Shared By the Cowboys by Cassie Cole

2

Rebecca

I opened my car door. As I did, my phone vibrated on the dashboard. A text message:

Terry: Did you get there safely? How do you feel about the place?

“Oh, now I have cell signal,” I muttered.

The man came down from the porch and chuckled. “Most of the valley’s one big deadzone. Got a cell tower up on that mountain, though. Barely reaches us.” He pointed at one of the peaks on the distant mountain range.

The man removed his white cowboy hat, revealing a head full of thick golden-brown hair. He was wearing a long-sleeve plaid shirt, white and blue, and jeans with a brown belt and a thick belt buckle. His face was chiseled and serious, but warm, too. His amber-brown eyes regarded me with relief.

He was rugged. He was sexy. He was everything I pictured in a Montana cowboy, down to the way he tucked his thumbs behind his belt.

He’s perfect for my research, I thought.

“I’m Mason Cassidy,” he said with just a hint of a country accent. A drawl like smooth molasses.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand. It was warm and muscular and calloused, just like how I imagined the rest of his body was underneath his clothes. He smiled like he knew what I was thinking, and I felt my cheeks grow hot.

“How was the drive? Found the place all right?” Mason asked.

“It was long,” I admitted. “You can’t drive very fast on that road, so I felt like I was looking for the turn-off for over an hour. I was afraid I missed it.”

Mason smirked. “Yeah, we’re a ways out here. Nobody around for miles.” He said it like it was a good thing, and took a deep breath of the cool autumn air.

“Actually, I did see one other person on the way in,” I mentioned. “A mile or so down the road, sleeping under a tree.”

Mason scowled. “Tattoos on his arms?”

“Yep.”

“Son of a…” He shook his head. “Always sleeping on the job. Thanks for letting me know.”

“He works for you?”

“Something like that. Don’t let him hear you say it, though. Come on, let me show you inside.”

I followed him up the porch and through the front door. It smelled like old wood, musty and ancient. Like it had just been reoccupied recently and hadn’t been given a thorough cleaning.

“It’s a Craftsman, built around the turn of the century. Kitchen’s been updated since then, but that’s about it. Lot of work to do. But she’s got good bones.” He rested a palm on the wall. “The floors are the original hardwood. Pretty good shape, except for a few spots that are chipped.”

“Mason, got a question about the installation this week,” came a new voice in the next room. “They say it’ll take two days to install and rewire everything, but I don’t want all that equipment in the way of the next cattle deliveries—oh. I didn’t realize she’s here.”

Mason gestured. “Rebecca, this is my brother Cody.”

Cody tipped his white hat and said, “Ma’am.” He had wavy blond hair that stuck out under the cowboy hat, with an oval face and piercing blue eyes. He squinted a little bit when he smiled. He kind of reminded me of a rugged version of Owen Wilson.

“Real glad you took the job,” Cody said. “We could really use your help. Too much work, not enough hands.”

“I was just giving her the tour,” Mason said.

“You want anything to drink?” Cody asked me. “Water, coffee, beer? Those are pretty much your only options. I guess we’ve got some whiskey, too, but it’s a little early in the day, if you ask me.”

“Actually, water would be great. It was a long drive.”

He pointed at me and said, “On it,” and disappeared into the kitchen.

Mason showed me the den, which was a big open room adjacent to the kitchen. Two leather couches faced a big screen TV on a console table.

“No cable, I’m sad to say. But there’s a big DVD collection,” Mason said. “We have satellite internet, but it’s not what I would call fast. Sometimes we can stream a show on the TV, but the resolution is real poor.”

“No problem,” I said, “I’m more of a book-reader anyways.”

Cody came out of the kitchen and handed me a glass of water. “It’s well water, but it’s filtered. I’ve been at some ranches that use ancient disinfection systems, and let me tell you, it’s not fun. Don’t have that problem here at Cassidy Ranch, though.”

“Thanks.” I took a long sip. “Hey, why does the sign by the road say Blue Sky Ranch?”

“Haven’t gotten to it yet,” Mason replied.

Cody nodded. “Only been here two weeks. Spent all that time fixing the crucial stuff, and receiving the cattle. Getting shipments almost every day. We’re up to two hundred heads, now. Montana Balancers, all of them.” He smiled proudly.

“Balancers?” I asked.

Cody grinned like I had just asked who his favorite Power Ranger was. “Montana Balancers are a breed of cattle. A hybrid of Angus and Gelbvieh. Best quality meat you’ll find north of Texas, and don’t let anyone tell you different.”

“More stubborn,” Mason said. “Haven’t been taking to the land the way we’d hoped.”

“They’ll be fine in a few weeks. Just need some time to get settled in. Like people!” Cody elbowed me and winked.

I grinned back at him. Cody was fun, and I liked him immediately.

There was a whinny outside. Mason and Cody turned to the living room window, which faced the area next to the barn where a wooden pen was erected. It was fifty feet in diameter, and a single black horse was trotting around the perimeter, snorting angrily.

“That’s Wildfire,” Cody said. “He’s got a temper.”

“Bad luck to name a horse before you break him in,” Mason said.

Cody rolled his eyes. “He’ll get settled in soon enough. I’ve broken tougher horses than him.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket again.

Terry: You there?

Terry: Want to make sure you got there safe. It’s not every day an agent sends her client out into the wild unknown…

“Everything all right?” Mason asked.

“Sorry about that. All the texts I missed in the deadzone are now coming through.” I put my phone away.

“Got any bags? I’ll get them for you. Just need the keys.” Cody stuck out his hand.

“That’s real nice of you.”

Cody beamed, tipped his hat, and hurried away. His boots echoed on the hardwood floors until he was outside.

Mason led me upstairs to the bedrooms. I had to focus really hard on not staring at his butt. The jeans molded to his body perfectly, and moved enticingly as he took each step…

Stop it, I told myself. For the next three months he’s my boss.

And more importantly, he was research.

“First three doors are bedrooms,” Mason said when we reached the hallway upstairs. “Yours is at the end of the hall. The door next to it is the bathroom. You’ll have to share. Sorry it’s not the Ritz.”

“Didn’t expect it to be,” I said while walking into my bedroom. It was spartan, with only a wooden bed and a dresser, both of which looked like they had been hand-built in the fifties. There wasn’t even a bedside table or desk or anything like that. Which would make it difficult when I did my real work.

Cody stomped up the stairs and joined us in the bedroom. He dropped both suitcases and unslung my laptop bag from his shoulder.

“Nice bag,” he said. “Italian leather.”

Mason blinked. “You brought a laptop?”

For a second, I froze. Then I quickly thought of an excuse. “I brought it out of habit, I guess. To stream Netflix or something. But I guess I won’t do that if the internet’s lousy.”

“Definitely don’t hog it, especially on Mondays,” Cody said. “That’s when my show’s on.”

“Let’s show you the barn.”

Mason led me down the stairs and out the front door. The barn, like the house itself, barely showed any remains of the last coat of paint. Rather than open the crooked door for humans, Mason slid open the main barn door so we could walk inside. There were ten stalls, five on each side with a walkway down the middle. Three were occupied by horses.

“Every stall will be occupied in a year,” Mason said. “But for now, this is it.”

“Plus the milk cow,” Cody said. “She’s getting delivered tomorrow.”

Next they showed me the chicken coop. It looked like an oversized dog house raised a foot off the ground on stilts. A little ramp led up into the coop, with a fenced-in area beneath it made from wood and chicken wire. Unlike the other parts of the ranch I had seen, this looked like it had been built recently.

Adjacent to that was a pen that contained two goats. Finally there was a garden around the other side of the house, fenced in to keep all the other animals out.

“That’s the basics of the ranch property itself,” Mason said. “The rest of the property is just shy of ten thousand acres, but you’ll spend most of your time helping out around here.”

“That was my question: what kind of work do you need me for?” I asked. “The job ad was vague about the details. I’m an experienced horse rider, I can handle cattle, and I’m real handy with a hammer and saw…”

Mason ticked off items on his fingers. “We need you to collect eggs from the coup every morning. Milk the goats once a day, and the cow once she arrives. The garden needs a lot of love, weeding and such.”

“General chores around the house, too,” Cody chimed in. “There’s a million little projects to fix up the house, not to mention cleaning, keeping things tidy…”

I felt a flash of annoyance. “You want me to do all the girly work?”

The two cowboy brothers looked at each other. “Not exactly.”

I tried to keep my voice even as I said, “I thought I was going to be a ranch hand, not a maid. Do you expect me to cook and do laundry, too?”

Cody laughed. “We all do our own laundry. As for cooking, yeah, sometimes that’d be great. We all take turns.”

“You and I take turns,” Mason said dryly. “Someone refuses to help.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Cody nodded down the driveway. “Speak of the devil…”

A black horse came trotting up to the house. It was the tattooed man with the black hat. He stopped a short distance away, dismounted, and took the horse’s reins in his hand. Two saddlebags were attached to the horse’s tack, with long-handled tools strapped across the saddle.

Now that I could get a closer look, I saw that he was jacked. He looked like a beefier version of Mason. The tribal tattoos bulged on his arms like he was Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.

“How’s the fence coming along?” Mason asked him.

“Fine,” the black-hatted man replied in a deep, raspy voice.

“How far did you get today?” Cody asked.

“Up to the lake.”

“That’s it?” Mason said.

The man kept walking by with his horse. “Tough terrain. Slow going.”

Mason shook his head. “Sick of your lies, Blake. We know you were sleeping on the job.”

The man—Blake—glanced at me as if seeing me for the first time. Beneath the brim of his hat, his dark eyes narrowed angrily.

“Fuckin’ narc.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Don’t blame Rebecca,” Mason said. “We have too much to do around here. The new fence, all the repairs on the house and barn, not to mention all the daily tasks… You can’t be slacking off like that. Can we all agree on that?”

“Whatever, bossman,” Blake muttered. He led his horse into the barn and disappeared.

“That’s Blake,” Cody told me. “He’s the middle child, if you couldn’t tell.”

“All three of you are brothers?”

“Unfortunately.” Mason shook his head and turned back to me. “Sorry about Blake. He likes to blame others for his problems. But you didn’t do anything wrong.”

He rested a reassuring hand on my shoulder and smiled. For a few seconds I was totally enraptured by his handsome gaze. Was it my imagination, or was the sexual tension between us thicker than molasses?

Mason removed his hand like he realized he was being too friendly, then said, “What were we talking about? Right, your duties. Listen, we’re not trying to make you the maid. You won’t be cooking, except when it’s your turn to make dinner, and you only have to clean up after yourself. I’ll give you a full list of your daily tasks tomorrow, but aside from that? We just need help around here. If you can find ways to make yourself useful, well, that would be great.”

I nodded. “Okay. As long as you know I’m good for more than just milking cows.”

“And goats,” Cody chimed in with a grin.

“Three month contract,” Mason said. “That’ll help us focus on all the repairs and other work to get this ranch up and running. Then we can take it from there. If you want to negotiate your pay…”

“What was listed on the ad sounds good,” I quickly said. “Three months. You have yourself a deal.”

We shook on it, and then I shook Cody’s hand too for good measure.

“You want to see the rest of the property?” Mason looked at his watch. “It’s my night to make dinner, but I’ve got about an hour…”

“Actually, can I use the restroom?” I asked. “Long drive, tiny bladder.”

“Whatever you want,” Cody said with a boyish smile. “Make yourself at home.”

I went back inside and found the downstairs bathroom. I closed the door and locked it, but rather than sit down on the toilet I leaned on the sink and pulled out my phone.

Rebecca: I’m here. There’s cell signal at the ranch, but everywhere around it is a deadzone.

Terry: How is it? How are the guys you’re working for? Are they the real deal?

Rebecca: They’re better than I ever expected. Three brothers. They’re perfect for the story.

Terry: YES! That’s what I love to hear! If you have good material, it’ll practically write itself.

Rebecca: I’ll send you an email later with all the details.

I smiled at the screen. Because I wasn’t here to help out on the ranch. At least, that wasn’t my primary purpose.

I was an author, and I was here to write a book about cowboys.