The Wild One (6 page)

The woman jumped about a mile high when Roxxy walked up to the living room side of the breakfast bar and gave a tentative, “Hello.”

“Sorry, sorry!” Roxxy found herself saying to yet another person that morning.

But the little Latina woman waved the apology away. “No, it is I who am sorry, Mrs. Layla. Mr. Andrew didn’t tell me he was expecting guests.”

But if he hadn’t told his housekeeper she was here, how did she know her name? “I’m sorry, have we met before?”

“No, no we have not met.” The woman wiped her hands on the dish towel with a guilty look. “But I saw your picture on the T.V. when you and Mr. Andrew were all over the news, you know, after what happened with his dead wife and before you married his brother.”

Then she crossed herself.

Roxxy had to clamp her lips together to keep her mouth from dropping open. And only five minutes after deciding to full on pretend to be this Layla person, she had to fight the urge to break cover so she could get the full back story on her and Andrew. Maybe she really did look a lot like Layla if even Andrew’s housekeeper could mistake her for the other woman. Moreover, if she was interpreting what the woman was saying correctly, Andrew was a widower, and something crazy had happened between his dead wife and Layla, so crazy it had landed them both in the news before Layla married his brother.

“I must say I am very sorry about this terrible thing that happened to you. I know Mr. Andrew was very guilty about it afterwards. He is such a kind man, and how could he not feel bad? But our God is in all things, and everything worked out. So we will not speak of it anymore. You are hungry,
si
? Sit, sit, I will make you a sandwich.”

She said the last bit as if a sandwich was a cure-all for all manner of past traumas, and indicated Roxxy should sit on one of the brown leather stools at the breakfast bar.

Roxxy did as she was bid, her mind spinning. Andrew had a dead wife? And she hurt Layla in some way? And hold up, why had the housekeeper called him kind?

The man who she’d had a conversation with earlier was many things—terse, wary, and okay, let’s be honest…
sexy as all get out.
But she wouldn’t have labeled him kind.

As if summoned by her thoughts, Andrew came in through the kitchen door. “Hey Mrs. Garcia, I meant to tell you I’ve got somebody staying with me for a little bit—“

He stopped short when he saw Roxxy sitting at the breakfast bar.

His face became stony and he said, “Well, I guess you already met. I’ll take my sandwich and be on my way.”

Mrs. Garcia looked at him confused. “But I was just finishing up this sandwich for Mrs. Layla. I’ll make another one, you can both eat down here.”

“Oh, he can have that sandwich. I can wait,” Roxxy said, at the same time Andrew said, “I’d prefer to eat in my office.”

“No, no, sit Mr. Andrew. I am surprised at you! She is your sister-in-law and a guest. You must sit.”

“No, I’ll take the sandwich in my office.” Andrew took off his cowboy hat and walked through the kitchen to hang it on a hook in the living room. As he walked past, Roxxy couldn’t help but notice the way his lean muscles played under the blue-and-white checked shirt he was wearing.

“Seriously, it’s no problem to wait,” Roxxy assured her.

As if she didn’t hear either of them, Mrs. Garcia turned back to the counter and started making a second sandwich. “Two sandwiches coming right up.” Then as if things weren’t awkward enough, she asked. “Or should I make three? Do you think Mr. Nathan will be coming down for lunch, too?”

Silence filled the kitchen.

Then Andrew said, “Mr. Nathan isn’t here. And Layla is no longer my sister-in-law, so you can drop the Mrs.”

Mrs. Garcia turned back around to Roxxy, crestfallen. “I am sorry. I did not know. So just two sandwiches then.”

“No,” Andrew bit out. “Give me that sandwich. I’m taking it up to my office.”

“But—“

“Just give it to me,” Andrew bit out, only a few octaves away from yelling.

A wide-eyed Mrs. Garcia handed him the plate she had been making for Roxxy.

“Would you like some iced tea?” she asked, talking to him like a social worker would talk to a mentally unstable homeless man.

“No, I have water in the office.”

And then he was gone without so much as a thank you.

“He is usually much better than this,” Mrs. Garcia told her, looking like an embarrassed mother. “Mr. Andrew, you know, is a very, very kind man.”

“If you say so,” Roxxy answered, wondering if the woman was slightly delusional.

Mrs. Garcia set the glass of iced tea Andrew had rejected in front of her. “It is just he is very stressed about the Sinclair Ranch projects. He is under a lot of pressure after buying the town.”

“Wait, did you just say he
bought the town?”
Roxxy asked.

“Si, he didn’t tell you? This town was filled with dying farms and ranches before he came along. But then he revived this old guest ranch, and now he’s planning to turn the entire town into different kinds of guest ranches, so people can come from all over to visit us. So you see why he is not himself right now.”

Wow, that was an ambitious project, Roxxy thought. So apparently Andrew, though he didn’t look to be much older than her, had enough money to buy not only the guest ranch, but also a whole freaking town.

No wonder he wasn’t worried about her paying him back.

Roxxy started to take a sip of iced tea, but then stopped. “I hate eating alone. Do you mind making two sandwiches so you can eat lunch with me? Then maybe you can tell me more about Sinclair Ranch, and Andrew’s plans for the rest of the town.”

CHAPTER 7

MRS. GARCIA
turned out to be a great lunch date. She helped Roxxy get her clothes into the washing machine, which was located downstairs, then gave her the lowdown on Sinclair Ranch & Resort and the plans for Sinclair Township. Apparently, the Sinclair Ranch was considered a “luxury ranch,” but Andrew planned to turn the rest of the town into more affordable guest ranches that vacationers under a certain income bracket could enjoy. According to Mrs. Garcia, the brochures in Roxxy’s room were back from when the newly renovated ranch first opened its doors, before Andrew had moved back to Montana and claimed the house as his own.

“There’s much more to do now, including special summer-only activities. We added a spa last year. Or you could go on one of the nature walks or hot air ballooning. You could even take lasso lesson if you wanted,” Mrs. Garcia told her. “After your clothes finish drying, you should go to the main lodge and see the full list of activities. Don’t worry about paying for anything. Just tell the front desk you’re a guest of Mr. Andrew.”

A guest of Mr. Andrew
. Funny, she didn’t feel like much of a guest. After Mrs. Garcia shooed her away so she could get back to cooking and cleaning, Roxxy gave herself a solo tour of the two-story house. There were three bedrooms on the top floor besides her own. She assumed the one behind the largest one belonged to Andrew, but she didn’t dare go in there for fear of her less-than-amicable host accusing of her of snooping around. Better to wait until he and Mrs. Garcia were out of the house, she thought, then she’d snoop.

There was a fourth open door at the end of the hallway. But before she could get close enough to peek inside, Andrew appeared at the doorway. “Do you need something Mrs. Garcia can’t get you?” he asked, his voice surly.

Roxxy froze in her steps. “No, I was just, you know, looking around.”

His jaw tightened, and he closed the door to what she assumed was his office without another word.

Guest of Mr. Andrew, indeed.

Feeling like she had no other choice, she got dressed again in her mini skirt and shimmery tank top and left the house. But as she walked the short distance to the guest ranch’s main lodge, she wished she had packed something other than stilettos. She’d never gone horseback riding, but she knew from onstage experience that lassoing something while wearing high heels was a total bitch, even if it was a human dancer who was being paid to get caught by your rope.

The woman at the front desk, who was dressed in jeans and a cowboy hat, didn’t exactly laugh when Roxxy asked what activities were available, but she did look like she was fighting hard not to do so when she answered, “Well, we require jeans and boots for our horseback riding classes and trail rides. But we have a lasso class starting in about fifteen minutes, and there’s no dress code for that, although maybe you’d be a little more comfortable in something…well, a little more comfortable.”

Roxxy looked down at her outfit, which did seem more than bit out of place. Oh well, other than the guest robe in her room, this was all she had so she’d just have to make do. If she could dance and sing for over two hours in outfits like these, a thirty-minute lasso class shouldn’t kill her.

“You serious in that get-up, little gal?” the crusty old cowboy leading the class asked when she walked over to the fenced in area where the lassoing would be taking place.

The other class participants, mostly families and all dressed in denim and cotton ensembles, were openly staring. But Roxxy, who was used to being the most outrageously dressed in the room, just shrugged. “Yep.”

“Name’s Jeb,” the cowboy said, tipping his hat toward her. “I’m assuming you just got here.”

“Actually, I’m a guest of Mr. Andrew’s,” Roxxy answered, just like Mrs. Garcia had told her too.

The old cowboy’s face lit up. “In that case, welcome, welcome. Mr. Sinclair’s the most stand-up man this ranch hand’s ever met. Any friend of his is a friend of mine.”

Roxxy tilted her head to the side. Was this guy for real? She wondered if this was a little like how her back-up singers and dancers all claimed Roxxy was the best and most talented person they’d ever worked with in the behind-the-scenes interviews for her upcoming HBO special. “The warmest person in show business,” one of them declared, even though she rarely said more than a few words to them during rehearsal and didn’t talk backstage in order to preserve her voice for the performance.

But unlike those dancers, Jeb sounded completely sincere and even went so far as to declare her lassoing a post on her first try to be the by-product of her knowing Andrew. Of course she couldn’t tell him she’d actually trained with a top rodeo star for several weeks to get this particular skill down.

The rest of the ranch’s staff seemed to feel the same way about Andrew. The woman who led the nature walk she went on later in the afternoon had nothing but unsolicited praise for the surly man who’d closed his office door in her face. And when she got back to his place, Mrs. Garcia went on and on about what a nice guy Mr. Andrew was, even though Roxxy had to all but force the older woman to eat dinner with her after Mrs. Garcia informed her Andrew had decided at the last minute to “go out with his Miss Amy” rather than eat dinner at the house like he usually did.

“I told him I had enough for all three of you,” Mrs. Garcia said after she set down their plates. “But he just kept on saying he wanted to go out with her in Buellton—that’s where she lives.” A stricken look passed over her face. “You don’t think Mr. Andrew has stopped liking my food, do you? He’d be too nice to tell me if I wasn’t doing a good job, I know.”

“Are you kidding?” Roxxy asked, her mouth full of mashed potatoes. “This meal is amazing. Andrew’s crazy for not eating here.”

Roxxy wasn’t just trying to make the older woman feel better. This meal was way better than anything her own personal chef had ever come up with, though to be fair, her chef got paid to come up with dishes that would provide her with just enough calories to do a concert every two days and not calorie more. Eating a meal made with things like real butter and starches was nothing short of heaven to Roxxy who had gone years with only proteins and vegetables.

“And I for one am happy he decided to leave us alone. Now you can give me the dirt on him and Amy.”

“Oh, Miss Amy is a very sweet girl, a very sweet girl. Mr. Andrew likes her very much.”

Roxxy kept her grin pasted on, even if Mrs. Garcia’s words felt a little like getting kicked in the stomach. The press had described her as a lot of things, but a “very sweet girl” had never been one of them.

“Her father is the sheriff in Buellton and Miss Amy works for one of the cattle feed companies we used. That’s how she and Mr. Andrew met. They’ve been dating for almost a year now, and Mr. Andrew makes sure to go see her at least once or twice a week.”

“Once or twice a week?” Roxxy repeated with a frown. “She never stays over?”

Mrs. Garcia giggled. “Oh no. Miss Amy is a very good girl, a very good girl. She wouldn’t do that.”

A very good girl. Another gut kick for another term never used in the same sentence as Roxxy’s name. But out loud, she said, “Well, she sounds very nice. Andrew’s lucky to have found her.”

“I think he’ll ask her to marry him soon. Has he said anything to you?”

Roxxy suddenly wasn’t so excited about her meal anymore. She put her fork down. “No, but as you can see, he doesn’t say much to me.”

“Well, Mr. Andrew can be quiet,” Mrs. Garcia said, quickly coming to his defense. “And you know, I was thinking about it earlier, and I decided he would never act the way he does with you unless he was still feeling guilty about what happened with his dead wife. It must be tearing him apart.”

Roxxy lifted her eyebrows in bemusement. “Usually if people feel guilty, they’re even nicer.”

“
Si
, but maybe he feels too awkward to be nice. After you married his brother, he came back here and it took him many weeks before he became the Mr. Andrew we all know and love today.”

“Sure, sure,” Roxxy said. “Well, I can’t wait to meet that guy if he ever shows up.”

After they finished dinner, Mrs. Garcia walked her over to a nearby creek, where several people were circled up around a campfire. Here she once again found Jeb, but this time he was telling spooky stories as the warm flames licked the night.

Roxxy carefully sat down on one of the logs surrounding the fire, folding her legs under at a downward angle, so as not to give anyone a show.