Cowboy Resurrection: Cowboy Cocktail, Book 2 (5 page)

The urge to kiss him was so strong, she had to grip the steering wheel to keep from acting on it. There were patrons standing at the entrance of the diner. A couple passersby ambled along the sidewalk.

Dean opened the passenger door. “I think we’re going to enjoy working together. What do you think?” He turned, touched the brim of his hat and gave her a small nod. “Miss Kaur,” he said, his eyes searing hers.

“Mr. MacKinnon.”

He closed her door, got into his truck and started up the engine. As he drove away, Monica sat in the silent interior of her car and listened to the jacked-up beating of her heart.

Chapter Two

The Clown

“Breaking even is ending up in purgatory as far as I can tell.”

—Townes Van Zandt

A mop of dark curly hair appeared on the other side of the breakfast table. A tiny hand gripped the back of the chair. The chair rocked precariously as Dean’s monkey of a nephew swung into place for breakfast.

“Morning,” Dean said.

“Good morning, Uncle Dean.” The little boy was neat and clean, all dressed for kindergarten. Georgia, Derek’s mother, came in from the kitchen and put a pancake on her son’s plate.

“Here you go, kiddo. Pancake, Dean?” Georgia asked. She held a skillet full of pancakes in one hand and a spatula in the other. The new baby was due in a few weeks, but she looked like she was going to pop any minute.

“I’m good, thanks.” Dean finished reading the newspaper, folded all the sections neatly and straightened the pile. He took a sip of his second cup of coffee.

“Where’s Grandpa? Where’s Grandma Cece?” asked Derek.

“They took a trip to the hospital in Bakersfield with your Uncle Caleb. They’ll be back this afternoon.” Dean opened the syrup bottle and poured a little puddle on Derek’s pancake. “Say when.”

The little boy stared at the growing puddle and said nothing.

“You gonna eat the whole bottle?” Dean asked.

The boy looked up at him with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. Dean smiled and snapped the bottle closed. “Little monkey.”

Daniel opened the back door, walked into the kitchen and hugged Georgia from behind as she stood by the kitchen sink. “Hey, sweetheart,” he murmured, kissing the back of her neck. He rested his hand on her pregnant belly. Together they closed their eyes, smiling, and stood still, a moment of tenderness in the swirl of another morning.

A sudden rush of longing flooded Dean’s chest. Quickly, he looked down at his coffee cup, annoyed at himself for intruding on his brother’s privacy.

At the table, his other brother Clark took a huge bite of pancakes and dripped syrup onto the newspaper as he read the business page. “So where are you going today?” he asked, his mouth full.

Dean cleared his throat. “Bo Walker’s. Going to see if we can get some bulls for Rodeo Days.”

“You taking that girl? What was her name, the one on the rodeo association?”

“Monica Kaur. Yeah. She wants to see them.” He hadn’t stopped thinking about her in the last two days. When she finally called him last night, he’d perked up like a teenage girl whose crush was on the phone. Didn’t matter that all she’d talked was business.

“She’s hot stuff,” said Clark with a grin. “She single? Seeing anyone?”

Dean put down his coffee cup, trying to sound nonchalant even though against all logic, Clark’s words made him see red. “Ask her yourself, you’re so interested.”

Daniel came into the dining room with his breakfast and sat down. “Say hi to old Bo for me, will you? Tell him we all saw Dandelion Wine buck off Bruno Silva on TV last weekend. That sure was something.”

“I’ll tell him.” Dean said.

Daniel turned to the little boy. “Go brush your teeth and get your book bag. I’m taking you to school today.”

Derek the monkey swung out of his chair. There was a smear of sticky pancake syrup on his cheek. “Okay, Daddy.”

* * * * *

Three months.

Dean had been home three months and already he felt like he was drowning. The facelessness of each moment bled into the next. He could feel himself growing older and softer and slower with each passing day.

When he was working the circuit, it was easy to keep bad feelings at bay. He was always moving, never giving himself enough time to stagnate.

And it felt good to start over in a new town every couple of days. Like he’d been erased. Newly baptized, almost a different man, no longer subject to the old misapprehensions or regrets of the past.

On the ranch, at least the work was good and honest, and Dean liked seeing his efforts tallied up each day by feet of fence restrung or number of calves vaccinated or square miles of pasture reseeded or leveled. He didn’t mind that he was answering to his younger brothers. In his absence, Daniel and Clark had become competent cattlemen, as skilled if not sharper than their old man.

Dean clenched his jaw.

The old man.

Their father was the whole reason he and Caleb had come back home, the whole reason Daniel couldn’t sleep at night and Clark spent most nights at the Silver Spur. The old man’s cancer had come back with a vengeance, and the whole family was here to rally around him, to support him and help him fight off the disease one more time.

The show producers called Dean regularly. Was he coming back? When? How many shows? Could they put him on the schedule?

“Not yet,” was all Dean could say. “Just keep me in mind. I can’t give you an answer yet.”

What kind of answer could he possibly give them? His father was dying, even though no one would say it aloud. He wouldn’t be able to do any shows until…the inevitable.

He loved his family. Good people, every single one.

And yet Dean wished he were back on the road. Anywhere but here, where bad memories and new melancholy were eating him alive.

He hoped the trip out to see Bo would be good for him. He borrowed Caleb’s truck. His baby brother’s Silverado wasn’t much to look at but the kid took good care of it. When he took the exit, Dean clenched the steering wheel just a little tighter and put on his sunglasses. Too many women in town who were hungry for a piece of him, and not in a good way. He hoped they’d mistake him for Caleb.

As promised, Monica stood just outside the fire station waiting for him. Her long black hair was gathered in a simple ponytail, and he could see the smooth, dark nape of her neck. She was dressed in another silk blouse, dark jeans and the silliest pink slippers he’d ever seen. The jeans showed off her wide hips and the curve of her round ass. In his mouth, his tongue twitched. For a split second, he thought he could still taste her, the sweet, rich flavor of her sex burned like a brand into his senses.

He stopped the truck at the curb, got out and opened the door for her.

“I told you to dress down, for Chrissakes,” he said by way of hello. “It’s a ranch.”

“I
am
dressed down,” she said, taking the hand he offered and climbing up into the cab of the lifted truck.

Dean couldn’t help admiring the view. The woman had curves like a dangerous mountain road. A flashback of her surrounded by orange flowers, half-naked and coming hard beneath him, made the rest of his mind go momentarily blank.

“You all right?” she asked as she put on her seat belt.

He blinked. “Yeah,” he said curtly. He shut the door.

The drive to Walker Ranch took an hour and a half. Dean kept his hands on the wheel and tried to keep cool. Monica messed with her tablet computer and chattered about her plans for Oleander Rodeo Days. Who was involved. Who was doing what. What was happening when. She went on and on. Dean’s mind was wandering back to the taste of her smooth brown skin when she asked him a question at last.

“Huh?” he said.

She lowered her sunglasses and raised an eyebrow at him. “I said, did you work with Bo Walker when you were in high school?”

Dean cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah. My first job.”

She tapped something into her computer. “Bo Walker owns Dandelion Wine? Isn’t that—”

“The three-time world-champion bull?” Dean nodded. “Bo grew up with my dad. Won a lot of awards as a bull rider before he went off to Vietnam. When he came back, he retired from riding to become a stock contractor. He started with one bucking bull and two good cows. Now he’s got sixty, seventy bulls on his property. Maybe a dozen horses he’s training for roping and pickup.”

“That’s impressive. When’s the last time you saw him?”

“Three, four months ago. Back in St. Louis, I think.” He turned onto the winding road that led up to Lake Isabella.

She turned off her tablet and slipped it into her bag. “So what’s it like, not moving around the country like a pinball?”

It’s hell.
“It’s fine,” he said. Tightly wound and moodier than usual, he had no desire to be psychoanalyzed today. He decided to turn the focus on her. “How about you? What made you move away from here in the first place?”

“Nothing dramatic. I got into Berkeley, and after four years, Northern California just grew on me, I guess. Most of the companies I want to work with are up there, so it’s a logical place for me to live.” She looked out the window.

Her answer wasn’t as deep as he wanted it to be, so he pressed her. “I knew kids in high school who were itching to get out of Oleander. Were you trying to get away from your family?”

“No, not really.” She gave him a sideways glance. “Not at first, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“I guess for this to make sense, you have to understand that my family is very big, very tight-knit.”

Had she forgotten who she was talking to? You couldn’t swing a dead possum ’round these parts without hitting a MacKinnon. “Yeah. I think I get that.”

“Also, I was raised in a very traditional way, going to the temple, praying twice a day. My father, my brother, all my uncles—they wear turbans and they don’t cut their beards.”

He nodded. “I’ve seen the Singhs in town before. Good men, all business owners and farmers.”

“My fiancé was a Sikh. We met at Berkeley.” She paused. “His family lives in Stockton. When our engagement ended, we caused a minor scandal. Especially when he got married just a few months later.”

So she’d been burned before, just like he had. “Did that bother you?” Dean asked.

“Not as much as I thought it would. But my family?” She shook her head. “Very bothered. Very,
very
bothered. Now my mother is obsessed with seeing me married. It was easy enough to avoid her when I was up north. But here? Impossible to escape.” Monica sighed and looked up at him. “Is Walker Ranch much farther?”

Dean glanced back at her. His picture of her was becoming clearer, but she was still a puzzle. One he wanted to solve. “Naw. We’ll be there soon.”

* * * * *

As Bo took them on a UTV tour of his ranch, Dean watched Monica work. She was as perceptive and sharp as a gypsy horse trader, but she hid her true self behind a wall of charm and a smile that could light up a moonless night. Old Bo had no idea what hit him. Before he knew it, Bo had offered up half his stock and told Monica he’d call the rodeo producers himself to make all the arrangements. They shook hands and in a hot minute, Bo was beaming and opening up his finest bottle of bourbon on the front porch while Monica held out her empty glass.

She had gone to rinse her slippers off with a garden hose when Bo leaned over to Dean and said quietly, “That one’s a keeper.”

Dean took a sip of the Pappy Van Winkle he knew Bo wouldn’t have opened for him if he’d come alone. “I’m not interested in keepin’ anyone at this point, Bo.”

The old cowboy frowned. His thick, white eyebrows came down with the corners of his mouth. “Bullshit, boy. I see how you look at her.”

“You’re imagining things, old man. I just met her.”

“Never stopped you before.” Bo drained his glass and let out a happy hiss. “And for the love of God, stop calling me ‘old man’.”

Back in the truck, Monica didn’t allow herself one minute of gloating before she turned on her computer again and checked off more items on her list. “Good. That took about as long as I anticipated. That leaves me enough time to pop by the sheriff’s station to approve all the sponsors’ signage before it goes off to the printer’s.”

Dean shook his head as he started up the engine. “My God, woman.”

“What?”

“Don’t you ever give it a rest?”

“The sooner this all gets done, the sooner I free up my schedule for the rest of the stuff that’s going to land on my plate soon,” she explained without looking up. “If it sits, things just get worse. I don’t want to get behind.”

“It’s a rodeo
association
isn’t it? What about your associates?”

She shrugged. “They’ve got their own tasks to handle. These are mine.”

“I know everyone on that board,” Dean said. “They’re nice people, but I wouldn’t exactly call them go-getters. You’re doing more than your fair share. I know it.”

“Well, if you want something done right…yadda, yadda.” She waved her hand absently.

He looked at his watch. “It’s eleven. What time do your signs need to be at the printer’s?”

“Before they close at five.”

He left Bo Walker’s property and headed north. “All right. I’m taking you somewhere.”

Monica looked at him at last. “What?”

“You ever been up to Lake Isabella?”

“Yes.”

“How many times?”

She paused. “A couple.”

He smiled. “Don’t lie.”

“Okay, once.”

“How old were you?”

“Six,” she said sheepishly. “It was a school trip. Polliwogs.”

“Then you’re long overdue.”

“Dean—”

“You said it yourself. Printer at five.”

“But I have to work.”

“This
is
work. Market research. Think about it. Lake Isabella or Rodeo Days. Most townspeople that weekend are going to be at one or the other.” He grinned. “Best know your competition, right?”

She turned off her computer and looked at him with an impatient sigh. “Fine. An hour. No more.”

* * * * *

After stopping at the bait shop for a six-pack, Dean drove around the shore of Lake Isabella and headed up into Sequoia National Forest. The road narrowed into a mountain highway and, though it had been years since he’d come up here, Dean followed it to the unmarked turnoff he and his brothers had discovered when they were in high school. The forest grew lusher and thicker around them.

“I’m taking you to a super-secret spot. Just before the Kern River feeds into the lake. MacKinnon Rock.” Dean could still see Monica’s suspicious expression through the lightly mirrored lenses of her sunglasses. “Well, I call it that anyway,” he added.

In a cloud of dust, Dean parked the truck by the side of the road in the shade of a black walnut tree. He grabbed the six-pack and a couple blankets out of the truck bed. Monica climbed out and shut her door.