Slow Burn Cowboy

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.”

“I’m ex-military, Finn. This doesn’t feel like a hardship to me. And anyway...we’re family.”

“Bull. That’s not why you’re here.”

“My reasons don’t matter,” Alex said. “Not even a little bit. What matters is the will and Grandpa’s express wishes. We all have equal share of the ranch if we want it. And I, for one, want it.”

Finn looked around the room, daring the others to turn down his offer. “And the rest of you?”

“I already told you,” Cain responded. “I’m staying. We’re staying. I’ve been working my ass off trying to give Violet a normal life in Texas. But everybody there knows that her mom walked out. As if it wasn’t enough for her to have to deal with Kathleen abandoning her.”

“You mean she doesn’t see her own daughter?” Alex asked.

“No,” Cain said. “She walked out the door one day and neither of us have seen her since.”

An uneasy silence fell over the room. Probably because none of them knew whether they were supposed to express sympathy or not. Another thing they had in common, aside from physical mannerisms. They were deeply uncomfortable with emotions.

“I’m staying too,” Liam said.

Finn looked at Liam. “Because you love this place so damn much?” He could remember Liam coming to work on the ranch when he’d been a teenager. A surly, jackass teenager who had never seemed particularly interested in the goings-on at the Laughing Irish. No, he was much more interested in the goings-on of Jennifer Hassellbeck’s panties.

“Maybe I’ve grown an interest in animal husbandry.” Liam shrugged.

His brother, who Finn knew was actually something of an entrepreneurial genius, most definitely did not have a sudden interest in animal husbandry.

“Right. And I just started a vegan diet,” Finn said. “What does this place mean to you? Why do you want it? I know why I want it. I’ve bled for it, and that’s not a metaphor. So you tell me what reasoning you have for thinking you all having equal ownership with me is fair.”

“Our reasons are irrelevant, as Alex already pointed out. Grandpa left a quarter of the ranch to each of us. Sorry if that puts a burr under your saddle, Finn,” Liam said, “but that’s kind of the least of my concerns.”

“I just want to know what you bastards think you’re getting out of this.”

This time, it was Cain who spoke. “Come on now, little brother. Liam and Alex are legitimate. Only you and I are bastards.”

“Legitimate or not, once they were adults they never came back here. And neither did you,” Finn said. “You can see why I don’t much feel like I owe any of you anything. I’m not sure why Grandpa did.”

“Maybe the old codger was sentimental,” Alex said.

“No,” Finn said, “that is definitely not it.”

He had been hard, but loyal. Protective. Of the land. Of his grandson. Finn had never felt much like anyone loved him. Until the day he’d gotten into a mishap with a barbed wire fence and sliced through his thigh. He’d come back home pale and bleeding, and the old man had nearly lost his mind. Worried, he’d said, that it was serious. That he’d need his damned leg cut off.

That was the only love Finn knew. And it had been everything to him.

“This is all speculation,” Liam said, “and speculation doesn’t mean a damn thing. The fact is we are each entitled to our share of the ranch, no matter how much that pisses you off. But here’s the deal for you. If you can’t handle it why don’t you let me buy you out. You don’t have to stay here. Go start something that belongs to you.”

“This place does belong to me, asshole.”

“Not legally. It belongs to all of us. I guess you could say it’s a Donnelly operation now.”

Finn was pretty sure his head was going to blow clean off, right there in his grandpa’s living room. Then these three jackasses would get the place all to themselves.

“If I walked,” Finn said through gritted teeth, “you couldn’t run this place. I am the only one of us here who could do it. You’re all dependent on me. I do not need any of you. Remember that.”

There was a knock on the door and Alex raised a brow, then his finger, pretending to count all of the people in the room.

“It’s dinner,” Finn growled.

“Hello.” Lane’s voice floated in from the entry.

“In the living room,” Finn called.

“Great,” came the response. “I’m bringing the food into the kitchen because there is a metric ton of this nonsense.”

All of his brothers were looking at him now. “My friend said she would bring dinner,” he said. “Though why I’m feeding you is beyond me.” He wished he hadn’t thought to feed them now, although, rage aside, there was nothing he could do about any of this.

It wasn’t like he could withhold food and walk around the house ignoring them. Well, he supposed he could. But if he knew anything about Donnellys, that would only make them dig their heels in deeper.

Alex arched a brow. “Your friend?”

“Yes,” he said, nearly snarling. “My friend. Because women have brains and personalities, not just breasts, you jackass.”

“I usually just consider the brains and personalities obstacles to navigate on my way to the breasts,” Liam said.

Cain nearly growled. “Watch your mouth. Boys talk like that, not men. As I’ve often told my teenage daughter. Who lives in this house now. And I won’t have you saying shit like that around her.”

“It’s just talk,” Liam said.

“It’s never just talk, little brother. Man up.”

“Dinner,” Finn barked, turning out of the living area and making his way into the kitchen. Lane was already setting up, a giant bowl of green salad with tongs sticking out the top sitting on the counter. Next to it was a silver pan covered in foil.