Page 60 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

But it wouldn’t last.

On Friday morning,I was in the office in the staff building, working on my email to request more PTO. The air in my chest felt thin.

I was at a crossroads. Either I asked for more PTO and got it, or I returned to work on Monday and dealt with those tax papers and all the things on my desk at Hadley & Maine that needed doing.

Would I have to forget Jake? Could we have a relationship long distance? Jake seemed like a here-and-now kind of guy, so he probably wouldn’t like an arrangement where we only saw each other on weekends.

Tangled up in indecision, I didn’t hear Lucas until he was standing right next to me. There was a frown between his eyebrows, so I knew something was up.

“Still working on it?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I gladly took my fingers off the keyboard.

“Well, here,” he said, sitting on the desk and messing with the little plastic box that held paper clips. “You can do me a favor and yourself one at the same time.”

“Sure.” I said. Anything for Lucas. Doing a favor for him meant that I could leave that email until later. Occupy my mind with something else for a while. “What is it?”

“There’s a kid,” he said. “He’s at the Center in Denver. He’s eighteen, but his dad thinks he can still control him. It’s bad news. We need to get him out of there before his dad shows up. Can you go and get him and bring him back to the ranch?”

I opened my mouth, but hesitation grabbed me. I wanted to spend as much time with Jake as possible before Sunday, when I’d probably have to drive home.

I wanted to feel Jake’s calloused hands on my skin. I wanted kisses from his mouth, his fingers in my hair. I wanted the double bed in his bunkhouse to shift and squeak beneath us as, skin to skin, we made love.

“Take Jake with you.” Lucas flicked a paper clip at me with his forefinger. “And while you’re at it, while you’re in Denver, go see Logan. Ask him for more PTO face-to-face, and not through some candy-ass email.”

“Candy-ass email?” I asked. “I’ll have you know this is the finest email ever written.”

“Still,” he said. “Go in person. I’ll make sure Jesse knows where Jake is. Then come back with that kid.”

“Okay.” It might be fun taking a drive with Jake. Showing him around my world, as he had shown me around his. That might take some of the sting out of leaving, though deep in my heart, I doubted it.

“And here.” Lucas held out a crisp twenty-dollar bill. “You can buy iced lattes for the journey.”

“Fuck you.” I stood up, taking the bill. “And thanks.” I put the twenty in my front pocket, shut down the computer, and stalked off to find Jake.

Chapter 19

Jake

Dalton appeared in the barn with an expectant look on his face. We were just finishing mucking out the stalls, and I was set to arrange for the blacksmith to come and look at the horses’ hooves. After all that rain and hard riding, it was right to make sure they were still sound.

I glanced over my shoulder at Jesse, who was on his cell phone with someone. He lifted his chin at me, which meant he wasn’t bothered by my having visitors during work hours. He seemed very casual about it all as Dalton tugged me toward the open door of the little office in the barn.

“You’ve got the prettiest eyes,” I said, not holding back, in spite of having a bit of an audience.

“I’m driving down to Denver to pick up a young man from the Center.” A flush in his cheeks let me know he didn’t mind what I’d said. “Lucas asked me to go. Would you like to come with me? I have money for coffee for the road.”

His eyes twinkled as he pulled out a folded twenty-dollar bill. As if the coffee, and not his presence, were the real draw.

“I need to stop by my apartment and also my work,” he said. “Then we’ll go to the Center to collect Xander Brooks.”

I didn’t care what order we did things, and the idea of seeing where Dalton lived filled me with apprehension. His apartment was where he’d be getting back to at the end of the weekend. His apartment and his job and his whole life.

I’d be on the ranch without him. Would he look at me once in his rearview mirror and then not give me another thought? The idea of it just about made me say no.

“Sure,” I said, in spite of my misgivings. “Let me ask?—”

“Lucas suggested it,” Dalton said. “You and I are spending the whole day together.”