The Boss Wore Red

By Delle Jacobs

Alexandria Bergstrom might have excellent survival skills for her life in the big city, but she's got a lot to learn about the rest of the world.

The fashionista had no idea she even had a father (as opposed to a sperm bank donation) until she inherits a horse ranch in the Far West. She doesn't even remember a time when she had actual dirt beneath her feet (as opposed to concrete). She shudders at the thought, but all she has to do is go there, sell the ranch and come back with all the money she needs to open the restaurant of her dreams. Easy. Three weeks max, and she'll be safely back on solid pavement. She won’t even have to spend a moment’s thought to the man who obviously didn’t spend any on her.

But it turns out her father was onto her anti-ranch ideas even before she was born (he knew her wacky mother), so his will requires her to live there a full year before she can sell out. Not that she wants a ranch full of reminders of the father she never knew and the mother who was nothing like the mother she knows now. That’s before she sees the horses, which aren’t anything like what she thinks horses ought to be. And if that isn't enough, the hunk of a ranch hand she hired is her opposite in every possible way. There's no living with him, but no ranch without him. Is Alexandria strong enough to resist Clint's earthy magnetism and irking common sense for a whole year before she can leave the ugly dirt, rain, and beige wallpaper behind? Or MAYBE Alexandria needs a new point of view.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Delle Jacobs
• Release date: Oct 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463070970

Delle Jacobs

A native of Illinois, Delle Jacobs has been crafting stories since the tender age of four. She earned a degree in geography from the University of Oklahoma and worked as a cartographer until eventually becoming a social worker specializing in troubled teens and families. Everything changed, however, once she began writing books in 1993, and by 2004, literary success convinced her to quit her day job and focus full time on writing. She is a seven-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award, which she won an unprecedented three times, in addition to numerous other writing awards for her novels, including His Majesty, the Prince of Toads, Lady Wicked, Sins of the Heart, and Aphrodite’s Brew. Along the way she discovered a knack for designing e-book covers, which is a great way to get her creative juices flowing when her book characters are being particularly uncooperative. She lives today in southwest Washington State with her family.

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THE BOSS WORE RED

Delle Jacobs and SamMarie Ashe

Copyright 2013 by Delle Jacobs and SamMarie Ashe

Published by Delle Jacobs at Smashwords

This book is a work of fiction.

Any resemblance to persons living or dead other than historically known people significant to the story is entirely coincidental and unintended.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

About the Authors

Books by Delle Jacobs

CHAPTER ONE

Life is what happens when you're looking the other way.

Alexandria Bergstrom had a lifelong affair with color. She loved colors, the brighter the better–as long as it was red. Whether Kiss My Lips Red patent leather shoes, a Kona Sunset silk tee shirt, or a Cranberry Fog cashmere scarf, if it was any shade or tone of red, pink, mauve, magenta, she loved it. And at the moment, that love was being seriously challenged.

As she looked around the office of Kravitz, Kravitz & Kravitz, all she could do was cringe and shield her eyes. Carpet, walls, even leather chairs with a barely perceptible sag in their cushions, were one or another shade of beige. Even the woodwork had stopped looking like wood and had become just another shade of the abominably neutral color scale. She was drowning in a sludge of dirt-colored nothingness.

Kravitz, with his tweed suit accented by a striped tie that didn't even have the decency to be brown, blended right in. Spindly wefts of hair that might once have been passably blond had faded to beige like the rest of him. Even his gold-rimmed glasses muddled into the blandness.

He might as well be wearing a potato skin. Make that an Irish potato skin.

Lexie jerked back to alert. What was she doing? Never in her twenty-six years had she wasted time obsessing about beige. She was avoiding what Kravitz was saying! But it was impossible. Couldn’t be.

That's about the gist of it, Miss Bergstrom, intoned the beige little man in his monotonous voice. Do you have any questions?

All of them. She’d missed just about everything he’d said, only catching enough to affirm that she didn’t want to hear anything Mr. Potato Head was saying. But she’d better! She had the feeling her life was never going to be the same again.

You’ve got to be kidding, she said. I never had a father. I had a sperm bank.

We all have a father, Miss Bergstrom. Robert Bergstrom is on your birth certificate.

That’s just a name Mother made up so I wouldn't feel different from other kids. Not that it had worked.

Oh, he's quite real.

Lexie frowned and shook her head. You’re saying there's some guy out there who decided to check up on his wigglies? See if they'd sprouted legs and other significant body parts?

Much more ordinary than that, Kravitz said, patiently removing both his glasses and that odd smile that almost had some emotion in it. He was married to your mother.

Lexie's throat clamped down like it wanted to keep her from ever drawing another breath. Her mother had been married? That was like imagining a movie star with only one husband.

She lied! As if that were something unusual. But Lexie had fallen for that one all this time!

Kravitz’s voice continued droning on. Our firm has known Robert Bergstrom for twenty-three years, and I assure you, he was quite real.

Lexie caught herself gaping. You've been his attorney that long?

Not me directly, no. My uncle, the third Kravitz in the partnership, is his attorney of record, but he's out of the country, so I've stepped in for him. I’m the fifth Kravitz. I’ve reviewed the file thoroughly; your father liked to follow your progress.

She was having real trouble keeping her jaw closed. You've been spying on me? Since I was three?

Not spying, Miss Bergstrom. Just a yearly snapshot or two, your school grades, verify your living situation.

The familiar and comforting flash of her Alabama Mama Red nail polish streaked before her eyes as she brought her hand to her mouth, then steepled fingers against her forehead. She should have kept obsessing about earth tone oblivion.

Please allow me to express my condolences, Miss Bergstrom, said the fifth Kravitz. This must be quite a shock.

Lexie peeked through her spread fingers, but her heart was racing out of control. You'll have to pardon me for not feeling deep loss for a man who didn't even bother to drop in and say hello, she said, her voice something like a growl. But she needed control, and she needed it now. She sucked in a shaky breath and lowered her hand. You said inheritance. I seem to have slipped right by that. A horse ranch?

Indeed.

What’s it worth?

Possibly a million. But it needs work. You’ll have access to operating funds, of course.

Horse ranch. Gawd. Lexie looked down at her beloved red patent stilettos with gold metal tips and heels, shuddering as she envisioned them walking on actual dirt. I'm really not the horse ranch type, Mr. Kravitz. Perhaps we could find someone to sell it?

I could, yes, but then you'd only get the thousand dollars. You recall, the stipulation is that you credibly manage the ranch for a year before it becomes yours permanently, or it goes to a charity.

"But I've got a life here! I don't know