Ranch Daddy Read online

  Chapter Three

  After that titillating interaction with Colton in the Mess Hall, I could not get my head back into my work. Could I ever be a girl who would willingly submit herself to a man? The way my heart seemed to beat harder and faster every time I laid eyes on him was making me doubt myself. I had to take my mind off the cowboy daddy and get back to reality. Flipping open my laptop, I made myself comfortable at my sister’s desk, ready to update all of her social media accounts.

  I guess if you were born after a certain year, all this cyber posting was a mystery to you. Take my sister for example. She was an all-star blogger and didn’t even know it. Someone had to swoop in and show her how many visitors she had gathered and how to make money off her online presence. Louanne had accumulated a massive following when she had just thought she was updating the CLAS website with photos and info on her events.

  One year ago, Louanne didn’t even have an Instagram account. Gasp, right?

  Enter younger sister who was raised on this stuff. In middle school, food didn’t even count as a meal unless you took a picture of it. A girl was not your friend unless the two of you had several hundred photos of one another making fish faces on your account.

  When I became Louanne’s full-time assistant, I also became her online persona. Louanne Jenkins; Planner of unique weddings that take the cake written in pink, Verdana font, placed next to a professionally taken headshot of her beautiful face. She had over ten thousand followers and she didn’t even know the password to her own account.

  Louanne was an influencer of culture and society, and I was the messenger. Under her name and with her perfect profile pic, we had Twitter, Facebook, a real blog that was no longer attached to the ranch’s website, and of course, the Insta account.

  All run by me.

  I practically provided my own salary with the money we made on online ads. I was very particular about the products we endorsed. They had to be one of my sister’s all-time favorites, like her Sugar n’ Spice scented chemical-free plug-in air fresheners that she loved to use for winter weddings. That deal alone got us a lifetime of smell-good supplies as well as two grand in cold hard cash.

  When we came across a local vendor whose service impressed Louanne, we promoted the heck out of them. They got our stamp of approval as a freebie. Wyomingites have to look after their own.

  The small onsite gift shop, The Tack Shop, a brainchild of Hayes’, sold all Wyoming born and bred products. I created an online store for those as well, not only upping the ranch’s income but also bolstering the profits of small local businesses. Though in truth, the Jenkinses were incredibly generous and all of the money they made from The Tack Shop went to scholarships for local kids who couldn’t afford college.

  Maintaining the online store was one of my little side projects—it only took me a few minutes a day. Hayes had finally given up a little control and hired a part-timer to fulfill all of the orders. Rosalie was a young, cute little redhead that I liked working with—as long as her eyes stayed on her computer and didn’t wander over to Colton.

  You could say I was a bit of a wunderkind—a computer whiz. My love for all things tech started when my father left us when we were young. I barely remembered the guy, but boy, did it do a number on my sister. Sure, it hurt when the kids on the playground teased you for not having a dad, but other than that, I really didn’t notice.

  Dad’s leaving hurt Louanne deeply. It was hard to watch. She became obsessed with weddings. Marching me down aisles to marry my teddy bear. I loved the attention from her—I’d do anything for her—but it was... sad. All she wanted was for my mom to be happy, and in Louanne’s mind, the perfect man and the perfect wedding would do just that.

  Luckily, her obsession with getting my mom married wore off. Instead, it blossomed into a thriving, lucrative career. And I, like many other women without an A-plus father around, probably had my own daddy issues. But let’s not go there.

  My mom worked lots of hours as a nurse to provide for Louanne and me. She hated the idea of us going without the other material objects the kids in our classes had. Instead, we went without time with her. Louanne practically raised me. And while Louie was busy poring over her bridal magazines and perfecting the folded napkin, I was on the computer. Beyond creating and updating my social media account like other kids, I took my passion a little further.

  The many hours home alone were spent diving into a world that could not be touched, or smelled, or heard. It was a world that existed behind the soft blue glow of my laptop screen. I met friends in middle school that shared my interest, friends online that I would never meet face to face. They all taught me what they knew, and I shared what I had learned while traveling through the twisted tunnels of the internet.

  I was a hacker.

  I never used my skills for bad. Well, sometimes I did a tiny touch of illegal email reading. What? I’m obsessed with the show House of Cards and had to know if our government really ran as portrayed. Hacking into Congress wasn’t as hard as I thought. The reading was way more boring than the show leads you to believe. A few weeks ago I decided it wasn’t worth the risk and moved on to watching The West Wing. Which I found to be much more accurate according to my own personal research. After my little run-in with hacking into Colton’s computer, I had taken his lecture to heart (that spanking sure brought the message home) and stopped my internet snooping.

  I was nosy, but I never hurt anyone with my cyber poking around. Sure, in high school I could have hacked into Bully Becky’s Facebook account and put some crazy shit on her wall to mess with her and turn her posse against her. But I didn’t. Every once in a while I would help a friend go through her boyfriend’s email to confirm what we all already knew... yes, he was cheating on her with an out-of-towner who came to Jackson Hole for skiing every year. But that was about it. Minus the light political snooping I had dabbled in.

  Since my punishment, I’d been good. Now, my time online was spent happily posting away and replying to messages. Opening one of the personal DMs on Insta, my stomach sank to my toes.

  “Louie! Come here, now!” I shouted, my eyes glued to the screen of my computer.

  “What is it? You made me spill my coffee,” Louanne said, coming around the corner dabbing at her blouse with a napkin, rushing over to join me.

  “Look at this inbox,” I said.

  She peered over my shoulder. “Whose account is that?”

  “Yours. It’s the Instagram account I run for you—we have over ten thousand followers by the way. Look at your last post. Isn’t it adorbs? We already have five hundred likes.” I clicked on the post and a pic of Louanne dressed in a long skirt and soft pink sweater popped up. She was stretched upon the tiptoes of her camel-colored Frye riding boots, hanging globe lights in the barn for a ceremony. I had snuck the shot yesterday when she was prepping for a wedding. The caption read I love bringing light into the world. Stay positive and send good vibes.

  Her brow furrowed as she read the caption. “That does not sound like me. It’s a little hippy dippy, don’t you think?”

  “Bohemian, actually. And I know it doesn’t sound like you. That’s kind of the point. You would have put something like, ‘Be sure to plug the lights in only after hanging. One can never be too careful with electricity.’”

  “That’s a sound bit of safety advice,” she said.

  “This is exactly why I’m in charge of your accounts,” I said.

  She gave me an eye roll. “And how on Earth did you get this picture? I didn’t even see you in the barn yesterday.”

  “Right place at the right time. I knew not to disturb you, or you’d ruin the picture with one of those ‘don’t bother me when I’m focusing’ sneers,” I said.

  She mused, “It’s a good picture. I had to wait six weeks for those boots to finally get here.”

  I shrugged. “What can I say, I’m a master at what I do.”

  “Stalker, more like,” she said, elbowing me.

  My p
alm hit my forehead. “Stalker! That’s why I called you in here in the first place.”

  “I have a stalker?” she asked, sounding a bit flattered.

  “It’s here in your inbox,” I said, scrolling through and looking for the creepy message I had just read and wanted to show her.

  She put her hand over mine. “Whoa. Slow down. I didn’t know I was getting personal messages. What do they say?”

  “Trust me, Louanne, you don’t want to go down that rabbit hole. Some are creepers. They want to know what color your panties are. I delete and block them immediately. Others are fans; I always write a sweet note back. The rest are mostly questions on where we get our supplies. Every Friday I try to respond to those with buy links. Did you know we get a cut if they end up buying the product? I set that up.”

  “You’re a smart little cookie, Josie. I knew you’d be great,” she said, stroking my head like I was one of her tiny crystal unicorns.

  “Thanks,” I said, batting her hand away. “Anyway, today I got a message that was totally out of the ordinary and it made my stomach turn when I read it. I thought I should show it to you.” Scrolling down, I found the one I was looking for. Clicking on it, I murmured, “Bingo.”

  The message was from an account whose profile picture was of a bumblebee that looked to be made of metal. The message simply said, “You looked beautiful in that green skirt the other day, Louanne. Like a sweet little schoolgirl.”

  “Yikes!” she cried, jumping back as if she’d been bitten by a snake. “Who on Earth sent that?”

  “I have no idea.” I looked over the owner’s account. There were no posts. “They must be talking about that tartan pleated skirt you were wearing on inventory day. Did we have any deliveries that day? Any randoms walking around here?” I asked, picking my brain.

  Her wide eyes stared at the screen, horrified. Her teeth biting into her bottom lip, she shook her head.

  “Yeah, I don’t remember anyone here either. We’ve got to tell the guys,” I said.

  She shook her head again, then said, “No way. Hayes will have me on lockdown. He won’t let me out of his sight. You know how much this weekend’s wedding means to me. Tulle and Tulips will have our largest guest list yet. We’ve never had this many people staying on the ranch before. I won’t be able to get anything done with Hayes monitoring my every move,” she said, wringing her hands.

  It was true. Hayes would not let her out of his sight. “Maybe that’s for the best. I mean how did this person see you unless they were on the ranch, right here, with easy access to you?”

  Her brow knitted as she said, “I have no idea.”

  “They could be watching us right now. Just waiting to grab you and throw you in the trunk of their car or something.” I shuddered, thinking of Mystery Murders.

  “You watch too many movies, Josie. Nothing’s going to happen to me.” The grim expression on my sister’s face gave me the impression she didn’t believe her own words. “No need to alarm Hayes just yet.”

  I gave her an incredulous look. “You know what’s going to happen if he finds out later you didn’t tell him about this? Right?”

  Her hand unconsciously went to her bottom as if to protect it. She said, “I’ll take my chances. If we get another message, I’ll tell him, I promise. But after we pull off Tulle and Tulips. Deal?”

  An uneasy feeling settled in my core. I wasn’t lucky enough to be someone’s baby girl but I knew enough to know that if you feel like there is something you need to tell your daddy, and you don’t, there would be consequences for your actions. Ones that would leave you sleeping on your tummy.

  But my loyalty was to Louanne. I could see the panic in her face. Hayes would blow this out of proportion, maybe even go so far as to cancel the wedding. And Louanne was right, this was set to be our biggest turnout yet. We needed the freedom to work unencumbered by giant, protective cowboys. “Deal.”

  “Thanks. Just keep an eye on the account and let me know if you get anything else from that creep,” she said.

  “Will do,” I said. Clicking on the profile pic of account user, Honey2U, I enlarged the image of the bumblebee. It looked like a brooch. One your grandmother or aging aunt might wear on the lapel of their shoulder-padded blazer. “So weird,” I murmured to myself. Shaking the image from my head, I logged out of the account and moved on to Twitter. It was that time of the day Louanne posted a cute tweet of advice for other wedding planners.

  Her head popped back into the office. “And Josie?”

  “Yes?” I murmured, my eyes scanning the account for likes.

  “Where are the servers’ white shirts? I couldn’t find them on inventory day and I need to have them pressed for Saturday,” she said.

  Crap. Wait... what color were the tulips in the Mess Hall going to be? Peach and pink! Perfect. Smiling up at Louanne, I said, “I have a surprise.”

  Wrinkling her nose, she asked unhappily, “What is it?”

  “I dyed the shirts a gorgeous pink color for T&T! They’re going to look fabulous matching the bouquets,” I said brightly.

  She eyed me suspiciously. “Your lucky red bra made it into the load?”

  Big sisters—you couldn’t get anything past them. “Burgundy tunic, actually.”

  “Bummer. I loved that one. Your tattoos looked so cute when you wore it,” she said.

  “Well, I can hand it down to Lila Belle, now. After being washed in hot water, it’s toddler sized,” I said.

  “Silver lining. Pink shirts on the wait staff will look fabulous. Next time I’m at the mall, I’ll see if they still carry those tunics,” she said. And unlike when other people offer such a thing, Louanne actually would.

  “Thanks, Louie,” I said.

  “It’s the least I can do for you, covering up my stalker for me,” she said, breezing from the office.

  Focusing my attention on the blinking cursor on the screen, I racked my mind for one of the many euphemisms that had escaped her lips that day. Moments later I landed on the one I wanted to use.

  We had been reorganizing her files. Now that we no longer did non-wedding events, she was moving her events files into cardboard file boxes to go into storage, making more room for upcoming weddings. I was not being as careful as I should have been and had dropped a file on the floor. All the lists for the St. Patrick’s Shenanigans fell onto the floor. Under her watchful eyes, I scooped up the papers, putting them back in the file.

  “You have to put them in order, Josie,” she had said.

  “Why? They are just going out to storage to die. I don’t understand why you keep all of this stuff,” I said, shoving papers back into the file box.

  “We might need them again one day,” she said.

  “You’re a hoarder,” I accused.

  “Hoarder of people’s fondest memories,” she had quipped back at me.

  Smiling, I typed in her words, ‘I may be drowning in file folders of past events but what can I say? I’m a hoarder of people’s fondest memories,’ adding the hashtags #hoarder #files #organized #girlboss and the unique one I had created just for her account, #loveroflists.

  I watched as the retweets started rolling in. What would she do without me?

  My stomach growled, reminding me it was chicken tender day in the Mess Hall. Memaw made the breading with cornflakes, which sounds weird, but the tasty things melted in your mouth. Especially when dipped in her homemade honey mustard dressing and washed down with an ice cold glass of sweet tea.

  I went to shut the computer when a notification from Instagram popped up. It was another message from Honey2U. My stomach did a little flip-flop.

  ‘My fondest memories are of you,’ the message read.

  “Ugh! Creeper! What was that posted for? Like two seconds? Yuck.” My cursor hovered over the word ‘delete.’ Yes, the skirt thing was uncanny. But this was just a person stalking her accounts and commenting back. Harmless, right?

  Louanne said she would tell Hayes if she got another message.
And she would stick to her word. And Hayes would wedding-block us, which for a wedding planner would be ten times worse than being beaver-blocked. Louanne would be devastated. It was an innocent enough message. Right?

  I clicked delete. I could handle this later. The show must go on.

  * * *

  The long-anticipated day of Tulle and Tulips had finally arrived. I was happy to throw myself into the work, eager to ignore the tension that pulled like a wire between Colton and me.

  Louanne was being even more Type A than usual. I called it Type A Plus Plus when she got like this. It didn’t bother me. Bring it on. Slay all day was my new motto. The busier I was, the less I daydreamed of the hard-handed cowboy. And the more tired I was at the end of the day, the better I could sleep. The last thing I wanted was to lie in bed, staring at the ceiling and reveling in how utterly alone I was in the dark night.

  Hayes, on the other hand, did not tolerate Louanne’s ultra-bossy attitude as well as I did. After one too many snappy replies, he firmly took her by her upper arm, leading her out of the Mess Hall, and inevitably to his office. When he returned her to me, she was much more pleasant, though a bit red around the eyes. She gave him a deep kiss goodbye that had me melting at my core. Jealousy pricked at my heart, and as payback, I offered her one of our hard wooden chairs to sit in, saying with a sassy smile, “Care to take a seat?” She shot me a dirty look, replying that she was too busy to sit down... possibly for the rest of the day. We laughed after that and worked side by side in the peaceful manner we had formed over the years.

  Pink and peach were not my thing, but the bride pulled it off beautifully, with her sweet nature and beautiful mocha complexion. The ceremony was a whirlwind, then it was off to the tulip-filled Mess Hall for heavy appetizers and peach cobbler topped with Hayes’ ice cream. The way the guests raved over the creamy confection, I sensed yet another Jenkins family business brewing. Hayanne’s Dream Cream? No, too raunchy. Louie’s Ice Cream? Not bad. I would have to run the idea by the thriving entrepreneurs after the shindig ended.