“She’s accused of having an affair.”
“People still care about that?” Call him jaded, but show him a celebrity, politician, or sports figure who hadn’t been caught with their pants down. He wasn’t condoning it, but society seemed immune, especially in the Hollywood-type world Gina DeRose ran in.
His mother sighed. “She broke up Candace and Danny Clay’s marriage. There are pictures circulating all over the internet.”
Sawyer knew the Clays also had a cooking show, kind of a Lucy and Ricky bit. He’d caught fleeting minutes of the program while channel surfing.
“It’s a mess,” his mother continued. “Candace’s fans, of which there are legions, called for a boycott of Gina’s show. When sponsors started pulling ads, FoodFlicks canceled the rest of the show’s season, including reruns, and suspended negotiations for next season. Investors are talking about walking away from the retail end: the cookware, the prepared meals, and all the rest of it. And—”
“Okay, okay.” He was too tired to hear anymore. “What do you want me to do?”
“Let her stay on the ranch. Everywhere she goes, she’s chased by paparazzi. Your father and I just want her to lie low while we manage the bad press and stop the bleeding. And a hotel or a resort…she’s too recognizable. I know I should’ve gotten your permission first. But we were desperate. She can’t even leave her house without being ambushed. And Jace said it would be okay.”
“When did you talk to Jace?”
“When I couldn’t reach you. He let her in…gave her his spare key.”
Sawyer rubbed his hands down his face. “I’ll find her something,” he said, though he didn’t know what. “But she can’t stay in my place.” Besides the fact that he only had one bedroom, the apartment was also his office and writing cave. Then there was the fact that he’d never been good with sharing his space.
“Somewhere on the ranch, please.” When he muttered that he would, she said, “Thank you, Sawyer. You’re a good son.”
“You mean I’m a sucker. Bye, Mom.”
Gina came into the kitchen, looking like a bird had nested in her blond hair. She had bags under her eyes and the cleavage she was famous for was hidden underneath an oversized T-shirt. Either that or she wore a really good push-up bra on her television show.
“How’d you get here?” he asked, suddenly realizing he hadn’t seen a car.
“To the kitchen? Or here to Timbuktu?”
He rolled his eyes and stifled a pithy comeback. The sooner he got her settled, the sooner he could sleep. “Did you drive and if so, where’s your vehicle?” He said it slowly, enunciating each word.
“In the garage or barn, or whatever is below us.” She pointed at the floor. “We’ll need to keep the door closed at all times. I don’t want the vultures to know where I am.”
“And who would the vultures be?”
“Reporters. Bloodsuckers, every last one of them.”
He reached into his back pocket, held his press pass in front of her face, and hitched a brow. “Don’t worry, I only cover real news. Let’s go.”
For a second, she looked afraid, like he might root through her garbage or snap pictures of her naked. Then she must’ve realized that his mother—her crisis manager—wouldn’t have sent her to the lion’s den, and she went back to copping an attitude.
“Where?” She folded her arms over her chest.
“To your new safe house.”
She perked up. “I hope it has a pool. It’s hot here.”
He was pretty sure that was her lame attempt at sarcasm.
“Yep. Five-star accommodations,” he tossed back. “Pack up your stuff.”
He got a fresh shirt from his closet, sent the rest of her luggage down in the hay elevator— one of the things he’d kept before the redo—and met her at the bottom of the stairs. She scrolled through her phone while he loaded her baggage into the back of his Range Rover.
“Careful with that,” she said as he hefted one of her suiters. “My laundry service pressed everything and I doubt there’s a good dry cleaner’s anywhere around here.” She stared out over the pastureland and shuddered as if she were stuck in a hellhole.
He held his tongue, looking forward to being rid of her. Never mind that the ranch was his lifeblood, everything that mattered.
“Hop in,” he said, blasted the AC, and got on a rutted dirt road that followed the creek through a copse of trees that opened up to a clearing of green-colored fields. In the distance, the Sierra mountain range, covered in Ponderosa pines, loomed large. And green. It had been a wet winter.
Not a mile away, he cut the engine in front of a small cottage. The now-vacant log cabin used to be his cousin Cash’s and every time Sawyer saw the broken steps, the sagging porch and the screen door that hung on one hinge, he hummed a few bars of “Dueling Banjos.”
“Welcome home.” He reached across her lap and swung open the passenger-seat door.
“You’re kidding?” She squirmed. “You’re punking me for calling you a bloodsucker, aren’t you?”
“I’m not that petty.” The heat hit him the second he jumped down from the cab. Hopefully, Cash had left the old swamp cooler in the cabin when he and his daughter, Ellie, moved across the creek.
“Watch your step, now.” He waited for her to trail him up the rickety stairs, found the key under the mat, and held the door open for her.
“Uh-uh, I’m not going in there first.” She waved her hand over the threshold for him to take the lead.
He went inside and flicked on a light. To air the place out—it stunk of dead animals—he opened a few windows.
There wasn’t much to the cabin. Just one large space that made up the living room, kitchen, and eating nook. Off a narrow hallway there were two bedrooms and a bathroom. The smaller of the two bedrooms had been decorated in pink and white stripes when Ellie had come to live with Cash. The rest of the cabin was a depressing beige, although some of the walls were made from rough-hewn logs.
“Can’t beat the views,” he said and gazed out the window. “You can fish right off the front porch.”
“Or die.”
Even if the porch appeared to be held together with a piece of chewing gum, it was safe. “It’s been here for a hundred years; it’s not going anywhere.”
She lifted her chin and locked eyes with him. “Sotheby’s called and said to tell you you’re fired.”
Sawyer ignored her. “It’s also furnished.” He motioned at a dun-colored sofa that he was pretty sure Cash had found on the side of the road somewhere.
“Restoration Hardware or Pottery Barn?” She folded her arms over her chest and clenched her jaw so tight Sawyer thought she might crack a molar. “I can’t possibly stay here.”
The cabin might not be the Palace of Versailles, but it was certainly livable. Cash and his now thirteen-year-old had managed here just fine. All it needed was a good scrubbing and, depending on how long she planned to stay, Ms. FoodFlicks Star with the stick up her ass could afford to buy herself some decent furniture on the internet.
He brushed by her and hauled her luggage inside. “Well, I’ll leave you to unpack and get settled. Just holler if you need anything.”
He was making his way down the front-porch stairs when a Louis Vuitton cosmetic bag sailed past his head and landed in the dirt. “You cannot leave me here. This place…this dump…it should