Slow Burn Cowboy

Logic had no place here. There was no logic. There was only need. The need to do more. To be more. To make everything that had happened worth it. Okay.

“Yes,” she said, growing yet more determined. “That’s what I’m going to do.”

Finn dropped his hand back down to his side. “What?”

“Focus!”

“I would, but I’m not following you.”

“No. I meant that I need to focus. My stock. The aim of the store. More and more, I’m interested in supporting specifically local products from Copper Ridge. And possibly Oregon in general, but I don’t just want to have general specialty stuff.”

“Didn’t we have a recent argument about cheese and how you felt it was essential to acquire it from Europe?”

“Yes, but that was before. There are plenty of small businesses in this state that make award-winning dairy products. There’s a place down south and off the coast that won an award for its blue cheese on a worldwide level. I should just be carrying things like that. But I would definitely want the focus to be on products that are locally sourced.”

“Is there enough of a pool for you to draw from?”

“Beef from the Garretts, seafood from Ryan Masters, microbrews from Ace, wine from Grassroots... And dairy from you.”

“Is this your way of trying to push me into changing the business?”

She sputtered. “Yes. No. I mean, it wasn’t an idea designed to manipulate you. But I am right. I am. When you don’t have to pay the shipping costs your profit margins are going to be higher. If you keep the milk local and sell it as a specialty product—local, hormone free and minimal pasteurization—it’s going to be beneficial for you.”

“I can’t imagine there’s a significant market for it.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention. Hipsters from Portland would pay through the nose piercing for that.”

“I mean, I know that it’s a thing. I just mean... Around here...”

“Trust me,” she said. “You can keep your contracts with the bigger dairy and still do this. Just to test it out. Especially with the extra help your brothers are going to provide.”

“My brothers are only going to be here on a temporary basis. If they plan otherwise, they won’t be in Oregon long, because I’ll send them straight to hell.”

Lane rolled her eyes. “You will not.”

“I might,” he said, moving on to the next aisle.

“You’re all talk. But what do you think about my idea?”

“I’m underwhelmed. You already know that.”

She scoffed. “I don’t mean about your business. I mean about mine. Do you think the focus would be helpful?”

“Are you having financial trouble?”

“No. Not really. But I’m definitely not making the kind of profits I would like to see. And I just want... I want more. I want to make this mine. I want to make a mark. I love Copper Ridge. I want to put a Lane Jensen stamp on it.”

He regarded her for a moment. “You’re really serious about this.”

“I am. And one of my customers said something earlier about being able to order products. I’m thinking maybe I need to set up a website. Or maybe some kind of box full of all the special goodies that are new for the month. Like a subscription box. A best of Copper Ridge box. It honestly didn’t occur to me before, because I’ve been so focused on getting the place established in the town, and back then all that kind of mail-order-gifts-for-yourself stuff wasn’t so big. But now the idea of a subscription box, where you’re basically buying yourself a grown-up grab bag, is such a big thing.”

“That sounds like a lot of work,” he said.

“Says the man with a gigantic ranch that requires he never sleep in or ever take a vacation.”

“That’s different.”

“It isn’t different. I want to invest in this business, and build it, and make it mine. You of all people should understand that.” She paused, and she knew she was pushing her luck, but she did it anyway. “If you did what I’m talking about with the milk, and if you started offering more kinds of cheese... Well, you could do the same thing with the Laughing Irish. Make it yours. Finn Donnelly would be the one to make the name famous. Instead of just hiding it behind the label of the more well-known dairy.”

She knew she had laid it on a little thick, and his irritated expression reflected that. “I’m already getting badgered by my brother, plus I have two more set to show up today. I don’t really need you chiming in and pressuring me too. If you want to make your mark on the town, go right ahead. But stop trying to put your Lane stamp on me.”

She sighed, feeling exasperated. The man was the most enraging human on the planet sometimes. Stubborn, crabby and resolutely determined to keep his head up his ass. “But I’m right,” she insisted.

“My grandfather ran the ranch for forty years. He kept it going through all manner of economic hardship. Why would I act like I know better than him?”

“That isn’t what you’re doing,” she said. “You’re not acting like you know better than him. You’re just finding a new way to succeed in a new world.”

“Expand all you like, Lane, but I’ve had enough change. I won’t tell you where to stack your damned caviar if you don’t tell me what to do with my cows.”

She sat down on the stool behind the counter, crossing her arms, knowing that she looked like she was pouting, and not really caring. “Fine. Have that control you’re so fond of. What are you here for anyway?” She realized that she had bulldozed right over whatever he might have wanted to say when he’d come in.

“Coffee beans,” he said, picking up a bag. “Also, I was kind of hoping you could bring something by for dinner tonight. You know, enough for a crowd of people. But since you always have mass amounts of food in that freezer of yours that I spared last night...”

“You don’t have to do something for me to get food. Your very presence in my life merits food.” She never stayed annoyed with Finn, even when he was annoying. It was impossible.

He had too long a track record of being wonderful for her to take a disagreement seriously. Plus, when he smiled at her, and his blue eyes lit up, she couldn’t feel anything but affection for the man.

He treated her to that smile she could never stay mad at. Then he brought the bag of coffee up to the counter.

She set about ringing it up. “You know, you probably have enough food that you don’t need anything new. Wasn’t it just yesterday that you were trying to turn down the casserole I slaved over?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t really want to piece leftovers together. And if I remember right, Liam and Alex are bottomless pits. Of course, my memory of them might be firmly centered on their teens and early twenties. So maybe now that they’re both in their thirties they’ve started eating reasonable portions.”

“I’ll make something. Pasta, probably. That will be easy to make in the little store kitchen in the back. Don’t worry. I won’t let you starve.”

“Perfect,” Finn said, sounding weary. “Could you also figure out a way to handle my brothers for me?”

“Sorry, buddy. Maybe I can sing the ‘Song That Never Ends’ all night and annoy them out of town. Then again, once they eat my pasta they’re going to end up wanting to stay forever. I could put strychnine in it,” she offered.

“Maybe don’t poison my brothers, Lane.”

“Then I guess you’re stuck with them.”

“Hopefully not for too long,” he said, his smile turning rueful.

“How do you plan to get rid of them if not poison?” she asked.

“The way you normally get people to do what you want. Money. Of course...until then, they’ll be staying in my house. On second thought...” He looked down at the pound of coffee in his hand. “I better get two of these.”