Sylvie's Cowboy

Palm Beach socialite Sylvie Pace wants to kill her dead father. Daddy left her penniless and stuck on a remote Florida ranch with The Abominable Cowboy. Someday maybe they'll get along -- if they survive discovering Daddy's murderer. ... Before Daddy kicked the bucket-by blowing up with his yacht-he had spent his life the way a father should: making lots of money and spending it on his only daughter. People said Harry Pace had spoiled Sylvie, especially in the years since her mother passed away, but Sylvie did not consider herself "spoiled." Spoiled people weren't nice, were they? Anyway, Sylvie didn't feel "nice" toward Sir Dad the Dead. Her life was ruined. Somebody should pay for that, and since Daddy always paid for everything, he should suffer. Though he probably wouldn't suffer much, him being a corpse and all. How was Sylvie's life ruined? Last week Sylvie had a penthouse apartment on Miami Beach, a red Ferrari, a supermodel's wardrobe, jewels out the wazoo, and friends in the Palm Beach Polo Club set. The next week she had the clothes in her closet, the jewels not sold to pay her late father's debts, a "classic" Volkswagen Beetle, and a raggedy ranch in Nowhereville-of which she could claim only half. The other half belonged to The Abominable Cowboy. Abominable, whose real name was Walter McGurk, had co-owned the ranch with Sylvie's late father. Walt's apparently long history with Harry was mysterious, and the McGurk Ranch seemed to be the only asset of Harry's which had not been mismanaged, leveraged, lost, or stolen-probably because it was hidden so far back in the Florida swamps that everyone forgot about it. So in the end (the end of Harry, that is), Sylvie's entire inheritance was only what she could cram into her (using the word loosely) "car" and what she shared with Walt McGurk, cowboy. Is it true that opposites attract? She's Palm Beach, he's Podunk Holler. She's haute couture, he's old jeans, sweaty tee-shirts, and stinky boots. She's Italian sports cars, he's American-made pickup trucks. She's determined to find a way back to her old way of life, he's only trying to make a living. He calls her Harry's Princess. She has labeled him T.A.C. (see above). He says she's unemployed, she says she's "at leisure." Walt's girlfriend runs Clarice's Beauty World in Clewiston. Sylvie's dating a real-estate tycoon with homes in Miami and Palm Beach. Walt was as unhappy as Sylvie about their new living and working arrangements. It was bad enough that he must share his house and his ranch with the Pouty Prissy Princess of Palm Beach, but he also had to listen to her complaints and endure her insults. She was pretty, he couldn't deny it, but that didn't make up for all the aggravation she caused. She knew her way around high society, sure, but around a real house without servants or a concierge, she didn't know how to do anything. Some of her mistakes around the house-especially the ones involving electricity-had nearly killed him.