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“Truth be told, I could use a little help around here. That previous boy didn’t last longer than a frog in heat; didn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground and I ended up doing most of the work myself.” She lifted the last dish from the oven and turned to place it on the stove. “I told you that boy was more trouble then he was worth. Don’t know why you didn’t hire that nice young woman from town like I told you to in the first place,” she finished, staring a hole in Nate.
He felt all of ten years old, fighting the urge to duck his head in shame at the silent reprimand.
Lilly was going to have knee surgery in a few months, and with the date soon to arrive and lots of work to do, Nate had hired the young man to help with household chores, refusing to entertain the idea of hiring one of the local women from town at Lilly’s suggestion.
He’d made no apologies for his “no woman hired” policy on the ranch, something everyone, including Lilly, had simply accepted as fact.
But now, with Lilly’s silent reprimand, and the fact that he’d probably made an ass of himself not only to the woman, but to his brothers about her being there, he knew he’d overreacted.
“You’d do well to give this one a chance, Nate. She actually looks like she understands the value of hard work. And sacrifice,” she said, and after one more considering look added, “something you and your brothers know too well. Think about it before you throw her away.” With that she turned and gathered the food, Shilah and Holt helping her, leaving Nate feeling like an idiot.
Now, as he drove into town, the entire situation was giving him a migraine he could damn well do without.
He floored the accelerator on his truck just as he was passing a cop, cursing when, after a glance in his rearview mirror, he caught sight of the cop peeling out from the side of the road and the accompanying flash of red lights.
Chapter 5
When Althea’s radio alarm blared to life she woke up with a start, her heart thumping against her rib cage as the lyrics to the old Clash song “Should I Stay or Should I Go” blared loudly from the small speakers.
With a groan she slapped a hand over the knob, beating the alarm into silent submission.
“Should I stay or should I go?” She asked the question out loud, thinking how appropriate the lyrics to the song were in her current situation.
The light peeking through the wide slatted blinds cast a beautiful amber glow over the room.
Although she’d awakened to the sun rising often over the last two years, this one was different. It was as though it was embracing her, filling her with a “newness” that she hadn’t felt in a long time.
She shook her head at her flight of fancy, but the smile on her face lingered as she stretched her back. For once it didn’t scream at her in pain. The muscles weren’t tensed up as they usually were from a night spent on a bed that was either thin as paper or so lumpy it felt as though she’d slept on a bed of rocks all night.
Raising her arms above her head, she released a long, satisfying breath.
The bed she’d been sleeping on for the past week was queen-size with a thick, plush mattress, pulling a deep sigh of bliss from her lips.
She’d almost forgotten what it felt like to live decently.
No loud neighbors wakened her, either from cries of passion heard through the thin walls or screams and fighting, either. Nothing stopped her from getting a full eight hours of sleep. Not even her own mind.
After a week of this type of living, she knew she could get used to it.
The thought brought her eyes wide open and caused the smile to slip from her face. That kind of thinking was what she had to avoid.
Getting too comfortable in one place was something she couldn’t afford to do. With a sigh, she placed her hands on the side of her and pushed herself into an upright position.
She’d used the alarm to wake her, realizing after the first three nights the ease with which she’d slept, surprised when her personal inner alarm allowed her to sleep past dawn, was both surprising and disturbing.
Her glance slid over the room.
She spied her baseball bat across the room, propped up against the wall. She’d even forgotten to place it near her as she’d gone to sleep last night.
She flipped her feet over the side of the bed and rose. “Girl, you’re getting soft,” she murmured aloud to herself.
Althea headed toward the small, brightly lit kitchen to make tea, her bare feet sinking into the thick carpet, her mind on the changes in her life over the short time she’d lived at the ranch.
She’d been relieved when, after hiring her, the brothers had informed her she’d be staying in the guest cottage. It was close enough that the walk to the main house was only ten minutes but far enough way that she had a semblance of privacy.
It was an eclectic yet beautiful blending of rustic and contemporary design. Although no larger than fifteen hundred square feet, the open floor plan maximized the space, making full use of the living area and giving the cottage a larger feel.
The bedroom was sectioned off by five large floor-to-ceiling wood posts, and in the center of the room the queen sleigh-style bed was the focal point, its rich deep mahogany wood and scrolled etching unlike anything Althea had seen before.
In one corner was a stone-covered fireplace, similar to the one in the living area although slightly smaller, flanked by an antique-looking cheval mirror and Victorian-era chair that completed the furnishings.
There was a distinctly feminine touch to the room, making Althea wonder if a woman had had something to do with the decorating. Immediately she discounted the thought. With the way Nate Wilde had reacted to her, she doubted any woman, save Lilly, ever set foot in the cottage. At least not if he had anything to say about it.
The man obviously had issues.
As she walked through the cottage on her way to the kitchen, she glanced around the main living area. Although more rustic…masculine, in design, it too had a hint of softness, with its oversize furniture and ornately carved tables. As in the bedroom, there was a stone-covered fireplace, with a large, plush chocolate-brown rug set in front of it.
Althea paused, then walked over to the fireplace. Hunching down, she ran her hand over the soft pile, her fingers sinking deep into the fibers.
Out of nowhere came the image of her and Nathan Wilde sitting in front of the fireplace, drinking a glass of wine together, their bodies pressed close, their attention only on one another.
As soon as it did, she ridiculed herself for the fanciful image.
Nate Wilde had made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that he wanted nothing to do with her and if he had his way she’d be packed up and off the ranch, the sooner the better.
Not that she wanted him, even if he were so inclined.
She didn’t know one thing about the man. Had only met him once.
What she did know was that he was arrogant and condescending. She also knew he had a chip on his shoulder about women that even a blind man could see.
And he was so different from the type of man she normally was attracted to it was ludicrous to even think of the two of them sharing a glass of wine, or anything else for that matter.
With an almost cruel clarity her body mocked her, her nipples tensing as thoughts of him barged their way into her mind. Forcing her to remember the way his aftershave, mixed with his body’s natural scent, had blown across her senses, making her catch her breath when he’d stepped close to her inside the stall.
Or the look in his eyes when she’d issued the challenge to him. A look that said more than his words, one he probably wasn’t aware of himself. One every woman knew the meaning of when it crossed a man’s face.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath.
Rising, she walked toward the kitchen, poured water in the kettle and set it on the stove while she stood staring out of the small window. She didn’t know how long she stared outside, but the sound of the kettle whistling jarred her out of her thoughts. She poured the water into a mug, sunk a tea bag inside and sat down in one of the chairs at the dinette table.
Should she stay or should she go.
The lyrics of the song played around in her mind.
From the corner of her eye, she spied a penny lying on the carpet and rose slowly, walking over to it, a thoughtful frown on her face.
She lifted the coin from the carpet, fingering it.
“Heads I stay, tails I go. Seems a good enough way to decide as any,” she said, laughing humorlessly.
Closing her eyes, she flipped the coin in the air, willing to allow fate to make the decision for her.
In what seemed to be slow motion she watched it spin in the air before it landed, soundlessly, on the thick carpet at her feet. She waited a full minute before glancing at it.
Heads.
She lifted the coin, palmed it in the center of her hand.
“Two out of three,” she murmured.
Two more times the coin came up heads.
She sat back on her haunches, this time her laughter more relaxed. She shook her head. Not only because she was allowing a coin toss to decide her fate, but the fact that fate was seriously conspiring against her.
She took a deep breath, blew it out slowly and pulled herself together.
Despite everything that had happened to her over the past two years, she wasn’t a quitter. She was tired of running. Damn tired. And this seemed to be the perfect place, if only for a short while, to take a break from running. Do some thinking about her life, figure out how to untangle the mess it had become.
And if Nate Wilde had a problem with that…well, she had tackled bigger obstacles in her life. He wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle.
After breakfast, Althea took a leisurely shower, smiling in bliss when she squirted the foamy, deeply scented bath gel onto her sponge, the rich, decadent lather smooth and silky against her skin.
Much like the rest of the cottage, the bathroom was fully stocked with everything from designer shampoos to the shower gel that felt like silk against her skin.
After indulging for longer than she should have in the shower, she quickly dried off, hurrying through the rest of her morning routine. When it came time to get dressed, she paused as she rifled through her meager possessions.
“Jeans, or jeans…or then again, there’s jeans. Hmmm…what’ll it be?” She tilted her head as though seriously considering her options. “Jeans it is,” she said aloud, a reluctant laugh tumbling from her lips.
After lifting out the jeans, her hand brushed against her rare concession to feminine sensibility, one of only a few things she’d brought with her, nestled at the back of her drawer.
The proverbial little black dress.
She remembered the last time she’d worn it, at a black tie event with her father, the last one they’d been to together before he died. The smile drifted away from her face as she spied the small, framed photo of them she kept in the drawer. She lifted it and ran her thumb over his face.
“You look so handsome, Daddy,” she whispered.
It was the last photo she had of herself and her father together. That night had been the last night she’d seen her father alive.
She closed her eyes briefly and placed the photograph back where she kept it.
Thinking of the man who’d stolen her life, her world made her clench her jaw tight and battle against tears that were never too far away, threatening to consume her if she allowed them to.
But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
Angrily Althea swiped the back of her hand across her eyes.
Tears weren’t going to help her current situation, no more so than they could bring back her father. It was what it was, as that cliché saying went. But damn if it wasn’t a hard, bitter pill to swallow.
She carefully refolded the dress and placed it at the back of the drawer, along with the photograph.
She quickly dressed, choosing her standard jeans, thermal undershirt and sweater, stuffed her feet inside her worn tennis shoes before grabbing her parka and heading out the door, putting her emotional armor in place, ready to face whatever the day…or Nate Wilde…dealt her.
Chapter 6
“Looks like Althea’s working out pretty good. Don’t you think?”
Nate threw his hat down on the sofa and strode toward the kitchen. Ignoring his brother, he opened the refrigerator and pulled out a Heineken. Turning, he offered the bottle up in the air, silently asking Holt if he wanted one.
“Thanks,” he said, and caught the bottle as Nate tossed it his way, humor lurking in his blue eyes when he narrowly missed the bottle making a direct hit to his head.
Nate popped open the bottle top and raised it to his lips, ready to feel the cool amber liquid slide down his throat.
“Well?”
“Well, what?” he asked, eyeing his brother over the bottle.
“Can’t you own up to the fact that you were wrong?”
Again, Nate ignored his brother. They’d agreed, by silent consent, to let the matter drop about Althea’s working at the ranch. But that didn’t mean he liked the idea now, any more than he had a week ago when he’d found her in his stable.
He’d just made damn sure she was nowhere near him at any given time.
“What’s the real problem? And don’t give me that bullshit that she’s not pulling her weight…that horse won’t fly.”
Nate barely checked his anger. The less he showed Holt how much the woman in question was affecting him, the easier it would be to ignore the need to knock the Cheshire grin off his brother’s face.
Only when he finished off the bottle did he answer, making sure he kept his face carefully neutral. “Wouldn’t know. Haven’t been paying attention.”
The comment elicited a laugh from Holt. “Keep telling yourself that. Maybe you’ll start to believe it,” he said.
“From what the foreman says, she’s been following him around. Hardly seems like she’s earning the money you and Shilah decided to advance her.”
“She’s learning the job. Just like all the others who first come. And she’s working hard, Nate. Damn hard,” Holt said, his normal smirking humor missing, a seriousness taking its place.
Nate hid his surprise. Of the three of them, Holt was always the one with a ready joke, the one with the most laid-back sense of humor. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear his brother was involved with the woman.
The thought brought on unreasonable and completely unexpected anger.
“Which one of you is interested in her?” He meant the question to come out lightly, but he heard the underlying anger himself and knew it hadn’t escaped Holt’s attention when he raised one blond brow.
“You need to give her a chance” was his only response.
That only added fuel to a fire already blazing out of control. He and Holt stared at one another, neither one giving an inch. “I don’t need to give her anything. She’s no different than any of the others. Make sure you remember that. Just give her the same jobs as any new recruit—”
“As in?” Holt broke in. “You won’t let her near the house. Which makes no damn sense, as that’s the reason we hired her, to help Lilly out. So what is it exactly that you want her to do?”
“Hell, I don’t care, muck out the stalls for all I care, just give her a real job.”
