Hell on Heels (8 page)

“Ten years.”

“Ten?” Monica remarked with surprise. “That's a long time in this business.”

“It's a good job,” Gabby said. “Ty treats us well.”

Ty?
Monica's brows hiked up at the familiarity. Ty had shown no qualms about making advances on her. Did he make a practice of sleeping with his female employees? Her next questions was posed in a purposely casual tone. “Is he on a first-name basis with everyone?”

The bartender shrugged, giving little away. “For the most part.” She slid the martini in front of Monica. “As I said, we're tight here. Like family. Everyone loves Ty, especially after his predecessor.”

“So you were here before Ty?”

“Yeah. He came out here about seven years ago, right after Jake.”

“Jake was his predecessor?” Monica asked. “What happened with him?”

“Jake? The feds took him out in cuffs for skimming from the casino. He supposedly stole over a million. I think he's still doing time for it.”

“Casino?” Monica asked perplexed. “What casino?”

“It used to be next door to the hotel. It was a real seedy place. Closing it was no great loss except for the revenue. Although Mr. Brandt was acquitted of all charges, they still took his gaming license away, so he had it bulldozed.”

“He bulldozed it? Why didn't he just sell it?” Monica asked.

“I suppose he could have,” Gabby said, “but the real estate was too valuable so he wanted to hold onto it. Although the hotel went into a decline after we lost the casino, Ty's been steadily working to bring the place back. It's been an uphill battle for him, though. It took him almost five years just to get our slots and video poker back.” She nodded to the machines lining the walls. “He'd really like to rebuild the casino too. It's part of the reason he started playing poker.”

“I don't understand. What do you mean?”

“I'm sorry, Ms. Brandt, you'll have to excuse me. It looks like I've got some new customers to take care of.”

“Of course.” Monica replied. She was disappointed when Gabby moved down to the opposite end of the bar to attend to a rowdy group of cowboys who had just walked in.

It seemed the hotel had quite a colorful history. She'd really like to learn more about it and about Ty. She felt a pang of guilt for being so quick to judge him. So far she'd done nothing but criticize his running of the operation without giving him credit for any of his efforts or accomplishments. She wondered how she could make amends for that.

A moment later her phone buzzed with a text. She recognized Ty's number.
Tom wants Rosa. Leaving for OK.

OK?
Ty was going to Oklahoma? That was unexpected. And who the hell was Rosa? She typed her query.
Rosa???

Her phone vibrated instantly with Ty's reply
. Tom's housekeeper. Going to get her. Back in a coupla days.

His housekeeper? Monica sipped her drink, feeling frustrated, hurt, and confused. And even a little jealous. Why would Tom talk to Ty about this and not to her? Why would he want his housekeeper when she'd been constantly at his side from the very start? She'd ask Tom tomorrow. Maybe now after Ty's visit, Tom would be more communicative.

Her phone vibrated one last time.
Got UR wish. UR in charge now, Boss Lady.

Ty had left her in charge? Was this a joke? She didn't know anything about the place. He knew that. Maybe that was his point. But if he intended to gain more control by making her feel incompetent, he faced a rude awakening.

L
anding in Oklahoma City, Ty rented a car and headed south toward Tillman County. It'd been seven years since Ty had left Oklahoma with no intention of ever going back. He probably would have kept that promise to himself if it wasn't for Tom. But if Tom wanted Rosa, Ty would bring her back to Vegas—even if he had to hog-tie and carry her.

Maybe one day he'd be more like Tom and want to retire to peace and solitude, but he was still far too restless to be content on the ranch for long. And there was no way in hell he and Delaney could ever run it together.

He hadn't contested when Delaney filed for divorce. And dumbass that he was, he hadn't even hired a lawyer, not counting on her getting half of the ranch and, worse, wanting to keep it. When Delaney had insisted on staying there, he'd known he couldn't.

Plugging his iPod into the audio jack, he flipped through a dozen playlists to Luke Kaufman's “Cowboy Baller,” hit
PLAY
, and put the pedal to the metal. The rented Expedition roared down the highway. He had little fear of speeding tickets. He still knew almost everyone around these parts. Anyone he didn't know knew Tom.

With every passing mile, his mind flooded with old memories, mostly pleasant, some not so much.

As the son of a stock contractor, rodeo was the life Ty had dreamed of as far back as he could remember. He'd been seduced by the sights, sounds, and smells the first time he'd ever hauled stock down these roads with his ol' man. Although it ran deep in his blood, he'd sworn not to follow in his father's footsteps after a bull impaled and trampled him to death. Barely two years later, his mother married a widower roughneck with two kids of his own. Feeling like a fifth wheel, Ty had gone to live at Tom's ranch. He'd ridden the bus thirty miles to school until he was old enough to drive. From that point on, he raised enough hell to stretch three counties wide. He'd played wide receiver for the Bombers the last year they'd won the state championship. When Oklahoma University offered him a football scholarship, he'd accepted. He'd barely finished two years before dropping out of college.

The next few years blazed through his mind as he entered open ranch country, twenty miles outside his birthplace of Frederick. The familiar landscape, dotted with grazing cattle, still cried out to a corner of Ty's soul.

For five years Ty had worked Tom's horses and roped and branded cattle, but he'd stayed away from the bulls. Once he began riding rough stock, however, he realized riding the bulls and broncs wasn't enough for him. He had a marrow-deep need to defy fate, and that's exactly what he'd done every time he entered the arena, much like a game of Russian roulette.

He'd tried to fight it, but in the end you can never deny who you are. Restlessness and rodeo, his nature and his obsession, finally won out. Bull fighting quickly became an addiction.

For the next few years he'd lived on the road in cheap motels, traveling from one rodeo to another in endless succession—a life that wreaked almost as much havoc on his liver as it had on his marriage—not that he and Delaney ever had any real chance of making it.

His drinking got out of control. Then one night he'd entered the arena tanked up on bourbon and woken up the next day in intensive care. Tom had shown up shortly after that with an offer that saved his life. He needed someone he could implicitly trust to run the hotel after his manager had been taken away by the FBI.

With his marriage finished and his life a mess, it seemed an ideal solution for Ty. He could still maintain a connection to the people and world he loved, but he was out of temptation's reach. The Hotel Rodeo was a haven of sorts, a chance to get his shit together once and for all, and he had leaped at the chance. That had been seven years ago.

He turned off the highway onto the old gravel road leading out to Tom's place, ten thousand plus acres of gently rolling hills and native grasslands. Ty's mind continued to churn as he followed the miles of barbwire fence enclosing Tom's beloved longhorns.

Tom had given him a chance to straighten himself out, and he'd done it—in Sin City, of all places. He'd even quit drinking. Well, mostly. The hard stuff anyway. But now here he was back in Oklahoma, where he'd begun.

He pulled into Tom's place, a sprawling Spanish-style villa, only to eye a new Cadillac Escalade parked in the drive. He spit out a curse. It
had
to be Delaney, and she was the last person he wanted to see. Did she somehow have a second sense about these things? He cut off the engine, spilling a long stream of expletives before hopping out of the truck and knocking on the door.

“Señor Ty!” Rosa greeted him at the door with an exclamation of surprise that quickly became a look of worry. “Please, how is Señor Tomás?”

“No worse, Rosa, if that's what you're worried about.”

“
Gracias a Dios!
Please come in.” She stepped back and waved him inside.

Ty doffed his hat with a murmured thanks.

“Hello, Ty.” Delaney stood as he entered.

“Delaney.” His gaze swept quickly over his ex-wife. She hadn't changed much at all. Dressed in jeans and boots, she was still gorgeous in an understated way. “Always a pleasure.”

“You lie,” she laughed. “But at least you haven't forgotten your good manners.”

“Can I offer you a drink, Señor Ty?” Rosa asked. “A bourbon and Coke?”

Ty shook his head. “Just a cold beer, Rosa. Thanks.”

Delaney raised a brow. “Starting a bit early, aren't you? It's barely past noon.”

“Kinda early for nagging too, isn't it?” he shot back. “But I guess old habits die hard.”

Her lips compressed.

“Lighten up, Delaney. It's only a beer. I hardly touch the hard stuff anymore.”

It'd been weeks since he'd had a bourbon. Not since Tom's stroke, and even then it had been simply to relieve the stress of the meeting. He was still stressed about it. What the hell was he going to do now? He had some big decisions to make—either find a way to come up with some major cash or give up the hotel and return to the ranch. Both options seemed impossible.

“What brings you home, Ty?” Delaney interrupted his thoughts.

“Rosa. Did she tell you about Tom?” Ty asked.

“Yes. She's been worried sick since you called. I'm surprised to see you, given his condition.”

“His condition is exactly what brought me back here. He wants Rosa.”

“Me?” Rosa exclaimed, returning with an icy long-neck.

“Yeah.” Ty popped the top and took a long swig. “Tom asked me to bring you back to Vegas to help look after him. Will you come?”

“To Las Vegas?” Her brown eyes widened. “But I do not fly.”

“Tom told me already. That's why I'm here, to drive you.”

“But the casa,” she protested. “Who will look after it?”

“We'll just have to close it up,” Ty answered. “It'll be fine. The ranch hands can keep an eye on things.”

“If it sets you at ease, I can always swing by now and then,” Delaney volunteered.

Rosa still looked uncertain. “He really asked for me?”

“Yes. He did. Adamantly. He misses you.”

Her expression instantly softened, confirming Ty's suspicions that she was more than just a housekeeper. “Of course I will go,” Rosa replied.

“I know it's short notice, but do you think you can be ready by morning? I don't want to be away from him any longer than necessary. The doc says he's stable, but it's still possible that he could have another stroke.”

“Don't even think it, Señor Ty,” she admonished and crossed herself. “It is tempting fate. I will go and begin packing. Please excuse me, Señora Delaney.”

“Do you need any help?” Delaney asked.

“No,
gracias
. I can manage.”

Ty shoved his hands in his pockets with a sigh when Rosa left him alone with Delaney.

She sank into the brass-studded leather sofa. “You're pacing, Ty. C'mon. Take a load off and tell me what's on your mind.” She patted the cushion beside her.

“Nothing's on my mind.”

“Liar. I know that look. You're worried about Tom. Is he going to make it?”

“Dunno.” He gave a fatalistic shrug. “He's in pretty bad shape. Paralyzed on his right side and can't talk.”

Her hand came over her mouth. “Dear God! I'm so sorry. That's got to be hell on a man like him.”

“It is. I can see it in his eyes.”

“So where does all this leave you?” she asked.

Ty gave a dry laugh. “That's the fifty-million-dollar question.”

Her brows met in a frown. “What do you mean?”

“I don't s'pose you know the circumstances surrounding all this?”

“No. Care to enlighten me?”

Ty threw himself into Tom's leather La-Z-Boy and took another pull on his beer. “Tom and I had met about the hotel right before he collapsed at Bob Taylor's Ranch House. He'd just agreed to my proposal to renovate. Then his daughter flies in from New York, and my life's been a major shit storm ever since.”

Her eyes widened. “His daughter? I didn't know he had one.”

“He didn't either until about ten years back. She's hell on heels, too. Thinks I caused his stroke.”

“How could she possibly come to that conclusion?”

“Because of the timing, but hopefully Tom will set her straight on that score. As to where all this leaves me . . . she wants to sell the hotel.”

“Can she?”

“She can. She has full power of attorney and no qualms about exercising it. She's already taken the bit between her teeth.”

“You can't fight it?”

“Why so concerned, sugar pie? You afraid I'll come back to the ranch?”

“Well yes, actually.” She chuckled. “How long do you think we'd last before they'd be hauling one of us to jail for homicide? So what are your options?”

“She offered to sell me Tom's interest in the place.”

“She did? How much are you looking at?”

“I don't know exactly, but my best estimate is somewhere in the ballpark of thirty-two million. Less the whopping two and a half percent break she said she'd cut me,” he added dryly.

“
Two and a half percent?
You're kidding, right?”

“Nope. Ms. Brandt takes her numbers very seriously. She's a hotshot investment banker.”

“Doesn't sound like you care much for her. I'm guessing she must not be much to look at?”

Ty pursed his mouth. “I s'pose she ain't half bad—if you like
that
type.”

“So there's actually a type of women you don't like?” Delaney snorted. “Wonders never cease.”

He ignored the dig.

“Buy her out, Ty.”

He grimaced. “With what? I thought about mortgaging the ranch—”

“Over my dead body.”

“Don't tempt me, Delaney,” Ty quipped.

“You wanna just sell me your half?” she suggested.

“Hell no! My great grandpa homesteaded the place. It was supposed to have been
my
legacy. You never should have got any of it to begin with.”

“Then you should have kept your dick in your jeans, Ty.”

He blew out an exasperated breath. “I told you a thousand times it never happened.”

“But there were pictures. You, Zac McDaniel, and two women. Very naked pictures, Ty. On Flickr.”

“Sometimes pictures tell lies. I was passed out.”

He'd been partying hard with Zac after his buddy had won a big purse at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, but to this day he didn't honestly remember the rest of it. He'd been in a total bourbon blackout, a circumstance that made him finally face the fact that he had a problem.

“Whatever.” She waved her hand dismissively, then steered the conversation back on track. “What's done is done. We're both happier now anyway. You could always look for investors.”

“That's what
she
said. Mentioned some kind of investment trust.”

“You mean a REIT. I have money in several of those.”

“Do you? How does it work?”

“A group of investors agree to put a certain amount of money in a pot, and the REIT uses it to buy up real estate. You don't know exactly what you're getting, although a lot of them do focus on hotels. It's a legitimate option for you to consider.”

Ty set his jaw. “I won't go into business with a bunch of strangers.”

“What about people you know?” she asked.

“Like who? Who do I know besides Tom with
that
kind of money?”

“Me,” she replied. “And I know lots of other people with that kind of money, too, Ty. It's my world, after all.”

“Yeah,” he scoffed. “The one you ran away from to play at cattle ranching.”

“I do more than play at it, and you know it! I run the place a damn sight better than you ever did. Hell, you never stuck around long enough even to mow the grass.”

“I hate mowing grass. That's why I live in the desert.”

“And why you should stay there. You're not mortgaging the ranch, Ty. But if you like, I could put some feelers out around Houston about putting a deal together.”

“Oh yeah? What's in it for you?” he asked.

“There's something I've been thinking about asking you for a good while. It's kind of a favor.”

“What kind of favor? I don't like that look in your eye, Delaney. It never bodes anything but trouble.”