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Even two weeks after the tornado that had ripped through the area of Bitterroot, Oklahoma—and in particular Cass Holiday's large ranch—the damage was still evident in the topless shed, the broken trees and in the very heart and souls of the twelve men who had worked as Cass's ranch hands.
The tornado had not only damaged outbuildings and felled trees, it had also taken the life of Cass Holiday, the tough, sixty-eight-year-old owner who had been like a mother to the cowboys she'd raised.
As dusk swept the area, Lucas Taylor leaned against the two-story house's porch railing. It was Saturday night and the rest of the cowboys had gone into town to drink away their sorrow and to commiserate with other people in town who had lost property or loved ones to the massive spring storm.
Lucas had never been much of a drinker and had volunteered to stay behind, knowing from the lawyer that Cass's niece and beneficiary was due to arrive sometime during the evening hours.
Lucas wanted to get a look, a feel for the woman who would now be their boss. From what he'd heard about her, he wasn't inclined to be overly impressed.
According to what they'd all been told, Cassandra Peterson was a struggling artist who co-owned a clothing boutique in the Soho area of New York City. She'd probably never seen a cow in her life, and Lucas had a feeling that she wouldn't stick around long.
No doubt, she'd have the cowboys work to put the place back to right and then she'd sell it. She'd make enough money to never struggle again and could go back to her life in the big city. Unfortunately, that meant Cass's dream and all of her hard work here would die.
The cowboys would eventually find jobs on other ranches, in other places, but the sense of community, the special bond of family they had shared here for so long, would be lost forever.
Pain shot through him. He remembered all too well what it was like to be alone, to be lost. He'd found a home here with eleven "brothers" and Cass years ago. Now at thirty-one years old, he didn't want to have to start all over again.
Hopefully he was wrong. Maybe Cassandra would be thrilled with the inheritance of the ranch and want to work it as her aunt had and continue to build on Cass's dreams.
It would be great if that happened, if she wanted to keep the ranch, live here and work it with the men who had helped to build it into the success it was now.
He straightened as he saw the faint dust rising up on the long dirt lane that led to the ranch. A dark sedan slowly approached, and Lucas's gut tightened when he realized it probably held the new boss.
The car turned into the ornate black gates with the overhead sign that read The Holiday Ranch. As the car got closer, Lucas could see that there was more than one person in it.
The vehicle, a rental car, pulled up in front of the house and came to a halt. He could see the blonde behind the wheel and realized there wasn't just another person in the passenger seat, but what looked like a kid in the backseat.
Maybe she wouldn't be in such a hurry to sell the place after all. Maybe she intended to stay and raise her kid here in the wide-open space of the ranch and the nearby small town of Bitterroot.
The driver door opened, and the minute he caught sight of the bright red high heel that hit the ground, he knew there was no way she would stay. A woman who wore those kinds of la-di-da shoes would never be happy on a big ranch in the middle of nowhere.
The high heel belonged to a short, slender woman who had the same blond hair and bright blue eyes as Cass, but that was the only characteristic she shared with her aunt. She was a pretty thing, but looked fragile and nervous.
Lucas made no move to greet her until the passenger stepped out of the car, along with a little dark-haired boy about six years old. The taller dark-haired woman with eyes the color of new spring grass smiled at him, and an instant wave of heat suffused him.
Cassandra Peterson might be pretty, but the woman she'd brought with her was the stuff of Lucas's dreams. Long dark hair waved and curled loosely down her shoulders and framed a heart-shaped face with delicate features and those amazing green eyes.
"Mr. Benson?" Cassandra asked.
"No, Adam went into town this evening," Lucas replied.
"Oh, I understood that he was the foreman here," she said.
"He is, but all the men went into town and I volunteered to stay behind and get you settled in. I'm Lucas Taylor." He didn't bother to attempt to shake her hand, but he did tip his hat. "And you must be Cassandra Peterson."
"I am." She turned to the woman and little boy who had joined her. "And this is my friend Nicolette Kendall and her son, Sammy."
"Nice to meet you all," Lucas said. He might find Nicolette hot as hell, but she had the slick of the big city on her, too.
The little boy, Sammy, left his mother's side and stepped up in front of Lucas with a suspicious stare. "Are you a real cowboy?" he asked.
Lucas smiled down at him. "I'm a real cowboy," he replied.
Sammy looked him over from his head to his toe, and then met Lucas's gaze with a faint disdain. "My mommy says real cowboys spit and smell like cow poop and never take baths."
"Is that a fact?" Lucas shot a quick glance at Nicolette, whose cheeks flamed with color. If he had any question about how the two women would fare on the ranch, Sammy's words confirmed that they were clueless about real cowboys and working ranches.
"The only time I spit is if I get a bug in my mouth, and as far as I know I've never smelled like cow poop. But cowboys do only have to take a bath once a week." Lucas felt a sense of satisfaction wing through him as he watched Sammy slowly process what he'd said.
"Mom, did you hear that?" He ran back to his mother's side. "Cowboys only take baths once a week. I think I want to be a cowboy."
"Maybe we should get unloaded and settled in before it gets too dark," Cassandra suggested. She leaned into the driver door and popped the trunk open.
Although Lucas would have liked to see the two women struggle inside by carrying the mounds of suitcases and tote bags without his help, he knew that would only confirm their misconceptions. Besides, Cass would turn over in her grave if he didn't do the gentlemanly thing.
He moved to the trunk and grabbed two massive suitcases. "If you'll follow me, I'll show you around the house." They each grabbed a duffle bag and Sammy carried a smaller overnight case and together the four of them walked up the porch stairs and into a small formal living room.
"This room is where Cass would talk to one of us if we did something she didn't like," he said. "She didn't use it for much of anything else." He dropped the suitcases at the foot of the staircase that led up to the bedrooms and then guided them on through and into the huge great room with the attached large and airy kitchen.
"It's much nicer than I thought it would be," Cassandra said.
"Yeah, we've even got running water," he replied drily. He returned to the foot of the stairs and once again picked up the two suitcases. Without waiting to see if they followed, he headed up the stairs.
He heard their footsteps behind him and when he reached the first of the four bedrooms, he turned and immediately found himself face-to-face with Nicolette.
Up close she was even prettier than he'd initially thought, and she smelled like a flowery orchard of apples and pears and a touch of spice that made him want to taste her.
Instead he took two steps backward and motioned toward the bedroom. "This is the smallest and has the two twins. There are two more bedrooms with queen-size beds and the master that has a king. Two baths up here and two downstairs."
He dropped the suitcases, figuring they could decide bed assignments without his help. "The house was cleaned yesterday and all the bedding is fresh. The kitchen is fully stocked, and now I guess I'll leave you all to get settled."
"Mr. Taylor? The other cowboys? When would be a good chance for me to meet with all of them?" Cassandra asked.
"If you step out the back door and look in the distance, you'll see a building that looks something like a small motel. That's our bunks and at the back of the building is a dining-room area. That's usually where Cass talked to us if she had something specific to say. We eat breakfast around six each morning."
Cassandra blinked, as if she'd had no idea that there were two six o'clocks in a day. "Even on Sundays?"
"Even on Sundays," he replied.
"Then would you let them know that I intend to meet with them in the morning?"
Lucas nodded. "I'll let them all know. And now I'll just tell you all good-night."
The scent of Nicolette seemed to chase him down the stairs and finally dissipated from his senses as he stepped out into the now darkening night.
As he headed to the bunkhouses in the distance, he tried to shove all thoughts of Nicolette Kendall out of his head. The last thing he needed was to entertain any thoughts about a woman who held such low opinions of cowboys.
In any case, Lucas had no desire for any lasting relationship in his life. There were a couple of women in town he saw occasionally, women who knew he was not in it for the long term and were just fine with that.
Knowing it would be some time before the men started straggling in from town, Lucas headed for his own unit. When Cass had built the bunkhouse, she'd made it work like a motel. Each cowboy had his own room with a bed, a dresser and a bath.
It was their private space to decorate as they pleased and to entertain whomever they wanted. For Lucas it was just a place to be alone.
The dining area behind the private rooms held not only tables and benches for eating, but also a stone fireplace, two sofas, a couple of easy chairs and a television that was rarely turned on. The meals were prepared by an old cowhand nicknamed Cookie who had worked as the ranch cook for all of the nearly fifteen years that Lucas had been at Cass's place.
Lucas unlocked the door to his unit and stepped inside. He sat on the edge of the double-sized bed. Other than the clothes that hung on a small rod and the toiletries beneath the small sink, the room held nothing else personal.
He stretched out on his back and stared up at the ceiling and wondered what Cassandra would have to say to the men the next morning. Was this the beginning of a new era or was she the beginning of their end?
He'd had a faint sick feeling in his stomach since the moment he'd seen that red high heel step out of the car. He'd already lost the woman who had transformed his life. Now he feared that they were all about to lose their jobs and the place that had been, for some, their only real home.
It would be the end of family, the end of life as they all knew it. Cass's death had already been a devastating blow to them all, and he had a feeling the bad times weren't over yet.
Nicolette sat across from her best friend and business partner at the round wooden table in the kitchen. Sammy was upstairs, unpacking his things in the small room with the twin beds.
"I didn't expect the ranch to be so big," Cassie said as she wrapped her fingers around a hot mug of coffee. "I mean, I knew on paper how much acreage there was, but I didn't really grasp it."
"That's because the concept of big to us is an apartment with three bedrooms," Nicolette replied.
Cassie smiled, but only briefly. "I also didn't expect to see all the damage."
Nicolette nodded. "You hear about tornadoes and the damage they do on the news, but you don't really get a clear picture unless you actually see it with your own eyes."
As they'd driven past the small town of Bitterroot on their way to the ranch, they'd witnessed the devastation in the area that the massive storm cell had left behind.
"I feel so bad that it's hard for me to mourn a woman I scarcely knew. I mean, I only saw Aunt Cass a couple of times when I was young and then after my parents died we kept up through occasional letters, but we weren't exactly close," Cassie said. "We lived in such different worlds. I never dreamed that if anything happened to her I'd inherit her ranch."
"Have you definitely decided what you're going to do?" Nicolette asked Cassie. She knew how stunned Cassie had been to learn that her aunt Cass had died and left her as sole beneficiary to a working ranch with over a dozen employees.
Cassie sat back in the kitchen chair and looked around the large kitchen. Her friend was probably thinking of how different this kitchen was from the one they shared in their tiny Manhattan apartment.
"I'm still thinking that the best option is to get the damage cleaned up as quickly as possible and then sell the place. I'd make enough money from the sale that we could move into a bigger apartment and get a larger storefront to sell both my artwork and your clothing line."
Nicolette grinned ruefully. "Right now my clothing line is just a bunch of sketches in a book."
"But, if I sell this place we could make it all a reality," Cassie replied. "We could even afford to actually hire some help so that we aren't spending all our time at the store."
"What about the people who work here?" Nicolette's head instantly filled with a vision of the tall handsome cowboy who had greeted them.
Cassie waved a hand as if to dismiss the hired help. "I imagine the new owner would probably want to keep most of them." A grin lit her face and a small laugh escaped her lips. "I can't believe Sammy told that man what you said about cowboys."
Warmth leaped into Nicolette's cheeks. "I just wanted the ground to swallow me whole. I've never been so embarrassed."
Cassie laughed again. "At least he appeared to take it all in good humor."
"I guess, although he seemed pretty brusque after that when he showed us around the house." She looked at her watch. "It's getting late. I need to get Sammy into a bath and to bed."
"Yeah, and I should probably go to bed pretty soon if I'm going to be up by six to meet with all the cowboys. You will come with me, won't you?" Cassie looked at her hopefully.
"Are you going to tell them tomorrow that you intend to sell the place?" Nicolette asked.
Her friend frowned thoughtfully. "I think I'll just keep that to myself for right now and if anyone asks you, you don't know what my plans are."
"Are you sure you want to play it that way?" Nicolette asked, and got up from the table. "Maybe it would be better if you'd just be up-front with everyone."
