Page 2 of The Billionaire Who Saved My Cat From The Mafia

My mother died when I was just nine, but the ridiculous nickname lives on.

I look around and take a deep breath.As tempted as I am to just fuck off and enjoy this early May morning, I know I can’t.

The five missing steers represent a significant investment and a precious Yosemite Ranch resource.We’re lucky that it’s been a successful calving season, since we lost seventy-two head of cattle during the winter’s record-breaking blizzard.

I don’t want to add to that tally.

I click my tongue to get DG’s attention and urge him on up the rocky eastern slope.From this elevation, I can look through the timberline and down onto our vast ranch holdings and the towering Sierra Nevada range just to the west.

I could stay if I wanted.The nights are warm enough to be comfortable with a small fire and my ranch coat as a blanket.There’s fresh water everywhere.Fish in the streams and lakes.All I’d need to do is leave word with my brothers.

Because I’m not in the mood to be the target of a Navy SEAL search-and-rescue mission.I can already picture the combination of men and machinery they’d send out to collect me.Helicopters and drones, ATVs, kayaks, and horses.

I smile to myself.The truth is, I can do whatever I want.So, I change my mind.I’m doing it.

No one will blame me for wanting to escape the family’s domestic upheaval to soak in the wild beauty up here.They’ll understand.I might as well put my oddball outsider reputation to good use.

I reach in my saddle bag.I’m about to remove my walkie-talkie to let Cal know not to dispatch the troops when I hear an odd noise.

I bring DG to a stop on the trail and listen.It’s the sound of knocking at uneven intervals, just at the top of the ridge.I cock my head to listen.It’s not a woodpecker.Not a beaver or the random cracking of a tree limb.It sounds like someone’s trying to chop wood.

Emphasis on thetrying.

But that can’t be right.

There’s nothing and no one out here.No one to chop wood and no permission to chop it.Whatever’s going on and whoever’s doing it has got to go.

I nudge DG to continue up the trail toward the sound.

When I reach the summit and peer out from behind a stand of Ponderosa pine, I pull back in surprise.There’s a woman standing in front of one of the old, ramshackle cabins that dot our property.I have to blink a few times to make sense of what I’m seeing.

She’s tall, with a knockout body and shiny blond hair to her shoulders.She’s wearing a crazy-assed getup.White vinyl go-go boots that go to her mid-thigh, short shorts that leave nothing to the imagination, and a halter top that’s defying the laws of physics to hold up those spectacular tits.

And while dressed like this, she’s wielding an axe like it’s a five-iron on the golf course.

I rub my eyes, half believing I’m having some kind of psychotic break.Maybe spending so much time on my own has caused me to hallucinate.

Hallucinating has to be the answer.Because there’s no reality where a woman in a halter top and go-go boots is hacking up wood on a mountaintop in the middle of nowhere.

Sure, I’ve had a few dreams similar to this scenario, but I’m wide awake at the moment.

And I’m not the hallucinating type.

Which means the woman is real.So who the fuck is she?

What the fuck am I even looking at?

DG is just as confused.He tosses his head, snorts, and paws at the ground.This causes the axe-wielder to look up, startled.Her blue eyes go huge.She holds the axe in front of her in a defensive posture and slowly backs away, never taking her eyes from my face.

“Get back!”she yells.“I know how to use this!”

Ialmostlaugh.But I laugh about as much as I hallucinate.

“I have to disagree,” I say.

“I’ll kick you in the balls, then!Trust me when I tell you that I’m an expert at that form of self-defense.”

I walk DG closer, dismount, and throw the reins over a low pine branch.“This is private property.