Chapter Four #3
ball-busting bitch.”
“I never used that word,” Garrett said quietly. “I wouldn’t
call you that. We’ve got a lot to get through. I’ll stay at the motel and Keane
can have a place in the bunkhouse if I can’t stay there. He needs to be close.
Aren’t there some heifers calving soon?”
“According to the meticulous notes Grim left, yes. So I do
need to be close.” Keane watched her. If she didn’t toss them out, they might
have a chance. Might.
She shrugged as the flight attendant returned and handed her
a crystal tumbler with some amber liquid in it. Sherri passed Garrett its twin
and handed Keane a beer. “You can stay in the bunkhouse if you like. I think
there are a few beds open right now. Look, let’s get through this as quickly as
possible so we can be done with each other.”
“Or we could apologize and start over,” Garrett offered.
That wasn’t the way Keane would go. She needed time to
settle her head around the fact that her one-night stand had turned into weeks
together. “If you finish up with Garrett early, he knows how to work a ranch.”
Garrett sat back, obviously defeated. “I do.”
“We’re going to take off,” Sherri announced. “Once we’re in
the air, I’ll bring out some snacks.”
Olivia nodded her way. “Thank you.” She turned her attention
back to them. “We’ll get through it and go our separate ways.”
Keane sat back as the plane began to roll. He took a long
drink of that beer. He was going to need it.
* * * *
Garrett sipped the excellent Scotch and looked at the
woman he had insulted in a pretty fucking vile way.
Olivia Barnes-Fleetwood had a laptop open and was scrolling
through something. Maybe social media. He could see the post now.
Olivia Barnes-Fleetwood is…suffering through a flight
with her much regretted one-night stands.
He had to find a way to fix this. Keane would be no help. He
was just trying to survive the damn flight. His best friend wasn’t made for
flight. He liked his boots planted firmly on the ground. He knew Keane would
have rather rented a car and made their own way.
The cold front Olivia was putting up was making him a little
crazy. He would rather have her argue with them.
“I thought your parents were flying back with us,” he said.
Olivia’s eyes came up. “They are going to spend some time at
The Club. They’re trying to avoid the contractors and the dust.”
“But then who deals with…” He almost had the whole sentence
out when he realized he was fucking up again. “Sorry. They left you to deal
with them.”
She shrugged. “That’s what happens when you are known for
making grown men cry. Don’t worry. They won’t stay gone long. You’ll get the
chance to kiss my dad’s ass.”
“That was rude.”
She shrugged again. It seemed to be her go-to move when it
came to him. “I tend to give back the same energy I get, Counselor.”
He needed to show her he could be professional. “Why don’t
we talk about what we’re going to work on while we’re at the ranch? What are
your expectations? I would like to look through some of the standard contracts.
I know they were written by Finn Taylor, but even he thinks we need to discuss
updating them.”
“And my Uncle Lucas,” she corrected.
Yeah, he had questions. “So Aidan is your brother-in-law,
but you call Lucas your uncle?”
The smile on her face was more like a smirk. He missed the
open smile she’d given him the night before, but he understood the need to
build walls. “Lucas is my dad’s brother. He married my mom’s daughter, who is
also my dad’s stepdaughter. It’s a winding tree.”
Keane sat up straighter. “What? Your uncle married your
sister?”
“Lucas is actually my dad’s half-brother. Lexi is my
half-sister. There’s zero blood between Lucas and Lexi. They didn’t grow up
together. Lucas grew up in a wealthy political family and Lexi grew up with a
nice stepdad, since her father died before she was born and his family ran my
mother out of town. Fun times, but no real DNA problems.”
Keane went a bit green. “Uh, is there a bathroom on this
plane?”
Olivia’s eyes showed a hint of concern, and she pointed to
the back. “It’s there on the right-hand side. You can’t miss it. Can I get
something for you?”
Keane ran for the bathroom.
“He’s not used to flying.” Garrett took another sip and then
decided to be bold. The plane was laid out like a living room with two spaces.
Olivia was sitting on one of the larger seats. It looked built for two. So he
picked up his drink and moved to her side. “He’ll be okay. He doesn’t have much
to get rid of. We planned to order this insanely huge breakfast but then you were
gone and neither of us felt much like eating. Which for me is good because this
Scotch is hitting hard.”
A brow rose over her gorgeous eyes. “Good for you. Why do
you think I fucked up the Gladen Farms account? Because I know he’s not
following the collective’s protocols. Not in any way. I took pictures.”
“Which he will claim are doctored.” At least they were
talking.
“I can hire someone to prove they’re not,” she returned. “We
have an investigative firm on retainer. Ruby is one of the best hackers working.
She can prove it.”
“But that will take time and money—the two things your
fathers hired me to take care of. If you had waited and talked to legal, we
would have told you to let us send someone in. We could have built a case over
the course of a few months. Maybe less since it seems he was bad at hiding it.
We could have collected statements and evidence that would make severing ties
to Gladen easy. We could have avoided the lawsuit he has to file now or he not
only loses his reputation, but a lot of money.”
She went quiet for a moment and then let her head fall back
on a groan. “I lost my temper. He was an asshole.”
“He is always an asshole.” He’d only met Gladen a few times,
but he knew the type. And now that he knew how incredibly glorious Olivia
Barnes-Fleetwood was, he worried why she lost her temper. “Did he try something
with you?”
“He always tries something. This time he was more
aggressive.” Her head came back up, and there was a weariness there that made
him want to pull her into his arms. “I was angry and that was when I found the
proof that he was forging his records and not using the organic methods we
require. I only recently found out he’s been bribing USDA inspectors.”
“Why didn’t you tell your fathers?”
“Would you run to mommy or deal with the situation
yourself?”
“If my mother were alive and had any power at all, I would
totally run to her. And ask her to bake me cookies. That’s what I miss. I mean
obviously her love, but the lack of baked goods was depressing. No one thinks
to bake for the foster kids.”
“I would tell you that making me feel sorry for you doesn’t
work.” She frowned. “But it kind of does. I wasn’t laughing at how you grew up.
I was laughing at the irony. The full circle-ness of it all. I’m here today
alive and screwing shit up because two kids met in foster care and became
halves of a whole and then found my mom.”
“A gorgeous redhead.” He now could see the resemblance
between her and Abby Barnes-Fleetwood. Lexi was a lovely woman, but she must
have taken after her father. Olivia was all her momma.
Her smile turned real. “She likes to think so.”
“Olivia, I was frustrated. I was nervous about meeting you.
I was upset that Red left. I shouldn’t have said what I said.”
“Do you honestly believe I’ve never heard those words
before? I’m a woman who works in a clearly male-dominated field. I’ve heard it
all. The reason I don’t run to Daddy when I have problems is because the minute
I do I look weak, and weakness isn’t allowed for a woman. Believe me, sometimes
I wish I had Lexi’s talent. Almost everyone in her world is a woman. Oh, she’ll
tell you there are some men in publishing, but for the most part it sounds like
heaven.”
“If I had thought about it for two seconds, I would have
known why you have to be so aggressive.”
“Would you call it aggression if I was a man? Or would you
use the word assertive?”
He kept stepping into it. “Assertive. I’m sorry.”
“Most men would. Hell, most women would, too.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“No, it doesn’t. The good news is most of the ranches we
work with are great. Obviously, we don’t have any trouble with O’Malley Ranch
or the G in Colorado. Except the McNamara boys hit on me. They hit on anything
with breasts, so I don’t take it personally. But some of the new ranches are
problems. Sadly, it’s mostly ranches I brought in. I think they thought I would
be easy to manipulate. I prove them wrong.”
He bet she did. “This is why I want to look at our
contracts. There might be ways to set on paper how we expect our partners to
act.”
She waved him off. “Some of these ranches are run by
old-school men. I don’t think it will work, but I’m willing to discuss it. I
can handle most of them. And I am sorry about the Gladen account. I didn’t deal
with it the way I should have. I think my brothers getting married and settling
down has made me think too much.”
“About getting older? Yeah, I think about that a lot, too. I
think about what kind of future I can have when I come with a best friend.”
There was the faint smile she seemed to get when she found
something amusing. “You need to find the right woman. Stick around this company
and you probably will. Or I can take you to Bliss and introduce you around.
It’s a whole town of threesomes. Happy threesomes. I thought I found my
threesome there when I was eight.”
“You did? You found a couple of brothers?”
“Twins. You met one of them last night.”
“Bobby.” It hit him. Bobby had been clear about his
sexuality. Not in an overwhelming way. Just statements that were truth. “Uhm,
he doesn’t seem to…”
“Like girls. Women.” She chuckled. “No, he doesn’t. But his
parents are very religious and protective, in a weird way, so he’s trying to
ease them in. The whole leaving his small town for college nearly wrecked
them.”
“Is his brother gay, too?”
“Will? No. Will is getting married in a couple of months.
Nice woman. The truth is Will and I got along fine, but I loved…love Bobby. It