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CHAPTER 1
“Mother, I don’t need a bodyguard.” Londyn Tyler-Lovejoy balanced her cell phone against her shoulder as she slapped her cowboy hat against her thigh. The movement was more out of irritation than the need to shake the accumulated dust loose. She was hot and sweaty and wanted a shower.
“Sweetheart, you can’t be looking over your shoulder all the time,” her mother, movie star Dana Tyler, said. “You have a job to do. The director doesn’t have the time or budget to backfill his lead and reshoot scenes if you’re incapacitated because some fool is bent on sabotaging your part.”
“I can handle it,” Londyn insisted. “It’s only a little graffiti on my trailer. The set crew was quick to scrub off what they could and paint over the areas that couldn’t be cleaned with soap and water.”
“I’m not so concerned about the graffiti,” her mother said. “I’m worried about the props that were tampered with. The ladder rungs in the barn scene didn’t fail on their own, and the brakes on the Jeep didn’t just quit working... They were cut.”
Londyn pinched the bridge of her nose. “You heard about those?”
“Yes, I did,” Dana said. “You need someone to take charge of your safety, so you don’t have to think about it.”
“Bodyguards cost money.” Londyn gripped the cell phone and straightened her neck. “I took this job to save, not spend.”
“You should sell the ranch,” her mother said. “Or let me handle the back taxes and late mortgage payments.”
Londyn shook her head, even though her mother couldn’t see her do it. “No. It’s my responsibility now that Gramps is gone. You made it perfectly clear you wanted nothing to do with your old home when Gramps was alive. Why do you care now?”
“Because I see how it’s wearing on my only daughter,” her mother said, her voice softening. “That ranch will use every bit of your youth and energy, and for what? A pittance of a living—or worse. You’ll be working at other jobs to pay the bills.”
“I love LJ Ranch,” Londyn said. It’s my home, and I refuse to take any of your money. Now that the place is mine, it’s up to me to make it work. That’s the only reason I agreed to audition for this part and then agreed to do the film.”
“I don’t know why you care,” Dana said. “It’s just an old ranch with broken-down buildings and fences that always need mending. I never should’ve let you live with my father for so long.”
“So, you’d rather I’d lived in your house in L.A. with the nanny of the week to see you maybe two or three times a year?”
“I did have a busy schedule, but Howard was there,” her mother argued.
“Only on the nights he wasn’t staying with his secretary.” Londyn sighed. “Letting me live with Gramps was the best thing you ever did for me.”
“I’m not so sure,” her mother said. “You wouldn’t be so stressed now if you had stayed in L.A.”
Londyn snorted. “I can’t imagine living in L.A. now. I love living on the ranch. I wouldn’t fit in with the glamorous types you run with.”
“I bet you would,” Dana said, “if you gave yourself the chance.”
“I don’t want that life, Mother. I never have.”
Londyn had been six when she’d spent her first summer with her grandfather. After a rocky transition from city to ranch life, she’d learned to love the wide-open spaces and her cantankerous grandfather.
Her heart squeezed hard in her chest. Gramps had been the rock in her life. The one person she could count on.
Her mother had always been on a set somewhere else in the world. Howard, her husband for five years, hadn’t been interested in raising Dana’s child and hadn’t had much to say to Londyn on the rare occasions he’d been around.
Londyn’s mother might not have sent her to live with Gramps had she not been at her wit’s end after the sixth nanny had quit in the middle of filming the movie that was her most important part to that date. It was the movie that shot her to stardom.
She’d had to take a couple of days off the set to deal with Londyn. After interviewing several nannies who’d been much like the former six who had quit, she’d swallowed her pride and begged her father to take Londyn for the summer.
Summer had turned into fall, fall into winter, and twenty years later, she’d still been living on LJ Ranch. Life had been perfect until Gramps had been thrown from his horse, suffering a head injury. He’d refused to go to the doctor, insisting it was nothing.
Two hours after the fall, he’d been dead. Epidural Hematoma. The same injury that had claimed the life of actress Natasha Richardson, or so her mother had informed her.
Gramps had left a letter of instruction in his safe should he die. In that letter, he’d said to contact Ben Standing Bear, the owner of the neighboring Bear Tracks Ranch, for help. She’d done as her grandfather had asked.
Ben Standing Bear had come immediately, promising to help her through spring branding and culling, along with his own workload.
Londyn’s mother had returned to LJ Ranch for the first time since she’d left twenty-six years before to be with Londyn at Gramps’s funeral. After the graveside service, she’d stood at Londyn’s side as they’d received condolences from friends and neighbors.
