d also looked at his Bright Lights spread. “Okay, so I’m thirty-five. Bright Lights, though—I was shirtless in some of those pictures. Were you reading only for the articles?” He popped the last bite of hamburger in his mouth. Would it be wrong to order another?

  “No wonder you’re in such great shape. Carrying around that ego must be hard work.”

  He leaned back in the booth, crossing his arms behind his head. “There you go, complimenting my body again. Maybe I should be concerned about sexual harassment.”

  “I kind of hate you.”

  He grinned. He wasn’t all that convinced of that. She might not laugh at his jokes like she did with Barney Fife and Andy Griffith over there, but she’d worked relentlessly to help him out this morning. Being honest about Grandpa and everything had softened her up. “I think you hate that you don’t hate me.”

  “Can we go, or are you going to lick the grease off your plate too?”

  He looked down at his completely demolished plate. Licking the grease off didn’t seem half bad, but she was already scooting out of the booth. She slapped the bill to his chest when he stood. “Lunch is on you.” She pointed to the cash register and then walked to the door.

  Though not before smiling at Cop 1 and Cop 2, of course.

  Scowling, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He handed a credit card and the bill to the harried woman who’d dropped their plates off. Well, he’d make sure to leave her a nice tip.

  She smiled, shaking her head. “Sorry. We don’t take credit cards.”

  “Wait. What?” She couldn’t be serious. Everywhere took credit cards. Even Nowhere, Montana, had to take credit cards.

  The lady laughed, and so did the cops sitting at the counter, one tapping something into his phone. “Mel said you’d about die over that.” She took his outstretched card and ran it through the machine, still chuckling to herself.

  She handed him the receipt, dimple winking as she smiled. “Welcome to town, Mr. Sharpe.”

  “Yeah, gee, thanks.” He signed the receipt, leaving her a more than generous tip in hopes she’d help him get Mel back at some point. Never underestimate the power of money.

  He nodded to the cops. “Good to see you fellas hard at work.”

  “Told you he was an asshole,” one of them muttered as Dan walked away…realizing a little belatedly that pissing off the local police probably wasn’t in his best interest.

  When he stepped outside, Mel was leaning against the building, arms across her chest as they almost always were, but she was smirking.

  “Some joke,” he said.

  Mel laughed, the sound surprising him. She had a good laugh. Low and genuine. And her smile softened her face. She wasn’t intimidating when she smiled. “Man, you should have seen the look on your face.”

  “How
could you—”

  She held up her phone—a pathetic old flip phone— and he had to squint at the screen to see the picture of him with mouth slightly ajar, eyes a little bugged out.

  “Where the hell—”

  “Garret.” She laughed again. “You deserved that one, Sharpe. Now, let’s go. We’ve got food to buy and shit to do.”

  He snatched the phone out of her hands, but she only shrugged and started walking to the truck. He followed, trying to figure out how to delete the picture on her relic. He finally figured it out, only to run into someone in the process.

  When he looked up, a kid and a bike were on the ground.

  “Aw, shit, kid, I’m sorry.” He went to help him up, but the boy was already popping to his feet, brushing his knees off and retrieving his baseball hat.

  “It’s okay.” The kid grinned at him like he’d found a pot of gold instead of fallen off his bike. “You’re Dan Sharpe, aren’t you?”

  Dan used to love this stuff. Kids recognizing him, idolizing him. Now he was always a little worried they’d call him a cheater or spit in his face.

  Instead, the kid kept smiling and started digging in his bag. “Hey, if I can find a marker, will you sign my backpack?”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  “Sweet.” The kid pulled out a Sharpie and handed it to him. Dan went through the requisite “do you play hockey” and “who’s your favorite team” spiel.

  Then he helped the kid with the bike and handed the kid’s backpack to him. “See ya round.”

  When he finally joined Mel at the truck, she was scowling at him.

  “What? I was being nice.”

  “I know. That’s the problem,” she muttered, climbing into the driver’s seat.

  “How is that a problem?” he asked once he was settled into the passenger’s seat.

  “I want you to be a bad guy.”

  “Why?”

  “So I can laugh at you when you fail,” she said in all seriousness, pulling the truck out of the diner parking lot.

  “Are you saying you won’t laugh at me if I fail?”