Chapter 5 #4
“Yeah. Well, not really a city girl. I’m not sure that I’m a country girl either, but I’m used to both. And other things in between. Obviously, being in tourism, I’ve been in places that balloon in certain times of the year.”
“We have a big summer crowd, and winter. It’s freezing in the winter, but there are so many outdoor sports. That’s the big draw,” he said.
“Unsurprising.”
“There’s getting to be a lot in the way of wine. It’s just turning into one of those places that is a magnet for all kinds of people, and that changes the surroundings. It was boring when I was a kid. Pretty, sure, but boring.”
She laughed. “I bet.”
“The population has more than tripled. It’s become a popular place for people looking to make a new life. It’s not too far from Portland, and it’s a lot smaller than Bend.”
“Where is that?”
“About an hour south. It’s gotten to be like… a hundred thousand people that live there. It’s busy. Talk about growth explosion. Fun, and tons of stuff to do. Close to skiing, but busy. So, if you want a little bit of a slower pace, this is the place. But you still have to match the energy.”
“It has to be bougie?”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
She would have been amused to hear him say that word. But of course, he didn’t.
She smiled, just to herself.
“This belonged to your dad, and it was a cattle ranch then, too?”
“Yes. Though he didn’t have very ethical ranching practices. Maximum profit, not maximum health for the animals, or their meat. That never sat right with me.”
“So… You lived in the same town with your dad, but you didn’t know him, and he had this giant ranch and…”
“Yeah. He didn’t have much to do with us. He would send my mom money on occasion.”
“Why didn’t she take him to court?”
“Because. She loved him.” He said the word like it tasted bad.
“Oh.”
“She always thought that if she played by his rules, if she did exactly what he wanted her to do, eventually, he would want to be with her. But of course, he didn’t.
Because there was no way for her to play by the rules.
There was nothing. Nothing that she could do.
Because he didn’t actually want her. What he liked was having her on the hook.
A woman who was desperate for his attention. But he didn’t care about us at all.”
“But he left the ranch to you,” she said.
“I’ll never really understand that one.” He paused. Like, there was something else he wanted to say, but also didn’t want to say. “He asked to see me. Before he died. Said that he had no real heirs. But he wanted the legacy to live on. He wanted the ranch to live on in his name.”
“And you changed it.”
“I changed it. Because fuck him. Honestly.”
“Well. Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “I knew my dad. But I don’t know if I was any better off for it. Deadbeats can live in the same house as you.”
“I’m sure of it,” he said. He said heavily. “Don’t think that my mom didn’t love us. She did.”
“When did you lose her?”
“Before Dad, which honestly makes me so angry. I would’ve loved to have known her when she wasn’t holding out hope for him.
But she was. All the way until the end. On dialysis and still thinking that he was going to come for her someday.
And no matter that I was the one who was there with her, I wasn’t him. I…”
He stopped talking, as if he realized that he had just said way too much.
Revealed a bit too much of himself, but she understood.
And she felt… empathy. Her own parents had just been neglectful.
Her mom had left eventually, and her dad had had a steady stream of different girlfriends.
He was interested in that, not in her. But she wasn’t like Cody.
She hadn’t been there for her dad. She hadn’t taken care of him when he had liver failure because he’d spent too many years drinking all his feelings away.
She had left. Because she had needed to make her own life, had been desperate for it.
She’d left home at eighteen, and she hadn’t looked back.
She had adopted Aiden’s family as her own.
And had let hers fall by the wayside.
But she could easily imagine Cody, intense and so bound and determined to do the right thing, being there for his mother, endlessly, but not being the one that she wanted by her side.
No wonder he was guarded.
No wonder he didn’t want anyone to see the deepest parts of him.
A red barn came into view as they crested the small hill and then began to walk back down toward it. “This is as rural as it gets,” she said, ready to lighten the conversation.
“Yeah. Sure is.”
“The truck is just around this way.”
“You know, I realize that my survival instincts are pretty poor,” she said. “I really don’t know you, and here I am, walking off with you.”
“I am your boss.”
The reminder was a good one. Because she had almost been flirting.
Had she ever flirted in her life? She wasn’t actually sure.
She had met Aiden when she was so young that all it had taken was for a mutual crush to create a relationship, and she certainly hadn’t flirted with anyone since then.
But that was what that was. She needed to stop.
“Yes,” she said. “You are. And therefore trustworthy.”
He arched a brow, turning to look at her, his expression filled with skepticism. “I wouldn’t go that far. But I’m not going to murder you in the wilderness.”
“Good to know.”
They walked around the back of the barn, toward the left side, and there was a light blue truck with a chrome stripe from the hood all the way down to the taillights. It was definitely older than Lila. It was probably older than Cody.
“Wow,” she said. “This is a classic.”
“That’s a fancy way to call it a beater.”
“I’ve never had a truck before. I don’t actually think I’ve ever driven one.”
“Really?”
“No. My first car was tiny. I used to zip around on the two-lane roads in Vermont like a menace.”
“I can see you being a speedy menace. You might have trouble getting over thirty in this thing.”
“I’m not going to buzz around the ranch at top speed. Especially not when there are guests.”
“I’d better open it up and make sure there are no rodents inside.”
She stopped walking, and he kept going. He opened up the driver’s side door and opened up the glove box. “No mice in there.” He reached inside and pulled out a set of keys. She was still keeping her distance.
“What are the chances there are mice in there?”
“The chances are low, but never zero. This is a ranch. That means it’s a rodent haven. We’ve got mice, we’ve got rats, we’ve got voles.”
“Voles?”
“Yeah. They’re like mice, shaped a little bit different. Shorter tails.”
“I know what a vole is,” she said. Though had she been pressed on the difference between a mouse and a vole, she wouldn’t have been able to give a comprehensive statement on it. She wasn’t a huge fan of small mammals. She didn’t like their little claws.
“Well…” He moved back, gripped the frame of the truck, and began to shake it back and forth. “Nothing came skittering out.”
“Well, I guess that’s good,” she said.
She moved closer to him, closer to the truck, that was. And then he turned toward her, holding out the keys. This was the second time in as many days that she had taken a set of keys from him. And she could remember that last time their fingers had touched, and it had nearly set her on fire.
She gripped the end of the keys, but he didn’t let go. She pulled, and he held them fast. “Let me know if it doesn’t seem like it’s safe. I’m not going to have you driving it if it has issues. We’ll find another vehicle. If it comes down to it.”
“Thank you,” she said, and he finally released the key. She moved to peer inside the truck and didn’t realize how close that brought her to him. They were both sort of wedged in the opening between the cab and the door, and it was a lot more intimate than she had expected.
He looked down at her, and she saw something flare in his eyes. His eyes were beautiful. They were a gray sort of blue that contrasted nicely with his hair. She wanted to touch his hair. And his beard.
That beard again.
Oh no. Her heart was beating fast, and she couldn’t move. She was crushingly aware of her mouth.
And very aware of his.
Also, of the fact that his breathing mirrored her own. Fast, a little bit too shallow.
She wanted to touch him. She wanted to throw everything away. To detangle from these desperate roots, she was trying to put down and be wild for once. Free.
With the coldest, most stoic man she’d ever met. She really knew how to do wild.
But maybe that was why it was just so tempting…
“I’m your boss,” he said, taking a step away from her.
I’m your boss.
Therefore trustworthy? Or inappropriate?
It wasn’t in her head, though, that was for sure.
“Oh. I…”
“Just…” He rubbed the back of his neck, and he looked momentarily unsure of what to do. She imagined that wasn’t normal for Cody. “So, if you need a truck, I’m going to make sure you have one. I’m going to make sure that you’re taken care of. That’s what I mean.”
It wasn’t what he meant. He had been talking to her, but he had been talking to himself also.
Oh God, what a nightmare. That wasn’t in her head. That had happened. That had been a real moment of very intense sexual tension, and it had been shared.
“I’m glad I’m here,” she said. “I almost didn’t come. Because… Of everything.”
“I only wish he had done it here so I could kick his ass,” Cody said. “Also, I’m not cutting your pay.”
He started to walk away from her. “Oh…”
“I told you. I’m going to make sure that you’re taken care of.”
She stood there by the old truck, watching Cody’s retreating figure. He was her boss.
He was her boss.
And she found that she believed him when he said that he was going to make sure she was taken care of.
She was doing it. That thing where she tried to find security by wrapping as many things up in one aspect of her life as possible.
But if anything had given her an incentive to avoid being in a situation like this with him again, it was that.
Because without this job, she didn’t have anything.
And with it… She was beginning to think that she might have quite a lot. She couldn’t mess it up.