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“Yeah.” Chapped and cracked hands were a mainstay of ranching life, particularly in winter. The ointment used to heal milk cows’ chapped utters was the go-to remedy.
“It works,” Jolie said. “But I have something else you could try...if you wanted.”
“Will it make me smell like a whorehouse?”
“Unscented,” Jolie said. “And it doesn’t stay greasy like bag balm, so the hay and dirt won’t stick to your hands.”
“Throw it in. Maybe Lillian will like it.”
Dylan loaded the truck and then came back inside the store as Morley drove away. “Are you in some kind of hand cream business?”
“What if I am?”
“I guess my question is more along the lines of should you be hawking your wares in my store?”
“I’m not selling the stuff,” Jolie said. “I gave him samples.”
“Am I selling the stuff?”
“You could be.”
“I don’t think so.”
Jolie gave him a long look and he had the impression that he’d reacted exactly as she’d expected him to.
“If you diversify a little, or try some new sales gimmicks, you might bring in more customers.”
“Our customers come here to buy feed, and I’m not into gimmicks.” Thinking that he needed to get out of there, Dylan grabbed his lunch pail and headed for his cousin’s—now his—private office. His father, uncle and grandfather had always subscribed to the theory that you stocked what the majority of your customers needed. Money spent on inventory that took forever to sell was money that could be in the bank, drawing interest. He may not have anticipated a future in business, but he did recall that particular facet of the sales game being discussed often and at length as the brothers debated what merchandise to carry beyond feed and seed.
Mike had even repeated his business theory a few times that morning before Dylan left for work, as if Dylan were going to start ordering useless items as soon as he got close to a computer.
He closed the door and stood for a moment, shoving thoughts of Jolie aside as he took in the familiar cluttered space that was now his center of operations. The desk was clean and the computer was almost new, but the counter and the top of the file cabinet were stacked high with old catalogs and an assortment of junk, as they had always been.
Piles had also accumulated along the wall under the old calendar, which featured a woman in Daisy Duke shorts kneeling on a tractor seat while holding a big wrench and wearing a come-hither smile. It’d been there for as long as Dylan could remember. As a boy, he’d been perplexed by the idea of a scantily clad woman kneeling on the tractor. Every woman he’d ever seen on a tractor had worn jeans and a T-shirt and sat in the seat so that she could drive the thing. And what was with the wrench?
He smiled a little as he put the lunch pail down next to the desk, remembering when he’d come to appreciate those Daisy Dukes and realized that the woman had no interest in plowing fields. He’d barely booted up the computer when the old-fashioned intercom buzzed and Jolie said, “Could you load up this customer?”
He went out into the rain to squeeze three bags of grain into the rear of a Subaru Forester, then decided to shift a pallet of grain for easier access. A few minutes later he came back into the store, shaking water off his hair, his leg giving a little as he turned to close the door.
“Who usually loads?” he asked Jolie, who glanced up from her computer screen.
“Finn.”
“Who loaded customers during the past week?” The transition time between his arrival and Finn’s departure. He knew it wasn’t his grandfather, who’d had a hip replacement a month ago.
“I did.”
“Was the forklift having problems?”
“The engine has been missing, and I had a hard time starting it.” She tilted her head. “Why?”
“It won’t start at all now.”
“I had a feeling this day was coming.” She reached for the phone. “Do you want me to call Bobeck’s? See if they can send someone over to take a look?”
“I’ll do it.” It’d been a while since he’d ripped into an engine, but it’d be cheaper than paying Bobeck’s mechanics rate. He took a few steps toward the counter and Jolie frowned.
“Did you hurt yourself?”
He’d figured the question would come up since his limp was still noticeable when his leg got tired and he’d made the mistake of overdoing his physical therapy that morning. “Banged up my leg in an accident.”
Go ahead, Jolie. Ask what kind of accident. She’d always been brimming with questions about his personal life and comments about his lack of social life. But this time she said only, “Nothing permanent, I hope.”
“No. It’s almost healed.” In a few weeks’ time he’d head back to his doctor in Lanesburg, Washington, to get the release he needed to go back to work once Finn returned home, which was why he’d overdone his PT. He had to get that release to continue his career.
“So you can still load the feed? Because if not I’ll do it.”
“I’m capable.” And, besides, there was no way he was going to stand back and let Jolie do it.
“The offer stands,” Jolie said, running her gaze over him as if assessing his capabilities.
She was enjoying this. He told himself to walk away, to let it be for now, but instead he said, “We need to talk about working together.”
She looked surprised. “In what way? You’re the boss, and I’m the employee.”
Her matter of fact words felt like a trap.
“In the way that this is not going to be a replay of chem class.” She had never understood how important it had been for him to do well in that class, in all his classes. To get those scholarships for his dad, even though it hadn’t really mattered in the long run. His dad had passed away before he’d completed his schooling and he’d ended up being a patrol cop instead of a forensic specialist.
She stared at him for a long moment. “That’s kind of insulting.”
He flattened both palms on the counter in front of him. “I just want us to understand each other.”
“Then understand that I’m insulted.”
“That wasn’t my intention.”
“What was your intention?”
He felt his blood pressure ratchet up again. It was like a Pavlovian response when she was around—one that he hadn’t felt in...oh, ten years. “My intention was to point out that this is not chem class.”
“You’re repeating yourself, so I’ll repeat myself. I’m insulted.” Jolie rose to her feet and walked out from behind the counter to take a stance in front of him, arms folded over her chest.
“When I took this job, the last thing I expected was for you to take over, but I can live with it. Finn hired me because I’m good with people and I can keep books. It isn’t like it was a mercy hiring.” She curled her lips slightly. “And I’m well aware it’s not chemistry class...although if you think about it, it’s not that much different—you being the supreme boss and me expected to do whatever you say.” She pushed her reddish-blond braid over her shoulder with a quick flip of her fingers. “Now, if there’s nothing else, I have work to do.”
“No,” Dylan said, realizing that he’d just been dismissed in his own store. “No. Nothing for now.”
* * *
ONCE THE OFFICE door closed behind Dylan, Jolie planted an elbow next to the keyboard on the crowded desk and lowered her forehead into her palm. Dylan was not the only one who didn’t want to relive chem class, but damned if she was going to tell him that.
When Finn had gotten the call to duty a few weeks ago, he’d said nothing about Dylan coming back. He’d sat on that bit of news until the day before he’d left; springing it on her at the going-away lunch they’d shared with his grandfather. She’d assured him it didn’t matter; told herself it didn’t matter. But it did.
How could it not, when Dylan was still holding on to a ten-year-old grudge? As if it had all been her fault. From day one, he’d made it clear that she couldn’t do anything right, so she’d simply quit trying and, toward the end, she’d moved into sabotage...just a little. Enough to make him scramble and to piss him off. A girl could only take being made to feel stupid for so long.
She’d gotten a C in the class. Dylan had gotten an A-and had acted as though the world had ended. Her friends had loved watching the interplay between them and had deemed him hot, because who wouldn’t be intrigued by an ultraserious, totally gorgeous guy?
His put-upon lab partner, that’s who. Wasn’t intrigued then; wasn’t intrigued now.
Just...insulted.
Jolie stretched the kinks out of her back and went to stand at the window to look out over the empty parking lot. Finn hadn’t been big on change and obviously Dylan was even less so—especially if the suggestions for change came from her. Not that she had any huge ideas, but if someone asked her to come up with suggestions, she’d put her mind to it. Regardless of what the stubborn Culver men believed, they could have more customers, if customers had more reasons to come to the place except for feed and seed. Flowers, trees, hand cream. Anything.
Oh, crap. She whirled to face the closed office door. The box.
She was halfway to the door, ready to knock and ask for it, when it swung open. Jolie knew it was too late. Way too late.
Dylan walked out carrying the box, an expression on his face that would have made her laugh under any other circumstance. He placed the box on the counter and stepped back, nodding at it.
“Yours?”
Jolie peeked inside, even though she knew exactly what was in it—garter belts, skimpy bikini panties, get-the-girls-up-there bras, lacy stockings. “Yes.”
“And this stuff is in my office why?”
“I needed a temporary place to store it between parties. I’m a distributer.” Or rather, she had been. She’d quit a few weeks ago when she’d gone to work part-time at McElroy’s. There were only so many things a person could work into a schedule... Besides, she’d discovered that in a small community, one could only sell so much lingerie. Missoula and Idaho Falls had been much better markets. “I had a couple back-to-back parties.”
“Please don’t tell me the parties are one of your ideas to bring in new clients.”
“It would work.”
“I’ll take that as a no.” He pushed the box a few inches toward her. “Maybe you could store this at your own place.”
She took the box and placed it under the counter. “Will do,” she said on a sigh.
He gave her an unsmiling look and headed back to his office, his shoulders held even more stiffly than when they’d been in school. Maybe it was due to his profession. He’d never gone on to solve crimes in a lab or whatever it was he’d planned to do with all that chemistry knowledge, but he had become a cop. And that was all she needed to make her life complete—Dylan Culver with an even bigger authority complex.
The office door remained firmly closed until the clock ticked past 5:30 p.m. At that point, Dylan was no longer her boss, so Jolie turned off her computer, put on her raincoat, grabbed her box of lingerie samples and left the building without saying goodbye. Unprofessional? She had no idea. She didn’t want to tap on that office door and appear to be asking permission to leave.
Her sister Dani was practically climbing the walls by the time she got home.
“I’m losing training time with all this rain,” she said as she emerged from the kitchen wearing a cherry-print apron. When her fiancé traveled, she ate all her meals with Jolie. “I need my arena. Damned surveyor.”
She and her fiancé and Jolie had each put up one third of the money for the training facility, but the company that was supposed to set up the canvas-covered training arena had yet to have the area surveyed and leveled. Until they did, there was no covered arena and thus no training during inclement weather.
“But we’re growing hay as we speak,” Jolie reminded her. She felt like doing a little happy dance. If this continued, there’d be meadow hay in the barn for the first time in years. One item checked off the very long list she’d made in a loose-leaf notebook. When the last item was checked off, Lightning Creek would once again be a bona fide working ranch. Her working ranch...well, hers and her sister’s, but she’d be the one living there, managing it once Dani got married next summer.
“I’ll give you that,” Dani agreed as she returned to the kitchen while Jolie hung her damp coat on a hook near the front door. “But my arena should have been up by now and it’s ticking me off. And it’s not doing your practice schedule any good.”
Jolie’s barrel racing season started in a matter of weeks at the Glennan Memorial Day Rodeo and she and her mare still had some serious work to do to get up to speed. Unfortunately, the soggy conditions made practicing in the outdoor arena impossible, which in turn made it difficult to reestablish herself as a barrel racing contender—which she needed to do if she hoped to eventually establish a business.
She’d moved back to Lightning Creek Ranch with the idea of conducting barrel racing clinics while her sister continued to develop her successful horse training business. Between the two of them, they’d figured they could keep the ranch afloat and make enough to live comfortably—as long as one of them, aka Jolie, worked a steady job to help pay the land taxes and other incidental expenses.
But once she’d moved home, Jolie had found that she hated seeing the ranch lie fallow. All five cows had been bred the previous spring and all had successfully calved. But the fields were a wreck, the buildings needed re-roofing and the irrigation system needed revamping.
The ranch was in even worse shape than it had been during her teen years when it had slowly been slipping away from them as hay and cattle prices tanked. They’d hung on until the prices rebounded, but only by cutting back to bare bones while their mother worked at a full-time job.
So one late night, over a bottle of wine—or had it been two?—Jolie and Dani had come to an agreement. They would put the Lightning Creek right again. It wouldn’t be a big operation, but they would increase the herd, lease out the fields, mow and bale the meadow hay instead of letting it go to waste. With careful management, they should be able to glean enough profit for Jolie to quit her job in a couple of years and until then they’d build the training business.
That had been the plan, anyway. Then Dani had become engaged to Gabe Matthews, the landscape architect who lived in the mansion next door. Even though Dani still used the ranch as her base of operations, revitalizing the Lightning Creek had become more Jolie’s project.
Jolie had no problem with that. Finally she could put a bit of her animal science degree to work in a meaningful way instead of preg-checking cattle on a mega ranch. She also didn’t mind being the decision-maker. As the youngest of four, she’d been bossed around more than the average kid, and enough was enough.
And speaking of being bossed around...
“Guess who my new supervisor is?” Jolie said, following her sister into the kitchen. At the stove, she sipped a little sauce off a teaspoon and reached for the salt.
“Mike?”
“Still laid up from his hip surgery. No. It’s Dylan.”
Dani turned back from where she was taking plates out of the cupboard. “Dylan?” Her mouth twitched.
“It’s not funny, Dan.”
“Is he as hot as ever?”
“I never found him hot.”
“Liar.”
“I could appreciate his attractiveness but it’s difficult to classify someone who is ordering you around and generally pissing you off as hot.”
Dani shrugged. “Hot is hot.”
Jolie rolled her eyes and went for the wineglasses. Pasta cried out for wine. So did her rather trying day.
Dani waited until they were seated with the bowl of pasta between them before she said, “I assume you’ll be able to work together?”
“I have little choice. I like my job and once Finn gets back it’ll be back to normal. All I have to do is hang on until then.”
“You’ll play nice with Dylan?”
Jolie smiled with mock sweetness. “Of course, Dani. He’s my employer.”
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_2a22aeba-ec03-5040-97f3-cb46af065d33)
DYLAN CLOSED HIS laptop and pushed it aside. Finn wasn’t answering his emails. It was probable that he wasn’t available to answer, given his circumstances, or he might not be opening the mail from his cousin, knowing full well that said cousin had a few choice things to say about the help Finn had hired.
