The town knowing the truth would only help them run me out of here, and that’s the last thing I want to give them—victory and satisfaction.
I think about what he said, focusing on the emotions he evoked and not on what it felt like to have a man standing on my porch challenging me. The slight flutter in my belly when those dimples showed. The uptick in my pulse over the flex of his biceps beneath the cuffs of his shirt.
I was supposed to hate him on sight.
Sylvester’s warnings about seeing him in Ginger’s bar the past few nights talking with the locals were supposed to be enough of a warning to send him packing.
Too bad, because I’d wanted to hire him up until Sylvester told me. The last thing I need is for another employee to blast what’s going on at my ranch all over town like the last one did.
I learned my lesson. Never again.
I was supposed to hate him on sight.
Instead of hating him, though, I watched him as he sat in his truck at the edge of the driveway. As he drove slowly toward the house, looking here and there as he took in the fence and pasture and house. When he climbed out of his truck, it was as if I’d been sucker punched squarely in the gut.
When our eyes met for the first time.
When his body tensed, his eyes widened, and the slightest hint of desire crawled through them a moment longer than would be normal, allowing me to notice it.
My plan to lay out my reasons calmly went out the window because I’d felt that slightest hint of desire too. The notion I had that I was going to explain to him that I had to trust who I hired, and that I simply didn’t trust him, got lost in that momentary lapse of concentration.
In my head, I’d had it all worked out. I’d spout off to him, and he’d wave a hand in the air—maybe even lift his middle finger—as he walked away without a second thought. He’d save me the trouble and the heartache of getting attached to another ranch manager only to learn they were in town badmouthing me and telling everyone my secrets again.
In my mind, the whole scenario would have been over in mere minutes.
But damn it, he stood there with his pride bristling and his smile smug as I was a bitch to him. And the more I spoke, the more he dug in as if something were keeping him here. Something that made him fight for a job that was way beneath his qualifications.
I should have been asking myself why he would do that, but I was so determined to hate him on sight that I didn’t.
So, I fought him. I was rude and nasty and scared as hell because I wanted to hire him—knew I needed to hire him—but am so gun-shy after hearing Sylvester tell me who he was sidling up to in town that I pushed him away.
And now that the dust from his departure had settled, I couldn’t help but feel as if I’d made a monumental mistake.
Being about to lose my farm is not exactly what I’d call having things handled.
But Jack’s comment and Sylvester’s warning marry together and ring through my thoughts, telling me I did the right thing.
He is arrogant and cocky and handsome and qualified and tall and is willing to stand up to me when most people don’t even talk to me these days.
“Christ.” My shoulders sag under the weight of that choice, and the humid air is suddenly suffocating me.
It’s how I’ve felt day after day, month after month, for the last year because I’ve done all of this myself. I have thrown myself into the thick of things—feeding and grooming and tracking estrus cycles—and have learned to do Fletcher’s job all on my own. When he was alive, all he’d let me do was the trivial stuff, and I’d become the window dressing to all the hard work everyone else did. It was all he allowed me to do.
All because Fletcher didn’t want me to get too close to anyone. He didn’t want me to hear the whispers among workers about how the jefe was down in the bunkhouse placing bets with money he didn’t have. How on the breeding trip he’d just gotten back from, he’d spent more time in the sports bar, hedging his bets and unbeknownst to me, losing everything we had, than he’d spent at the stables, ensuring breeding success.
By the looks of it, moments of weakness are all you seem to have.
“Prick,” I mutter, hating Jack for no other reason than he called me out on failing at the ranch. Okay, there was also a bit of dislike that he’d walked away when I really needed him to stay. Not that I blame him after the way I’d acted.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, knowing how crazy I sound, and yet, simply being too exhausted to care.
I’ve been busting my ass, trying to make this work and having to figure things out as I go. God forbid, anyone in this town ever offer any advice other than to tell me I should sell and move back to where I came from.
And I’m the cold-hearted bitch who’s too good for them?
The thought grates harder than the stacks of correspondence from the bank inside and the voicemails filling my phone that tell me I’m about to lose my ranch.
I storm through the house, feet stomping on the hardwood floors in an attempt to try to make myself feel better. Isn’t that the best part about living alone? You can do what you want, and there is no one there to tell you that you’re overreacting.
But I am.
Because all I hear are Jack’s criticisms and all I see is that taunting smirk on his handsome face. I bet he can’t wait to run back to Ginger’s Bar to tell everyone how much I’m failing or how I don’t even know how to store my feed correctly.
My temper rages like a damn inferno within me. My insecurity about if I’m doing this right and my stress over always having bill collectors at my throat probably aren’t helping, but Jack’s criticism on something so damn simple sets me off. Gritting my teeth, I pass closed door after closed door—memories I’m not sure I want to remember or erase contained behind the slabs of wood—as I walk down the hall, push out the back door, and head toward the stable. I only have one goal, which is to prove him wrong.
I’m out of breath when I reach it. The bales of hay are stacked neatly inside, the bags of feed dry but lying haphazardly on the floor beside them. The color-coded buckets for grain and supplements are on the floor where I threw them when I saw the text from him saying he was on his way.
“Screw you, Jack Sutton,” I mutter as I grab the first fifty-pound bag of feed and drag it to its proper location.
One bag after another, I do my best to stack and arrange them despite their weight and my small stature.
There is no satisfaction in the work, no release from the pain still burning bright inside me, and no reprieve from the chaos that the upending of my world started well over a year ago.
I do the tedious task.
The work I never thought in a million years I’d have to carry out is my only focus.
It’s either I do it or I lose the only thing I have left—this place. I gave up everything else already.
I hate you, Fletcher.
The refrain fills my mind as I force myself to ignore the sadness that comes with it. The life I thought we had versus the life we really lived. The all-encompassing truth that follows right behind it, which is that I walked into our marriage knowing what I was walking away from without ever imagining that some five-plus years later I’d be standing alone.
Shoving away the first tear that slips down my cheek, I pretend like hell that the hole in my chest isn’t real when I swear it is. It’s been there ever since Sheriff Chatsworth rang my doorbell and said the words that will forever be etched in my mind.