They both tipped their cowboy hats and said a polite hello, not even blinking at the sound of her unusual last name, although I saw an amused twinkle in Walt’s eyes.
“Tyler will take you to your cabin now,” I told Lauren, “unless you need something else?” Something else I couldn’t provide, like matcha lattes or a barista.
“No, I think I’ll unpack and let my family know I arrived safely. I might take a little nap before dinner.”
“I’ll see you in the dining room at six.”
We didn’t have enough guests to do multiple sittings for dinner like we used to when the ranch was in its heyday. The Jernigans and Shahs were longtime visitors to the ranch, but it was tough to bring in new business when the facilities on the property were sorely outdated. If we didn’t make improvements soon, even our loyal guests would stop coming.
“Yes,” she said, “thank you so much. Nice meeting you, Walt.” She turned and walked out of the office with Tyler, and I did my best not to assess her backside, although I couldn’t say Walt showed the same restraint.
“Hey,” I warned him. “Eyes up. This is a highbrow establishment.”
Walt laughed and cocked his head to the side. “Is it?”
Over the years I’d known him, he hadn’t changed much except for the fact that his black hair and mustache turned to a silvery gray. At sixty-four, he was still a skilled wrangler, no doubt about it, and the staff and guests adored him, but physically he was slowing down. Next summer, he’d definitely need a younger wrangler working with him.
“What’s a lady like her doing out here?” Walt’s voice had grown gruff from age and the Marlboro Reds I’d been asking him to quit since I first met him.
“I guess she wanted a rugged ranch experience?” I scratched the back of my neck where I’d gotten a strip of sunburn from tending to the fence that morning. “Honestly, I have no idea.”
“Give her the deluxe Silver Sage Ranch package then,” he said with a wink.
“And what’s that?” I waited for the punchline I knew was coming.
“The deluxe ranch package is everything you can think of selling her, from the super deluxe trail ride to the super deluxe cookout experience. That’s how you keep this place afloat, dummy. Upcharge everything.”
“I’m not going to fleece my guests, Walt.”
“It’s not fleecing if?—”
There was a knock on the door, and we both spun around to see Lauren peeking her head inside. My stomach took a nosedive, and Walt swore under his breath as we braced ourselves for the dressing down we deserved.
“One more thing,” she said in a cheery voice. “If either of you gentlemen head into town, I’d like to come with you. I didn’t have proper hiking shoes at home, so I’d like to buy some here, as well as a few more things I might need. Oh, and I’d really like to get the deluxe ranch experience. Don’t skimp on a single thing while I’m here.” She let the screen door slam shut in her wake.
I dropped my head into my hands as Walt cackled. No wonder this place was about to go belly up.
CHAPTER4
MATTHEW
Instead of entering the dining room through the door used by guests, I passed through the kitchen so I could check on Damon Gansevoort, our head chef. This was my nightly ritual. When I hired him at the start of the previous summer, he’d told me he was recently sober and asked me to keep the dinner wine out of the kitchen. We both quickly learned that he needed much more distance than that from temptation.
After the first evening with a drunk cook at the stove stirring up scorched risotto, I worked harder to make sure none of the wine made its way into his hands. I did such a good job securing the wine that he moved on to the stash of liquor in the Round Room and went on another bender. When I called him into my office to fire him, he confessed he’d lost his daughter and wife in a car accident and, when those memories hit, he’d do whatever was necessary to get a drink to numb the pain. I couldn’t help but empathize with the guy, especially having recently lost my own parents in a wreck. I pledged to keep him on staff and lock away all the alcohol on the premises. My efforts were successful, and we signed a contract for him to return the following summer season.
This summer, he’d only had one incident, and, fortunately, it was the night of our cookout, so he wasn’t required to prepare food for guests, anyway. Now I lived in fear of him tumbling off the wagon again, so to speak. The second I walked into the kitchen and heard him barking directions at his sous chef, an unflappable young woman aptly named Serenity, I knew he was fine. Bad mood, good food was the saying around here.
“Evening, Serenity.”
She glanced over her shoulder while still agitating a pan on the stove. “Hi, boss.”
Every day, I was thankful that Serenity didn’t take our chef’s moods personally. In fact, it appeared they were developing a mentor-student relationship. One day in the staff mess hall, I even heard her gently tease him, and he’d nearly smiled. A small miracle.
Chef, which was not only Damon’s job title but what we called him around the ranch, stood at a different stove, sampling a chunk of what looked like fried potato. The intense concentration on his face told me he knew more about flavors than anyone I’d ever met. In response to whatever he tasted, he added several dashes of Kosher salt to the roasting pan.
“Evening, Chef.”
His silence didn’t surprise me. When he was cooking, he didn’t bother with the niceties like greetings or “God bless you” when someone sneezed. In fact, if you sneezed in his kitchen, he’d probably take a meat cleaver to one of your limbs. Sometimes I forgot about his germophobia, which is why I reached out to taste one of the recently washed green beans sitting in a colander.
