RIVAL: An Enemies to Lovers Why Choose Country Romance

Chapter 11

My eyes immediately lift when I sense a shift in the air, and find Edith the moment she walks into the barn ready for her afternoon shift. Lifting my hand in a wave, I let it fall when an angry man follows right behind her, eyes calculating and roaming over the site before focusing on me.

Without a word to her, he storms in my direction as she hurries over to the station she was set up at yesterday. I don’t recognize him at first, but the closer he gets, coupled with the pissed off look on his face, it dawns on me that this is Mason Cooper, a guy that went to school with me, although a few years younger than my graduating class.

“How can I—”

He cuts me off, waving a piece of paper in my face. “Need a word with you, Thorton.”

My eyes fly over to Edith, who’s doing her best to not watch us. Her head is hung low as she dives into picking up scraps lying around the floor, cleaning up the space. Alternating between her and this pissed off dude, I ask, “You here to help out?” Then, tilting my head in Edith’s direction, I ask, “You bring her here?”

“Doesn’t matter if I did or didn’t. I got a real problem with this fuckin’ letter you sent us.”

I hear a few gasps from others around us and get irritated. “Watch your language. This is a church project. Why don’t we step outside to talk?”

Without waiting for him, I set my work down and head over to my truck to grab a new bottle of water. Chugging it down, it’s not long before Mason is standing in front of me, feet wide and ready for an argument.

“What’s the problem?” I ask, not sure what his issue is.

“This is my fuckin’ problem. You sent my dad a bill for materials from a contract your daddy never finished. We aren’t payin’ this bullshit.”

Instead of answering him, I hold my hand out for the letter, which he shoves into my hand. Reading it over, I raise a brow. “This is from almost three years ago.”

“I know,” he hisses. “Why the hell are we gettin’ this now?”

My eyes flick up to him before I continue reading. “Would you calm the hell down? No need to get your panties in a twist. Let me read the damn thing.”

“The hell kind of business you runnin’ if you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about?”

This time, I roll my eyes and drop the letter to my side, standing at my full height and glare at him. “I’m runnin’ a business where unpaid invoices get mailed out to people who owe on them. I just fully took over this last year, so if you’ll cool yourself, I can call the office and figure this out.” I raise a brow in question and bite my cheek at the way he works his jaw, wanting to argue.

Eventually, he sucks his teeth and waves me off. “Wrote my number at the bottom. Call me when you realize this bill is a joke. Maybe let your daddy know if he wants to get paid, he ought to do the work he signed up for.”

With that, Mason storms off and jumps in his truck before peeling out, no mind to the way he kicks gravel up with his tires. “Fucking asshole,” I murmur to myself.

It’s not long before I have Jennice on the phone. “Hey, it’s Jaxon. Would you do me a favor and pull up the file for Cooper?” Glancing at the paper Mason left me with, I note it has his father’s name. “It’s under William Cooper. We just mailed him an invoice.”

“Got it. Hold on a minute.” I hear her typing and hum as she reads over the screen. “We sent a bill out last week to them.”

I try my best to stay patient with her since I literally just told her we sent them a bill. “But I want to know what the job was and why he got an invoice.”

More clicking. “Just readin’, Jax. Here it is. Looks like ya’ll had a contract to replace the roof and some other minor repairs on one of their barns, but the job ain’t listed as bein’ closed out.”

“Does it say what happened? Anything in the notes?”

“Your dad made a note that there were conflicts with gettin’ out there. Says he went out with a crew a few different times, but Cooper didn’t have the barn available to him. Didn’t move the cattle out ‘cuz he had no place to put ‘em.”

I ponder that. It happens sometimes. These farmers want us to come do work for them, but when we show up, they don’t have the space cleared and we have to reschedule. A real pain in the ass if I’m being honest because it throws off the whole week’s plan when we have to shift around crews and get them on jobs we weren’t planning on doing for the day.

Jennice keeps reading the file. “There’s a note that your dad had ordered all the materials, some of it was delivered on site, but the rest is sittin’ in your warehouse. Cooper ended up complainin’ that your dad wasn’t communicatin’ clearly with him and pulled the contract.”

“Did they ever pay for the materials they received?” I ask, curious if Mason’s dad is just being stubborn.

“Oh… Uh, yeah. He paid for some of it. This is kinda confusin’ ‘cuz on another screen where the invoice stuff is, it says everythin’ was delivered to him. But the first part says that we still got some of it.”

I furrow my brows just as I notice Edith dragging a large trash bag out of the doorway to the barn. I watch as she struggles to get it to the dumpster, so I pin my phone between my shoulder and ear, hurrying over to her.

“So, the invoice was sent based on the assumption they took ownership of all the materials before the job was cancelled?” I flash a smile at Edith just as I pull the bag from her hands and heft it into the dumpster. She smiles at me, mouthing, “Thank you,” as Jennice’s voice blasts into my ear.

“Looks like it. You told me to go through all the past due notices and send out letters… Did I mess up? ‘Cuz the screen here says they owe, but maybe they don’t?”

I follow Edith back to the barn, enjoying how close she walks next to me. “Don’t worry about it, Jennice. I’ll go check out the warehouse when I’m done here and get it sorted. Thanks for looking into it. I’ll see you in the morning.”

After a quick goodbye, I shove my phone in my pocket before holding a hand out for Edith to walk in front of me. “Sorry about that. Nice to see you again, Edith. Ready to get to it?”

“Yes, sir.” Her soft voice isn’t what has me jerking my head to look over at her. It’s the words. Holy fuck, she can NOT say that to me right now.

Clearing my throat, I scramble for what to say, coming up with the ridiculous response of, “You know you can call me Jaxon, right? I’m just helping out, like you.”

Heat infuses her cheeks, and she looks away from me. “Sorry.” Before I can say she has nothing to apologize for, she asks, “What would you like me to work on today?”

“You want to work with me again? I’m just back to cutting. Monotonous. We could pick back up our question game.” I grin widely when she nods happily and folds her hands together in front of her waist.

“I’d love to! Want me to mark your cut lines again? Were they okay last time? Because if I’m not accurate enough, just let me know and I can do it however you’d like. I don’t want to get it wrong.” Her rambling is adorable.

Handing over my pencil, I drop my hands on her shoulders and turn her to face the table where she’s going to work. “You were perfect. I’ve got the measurements written at the end of the boards for you.” Pointing to show her where, she takes a deep breath, clearly pleased with my compliment, then picks up the tape measure and gets to work.

I notice some of the other church members watching us from the corner of their eyes, but I take no mind. Most of the residents in town are nosy as fuck. If they find us having a conversation worthy of discussion, then they can have at it.

“So, where’d we leave off last time?” I ask, then watch as she arches her back to stretch it out before shaking out her hands. “You good over there?”

Glancing over her shoulder, she gives me a quick smile. “I’m doing great. Just sore shoulders from the day. I think we left off with you asking how old I am. Although we were playing ‘this or that’ so you kind of broke the rules with that one.”

I ignore the reminder of her age and tease, “Well, you want to stick with that game, or do something different?”

“Like what?”

“Two truths and a lie?”

She blinks up at me before dropping her gaze to her hands resting on the two by four. “I’m not sure how to play that. I don’t like to lie.”

Chuckling softly, I fall a little further at her sweetness. “It’s not really lying. You just tell me three things about yourself, but one of them is made up. Then I have to guess what the fake one is.”

Edith’s mouth parts, a soft “Oh” escaping. “Alright. You go first.”

I should probably cut the boards she’s marking for me, but to keep noise levels down, I start installing brackets to form the corners we need instead. “Okay, two truths and a lie. First, I was editor for our school newspaper for three out of four years of high school. I have three tattoos. And… I own a construction company I inherited from my father.”

Her laughter fills the space, drawing a few more eyes in our direction. “Well, obviously, the last one is a truth. Even though I can’t see any of your tattoos, I’m going to assume that’s the truth as well, since it’s specific. It’s hard to see you being an editor for a newspaper.”

“Wrong! I absolutely was the editor. The only year I didn’t do it was my freshman year.” The way her jaw drops open has me laughing loudly, the sound bursting deep from my chest.

She narrows her eyes, fighting off a grin. “So, you don’t have any tattoos then? That’s the lie?”

My smile turns playful. “I do have tattoos. I’ve got four of them, not three.”

“That was a trick!” Her complaint delights me. Seems like my little Edith is competitive. “What are they? Where are they?”

Shaking my head, I send her a wink before saying, “Nope. That’s not how this works. Maybe I’ll show you some day. Your turn.”

Her huff of annoyance has me chuckling and we both get back to work as she thinks. With furrowed brows, she takes her time to come up with her truths and lie.

“Okay. So, umm… I was homeschooled until ninth grade, which was the first year I went to an actual school with people. I got my first job so I could take care of a kitten. And I didn’t ride a horse until I was eighteen years old.”

Her first one is so specific, and she seems fairly introverted, so I actually believe that’s true. The second and third both sound so outlandish that I’m not sure which one is the lie, so I take a guess. “I think the second one is a lie. No way you got a job for a kitten.”

The way she beams with pride literally takes my breath away. “Wrong! I’ve actually never ridden a horse! I really did just get my very first job for a kitten. I found him outside under a bush in my backyard. I knew I couldn’t bring him inside, so I found a farm that would only take him if I promised to work and take care of the kitten while he lived there.”

The story of how she got her job is pretty cute, but I’m actually fixated on the fact the last one wasn’t the lie. “Wait a minute, you’ve never ridden a horse before? Never once in your life?”

Edith bites her lip and shakes her head. “No. We have one, but it’s my father’s horse, and he’s real particular about who rides him. I’ve never had an opportunity.”

“Edith, sweetheart. We need to get you on the back of a horse. There’s really nothing like it.” My mind whirls, wondering if it would be appropriate to offer her to come to my parents’ place and get her on the back of mine. “I could arrange it, if you’d like.”

The smile she had falls away, and she looks at me like I’m teasing her. “Don’t play with me. Are you serious?”

“Very. Everyone should have a chance to experience it. I can’t believe you’ve never once gotten on the back of your dad’s.” There’s some sort of emotion emanating from her eyes, but I don’t know if it’s disbelief or thankfulness. Almost as quickly, it disappears just as she looks away.

Waving me off, she picks up her pencil and measures out the next piece of wood. “It’s your turn,” she says over her shoulder, without looking at me.

“Edith. I’m serious. I’d love to take you so you can experience it.”

When she turns her head, her smile is brittle, and she nods once. “Maybe we can set that up sometime. I’m ready for your truths and lie.” It’s a brush off, but I don’t think it’s because she doesn’t want to do it. There’s something holding her back, and I’m determined to get her out to my parents’ place by week’s end.

“Let me think,” I say, getting back to work.

She and I spend the next few hours playing our game, only pausing when I have to turn on the saw. Again, Ruth corners me just as Edith sneaks out of the barn, leaving for the evening. This time, I at least get a fast wave goodbye before her head disappears around the corner and I’m roped into walking Ruth to her car.

Tapping my hand on the roof in a farewell, I watch as she drives off and wonder if I shouldn’t follow again to see if Edith needs a ride home. I’m sure she’s on foot again, but tonight I decide against it.

I’ll be sure to offer her a ride before she leaves tomorrow.