The Rancher's Wager
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Maisey Yates
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One
Cricket Maxfield had won any number of specious prizes in the game of life. From being born youngest in her family, barely rating a passing glance from either of her parents and being left to essentially do as she pleased, to being the only Maxfield sister born with both pigeon feet and buck teeth.
The latter was largely solved by braces, the former was mostly dealt with by casts on her feet when she was a baby.
She hardly walked turned in at all anymore.
All the way to a decrepit ranch that had been buried in her father’s portfolio, discovered after his disgrace, and unwanted by anyone else in her family.
She had a feeling, though, that she was about to win the strangest prize of all—six feet and four inches of big, rock solid cowboy.
She couldn’t have planned it better if she’d tried.
Oh, he didn’t think he was going to lose. She knew he didn’t. Because he had been betting like a fool all the way through this hand, and he had no idea that she had just gotten the absolute best hand possible.
No. He was playing like a man with a full house or a straight flush.
But she was a woman with a royal flush.
This final hand was always the most interesting part of this charity fundraiser, and it was the first year that Cricket had ever been in the hot seat for Battle of the Gold Valley Stars charity poker tournament.
This was the grudge game. This was the game for spectators.
Huge amounts of money had already been counted and distributed in previous rounds, all of it donated by businesses as each player had fought tooth and nail against each other, pouring cash into a pot for the sole purpose of giving back to the community. Now came the part where things got interesting.
Rivals tried to get back bits of their own, as hotly contested items that had been tussled over at rummage sales, and family heirlooms that had gone back and forth in this game for decades, were all put in the pot.
Cricket was currently wearing an oversized black leather jacket with fringes—won in the previous round from Elliott Johns, the guy who ran a water filtration company in the area. She also had an oversized black cowboy hat that she had already won from her current target. It was resting low on her head, and smelled vaguely of sweat, which was unnerving, since smelling Jackson’s sweat made her feel strange. Just the idea of it.
It was a bit like that feeling she’d gotten when she was a child, and had been tempted to do something she knew she shouldn’t. A strange tingling low in her stomach, that then went lower and spread down her thighs, making her feel restless and strange. She shifted in her chair, her dress slippery on the material of the seat. Another specious prize. A hand-me-down red gown originally worn by her sister Emerson to this event.
Cricket’s fidgeting was just anticipation. And being so close to Jackson Cooper.
A man she usually avoided.
From afar, she had made a study of the Cooper family over the years. Something she was embarrassed to admit.
She had gotten to know Jackson’s brother, Creed, a little better over the past few months, since he’d become her brother-in-law. She’d acted shocked and appalled and said any number of things about her sister Wren when she found herself involved with a Cooper. It had gone way past involved now, and they were married with a baby. And Cricket had sworn to Wren, up and down, that hardheaded, irritating, stubborn cowboys would never ever be her type.
Cricket was a liar.
Jackson made her feel strange...but he was also the only one of the Coopers who could answer the questions she needed answered.
Because of Wren, she couldn’t really talk to Creed. And she didn’t really want to talk to the youngest Cooper either, even though Honey was closer to Cricket’s age. She’d never found the other girl approachable.
In some ways, Cricket was jealous of her.
Honey was a country girl. A tough cowgirl. And she just seemed to fit with her family. In a way Cricket did not.
Case in point, Cricket had never really had much of anything to do with the family winery. But she was a fantastic card player. And with their father officially out of commission—having been exiled in disgrace, and for good reason—Cricket had been nominated by her sisters to take his place.
And Cricket was about to take it all.
“I’ll raise you,” she said.
Oh yes, it was time. In that pot were a great many things she was interested in. Jackson’s cufflinks. His watch. A pony from his ranch.
She’d only had to offer a diamond bracelet—wasn’t hers anyway—a case of Maxfield reserve wines, and the dollar from her father’s very first sale, which still hung in his vacant office, framed on the wall. Something that Jackson said he was going to give to his father.
The Maxfield and Cooper families were rivals from way back, though that rivalry had been dented some by her sister marrying Creed.
Still, sitting here across from a Cooper brought out her competitive spirit. Especially because right along with that competitive spirit, Jackson also brought out that complicated sensation she could honestly say she wasn’t a fan of.
And now it was right down to the final bet.
“I bet myself,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“I bet myself. I will work for Cowboy Wines for free for thirty days.”
His brows shot upward. “That’s pretty rich.”
“You afraid?”
He snorted. “I’ll see you. And raise you. I’ll work at Maxfield Vineyards for thirty days.”
“No,” she said. “The winery doesn’t need you. You’ll work at my ranch for thirty days. And sleep in the bunkhouse.” She desperately needed a ranch hand. And she knew that Jackson Cooper knew what he was doing when it came to horses.
Cricket wanted as far away from the uppity confines of her upbringing as possible. And this ranch was her one way to get there.
“And if I lose...”
“You’ll work at Cowboy Wines, in the tasting room. Dressed up in cowgirl boots and a miniskirt and serving our guests.”
He was trying to scare her or humiliate her. But she’d grown up with James Maxfield. She’d been made to feel small and sad and unwanted for years. It was only recently she’d started to suspect why her father had treated her that way. But after a lifetime of humiliation, a miniskirt and waiting tables wouldn’t defeat her. “Deal.”
And she wouldn’t lose. She wanted his forfeit and wasn’t worried at all about her own.
She needed Jackson on her ranch. Unfortunately, she was all stalled out. Didn’t quite know where to begin. That’s where Jackson would come in handy.
And then there was that other matter.
And so she waited.
“You look awfully confident,” he said.
“Oh I am.”
He laid down his cards, that handsome mouth turning upward into a smile.
The smile of a man who had never lost much of anything in his life.
Oh how she would enjoy showing him what a foolish mistake that smile was.
Because not only had he lost. He had lost to her. A woman at least ten years younger than him, a woman she knew he didn’t think of as wise. A woman she knew he thought of as not much of anything special.
He’d made that clear the few times they’d seen each other since they’d become kind of, sort of family.
Dismissive. Obnoxious.
“I hate to be a cliché. But read ’em and weep, cowboy.”
Cricket Maxfield had a hell of a hand. And her confidence made that clear. Poor little thing didn’t think she needed a poker face if she had a hand that could win.
But he knew better.
She was sitting there with his hat on her head, oversized and over her eyes, and an unlit cigar in her mouth.
A mouth that was disconcertingly red tonight, as she had clearly conceded to allowing her sister Emerson to make her up for the occasion. That bulky, fringed leather jacket should have looked ridiculous, but over that red dress, cut scandalously low, giving a tantalizing wedge of scarlet along with pale, creamy cleavage, she was looking not ridiculous at all.
And right now, she was looking like far too much of a winner.
Lucky for him, around the time he’d escalated the betting, he’d been sure she would win.
He’d wanted her to win.
“I guess that makes you my ranch hand,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’m a very good boss.”
Now, Jackson did not want a boss. Not at his job, and not in his bedroom. But her words sent a streak of fire through his blood. Not because he wanted her in charge. But because he wanted to show her what a boss looked like.
Cricket was...
A nuisance. If anything.
That he had any awareness of her at all was problematic enough. Much less that he had any awareness of her as a woman. But that was just because of what she was wearing. The truth of the matter was, Cricket would turn back into the little pumpkin she usually was once this evening was over and he could forget all about the fact that he had ever been tempted to look down her dress during a game of cards.
“Oh, I’m sure you are, sugar.”
“I’m your boss. Not your sugar.”
“I wasn’t aware that you winning me in a game of cards gave you the right to tell me how to talk.”
“If I’m your boss, then I definitely have the right to tell you how to talk.”
“Seems like a gray area to me.” He waited for a moment, let the word roll around on his tongue, savoring it so he could really, really give himself all the anticipation he was due. “Sugar.”
“We’re going to have to work on your attitude. You’re insubordinate.”
“Again,” he said, offering her a smile. “I don’t recall promising a specific attitude.”
There was activity going on around him. The small crowd watching the game was cheering, enjoying the way this rivalry was playing out in front of them. He couldn’t blame them. If the situation wasn’t at his expense, then he would have probably been smirking and enjoying himself along with the rest of the audience, watching the idiot who had lost to the little girl with the cigar.
He might have lost the hand, but he had a feeling he’d win the game.
And it was hardly dirty poker. Cricket had started it, after all.
She was in over her head, and he knew it.
When he’d heard that James Maxfield owned the property next to his, Jackson had figured he’d swoop in and buy it now that ownership of the man’s properties had reverted to his family. But then Cricket had grandly taken control of the land—with great proclamation, per Jackson’s brother, that she was going to be a rancher.
But Jackson knew there was no way in hell Cricket had the chops to start and run a ranch. It was hard enough when you had experience. She had none. And he knew she had some of her dad’s money, but it wasn’t going to be an endless well.
She was out of her league.
And a month spent as her ranch hand was more than enough time to show her that.
“Also, you should bring my pony,” she said.
She was placated by the pony. He was going to end up getting that pony back. He knew it down in his bones. Because in the end, Cricket had not one idea of the amount of work that went into having animals. No idea the amount of work that went into working a ranch. Working the land.
She was stubborn and obstinate, and different than her sisters.
Their families might be big rivals, but they all worked in the same industry. He’d watched Cricket grow up. He had a fair idea of her personality. And he also had a fair idea of just how privileged the Maxfield family was.
They had a massive spread, worked by employees.
Any vision she had of ranching was bound to be romanticized.
He knew better.
He knew people looked at him and figured he was just another guy who’d grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth. Well, not literally. They didn’t look at him and think that. He looked like a cowboy. But the fact was, he had grown up in a family that was well-off. At least, for most of his life. He was still old enough to remember when they had struggled.
He knew his younger brother didn’t remember much of that time, and their youngest sister, Honey, didn’t remember it at all. But Jackson did. He also knew Cricket had never known a moment of financial struggle in all her life. It wasn’t that he thought she was stupid. She wasn’t. She was bright and sharp, and a bit fierce.
He had always found her fascinating, especially in contrast with the rest of her family. Even before it had turned out her father was a criminal and a sexual predator, Jackson had always found the Maxfields to be a strange and fascinating family. So different from his own. There had always been tension between James Maxfield and his wife. Wren and Emerson had always seemed like perfect Stepford children from an extremely warped, upper-class neighborhood, cookies from the same cutter.
But not Cricket.
She had never been at the forefront of any of the events they had put on at the winery. And though Maxfield Vineyards and Cowboy Wines might have been rivals, they often attended each other’s events. Professional courtesy, and all of that. And scoping out the competition. So he’d seen Cricket many times over the years. Usually skulking in the background, but then, when she got older, not there at all. One time, three years ago or so—she must’ve been eighteen—she’d been out on a swing in the yard, wearing a white dress he was almost certain she didn’t want to be wearing. It had been dark out there, and inside, the Maxfield event room had been all lit up.
She was just lit up by the moon.
She had looked completely separate. Alone. And he’d felt some kind of sympathy for her. It was strange, and a foreign feeling for him. Because he wasn’t an overly sympathetic kind of guy. But the girl was a square peg, no denying it. And in his opinion—particularly at the time—it wasn’t round holes she needed to fit into. Just a family of assholes.
Now, he had changed his opinion on Wren and Emerson in the time since.
But his general opinion of Cricket’s family, of her father, had certainly been correct. And just because he now thought Wren and Emerson were decent people...they were still so different from their sister. So different—it was the strangest thing.
But Cricket wasn’t so different from her family that she would simply be able to step into ranching life. And he’d be right on hand to show her just how much work it was. He wouldn’t have to do anything. Wouldn’t have to sabotage her in any way.
She just needed a dose of reality.
And then she’d be willing to sell him that property.
He’d bought his own ranch and transitioned from working the one at Cowboy Wines after his mother died. And yes, he had people who helped him, so they would cover the slack of him not being there.
And that was the thing. Ranching never took time off. That was something he understood, and well.
“Report for work first thing on Monday,” Cricket said. “And bring a sleeping bag. I don’t have any extra and the bunkhouse gets cold.”
She did not shake his hand. Instead, she clamped down on that unlit cigar, scrunched up her nose, grabbed the brim of the black cowboy hat and tipped it.
And right then, he vowed that no matter that Cricket had won the pot, he was going to win the whole damn thing.
Whatever that looked like.
“You what?”
Cricket looked at Emerson, keeping her expression as sanguine as possible. She wasn’t going to get into the details of any of this with her sisters. Not now. Not just yet.
“Well, you would have known if you would have gone.”
“I’m a whale,” Emerson said, gesturing to her nine-months-pregnant stomach. “And my ankles were so swollen, I couldn’t get my shoes on. So I didn’t go.”
“And I didn’t tell her,” Wren said, grinning. “Because I wanted her to hear it directly from Cricket’s mouth.”
“I won him in a poker game,” Cricket said. “I won him fair and square, and now he has to come work on my ranch.”
Triumph surged through her again. Her plan was working out perfectly, and she had a handle on it. All of it.
“Your ranch.”
“And I won a pony,” Cricket said, grinning with glee. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because,” Emerson said. “Jackson Cooper is a tool.”
“So is Creed Cooper, but Wren married him.” Cricket’s teeth ground together as she said that. The whole thing with Wren and Creed had come as a shock, and like with all things Cooper-related, Cricket had kept that shock completely to herself, but she was still struggling with it a bit. “Come to that, your husband is kind of a tool,” Cricket said to Emerson. “Just not to you. Also, I’m not marrying Jackson, I’m just having him work for me. For free.”
She was practiced at pretending she didn’t think much of Jackson. But this conversation pushed her thoughts in strange directions. Directions she’d been actively avoiding for months now.
“All right, I have to hand it to you, it’s a little bit brilliant.”
“I’m just happy to see you’re doing something,” Wren said. “Unfortunate double entendres aside. We’ve been worried about you.”
“I know you have. For more than a year now. But you are both too afraid to say anything to me.”
They didn’t know how to talk to her. That was the truth. They might never admit it, but Cricket knew it. Fair enough, she often didn’t know how to talk to them either.
“We never know what’s going to make you run further and faster,” Emerson said. “I’m sorry. But you know... You’re not a little kid anymore. But I think it’s easy for us to think of you that way. There’s no reason for that.”
“Glad to know that I’m finally getting a little respect.”
“I did question your sanity when you asked to take on the ranch.”
“It’s paid for. I mean, there’s definitely a lot of work to be done on it, but there was no reason to just let it sit there going to seed. And this is something I’ve always wanted. My own place. Wine isn’t my thing and it never has been. I know you’re shocked to hear that.”
“Yeah, not so much,” Emerson said.
“We’re just different,” Cricket said.
Honestly, she and her sisters couldn’t be any more different if they tried. Emerson was curvy—though sporting an extra curve right now—and absolutely beautiful, like a bombshell. Wren was sleek and sophisticated. Cricket had always felt extremely out of place at Maxfield events. It was like her sisters just knew something. Innately. Like being beautiful was part of their intrinsic makeup in a way it would never be for Cricket. And she had never really cared about being beautiful, which was another thing that had made her feel like the cuckoo in the nest.
So she just hadn’t tried. Emerson and Wren had. They’d tried so hard to earn Jameson Maxfield’s approval. Cricket had hidden instead. Had flown under the radar straight into obscurity.
She could remember, far too clearly, asking her father about college four years ago.
“You didn’t particularly apply yourself in school, did you?”
“I...”
“What would you want to do?”
She’d been stumped by that. “I don’t know. I need to go so that I can figure it out...”
“Emerson and Wren contributed to the winery with their degrees. Is that what you plan to do?”
There had been no college for Cricket.
She knew her dad could afford it. It wasn’t about the expense. It was about her value.
Both of her parents had always been so distant to her. And it wasn’t until later that she’d started to understand why.
Started to suspect she was not James Maxfield’s daughter...
Well, the suspicion had made her feel like she made some sense. That her differences made sense. There were things that hurt about the idea, and badly. But she’d put those things in their place.
She’d had no choice.
“I appreciate it. I do.”
“And whatever you think about our husbands,” Emerson said, “they’re both cowboys, and they would be happy to help you with the ranch.”
“I know that. And when I’ve exhausted my free Cooper labor, I may take them up on it. But for now, I’ll solve my own problem.”
“Well done, Cricket,” Emerson said, sounding slightly defeated. “I can’t even see my toes.”
“You’re not supposed to,” Wren said.
Wren’s baby was three months old now, and of course, her slim figure had already gone right back into place. But even slightly built Wren had been distressed about the size of her stomach at this stage in her pregnancy.
It was weird to see her sisters so settled in domesticity. Having babies and all of that. They had never seemed particularly domesticated to Cricket, but they had fallen in love, and that had changed them both. Not in a bad way. In fact, they both seemed happier. Steadier and more sure of themselves. But that didn’t make any of that racket seem appealing to Cricket.
Who just wanted...to be free.
To not feel any of the overwhelming pressure to fit into anything other than the life she chose for herself.
Maybe she’d wanted something else when she’d been young and silly and hadn’t understood herself or her life.
She was the awkward sister. The ugly sister, really. She didn’t mind at all about her looks. She was tall, and she was thin, and her curves weren’t anything to write home about. But while that seemed elegant and refined on Wren, with her somewhat bony shoulders and knees, Cricket had always just thought her thinness seemed unfortunate on her. Her cheekbones were sharp, and she had freckles. Her top lip was just a little bit more full than the bottom one, and even though she’d had braces to solve the buck teeth situation, the gap between her two front teeth hadn’t closed entirely, and it remained.
Her features were... Well, they were strong. And like everything else about her, kind of a love or hate situation.
Cricket didn’t much care how she looked. She cared about what she could do. She was good at riding horses. She could run fast; she was strong. Her hair was a little bit wild, but she didn’t much mind. No, she didn’t mind at all. Because it made her look like she was moving. Made her look like she was busy. And that was what she liked.
That was the thing. As much as the Coopers were supposed to be rivals of her family, in some ways, she could identify a little bit more closely with them than she did with the Maxfields. They had country roots and sensibilities. That was what she understood.
It was what she connected with.
Country strong was hard to break. And that was what Cricket wanted to be.
It was what she was.
“I plan on making good use of Mr. Jackson Cooper,” Cricket said triumphantly, immediately picturing the man, his broad shoulders and large hands.
Good for work.
And a good place to start when it came to figuring out how to...how to broach the topic of what she thought might be true between them.
“Yes indeed,” she said to herself.
Her sisters exchanged a glance. “Just be careful.”
“Why?”
“The Coopers are a whole thing,” Wren said.
Cricket blinked. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“You start talking about making full use of Cooper men, and I’ll tell you, it gives me ideas,” Wren said.
Cricket still didn’t get it.
“Sex, Cricket,” Wren said. “Some people might think you mean sex.”
Cricket was suddenly made of heat and horror. “No! No. Not at all. Never. How could you... Look, Wren, I’m not you. When I finally do decide to take on a man, and I’m going to need to get my actual life in order a whole hell of a lot better before I do, it is not going to be... He’s old.”
Among other things.
Wren laughed. “Right. So old. Like two whole years older than my husband.”
Cricket sniffed. “And I’m several years younger than you.”
Wren seem to take that as a square insult, her lips snapping shut.
Fine. Cricket wasn’t old enough to take age commentary as that deep of a wound yet.
“This is strictly a business arrangement,” she said. A fluttering grew and expanded in her chest. Evidence of her dishonesty. “He’s going to help me with my ranch. And that’s it.”
“If you say so.”
“I absolutely do.”
“The one thing I know about you, Cricket. When you set your mind to something, you do see it done.”
And what she had her mind set to, was finding out for sure if she wasn’t a Maxfield at all...
And hiring Jackson Cooper was the best way to do that.
