Chapter 5
LENNON
Having nothing to do had the odd effect of making me want to do something. After making breakfast for two dozen ranch hands, the staff, and the guests, I’d headed back to my cabin for a little rest and relaxation.
Five minutes into my audiobook, I was itching for something to keep my hands busy.
I didn’t know how to do nothing. Even my vacations were work.
Benny’s rent-free apartment was the closest I ever came to a steady paycheck, and I never once forgot that.
When every cent you made was dependent on making people want to be around you, turning it off even for a moment meant eating nothing but cereal for a month. I was always on.
Hustling was second nature to me. I’d been doing it since Terri Allen had knocked on our door looking for a babysitter.
“Your mama home?” she’d asked, peering over my shoulder. I knew she saw Mom’s bare feet dangling over the couch armrest when her shoulders rolled forward. “She sleepin’?”
I nodded, and Terri’s face fell. Then she straightened, her expression canny as she sized up my nine-year-old self. “What are you up to this evening?”
“Making sure Mom doesn’t burn the house down,” I said honestly. Mom didn’t do drugs, but she drank, and she had a disconcerting habit of leaving things burning and then passing out. The stove, a cigarette, a candle. I’d learned to keep a full watering can under the sink for emergencies.
“She been sleepin’ long?” Terri asked.
“Only about ten minutes.”
Terri smoothed her hands over the white button-down and pleated black pants that the diner made her wear. “She’ll be down for a while. It wouldn’t be much trouble for you to watch them both, would it? I got an extra shift at the diner, and I can’t say no. You’re a good kid, Lennie. Mia loves you.”
I hesitated, glancing over my shoulder at Mom. “She’s grouchy when she wakes up hungry.”
“I’ll bring you dinner after my shift. Anything you want.”
“Ice cream?” I asked hopefully.
She laughed. “Ice cream would melt before I got it here, sugar. How about French fries and a burger? Some pie, too.” She tweaked my messy ponytail. “Cuz you’re so sweet.”
She needed me. It was a powerful feeling, one I didn’t want to let go of quite yet. “And five dollars.”
“Five dollars? That’s a lot of money.” She bit her lip like she was hiding a smile.
I took that as a challenge and folded my arms. “So don’t smoke for a day.”
She burst into a raspy laugh. “Damn, sugar. You got fire. You keep hold of that, you hear me? In this world, you’re gonna need it.”
She wasn’t wrong.
I popped out my earbuds and stretched. Maybe I’d go down to the animal barns and pet a horse or something. Mercy River Ranch had a lot of animals. There were the horses, of course, and chickens, goats, two pigs, and a llama. Supposedly there were cows, although I hadn’t seen a single one.
It was warm and sunny as I ambled down the dry, brown path that led to the barns.
The daily temperature fluctuation definitely took some getting used to.
Frigid mornings, hot afternoons, and in the distant mountains, I could see blinding white patches of snow.
It took my breath away. Sure, New York had trees and grass, and Central Park.
But there, nature was polite, like it had been wrangled into submission. Trees grew only where allowed.
Nature was so present here. So wild.
And also kind of a bitch, because it stabbed me in the toes.
I winced and pulled the twig out from where it had lodged in my shoe.
Sandals were probably a mistake on a ranch, but the only other shoes I’d brought with me were a pair of three-inch heels and two-hundred-dollar designer sneakers that I couldn’t afford to replace right now.
The sandals had cost me twenty bucks at Target, so sandals it was.
Even with its wide entryways allowing sunlight to spill inside, the stable was darker than the day, and I had to blink a few times for my eyes to adjust to the sudden dim.
“You all right, ma’am?” a concerned male voice asked.
I blinked again. A ranch hand stepped out of a shadowed stall, pitchfork in hand.
The same one whose gaze had lingered a little too long outside the lodge on my first day here.
Logically, I knew he hadn’t recognized me.
Cam girls were a dime a dozen, so even if he spent time on that part of the internet, it was highly unlikely that my naked cooking and floral arrangements were his particular kink.
But I still didn’t like the way he stared. Not then, and not now.
So I gave him my brightest smile, like he didn’t bother me in the slightest. “I’m fine, thank you. Just wanted to say hello to the horses.” I glanced around at the empty stalls. “Apparently, I came at the wrong time.”
“The horses spend most of the daylight hours working, either ranch work or trail rides for the guests. If they’re not working, they’re in the pastures. We don’t keep them inside when the weather is nice.” He moved closer. “I’m Brian Carpenter.”
“Lennon Graves. Nice to meet you.” I pivoted away from him on the pretense of investigating a stall. I peered over the chest-high door.
“I know who you are.”
He stepped closer, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I could feel his body heat invading my space. Ugh. I knew his type, and I hated it. Harmless when it came right down to it, but they got off on giving women the impression that they weren’t. Scaring women made them feel powerful.
I gripped the stall door like I was wringing his neck, but I glanced over my shoulder at him with a smile still firmly in place. His gaze was glued to my ass. He didn’t even try to hide it. Just slowly dragged his gaze upward to meet my eyes. My skin crawled.
I wouldn’t give him what he wanted. I wouldn’t show fear.
But I wasn’t going to poke at him either. So much of staying safe came down to one simple, infuriating rule: Don’t antagonize them.
And right now, I was a little scared. This man, knowing who I was?
Knowing why I was here? I shuddered to think how he would wield that power.
How he would twist and abuse it to make me do things I didn’t want to do.
I could leave if I absolutely had to, but Hector had paid for my stay here.
Finding new living arrangements would eat into my savings, and if things went south with Benny, I was going to need those savings to restart my life.
So I let my smile ride the line between curious and flirtatious as I said, “Oh? Have we met?”
He smirked. “Nah. Not officially.” He paused just long enough to make me wonder, and then added, “We don’t get a lot of women staying here, for whatever reason.
Maybe the work doesn’t affect them in the same way.
Maybe the really hard shit, the stuff that leaves scars, a man does it for them. Equality, am I right?”
What work? What the hell was he going on about?
I’d kept mostly to myself and the kitchen since my arrival and hadn’t seen more than a glimpse of the other guests.
But from the ranch’s website, I would have thought that women were their target market.
I masked my confusion behind my smile. My cheeks were starting to hurt.
“You’re right,” I placated. I’d gotten good at that. I hardly even tasted the vomit anymore.
He grinned like he had won something. “If you’re looking for a chore to pitch in on, I wouldn’t mind the company.”
Apparently, part of the allure of staying at a dude ranch was learning how to be a real cowboy. I got the appeal…sort of…but I wasn’t spending a second more with this douche canoe than I had to. I held out a sandaled foot. “I’ll have to pass, I’m afraid. Wrong footwear for the job.”
He looked down at my feet and chuckled. “Next time, then. Come find me when you’re ready to be a real cowgirl. I’ll show you how to save a horse.” He winked and tapped the brim of his hat.
Gross.
“Sure thing,” I lied brightly, like I was just a dumb city girl who had never heard the phrase Save a horse, ride a cowboy.
I let my smile fade as he walked past me down the main drag, still squeezing the stall door to ease my frustration.
Nothing he had said was overtly sexual or threatening.
If I complained, they’d tell me I was overreacting or being too sensitive.
But his body language and the look in his eye…
He’d wanted to make me uncomfortable. And he’d succeeded.
His footsteps faded. He was almost gone—
“Hey, Jay.”
“Brian.”
I whipped around and my gaze collided with Jeremiah’s.
How long had he been standing there? He faced me close enough to have heard every word, his blue-gray eyes stormier than ever as he studied me, one large hand on Brian’s chest to waylay him as they stood shoulder to shoulder.
Then all I saw was his profile as he turned his face to Brian, lips moving.
Whatever he said was too low for me to hear, but Brian’s spine snapped straight and his head jerked.
Jeremiah’s fingers curled over his shoulder, and he gave him a little shake. Brian nodded.
I didn’t bother to pretend I wasn’t invested in the little drama as they parted.
Brian disappeared into the sunshine without looking back.
Jeremiah paused, hands on hips, like he was thinking about following him, but then shook his head and looked at me.
We kept our eyes on each other as he approached.
“Anything you want to say?” he asked.
“Nope,” I said, popping the p.
His lips parted like he was going to argue, but then he shook his head again. “If you change your mind—”
“It’s fine. Nothing happened that I can’t handle.”
One hand went to his belt, the other hooked onto the back of his neck. He frowned down at me. “You shouldn’t have to.”
“There are a lot of shouldn’ts in this world, Jeremiah.
People shouldn’t have to go hungry or homeless.
People shouldn’t have kids they can’t love or care for.
People shouldn’t steal or murder.” He made a scoffing sound and looked away.
“Honestly, shouldn’t is boring. So unless you have a solution for all those shouldn’ts, I’m going to focus on can.
I can refuse to let the big cowboy with the small mind live rent-free in my brain.
I can let the little things go. Or I can make him an extra-special batch of laxative cookies.
” I shrugged. “There are so many options here.”
The shock on his face. “No. You can’t.”
I laughed. “I think you mean I shouldn’t because I assure you, I absolutely can. Shouldn’t is not can’t. Life is a lot more fun when you don’t confuse the two.”
“Giving a man the shits is not my idea of fun.” Arms crossed, he glowered down at me with stern disapproval.
I held up my hands. “What can I say? Twenty-nine years of sharing a planet with your species has broadened my horizons. Laxative cookies are absolutely my idea of fun. I mean, just imagine it.”
His gaze went sideways and his chin tipped. He scrubbed a hand over his mouth, but not before I saw his lips twitch. Oh, he was imagining it, all right.
“Lennon.” He speared his fingers through his hair and tugged. I’d only been here two days, but I seemed to have that effect on him a lot. “I don’t want to have to ban you from the kitchen. Can I trust you to behave?”
“Oh, absolutely not,” I said cheerfully.
He studied me, then shook his head. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I guess I knew that.”
I smirked. Of course I wasn’t going to poison Brian.
Why did it feel so good to push Jeremiah’s buttons?
Maybe the jet lag had throttled my filter.
I had a talent for making people like me—men and women—but Jeremiah wasn’t paying me for my time.
I could say whatever I wanted. I could be whoever I wanted. He could fuck off if he didn’t like it.
But he didn’t fuck off.
And I suspected that meant maybe he did like it. That he liked me, against his better judgment. Because he sure as hell didn’t trust me.
That didn’t bother me, either.
Trust was overrated. The only person who would never let you down was yourself.