Once A Rancher. Linda Miller Lael

horse like no one Slater had ever seen and was just plain born to be outdoors. He yawned again, swung a leg over his customary chair and sat, reaching for the coffee. He scowled at Mace and grunted to underscore his previous remark. “Why should you be immortalized? You’re not all that special, except in your own opinion.”

      Mace tried not to seem affronted. “Look who’s talkin’,” he drawled.

      Drake flashed that cowboy grin of his. “The voice of reason, that’s who,” he said affably. He nodded at his older brother. “Hey, Slate. Heard you were home. I would’ve said hello before now, but we’re moving a herd to the south pasture, so I’ve been at it for a while. Anyhow, it’s good to see you back.”

      It was good to be back.

      “Mace has been doing his damnedest to inspire me.” Slater drank the last of his coffee. “Says I ought to include our family’s history in the next documentary.”

      “Oh, jeez.” Drake rolled his eyes and sipped from his mug. “Plenty of skeletons rattling around in these closets. If you’re planning on turning them loose, well, I’d appreciate it if you left my name out of the script.”

      Mace raised his eyebrows, nudged Drake with a light jab of his elbow. “You could do a feature on our fascinating brother here,” he suggested drily. “Focusing on his love life. The title could be ‘Boring on the Range.’”

      “Ha-ha.” Drake shot his younger brother a glare. “That’s a brilliant idea,” he said. “Oh, and by the way, I was up and around long before you finished getting your beauty sleep. Now, I’m thinking maybe you should go back to bed for a while. You obviously need some more shut-eye.”

      Slater slid back his chair and stood, empty mug in hand. “You two need to drum up some new insults,” he said. “If I can change the subject—Mace, aren’t we supplying wines for the Bliss River Resort now? How’s that going?”

      His brothers exchanged glances—and grins.

      Mace said, “I was right! Big Brother did find a way to get her into the conversation. You owe me ten bucks.”

      Drake made no move to pull out his wallet. “Damn,” he agreed, “that was fast, Slate. You have some special radar or something? ‘Beep, beep, pretty redhead within range. Sound the alarm. Man your battle stations.’”

      Okay, so he hadn’t been as subtle as he’d thought in bringing their discussion around to Grace Emery.

      Slater decided to brazen it out, anyway. “You mind telling me what you two loco cowboys are talking about? All I asked was how the deal with the resort was going.” God knew he couldn’t have asked Grace the night before, with her all worked up the way she’d been. He sat down again, grabbed a sausage link from what remained of Mace’s double breakfast and took a bite. Harriet Armstrong, the Carsons’ longtime cook and housekeeper, mixed the ingredients herself. Yet another reason there was no place like home.

      He’d eaten in some fancy restaurants, but whatever Harriet put on the table would do just fine. She ran the house with the same kind of no-sweat finesse. He and his brothers referred to the housekeeper as “Harry,” because that was Blythe’s name for her. Harry was like a second mother to all of them, and she’d never had a problem calling bullshit when they tried to put anything over on her.

      Mace apparently felt it was incumbent upon him to elaborate on the wager he’d made with Drake. “I bet that if you took one look at Grace Emery, you’d be getting acquainted right quick. You’d be all over that.” He shook his head. “It’s a mystery to me how you did it so fast. You arrived after supper last night and now it’s breakfast time. Every guy within a hundred miles of Mustang Creek suddenly feels the need for a spa visit, just so they can get a look at her, and you, brother, you somehow figured out how to get her to come to you.”

      His assistant, Nathan, must have told one of them about Grace’s visit, Slater concluded with a degree of resignation. Fine. He wasn’t going to tell them why she’d stopped by; the business about the swiped sign was between him and Ryder. As far as he was concerned, the matter was settled. “What’s her story?” he asked.

      Mace seemed to relish answering the question. “She’s divorced. The kid lives with her because her ex-husband is some sort of hotshot military type. He’s deployed at the moment.” He paused, then added, “From what I’ve heard, she’s doing a great job at the resort. The owner hired her personally.”

      Not much news there. Grace had told him most of those details, along with the fact that she’d been a police officer at some point. As brief as their encounter had been, though, Slater could well imagine the memorably lovely Ms. Emery meeting any task head-on. Of course the transition from cop to hotel manager was quite a leap. Obviously, there was more to her story, and he wanted to hear it. “Interesting.”

      One thing about his brothers—they weren’t inclined to poke their noses into other people’s business, and when he didn’t divulge Grace Emery’s reason for stopping by, they left it alone.

      Mace said matter-of-factly, “To answer your other question, our wine arrangement with the resort seems to be going well. On another subject, I’ve been doing some research, and I’m getting some new info on what vines we ought to put in. As you know, Mom wants to expand the operation, take it national. Anyway, the clients at the resort select different wines than the ones the liquor stores order from us. The higher-end lines go over better with the spa guests—they want the full-bodied, well-balanced reds or big, oaky chardonnays, while on the retail level, the customers seem to prefer fruity, lighter varieties. We’re entering a few competitions this year to see if we can get more press.” He paused, but only long enough to take a breath. Once Mace got talking about the vineyards and the wines they produced, it was hard to shut him up. “The trick here is dealing with our weather and finding vines that can handle the winters and still produce the quality of fruit and yield we’re after. Right now we buy most of our grapes from other states. That’s not unusual, but I’d like to swing the pendulum our way.”

      Slater enjoyed his younger brother’s passion for the wine business because he knew this venture was their mother’s dream as much as it was Mace’s. They were three very different people, he and Mace and Blythe, but he could identify with both of them, since filmmaking and running a successful vineyard were both artistic pursuits. Drake, however, couldn’t have been less interested, down to earth as he was—always active, always on the move. It was almost comical the way animals and kids gravitated toward him. Slater had seen his middle brother at many a picnic or cookout with a toddler on his lap and three dogs belonging to someone else at his feet. He’d be talking away with friends, evidently oblivious to the Doctor Dolittle phenomenon.

      “I don’t know much of anything about making wine,” Slater admitted, addressing Mace, “but that sounds like a plan to me. I can grow mold on a piece of cheese in the fridge, and that’s about it. Speaking of wine and cheese, I need to throw a shindig for the investors. They deserve a celebration. I’m thinking the resort would be the perfect venue.”

      Both his brothers laughed, and Drake reached into his pocket and pulled out a few bills. He selected one and handed it to Mace. “You win,” he said. “Here’s your ten bucks.”

      * * *

      GRACE PEERED AT her computer screen, blinked a couple of times to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. The booking had come in just as she was thinking about taking her lunch, and it was major. Slater Carson’s production company had reserved fifteen of the resort’s best rooms as well as the private dining room, and had requested gourmet menu suggestions and comprehensive spa privileges for its top executives and a number of investors.

      The bill would amount to tens of thousands of dollars. Grace was new enough to the resort-management field to be impressed, although she supposed such expenditures were common in the corporate world.

      Not that Slater struck her as the corporate type; she couldn’t really picture him wearing a suit, giving speeches in some boardroom. He’d looked like a denim and custom-made boots man to her, but then she’d