Taming A Texas Heartbreaker (Bad Boy Ranch Book 4) Page 9

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m not talking about Sheriff Willaby. He’s a dick. I’m just talking about men in general.”

  Feeling uncomfortable with the subject, she set her coffee down and started whisking the eggs again. This time, a little frantically. “I trust men.”

  “Name one.”

  “My father.”

  “Besides your father.”

  She stopped whisking as she tried to come up with an answer. When she couldn’t, she felt a little stunned. She liked a lot of men in town. She visited with them all the time. She bought merchandise from them, celebrated with them at weddings and town functions, and drank beer with them at Cotton-Eyed Joe’s. But now that she thought about it, there wasn’t one she completely trusted. Like a wary dog that had been kicked too many times, she always kept a safe distance. She was sociable, but never too friendly. She never let down her guard. It was like she was waiting for them to do something to make her feel bad about herself.

  Which was sad.

  Extremely sad.

  “So who was he, Reba?” Val asked. “What asshole gave us all a bad name? Or was it a bunch of assholes?”

  She didn’t know why her eyes suddenly burned with tears. All she knew was that she refused to cry in front of Valentine Sterling. She went back to beating the eggs even though she had already whipped them into a yellow froth. “It’s not a big deal. I just developed faster than most girls my age and it made boys a little sex-crazed.”

  “Teenage boys are pretty sex-crazed. I know I was, but that doesn’t excuse bad behavior. Did someone force you to do something you didn’t want to?”

  It was the concern in his voice that made her stop whisking and turn around.

  His lips were pressed into a thin line of displeasure and his damp hair had started to dry and curl around his ears and forehead. She liked it much better than his slicked-back hairstyle. This Valentine was more relatable than the famous writer on the back cover of a book. This Valentine made her feel like it would be okay to let down her guard.

  “I was never forced,” she said. “I guess my man hating comes from always being looked at as a sexual object rather than a person. The only one who didn’t do that was Billy Bob—or so I thought.”

  Valentine squinted. “Billy Bob?”

  She laughed. “Okay, so he was a little bit of a redneck. My mom hired him one summer to do odd jobs around the boardinghouse. I was home from college and I think she was hoping to do a little matchmaking. I wasn’t interested—at least not at first.”

  “Because of all your previous experiences with boys.”

  She nodded. “But Billy Bob was different. He was funny and made me laugh. He didn’t even try to kiss me until we’d been going out for a couple weeks. We hung out together the entire summer and I pretty much fell head over heels. I thought he felt the same way. When I went back for my senior year of college, he called or texted me every single day. One weekend, I decided to surprise him and show up at his apartment in Austin.”

  She looked down and studied the toes of Val’s scuffed boots. “As I got out of my truck, I spotted him walking down the street holding the hand of a pretty petite blond. When he saw me, he turned completely around and pulled her in the opposite direction. Because I was a lovesick idiot, I called him, hoping he’d have some explanation. ‘He hadn’t seen me and she was his sister and they’d always been hand-holding close.’ But he didn’t answer. Of course, being the determined woman I am that didn’t stop me. I called him nonstop for days until he finally answered and told me the truth. She was his fiancée and they were getting married in a month. I was just ‘a thing’—one last hurrah before he tied the knot.”

  She waited for Valentine to say something. When he didn’t, she glanced up to find him staring out the window at the garden. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  It was such a simple response, but for some reason it made her feel much better. Or maybe what made her feel better was getting the entire story off her chest. She had never told anyone exactly what happened. Not even Evie. She’d always prided herself on being the tough girl. The one who could handle anything. She hadn’t wanted her friend to know how weak she’d been with Billy Bob—how love had turned her into a wimp.

  Which was why she avoided it.

  “I better get back to making breakfast,” she said. “Even when we don’t have guests, Aunt Gertie expects to eat all meals in the formal dining room.”

  Valentine opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something. Instead, he closed it and set the mug on the counter. “Thanks for the coffee. I should probably get going before the sheriff beats me out to the ranch.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. Everyone in town knows that Sheriff Willaby sleeps until noon. He claims it’s because he’s patrolling the town at night, but more than likely it’s because he’s playing poker with some of the other county sheriffs. And from what I hear, he loses more than he wins. Maybe that’s why he’s always in such a fool mood. Of course, that’s no excuse to come here throwing his weight around. I plan to chew his butt out for harassing one of my guests.”

  Valentine smiled. “Your aunt already chewed him out last night. I guess she was listening from the house. I don’t know what ticked her off, but she came flying out to the porch like an avenging angel and let him have it.” His smile got even bigger. “I have to admit that I’m getting kind of attached to that old gal.”

  “Because you don’t have to put up with her shenanigans. It was her orneriness that made our last guest leave. Which reminds me.” She picked up her cellphone from the counter. “Can I get a picture of you sitting on the porch enjoying the boardinghouse for my social media?”

  He shook his head. “I’m camera shy.”

  “Then who’s on the back of your books?”

  “My photo double.” He pulled his cellphone from his back pocket. “But how about if I take a picture of the garden and post it. Maybe we can even find Roo the rabbit. People love posts of animals.”

  It took a while to find Roo. As they walked along the path, Valentine stopped her often to ask about a certain flower or garden ornament and seemed genuinely interested in the history of the house.

  “So your great-grandfather built this house for his bride, but she left him at the altar so he just married his housekeeper?”

  Reba bent and plucked the deadheads off some mums. “In her diary, Granny Dovey claims it was love at first sight. At least for her. It took an old Cherokee love potion she baked into an apple pie to make Grandpa Dix fall in love. Or so she thought.”

  He laughed. “I’d love to read this diary if it’s filled with gems like that.”

  “Good luck. Aunt Gertie keeps it under lock and key.”

  Valentine stopped to study the statue of Venus half hidden in a lilac bush. “I understand now why you love this place so much. It holds most of your family history.” He glanced over at her. “But it has to be a lot of work keeping it going. Do you ever get tired and just want to throw in the towel?”

  “Do you ever get tired of writing and want to quit?”

  “All the time.” He reached out and touched the smooth gray stone of the statue, his long fingers sliding over Venus’s hair. For some reason, a shiver of awareness ran down Reba’s spine as if he were stroking her hair. “I never wanted to write psychological thrillers. It was my agent who pushed me to write my first one. Thrillers were selling well at the time and she said it was just to get my foot in the door of the publishing world. Once I got a readership, I could write whatever I wanted. Eight books later, I’m still writing thrillers.”

  “Why don’t you quit if you don’t like it and write what you want?”

  “It’s not that easy to do when you have readers who expect you to write thrillers. Most writers are people pleasers. We want to make our readers happy.”

  “Don’t you deserve to be happy?”

  “I am—for the most part.”

  “What would make you happier?”
>
  “I’ve always wanted to write a book of ghost stories for teens. I used to love writing and telling them to the Double Diamond boys.” He shook his head. “It’s a silly idea.”

  “I don’t think it’s silly. I think a lot of teens are interested in ghosts. That’s why they sneak out here every Halloween to see Granny Dovey’s ghost.”

  “Kids sneak out here on Halloween?”

  “The boys bring their girlfriends to try and scare some kisses from them.”

  He laughed, then suddenly sobered. “You could use that to your advantage. You should write down all the stories you can remember about this house and your grandparents and post them on your website and Facebook. You might get more than just teenagers wanting to spend a weekend ghost hunting.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I know so. Especially if you can post a few eerie pictures of the garden at night.”

  “Maybe you could send me the one you took of the garden?”

  He hesitated. “Sorry, I deleted it.” He glanced down. “Speaking of posting pictures.”

  Roo sat at the base of Venus with its tufted ears slicked back and its big brown eyes staring pleadingly at the banana Reba had brought to lure the rabbit out. Reba peeled the banana, then crouched down and held it out to Roo. The rabbit didn’t hesitate to hop forward and nibble at the offered feast. From the corner of her eye, Reba could see Val holding up his cellphone and snapping pictures.

  “Make sure I’m not in it,” she said as she leaned back.

  “Stop being paranoid. A picture of a rabbit eating a banana is cute. A picture of a beautiful woman feeding a rabbit is captivating.”

  Reba glanced up at him. “I know I’m not beautiful or captivating, Valentine. So you don’t need to waste compliments on me. ”

  He turned the cellphone to her. “I think this picture speaks for itself.”

  Valentine was as good at taking photographs as he was at writing. The woman in the picture holding out the banana to the little golden-haired rabbit did look beautiful with the sun glinting off her burnished red curls and the vivid colors of the garden highlighting the paleness of her skin and the flush of her cheeks.

  Reba was struck a little speechless. And even more so when Val crouched down next to her and brushed a loose curl from her cheek with his long, graceful fingers.

  “See. You just need to look though a different lens.”

  Chapter Ten

  “If that cocky sheriff shows up here accusing my boys, I’ll fill his butt full of buckshot.” Chester spit a stream of tobacco out on the ground, barely missing Cru Cassidy’s cowboy boots.

  “Would you watch it, Chess,” Cru said. “And I thought we had a talk about you quitting chewing tobacco.”

  “You talked. That doesn’t mean I listened.” Chester tried to get Boomer to sit by his feet, but the puppy wasn’t about to sit when he had such a large group of ear scratchers.

  “That’s because you need hearing aids, you old fart,” Lucas said. “You can’t hear a dang thing.”

  “I can hear just fine, you old coot. I can also aim just fine. Somethin’ that Sheriff Willaby better think about before he comes nosing around the Double Diamond makin’ accusations.”

  “Val didn’t say he was accusing anyone.” Logan pushed away from the corral railing he’d been leaning on. “And you’re not shooting the sheriff. If he shows up here, you’re going to be cordial and let Holden handle him. Holden’s a lawyer. He’ll know what to say.”

  “I would be surprised if the sheriff comes out,” Holden said. “I think he was just sniffing around to see if he could get a reaction out of Val.” He grinned. “From the sounds of it, he got more of a reaction out of Miss Gertie. And here I thought she didn’t like us.”

  “She don’t like us,” Lucas said. “That frigid old biddy don’t like any man.”

  Neither did her niece, Val thought. But he now understood why Reba was so closed off. He could only imagine how many lusty teenage boys had wanted to get their hands on her body. He wasn’t a horny teen and he wanted to touch her in a bad way. Of course he couldn’t. Not only because he never had sex while he was working on a book—it took away his focus—but also because Reba had some major hang-ups with guys and needed the right kind of man to get her through them.

  He wasn’t that man. He had enough hang-ups of his own.

  “I agree with Holden that the sheriff was just throwing his weight around,” Cru said. “I think we intimidated him when he was a deputy.” He slugged Val in the arm. “And he thought this was a good opportunity to pull a power play with the weakest one in the herd.”

  “Marvin wasn’t the weakest one in the herd,” Lucas snapped. The name had Val cringing.

  “I wish you wouldn’t call me Marvin, Lucas.”

  “That’s your name, ain’t it? Why you went and changed it to Valentine Sterling, I’ll never know. There’s nothing wrong with Marvin Valentine.”

  There was plenty wrong with it. Not just because it didn’t sound like a famous writer’s name, but also because of the memories the name carried. Marvin Valentine had been a fat kid who let people bully him. He was better off forgotten.

  “If he don’t want to be called Marvin, you old coot, don’t call him Marvin.” Chester looked at Val. “But I agree with him that you weren’t the weakest in the herd.”

  “I don’t know about that. I couldn’t even lift a saddle onto the back of a horse when I first got here.”

  “But you worked hard at it until you could. Just like you did with roping and riding and any other task me and Lucas gave you. You’ve always been a fighter.”

  Val had fought hard to become a bestselling author. He would have to fight even harder to remain one. He wished he could get back to his laptop, but it would have to wait.

  Chester chuckled. “I bet Willaby was surprised when you stepped out the door. You‘ve grown a little since he last saw you. And if the bags of horse feed you stacked in the barn are any indication, you’ve gotten a mite stronger too.”

  Cru looked at Val with a teasing smirk. “This weakling author could lift bags of horse feed?”

  “And he helped paint the barn and mucked out the stalls,” Lucas said.

  Val couldn’t help grinning at Chester and Lucas’s praise. They always had been good at building their boys up. “It wasn’t a big deal. The other guys have done much more than I have. I just did a few things around the ranch.”

  “Still, we appreciate it,” Chester said. “We also appreciate the money you gave to rebuild our house after the fire. Which is why we wanted you to have a piece of the Double Diamond.”

  Lucas and Chester had given a piece of their land to each of the six boys as a thank you for giving money to rebuild their house after a gas explosion had burned it to the ground. None of the boys had expected payment for their help and they had all tried to refuse the land, but the Diamond brothers would have none of it. Now that Cru, Logan, and Holden had all moved back and gotten married, each planned to keep the land and live on it.

  Val was happy for his friends. And even happier that Chester and Lucas had people to watch out for them as they got older. But he had no use for his land. With his parents now retired in Florida and his sister living in Oregon, there was no reason for him to move back to Texas. Maybe he would divide his land between the other boys. They had always been better cowboys than he was.

  Although he had enjoyed hanging out at the Double Diamond and playing ranch hand for the last month. It had been a nice break from the stress of writing the next bestseller. Maybe he should keep a small section of land and build a writing retreat. A place to escape the hustle and bustle of New York. But right now, he needed to deal with this situation.

  “While I think the sheriff was just fishing,” he said, “I think he can still cause problems if he started spreading his suspicions. We all remember what happened after the townsfolk got riled up about Chester and Lucas bringing a bunch of wild teenagers to town.”

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p; Chester grunted. “The crazy fools took a signed petition to that senator and had our permit to run the boys’ ranch revoked.”

  “I don’t think it was the townsfolk pushing for that as much as Hank Gardener,” Logan said. “He hated us—or not y’all as much as me.”

  “That’s because you were sniffing around after his daughter.” Chester spit another stream of tobacco, this time barely missing Val’s boots.

  Cru laughed. “I think he was doing a lot more than sniffing. They were playing house in your old rundown shack.”

  “And we still are.” Logan grinned foolishly. He had fixed up the old house that Chester and Lucas had lived in when they first bought the ranch, and now he lived there with Evie and their teenage son Clint. “I agree with Val. If the sheriff should start putting crazy ideas in people’s heads, it wouldn’t be good for the Double Diamond ranch, Holden’s new law office, or the Gardener Ranch.”

  “So what do you think we should do?” Cru asked.

  “Find Sam Sweeney,” Holden and Val answered at the same time.

  Logan nodded. “If we find Sam, it will put a stop to any gossip and it will also help out Maisy. I feel sorry for the girl. I don’t think she wants to cause trouble. I really just think she wants to find her father.”

  Lucas snorted. “She’s better off not knowing that lowdown snake. Which is why we didn’t tell her the truth about firing him. But maybe if we had, she wouldn’t have run to the sheriff.”

  “She doesn’t need to know about what went on while Sam was here,” Chester said. “And neither does the sheriff. That’s ranch bid-ness.”

  “I agree,” Holden said. “The less the sheriff knows the better. Until he has a warrant, we don’t have to talk to him at all. But it’s still a good idea if we find Sam.”

  “I tried looking on the Internet and didn’t find anything,” Val said. “I have a call in to Linc, but he hasn’t called me back yet.”

  “Keep trying,” Holden said. “Lincoln will have the best chance of finding Sam. And I know a private investigator who used to do jobs for me. I’ll call him. In the meantime, I think we should steer clear of the sheriff.” He looked at Logan and Cru. “I’m sure y’all could find something for Chester and Lucas to do at the Gardener Ranch for the next couple days.”