The Cowboy's Million-Dollar Secret

“What did your family say when you took off?”

She glanced away. “I don’t have any family who’ll worry about me.”

He recognized a dodge when he saw one, and something in her tone didn’t sound right. “Show me your ID.”

“What?” She set her mug down on the counter with a thump.

“You look like a teenager. Your car’s packed with God-knows-what. You allegedly leave a job in a movie star’s mansion to hide out on a dude ranch halfway across the country. It doesn’t add up. I figure either you’re lying about your age or you’re on the run. For all I know you could have robbed the dead guy and skedaddled across the state line.”

Folding her arms across her chest, she frowned. “You’re incredibly suspicious.”

He pulled his gaze away from the taut fabric stretched over her breasts. “Did you steal his silver?”

She gaped at him. “No.”

“Nothing crammed in your car belonged to Arch Golden?”

Guilty pink climbed her cheeks. “I didn’t sneak anything out of Arch’s house.”

Yep. Evasive. “Where’s the ID?”

“I don’t have it with me.” He made a face and she continued, “I showed all the proper documentation to Brooke yesterday. I didn’t bring my purse today.”

Right. He’d never known a woman who went anywhere without the arsenal she carried in her purse. “Where is it?”

Again she averted her gaze. “I…I left it under…my bed.”

Sure she had. “Lemme see your car’s registration.”

“My car is at Pete’s.”

She had an answer for everything, but the last one he could and would check out with a phone call. Brooke had left him in charge, and danged if he’d let anything go wrong. His days of letting folks down were over. “How’d he die?”

She blinked and shook her head as if he’d surprised her. “Who? Arch?”

He nodded.

“Lung cancer. Do you smoke?”

What difference did it make if he did? “Never have. Expensive habit. You?”

“No.” She fiddled with the hem of her shirt.

“Do you have any secrets I need to know about, kid?”

Her deer-in-the-headlights expression sent alarm bells clanging in his mind. “Secrets?”

His gut twisted into one big knot of apprehension. Aw hell, Brooke, what have you dumped on me? He didn’t have time to police the Double C’s hostess. “Vices. Bad habits.”

“As many as your average citizen, I guess.”

An average citizen from a Hollywood movie star’s neighborhood was a whole different species from the folks he was used to dealing with. He couldn’t head off a problem if he’d never heard of it. “Like what?”

She rubbed her forehead with one long, slender finger. Her hand was steady and her skin and eyes were clear. He could probably rule out substance abuse.

“I have a weakness for jelly beans.”

He snorted in disbelief. “Now that’s scary. What else?”

She angled her chin and narrowed her eyes. “I like lobster with drawn butter and two-hour bubble baths.”

And just like that, his body took that wrong-way detour again. A picture of Leanna in a tub with her long hair piled on top of her head and bubbles teasing the tops of her breasts immediately formed in his mind. He chugged several sips of coffee to distract himself from that irrational, illogical, impossible fantasy and scalded his tongue.

What in the hell was wrong with him that he’d be fantasizing about a gal still wet behind the ears? Wasn’t thirty-six too young for a midlife crisis?

She arched a brow. “You?”

“Ask anybody. I have more vices than any man ought to.”

She frowned and shoved away from the counter. “If I want to figure out where everything is and go over the menus and cabin assignments before the others arrive I should get started.”

She hightailed it out of the room, leaving him wondering what he’d said to make her run away.

Leanna closed a guest room door, moved on to check the towels, sheets and soaps in the next one. She’d give anything to crawl into one of those beds and sleep for a couple of hours.

Darkness had fallen by the time Pete had dropped her off at the dude ranch entrance last night, and after lugging her suitcases up the mile-long driveway, she’d been too tired to poke around in the inky shadows looking for a place to sleep. Since Brooke had mentioned that the ranch would be empty for the night, she’d stashed her luggage under the porch and crashed on a lounge chair. Luckily she’d packed bug repellant because the mosquitoes here were huge, and they liked California cuisine—namely her.

At first light she’d found the barn and made use of the big concrete stall used for washing the horses to shower and change clothes. With a little snooping, she’d found an out-of-the-way building which looked to be unused except for furniture storage. After picking the lock, she’d stashed her bags and returned to the main house, only to drift off to sleep while waiting for Patrick to arrive.

She yawned and arched her stiff back. Living with Arch had spoiled her. She used to be able to sleep anywhere. Tonight she looked forward to stretching out on the long sofa in the storage building, without the bugs. Maybe Rico would keep her company. She’d felt safe with the tough-looking dog beside her.

As she moved from room to room, her mind drifted back to this morning’s conversation with Patrick. He’d said he and his father didn’t get along. That was good—at least as far as the inheritance went. He might be reluctant to announce his true paternity if he and the man who’d raised him were close.

She wondered if Mr. Lander knew Patrick wasn’t his son. Carolyn’s letters suggested he didn’t. If he didn’t, her surprise wouldn’t be a pleasant one.

After Arch made it in Hollywood, he’d written to Carolyn wanting to claim his son. She’d promised to write again when she’d broken the news to Patrick about his true paternity and asked her husband for a divorce. The letter never came, because Carolyn had died.

Stopping in front of the mirror, she smoothed her hair and reapplied her tinted lip balm. Her mother constantly urged her to “do something with herself,” fearing she’d never catch a man if she continued her plain-Jane ways. Tonya, who’d had more lovers than Tootsie had rolls, couldn’t understand that not every woman wanted to depend on a man to keep food on the table and a roof over her head.

The last thing Leanna wanted to do was give someone the power to break her heart. She’d nursed her mother’s broken hearts for most of her life and wasn’t eager to drag herself through that morass.

She closed the door on the last room and made her way down the wide staircase to the small office. It’d be wise to go over the registration packets for each of their guests so she would know whom she’d be expected to entertain and what kinds of interests the guests might have.

As soon as she entered Brooke and Caleb’s private quarters, the smell of fresh paint and the rumble of voices told her the decorators had arrived. She jerked to a halt inside the office.

Patrick sat at the desk with his head bent over a stack of papers. In profile, he looked so much like Arch that her heart ached and her throat clogged with loss. Soon, after they got to know each other a little better, she’d tell him about Arch. The truth would be easier coming from a friend than a stranger.

“Patrick, could I get the keys to the cabins?”