Montana Hearts: Her Weekend Wrangler (10 page)

Bree sucked in her breath.
Next week?
The filly had responded, yes, but she still had a long way to go before she was trained for the upcoming halter show. Would Morning Glory know enough
to make his aunt Mary happy?

T
HE FOLLOWING WEEKEND,
early on Saturday morning, Ryan swung Cody’s overnight bag into the back of the pickup.

“Do I have to go?” Cody complained. “I want to stay here and play with the new puppies.”

Ryan opened the door to the front of the cab so he could climb in. “C’mon, Cody. We’ve been over this. Your other grandparents want to spend time with you,
too.”

“But why do I have to be away for the whole weekend?” he said, buckling his seat belt. “There’s nothing to do over there.”

Ryan closed his door, and walked around to the driver’s side. “The Owenses just opened their guest ranch for the new season so there will be lots of ­people, trail rides, campfires with marshmallows, and I’m sure they’ll have some new baby animals, too.”

Cody rolled his eyes. “I want to play with my
own
pups, Dad.”

Ryan gave him a sideways glance as he started the engine. “You know we aren’t going to be able to keep all six. I’ll let you keep one, but we’re going to have to find some good homes for the rest. Who knows? Maybe your grandparents would like one.”

“Oh, please can I keep two?” Cody pleaded. “One all by himself will be so lonely.”

“You still have Annabelle. The puppy can play with its mother.”

“It’s not the same as playing with a brother or sister,” Cody said with a frown. “Please can I keep two?”

Ryan took a right turn and drove onto the main road between their ranch and the Owenses’ and, for a brief moment, thought of Gail. He’d never wanted Cody to be an only child. He always imagined they’d have at least
three. He studied his son’s face. Had he been talking about himself when he said just one pup would feel lonely?

“Okay,” he relented. “You can keep two.”

Cody grinned. “How about three?”

Ryan chuckled. “We’ll see.”

“Grandpa says he wants to teach me to box. Is it okay if I box?” Cody asked as the Owens ranch came into view in the distance.

“No.” Ryan clenched his jaw. “No boxing.
You tell your grandpa I said so.”

“See?” Cody said, and let out a dramatic sigh. “No fun.”

“You’ve done enough fighting lately,” Ryan reminded him. “Right?”

“Yes, sir,” Cody replied, his tone sullen.

“Have you decided to give your grandma the Mother’s Day card you made in school?”

“No, I’m giving it to someone else.”

Ryan’s interest perked. “Oh, yeah? Who?”

“Bree.”

“What?”
Ryan jumped up in his seat and held tight to the steering wheel so he wouldn’t swerve. “Why Bree?”

“She’s pretty.”

Ryan couldn’t argue with that. “Yes . . . she’s very pretty. But there are lots of pretty women in town. Why her?”

“Annabelle likes her. Don’t you like her?”

“Sure.” Liking Bree had never been a problem. “She’s fun and talented and likes horses. But Bree’s
not here to stay.”

“She said she is.”

Ryan shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Cody turned to face him. “You think she’s a liar?”

“No, of course not. It’s just that I think after she’s here awhile . . . she’ll change her mind.”

Cody frowned. “Why?”

“She’s always had big plans to own her own business. Exciting plans. I don’t think she’ll find much exciting here. No matter
what she says, I bet she’s gone before the end of summer.”

“What if she’s not? Will you believe her then?”

Ryan had to be honest with him—­and himself. “No.”

“How long does she have to stay before you
do
believe her?”

His stomach tightened. “I don’t know.”

Of course, he should be happy his son wanted to interact with other women. But
Bree
? Anyone but her. She wasn’t family-­oriented,
stay-­at-­home mother material. So why was Cody championing her?

He groaned. This would make for all kinds of awkward the next time they met.

“You know, Bree’s birthday is coming up. Maybe you could leave the words ‘Mother’s Day’ off and give it to her as a birthday card.”

“That’s a great idea, Dad,” Cody said, and grinned. “Thanks.”

Ryan pulled into the Owenses’ driveway, and
his gaze drifted to Bree’s guest ranch a half mile farther down the road. Collins Country Cabins was twice the size of Owens Hideaway, better equipped, and usually drew in twice the guests . . . and money. The Owens guest ranch was newer, but the property didn’t have room for expansion, and Merle and Olivia Owens lacked the ingenuity to make efficient use of the land they did have.

As he and
Cody got out of the truck, Ryan could see a handful of guests in the corral preparing to go on a trail ride. Another ­couple, with expensive cameras dangling from their necks, looked at a map and pointed toward the mountain range forming a wall to the east. The hum of a motor grew louder, and after a ­couple of ranch hands drove by in a Gator loaded with hay, Ryan ushered his son toward the house.

“C’mon in, Cody,” Mrs. Owens called from the porch, holding the door open for him. “Wipe your feet. I have enough work to do without having to sweep up more dirt.”

“I’ll be back for him at four on Sunday,” Ryan informed her. “Is Merle around?”

“No, a few of our guests needed a ride from the airport and he volunteered to go pick them up. I don’t reckon he’ll be home for another hour.”

Ryan heaved a sigh. “He said he was done borrowing the attachment for the John Deere and I had hoped to use it on my own tractor this afternoon to replow one of our fields.”

“You can look in the barn,” she said, and then took Cody in and closed the door.

So much for a warm goodbye
, Ryan thought. But the woman had never been known for pleasantries such as
hello
and
goodbye
. Maybe the
lack of traditional Montana hospitality was another reason the Owens guest ranch had never succeeded as well as the Collins ranch.

Walking across the driveway, he headed into the barn and looked around. He knew Merle kept most of his larger tools close to the door on the right. Yep. There was the tiller attachment. Except Merle had left a shiny new wrench lying on top of it. Ryan picked up
the wrench and was on his way to return it to the cubby where the smaller tools were kept in the back when a flash of white caught his eye. He turned his head to get a better look and saw several large white bags stacked in the corner.

Rock salt.

Chapter Six

“B
REE!
T
HE FIRST
guests should be here any minute,” her mother called into the office. “Is the registration desk ready?”

“Yes, Ma.” She pulled the first week’s guest list up on the computer as her mother walked in and smoothed a crease out of one of the red-­checked window curtains.

“Did you have time to try Grandma’s apple cobbler?”

Bree patted her stomach.
“Sure did. I helped her dice up all the apples. The guests are going to love the cinnamon crumb topping and homemade whipped cream.”

“How about the keys to the cabins?” her mother persisted. “Did you attach them to the leather cowboy boot key chains we ordered?”

“Ma,”
she said, giving her an even look. “Relax. I got this.”

“Of course you do, honey. You know it’s not that your father
and I don’t trust you, but—­” Her mom pointed out the window to the first cars rumbling up the driveway. “Ooh, here they come.”

Check-­in time on Friday was two o’clock, and as the vehicles continued to pour into the parking lot, it seemed the majority of guests had decided to all arrive at once.

“My credit card was charged twice,” one man informed her. “I received the statement from my
bank right before we came.”

Bree checked the records. “No, that can’t be right. A month ago you gave a deposit for . . .” She glanced from her computer to the man’s bank statement and pressed her lips together.
Those conniving ranch managers.
She looked up at the man and smiled. “Sorry for the mistake. We can write the extra charge off your bill at the end of your stay.”

As soon as that
problem was resolved, Nora bounced into the office with another. “I went to show the redheaded married ­couple their cabin, but there are three other women already in there.”

Bree’s stomach tightened. “Not Chelsea, Katelyn, and Rebecca, the three CEOs from Iridescent Beauty Cosmetics?”

“Yes!” Nora cried. “
Those
women. And they’ve already decorated.”

Bree frowned. “What do you mean?”

“They’ve hung up posters of hot, sexy cowboys on all the inside walls.”

What?
Not the type of thing she’d expect from corporate execs, which made her question their ages . . . and their professionalism. Would these women prove to be the ranch-­saving solution she hoped they’d be?

Bree scanned the register and checked the cabin numbers of each guest. They had four ­couples, three groups
of hikers, two large families, one writer and—­oh, no. One cabin
had
been double-­booked by their previous ranch managers.

“What do we do?” Nora wailed. “The married ­couple started yelling and the three women started yelling back and—­”

Bree shot out of her chair and headed toward the door. “Let me go down there and see what I can do.”

A
S SHE HURRIED
down the path to Cabin 12, her
breath came so quick she hoped she wouldn’t hyperventilate. She’d promised her parents she could take on the duties of ranch manager. Even though she wasn’t responsible for the double booking, she
was
responsible for sorting out this mess. But they had only twenty-­four available cabins and all of them were full, which reminded her they really needed to finish building the others and maybe even
start building a few more.

Her heart pounded as the mustached gentleman’s face turned as red as his hair. “We paid for a cabin and now you’re telling us you don’t have one available?”

“You can have a room in the main house,” Bree told him.

“It doesn’t have two queen beds,” his wife protested.

“You don’t
need
two beds,” Bree said, trying to be reasonable. “You’re
married
.”

The ­couple glared at her, then glared at each other.

“We should get our money back and leave,” the man grumbled.

“Why?” his wife demanded. “Can’t you share a bed with me?”

“I’ll give you a fifty percent discount,” Bree offered.

“Fifty percent?” the man repeated. “We’ll take it.”

Bree led the way to the main house and asked them to give her a few minutes to prepare the room.
It’s only for one week
, she told herself as she changed the sheets on the bed and cleared out her belongings.
One week in which she would be stuck bunking with Delaney and little Meghan.

“What’s going on?” her father demanded from his wheelchair as she reappeared on the front porch. “Now we have guests sleeping in our house?”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Luke said, his cane in one hand
and a phone in his other. “We just got a call from the insurance agent. He says we didn’t renew our policy and our guests aren’t insured to ride.”

“No trail rides?” their father barked. “No mini-­roundups this weekend? This is
chaos
.”

Bree’s heart skipped a beat as she stared at her brother’s haggard face. “How did the insurance agent know we had guests arriving
today
?”

Luke gave her
a direct look. “The agent said he had an anonymous call to tip them off.”

“The ranch managers?”
Bree asked.

Her brother shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“The sheriff said there’s no trace of Susan and Wade Randall,” their father informed them. “They could still be here or as far away as the other side of the country. They haven’t used credit cards or withdrawn from their bank accounts, so
they must be using cash.
Our
cash.”

“I’ll take care of the insurance,” Luke promised. “If all goes well, the guests can ride by Monday.”

“But I wanted to ride
today
,” a high-­pitched voice moaned.

“Me, too,” added another.

“Me, three,” said a third.

Bree turned her head to confront the childish complainers and felt heat rise into her cheeks as she realized that the voices had
come from the CEOs she hoped to impress. Their demeanor didn’t match the image she’d had in mind when she learned the corporate executives would be visiting their guest ranch, but it didn’t change the fact they had the power to book all twenty-­four of their cabins for a two-­week retreat. Or that they were sitting in the rope porch swing less than twenty feet away . . . and had heard every word.
And Chelsea, Katelyn, and Rebecca weren’t the only ones. Beside them, his hat in his hands, sat their neighbor Mr. Owens.

“You three can come to my place,” Mr. Owens offered. “I own the guest ranch next door, and
we
can take you on a trail ride. In fact, you might want to spend the week in one of
my
cabins, since this place is overrun with too many guests. We have plenty of cabins available.”

“Merle!” Bree’s father exclaimed, narrowing his gaze. “Did
you
happen to call our insurance agent?”

“Of course not,” Mr. Owens said, his eyes wide. “How would I know if you had insurance?”

“Why you—­” Bree cut off her retort when she caught sight of Cody, sitting in the chair on the other side of his grandfather, waving to her. The small boy didn’t know what was going on and she didn’t
want to frighten him with her anger. Pasting on a smile, she waved back and remembered her goal was to make the three Iridescent Beauty representatives from Los Angeles feel
comfortable
at her ranch . . . so they would book the upcoming corporate retreat.

She glanced over the women’s casual—­yet stylish—­city attire. “You are so sweet to offer your ser­vices,” Bree said, glancing at Mr. Owens
as she walked toward them, “but Chelsea, Katelyn, and Rebecca have already decorated their cabin and I was hoping to take them into town this afternoon to do some shopping.”

“Shopping?” the blond one named Chelsea exclaimed, her eyes lighting up. “For . . . clothes?”

“Yes,
western
clothes,” Bree said, smiling. “Don’t you want to look good for the
hot
cowboys at dinner tonight?”

Her
father quirked his brow as if she were nuts, but the three women looked at Luke, and Katelyn, the one with brown hair and a sprinkling of freckles, said, “Yes, we do.”

Rebecca, the third part of the trio, a woman with long, black-­brown hair and the bluest eyes Bree had ever seen, exclaimed, “I want the whole western outfit—­shirts, pants, buckle, boots, and a cowboy hat.”

“Don’t you mean
a cow
girl
hat?” Chelsea teased.

The drive into town gave Bree a chance to get to know the three CEOs better. They were all twenty-­seven, three best friends from college who graduated with degrees in business marketing and within four years had grown their direct sales cosmetic company, Iridescent Beauty, into a national, multi-­million-­dollar corporation.

Bree fought the envy that rose
up within her . . . and lost. She’d had similar dreams of success when she’d first arrived in New York. She’d worked hard to rise from a floor sales associate to the rank of retail assistant in the fashion industry, but she still hadn’t been able to get the head marketers to consider her own designs or land the promotion to head director when the position became available.

“Life isn’t fair,”
she heard her grandma say in the back of her mind,
“but if you look around, I bet you can always find someone worse off than you.”

She thought of Luke and Delaney and was filled with remorse. At least she wasn’t physically hurt like her brother, or a single mom struggling to support her young child like her sister. Their problems were so much more serious than her own squashed hopes and dreams.

Hours later, after Chelsea, Katelyn, and Rebecca had each bought an entire new wardrobe for their three-­week stay at the guest ranch, Bree asked, “Are you sure you have everything you need?”

“I need cowboy
bling
, but haven’t seen any jewelry in any of these shops that are like
yours
,” Chelsea said, pointing to Bree’s silver beaded necklace. “Where did you get it?”

“I was wondering
the same thing,” Katelyn exclaimed.

Bree smiled, a small measure of pride burst within her. “I create my own jewelry.”

She lifted the hem of her jeans to show them the chain around her boot with engraved silver charms, and pulled her honey-­brown hair back so they could see her silver feather earrings.

“Can I buy some?” Rebecca asked.

Bree nodded. “I can show you my collection
when we get back to the ranch.”

“Have you thought of starting up your own company?” Chelsea took out her cell phone and snapped a photo of Bree’s necklace. “If I post this photo on Facebook to all my friends, they will want some, too. You might need a catalog.”

“Definitely a webpage,” Katelyn agreed.

“We’d love to help you,” Rebecca added.

Bree’s head spun with possibilities. She
didn’t need to be in New York to climb the career ladder. She could start her own business right here in Montana while managing the guest ranch.

Be her
own
CEO.

First, she’d have to build up her inventory. She hadn’t made jewelry in years and had only a limited supply on hand. Next, she could set up a display stand in the corner of the registration office, get her jewelry into the local
stores, and sell online.

Not only could she make her dreams come true, but she could invest some of the money she’d make back into the ranch to help her family!

R
YAN DIDN’T USUALLY
take a break in the afternoons, but when Dean returned from the local airfield he wanted to know what his brother had been able to find out about their salted field. His father and younger brothers must have
had the same idea because they met him in front of the house. Ryan’s mother also joined them, a pitchfork in her gloved hands.

“The guys in the tower checked all the flight plans for May 22 and none of them came close to our property,” Dean announced.

Ryan wasn’t surprised. “Whoever salted our field must have flown under the radar so he couldn’t be detected.”

“Your mother and I talked
to the neighbors,” his father informed them. “Mr. Norman said he heard a plane fly over in the middle of the night when he got up to go to the bathroom.”

“Can’t we get the sheriff to issue a search warrant for Owens’s place?” Josh asked, glancing around at each of their faces.

Ryan shook his head. “Not without proof. I saw he had bags of salt in their barn, but I can’t prove they’re the
ones behind this. With the cold weather hanging on, there must be lots of folks around here who still have salt on hand.”

“You said Merle was mad you were helping Bree,” Zach reminded him. “Maybe he thought he could keep you away from her if he made more work for us.”

At first Ryan had similar thoughts, but now he shook his head. “Merle wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his relationship
with his grandson. He knows I could keep Cody away from him if he did.”

“Don’t be so sure,” his mother warned him. ­“People will do the craziest things when they are short on cash, and I hear he’s jealous of the Collinses’ impressive guest list.”

“I’ll keep my eye on him,” Ryan promised. “In the meantime, Zach—­can you check with the road department to see if they’ve had any missing boxes
of rock salt?”

W
HILE
C
HELSEA,
K
ATELYN,
and Rebecca changed into their new outfits, Bree found her family by the corral and excitedly told them her plans to start her own boot bling business.

“After everything that happened today?” her father asked. The fact he sat in a wheelchair did nothing to diminish the towering effect he had on her. “You can’t even run this business and you think
you can run another at the same time?”

Her mom cast her a worried glance. “I like your jewelry, Bree.”

Bree smiled. For
once
her mother was siding with her and not her dad. “Thanks, Ma.”

Then her mother continued, “But maybe you can just give it away as gifts for birthdays and Christmas. Running a business is a full-­time job and we need you to focus on Collins Country Cabins right
now.”