Billion Dollar Cowboy
Copyright © 2013 by Carolyn Brown
Cover and internal design © 2013 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by Blake Morrow/Shannon Associates
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
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To Patti G. Russell
DNA makes us sisters; hearts make us friends.
The day our parents brought you home from the hospital, I cried. I thought they’d gone to get me a kitten and all they brought home was another baby. Today I’m really glad that they brought me a sister… don’t know how I’d have made it through all the sorrows and joys without you!
It was just supper, for God’s sake; it wasn’t an inquisition. They weren’t going to take her out in the yard and stone her to death if she ate with the wrong fork. Andy had said they were just like family, and since she was his assistant she should meet them, but she didn’t want to get all friendly with the “family.” She just wanted to work off her debt and get out of Ambrose, Texas. She’d managed to avoid most of them for a whole week and thought she could do so for months, but oh, no, Andy decided it was time for her to break bread with them that very evening.
Laura sat up straighter in the chair and pushed her glasses up on her nose. She hated going back to glasses after years and years of wearing contacts. She could wear her contacts on special occasions, but not more than a couple of hours. Tonight didn’t qualify for that in her opinion.
“We are glad that you came to supper, Laura,” Maudie said.
Maudie was tall, thin, with salt-and-pepper hair, and not nearly enough wrinkles to be Colton’s grandmother. She’d never be worth a damn in a poker game because Laura could easily read her through her green eyes. She’d popped in and out of the office at least once a day, so Laura had met her, but saying a brief hello and sitting at the supper table with her were two different things.
Laura’s smile was strained at best. “Thank you.”
Andy clapped his hands once. Conversation stopped and all eyes were on Laura. She sincerely thought about crawling under the table and hiding, but she refused to let anyone intimidate her. Not even the people who lived in a house so big that it took her breath away when she first saw it. It had turrets and wings and tall windows, a deep wraparound porch, and would put Tara from
Gone
with
the
Wind
to absolute shame.
“Introductions!” Andy said with a sweep of his hand. “Maudie is the only one who has met Laura, who has been getting settled into the apartment and the job this week. As you all know, she is my distant cousin so I’ve known her since we were both kids.”
Laura nodded at Maudie even though saying hello from behind a desk and computer was far different than knowing them.
“And,” Andy went on, “that feller over there with the platter of steaks in his hand is Rusty. He’s the ranch foreman and the person who knows what’s going on in any corner of the ranch. The kid beside him is Roxie, our new resident teenager.”
Rusty smiled. “I’d begun to think you were just a figment of Andy’s imagination or that he’d hired a robot. Welcome to the ranch. If I can help you with anything, you just holler. The apartment suiting you all right?”
“Yes, sir. It’s great,” she said.
Roxie looked up and Laura’s heart went out to her. There was something in her blue eyes that said she wasn’t real sure of her place in the world or where she’d fit in if she figured out that she even had a place.
“Hello,” Roxie said in a soft Southern drawl.
Laura saw herself at sixteen when someone new came to dinner at Aunt Dotty’s ranch. Trying to remember her manners and not talking too much, but being friendly. It was an awkward age at best. Andy had already mentioned that Roxie had just recently come to the ranch on a full-time basis and was more than a little bit shy.
Andy pointed in the opposite direction. “The cowboy at the head of the table that looks like shit is Colton.”
“Thanks a lot, Andy, for telling your kin that I don’t run my own ranch and that I look like shit. He’s a real good best friend, Laura. I want to thank you for taking on the job of working with Andy. It can’t be easy as picky as he is about everything,” Colton growled.
“I’m pretty much a perfectionist too. It must run in the family,” Laura answered.
Andy picked up a basket of hot rolls and passed it to Rusty. “Laura is a whiz kid on computers, so she’s kept her nose to the grindstone this week. We’re catching up, though, so you’ll see more of her from now on. I had to twist her arm to get her to come to supper. She’s never been shy before, so I don’t know what her problem is.”
Roxie caught her eye and smiled. The girl had blond hair pulled up in a ponytail, crystal clear blue eyes, and a flawless complexion. She was so tiny that she looked fragile, but Laura would guess there was a tough interior hiding inside her soul that would surface in a hurry if someone pushed her too hard.
“What’s the matter with you, Colton? You look like you’ve got a hangover. You never pass up hot rolls. Are you sick?” Maudie looked genuinely worried.
Colton passed the green beans on to Rusty. “I think I was drugged last night.”
Laura glanced toward the end of the table. She’d seen Colton from her second-story window several times and with his swagger, boots, and hat, she’d thought he was handsome. Sitting at the table with him proved that he went beyond handsome even with the slightly green cast around his mouth and bloodshot eyes. Biceps stretched at his shirt sleeves that had been rolled up to just above his elbows. His dark brown hair was feathered back away from his face in a perfect cut. His light green eyes left no doubt that he had the mother of all hangovers. Before he’d settled into his place at the table, she’d seen the way he filled out those jeans and she could well understand the problems he’d have with the women even if he was just a poor dirt farmer. Add a bank account that would stagger Fort Knox and it was no wonder that the man was the most sought after bachelor in all of northern Texas.
“Good thing I was there,” Rusty said seriously.
Colton nodded. “No telling where I’d be today if you hadn’t hauled me home, but dammit! I hate needing a babysitter everywhere I go. Why do women act like that?”
“I’m not your babysitter. I’m your bodyguard,” Rusty said.
“Money! That’s why women act like that. You don’t remember one bit of it, do you?” Maudie asked.
“I remember drinking one beer and looking out over the crowd. Then I ordered another one and didn’t even finish it,” Colton said. “I’m going up to my room. Maybe later I’ll make some toast or feel like having a milkshake. Right now my head hurts too bad to even chew. Nice meeting you, Laura. I’m real glad that Andy hired you. Now maybe he’ll stop whining like a little girl about how much work he has to do.”
Laura looked up from her plate and pushed her glasses up again. “Thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Sorry that you don’t feel so good.”
Maudie looked at Rusty. “Two beers? Really?”
He shrugged. “We hadn’t been there thirty minutes so he’s probably telling the truth. A tall blonde and a brunette sat down on the bar stools, one on either side of him. She was sneaky about it so I could never prove it, but I do think the blonde put it in his drink while the brunette distracted him.”
Maudie shook her head slowly from side to side when Colton was out of the room. “Now they are drugging him? What are we going to do? One of them is bound to kill him if we don’t think of something.”
Andy laid his fork and knife down and sipped sweet tea. “Money sure brings out the monsters.”
Laura knew a little about the money and the monsters, but from the other side of the fence. She wouldn’t be sitting at the table with Andy that evening if she didn’t, but she did feel sorry for Colton. Andy had told her that the poor man hadn’t had a normal life since he’d gotten rich and that things went from bad to worse every day.
Rusty nodded seriously. He was Andy’s opposite. Where Andy was medium height, overweight, and barely thirty with a full head of curly blond hair and pale blue eyes, Rusty was tall and lanky, had graying hair, and brown eyes set in a face with a ready smile and enough wrinkles to testify to lots of experience.
“I barely got him in the house and on the sofa in the den. I pulled his boots off and threw a cover over him. That the way you found him this morning, Maudie?” Rusty asked.
She shook her head. “He was in his room, passed out on top of his covers. I tried to wake him for breakfast, but it didn’t work. Must’ve been something powerful that the woman dosed him with. He’s strong as a bull.”
Laura had been hired to help Andy in the office, not to sit at the table and hear all about the family’s problems. So the rich cowboy had major issues with the women wanting to lasso him. She had problems with a sister who wouldn’t or couldn’t fight her addiction to gambling. Everyone had their own sad tale of woe, but she didn’t have the time or energy to get involved in Colton’s.
“He’ll live. Enough about our family problems. Laura, please join us for any meals that you want. We want you to feel right at home here on the ranch.” Maudie looked across the table at her.
“Thank you.” Laura squirmed in her seat. She damn sure didn’t plan on eating three meals a day in the big house.
“And what did you do before Andy hired you?” Rusty asked.
“I worked at a greenhouse in Amarillo. The owner sold it and the new owners brought in their own staff. So, Roxie, what grade are you in?” Laura deliberately turned the conversation in a different direction.
“I’ll be a junior this fall,” she said.
“She’s in summer school to make up classes she missed when she skipped school,” Andy said.
Roxie looked at her plate. The gesture reminded her so much of her sister, Janet, that it shot a pang of homesickness through Laura’s heart.
“And what are you going to be when you grow up?” Laura asked.
Roxie raised her eyes. “A fashion designer or an interior decorator.”
“That takes college and to go you’ve got to have good grades in school,” Laura said.
“What you ought to do is take lots of computer classes and go to work for the ranch. You’re really good with technology,” Andy said.
Roxie gave him a shy smile. “That’s what Dillon says. Maybe I will change my mind, but right now I just want out of Ambrose. I want to go where nobody knows me.”
Laura had felt the same about Claude, Texas, and there had been two summers that she had to do makeup work at school. Not for skipping classes but for being too shy in those days to raise her hand to answer questions. Janet was the one who had to attend summer school for skipping, and Aunt Dotty had given her extra chores as punishment.
They talked about crops, church, and Roxie’s class schedule, but Laura only listened with one ear. She wondered what Janet was doing that evening. It had been a whole week since they’d hugged and said their good-byes. It would be a long time before they saw each other or even had phone privileges again. If only she’d had another way to get the money to bail Janet out one more time, but she’d had no other recourse than biting the bullet and going to Andy. She just hoped that Janet was holding up her end of the bargain.
At first she was angry at Andy for laying down such rules. She and Janet were sisters and adults. He didn’t have to be such a hard-ass about loaning her the money, but the more she’d thought about it that week, the more she realized that he was a genius. Janet would never stop gambling if she could run to Laura every time she got into trouble.
Andy’s rules had been simple. Number one: they could have no contact, not even phone, emails, or texting until the debt was paid in full. Number two: they could not see each other until the debt was paid in full. Number three: Janet had to stay out of casinos, bingo halls, anything that had to do with gambling, and she had to go to Gambler’s Anonymous twice a week.
Laura shook the rules from her mind and pushed back her chair. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you all. Thank you for supper. I’ll be getting back to the office now to finish up the day’s work.”
“We are glad to have you here on the ranch. Feel free to take any of your meals with us. There’s buffet breakfast and lunch and we sit around the table at supper.” Maudie waved her away with a flick of her wrist.
“Thank you,” Laura said, but she sure did not intend to eat three meals a day with the family. No sir!
“Don’t let Andy chain you to the computer in that office,” Rusty said.
“I’m sure I’ll be out and around more often as soon as we get caught up,” Laura said.
She escaped across the foyer and down the hallway to the small office that she shared with Andy Joe. She flopped down into her office chair, leaned back, laid her glasses on her lap, and pressed her thumbs into her temples. Thank God for Andy and his offer to come to her rescue, but she’d be damned if she made that supper thing a nightly affair. A tuna fish sandwich with peace surrounding her was a lot better than all those eyes on her.
“Hey.” Andy poked his head into the room.
She sat up so quickly that the room did a couple of spins before she got it all under control. “I was just resting my eyes for a minute.”
“It’s been a long day, Laura. We’ll finish up those reports tomorrow morning. We’re trying to figure out some things in the dining room. You missed dessert so I brought you a slice of pecan pie.”
“Thank you. Maybe I’ll get a run in tonight before I go to bed,” she said.
“If you get lost in the big town of Ambrose, call me and I’ll come get you. Believe me, Claude is a metropolis compared to Ambrose.” He grinned. He turned off the lights and set the pie on the fax machine. “See you tomorrow morning.”
She stuck her glasses on top of her head, ate every bite of the pie, and headed back toward the kitchen to put the dirty plate away. She could hear the soft drone of voices floating down the hall and stopped in her tracks when she heard her name. She tiptoed closer to the open dining room door and plastered her body against the wall.
“That’s crazy. She’ll never do it,” Rusty said. “And neither will Colton.”
“How do you know? We could at least ask them,” Maudie said.
“I vote that we don’t ask. We just orchestrate it and see what happens,” Andy said.
“I think it’s mean,” Roxie said.
Laura was amazed that the girl spoke up, but what in the devil were they talking about. It had to do with her and Colton and something they’d both never go for… but what?
Rusty’s deep voice carried better than Roxie’s when he said, “She will pitch a fit when she finds out. You might be her cousin, but you’ll be in big trouble, Andy. She don’t fool me one bit hiding behind those glasses. She’s a fighter.”