Chapter Two
At the first peek of dawn, Donna was up and about because, no matter how long she’d been in Texas, she was still on New York time—an hour ahead of the dear Old West.
After doing a quick check of her email—nothing new or exciting there—she tucked her iPad into the crook of her arm, then went to the kitchen to grab one of the luscious chocolate chip muffins Barbara the cook had already made. After downing that, then a mug of Earl Grey tea, she scooted out the back door before a real breakfast could be served buffet style in the dining room.
A million things to do, Donna thought as she made her way to the nearest renovated cabin. And the first item on her list was to double—no, quadruple—check this particular room’s condition.
It had cute embroidered curtains and valances, rustic Southwestern furniture, faux-Remington sculptures and “hotel amenities,” as Caleb Granger might’ve called the fancy bathroom vanity basket that included everything from soaps and shampoos to more private items, like toothbrushes and even condoms for the younger, hip crowd they were targeting for business. But, at the sight of that last item, a flurry of sensation attacked Donna, and she frowned, turning away from the bathroom sink and its basket.
Putting Caleb Granger and condoms in the same train of thought brought back those tingles she’d been trying to ignore ever since she’d officially met him yesterday.
Yet she left all of that behind as she focused—and focused hard, to tell the truth—on switching a rugged cowboy sculpture on one oak end table with a second horse sculpture on a highboy chest by the door.
Afterward, she stood back to assess the look of the room again.
Not bad. Not bad at all. The Flying B and B would impress anyone, even the college friend she’d invited for the weekend. Theo Blackwood worked at Western Horizons travel magazine, and Donna hoped he would be swayed enough by the ranch to do a layout during their grand opening in a little less than a couple of months.
After brushing some dust off the rough cowboy sculpture, Donna couldn’t find anything else to nitpick. It all really was tip-top. That’s how everything needed to be. That’s how life had always been for her, and someday soon, it would be that way again. All she needed to do was create a smashing success of this B and B, and she would be on her way out of Hoop-De-Do, Texas, and back to the glamour and rush-rush of the big city.
She sat on the bed, the foam mattress and beige duvet as comfortable as sin, then fired up her iPad. The screen saver still featured the swirly, creamy logo she’d commissioned for Roxey magazine, but instead of feeling sorrow at its demise, Donna only wanted to live up to its failed promise.
But first, there were personal matters to attend to. One of her To-Do’s today was an activity she managed every day—tapping the name Savannah Jeffries into an internet search engine. She was hoping that this time of all times she would discover something new that their P.I., Roland Walker, hadn’t found out about the woman who’d torn this family apart.
Yet all that popped up on the screen were the same old results and links Donna always got, so she checked her email for the second time this morning.
But there was no word from their P.I., either, even though Donna contacted him religiously.
She blew out a breath. She didn’t like being ruled by anything—another person, life’s circumstances… even a growing obsession like this one. And just why did Savannah have a hold on her? Maybe it was because Donna had taken such stock in whatever her father, Sam, had taught her throughout life—at least, before he’d fallen from grace in Donna’s and Jenna’s eyes.
Know your opponents, he would say from behind his corporate desk whenever he brought her and Jenna to work. Don’t ever let them surprise you.
But was Savannah the enemy? Or was it her dad, who had betrayed Uncle William and stolen his own brother’s girlfriend that one summer when they’d all been on the Flying B?
She kept remembering something else her dad had taught her and Jenna. Go after what you want at any cost, girls…
His voice faded from Donna, and she tried to believe it didn’t matter. Ever since the news about Savannah had come out, she’d been avoiding Dad. It’d been easy, too, since he was off with Uncle William again, this time in Hill Country, hunting and trying to iron everything out with his twin.
She was still attempting to figure out how she could talk to the stranger that Dad had become. They’d never been ultraclose, but she’d worshipped him as a daughter; she’d at least thought she’d known who he was, and it wasn’t a man who would work his brother over.
Chasing all the alienating numbness away, Donna fully immersed herself in her computer, mostly with news of the publishing world. She liked the isolation of the cabin since it allowed her to get a lot of work done without interruption.
Then she heard something outside the door.
Boot steps on the small porch.
A knock.
Finally, the whisper of the door as it opened to let in a stream of morning sunlight.
“Anyone home?” asked a voice that had become all too familiar to Donna, since she couldn’t seem to forget what it had sounded like yesterday when it had scratched down her skin, infiltrating her every vibrating cell.
Caleb Granger.
She sat up straight on the bed. “I’m in here.”
Dumbest announcement ever, but what else could she do? Pretend she was invisible, just so he would go away?
When he pushed open the door, her heart started to beat with such an all-consuming volume that she could barely hear herself breathing.
Or maybe, just like yesterday, she’d stopped breathing altogether at the sight of Caleb Granger in those boots, Wranglers and T-shirt.
And when he doffed his cowboy hat in her presence to reveal shaggy dark blond hair, then smiled with those lethal dimples, she wasn’t sure she would ever breathe again.
THE MERE SIGHT of the early light flirting with Donna Byrd’s shoulder-length blond hair and her skin, which she somehow kept smooth and creamy out here in the elements, was enough to send Caleb’s pulse into a kicking frenzy.
She was something to behold, sitting on a bed wearing a sleeveless white halter top that was kind to every curve of her body. Her creased dark blue shorts clung to her lush hips, and even her Keds somehow came off as classy. She was certainly a far cry from when he’d seen her that first day, months ago, in suede boots and an expensive outfit that had marked her as anything but a country girl.
She seemed to realize that she was sitting on a bed, and she stood, brushing off her shorts with one hand while the other put one of those computer pad things that everyone in the suburbs had seemed so enthralled with down on the mattress. He noticed a fancy logo on the screen saver and recalled some gossip about a defunct magazine she’d run back in the city.
Drive and gumption. That’s what this woman had, and hard times hadn’t seemed to dampen her ambition at all, based on what she was doing with the B and B.
