For a second, she looked afraid, like he might root through her garbage or snap pictures of her naked. Then she must’ve realized that his mother—her crisis manager—wouldn’t have sent her to the lion’s den, and she went back to copping an attitude.
“Where?” She folded her arms over her chest.
“To your new safe house.”
She perked up. “I hope it has a pool. It’s hot here.”
He was pretty sure that was her lame attempt at sarcasm.
“Yep. Five-star accommodations,” he tossed back. “Pack up your stuff.”
He got a fresh shirt from his closet, sent the rest of her luggage down in the hay elevator— one of the things he’d kept before the redo—and met her at the bottom of the stairs. She scrolled through her phone while he loaded her baggage into the back of his Range Rover.
“Careful with that,” she said as he hefted one of her suiters. “My laundry service pressed everything and I doubt there’s a good dry cleaner’s anywhere around here.” She stared out over the pastureland and shuddered as if she were stuck in a hellhole.
He held his tongue, looking forward to being rid of her. Never mind that the ranch was his lifeblood, everything that mattered.
“Hop in,” he said, blasted the AC, and got on a rutted dirt road that followed the creek through a copse of trees that opened up to a clearing of green-colored fields. In the distance, the Sierra mountain range, covered in Ponderosa pines, loomed large. And green. It had been a wet winter.
Not a mile away, he cut the engine in front of a small cottage. The now-vacant log cabin used to be his cousin Cash’s and every time Sawyer saw the broken steps, the sagging porch and the screen door that hung on one hinge, he hummed a few bars of “Dueling Banjos.”
“Welcome home.” He reached across her lap and swung open the passenger-seat door.
“You’re kidding?” She squirmed. “You’re punking me for calling you a bloodsucker, aren’t you?”
“I’m not that petty.” The heat hit him the second he jumped down from the cab. Hopefully, Cash had left the old swamp cooler in the cabin when he and his daughter, Ellie, moved across the creek.
“Watch your step, now.” He waited for her to trail him up the rickety stairs, found the key under the mat, and held the door open for her.
“Uh-uh, I’m not going in there first.” She waved her hand over the threshold for him to take the lead.
He went inside and flicked on a light. To air the place out—it stunk of dead animals—he opened a few windows.
There wasn’t much to the cabin. Just one large space that made up the living room, kitchen, and eating nook. Off a narrow hallway there were two bedrooms and a bathroom. The smaller of the two bedrooms had been decorated in pink and white stripes when Ellie had come to live with Cash. The rest of the cabin was a depressing beige, although some of the walls were made from rough-hewn logs.
“Can’t beat the views,” he said and gazed out the window. “You can fish right off the front porch.”
“Or die.”
Even if the porch appeared to be held together with a piece of chewing gum, it was safe. “It’s been here for a hundred years; it’s not going anywhere.”
She lifted her chin and locked eyes with him. “Sotheby’s called and said to tell you you’re fired.”
Sawyer ignored her. “It’s also furnished.” He motioned at a dun-colored sofa that he was pretty sure Cash had found on the side of the road somewhere.
“Restoration Hardware or Pottery Barn?” She folded her arms over her chest and clenched her jaw so tight Sawyer thought she might crack a molar. “I can’t possibly stay here.”
The cabin might not be the Palace of Versailles, but it was certainly livable. Cash and his now thirteen-year-old had managed here just fine. All it needed was a good scrubbing and, depending on how long she planned to stay, Ms. FoodFlicks Star with the stick up her ass could afford to buy herself some decent furniture on the internet.
He brushed by her and hauled her luggage inside. “Well, I’ll leave you to unpack and get settled. Just holler if you need anything.”
He was making his way down the front-porch stairs when a Louis Vuitton cosmetic bag sailed past his head and landed in the dirt. “You cannot leave me here. This place…this dump…it should be condemned.”
He pointed across the creek to another cabin. Unlike Gina’s, that cabin had graced the pages ofSunset MagazineandCountry Living. “My cousin and his wife and kid live there. Aubrey’s an interior decorator. For the right price, she’ll hook you up.” Sawyer kept walking.
“Why do you hate me?”
He stopped and turned around to face her. “I don’t hate you, I don’t even know you. But to be real honest, you haven’t made the best impression. You seem pretty damn self-entitled, if you ask me. This isn’t a resort: It’s a working cattle ranch. And I’m not your servant. The only reason you’re still here is because I love my mother. She’s a pain in the ass, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.”
