Rich Rancher For Christmas

What if she were wrong? Of course you’re wrong, the voice in the back of her head scolded her.

It was ridiculous for her to have thought she could find the one man nobody else could. She was ridiculous, pinning all her hopes and dreams for ratings gold, for fame and fortune, onto the Beaumonts and their various and sundry bastards.

She swallowed down the bitter disappointment. Unexpectedly, the cowboy tilted his head to one side, letting a little light spill across his features. It was a damn shame he wasn’t more helpful—or more interested—because he was simply gorgeous. He had a strong jaw with a healthy two-week stubble coming in that made her want to stroke his face and other things. What color were his eyes?

No, she shouldn’t be thinking about this guy’s eyes. She should be focused on her end goal—finding the lost Beaumont bastard. What would his eyes be like? Dark? Or light? Zeb Richards’s eyes were a bright green—which really stood out on a black man. She didn’t know if Carlos Santino’s eyes would be light or dark.

Still, she wanted to see what this cowboy’s eyes looked like. Would they tell her something that his body wasn’t? If she could get a good look at his eyes, would she see wariness—or want?

He tilted his head back down, throwing his face completely in shadows again. Crap. This was not her lucky day. This man was immune to her charms and she couldn’t stand in a feed store all day. She might not be very smart, but even she knew when to cut her losses. She pulled out another card and offered it to the cowboy. “If you find out anything, I can make it worth your while.”

He didn’t take the card. “I’m sure you can, Ms. Baker.” He stepped toward her and Natalie tensed. He knew who she was? Was he a viewer? A fan? Or was he one of those anonymous internet trolls who made her skin crawl even as she craved their attention?

Because when they were insulting her, at least they were paying attention. She was someone, even if she was someone they despised.

But he stepped around her, careful to cut a wide enough berth that there was no accidental touching. Instead, he went to the counter and leaned against it, his entire body angled toward Wilmer.

The body language was clear. It was them against her.

She did what she always did when she felt insecure—she took up as much space as she could. She straightened her shoulders and shot another one of her best smiles at the two men.

She said, “Gentlemen,” even though it was pretty clear that was a loosely applied term at best. And then, head held high, she walked out of the Firestone Grain and Feed and contemplated her next move.

* * *

“What the heck was that all about?” Wilmer asked, scratching the back of his head.

CJ Wesley kept an eye on the woman through the grimy windows of the feed store. She stood on the front step, no doubt plotting where to look for him next. Jesus, Natalie Baker was even more gorgeous in real life than she was on television. And in that outfit?

He knew what she was wearing was part of her act. No sane human would drive out to the windswept northern hills of Colorado in December in a skin-tight black skirt that, with black lace overlaying a black silk lining, looked exactly as warm as a bathing suit. Between the skirt and the sky-high heels—he was damn impressed at how she walked in them—her legs were what men wrote poetry about.

CJ cleared his throat. He wasn’t a poet and he wasn’t interested in Natalie Baker. As he watched, she stepped carefully down the stairs and moved toward a red convertible—a Mustang. Was there any car less appropriate for December in Colorado than that one?

Then again, everything about Natalie Baker was inappropriate, from her amazing cleavage to her fake smiles to her terrifying questions.

“No idea,” CJ lied.

“She’s one of those TV people,” Wilmer said, and CJ had to wonder if Wilmer had just figured that out. He was many things, but Wilmer was not a morning-chat-show guy. If anyone paid even the slightest attention to the morning shows, they’d recognize Natalie Baker immediately. She kept her finger firmly on the pulse of the Denver social scene. If a sports star cheated on his wife, an actress fell in love or, say, a billionaire fathered a bunch of illegitimate children, Natalie Baker was there.

Which meant she was here.

Of course, CJ knew Natalie Baker was a beautiful woman. Her face smiled out at him in high definition every morning. But in real life, she’d not only been more beautiful, but also more...delicate, too. Although that could have just been the juxtaposition of her expensive clothes and perfect makeup with the grime of the feed store.

Wilmer waited until her car was out of sight before speaking again. “What do TV people want with your dad?”

“Don’t have a clue,” CJ lied again. Because he knew. He knew exactly why Natalie Baker was here. It had very little to do with his father, Patrick Wesley.

It had everything to do with Hardwick Beaumont.

CJ shook his head, hoping Wilmer would read it as confusion. “Dad’s not even here,” he reminded Wilmer because CJ knew one thing: all the gossip in this town ran through Wilmer. The Firestone Diner was almost as bad, but Wilmer Higgins at the Firestone Grain and Feed was officially worse. CJ had to get out in front of this and make sure Wilmer had his version of events before anyone started looking around too hard. “You know that man’s never done a scandalous thing in his life.”

It helped that Pat Wesley had lived in Firestone for all of his fifty-six years. Everyone thought they knew everything about him and not a damn bit of it was scandalous. He was the third generation of Wesleys to raise beef cattle on his land—CJ was the fourth. As far as this town was concerned, the most outrageous thing Patrick Wesley had ever done was marry a woman named Bell that he’d met while he was in the army instead of the girl who’d been his high-school sweetheart. But that had been thirty-three years ago, and since then?

CJ knew exactly how dull his dad was. It was not a bad thing. Patrick Wesley was a good man and a good father, but his idea of a wild Friday night was driving to the next town over to eat at Cracker Barrel and even then, he’d be home by eight and snoring in his recliner by eight thirty. Safe? Yes. Reliable? Absolutely.

Newsworthy? Not a shot in hell.

CJ didn’t know what made him madder about the sudden appearance of the gorgeous Natalie Baker asking questions—that the people he’d grown up with might one day figure out he wasn’t actually Pat’s son or that, once they found out, they might treat Pat and Bell Wesley differently.

He knew who Natalie was, of course. She was hard to miss. Her beautiful face was on his screen every morning at seven thirty. CJ didn’t actually like her show—it was too much gossip and innuendo about celebrities. But she also seemed to be the first to know anything about the Beaumonts. It wasn’t like CJ religiously followed them. Hell, he didn’t even like their beer. But he liked to stay informed. And that meant he caught A Good Morning with Natalie Baker most days.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was watching it for her. He wasn’t. Yes, she was beautiful on screen and, okay, she was stunning in real life. That had nothing to do with anything. He preferred that station’s morning weatherman to the other options, that was all. So watching her show was just a matter of convenience, really.

“I know,” Wilmer said, snapping his suspenders. “It just don’t make a lick of sense. I mean, you weren’t adopted.”

CJ forced himself to smile. “That’s what they tell me,” he said in a joking tone. It was a relief when Wilmer chuckled. “Clearly, they have the wrong Wesley.” Wilmer nodded and CJ took advantage of the pause to ask about the latest supplements for his horses. Wilmer enjoyed gossip, but he wasn’t about to miss out on a chance to sell a feed supplement.

CJ didn’t actually want the supplement but it was a small price to pay for distracting Wilmer from one Ms. Natalie Baker. He finished up his regular order with a sample of the new supplement and headed out to his truck.

He was going to have to tell his mother. She had lived in fear of the day when the Beaumonts would come for him. He had heard all the stories and, for years now, had followed all the headlines. He knew Hardwick Beaumont was dead and the idea didn’t bother him even a little. He couldn’t even bring himself to think of the man as his father—not even his birth father. Hardwick had been nothing more than a sperm donor. Patrick Wesley was his father in every sense of the word. He knew it, his parents knew it and the state of Colorado knew it. End of discussion.

God, this was going to upset his mother. She had relaxed after Hardwick’s death—although by then, CJ had been twenty-one and a man in his own right. But Bell Wesley had lived in fear that Hardwick Beaumont would come for her son for so long that worrying about it was a reflexive habit she couldn’t break. It was one of the reasons why his parents wintered in Arizona now. The Denver TV stations were saturated with Beaumont Brewery Christmas commercials this time of year and it always upset her. And his dad hated it when his mom was upset.

CJ always missed them at Christmas, but otherwise, he was glad to have the place to himself. And when they came back from wintering in Arizona, they were happy and relaxed and everything went smoothly.

This year, he was even gladder they were in Arizona. If Natalie Baker had found his mother and started asking questions, Mom might’ve had a nervous breakdown.

He drove slowly through town, keeping his eyes peeled. It was impossible to miss her Mustang parked in front of the diner.

Damn it all. He knew deep in his heart that he had not seen the last of that woman. Isabel might’ve gone by Bell and they might’ve downplayed her being Hispanic, but it was a damn short leap from Carlos Julián to CJ.

It was only a matter of time until he was outed as one of the Beaumont bastards.

Two (#u4a9cad17-19fe-504e-824b-b7fd5a115351)

There were many things Natalie wasn’t—talented, pretty, likable, smart—but no one could say she wasn’t persistent. Even her father would have to grudgingly admit that she didn’t give up when the going got tough. It was maybe the only valuable lesson he’d ever taught her.

She shivered in her car, cranking the heat up a little more—not that it made a difference. The winds were blowing out of what she assumed was the north with a howling ferocity and there was no way her trusty Mustang was going to keep the chill at bay.

She’d spent the better part of the last three weeks visiting Firestone, making friends with the locals and trying to weasel out more information about Patrick Wesley and his family. It had not been easy. For starters, the coffee at the diner was awful and no one in this town had ever heard of a latte. More than that, it felt like the town had closed ranks. Just like that handsome cowboy and the feed store owner had.

Natalie was an outsider and they weren’t going to allow her in.

Still, she had just enough celebrity cachet to razzle-dazzle some of the locals. She was famous enough and pretty enough and she knew how to use those assets like laser-guided weapons. She had spent weeks flirting and smiling and cooing and touching the shoulders of men who probably knew better but were flattered by a young woman paying attention to them.

Maybe they did know better. Because it hadn’t been one of the old geezers who’d finally slipped up. It had been a younger man, in his late twenties and full of swagger. He’d been the only real threat to her. The old guys never would’ve followed up on her flirtations, which was why it was safe to make them. But this guy had seen her as someone he could use just as much as she could use him.

He had finally given her what she wanted, after she had made some vague promises that maybe the next time he was in Denver, he should look her up. It turned out that Pat Wesley—who appeared to be some sort of saint, according to the locals—did have a son. That in and of itself wasn’t so unusual.