“The hell it is, but frankly I don’t give a crap what you call yourself. I ain’t workin’ for you no more. I’d rather go to Billings and put in time at a McD’s.”
Nick looked for a clean mug and found none. No problem. He grabbed one from the sink, gave it a quick rinse, then depressed the plunger on the Chemex.
The woman flying in tomorrow had to be desperate for job. That was pretty obvious. Well, he was desperate for a cook. If she could fry eggs and grill steaks, they were halfway to success.
He’d been away from this part of the country for years, but he’d grown up here. Cooks who worked this kind of itinerant life tended to be old or ugly or drunks, or maybe all three.
Nick poured the coffee, jammed the crutch under his arm, picked up the mug and somehow made it back to his office. The night’s bottle of bourbon was on a lamp table. He put the mug on the table, picked up the bottle and added a hefty slug to his coffee.
This Liza or Lisa or Lissa Wilde could be homely enough to scare small children. She could be old enough to have mothered Methuselah. What she couldn’t be was a drunk because one drunk per falling-down ranch was enough.
And wasn’t that a
laugh?
Nick sank onto the sofa. The Newf sank down at his feet and laid his massive head on Nick’s foot.
“You’re a stupid dog,” Nick said, “you know that? Hanging around me. You’d be better off picking on some other sucker.”
The Newf looked up and gave a gentle woof. Nick sighed, reached out and scratched him behind the ear. The dog sighed, too, in ecstasy. “Stupid dog,” Nick said again, but without any heat.
What did dogs know about winners and losers?
“Nothing,” Nick said, and drank some of the bourbon-laced coffee.
Once upon a time, Nick Gentry had been a winner. The Clint Eastwood of the Twenty-First Century, some stupid blogger had called him.
How about a new title? Nick Gentry. The Drunk of the Decade.
“Don’t leave out Gimp,” Nick said, raising his mug in salute.
Hell, nobody could leave that out. Not when one of his legs was about as useless as tits on a bull.
CHAPTER TWO
One good thing about living alone.
You could pack up your things and leave on a moment’s notice.
OK. It took a little longer to get ready, but that was only because you had to spend a little time deciding what to take and what to leave behind.
Lissa took her suitcase from the closet, placed it on the bed and unzipped it. Then she opened her closet and the drawers in her dresser and narrowed her eyes.
Montana. Spring in Montana. A little cool, maybe. Sweaters. A light jacket. Jeans. T- shirts. What else? This place was a ranch. A resort for the rich. OK. Add a long skirt—she had one she’d bought at a street fair last year, denim embroidered with flowers at the waistband and hem. Where the heck was it?
There. Excellent. If she had to mingle with the guests, the skirt and a black cashmere sweater, long-sleeved, kind of low cut, would be perfect. Chefs didn’t often make appearances, but one of the things she might do at this place was institute a special buffet night.
“Excellent idea, Melissa,” she said briskly, and she added the white silk pants and black silk top she’d scooped up at a resale shop in Beverly Hills a couple of years back.
A buffet night.
Ranch-themed, of course.
A butter sculpture of a horse. She’d turned out to be surprisingly good at butter sculptures. The pot-au-feu. A big pot of chili. She’d make it with red wine and call it something ranchy. Cowboy Chili, maybe. Dumplings. Sourdough bread. Maybe trout. Or bass. Or whatever it was she’d vaguely heard people say they fished for in Montana. And game. There had to be game. Pheasants, wild turkey, quail, whatever. She had a recipe for pheasant with a sauce to die for. The sauce included a secret ingredient—90 percent cacao dark chocolate. Not a problem. She could order it online, have it overnighted to the ranch…
And why hadn’t she thought to ask Marcia the name of the place?
No matter. She’d find out soon enough.