The Billionaire's Ranch: 5-Story Bundle (Cowboy Billionaire & BBW Erotic Romance) Read online

  Contents

  The Billionaire’s Ranch

  The Complete 5-Part Story

  Copyright Information

  Part One

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Part Four

  Part Five

  Epilogue

  Other Books by Haley Nix

  Follow Haley on Twitter @haleynixxx

  Excerpts From Other Stories by Haley Nix

  The Billionaire’s Ranch

  The Complete 5-Part Story

  By Haley Nix

  Copyright Information

  Copyright © 2014 By Haley Nix

  The Billionaire’s Ranch: The Complete 5-Part Story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and events are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. This book or portions thereof may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form whatsoever without direct permission from the author.

  This book is intended Only for Mature Audiences 18+. It contains mature themes, substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers.

  Follow Haley on Twitter @haleynixxx

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  Part One

  It was just before sunup when we turned off of the main road, heading down a tree-lined path that led to a ten-foot tall wrought iron gate nestled between large columns. The columns were flanked by stone walls, which I could only assume stretched the perimeter of the property, though it was hard to tell in the dim light of morning and under the thick cover of trees.

  Jim, my boss, punched the buzzer on a monitor just outside the gate.

  “Who is it?” asked a gruff voice through the speaker.

  “Jim Davies, the trainer,” he said.

  I heard a buzzing sound and the gate started to creak open, allowing Jim and I to pass through in his dusty Chevy Silverado pickup. Once we were inside the walls of the ranch, the landscape seemed to open up a bit. Trees were sparser, there were rolling hills and a winding road that led to the main house and the stables.

  Now that the sun was coming up, I could see things a bit more clearly. The stables appeared off in the distance, and behind them a gigantic mansion. The owner of that mansion was our new employer: Lane Matheson.

  Jim hadn’t told me much about Mr. Matheson, but I’d heard stories about him from others. He was a temperamental man, intensely competitive and dominant in the boardrooms of the corporate world. He was the CEO and President of an oil company that he’d founded years earlier. After amassing vast wealth through enterprise, he’d decided to enter the game of horse racing.

  When Mr. Matheson first met with Jim, he’d stated his goal was to win a Kentucky Derby within five years. Jim had laughed, but Mr. Matheson wasn’t kidding. He'd said it all with a straight face.

  Jim said he could do it, but warned Mr. Matheson that it’d take a lot of resources. Of course, that was no problem – Lane Matheson had an estimated fortune of $3.6 billion. I thought about that sum as Jim and I drove along in silence. Three point six billion dollars. I couldn’t even fathom that amount of money. There seemed to be no limit to what could be done with a stash of cash like that.

  As we approached the house, Jim started explaining a bit more about the situation with Mr. Matheson.

  “You’ll probably never see him, but if you do, be absolutely as polite as possible. If he asks about the horses, only give him positive news. This could be a career-making move for me, and I don’t want to risk messing it up. We need to be on our best behavior at all times,” he said, his tone almost stern in its seriousness.

  “Gotcha,” I said casually.

  In my opinion, Jim was too concerned about these things sometimes. He was a phenomenal trainer, so I didn’t know exactly what he was so worried about. The particulars of our setup on Matheson Ranch were excellent, too. Each of us had a little cottage to ourselves. The rest of the ranch hands lived in small cabins scattered throughout the property.

  Of course, even our nice quarters were dwarfed by the mansion itself, a sprawling three-story building with two separate wings. Rumor had it that there was a full gym inside, two movie theaters, and a ballroom bigger than a basketball court. Some estimated that there were over twenty separate bedrooms in the house, rather excessive for an unmarried man who lived alone.

  When we finally came up towards the stables, we were greeted by a man who appeared to be in his mid-fifties. His skin was tanned and healthy-looking. He wore a cowboy hat and a plaid shirt tucked into worn out jeans. He gave us a wave, indicating a parking area out back where we should leave our truck.

  As soon as we got out of the truck, the man held out his hand to each of us in turn, giving us a firm handshake and introducing himself.

  “Jim, it’s good to see you again,” he said, slapping him on the back. Then he turned to me.

  “The name’s Don Simpson. You got any questions, I’m the man to ask.”

  “Callie Toms,” I said. “Glad to meet you.”

  Don nodded politely and then proceeded to give us a tour of the stables and the rest of the grounds.

  Don Simpson was a man of old-fashioned know-how. He was responsible for all the different operations of the ranch. He had worked in the same capacity under the ranch’s previous owner, and when Lane Matheson purchased the ranch in 2007, Don had been the only staff that was kept on. Since then, he’d become one of Mr. Matheson’s most trusted allies.

  Don was the type of guy who knew how to get things done. His combination of tough work ethic and laid-back Texas demeanor made him likeable to damn near everyone. When Lane told Don that he wanted to get into horse-racing, Don had put the call out to his contacts in the area. Eventually, someone had recommended my boss, Jim.

  A meeting was arranged between the three of them. It had gone swimmingly, and soon a contract was drawn up. Jim and one of his assistants would be responsible for training several horses over the next year. I was ecstatic when Jim chose me to go along with him.

  The contract was a huge win for us, with an added bonus if we achieved Mr. Matheson’s stated goal of winning the Derby. It was also incredibly lucrative. The only catch was we’d signed a non-disclosure agreement. We weren’t allowed to speak a word about the operations of the ranch or our training regimen with anyone else.

  All things considered, this probably wouldn’t be a particularly difficult task. Since we’d be living on the ranch, it was only on rare occasions that we’d even run into anyone who didn’t know about Mr. Matheson’s racing ambitions. Nonetheless, it added an aura of seriousness to our dealings at Matheson Ranch. I knew how crucial this contract was to Jim. There was a lot riding on it for both of our futures.

  Don proceeded to give us a tour of the grounds. We stopped off at a stable packed with about twenty horses, several of them Thoroughbreds that we’d be responsible for training. As we walked through the stable, Don explained to us that there were a number of ranch hands who would take care of the horses that weren’t dedicated to racing. They would also handle the upkeep of the stable more generally. That was good; being freed up from those tasks would give us more time to concentrate on our more crucial objectives.

  Finally, Don led us to the most important horse in the stable. His name was Fast Lane, a not so subtle reference to his wealthy owner. Fast Lane was a beautiful horse with a rich, dark brown co
at. His father had been a competitor, too, though he’d fallen just short of winning any of the major races. I didn’t know how much Mr. Matheson had paid for Fast Lane, but I couldn’t imagine the sum being anything less than $150,000.

  That’s an absurd amount of money, but it was crazy to think that it was merely a drop in the bucket to someone like Mr. Matheson.

  After touring the stables, Don led us each to our private cottages. The kitchen staff at the mansion would be making a run to the grocery store in a few hours. Don instructed us to leave a list of goods we would like purchased (money was no object, food and housing was included in our contract) and he would pass it along to the staff.

  Each cottage had its own fully operational kitchen. If I’m being honest, it was actually much nicer that the one in my little apartment back home. All of the rooms in the cottage were nice, outfitted with expensive furniture and large televisions. Looking over the confines of my new home, I was very grateful that Jim had chosen me of all people to accompany him on this assignment. This truly was the opportunity of a lifetime.

  ***

  I unpacked my things and settled into the cottage for a bit. Then I walked over to Jim’s cottage so we could get to work. We spent the day working out the horses. Since we were training not just Fast Lane, but several younger Thoroughbreds as well, there would always be lots of work to do.

  Jim was sort of concerned we might need to bring in an additional person, something he hadn’t discussed with either Don or Mr. Matheson. But I assured him we could handle it; we’d just need to stay on top of our game. Besides, anything we needed to complete our training we could get from Don. And we could probably utilize some of the ranch hands, too, if necessary.

  Around noon, Don came out to the stables and invited us into the mansion for lunch. I was a bit anxious about meeting Mr. Matheson, but Don told us he was away on business.

  Lunch was absolutely tremendous. Never before in my life had I seen such a spread. It was a luxurious take on good old-fashioned Texas barbeque: ribs in three different sauces, coleslaw, mac n’ cheese, pomme frites and more all done up with a certain subtle flair. These classic dishes were taken to an entirely new level by Mr. Matheson’s professionally-trained personal chef, adding an additional layer of sumptuous decadence to the simple food. Needless to say, I’d never had a lunch like this before.

  As it turned out though, lunch wasn’t just a time for relaxing.

  “I hate to break it to you, but lunch isn’t going to be this damn good every day,” said Don as he sat across from us at the large table of the dining hall.

  We laughed in a friendly way, appreciative of the generosity that had been shown to us so far.

  “I’m serious,” said Don. “The reason we’re here today is we have some business to attend to.”

  Don handed us each a ten page memo. It featured various statistics, training objectives, and a timeline of strategic goals aimed at getting us prepared for the Kentucky Derby. Then he flipped on a projector that displayed the broad points of the memo in PowerPoint form on a wall of the dining room. He walked over and flipped off the light switch, then sat back down at the table. He started to go over everything, slide by slide.

  Jim shifted awkwardly in his seat for a few minutes, then decided to interject.

  “Don, I thought we’d be putting together our own training regimen here. I thought we’d worked out a suitable amount of discretion. I need autonomy if I’m going to do this thing right,” he said, putting the memo down on the table.

  “You’ll have autonomy, but only down at the ground level, the actual training and exercise of the horses. Mr. Matheson is a businessman, first and foremost. He wants to provide strategic oversight. He’ll be the one determining the goals; you two will figure out how we achieve them. Are we in agreement?”

  I looked over at Jim and rolled my eyes. I knew this wasn’t what either of us wanted. Jim thrived on the freedom of being his own boss. I could see him visibly bristling under what he thought was an unnecessary encroachment on his area of expertise. But I also knew that the money and the opportunity of this job was too much to give up. He’d have to simply deal with the parameters of the relationship as the elusive Mr. Matheson defined them.

  “Yes, sir,” said Jim. “We want success for these horses as much as Mr. Matheson.”

  I nodded my agreement.

  “Good, I’m glad we’re all on the same page. The way we see it, we want Fast Lane to become a household name. It’s a tall order, but we wouldn’t have hired you if we didn’t think you were the people to do it.”

  ***

  As we walked back out to the stables after lunch, Jim muttered to himself. Once we were inside and certain we were out of earshot, he turned to me.

  “Can you believe that?” he said exasperatedly.

  I didn’t answer verbally, but merely shrugged my shoulders. I thought it was ridiculous, but what choice did we have? It was Mr. Matheson’s horse, not ours. He was the boss and we were the employees.

  At the same time, I understood Jim’s frustration. He hated being micromanaged. He felt, rightfully I thought, that horse owners only got in the way of him doing the best possible job. It was a strange irony: the more an owner took an interest in his horse’s training, the worse it did. As I stood there listening to Jim complain, I tried to reassure him.

  “I mean if you think about it, he really just wants performance updates. We get to decide everything else,” I said.

  “Yeah, but he made a timeline. I can’t validate that timeline until I see what this horse is capable of. We can’t push the horse any faster than it can go, we could ruin him for the race if we do that – ruin his entire racing career, in fact. I don’t know if you looked at that schedule, but it’s very aggressive. I give the man credit for being an excellent businessman, but this isn’t just business – there’s an art to training for the Derby.”

  “Well, let’s just give it a go. Maybe we can get him to budge on some of the milestone goals if we’re not progressing fast enough.”

  “I hope your right. But I’ve heard rumors.”

  “What rumors?”

  “Oh, it’s all hearsay, but I’ve heard about him firing people at his company for simply expressing an opinion contrary to his. They say he’s a real control freak. That’s why I tried to get us some autonomy before I took the contract. I don’t want to get on this man's bad side.”

  Jim sounded very concerned and it made me nervous, far more nervous than I’d been as we’d watched Don’s presentation. I was starting to have questions about the work environment. Were our jobs really on the line at every turn of the corner? If that was true, then I was doubtful about how successful we could be. I agreed with Jim: we needed some leeway to do our job with Fast Lane. We were the experts, after all.

  I pondered this the rest of the afternoon while Jim and I worked out the horses. But neither of us said another word about it. We knew better than to badmouth our employer. After the initial venting, it was a null subject, better for us to just buckle down and try to get the job done, no matter the circumstances.

  We worked late that night. By the time I went back to my cottage at ten o’clock I was absolutely exhausted. I walked into the kitchen to find that all of my groceries had been packed away for me. It was good to have a fully-stocked kitchen, one less thing to worry about. But I was dead tired and there was no way I’d be cooking anything tonight.

  After taking a quick shower, I went down to the fridge in search of a drink and found a six pack of Budweiser. I hadn’t remembered putting it on my grocery list, but maybe somebody knew how much I’d need a drink after my first day on the ranch. I grabbed a bottle and twisted off the cap, plunking myself down on the couch in the living room and turning on the television.

  Halfway through my first beer I felt as if I was moments away from sleep. I put the bottle down on the table and headed up to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Moments later I was fast asleep.

  ***

>   The next day I was up at 5 AM and ready to set to work. I put on some coffee and fried up some eggs quickly. I called Jim at his cottage to invite him over for breakfast. I figured we could have a quick strategy session as we ate that day.

  Both of us were more than impressed with Fast Lane. The fact that the horse was so obviously well-bred bode well for us. The previous trainer had also done a decent job with him. This made us slightly more confident about our ability to stick with Mr. Matheson’s timeline.

  The only other issue we faced was that we were also responsible for training some of the younger Thoroughbreds for some lesser races. Ideally, these were horses we could expect to be competing a year or two down the road in the major events like the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont stakes. Jim and I were split on how to allocate our time between our dual task. Obviously, Fast Lane needed our attention more urgently, but neglecting the other horses wasn’t an option either.

  I reminded him that we could use some of the ranch hands if necessary.

  “I realize that,” said Jim. “But they aren’t trainers.”

  “True,” I said. “The way I see it, I think we should spend most of our time on Fast Lane. If we don’t do well in the Derby, we won’t even be around in a year or two to train those other horses.”

  “Good point,” said Jim. “But I still want you to put in some good time with the other horses. We’ll work them out and identify the ones that are the real stars. I doubt all of them have what it takes. Let’s spend some time finding the diamond in the rough.”

  “That’s a solid plan,” I said.

  After finishing breakfast, we headed out to the stables. As much as I liked talking strategy, my real passion was working with the animals; that was the real reason I liked my job.

  Over the next few weeks, the days took on much of the same structure. Early breakfasts and planning sessions, then out to the stables to work with the horses. We’d stop for a quick lunch around noon, and then head back out until dinner at seven o’clock. Then we’d spend a few more hours before quitting for the day around 9:00 PM or 10:00 PM. Only on rare occasions did we stay on later.