Rich Rancher For Christmas - Sarah M. Anderson

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      He knew who Natalie was, of course. She was hard to miss. Her beautiful face was on his screen every morning at seven thirty. CJ didn’t actually like her show—it was too much gossip and innuendo about celebrities. But she also seemed to be the first to know anything about the Beaumonts. It wasn’t like CJ religiously followed them. Hell, he didn’t even like their beer. But he liked to stay informed. And that meant he caught A Good Morning with Natalie Baker most days.

      Besides, it wasn’t like he was watching it for her. He wasn’t. Yes, she was beautiful on screen and, okay, she was stunning in real life. That had nothing to do with anything. He preferred that station’s morning weatherman to the other options, that was all. So watching her show was just a matter of convenience, really.

      “I know,” Wilmer said, snapping his suspenders. “It just don’t make a lick of sense. I mean, you weren’t adopted.”

      CJ forced himself to smile. “That’s what they tell me,” he said in a joking tone. It was a relief when Wilmer chuckled. “Clearly, they have the wrong Wesley.” Wilmer nodded and CJ took advantage of the pause to ask about the latest supplements for his horses. Wilmer enjoyed gossip, but he wasn’t about to miss out on a chance to sell a feed supplement.

      CJ didn’t actually want the supplement but it was a small price to pay for distracting Wilmer from one Ms. Natalie Baker. He finished up his regular order with a sample of the new supplement and headed out to his truck.

      He was going to have to tell his mother. She had lived in fear of the day when the Beaumonts would come for him. He had heard all the stories and, for years now, had followed all the headlines. He knew Hardwick Beaumont was dead and the idea didn’t bother him even a little. He couldn’t even bring himself to think of the man as his father—not even his birth father. Hardwick had been nothing more than a sperm donor. Patrick Wesley was his father in every sense of the word. He knew it, his parents knew it and the state of Colorado knew it. End of discussion.

      God, this was going to upset his mother. She had relaxed after Hardwick’s death—although by then, CJ had been twenty-one and a man in his own right. But Bell Wesley had lived in fear that Hardwick Beaumont would come for her son for so long that worrying about it was a reflexive habit she couldn’t break. It was one of the reasons why his parents wintered in Arizona now. The Denver TV stations were saturated with Beaumont Brewery Christmas commercials this time of year and it always upset her. And his dad hated it when his mom was upset.

      CJ always missed them at Christmas, but otherwise, he was glad to have the place to himself. And when they came back from wintering in Arizona, they were happy and relaxed and everything went smoothly.

      This year, he was even gladder they were in Arizona. If Natalie Baker had found his mother and started asking questions, Mom might’ve had a nervous breakdown.

      He drove slowly through town, keeping his eyes peeled. It was impossible to miss her Mustang parked in front of the diner.

      Damn it all. He knew deep in his heart that he had not seen the last of that woman. Isabel might’ve gone by Bell and they might’ve downplayed her being Hispanic, but it was a damn short leap from Carlos Julián to CJ.

      It was only a matter of time until he was outed as one of the Beaumont bastards.

       Two

      There were many things Natalie wasn’t—talented, pretty, likable, smart—but no one could say she wasn’t persistent. Even her father would have to grudgingly admit that she didn’t give up when the going got tough. It was maybe the only valuable lesson he’d ever taught her.

      She shivered in her car, cranking the heat up a little more—not that it made a difference. The winds were blowing out of what she assumed was the north with a howling ferocity and there was no way her trusty Mustang was going to keep the chill at bay.

      She’d spent the better part of the last three weeks visiting Firestone, making friends with the locals and trying to weasel out more information about Patrick Wesley and his family. It had not been easy. For starters, the coffee at the diner was awful and no one in this town had ever heard of a latte. More than that, it felt like the town had closed ranks. Just like that handsome cowboy and the feed store owner had.

      Natalie was an outsider and they weren’t going to allow her in.

      Still, she had just enough celebrity cachet to razzle-dazzle some of the locals. She was famous enough and pretty enough and she knew how to use those assets like laser-guided weapons. She had spent weeks flirting and smiling and cooing and touching the shoulders of men who probably knew better but were flattered by a young woman paying attention to them.

      Maybe they did know better. Because it hadn’t been one of the old geezers who’d finally slipped up. It had been a younger man, in his late twenties and full of swagger. He’d been the only real threat to her. The old guys never would’ve followed up on her flirtations, which was why it was safe to make them. But this guy had seen her as someone he could use just as much as she could use him.

      He had finally given her what she wanted, after she had made some vague promises that maybe the next time he was in Denver, he should look her up. It turned out that Pat Wesley—who appeared to be some sort of saint, according to the locals—did have a son. That in and of itself wasn’t so unusual.

      But his son’s name was CJ.

      Carlos Julián Santino had to be CJ Wesley. There was simply no other alternative.

      She rubbed her arms over her coat, trying to keep the blood circulating through some of her body. She had been sitting outside of the house on Wesley land for half an hour and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could take it. It was freezing.

      She kept going over the questions she’d ask this Wesley guy. Maybe it was the mind-numbing cold, though, because her thoughts kept drifting back to the second person she’d talked to—the tall, dark cowboy in the feed store.

      Despite the amount of time she’d spent in Firestone over the last three weeks, she hadn’t seen him again. Not that she’d been looking—she hadn’t. He’d made his position clear. He would not help her and she couldn’t afford to waste time on a dead end.

      But that hadn’t stopped her from thinking of him. It was hard not to—not when she peeled that heavy sheepskin coat off his body and threw his hat to the side in her dreams. She’d spent weeks waking up frustrated and achy, all because of one cowboy with an attitude problem.

      What had his eyes looked like? Did he watch her show? Did he ever wonder what she was like?

      While she mused, she kept scrolling through Twitter. Her last tweet—a tease about tomorrow’s big reveal of a “major star” on A Good Morning—had only gotten four retweets. She clicked over to Instagram and saw that the cross post had gotten no replies.

      Tightness took hold of her chest that had nothing to do with the cold. It’d been like this for weeks now—her reach falling, her interactions dropping off a cliff. If no one paid attention to her, she wouldn’t matter. At least if they were mad at her, they were paying attention. But once the attention stopped...

      Her phone pinged—a text from her producer, Steve. Anything yet?

      Natalie forced herself to breathe once, and then twice. Working on it, she texted back.

      The latest numbers are in—you’re falling behind. If you can’t pull this out, I’m giving your slot to Kevin.

      The tightness in her chest squeezed so hard she had trouble breathing. There was no way she could wait until the next Beaumont baby was born—she needed Carlos Julián Santino or CJ Wesley or whatever name he went by and she needed him now. She could not lose her spot to Kevin Durante. Kevin had great hair and that was it. He was dumber than a post, lousy in bed and, unfortunately, was exactly the sort of benign golden boy that did well on morning television. She’d rather cut off her toe than give her spot to Kevin.

      No

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