Chapter Three
Mary couldn’t help but glance at the man out of the corner of her eye, having done so discretely multiple times since she’d picked him up from the train station.
Mr. William Ryder was handsome, she would give him that.
Tall and broad-shouldered with brown hair and even browner eyes, Mary’s friends growing up would have undoubtedly swooned over a man like him.
They would have noted the dimple on his left cheek and the cock of his smile, as well as the way he’d tilted his head ever so slightly when he first greeted her.
But Mary?
Mary looked at him like she did her workers.
She had to, considering the amount of work he would be taking on, if he was going to handle the day-to-day operations of the farm in her place.
Deep bags hung under his eyes, and there was a waxy paleness to his skin—neither of those boded well, nor did the cleanness of his nails or the straightness of his back as he rode beside her on the seat of her wagon.
It was no more than a mile before Mary kicked up the courage to ask him about it, the fear of having taken in an incapable man summoning one of them spells to the back of her head again.
“You sure you’re up to working on a ranch?
” Mary asked, careful not to say running the ranch.
She’d had enough experience with men over the past two years to know that when you gave them an inch, they took a mile.
The man squinted over at her. “Why do you ask that?” he said with a hint of confusion. Mary could have presented a long list of reasons, most of them relating to his posture and that sickly gleam he seemed to have, but she didn’t.
Couldn’t risk it, truthfully. Not when the only other contenders she’d heard from were an assortment of men who could hardly string a sentence together. Still.
“You look like you have soft hands,” Mary said, parroting what her father used to say when the odd desperate man came in looking for work.
The man beside her laughed, pointedly puffing out his chest. She felt his eyes on her as he let out a small, incredulous breath, almost like he couldn’t believe that Mary would have the guts to say it.
“I’ll surprise you,” he finally said after an extended pause.
“I hope you do,” Mary said, flicking the reins. She couldn’t afford him not to.