Chapter One:
Adele Woodruff slid her hands down the front of the jeans she’d put on in the dressing room, wondering why she hadn’t gotten a more physical job sooner. After all, working twelve hours a day on her best friend’s ranch had proven to be the best weight loss solution she’d ever found.
She was down fifteen pounds now, and these jeans showed curves she’d forgotten she had. She turned and looked at her behind in the mirror, deciding these were definitely the jeans she needed. Adele was currently counting pennies to make sure she had the money necessary to pay her bills, but these jeans had practically been made for her body.
So she’d get two pairs. That was reasonable. She worked on a ranch now, for crying out loud, and while she’d only been there a few weeks, her clothes had taken a serious toll. The jeans she’d brought with her were ratty and perpetually dirty, so getting a couple of new pairs wasn’t unreasonable.
If only her debt collectors understood what was reasonable and what wasn’t. If only Hank, her no-good, used-to-be-stinking-rich ex hadn’t put all of his expenses in her name and then skipped town. As one woman at a credit card company had told her several months ago, she didn’t care who’d racked up the debt. The fact was, the account was in Adele’s name, and the payment was due on the fifth of each month.
Each and every month.
She’d disputed a couple of the bigger cards and found some relief that way, but they’d only offered her a lower payoff amount, with a more aggressive payback schedule.
She pushed the thoughts of Hank and his monumental debt from her mind. She needed jeans and boots to work on the ranch, period.
Oooh, boots, she thought, and detoured over to the shoe department. So the two pairs of boots she bought weren’t exactly what one might need to work with goats on a rescue ranch—or what Scarlett, the owner of Last Chance Ranch, hoped would become a rescue ranch. But Adele needed the ankle boots nonetheless.
With her purchases in the back of her car, she stuck the key in the ignition and sent up a prayer. “Come on,” she whispered. “Please let it start quickly.” She used to pray that she could get the sedan to start on the first try. But she couldn’t remember the last time that had happened, so her pleas to the Lord had changed into just let it start before I melt in here.
Sometimes that worked, and sometimes she had to get out of the car and take a break to breathe before trying again. Today, in the mall parking lot, God answered her prayers, because the car started on the third try.
“Thank you,” she said, slapping the steering wheel. “This might actually be a new record.” She flipped the car into gear and started toward the grocery store. She had dozens of ideas for her food videos, but she was on a very strict budget for them. Yes, her Instagram channel was fairly new, with only about a hundred and fifty videos. She posted a new one each morning, and that meant a lot of cooking in the evening. It meant shopping several times a week. It meant spending money she almost had.
But her popularity had been growing lately, especially as she focused more on feeding a ranch crowd than doing what some of the other foodie video channels did—anything and everything.
No, Adele wanted to be niched down, because the audiences there were hungry and loyal. The potential to stand out skyrocketed, and she hadn’t seen anyone else doing Beef’s Greatest Hits or Budget Meals for Two.
She’d done both of those, but now that she was on the ranch, she wanted to focus on a more country-style approach to cooking. Things that had to simmer and stew, like chicken pot pie or beef tips and gravy. She wanted to do cowboy pizzas, and rustic desserts, and down-home cooking anyone could do.
Anyone with a single hotplate, the most expensive lights in Hollywood, and four video cameras, that was. She’d found all of the equipment from one of Hank’s storage units several months back. After all, her name was on the lease, and she was the one they’d contacted when he’d stopped paying the bill. Her choice was to lose everything in the storage unit to an auction or come clean it out.
She’d gone and cleaned it out, finding several treasures—the lights and cameras had sparked her idea to start her own food videos, and she’d sold everything else to pay off one of Hank’s cards.
Her channel made a little bit of money now, and she’d vowed to use only that income to buy the groceries she needed for the videos. She was putting a hundred percent of her earnings back into this business, but it was small and fledgling, and she believed in it.
She selected the cuts of meat she needed, then the vegetables, always planning and double-planning her menu to use a lot of the same items so nothing went to waste. She had a good stock of staples—flour, sugar, salt, garlic powder and other spices—by now, and most of her expenses went to the protein she was cooking, or the dairy aisle. Because wow, she’d never really paid attention to how expensive heavy cream was.
She knew now.
She checked out, her bill coming twenty dollars over what she’d made the previous week. It’s okay, she told herself. She’d make that twenty dollars back this week with her amazing apple turnover video and the watermelon gazpacho she had planned.
With the food in the backseat next to the boots and jeans, she got behind the wheel again, once again praying for a miracle.
She twisted the key. Nothing happened. Again and again, she tried and the engine just clicked. “Come on,” she said, a hint of desperation in her voice. She wiped the back of her hand along her forehead and ignored the people walking by as they headed into the store.
Next time, she told herself as she tried again. And again. She started saying it out loud, but when she’d been trying to get her stupid car started for fifteen minutes, she left the key in the ignition and got out.
Frustration boiled within her. Why couldn’t Hank have had a new Mercedes in the storage unit? She could’ve used that. Guilt immediately cascaded through her. She knew God had blessed her with the lights and filming equipment, and she’d spent hours on her knees thanking Him. So she couldn’t be upset about what she didn’t have.
And yet, she was.
She paced away from the car, the air hot in the parking lot. At least there was a breeze. The car had working air conditioning, if she could just get it started, but the windows didn’t roll down. So she really couldn’t sit in it for very long, trying to get the blasted engine going.
If she didn’t get back up to the ranch soon, Scarlett would wonder where she’d gone. And Adele didn’t want to explain anything, even to her best friend. No one knew about the foodie videos, and she wasn’t ready to tell anyone yet.
She returned to the car, actually somewhat disappointed that no one had stolen it while she’d taken her walk around the parking lot. “They probably tried,” she muttered. “And couldn’t get it started.”
She sighed as she got behind the wheel again. Yes, she’d lost some weight, but she had a lot more than fifteen pounds to lose to be considered anywhere close to thin. She left the door open and turned the key again. Counting in her head, she made it to ten, then twenty. She coached herself to get to thirty, then forty, then fifty before she gave up, got out, and kicked the tires.
She didn’t make it to fifty, because the engine turned over on try number forty-six.
“Hallelujah,” she said, reaching to pull the door shut. She really needed to get Scarlett’s new cowboy-slash-mechanic to look at her car. But Hudson Flannigan had been so busy with projects around the ranch, and Adele didn’t know him well enough to ask.
Besides, she couldn’t pay him. That had kept her mouth shut too.
She flipped the car in reverse and slammed her foot on the gas pedal at the same time she checked behind her. Her car moved, and it seemed to be going at the speed of sound, especially when she saw the huge, white truck behind her.
A horn sounded. She slammed on her brakes. The sedan jerked to a stop. Or had she hit that truck?
Her heart beat in the back of her throat as she put the car in park and opened her door.
“What are you doing?” a man demanded, coming around the front of the truck to see if she’d hit him. She was wondering the same thing, but his condescending tone lit a fire inside her chest.
Or maybe that was this man’s rugged good looks. His long legs and broad shoulders. That delicious cowboy hat he wore, revealing only the hint of sandy blond hair, neatly trimmed. His beard was cut close too, revealing a strong jaw Adele could grip while she kissed him.
She shook herself. Kissed him? What in the world was that? Adele was not interested in this pretty-boy cowboy, though her pulse testified that oh, yes she was.
The cowboy hat and boots were obviously for show, because his jeans looked like the ones she’d just purchased. Brand new. Not a speck of dust anywhere. The boots too, looked like he’d never stepped foot on a ranch, a boarding stable, or even dirt.
He wore a shirt in a lighter tint than summer grass, and he clearly had more money than he knew what to do with. When he looked at her, she forgot where she was and why she was so sweaty.
Sweaty. Oh, man, she was so sweaty from her fight with starting the car. Why couldn’t she meet handsome men while she was dressed in a flirty skirt and with her makeup done just right?
Embarrassment crept through her, but she lifted her chin. This guy was no different than Hank. Sure, he had a black cowboy hat and a pair of boots Hank wouldn’t be caught dead wearing, but other than that, he was exactly like her dirty, rotten ex-husband.
“I didn’t hit your precious truck,” she said.
“Came real close,” he said.
“Yeah, well, real close and contact are two different things.” She turned and started back toward her seat. He grabbed her arm, and dang, if that didn’t send fireworks and a raging inferno of fury through her bloodstream.
She glared at his hand and then up into his eyes. “Get your hands off me. And move your truck. You’re causing a traffic jam.”
The cowboy removed his hand from her arm as if he’d been burned. He had the decency to look cowed by her. Embarrassed even, hopefully that he’d touched her without her permission.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“You don’t need it,” she said, getting behind the wheel and closing her door. At least the car was still running, the air conditioner blowing.
She looked in her rear-view mirror to see the big truck still blocking her and that delicious man still staring at her.
It was easier to glare than to smile, and besides, Adele was not interested in another billionaire boyfriend. Oh, no, she was not.
