Page 11 of Then You Happened
2
TATE
Bring this place back to life, my ass.
I don’t know how long I stand and stare at the dust his tires kick up as it dances through the sunlight.
How about stop sitting at the bar listening to rumors, huh? How about not believing the lies told and meeting me first? How about giving me a chance before they poison you to who I really am?
That cocky grin. Those chocolate-colored eyes alit with humor because, even though I told him he wasn’t, he was right . . . so right in so many ways. Still, it was worth every damn word of that fight. His sarcasm, which hit all the right notes at all the right times, like nails on a chalkboard to my ears and sledgehammer to my ego. The truth he threw around was so much closer than anyone could ever imagine because I’m doing everything I can to keep my financial trouble a secret. I’ve been doing everything to prevent the vultures from circling while they wait for me to lie down and die.
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.
