Charlie turned to Aubrey. “I guess it’s okay if we tell her, right?” Aubrey nodded. “It was an anonymous email, someone saying they were safe and that Sawyer should stop his search.”
Gina’s mouth fell wide. “Angie sent it?”
Aubrey hitched her shoulders. “We don’t know for certain. But, yeah, that’s the consensus. Cash is having a friend in the FBI cyber lab see if he can trace it.”
“Who else could it be?” As far as Gina knew, Sawyer was only searching for one person. His sister.
“We just don’t want to jump to conclusions,” Charlie said. “Sawyer deals with a lot of weirdos in his line of work. A lot of reporters do. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame.”
“What if it is her, though?” None of it made any sense to Gina, unless Sawyer’s sister wanted a permanent separation from her family. Then why not just say she didn’t want them to contact her? Period. But from everything Sawyer had said that wasn’t the case. They were close—the whole family was—according to him.
Charlie blew out a breath. “That’s the big question. It was nice of you to offer to help, though.”
“Why? He’s helping me.”
Both Charlie and Aubrey smiled. It was a knowing smile, but they had it all wrong. There was nothing going on between her and Sawyer.
Except for the kiss.
“How long until Cash’s friend knows something?”
“I guess when he can fit it in.” Aubrey gave a half shrug. “Until then, we wait.”
Sawyer didn’t strike Gina as the type to wait. He’d continue his own investigation until Cash’s FBI buddy came through. That much she knew. She’d offer whatever help she could give, though tracing anonymous emails wasn’t exactly her forte.
They spent the rest of the evening gossiping about people Gina didn’t know. But she enjoyed the conversation just the same. It was a close-knit town and it sounded like everyone was up in everyone else’s grill. Same as FoodFlicks without the nastiness.
“Have you signed up the flower growers, yet?” she asked, curious about how this little village of shops and agricultural pursuits would work. The concept very much appealed to her business side and on the nights she didn’t fantasize about Sawyer naked, she played around with ideas of ways this plan of the Daltons could be more profitable.
“We did.” Charlie pumped her fist in the air.
“Cash talked to a saddlemaker who’s interested too.” Aubrey cleared the rest of the table and started loading their dinner plates into the dishwasher.
“Is that very lucrative, saddlemaking?” Gina’s only exposure to horses and saddles had been her sixth birthday party. Sadie had gone with a petting zoo theme, including pony rides. And there had been a lot of protests and tears when her father had tried to hoist her onto the back of a shaggy little Shetland named Mike. Petting had been fine. But riding, a no-go.
Sadie had pouted and whined that they were missing a golden photo opportunity. Just one of a long list of her mother’s complaints about Gina.
“Are you kidding?” Aubrey straightened from the dishwasher and stretched. “The price people will pay for a good show saddle is through the roof. Some of those saddles have more sterling silver than a jewelry store. According to Cash, this saddle guy does a lot of custom work.”
“No question saddles fit in with the ranch motif. As long as the guy can pay his rent. You ever consider talking to Laney and Jimmy Ray? That sarsaparilla they make is a license to print money. Just a stand here, nothing that would cut into their coffee shop business. Can you picture it? Folks browsing in Refined, strolling through the flower shop, popping in to watch the saddlemaker, all the while working up a powerful thirst.”
“It’s brilliant.” Aubrey clapped her hands. “They could serve it in cute Mason jars, maybe sell slices of Laney’s chess pie or ramekins of her berry crumble.”
“Do something seasonal for the holidays,” Gina continued. But it was the sarsaparilla that would draw people in. She hated to think of Laney and Jimmy Ray’s winning concoction confined to a life of obscurity.
“What a wonderful idea.” Charlie turned on the dishwasher and grabbed a pad of paper from one of the drawers. “I want to take notes, share it with the guys, and then we should approach Laney and Jimmy Ray. They’re spread thin at the coffee shop, so they’d probably have to bring someone else in. We’d have to do the build-out ourselves. Laney wouldn’t have the patience for it and Jimmy Ray has got his hands full. Plus, the money. I’m not sure they’d want to make the investment until they knew it would pay off.”
“Just a kiosk would do it,” Gina said. “There’s got to be prefab ones you can buy.”
Aubrey started searching on her phone. “It would have to fit in aesthetically with the ranch. Nothing janky, like the ones you see at the mall.”
“I’m sure we could get someone to build something. Even Dennis and his crew,” Charlie said.
Aubrey looked at Charlie and narrowed her eyes. “If we want it done by the twelfth of never. Because that’s how long he’s taking to finish our job.”
Gina heard the construction whenever she walked to Sawyer’s house. The contractor and his people appeared to be zipping along. But she supposed it was easy to become impatient when you were living in it, trying to run a business.
“I’m sure one of the guys knows someone.” Charlie dismissed Aubrey with her hand. “The bigger challenge is getting them to go along with it. Not so much Laney, but Jimmy Ray.”
