Phoebe shook with Rich Bitch Number Two. “Hey. Phoebe Davis.” As she took her hand back, she asked both women, “I’m sorry. Did we have an appointment for you to visit the ranch today?”
Obviously, being sponsored by a chichi riding club would be a help; every little bit of support she could scrape together was a help. But Phoebe would sooner pack up and quit before she’d let somebody tell her how to run her ranch, and at least one of these women was very strongly giving uberbitch. They’d be all up in her business if she let them. She had no intention of making things easy on these uninvited guests.
Mrs. Oilman drew herself up tall. She was thin and angular, and about three inches taller than Phoebe, so she succeeded in literally looking down her nose at her. “I would think you’d be happy to meet with prospective benefactors, appointment or not.”
Phoebe was not shy. Nor was she naturally insecure or reluctant to stick up for herself. Her experience in Afghanistan and the lasting issues from her injury had introduced some anxieties and doubts into her psyche, but even so, she did not feel like she was any less worthwhile a human than any other. Money should not be a consideration of human worth. Period and exclamation point.
Another thing that her injury had introduced into her psyche: impulsivity. Where once she’d been ready to stick up for herself when it was called for, now she sometimes jumped whether it was called for or not, or whether she’d done a risk-reward analysis or not.
She stepped right up to Mrs. Oilman, so that they were chest to chest, and she stared straight into this platinum hag’s brown eyes. “I would think you’d have learned the manners not to stomp into someone’s home unannounced. I was actually raised in a damn barn, and I know better than that. Please get off my property.”
Mrs. Oilman paled to near translucence. She stepped back and smoothed the lapels of her fancy riding jacket. “Do you understand that I can ruin you with a single phone call? One call, and the sponsors you do have will disappear. A second call, and I can have this rathole crawling with inspectors.”
Phoebe let the threat roll off her. She’d worry about its veracity later.
“Lydia, don’t,” Carolanne Whoever-Hyphenate said. “Let’s just go.” She turned a halfhearted smile on Phoebe. “I apologize for the intrusion. We’ll go.”
The uberbitch was still staring at Phoebe like she couldn’t figure out what kind of creature would say such a thing to her. Her friend tugged on her arm, but she ignored it.
Phoebe stared back until finally the nicer of the two got through, and Mrs. Oilman turned to her friend and shook her hold away. “Fine. Just stop clinging. Let’s get out of here. I need to wash the stink off me.”
She spun on the heel of her polished boot and stalked down the aisle. Her friend followed. Phoebe followed them both, then stood with her arms crossed as they climbed into a black Land Rover (of course), turned around, and drove away.
Had she just completely fucked her whole life because she couldn’t suck up to one imperious rich bitch?
Time would tell, she supposed.
In the immediate future, however, there was work to be done. If she got caught in a whirlpool of worry, that work would go undone. Phoebe turned around, planning to go to the barn and grab fresh hay to fill the stall bins before she brought the animals in for the night.
She was almost at the barn when she heard the growl and grind of a truck rolling over her rutted gravel lane. Were they back? She couldn’t imagine Mrs. Oilman would be ready to apologize, so ... what? Had she thought up some more threats?
Actually, that truck sounded bigger than the Land Rover. Curious, Phoebe retraced her steps, watching the place where whoever was coming would top the last rise.
The first thing she saw was a light bar on a white roof. Yellow and red lights—not cops. A wrecker. A flatbed wrecker, and it was carrying her truck. A few seconds more, and she saw Duncan at the wheel.
Phoebe had borrowed Vin’s car and gone into town for a new phone the day after she’d brought Smoky home (yay for going ahead and getting insurance on her plan), and she and Duncan had texted back and forth several times each of the past few days. They’d talked about a lot of random things, they’d done some flirting that bordered on light sexting, and he’d kept her apprised about anything he’d learned regarding her truck. She knew he’d found a likely engine, but it needed some work. He had some big trip coming up, he’d be gone for a while, and he’d doubted that he’d be able to get it done before he left.
The last she’d heard, she’d be truck-less for maybe a month, despite the replacement engine he’d found. But here he and her truck were.
He was leaving on this big trip tomorrow. Had he both finished the repair and hauled her truck all the way down here? Or was he returning the empty husk?
Her arms crossed again, she strolled toward him as he drew the flatbed to a stop along the fence-line of the riding corral.
“Hey!” Duncan said as he opened the door and hopped down from the cab.
His smile was bright and wide, so Phoebe guessed he’d come with good news, but she needed that confirmed. “Hey. Are you giving up on me?”
“What?” He’d been coming in for a kiss, she thought, but her question pulled him up short. “No.” He tossed keys at her, and she caught them. “You want to start it up and drive it off the ramp, or you want me to?
“It’s fixed? Already?”
He reached her and slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her close. “Fixed, washed, and lemony fresh.” With a grand sweep of his hand, he added, “Your carriage, milady.”
Was this guy for real? She’d known him less than a week, but he’d been swooping in all around her, making bad things better. Like she was his very own rescue project.
Actually, that thought had thorns and burrs, so Phoebe kicked herself free of it.
Rising onto her toes, she flung her arms around his neck. “I need you to say something shitty to me right now.”
Again, she’d interrupted his obvious intent to kiss her. Instead, he frowned at her. His eyes were an intensely beautiful bright green.
“What? Why?”
“I want to see the flaws, pal. This whole Mr. Perfect thing has got to be an act. I need to see the grimy underside, right now.”
He laughed and pulled her closer. “Sorry. Washed the undercarriage, too.” Before she could react to that, he knocked her hat off her head and kissed her.
The way he kissed was most definitely not a flaw.
~oOo~
“So you’re just giving her a brand-new engine for free? A woman you just met? You’re not doing that out of the goodness of your heart, so what’s your angle?” Margot stuck her fork in her mouth with a rhetorical flourish.
“Marg, shut up and chew,” Phoebe snapped. They’d been friends from childhood, and back in the day, they’d been about evenly matched, personality-wise. Neither was a shrinking little flower, neither was afraid of confrontation or reluctant to stand up for themselves, and each was doubly scrappy in defense of someone else. But since Phoebe’s injury, Margot had gotten even more protective, to an almost maternal degree. More than Phoebe’s actual mother had ever been.
Phoebe found it endearing and aggravating in equal measure, depending on circumstances. In the current circumstance, it was aggravating as fuck.