3. Chapter 3
Tana
The pen slips in my fingers, not enough to clatter to the desk or draw attention from Cassie, who is still explaining payroll forms in the bright, cheerful voice of somebody who has clearly never had her brain short out in the middle of onboarding paperwork.
I tighten my grip and stare at the line I’m supposed to sign. Employee Signature. The words blur for half a second.
Footsteps sound in the doorway. Cassie straightens beside the desk. “Morning, boss.”
Boss.
The word hits first. Then I look up, and my pulse goes hard once against my ribs.
It’s just a man in fancy cowboy boots standing in the office doorway until the details start lining up: the expensive watch, the barn keys hanging from one hand like the whole place answers to him, and the stare that made last night feel less like bad judgment and more like stepping onto thin ice just to see if it would hold.
No. Absolutely not.
He looks harder in daylight. Last night he was all storm blur and Inn- light, dangerous in a way that felt private. This is worse. This is official. Then the rest of it lands … Cassie called him boss.
My boss.
Heat flashes up the back of my neck so fast it almost makes me dizzy, but I lock my face down before it gives away that fact that I slept with the boss before her first day of work.
I set the pen down carefully, because careful is the only thing standing between me and full collapse. His eyes hit mine and stay there.
He clenches his jaw, and the sight of it sends a hard little pulse through my stomach, sharp enough to make my grip tighten on the pen. Then his gaze drops to the front of his shirt.
Wrinkled.
My stomach drops straight through the floor. I know exactly why. I had both hands in that shirt while he kissed me like enjoying it was something he was trying, and failing, not to do.
When his eyes come back to mine, the humiliation gets worse, because now there is full recognition there. Cassie, who clearly has no instinct for self-preservation, looks between us and says, “You two look like maybe you’ve met.”
If the floor wants to open up and swallow me, I would appreciate the timing.
Instead I say nothing at all, which is probably for the best because every possible answer ranges from career-ending to clinically stupid.
He speaks first.
“Out.”
Cassie blinks. “Wow. Friendly start.”
He doesn’t raise his voice. He does not need to. “Cassie.” That does it. She mutters something under her breath and slips out into the hallway, shutting the door behind her.
The office goes quiet enough that I can hear the wall clock ticking. For one second, I consider standing up and walking out before he can say whatever men like him say when they decide the woman from last night has become an administrative inconvenience.
But my overnight bag is upstairs in employee housing, my car is hanging together by spite, and I have exactly one job offer to my name. So I stay where I am and finally let myself look, really look, at the man I slept with last night.
The stranger from the inn.
Rebel Ashford … owner of Wild Mercy.
My boss.
He is the first one to move, not much more than a shift of weight, his shoulders settling into a kind of stillness that feels worse than pacing would.
He glances once at the paperwork spread across the desk, then back at my face.
When he speaks, his voice is low and even, every rough edge filed off.
“What happened last night goes no further. Do you understand?”
That’s it. No acknowledgment that less than twelve hours ago he had me backed against a motel-room door with his hand at my waist and his mouth on mine like restraint was a private war he was losing. No sign at all that he remembers the heat of it. He says it like he is discussing feed inventory.
For a second I just stare at him. Then the humiliation hits, clean and hot.
Not because I expected tenderness. But I did expect some trace of the man from last night to still exist in daylight.
Instead he stands there in a dark button-down shirt and expensive watch and delivers the moment back to me as if it were a clerical error he intends to correct before lunch.
I lean back in the chair, slow enough to count as controlled even if I do grip the armrest harder than necessary. “Wow.”
His expression does not shift. “This is not negotiable.”
“Good,” I say. “I’d hate for us to accidentally schedule it between stall mucking and direct deposit forms.”
Something flickers in his face then.
“Montana.”
The way he says my name should not do anything to me. It doesn't help that he still sounds like last night under the coldness.
“What?” I ask. “You want me to make this easier for you?”
His jaw tightens once. There and gone. “This is your first day,” he says. “You need to understand the boundary now.”
That almost makes me laugh. Boundaries would have been useful twelve hours ago.
Boundaries would have been useful when he kissed me again after giving me one last chance to send him away.
What I get instead is a polished refusal delivered by a man who looks composed enough to make the whole thing feel one-sided.
I stand up because sitting suddenly feels too much like being managed from above. The chair legs scrape quietly across the floor. “That’s generous of you,” I say. “Really thoughtful. Sleep with me first, employ me second, and then circle back to clarify policy.”
His eyes lock on mine. “Lower your voice.”
I blink once. “Why? Worried somebody might hear about your boundary?”
That lands. Not because he flinches, but because for the first time since he walked into the room, his composure looks worked for.
Good. Let him work for it.
For one bright, reckless second, I am fully ready to quit.
Not gracefully. I want to throw the stupid payroll packet at his expensive chest, tell him exactly what he can do with his boundary, and walk straight out of this office before he gets one more chance to look at me like I am the only one in the room who should be embarrassed.
My body even starts to move that way. Then reality hits hard enough to stop me mid-breath.
Pretty much everything I own is here. My car is hanging together by spite, and my checking account is low enough that I counted change for gas two days ago.
If I walk out right now, I am not storming off in principle.
I am unemployed in the middle of nowhere with a dying car, one night of motel charges already on my card, and exactly zero backup plans that don’t involve crawling back into some version of the life I’ve spent the last year trying to outrun.
My fingers curl against the edge of the desk hard enough for the wood to press half ...
moons into my skin. I can feel him watching me.
Rather than look back, I focus on the ranch logo stamped across the top sheet in front of me and force myself to breathe like I’m not one bad sentence away from blowing up the only solid offer I’ve had in months.
When I finally speak, my voice is quieter, but it costs more than yelling would have. “You don’t have to worry,” I say. “I’m not under the impression that last night came with a future.”
Something unreadable passes across his face, too fast to name. Then it’s gone.
“That isn’t what I said.”
“No,” I reply. “What you said was colder.”
His mouth flattens, and that is the point where pride and survival stop working together. Pride says leave. Survival says pride does not pay for repairs or put a roof over your head tonight.
That thought settles it, not cleanly, but enough. I straighten the stack of forms in front of me with more force than necessary. “When do I start?”
For the first time since he stepped into the room, Rebel actually looks caught off guard.
Good. Let him be the one scrambling for the script now.
His surprise vanishes so quickly I almost think I imagined it. Then his face closes back down into that same maddening control, and he reaches for the folder at the edge of the desk like my decision to stay has changed nothing except putting the morning back on track.
“Now,” he says. Of course he does.
I grab my jacket off the back of the chair before he can decide to hold a door for me. He steps into the hallway first, and I follow because I have apparently committed to surviving this morning with at least a few shreds of dignity left.
Wild Mercy is even more polished in daylight than it looked online.
We step out of the office and into a main barn aisle with concrete floors clean enough to throw back the light in a dull sheen.
Red-painted walls run between black iron hardware that looks expensive in the quiet, intentional way rich things do when nobody is trying to impress you because they assume they already have.
Tack hooks line up evenly. Brass nameplates glow.
Even the air smells curated … fresh hay, leather, grain, and money.
I hate that I think that. But I do.
Because this place doesn't resemble any barn I've ever worked in. The places I know best are functional first. Working barns with mud on the floor, cracked buckets, and patched fencing. This feels like the luxury version of competence.
Rebel keeps walking, speaking over his shoulder in a tone that suggests he has given this tour before and expects to never need to repeat himself.
“Main office is behind us. Feed room is east side. Broodmares are in the south barn. Stallions are handled separately, and unless you’re told otherwise, you don’t enter those runs alone. ”
“Got it,” I say.
He gestures toward a cross-tie area with mounted cabinets and neatly labeled shelves. “Medical logs stay updated in real time, not at the end of the day. If something is off, it needs to be flagged immediately.”
We pass an open doorway that leads into a wash bay bigger than my last apartment kitchen. Stainless fixtures. Rubber pavers. Folded towels stacked on a shelf in matching dark green.
I can't help it. The laugh escapes before I decide whether to swallow it.
He stops. “What?”