She had an injury and had still crashed into him that hard? That didn’t seem possible.
But then she was finally all the way up so he could get his first good look at her, and suddenly the force of her tackle made sense.
The woman was tall, at least as tall as Elizabeth, but instead of being lean and muscled like the veterinarian, she was softer. Sal wasn’t exactly the most hip to pop culture, but she was bottom-heavy in a way that he was pretty sure was popular with certain celebrities. Her shoulders were broad, but not disproportionately so, and she had a distinctive sort of bone structure that he wasn’t used to seeing.
“There’s no way you knew what kind of snake that was.”
“What are you talking about? Glossy black underside combined with a red and black topside with a reddish-pink blend along the sides? Then you add that it clearly didn’t have any preocular scales with only one internasal scale, and that’s a mud snake if I’ve ever seen one.” The woman huffed.
“I… what?” Those were certainly words that she had used, but he didn’t know what any of them meant. What about scales? “There’s no way you saw that.”
“Why, just because you can’t?” Her hands were on her wide hips, and she was affixing him a look. It didn’t help that her dark brown hair was kept into a stylish sort of pixie cut, so there wasn’t even bangs or a shadow to lessen the intensity of that glower.
Sal was abruptly very done with the conversation. She had no right to talk to him like that. Although she was dressed as a civilian, she had to be an employee. Unless one of his brothers had suddenly taken on another girlfriend. Granted, considering how crazy they were acting, maybe that was a possibility.
“Yeah, unfortunately, running this ranch as a Miller doesn’t exactly leave room for extracurricular studies about random farm snakes.”
There it was. She would realize who he was and start backpedaling, asking for forgiveness. Which he definitely wasn’t going to do with all her attitude. In fact, she would be lucky if he didn’t sue her right then and there.
“Maybe if you’re going to run a ranch, you should be educated about the type of animals that are beneficial to it.”
She didn’t even blink. What?
That wasn’t how it was supposed to work. Her eyes were supposed to go wide, her cheeks were supposed to flush, and then the apologies were supposed to come pouring out.
What was the world coming to? He was basically her employer! Where was the respect? The deference? His family was the one that put food on her family’s table, and she was mouthing off to him like they were on equal footing.
It was just like Dad said, the younger generation had no respect for anything. Always me, me, me, and never caring about anything outside themselves. That was why they wanted to bail on their loans and were always demanding handouts.
He took a deep breath, not sure what he was going to say but knowing it would be absolutely scathing, when suddenly there was a shout and someone coming around the corner.
“What’s going on here? Was someone hurt?”
He wasn’t pleased to see it was Elizabeth, her expression serious as usual. Did that woman ever smile on the clock, or did she charge for that?
“You know this worker?” Sal heard himself bark. Usually he knew better than to use any sort of tone like that with the vet because she would get real icy, but his temper was sparking so high, so fast, that he couldn’t keep the bite out of it.
Besides, he shouldn’t have to! They were both his employees!
“That’s my assistant you’re talking to,” Elizabeth said flatly, her eyes flicking between the two of them. “The vet tech that was approved in the last budget report.”
Ah, Sal remembered that particular conversation. It had been a three-hour fight between Dad and the twins, if only because it wasn’t just a vet tech that his brothers wanted. No, it was also a huge expansion in addition to all the money that they were already hemorrhaging for their bleeding-heart animal care.
“Ex-assistant,” he snapped. “She needs to be fired. Immediately.”
A sputter sounded from the woman beside him, but it was more of an enraged noise than the placating one that he expected. Wasn’t she going to even try to beg for her job?
“Fire her? What exactly happened here?”
“She laid hands on me.”
“He was trying to kill a snake for no reason! It wasn’t even dangerous!”
They spoke at the same time and their words were mostly a jumble, but Elizabeth seemed to understand them well enough. Her eyes flashed, and then she was crossing her arms, face stony.
“Nova, you come with me. Have a good day, Sal.”
“What?” he asked, his temper spiking yet again. “She tackled me. Fire her, immediately.”
But Elizabeth wasn’t even looking at him, already turning away. “Take it up with your brothers if you’re that concerned,” she said without an ounce of caring to her tone.
The woman, Nova, apparently—what kind of name was Nova, anyway?—rushed to follow after her. The two disappeared around the barn.
What on earth was going on!?
Sal was standing there, fuming, but completely alone. He was a Miller. That was supposed to mean something. His family worked hard and provided for so many people. Where was the gratitude?
Nowhere, apparently.
Well, Elizabeth said to talk to his brother, so he stormed back to the house to do just that.
4
Nova
Nova was going to be fired.
She was sure of it. She couldn’t believe that she had tackled one of the sons of the ranching empire she worked for on her very first day. Who did that? Her, apparently. And all over a snake.
Actually, she wasn’t upset about that last part. Shovels weren’t exactly precise killing instruments, and chances were that the snake would be grievously injured, not ended outright, and it would slick away to die some agonizing and unnecessarily painful death.
If her mother was there, she would no doubt be chewing Nova’s ear off about ruining such an excellent opportunity. She could almost hear it in her head, the diatribe winding around her brain and twisting in her ears. It was like being back home again, which was actually pretty terrible.
At least Elizabeth hadn’t dressed her down right in front of the fuming Miller son. Because man, that guy was big and maybe also a little scary. Nova didn’t know if she’d ever met anyone whose biceps were literally the size of her head, but that lad was built like a comic book superhero.
Actually… he was pretty handsome like one too. She hadn’t paid any attention to it at first, but as she replayed the situation over and over again in her mind, she remembered more of his face than she had in the moment.
And it was a nice face.
Some muscular guys ended up looking kinda froggy, but there was nothing amphibian about the giant man. He’d had a classically square jaw that blended exceptionally well into his prominent cheekbones and curly, sandy blond hair, which made his green eyes stand out that much more. He might have been a model, if he hadn’t looked so rugged, stubble about his cheeks and eyebrows that needed more grooming if there were photoshoots involved.
But he definitely wasn’t a model, because of course, he was her boss’s boss. Talk about needing to look before she leaped. Yet another situation she had ruined because of dumb luck.