Nodding, Dave frowned. The one thing he did not have control over was nature. If wolves wanted to pick off a calf, there wasn’t much he could do about it. Losing one was hard, but they’d saved nine, so he’d have to accept that and be grateful for it.
“Fine. But I don’t want to lose anymore. Let’s move the herd farther from the canyons, make it harder for the young ones to wander off.”
Mike grinned. “Already done. Got a couple of the boys moving cattle to the west pasture.”
“Good.” Dave glanced around, his gaze sweeping across his land, and he knew he’d never tire of the view. Acres of good Texas earth stretched out for miles in all directions. There were rolling hills, meadows that ran so thick with sweet grass the herd couldn’t manage to eat it all. There were wooded acres of oaks, a dozen stock ponds and a couple of lakes with the best damn trout in Texas. It was everything he’d planned for, and now Dave just needed to seal the ranch’s success.
“I bought some first-calf heifers this morning,” Dave said, remembering the phone call he’d made before setting out to talk to Nathan and Mia. “They’ll be here by Friday and should start calving in the next couple of weeks.”
“Good deal,” Mike said. “We can always use new stock. But what about that new beef contract with TexCat?”
Frowning, Dave said, “I’m working on it. Should know something soon. Meanwhile, start culling the herd, separating out the stays from the gos.”
“We’ll do it.”
When Mike went back to work, Dave told himself he should do the same. Ranch work wasn’t all done outside. There were papers to go over, bills to pay, calls to make. Plus, he had a “fiancée” coming over for dinner and he’d better let his housekeeper, Delores, know.
He drove back to the main house, but rather than go inside, he walked to his favorite spot on the Royal Round Up ranch. He skirted the flagstone decking that ran the length of the sprawling ranch house, walked around the massive free-form pool and took the rough-hewn stairs to the rooftop, wraparound deck.
From that vantage point, he could see for miles. His gaze slid across the beautifully maintained grounds, the stocked trout lake that lay just beyond the pool and then to the massive guesthouse he’d had built two years before.
The guesthouse was an exact replica of the ranch house that had been his family’s until he was ten years old. Until his father had lost the ranch and then took off, leaving Dave and his mother on their own. He’d built the damn guesthouse as a trophy. A way of reclaiming the past. And as a way of giving his mom a place to call her own. A place where she could take it easy for a change. But the hardheaded woman refused to leave her small apartment in Galveston. So the completely furnished, three bedroom, three bath guesthouse stood empty.
Until Dave could change his mom’s mind. Which he would manage to do eventually. Hell, he’d gotten Mia Hughes to agree to his proposition, hadn’t he?
The wind pushed at him as it raced across the open prairie, carrying the scent of grass and water and land. His land. He felt like a damn king when he stood up here surveying the stronghold he’d built.
He slapped both hands onto the thick, polished wood rail and leaned forward, letting his gaze move over the view. His hands tightened on the railing in front of him as he eased the jagged edges inside him by staring out at his property. Good Texas pastureland stretched to the horizon and it was all his. He’d come a hell of a long way in the past several years and there was more to do yet.
Landing that deal for his cattle was paramount for the rest of his plans. He wanted his ranch supplying the beef to the best restaurants and organic grocers in the state of Texas. And TexCat would help him accomplish that. Without that contract, Dave’s plans would take a lot longer to come together. And if this bargain with Mia worked as he thought it would, the deal was as good as done.
Smiling to himself, he gave the railing a slap, took one last look at the vista rolling out into the distance and then took the stairs down. He’d head back to the main house and get some work done before it was time to meet with his fiancée.
Scowling, he realized it might take some time to get used to even thinking the word fiancée.
He ducked his head into the wind and muttered, “A hell of a thing to need a wife to make a deal.”
* * *
Mia didn’t know what to wear.
Was there a protocol for having dinner with a pretend fiancé who was paying you to pretend to love him so he could sell cattle? She laughed a little. It sounded bizarre even to her, and she was living it.