Slow Burn Cowboy

“I will turn your lights off again.” He wouldn’t. “I will leave you in the darkness.”

“The ranch is big. The house is big.” She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Will it kill you to have them living there?”

He set the beer bottle down on the table by his couch without any delicacy. “The ranch is mine. That’s the point.”

“I get that you feel that way, but you sound like a jackass.”

“What the hell kind of friendship is this? You’re supposed to tell me what I want to hear.”

Lane rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry. If that’s the kind of conversation you want, you need to tell me before we actually start talking. Otherwise, I’ll assume you want some honesty. And if you want honesty, then this is what you get.”

“I don’t want honesty. I want you to tell me that it’s egregious that somebody who never gave a damn about the ranch before now considers himself entitled to it.”

“But he is entitled to it,” Lane said, her tone gentle, which was more annoying than her previous harshness. “It’s his ranch. Legally. Your grandfather wanted him to have part of it, and it isn’t really up to you to say that he can’t.”

He shook his head. “It never occurred to me that he would want it. He has a life in Texas.”

“Apparently, a life he doesn’t like.”

That made him pause. The whole situation with his brothers was difficult. It always had been. They had a bond—that was undeniable. When he looked at them, it was like looking at himself, with features and coloring rearranged and slightly different. There was no denying they were brothers. Same dark hair, all over six feet tall. Though the youngest brothers had green eyes instead of blue. Still, there was no mistaking they were related. Because that damn Donnelly blood was just so strong.

Finn looked like his grandfather. They all did. They also looked like their terrible jackass of a father who’d had children he didn’t particularly care about with women he cared even less about.

That was the bond, though. And that was it. Other than Liam and Alex, they had only spent snatches of time together growing up. Cain had mostly been raised in Texas and had a little bit of a drawl as a result, while the rest of them had grown up on the West Coast.

They were as much different as they were alike, and while there was no denying they had a connection, Finn liked it best when the connection was distant.

“And that sucks for him,” Finn said, knowing he just sounded petulant now.

“You don’t have to like it,” Lane said. “I mean, you might want to get over yourself eventually. But I understand why it makes you mad.”

“Why is that, Dr. Jensen?” he said, his tone dry.

“You don’t like anyone else to have control. You like to have all of it. And if you actually have to share space with your brothers, you’re going to have to give up some of your control.”

He shrugged. “Well, who doesn’t want control?”

“Hell if I know.” She took another drink of her beer, and his gaze dropped to her lips. To where her mouth wrapped around the bottle.

Dammit.

He might want control, but he was beginning to wonder if he had it.

Silence stretched between them, long and tense. He felt it creeping up his spine, up his shoulders, his muscles growing tight. He was very aware just then of the fact that they were all alone. Of the fact that it was late, and that he was a man and she was very much a woman.

This kind of thing was always worse when his life was thrown off. That awareness. Those moments when he would look at her and instead of seeing her very familiar face, he would be jarred by some new angle of her beauty.

It was more than just features, though on their own they were pretty enough. It was the glitter in her eyes when she was about to say something she thought was hilarious. The way she struggled to hold back a laugh at her own jokes. The insane things that came out of her mouth when she was rambling because she was nervous or excited, or just hopped up on caffeine.

Those moments when she was more than a pretty face or a damned fine figure. The moments when he saw a woman who was beautiful all the way down. The kind of beauty years couldn’t fade.

Those moments were a big damn problem. Normally, he had a better handle on this.

But then, normally, he had a better handle on his life.

“You know,” she said, breaking him out of his thoughts, “with the extra help from Cain you could afford to do more of your own product. I would really, really like to offer some milk that isn’t ultra pasteurized in my store. We could sell it in a glass bottle. People would love it.”

He groaned. “We’ve been through this already. I don’t have the time. My grandfather wasn’t interested and that was for a reason. We’re better off just taking the contracts from bigger dairies.”

“Not necessarily. The demand for this kind of thing is huge, and I love carrying local products in the store. I want more cheese. More of your cheese.”

He snorted. “Now there’s a sentence you don’t hear every day.”

“Maybe if you didn’t make cheese.” She let out an exasperated breath. “Just think about it. Think about the opportunity that having extra help would present you with. Instead of being a stubborn ass.”

With her poking and prodding him he forgot why just a moment ago he had been feeling tense and like he was a little too big for his skin. Why he had been so captivated with her. Because now, he was less captivated by her beauty and more irritated by that stubborn set of her chin that let him know she wasn’t going to back down.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, mostly to get her off his back. He took another sip of beer, then decided to leave the rest. “I need to go.”

“Fine,” she said.

He stood, and so did she. Then he moved away from the couch, heading toward the door and she reached out, breaking that unspoken wall between them as her fingertips touched his shoulder.

He jerked back as though he’d been burned. There was something strange in her expression then, like she was a baby deer that had been startled. Then the air changed, and it all just felt weird.

“Thank you,” she said, the words coming out of her mouth in a hurry.

“You’re welcome,” he returned, his voice sounding rough even to his own ears.

For a moment, he just stood there. And so did she. It all settled around them, the weirdness, the tension, and he had a feeling that if he didn’t hurry up and get out the door it might wrap itself around them, and then they might find themselves being inexplicably drawn toward each other.

It was either that, or she felt nothing at all while he was standing there gasping for breath. And he did not need to make a move to try and confirm which it was.

So he did exactly what was expected, exactly what was needed. And he moved his ass toward the door.

Once he got outside, the cool night air did a lot to break up the leaden feeling that had settled in his lungs. It had been a day of weird stuff. And tonight had just been the cherry on that terrible sundae.

Tomorrow morning would come, sure and constant as anything. And he would see to his routine. He would get the cows set up for milking, get the milk prepared for processing. He would ride the fence line making sure that everything was shored up.

He would survey the land that had been his whole life since he was sixteen years old. And even if everything wasn’t settled, he would at least have some clarity.

He just had to make it through the night.

Good thing there was a bottle of whiskey waiting at home.

CHAPTER FOUR

HER STORE WAS TINY. It was just so tiny. Lane loved it. She really did. But for some reason when she walked in that morning and turned the closed sign, signaling to the citizens of Copper Ridge that it was time for them to come and get their specialty food items, she was incredibly aware of the fact that the empire she had built was most definitely a miniature one.

Cord was still in her head. She hated that. Him and all of his achievements.

Shaking off the mood, she crossed her arms, surveying her surroundings. If she rearranged the things in the corner, mounted some crates and baskets to the wall, she could most definitely fit in more stock. She didn’t mind the slightly crowded feeling to the place. It was quaint, if she said so herself. Particularly when combined with the red brick and the dark metal decor she had incorporated.

Yes, right over there in the corner would be where she fit the new fridge that she could keep Finn’s dairy products in if he wasn’t such a stubborn cuss.

She wondered idly how Alison would feel about making jam. She worked with fruit when she made her pies. Maybe the addition would be a welcome one. Lane would happily sell them in her store.

She already provided some of the berries for Alison’s bakery, Pie in the Sky; she could always get more intense about her berry collection and provide her with more. Blackberries, marionberries and raspberries grew wild on her property. She could always make jam, she supposed.

She was still musing about various forms of product expansion when her first customers came in. They were tourists, visiting the Oregon coast for the first time all the way from Denver. Lane chatted with them for a while, helping them select products that she considered to be quintessential Copper Ridge items.

Then she referred them to The Grind, her friend Cassie’s coffee shop across the street, for a caffeine fix before ringing up all of their items.

“It sure would be nice if there were a way to order these from home,” the woman said, examining a can of wild caught salmon that had been provided to Lane’s store by local fisherman Ryan Masters.

“Yes,” Lane said, the idea turning over in her mind. “It would be.”

She was still musing on that when the door opened again and Finn came in. “The power in your house okay?” he said, by way of greeting.

“Everything was fine when I left this morning. Nary an attic possum.” She paused. “Thank you again for coming out.”

It had occurred to her last night that she didn’t thank him enough. She just kind of assumed that he would take care of things for her. Probably because he always had.

“Sure,” he said, clearly as uncomfortable with the thanks as he’d been the previous evening.

He meandered through the narrow aisles, divided by wooden shelves. It made her even more conscious of how small the shop was to watch Finn’s broad-shouldered frame moving through the tight space. For some reason, she just stood and watched him for a second. Watched as his blunt, masculine fingers drifted over the merchandise, as he paused over a small jar of caviar. “Do you actually sell any of this?”

“Yes,” she said, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “Not a lot. But some.”

She considered it for a moment. The caviar. She really didn’t sell that much. But right now, her store seemed to be straddling the line between tourist trap and specialty store for the few people in Copper Ridge who had a lot of excess time to shop for specific ingredients and cook with them too.

“Focus,” she said. “That’s what I need.”

“To... Finish your crossword? Or...?”

“For the store,” she said, ruminating while she spoke. “I need to do something to focus its offerings.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, I kept a lot of stock simply because it’s what the old owner carried. But I’ve had the business now for going on five years, and I think it’s time I started taking it more firmly in the direction I want to see it go.”

The need, the burning sensation in her chest, was suddenly manic. Because images of her once-beloved ex parading himself all over national television, reaching levels of success that she would never, ever achieve, had made all of this feel small. It wasn’t, and she knew that. She had never had political aspirations. She wouldn’t be happy being a public figure. So it was pointless to compare herself and her level of accomplishment to Cord, or to anyone else for that matter.

But she was.

Logic had no place here. There was no logic. There was only need. The need to do more. To be more. To make everything that had happened worth it. Okay.

“Yes,” she said, growing yet more determined. “That’s what I’m going to do.”

Finn dropped his hand back down to his side. “What?”

“Focus!”

“I would, but I’m not following you.”

“No. I meant that I need to focus. My stock. The aim of the store. More and more, I’m interested in supporting specifically local products from Copper Ridge. And possibly Oregon in general, but I don’t just want to have general specialty stuff.”

“Didn’t we have a recent argument about cheese and how you felt it was essential to acquire it from Europe?”

“Yes, but that was before. There are plenty of small businesses in this state that make award-winning dairy products. There’s a place down south and off the coast that won an award for its blue cheese on a worldwide level. I should just be carrying things like that. But I would definitely want the focus to be on products that are locally sourced.”

“Is there enough of a pool for you to draw from?”

“Beef from the Garretts, seafood from Ryan Masters, microbrews from Ace, wine from Grassroots... And dairy from you.”

“Is this your way of trying to push me into changing the business?”

She sputtered. “Yes. No. I mean, it wasn’t an idea designed to manipulate you. But I am right. I am. When you don’t have to pay the shipping costs your profit margins are going to be higher. If you keep the milk local and sell it as a specialty product—local, hormone free and minimal pasteurization—it’s going to be beneficial for you.”

“I can’t imagine there’s a significant market for it.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention. Hipsters from Portland would pay through the nose piercing for that.”

“I mean, I know that it’s a thing. I just mean... Around here...”

“Trust me,” she said. “You can keep your contracts with the bigger dairy and still do this. Just to test it out. Especially with the extra help your brothers are going to provide.”

“My brothers are only going to be here on a temporary basis. If they plan otherwise, they won’t be in Oregon long, because I’ll send them straight to hell.”

Lane rolled her eyes. “You will not.”

“I might,” he said, moving on to the next aisle.

“You’re all talk. But what do you think about my idea?”

“I’m underwhelmed. You already know that.”

She scoffed. “I don’t mean about your business. I mean about mine. Do you think the focus would be helpful?”

“Are you having financial trouble?”

“No. Not really. But I’m definitely not making the kind of profits I would like to see. And I just want... I want more. I want to make this mine. I want to make a mark. I love Copper Ridge. I want to put a Lane Jensen stamp on it.”

He regarded her for a moment. “You’re really serious about this.”

“I am. And one of my customers said something earlier about being able to order products. I’m thinking maybe I need to set up a website. Or maybe some kind of box full of all the special goodies that are new for the month. Like a subscription box. A best of Copper Ridge box. It honestly didn’t occur to me before, because I’ve been so focused on getting the place established in the town, and back then all that kind of mail-order-gifts-for-yourself stuff wasn’t so big. But now the idea of a subscription box, where you’re basically buying yourself a grown-up grab bag, is such a big thing.”

“That sounds like a lot of work,” he said.

“Says the man with a gigantic ranch that requires he never sleep in or ever take a vacation.”

“That’s different.”

“It isn’t different. I want to invest in this business, and build it, and make it mine. You of all people should understand that.” She paused, and she knew she was pushing her luck, but she did it anyway. “If you did what I’m talking about with the milk, and if you started offering more kinds of cheese... Well, you could do the same thing with the Laughing Irish. Make it yours. Finn Donnelly would be the one to make the name famous. Instead of just hiding it behind the label of the more well-known dairy.”

She knew she had laid it on a little thick, and his irritated expression reflected that. “I’m already getting badgered by my brother, plus I have two more set to show up today. I don’t really need you chiming in and pressuring me too. If you want to make your mark on the town, go right ahead. But stop trying to put your Lane stamp on me.”

She sighed, feeling exasperated. The man was the most enraging human on the planet sometimes. Stubborn, crabby and resolutely determined to keep his head up his ass. “But I’m right,” she insisted.

“My grandfather ran the ranch for forty years. He kept it going through all manner of economic hardship. Why would I act like I know better than him?”

“That isn’t what you’re doing,” she said. “You’re not acting like you know better than him. You’re just finding a new way to succeed in a new world.”

“Expand all you like, Lane, but I’ve had enough change. I won’t tell you where to stack your damned caviar if you don’t tell me what to do with my cows.”

She sat down on the stool behind the counter, crossing her arms, knowing that she looked like she was pouting, and not really caring. “Fine. Have that control you’re so fond of. What are you here for anyway?” She realized that she had bulldozed right over whatever he might have wanted to say when he’d come in.

“Coffee beans,” he said, picking up a bag. “Also, I was kind of hoping you could bring something by for dinner tonight. You know, enough for a crowd of people. But since you always have mass amounts of food in that freezer of yours that I spared last night...”

“You don’t have to do something for me to get food. Your very presence in my life merits food.” She never stayed annoyed with Finn, even when he was annoying. It was impossible.

He had too long a track record of being wonderful for her to take a disagreement seriously. Plus, when he smiled at her, and his blue eyes lit up, she couldn’t feel anything but affection for the man.

He treated her to that smile she could never stay mad at. Then he brought the bag of coffee up to the counter.

She set about ringing it up. “You know, you probably have enough food that you don’t need anything new. Wasn’t it just yesterday that you were trying to turn down the casserole I slaved over?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t really want to piece leftovers together. And if I remember right, Liam and Alex are bottomless pits. Of course, my memory of them might be firmly centered on their teens and early twenties. So maybe now that they’re both in their thirties they’ve started eating reasonable portions.”

“I’ll make something. Pasta, probably. That will be easy to make in the little store kitchen in the back. Don’t worry. I won’t let you starve.”

“Perfect,” Finn said, sounding weary. “Could you also figure out a way to handle my brothers for me?”

“Sorry, buddy. Maybe I can sing the ‘Song That Never Ends’ all night and annoy them out of town. Then again, once they eat my pasta they’re going to end up wanting to stay forever. I could put strychnine in it,” she offered.

“Maybe don’t poison my brothers, Lane.”

“Then I guess you’re stuck with them.”

“Hopefully not for too long,” he said, his smile turning rueful.

“How do you plan to get rid of them if not poison?” she asked.

“The way you normally get people to do what you want. Money. Of course...until then, they’ll be staying in my house. On second thought...” He looked down at the pound of coffee in his hand. “I better get two of these.”

“Just grab the second one on the way out,” she told him. “It’s on the house.”

“Pity caffeine,” he said. “But, at this point, I don’t have too much pride to take it.”

He picked up the bag and lifted it. “See you later?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll bring the food by after I close up here. So it should be around about five thirty.”

He grunted.

“Actual human beings with people skills just say thank you, Finn,” Lane said.

“Thank you,” he said before turning and walking out of the store. She watched him through the window as he adjusted his black Stetson and looked up and down the street.

She caught sight of a table of women sitting out in front of The Grind drinking coffee and admiring the view that was Finn Donnelly.

She turned away, a rush of heat filling her cheeks, and her stomach. She felt weird. Weird that she had been looking at Finn, and that she had been borderline sharing a moment with the women across the street, who were clearly not just looking at him but checking him out.

But she had not been checking him out. Not really. She looked up again, and he was gone. She ignored the slight kick in her stomach.

If she noticed the fact that his jaw was square, and that the muscles of his forearms were well-defined, that didn’t really mean anything. Not a thing except the fact that she wasn’t blind. He was a man. He was a good-looking man.

And she wasn’t immune to it. She had just been thinking that his smile and eyes always got him out of trouble with her. It was just—just in a friend way.

She gritted her teeth. That fact had been driven home in kind of a strange way a few months ago when he and Rebecca had nearly hooked up at Ace’s one night. Though Rebecca had been adamant that nothing at all had happened, and that really, nothing would have, since she’d only been using him to try and forget about Gage, the man she was determined to stay away from at the time.

But it had all worked out in the end.

Rebecca and Gage had resolved their differences and Lane didn’t have to deal with the weirdness of two of her friends dating each other. Which would have been the worst part of Rebecca and Finn hooking up.

Just the thought made her shudder a little bit. Because weird. It would just be weird. Just like it was weird that someone she knew really well, and had taste she respected, had seen Finn as bangable.

Yes, Finn was an attractive man. She knew that. But all the fantasies about his hands that she’d had centered on things he could fix in her house.

The door opened again and she jumped when the women who had just been ogling Finn walked in off the street.

“What can I help you find today?” She put on her brightest smile. And she did her very best to cast all thoughts of Cord, the eventual expansion, Finn and Finn’s stubbornness out of her mind.

* * *

HIS BROTHER ALEX showed up looking like a military cliché. He was wearing dog tags and a tan shirt, covered mostly by a dark jacket. What looked to be all of his earthly possessions were shoved in a giant bag he had slung over one shoulder, held like a backpack.

The only indicator he hadn’t been in the military for the past few months was that his dark hair was no longer high and tight, but was hanging down into his eyes.

He walked through the entryway and into the kitchen, slamming the pack down on the countertop. “Is Liam here yet?”

“No. And good to see you too.”

Alex smiled in that easy way the rest of them could never seem to manage. “You didn’t seem particularly thrilled to see me, Finn. Don’t try to act like I’m the cranky ass in the group.”

“There,” Finn said, forcing a smile. “I’m glad to see you.” He realized, as soon as he said it, that it was strangely true.

“You’re only saying that because if I wasn’t here it would be because I was dead or incapacitated in some way.”

“No, I’m glad to see you because you’re about the only one of us that knows how to defuse tension rather than adding to it.”

Alex shrugged. “We all have our gifts.” He looked around the room, the slow and thorough evaluation offering a slight glimpse of the intensity that lurked beneath Alex’s easygoing surface.

For all that he was the laid-back brother in the Donnelly clan, he was still a soldier.

“Is Cain around?” Alex asked.

“Somewhere. Look for the storm cloud and you’ll find him somewhere underneath it. Unless of course you find Violet underneath it.”

He’d had limited interaction with his teenage niece since her arrival, since her face had mostly been glued to her phone. But the better part of it had consisted of single-word sentences. Mostly, she’d been holed up in her room.

“What does she have to be stormy about? She’s just a kid.”

“A teenager.”

Alex swore. “I have been out of touch for too long. So, what’s happening? Are you having a lawyer read us the will, or...?”

“Not necessary. You all have a copy of the will. We just need to discuss what’s going to happen. We all inherited an equal share of the ranch. But I’m willing to offer a monetary payout.” He stared at his brother with purpose behind his gaze. “You don’t have to stay here.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to be,” Alex said.

There was something slightly haunted in his eyes then, but Finn wasn’t going to ask about it. That just wasn’t the Donnelly way.

There was another knock on the door and Finn knew exactly who that would be. “I guess the gang’s all here,” he said drily.

He walked back to the entry, jerking it open. Sure enough, there stood Liam, looking a whole lot like Alex. But where Alex smiled easily, Liam did not. His bags were down at his feet, his tattooed forearms crossed over his chest, his mouth pressed into a grim line. “Hey,” he said.

“Come in,” Finn returned.

Liam picked up his bags and walked inside before dumping them on the floor again. Alex came out of the kitchen and the two brothers acknowledged each other with a single head nod.

“Well,” came a gruff voice from the top of the stairs, “this is a helluva reunion.”

Cain chose that moment to walk in, his footsteps heavy.

“We’re all here,” Liam said, “I guess we can get down to business.”

Finn was never more conscious of the dysfunction of the Donnelly clan than when they were all standing in one room. There was—at any given moment—both a disconnect and a connection between all of them.

Brothers. Strangers. Both of those descriptions were true.

By the time the brothers had settled in the expansive seating area it was dark outside, the interior lights reflecting off of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Liam and Alex were sitting on the couch, at opposite ends. Cain was seated in a chair, one leg flung out in front of him and his hands in his lap.

Finn remained standing, taking the folded-up will out of his pocket and holding it out. “Was anybody confused about these terms?”

“Seems straightforward to me,” Liam said.

“We’re all beneficiaries. And I’m the executor. That means it’s my job to make sure that everybody gets what they’re supposed to. And of course, if you have any objections to the way I’m handling it, you’re welcome to talk to Grandpa’s lawyer.”

“Does Copper Ridge have a lawyer?” Cain asked.

“Sure, but I’m pretty sure he works at the local general store and also does weddings, funerals and burials,” Finn said.

“I can’t tell if you’re joking,” Liam said.

Finn just shrugged. “I’ll give you his number if you have a problem. That’s all you need to know. Anyway. After I received the will I got the property evaluated. I’m willing to buy all of you out. With projected appreciation up to five years. It’s a good offer.”

“You have that kind of money?” Alex asked. “I have my doubts about that.”

“I’ll have to get a loan for some of it, but that’s not really your problem. I can’t imagine you guys want to be here. I give you the money and you can go do whatever you want.”

“We’re all here,” Cain said, looking around the room. “Do you think the issue is I don’t have my own money? I do. I don’t get why you think you get to pull rank here.”

“Really?” Finn asked. “You don’t get it at all?”

“We’re all blood, Finn,” Cain responded. “We want what’s ours. So what is it you want?”

“I want control of the ranch. The Laughing Irish is mine. I’ve spent the past eighteen years working my knuckles bloody on this place. And where were you?”

“Serving my country,” Alex said, crossing his arms.

“Raising a kid,” Cain said, shifting his position.

“Pissing into the wind,” Liam added, because he was never going to give a sincere answer.

Finn gripped his elbows, then realized they were all glaring and crossing their arms. He lowered them quickly to his sides. “Well, you’re all welcome to keep doing that.”

“I’m out,” Alex said. “Of the military. And I’m not planning on reenlisting. I don’t have anything else, anywhere else.”

“You aren’t reenlisting? Is there a reason for that?” Finn asked. His brother had been in the army for more than a decade. Finn could hardly imagine him doing anything else.

“Nothing I want to talk about right now. Right now, we’re talking about the ranch. I don’t want money. I don’t need money. I’ve got pay from the army for my service as a veteran of a foreign war. But I need something to do. And this ranch is something to do.”

Something to do? His life’s work was something for Alex to do.

He had honestly never considered his brothers would want to stay in Oregon and work on a dairy farm when there was money on offer. This wasn’t a glamorous life. And as far as Finn was concerned, teamwork wasn’t the road to happiness. Space was. Control.

How the hell they could think any different was beyond him.

“I don’t see the point of dragging me into your career crisis,” Finn said, not particularly caring if he sounded insensitive. “If you want to try your hand at something new, by all means, take what I give you and invest in something new.”

“Maybe I want to get back to my roots, Finn,” Alex said. “Did you think of that?”

“No,” Finn returned. “I didn’t. I honestly thought that between a stack of cash and a life spent getting up at the ass crack of dawn, you’d choose cash.”