Once A Rancher

“Hey, Showbiz.” Slater’s youngest brother, Mace, meandered in from the next room, pulled out a chair on the opposite side of the table and dropped into it, an easy grin surfacing. Of the three of them, Mace most resembled their dad, who’d been killed in a fall from a horse when Slater was twelve. Sometimes just the sight of his brother brought him a pang of grief.

“Hey, yourself,” Slater responded lazily. As nicknames went, he figured Showbiz was something he could live with; both Mace and Drake, his middle brother, used it often.

Mace reached for the carafe in the middle of the table and filled a waiting mug, adding a hefty splash of cream before closing his eyes, savoring that first sip and giving a blissful sigh. Next, he raised the lids on the metal serving dishes and helped himself to a heaping portion of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage and three slices of buttered toast. He’d consume all of that, and most likely repeat the whole process.

Slater, a devout aficionado of home cooking, was continually astonished by the sheer quantity of food Mace could put away.

Finished with his own meal but in no particular hurry to head elsewhere, or to pad the silent spaces with talk, Slater replenished his coffee. He sat there, gazing quietly out the window, soaking in the special ambience of a country morning, content to be who he was, where he was.

Which was home.

When he needed a few minutes to digest the staggering view, like he did right now, he reined in his attention, absorbing his immediate surroundings.

He much preferred this simple but elegant space to the much larger and fancier dining room on the far side of the kitchen; the polished oak table was sturdy, seating six people comfortably.

The room doubled as a sort of butler’s pantry, with two huge sideboards full of antique china and glassware. The liquor cabinet his great-grandfather had brought over from England towered against the inside wall, and the stained-glass panels in the doors gleamed with jewel-like colors. Even as a teenager, when he’d been tempted to raid the contents, figuring, as teenage boys sometimes do, that getting falling-down drunk would be a good move, he’d never actually carried out the plan. Prudently, his folks had kept the cabinet locked, and Slater hadn’t been able to summon up the courage to risk damaging a treasured heirloom.

No, he’d swiped beer from the refrigerator instead and settled for a mild buzz rather than a full-on booze blitz.

“Nice morning,” he said, watching as Mace did justice to the mountain of grub on his plate.

“Yep,” Mace agreed. He was auburn-haired like their mother, with clear blue eyes, and he had a talent with anything that grew. That knack had manifested itself early in his life. When he was ten, their mother had given him a garden plot, a hoe and several packets of seeds for his birthday. While most boys wanted a new bicycle, he’d busied himself with tackling the GP as Slater and Drake called it (translation: the Garden Project), and they’d eaten green beans with supper every night until they’d finally begged for an ear of corn or even some spinach.

Slater wasn’t a picky eater, but he wasn’t a big fan of spinach, either.

A few years ago their mother, Blythe, had revisited her roots in the wine country of Northern California and decided to plant vineyards and produce a brand of her own. Mace had been the natural choice to run the operation. If a plant had leaves, he could make it grow—and thrive—in just about any soil.

“When did you get back?” Mace asked, serving himself up a second breakfast, now that he’d wiped out the first. Slater wondered if his brother’s appetite would catch up with him one day, if Mace would pack a layer or two of fat over those lean muscles of his.

No sign of it so far.

“I got in last night,” Slater answered. He’d slept like the proverbial rock, although he vaguely recalled a series of dreams involving a certain feisty redhead. No surprise there. Grace Emery was the last person he’d seen before he’d stripped off his clothes, showered and fallen face-first into bed. Meeting a woman like that was bound to be a memorable experience, even for somebody half-dead with fatigue.

Mace nodded.

Slater, not usually given to idle chitchat, kept talking. “The production went well and we wrapped early, which almost never happens. Not by much, but early is still early.”

“Sweet.” Mace picked up a piece of toast. “Now you go into the cutting and editing thing, huh?”

“The director will handle most of that.”

“What comes next?”

He’d been thinking about that; on some level, he was always thinking about the next project. “I’ve been playing with the idea of doing a history of Wyoming—how it was settled and all that—but what it also is today. Too many people seem to believe the whole state is barren, except for a ski resort or two and a couple of million sheep. I figure it might be time to update the image a little.”

Mace nodded again, his expression thoughtful. “You could throw in some stuff about the ranch—you know, about Dad’s family and the railroad money his grandfather inherited and then used to establish the ranch. You might even include the estate in California Mom’s people founded.” He was warming to the idea, visibly picking up steam. Trust Mace to find a way to work the winery angle, never mind the logic of highlighting California history in a movie about Wyoming.

Slater smiled—and listened. His brother was on a roll, and some of his ideas were good.

“And what about this place?” Mace went on. “How many historic Wyoming ranch houses were specifically designed to look like something out of Gone with the Wind? There’s a story there, don’t forget.”

There was indeed a story. The mansion had been built, back in the day, to assuage the homesickness of their great-grandmother, a young Southern bride, far from home and yearning for the plantation of her childhood.

By now, Mace was so caught up in the impromptu brainstorming session that he waved his fork in enthusiasm. “I think it would make a great project. You could call it ‘The Carson Legacy: One Family’s Journey in the Great West.’”

Slater smiled again. “Okay, the Carson clan made its mark, I’ll grant you that. But there were a lot of other pioneers, too.”

Mace grinned back at him. “I wouldn’t mind seeing myself immortalized on film,” he said.

That was when Drake wandered in, yawning, probably not from lack of sleep but because he’d been out tending horses since the crack of dawn. “Now why, little brother,” he asked, “would anybody want to immortalize the likes of you?”

Drake was built like Slater and Mace—tall, lean and broad through the shoulders; unlike them, he had dark blond hair. He looked like a cowboy, could handle a horse like no one Slater had ever seen and was just plain born to be outdoors. He yawned again, swung a leg over his customary chair and sat, reaching for the coffee. He scowled at Mace and grunted to underscore his previous remark. “Why should you be immortalized? You’re not all that special, except in your own opinion.”

Mace tried not to seem affronted. “Look who’s talkin’,” he drawled.

Drake flashed that cowboy grin of his. “The voice of reason, that’s who,” he said affably. He nodded at his older brother. “Hey, Slate. Heard you were home. I would’ve said hello before now, but we’re moving a herd to the south pasture, so I’ve been at it for a while. Anyhow, it’s good to see you back.”

It was good to be back.

“Mace has been doing his damnedest to inspire me.” Slater drank the last of his coffee. “Says I ought to include our family’s history in the next documentary.”

“Oh, jeez.” Drake rolled his eyes and sipped from his mug. “Plenty of skeletons rattling around in these closets. If you’re planning on turning them loose, well, I’d appreciate it if you left my name out of the script.”

Mace raised his eyebrows, nudged Drake with a light jab of his elbow. “You could do a feature on our fascinating brother here,” he suggested drily. “Focusing on his love life. The title could be ‘Boring on the Range.’”

“Ha-ha.” Drake shot his younger brother a glare. “That’s a brilliant idea,” he said. “Oh, and by the way, I was up and around long before you finished getting your beauty sleep. Now, I’m thinking maybe you should go back to bed for a while. You obviously need some more shut-eye.”

Slater slid back his chair and stood, empty mug in hand. “You two need to drum up some new insults,” he said. “If I can change the subject—Mace, aren’t we supplying wines for the Bliss River Resort now? How’s that going?”

His brothers exchanged glances—and grins.

Mace said, “I was right! Big Brother did find a way to get her into the conversation. You owe me ten bucks.”

Drake made no move to pull out his wallet. “Damn,” he agreed, “that was fast, Slate. You have some special radar or something? ‘Beep, beep, pretty redhead within range. Sound the alarm. Man your battle stations.’”

Okay, so he hadn’t been as subtle as he’d thought in bringing their discussion around to Grace Emery.

Slater decided to brazen it out, anyway. “You mind telling me what you two loco cowboys are talking about? All I asked was how the deal with the resort was going.” God knew he couldn’t have asked Grace the night before, with her all worked up the way she’d been. He sat down again, grabbed a sausage link from what remained of Mace’s double breakfast and took a bite. Harriet Armstrong, the Carsons’ longtime cook and housekeeper, mixed the ingredients herself. Yet another reason there was no place like home.

He’d eaten in some fancy restaurants, but whatever Harriet put on the table would do just fine. She ran the house with the same kind of no-sweat finesse. He and his brothers referred to the housekeeper as “Harry,” because that was Blythe’s name for her. Harry was like a second mother to all of them, and she’d never had a problem calling bullshit when they tried to put anything over on her.

Mace apparently felt it was incumbent upon him to elaborate on the wager he’d made with Drake. “I bet that if you took one look at Grace Emery, you’d be getting acquainted right quick. You’d be all over that.” He shook his head. “It’s a mystery to me how you did it so fast. You arrived after supper last night and now it’s breakfast time. Every guy within a hundred miles of Mustang Creek suddenly feels the need for a spa visit, just so they can get a look at her, and you, brother, you somehow figured out how to get her to come to you.”

His assistant, Nathan, must have told one of them about Grace’s visit, Slater concluded with a degree of resignation. Fine. He wasn’t going to tell them why she’d stopped by; the business about the swiped sign was between him and Ryder. As far as he was concerned, the matter was settled. “What’s her story?” he asked.

Mace seemed to relish answering the question. “She’s divorced. The kid lives with her because her ex-husband is some sort of hotshot military type. He’s deployed at the moment.” He paused, then added, “From what I’ve heard, she’s doing a great job at the resort. The owner hired her personally.”

Not much news there. Grace had told him most of those details, along with the fact that she’d been a police officer at some point. As brief as their encounter had been, though, Slater could well imagine the memorably lovely Ms. Emery meeting any task head-on. Of course the transition from cop to hotel manager was quite a leap. Obviously, there was more to her story, and he wanted to hear it. “Interesting.”