The Cowboy's Lady

Just before she took a step up to the door, a memory intruded. Her as a young girl coming to this selfsame café, hoping to get a job as a waitress, hoping to help out her family after her father passed away.

But that was then. This was now, and now she was taking charge of her life.

Before she could reach for the door, however, it flew open and a teenage girl stormed out, sandy brown hair flowing out behind her, her eyes a smudge of black mascara and green eye shadow, tears coursing down her cheeks.

“I hate the ranch. I hate living there!” she shouted to the tall, broad-shouldered man who came out right behind her, dropping his cowboy hat on his head. “Just because you’re my brother doesn’t mean you can make me go back.”

“Bonnie, now is not the time,” the man growled. He slanted an embarrassed glance toward Vivienne.

And to her surprise, Vivienne couldn’t look away. Time halted as her heart quickened with an unidentifiable emotion.

He was good-looking—she had to concede that—but something else was happening with her reaction to him. She knew him. Clayton wasn’t a large town, and she had grown up here. She held his gaze, searching his hazel eyes, making note of his dark brown hair, glancing over his stubbled cheeks and chin.

“Viv?” he asked, his dark eyebrows shooting together in a frown. “Vivienne Clayton? I heard you were back.”

She blinked, trying in vain to pull up something to trigger a memory. But nothing. She lifted her hands as if in surrender. “Sorry, I don’t remember who you are.”

His eyes grew suddenly hard and he pulled back as if she had slapped him. “And why would you?” he said with a short laugh.

Who was he? And why did she feel they had some history? Some connection? And how come he seemed angry with her?

“So are we going back to your stupid ranch, Cody?” Bonnie’s imperious voice rang out down the street as the man named Cody jerked his gaze away from Vivienne’s.

“Just get into the truck,” he ordered. “We’re leaving right now.”

As he walked away, his long legs eating up the distance between him and the young girl, the mention of his name teased recollection out of Vivienne’s past. And her face flushed as the memory returned.

It was years ago. When she was still in high school. She had been hanging around after school with her friends, tossing her long blond hair in an effort to gain the attention of the basketball player who had snagged her interest.

Until a tall, lanky senior tapped her lightly on the shoulder, asking if he could talk to her. She turned to him, puzzled as to what he could want.

Working his cowboy hat in his hands as he stood in front of her, Cody Jameson stumbled out a halting request for a date.

Normally, if a senior asked a sophomore to go out, the answer would be an automatic yes. But Vivienne remembered looking at the frayed collar of his shirt and the patch on his faded blue jeans. While the other guys in school all wore loose shirts open over T-shirts, baggy pants and sneakers, Cody still wore narrow blue jeans, shirts with snaps and cowboy boots.

And while Cody wasn’t hard on the eyes and seemed like a decent guy, a cowboy from Clayton, Colorado, had never figured in Vivienne’s glittering future in the Big Apple.

Hearing her friends giggling at Cody’s stumbling invitation didn’t help the situation. Though she kind of liked Cody, there was no way she could accept his date in front of them. They’d tease her forever. So she laughed, as well, just to show her friends he didn’t matter, and turned him down flat.

After that she saw him from time to time. Once she had hoped to approach him, to apologize, but she never worked up the nerve.

After graduation, he disappeared to his uncle Ted’s ranch, where he lived and worked. And when she graduated a few years later, she hightailed it out of Clayton and never gave him a second thought.

Until now.

Cody Jameson had filled out and grown up, she thought, watching as he pulled his cowboy hat lower on his head before yanking open the truck door for Bonnie, his broad shoulders straining at his shirt.

But he was still a cowboy and she was a city girl, albeit transplanted to Clayton. Just for a while, she reminded herself as she pushed the old memories and history aside. I just have to stay long enough to fulfill the terms of the will. That’s all.

And for now her biggest concern involved getting a job. Though Brooke liked having her live in the same house and hadn’t pushed her older sister to work, Vivienne was too used to pulling her weight. She wanted to be able to pay her share of the bills.

Country music and conversation washed over her as she stepped inside the diner. Kylie Jones, recently engaged to Vivienne’s brother Zach, stood by a table of patrons, hands on her hips, her brown ponytail bobbing as she laughed at one of the jokes from the group of old men hunched over the table.

Two stools at the counter were empty, so she walked over to one and sat down.

Then Kylie saw Vivienne and scurried over, grinning. “Welcome back! How was Denver? Busy?”

“Compared to New York, no. But it was fun.” She’d gone to Denver to connect with an old friend she’d gone to school with and to give herself some breathing space.

Three months ago her life was on a completely different track. A tiny apartment in New York City. Sous chef in a trendy and up-and-coming restaurant and a boss who was encouraging, fun to work with and very attractive. They had dated a few times. During their last date they had shared hopes and dreams and whispered promises of a future.

When news came of the will and the inheritance, Vivienne wasn’t sure she wanted to give up what she had—especially when the money from Grandpa Clayton had so many strings attached. One of which was moving back to Clayton for a year.

Then, shortly after she’d come back from her grandfather’s funeral, her boss told her they weren’t compatible. Then he quit.

Vivienne’s heart was broken. On top of all of this, the new chef was demanding and hypercritical of everything Vivienne did. She began doubting her skills and grew increasingly tentative. Five weeks ago she made a drastic mistake on a menu for a small, exclusive wedding at the restaurant.

And it cost Vivienne her job.

Now she was back in Clayton. No job. No money saved up. No boyfriend.

Back where she started. Looking for work and banking on a maybe.

Kylie grabbed a menu from the old cash register and poked her thumb over her shoulder. “There’s an empty space in the back if you prefer to sit there. I have to bus it yet—”

“Sorry, Kylie, I’m not here to eat. I’m, um … well … looking for a job.”

A frown wrinkled Kylie’s forehead. “A job? But you’re getting—”

Vivienne held up a manicured hand, forestalling the next statement. As Zach’s fiancée, Kylie would know about the inheritance their grandfather, George Clayton Senior, had given to each of his six grandchildren. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money no matter where you came from. And the 500 acres of land was a bonus, as well. But all of this would only come to each of them if all six of the cousins showed up by Christmas and then stayed around Clayton for a year.

Trouble was, none of the cousins knew if the sixth, Lucas, would show up in time, if at all. And if she stuck around Clayton for a year, Vivienne still had to find a way to pay off school debt and a credit card she had maxed out while she worked in New York.

“You know I won’t get the money unless we all stick around for an entire year,” she said with a determined note in her voice. “And until then I still need to eat and pay bills. So I thought I’d see if you had any openings.”

Kylie ran a thumbnail along the edge of the menu, biting her lower lip. “We really don’t need a waitress,” she said slowly.

“I was thinking of the cooking part.”

This netted her another frown from Kylie as she glanced over her shoulder. Vivienne followed her gaze and caught sight of Jerome’s lanky frame through the pass-through window as he flipped a burger on the grill, the sizzle of grease and the smell wafting over her at the same time.

Burgers? Really?

Don’t be a snob. You need work.

“Um, I’m not sure Gerald or Jerome need any help.” Kylie worried at her lower lip, wearing away the pink lipstick she had been wearing. “You’ll have to talk to Erin about that.”

“Who wants to talk to me?” A woman with red hair and a pencil stuck behind her ear showed up at the cash register beside the seat on which Vivienne had perched. The register chimed as she rang up a total and pulled the bill out of the top.