He places the scoop in my hand but doesn’t let it go when I try to take it. “It’d be much easier and a whole lot less distracting if I could say the same of you.” He lets go of the scoop and dips the tip of his hat in an aw-shucks kind of way. “But I’m not one to lie.”
Our eyes hold across the short distance as his comment floats through the air and fades like the dust specks dancing in the sunlight.
“That won’t work, you know?” I say.
“What won’t?”
“You trying to charm me every time you want something. I know your kind, Jack Sutton, and I’m not impressed by them.”
“Is that so?” He shifts on his feet and adjusts his hat before re-crossing his arms over his chest. “And what kind is that?”
“A man who uses his good looks and smooth words to get his way with people. A man who turns on the charm to disguise it.”
His eyes darken and then narrow. “Just like you’re the woman who keeps living her privileged life . . . fiddling while Rome burns down around her?” he counters, making me want to scream that he knows nothing about me or how I live or what I’ve been through for the last year. A small part of me is shouting about how that was his point, but I tell the voice to shut up. “And if by good looks and smooth words, you’re implying I’m like Fletcher, I suggest you not infer that again.” That muscle in his jaw feathers in contempt.
“I’m not the woman you think I am.”
He twists his lips and stares at me in a way that feels like he is seeing right through me. It’s unnerving and unsettling, and I force myself not to look away because his silence is telling me that maybe he thinks I am.
I’m not sure why that bugs me. Why I want him to see me as someone different.
“I’m not even certain you know who that woman is either,” he says. Before I can process what he means, he continues, “Tell me about the complaints lodged against the ranch. They’re talked about but no one seems to know what they are or who’s making them. Any clue?”
“They’re baseless and not relevant in the grand scheme of things.”
“I beg to differ.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he studies me. “This is the part where you try to trust me, Knox.”
Heat flushes my cheeks as I struggle with how to do this, how I start to let someone in. “I’m trying.”
“That’s all I can ask.” He nods and doesn’t call me out on the panic he can probably see swimming in my eyes.
“What do you want to know?”
“For starters, who’s making these complaints and why? What exactly did Fletcher or you do to the people in town that earned you that look every time either of your names is brought up?” He shakes his head. “If you paid off all of your accounts in town with his life insurance benefits like rumor has it, what in the hell are you sinking your profits into? I know you said there hasn’t been a ton of foals, but Christ, Knox, where’s the money going?”
Each question is like a blow to the face, and by the time he finally falls silent, I might as well be lying on the floor bleeding. I steal myself against the pain the answers to his questions bring and glare at him.
“What I do with my money is my business. How I make it, how I spend it . . . my business. Last I remember, I kicked you out of here on day one for listening to the town gossip mill.” It’s my only defense and a shitty one at that.
“Your money is my business. Did you forget that you hired me to make you more of it? I have to know what you have and what the budget is for me to make this magic happen.” He grabs a handful of hay off the bales stacked beside him and throws it to the ground as if everything he said wasn’t hard for me to hear. “It seems you need to be coddled. Not my style. Fletcher may have spent hours stroking that ego of yours, but rest assured, I won’t.”
“Screw you.”
“I wasn’t aware that was part of my contract.” His laugh is loud and rich and irritating. “Fighting the whole world isn’t an option, so it seems you have decided to constantly pick a fight with me. Is that what this is? Kick me out. Ask me to stay. Not give me the tools I need to do my job so you have someone to blame?”
“This conversation is over,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Nah, we’re just getting started,” he says with a laugh and a smack of his hands, “because we’re finally getting somewhere. I’m finally figuring you out. I’m finally understanding why every couple of days you sink to the bottom of your pool and scream at the top of your lungs because you don’t think anyone can hear you.”
I just stare at him, feeling more naked, more vulnerable, than I have in what feels like forever.
Having to deal with what Fletcher did, how what he did made me feel, is one thing, but I learned my lesson. I told myself I’d never let myself feel that way again, and yet, something as simple as Jack seeing me in my weakest moments gets to me.
“You’re a bastard.” My voice is barely audible as the shame and hurt course through me. “Get out. I didn’t invite you on my ranch to take shots at me left and right.” I point to the door of the stable, wanting space, needing distance.
“Why are you constantly on the fucking defensive? Can’t you see that all I’m trying to do is to get you to talk? All I’m trying to do is to get you to trust that I’m going to try to help you.” He blows out a frustrated sigh that I can hear but that I can’t process being the cause of. “I’m on your side, Knox. I’m—”
“No one’s on my side.” My voice is soft, even . . . raw with a vulnerability I hate. “I learned that the hard way.”
11
JACK
She looks like a little kid who’s lost.
Her eyes are wide, and her voice is soft but determined. Fuck if I don’t feel like an ass for slipping that I’d seen her in the pool—that I’d seen her in a private moment as she worked through her own shit.
But it’s out there, so I can’t take it back.
All it’s done is make her push me away harder and shut down faster. This is the second time I’ve seen her do this, so maybe it’s her natural defense mechanism? Guilt or anger or insecurity, I’m not sure, but blocking me out isn’t going to do her or this ranch any good.
Sure, maybe she had it easy when she was growing up. Maybe when she first met Fletcher, the world was in the palm of her hand, but the hurt I see in her eyes right now is deeper than a spoiled primadonna throwing a tantrum because her husband died and now she has to get her hands dirty with work.
It’s more than that.
And I need her to see it.
I need her to realize this is hers now.
Not Fletcher’s.
“I’m not on your side?” I ask. “I’m not here trying to turn your horseshit into diamonds for you?”
I stare at her proud shoulders and petite body, at the gray in her eyes and the wisps of hair that curl around her cheeks, at the swell of her breasts through her tank top and the tight fit of her jeans around her hips.
And I wonder how I can want her and not really like her at the same time.
Her unique beauty is undeniable, and I’m not sure I’d ever want to tame her temper or mood swings.