Who’s the horny asshole now?
“Why did you bring him in here?” he asked, his voice harder than he intended.
“He was hungry,” she said, her expression defiant. “I thought he needed a lunch break.”
“He had some granola in his bag.”
“He’s a growing boy. That’s not enough.”
“Are you a parent?”
“No. But I have common sense,” she said.
“I’m trying to toughen him up.”
“Oh my gosh. You’re like a walking advertisement for toxic masculinity.”
“Can I see my son, please?”
“Come on in,” she said.
She was different. The girl that he remembered was wide-eyed and pretty, and this woman was no less pretty, but she was not wide-eyed. There was an edge to her that had never been there before, and he didn’t know where it had come from.
He wanted to ask.
He found that he wanted to linger with her more than he should.
But then, that had always been the case.
Instead of lingering, he followed her into the kitchen, where his son was sitting, eating. He was surrounded by a huge spread. Pies, cakes and a big sandwich with what he was pretty certain was tri tip overflowing from the bread.
“Hey, Dad,” said Daniel.
“This is not being a ranch hand,” he said. “Being a ranch hand is staying in a terrible bunkhouse and eating beans from a can.”
“Not when you’re a thirteen-year-old growing boy,” said Arizona.
“You cooked all this?”
She waved a hand. “Hell, no. My brothers are the grill masters, I would’ve thought you’d remember that, for all your drama about canned beans. My brothers grill, the Sullivan sisters do a lot of baking and share the bounty around. Something else I would’ve thought you’d remember.”
“I don’t remember the Sullivan sisters much,” he said.
And he let that sit between them.
Let her ponder that.
She blinked, but that was the only indication that what he’d said had landed at all.
“Well. They make good food.”
“Clearly.” He looked at his son, who didn’t even have the decency to look sheepish. But then, maybe the kid figured this was part of normal ranch life. The pretty woman taking you in and feeding you. It was not.
“Head back to the bunk, kiddo,” he said to Daniel.
“But it’s really far,” said Daniel.
“You can drive the truck. And don’t act like you can’t drive now that you’ve driven cross-country.”
His son shoved the last bit of his sandwich into his mouth, his expression suddenly keen. “Sure.”
“Take five over there, and then I want you to go and find Landry King at one of the main barns—you remember where those are—and ask him what you should be doing.”
“Yes, sir,” Daniel said, bustling off.
“You and I need to have a little talk, Arizona King.”
“Do we?” she said, her expression looking disingenuously sweet.
“The thing is, I don’t want you being easy on my son. He thinks that he wants to grow up. He thinks he wants to be a man instead of the thirteen-year-old boy that he is. When he doesn’t realize how lucky he is that he doesn’t have a dad that’s making him work to earn his keep.”
“Yeah, look, I don’t disagree with you. I felt sorry for the kid, that’s why I brought him into the kitchen. He doesn’t need a hard-ass lesson, Micah.”
“That’s the point. I want him to have a hard-ass lesson while I’m here. While we can still go back home and he can appreciate the fact that he doesn’t live a harsh enough life to have to go work at a ranch 24/7. I don’t even make him work at mine.”
“Then why did he want to come here?”
“I assume he got into it with his mom.”
She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. He wasn’t going to think about them. He really wasn’t.
“Right. Well. Have you asked him about it? Have you asked him why he wanted to be here? Have you asked him what he wants?”
“He wants to work here,” Micah said, “and damned if I really know why. I guess I told him stories about the place and he seems to think... I don’t know. Maybe he’s having a hard time at school?”
He suddenly felt a little bit ashamed at what he didn’t know about his son.
“He lives with Lacey most of the time. Not my choice. It’s the court. He stays with me over the summer when school gets out. So I haven’t seen him for a while. His mom is a particularly difficult case.”
“You’re not with her anymore.”
“No,” he said.
“How old is he exactly?”
“He’s thirteen.”
“I see.”
“For what it’s worth, I didn’t know when I was here, and once I did know I left. Also, you were eighteen.”
“I don’t understand what that has to do with anything.”
“I think you do,” he said.
“Oh, what?” she snapped. “The whole you-disappearing-without-saying-a-word thing? That? You didn’t owe me anything.”
“But you’re mad at me.”
“Maybe I thought there was something between us. But I recognize now that... That it was silly. Inappropriate, even. You’re a lot older than me.”
“I know,” he said. “I am well aware of the age difference. Thank you. As I was then.”
“But are you going to tell me there wasn’t anything between us?”
He cleared his throat. “No. I can’t tell you that. Because there was. But then, the night before I left, I got the call from Lacey. She was eight months pregnant. And she figured it was time to tell me that she was having my baby. So I went back. We tried to make it work again. It doesn’t work between us. She isn’t the kind of person who can have a stable relationship. She doesn’t... She does not thrive in that space.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning she likes drama. And a lot of men is a lot of drama. One man...less. And I don’t share.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Yeah. Whatever. It’s not about her. This is about Daniel.”