Rubin came up behind me and put his arm around my shoulders. “Can’t you feel it, Jane? Real America. We can tuck in for a couple drinks and a good old-fashioned meal.”
“I’m sorry if I don’t share your enthusiasm,” I said.
We sat down and I looked over the menu. I flipped through the pages and read every single item, thinking I must have missed something. But after reading it again, I realized I hadn’t. There was almost nothing on the menu that wasn’t meat and potatoes. There weren’t even any salads listed except for a side salad that came with a steak meal. If I didn’t miss my guess, that salad consisted of a handful of iceberg lettuce and a tomato wedge.
I was trying to pick out something I might be able to make work when I noticed somebody come into the restaurant. When I looked up, I saw he was wearing a uniform. It was the sheriff’s deputy. His eyes locked on me and I noticed a slight lift in the corners of his mouth. He had most definitely noticed me, but the attraction I saw flash across his face was not mutual.
Much like the hotel we stayed in the night before, this man was the definition of average. He stepped up to the side of the table and looked at us as if he felt completely entitled to interject himself into the family dinner of people he didn’t know.
“Evening,” he said. “My name’s Roy Hayes. I’m the law around these parts. You don’t look like you’re from around here. What brings you to Green Valley?”
He kept making eyes at me, but I ignored him.
“We are here celebrating my sixtieth birthday,” Dad said.
“Well, happy birthday. Beautiful place to come for a celebration, if I do say so myself. What are you planning on doing?”
“We have reservations to do the experience tour at the Montgomery Dude Ranch,” Lucien said.
The deputy visibly stiffened. His shoulders squared and it looked like his chin drew up just a bit.
“Montgomerys,” he said in a muttering tone almost like it was a curse. After a second, he forced the smile back onto his lips and swept his eyes over each of us like he was trying to convince us he was being sincere. “Have a good trip. I hope you have fun. But I do want to warn you. Sawyer Montgomery, the man who runs that experience, is a no-good cowboy you’ll be wanting to steer clear of as much as possible. He may be good on a horse, but that’s about it.”
Suddenly, I was intrigued. For the first time since leaving California, I felt a bit of curiosity about the ranch. And the cowboy who would soon be our guide.
Chapter 9
Sawyer
The morning started like most others on the ranch. I got out of bed just before the sun hit the snooze button, grabbed a shower, and headed down to the kitchen. Before I got there, the smell of coffee and bacon was already strong, and I found Wade at the stove, cooking up omelets. He grunted a hello to me as I got into the room and started taking food off the plate he was building high of eggs and bacon and poured myself a cup of coffee. As I sat down, I noticed Colt walk by the door. He seemed to notice me and ducked himself back inside the dining room.
“Mornin’,” he said, bringing a plate with him and sitting across from me. “I was going to eat out on the back porch, but here works too.”
He was dressed a little more sensibly that morning, looking less like a bull rider and more like a ranch hand. I wondered if my descriptions of what we were planning on doing with the family coming in had sunk in or not, or if he was just returning to form after being back for a while. Either way, I was glad to see him up and ready to roll. We ate mostly in silence, and Colt only spoke up when we stood to bring our plates back into the kitchen.
“So, you said it’s just one family on this trip?” he asked.
“Yup,” I said. “The Beauchamps. There was another family that was supposed to join them, but they cancelled last week. Since there’s five in the family, I figured a more private experience might be a nice change of pace.”
“What’s first on the docket?” he asked as we walked out of the front door, heading to