The Cowboy's Christmas Miracle. RaeAnne Thayne
Читать онлайн книгу.
garbage? He didn’t like thinking she would be the sort to come off as some kind of martyr. She had listed her ranch for sale and he had paid more than a fair price for it. End of story. It was a business deal, pure and simple.
Hell, he’d even made concessions, like granting her the right-of-way to use the Raven’s Nest bridge and access road to the point where her driveway forked off it. Otherwise, she would have had to build a new road and another bridge across the creek, something costly and complicated.
He sighed and pushed the frustration away. What did it matter if she didn’t like him? He certainly wasn’t trying to win any popularity contests with Jenna.
It would be nice, though, if Neil didn’t have to fight through the negative perceptions of everybody else in town every time his foreman needed to do business with anyone in the Teton Valley.
“I’m only going to go for a little while tonight,” he said to Neil. “I’ll shake a few hands, stroke a few egos and be home in time to make sure everything’s ready for the guests coming in on Sunday.”
“Hate to break it to you, boss, but showing up to one Christmas party with the cattlemen’s association probably won’t do much to change anyone’s mind. Folks around here are set in their ways, afraid of anything that’s different.”
“What’s to be afraid of? We’re only trying to find more sustainable ways of doing business.”
“You don’t have to sell me, boss. I’m on board. I know what you’re doing here and I’m all for it. Our overhead is about half of a typical ranch of the same size and the land is already healthier after less than a year. It’s working. But what you’re doing is fairly radical. You can’t argue that. A lot of people think you’re crazy to go without hormones, to calve in the summer, to move your cattle to a new grazing spot every couple of days instead of weeks. That kind of thinking isn’t going to make you the most popular guy at the cattle growers’ association.”
“It can’t hurt to let people see I don’t intend to come out only on the weekends and hide out here at the ranch. I’m not trying to convert anybody, I just want folks to see I’m willing to step out and try to be part of the community.”
“A noble effort, I guess.”
“You don’t mind if I tag along with you and Melina, then?”
“I suppose that would be okay. You want her to find you a date? There’s some real nice-lookin’ girls around here who’d probably love to hit the town with a guy who has a private jet and one of them penthouses in San Francisco.”
Carson narrowed his eyes at his foreman, whose sun-weathered features only grinned back at him. “Thanks, but no,” Carson muttered. “I don’t need help in the dating department.”
“You change your mind, you let me know.”
“Don’t hold your breath. I’m not interested in a social life, just in a little public relations.”
Chapter Three
Two hours later, he reminded himself of the conversation with his foreman as he listened to the Pine Gulch mayor ramble on about every single civic event planned for the coming year, from the Founders’ Day parade to the Memorial Day breakfast to the annual tradition of decorating the town park for the holidays.
Public relations, he reminded himself. That was the only reason for his presence. If that meant expiring from boredom, it was a small price to pay.
“This is a nice town, as you’ll find when you’ve been here a little longer,” Mayor Wilson assured him. “A nice town full of real nice people. Why, I don’t guess there’s a more neighborly town in all of Idaho. You could have done a lot worse if you’d settled somewhere else.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” he murmured to the other man, wondering when he could politely leave.
At least the mayor was willing to talk to him. He supposed he ought to be grateful for that. While he wasn’t encountering outright hostility from people at the party, he had seen little of that neighborliness Mayor Wilson claimed. Most were polite to him but guarded, which was about what he expected.
The server walked past with more of those divine spinach rolls. He grabbed one as she passed by, hoping she wasn’t keeping track of his consumption since he knew he’d had more than his share.
At least the food was good. Better than good, actually. He had come in with fairly low culinary expectations. A stock growers’ holiday party in Pine Gulch, Idaho, wasn’t exactly high on his list of places to find haute cuisine.
But the menu was imaginative and every dish prepared exactly right. He paid a Cordon Bleu-trained personal chef to fill his refrigerator and freezer here and in San Francisco and he thought the food at this party was every bit as good as anything Jean-Marc prepared.
None of it was fancy but everything he had tried so far exploded with taste, from the mini crab cakes with wild mushrooms to the caramel tart he’d tasted to the spinach rolls he couldn’t get enough of.
He could only hope the personal chef he hired from Jackson Hole for the guests who were coming to Raven’s Nest in a few days was half as good as this caterer.
The house party was an important one for McRaven Enterprises and he wanted everything to be exactly right, especially since he had a feeling this was his one and only chance to convince Frederick Hertzog and his son, Dierk, to sell their cellular phone manufacturing business to McRaven Enterprises.
Frederick loved all things Western. When Carson learned he and his family were traveling from Germany to Salt Lake City for a ski vacation, he had made arrangements to fly them to Raven’s Nest for a few days in an effort to convince the man McRaven Enterprises was the best company to take Hertzog Communications and its vast network of holdings to the next level.
He and Hertzog had had a long discussion the last time they met about some of the range policies Carson was trying to emphasize at Raven’s Nest and the man was interested to see those efforts in action.
He expected to have more opportunities to entertain at Raven’s Nest. He preferred his solitude while he was here but he had built the house knowing some degree of entertaining was inevitable. It wouldn’t hurt to meet the caterer before he left, he decided. He could at least get a business card so he could pass it along to Carrianne, his enormously competent assistant who handled all his event-planning details.
The kitchen was at the rear of the community center. Just before he reached it, another server came through the doors carrying a tray laden with artfully arranged holiday sweets. Cookies and truffles and slices of nut bread.
He focused first on the food, wondering how upset she would be if he messed up her lovely tray by snatching one of those giant sugar cookies. He lifted his gaze to the server to ask and did a quick double take.
“Mrs. Wheeler!”
She wobbled a little and nearly dropped the entire platter. “Mr. McRaven,” she exclaimed, in the same voice she might have used if an alien spaceship suddenly landed in the middle of the room. “What are you doing here?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I was invited. Why do you sound so surprised? This is the cattle growers’ association holiday party, right? Since I run four hundred head of cattle at Raven’s Nest, doesn’t that make me eligible?”
She paused for only a moment and then continued to the buffet table, where she set down the tray before answering him. “Yes. Of course. I’m sorry. You certainly have the right to attend whatever party you’d care to. I just…wouldn’t have expected you here, that’s all. I was surprised to see you. The cattlemen’s association is usually old-timers. The local good old boys.”
“What about Viviana Cruz? You can’t call her a good ole boy and she runs the whole association.”
She smiled suddenly, brightly. “Point taken. Viv is definitely her own person. And we all love