Home Is Where Hank Is (Cowboys To The Rescue 1) Read online

  The beef industry in the Wind River Valley had all but dried up since they’d become “Jacksonized.” Like in nearby Jackson Hole, ranch land was being converted into condos for wealthy retirees and movie stars. Property taxes had escalated at a rate that put most ranches out of business.

  Hank was barely holding on to the Garden. He couldn’t hold on much longer. That was one reason he’d put his ranch up for sale last month. The agent told him it would be a couple of months before they got any serious offers. So until then he needed hands to work his cattle, which meant he needed a cook, which meant he needed Alex.

  “Look, I don’t mean to pry, but how are you planning to get to California? Hen told me your car broke down and you don’t have the money to fix it.”

  Her firm little chin lifted. “Hen talks too much.”

  “I can’t disagree with you there. But that doesn’t change the fact that you need a job. Unless what you’re looking for is a handout....”

  She straightened indignantly. “I don’t take charity.”

  He nodded in approval. “Do you take jobs?”

  Alex released a huff of breath and looked away. Damn the man. He had her there. How was she going to get to San Francisco? The pittance she made at the Whiskey Mountain Café barely paid for her room. She hadn’t panicked yet because her internship didn’t actually start for another month. Etienne’s was only open during the summer and winter tourist seasons. Monsieur Buchaude made enough money during those seven months to live the rest of the year in the south of France. She’d been planning to get a part-time job in one of the many hotels or restaurants in San Francisco until Etienne’s opened. She just hadn’t counted on her car breaking down.

  She threw a glance at the man sitting next to her. He studied her with a strange expression—as if he couldn’t quite figure out what species she was. His perusal reminded her of when she answered Hen’s call and first walked through that door to find his startling blue eyes on her. She couldn’t understand how he ripped the breath right out of her lungs. She knew it had to be her imagination, but she’d actually felt his gaze on her—like hands wandering up her body.

  Alex shivered. Men had looked her over before, but it usually made her feel dirty. She’d never felt her skin tingle in response, as if every hair on her body was clamoring for attention. Her heart had never hammered blood through her veins until she felt light-headed

  Feeling those bright blue eyes on her now, she felt those symptoms return. How could she work for this man when her hands shook every time he looked at her? She’d break every dish in his kitchen.

  “So, how about it?” he asked. “I won’t ask for a lifetime commitment. If you could just help me out for a few weeks, I’d be eternally grateful.”

  He named a much more reasonable salary. If she worked a month for him, she’d be able to fix her car, drive to San Francisco and have a bit left to tide her over until she got settled. Why not take his offer? She had to have some kind of job for the next month. Wyoming or California—what difference did it make?

  She forced her eyes back to him. The curved brim of his black hat threw shadows across his features, making them look as if they had been chiseled or hewn. His eyes were the same color as the Wyoming sky.

  Alex couldn’t squelch the warm pleasure the look in those eyes sent seeping through her, melting her bones—which told her exactly why she shouldn’t take this job. The last thing she needed right now was a hot romance with some cowboy. The chance of a lifetime waited for her in California. No way was she passing that up.

  But she had to face facts. She needed this job in order to get to California.

  She took a deep breath and shook away her misgivings. She really needed to get out more. This man hadn’t asked for anything more than a cook. One smile and her underused libido ran amok. “You own a ranch?”

  He nodded. “About ten miles west of here.”

  “What’s the name of it?”

  “Most folks call it the Garden.”

  Alex felt her lips twitch. “As in the Garden of Eden?”

  He nodded, acknowledging the joke. “My great-granddaddy named it. Came with the last name, I guess. He even went so far as to make our cattle brand a snake.”

  Alex chuckled and felt herself relax. At least he had a sense of humor. “Seems appropriate.”

  “I reckon.”

  The dog nudged Alex’s leg and she leaned over to scratch behind his ears.

  “Tell me, is everything you cook as good as that lemon pie?” he asked.

  “You liked it?”

  “Does a cowboy like steak? Does a horse like carrots? Does a cat like—”

  “I get the idea.” She smiled broadly. “And to answer your question—yes, I’m a very good cook.”

  “You interested in the job?”

  “Maybe. How many people would I be cooking for?”

  “Let’s see, there’s me and my sister Claire. I’ve got five full-time hands, but two are married and have their own places on the ranch. So that leaves Jed, Derek and Buck. Oh, and my brother, Travis, drifts in from time to time. He may show up while you’re there. Think you can handle a crowd like that? We’re all big eaters. All except Claire.”

  The more the better, as far as Alex was concerned. Cooking for four hungry men would take a lot of time. Time that couldn’t be spent thinking about blue eyes and broad shoulders. “How old is your sister?”

  “Seventeen. She’s graduating from high school this year.”

  “And she can’t cook?”

  He grimaced. “About as well as a black Angus bull can fly.”

  Alex smiled at the image. “Maybe I can teach her a thing or two.”

  “Then you’ll take the job?”

  She thrust her hand toward him before she could change her mind. The jolt that shot up her arm when his warm fingers closed around hers made her blink. She had to clear the sudden huskiness from her throat before she managed, “Yes, Mr. Eden, I’ll take your job.” And hope I don’t regret it.

  The bright yellow VW bug that Alex had nicknamed Sunshine rattled and bumped along the gravel road. When the front wheel dipped into a deep rut, Sugar yowled. Alex took one hand from the wheel to rub the orange-red fur of the large feline.

  “I know, Sugar. I was thinking the same thing. What have I gotten us into now? If Sunshine was a bucket of bolts before, she’s going to be a bucket of loose bolts by the time we get there.” She patted the dashboard. “If ever a road was made for a four-wheeler, we’ve found it.

  “This has to be the right road, Sugar. He said the third turnoff to the left. Be patient. He said it was ‘a good ways,’ but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that ‘a good ways’ in Wyoming is not the same as ‘a good ways’ in Alabama.”

  From the highway, she’d turned from the narrow Wind River Valley that sheltered Dubois up into hills timbered with pines and aspens. The country was as different from her Alabama home as a pot roast cooked in a Dutch oven was different from one cooked on a rack. One was closed in, the other wide open. One was moist and tender, the other dry and sometimes tough.

  During the months she’d spent out West—first in Colorado, then Wyoming—she’d discovered that in some ways she liked the wide-open spaces. From the front door of her Dubois motel room, she could see mountains in all directions. The sky at night stole her breath away. Some nights she felt that if she reached up a hand, she could pluck a star right from the velvety darkness. The vastness made her feel humble...and more alone than ever. That’s the part she didn’t like.

  Alex had been alone most of her life. Even though surrounded by other children at the orphanage in LaNett, Alabama, she’d never fit in. She’d never had a best friend. The girls at the orphanage came and went—some were adopted, some were taken in by relatives, some were taken to foster homes by the state.

  The sisters who ran the orphanage tried to make her feel special, feel wanted, but they had over fifty kids to deal with on a daily basis. Alex had come to the orphanage a
t the advanced age of eight, after caring for her mother through an endless year of bronchitis and pneumonia until her death, so her needs were often overlooked for those of the younger, less self-sufficient children. Alex helped when she could, but when the children she tended were taken away from the orphanage, she felt abandoned, alone, unwanted. Eventually she’d retreated to the orphanage kitchen, where they were glad to have her eager help. Only there did she feel useful, feel wanted.

  “But I’ve got you now, Sugar. You won’t leave me, right?” As she petted the thick ginger fur, the cat’s slanted green eyes blinked at her. “That reminds me. I didn’t tell Mr. Eden I have a cat. Hope he doesn’t mind.”

  Alex smiled when Sugar meowed, as if objecting to the fact that he might not be wanted. “Don’t worry. If you go, I go. And he seemed pretty desperate for a cook. Now if we could only find the place....”

  Half a mile later, Alex stopped as the rocky road took a sharp right. Just on the other side of a flat, railingless bridge stood the standard ranch entrance. The split-rail fence she’d followed for the past mile rose into hand-hewn posts to form a frame for the gate. Iron letters proclaimed this land “The Garden of Eden.” A crude representation of a snake—a squiggly line with an oval on one end—curled away in opposite directions on either side of the name.

  “Sure isn’t what I imagined the Garden of Eden looking like. I mean, it’s not bad, there just aren’t any apple trees.”

  Alex smiled at her joke, wrestled with the stick shift until it ground into first, then lurched across the bridge and over the cattle guard under the sign. Half a mile later, just as she crested a hill, she came to a gate.

  Slowing to a halt, she stared at it. “I don’t see a house yet. You think it’s okay to just open it and go through?”

  The cat stared at the gate just as intently as Alex, then growled an echo of his mistress’s confusion.

  Alex stroked his head. “I guess we don’t have much choice, do we? Tell you what. I’ll open the gate, you drive through, okay?”

  She laughed as the cat blinked at her, then she climbed from the car. The gate swung open easily on well-oiled hinges. Alex ran back, jumped in the car, pulled through, then climbed out again to close it. She had to repeat this process two more times before she rounded a sharp bend and heard a faint call.

  She swiveled her head until she finally spotted her new boss galloping up on the right side of the car. She slowed to a stop and leaned over to roll down the window.

  He rode like he was born in a saddle, easily controlling the black mare beneath him. A denim jacket stretched across his broad shoulders, which angled down to lean hips encased in faded jeans. With his black hat and well-worn boots, he could’ve been the ghost of a cowboy from a century ago.

  But Alex knew the difference. Back at the café she’d felt Butch’s truck dip under Hank Eden’s weight as he’d sat beside her on the tailgate, and she’d felt his broad shoulders nudge her over to make room. She’d felt the warmth he gave off, like a pie just out of the oven. This was no specter of the range coming at her, but a flesh-and-blood cowboy. And just like cowgirls of old, her heart raced like the horse under his saddle.

  She shivered as. she caught a glimpse of faded jeans stretching across a small, tight rear end when he dismounted. Though she’d just met him a couple of days before, it seemed as if she’d known this man all her life.

  Hank looked over the squatty, bright yellow car as he rode up and dismounted. Boxes and bags filled the tiny back seat, and a one-eared cat peered at him out the front window.

  Pushing his hat back on his head, he leaned over. The same golden eyes that haunted his dreams the past two nights watched him warily.

  “Hi! Glad to see I’m on the right road,” she drawled.

  Hank nodded. “Howdy. I’m surprised to see you here so soon. Thought it’d be tomorrow at best.”

  She shook her head, sending waves of afternoon light dancing down her unbound hair. “Zeke had already ordered the part. I came as soon as he tightened the last bolt.” She glanced down, then back up. “Thanks for advancing me enough money to get my car fixed.”

  He shrugged. “Hate to see a body stuck out here without a way into town. ’Sides, you’ll work it off.”

  “How did you know I wouldn’t just drive on to California?”

  “Were you planning on it?”

  “No, but I could have.”

  “No sense fretting about what didn’t happen. There’s enough to worry about with what does.” He scanned the contents of her car. “This everything?”

  She nodded. “It’s everything I own.”

  Before he could comment, the cat meowed. Alex reached out to rub its head. “I forgot to tell you I have a cat. I hope you don’t mind. He’s a house cat, but he’s very clean.”

  “He a good mouser?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s had to be, at some of the places we’ve stayed”

  Hank searched her eyes, but she didn’t seem to be complaining, just stating fact. “Then he’s welcome.”

  Her chest collapsed with relief. “Thanks.”

  “Any more surprises?”

  “No.”

  “Fine. You’re about half a mile from the house. Make yourself at home. Claire’ll be home from school soon. I’d go in with you, but I was on the trail of some strays when I saw the dust your car stirred up. Don’t want to lose them.”

  “You go ahead. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine.”

  He nodded, then pointed up the road. “You can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks, see you later.”

  Hank stepped away and winced as the car ground into gear. The worn tires kicked up a few rocks, making his mount shy back, but Hank held on to the reins easily, his attention staying on the bright yellow heap as it clambered over the hill.

  The feeling that had punched him in the gut the first time he’d laid eyes on her—the feeling that he’d met his fate headon—came back even stronger than before. She’d been on his mind ever since he’d hired her. He’d told himself he should ride back into town and call the whole thing off, but he hadn’t. He needed a cook.

  He tore his gaze from the settling dust, mounted and turned his horse around. The only reason he hired her was to cook. The only reason he suddenly looked forward to going home that night—after so many years of not giving a hoot in hell one way or the other—was so he could sink his teeth into a plate of decent food.

  Maybe if he repeated those words often enough, he’d believe it.

  Sunshine rolled to a stop in front of the last gate, which sat about fifty yards from the house, but Alex barely saw the barrier. Her eyes never left the compound tucked away in a small, wooded valley as she slowly climbed from the car and leaned against the wooden gate.

  In the midst of several flat, dark buildings rose a two-story house with a steep-pitched roof. Surrounded by mountains, it sat against a backdrop of timbered peaks. By far one of the largest and oldest houses she’d seen around Dubois, it brought to mind the image of an old Victorian lady who sat sedately in her well-worn, threadbare finery.

  The once-white clapboards needed a coat of paint. Dirt covered the wide porch that spanned the front. The flower beds hadn’t been tended in who knew how many years, and a shutter on an upstairs window hung askew.

  This home needed someone.

  Unbidden, a day at the orphanage floated across Alex’s mind, as clear as if it happened last week. A little girl whom she’d cared for like a mother for over a year had been adopted. Alex still remembered how bereft she felt as she stood at an upstairs window, watching the little girl being carried away in her new daddy’s arms. Tears had streamed down her face, and silent sobs had racked her body as they drove away. She knew she’d never see little Becky again.

  Sister Mary Clara found her there and tried to give what comfort she could. “Somewhere in the world is a home for every single person,” the nun had said. “Just be patient, work hard and you’ll find your home. You’ll see.”

/>   She hadn’t thought about that incident in eons. Why would she remember it now?

  A loud, complaining yowl broke into her thoughts. Sugar was getting impatient. Opening the gate, Alex returned to the car. Her eyes fell on the house again.

  Six years had passed since the orphanage had shut down and she’d been forced to leave the cooking job they’d given her after she turned eighteen. Suddenly Alex realized that during all those years spent drifting from town to town, job to job, she’d been looking for her home, a place that needed her. Not a place that hired her as one of several cooks or waitresses. Not a place that felt sorry for her because her car broke down and she didn’t have the money to fix it. A place that needed her. A place she could call home.

  Stunned and a bit frightened, she shook her head vehemently. The Garden of Eden was not that place. She was here for one month, that’s all. She had plans, and they did not include a broken-down old house and a cowboy with hungry eyes.

  If she’d learned anything the past few years it was that life didn’t hand you anything. You had to work, and work hard, for every scrap you got. She was tired of bouncing around hoping to land in the spot where she belonged. She was going to make her own home. After learning all she could from Monsieur Buchaude, she was going to open her own restaurant.

  Alex loved to cook; had, ever since her mother had first sat her on the counter when she was six and let her stir the soup. Though it had become a necessity instead of playtime—first when her mother got sick, then helping out at the orphanage—she still loved to create good things that people enjoyed eating.

  She hadn’t decided exactly where to open her restaurant, but it would be her home and her customers would be her family.

  Alex wrestled the car into first gear. “Life on the road must be getting to me, Sugar. I’m beginning to hallucinate. This is just a ranch that’s seen better days. It’s not our home.”

  As she rolled up to the house, however, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the grand old lady was opening her arms in welcome.