Wrangling the Rancher Read online

  He limped into the kitchen and on into the mudroom. “That’s the replacer,” he said, pointing to a bag.

  He gave her instructions to mix, and once Taylor had three quart-size bottles filled and the nipples in place, Cole placed them in a metal bucket and they once again started for the door.

  “How are you going to catch these guys? It isn’t like you can chase them.”

  “But you can.”

  Her eyes widened as she held up her palms in a defensive gesture. “The calves don’t concern me, but that big one is a renegade.”

  “You can carry a stick.”

  “Comforting,” she muttered. Because he wasn’t kidding.

  Together they crossed to the barn, where Cole had her put alfalfa and grain into the feeders. Following instructions, Taylor went around the house to the backyard, where the heifer was grazing, and raised her arms to shoo her toward the driveway. The black cow eyed her balefully, then kinked her tail and started trotting toward where Cole stood blocking the driveway. Taylor hoped the cow wasn’t going to run over him again, because his limping gait made a tortoise look like a speed demon. He waved his hat, and the cow shied sideways and headed straight for the metal panels Taylor had set up between the corral and the machine shop. Taylor closed in, and the cow, spotting the feed, headed straight into the corral. The calves followed, and she closed the gate, breathing hard—more from nerves than from exertion—as she locked it.

  “Now what?”

  “Now you experience the wonder of milk slobber.” Taylor screwed up her face and Cole continued, “You’re the one who chose to sell your soul for a few months of free rent.”

  “Free?” She’d offered to pay minimal rent. It seemed only fair, and damn it, she was trying to be fair. She wasn’t above capitalizing on his situation, but she was going to do what was right now that she had.

  “But I’m going to work your ass off.”

  “I think we might have to get some of this in writing.”

  “I have stuff in writing with your grandfather and it didn’t save me from you.”

  She smirked at him and reached for the bottle. “I need instructions.”

  “Try not to get mobbed.”

  “Thanks.” He handed her a bottle, and Taylor eased in through the gate, locking it behind her with one hand. The killer heifer barely acknowledged her presence, but the calves, which were nosing through the hay, recognized the bottle. She straddled the first one as Cole instructed, then held up its chin from behind, and it immediately latched on to the nipple. As promised, milk rolled down her hand and arm as the calf slurped, but the gross factor was counterbalanced by the cute factor.

  “This isn’t bad,” she said, glancing up at Cole.

  “Just time-consuming.”

  “And a little sticky.”

  After they were all fed, Taylor was ready for a second shower. She had milk replacer up to her armpits and cow poop on her shoes due to a misstep. “I want to negotiate for use of your washing machine.”

  He gave her a pained look that had nothing to do with his injuries.

  “It isn’t like I’ll use it and forget to leave the house.” Although she wouldn’t mind doing that. The wind had blown the previous evening, and the bunkhouse was drafty.

  “Let’s get that in writing, too.”

  If it wasn’t for the grimace on his face, she would have thought he was playing with her. But he was grimacing. And hurting.

  “Are you going to see someone about your wrist?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me drive you.”

  The “all right” didn’t come easily, but Cole got it out and Taylor said, “I need to change again and wash up, then I’m ready whenever you are.”

  “Probably the sooner the better. There might be a crowd, and I don’t want to kill the whole day.”

  “Yes. Because you can do so much in the shape you’re in.”

  “I have someone to do my stuff for me now.”

  She sneered at him because he seemed to expect it. “Are you going to change?” Not that he didn’t look good rumpled.

  “I think the medical personnel will understand why I don’t.”

  As did she. “Just making sure you don’t need help before we go,” she said, hoping against hope that he didn’t call her bluff. Because she would help him...but that might not be the wisest move on her part. Interesting, yes. Wise? No.

  “And baiting me in the process?”

  “A little. Habit.” She smiled tightly. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

  * * *

  FIFTEEN MINUTES BECAME twenty, but since Cole expected to wait at least half an hour, he was impressed. It wasn’t that he thought that Taylor was going to waste time primping, but he figured it would take her a while to clean her shoes. Instead, she left her running shoes outside and wore ballet flats with jeans that hugged her legs in a way that made him want to peel them off. And he didn’t feel bad about that, because it was more of a reaction than a plan. She looked good in her jeans, and he was a guy. One who hadn’t peeled off anyone’s jeans in quite a while. Obviously, he wouldn’t be peeling these jeans, but he could think about it in a hypothetical way.

  They took Taylor’s SUV, and once Cole was signed in to the urgent care facility, she left him and went grocery shopping. He had her cell number, but from the looks of the crowded waiting room, he didn’t think he’d need it. Two and a half hours, several X-rays, a knee brace and a wrist splint later, he was good to go. The only thing he’d been spared was an MRI, but only because he had to travel to get it done.

  Taylor was waiting in the outer office when he came out of the treatment area, staring down at her lap. When he limped closer, she looked up at him, her expression instantly blanked out. The force field was in place. Something was wrong.

  Why?

  She got to her feet, shouldering her purse in one smooth move. “All wrapped up and ready to go, I see.” Oh, yeah. Brisk voice, no-nonsense manner. Something had happened. But he played along.

  He held up his wrist. “Sprained, not broken.” Although sprains could take as long to heal as breaks, he was relieved not to have a cast knocking around.

  “The knee?”

  “I’m not getting an expensive test to tell me what I already know. It’s also sprained.”

  “They can’t do something for that?”

  “Not a hell of a lot. I have to live with it.” Just as he had before.

  They drove most of the way home in silence, but not the same kind of silence that had settled between them on the trip to urgent care. This was a brittle silence, one that begged to be broken.

  Taylor turned onto the county road leading to the farm, and Cole decided enough was enough. He shifted in his seat and was about to ask what the deal was when Taylor spoke.

  “I didn’t get the job.”

  Well, that sucked. Cole stared at her profile, wondering what the hell had gone wrong. She’d been confident about the second interview. “Did they give a reason?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing beyond the usual being-very-sorry kind of thing.”

  “That bites.” She was never leaving the farm.

  “Yes.” She lifted her chin. “The search continues.” She cleared her throat. “I hate telling Grandpa.”

  “Don’t.”

  “That got me into trouble last time.” She glanced at him. “You had something to say on the matter, if I recall.”

  Yeah, he did, but he hadn’t thought about the reason she hadn’t called Karl. “You didn’t call him because you were embarrassed? About losing your job, I mean.”

  “I’d never failed so massively before.”

  “Did you fail? Like...do something wrong that got you fired?” Because he was curious if he’d gotten the entire story.
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  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she snapped. “Other than putting in more hours than most people on staff. But it still felt like failure.” The corner of her mouth turned down. “No...actually, it felt like getting screwed—and not the good kind.”

  She pulled into the farm driveway and parked beside the bunkhouse, turned off the ignition and pulled the key out. She was reaching for the door handle when Cole asked the burning question. “Realistically, what are your chances of being employed here, in this area?”

  “Well, I thought they’d be better here than in Seattle.”

  “And because this is where you can afford to live while you look?”

  Her jaw shifted. “You know that’s the case.”

  “You’re in finance, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you’re in financial trouble.”

  Her expression iced over. “Do you ever get tired of judging me?”

  “What the hell happened, Taylor?”

  “Student loans. Tons of them. I didn’t save as much as I should have, because I felt safe and was concentrating on trying to pay off loans—like the one from my grandfather. And I enjoyed my life in the city.”

  “Not to mention your car.”

  “That car is special.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. Jordan’s eyes had practically glazed over when he heard about it. “Selling it would probably keep you solvent for—”

  “A few months. Then the money would be gone and the car would be gone.”

  “But you’d have a few more months of living expenses. Sometimes you have to sacrifice—”

  “My dad left me that car.” The words came grinding out, then Taylor jerked her gaze away, as if she hated showing him emotion that wasn’t pure anger or snark. As if vulnerability was a bad thing. Maybe it was in her world. “I was fourteen when he passed away, and he left me that car. Before I could drive. He wanted me to have it.”

  “Okay,” he said after a crackling stretch of silence. “I get it.”

  He let out a breath and leaned his head back, telling himself to get out of the vehicle. He didn’t move.

  “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be kicked to the curb?”

  “I’ve had my share of failures.”

  “I’m not talking failures. I’m talking rejection—from the very people you were trying to help.” She let out a breath. “You don’t have a clue.”

  She grabbed for the door handle, but before she got out, he put his good hand on her knee, and she froze. So did he. But he didn’t move his hand. He didn’t want her to leave yet...and he had to admit to liking the way her leg felt beneath his palm.

  “Your attitude when you arrived...it wasn’t exactly defeated.”

  “I’m here, Cole. Living in a shack. Doesn’t that smack of defeat?”

  He pulled his hand away. Now that they were in the heat of battle, there was no way she was leaving. “It smacked of you expecting to kick me out of the house and get a free ride while you sorted things out.”

  “That’s exactly what I wanted.” She didn’t sound one bit sorry. “To tell you the truth, it’s what I still want. I’m tired of the floor bumping under my feet and the wind whistling in through the window frame and having no bathtub, but you know what? I can deal.”

  “Because you have no choice?” he asked softly.

  “That’s the best reason to suck it up, don’t you think?” She gave a small sniff. “What happens if I refuse to help you?”

  “Then I guess I kick you off the property.”

  She let out a breath as she stared out the windshield at the bunkhouse. “That’s what I thought.”

  Another silence fell, thick with tension. Finally, Cole gave in. “Of course, your grandfather will hate me because I’m messing with his princess.”

  “There is that.” She didn’t look at him. Her eyes slowly closed, and she inhaled again, as if centering herself. Or trying to come up with ways to do him bodily harm.

  The thing was, right now, he needed her. It was a good thing she was on the farm. The irony of their situation did not escape him.

  “You have your six months. More if you need it.”

  She sent him a sharp glance, waiting for the catch. “You’d do that for me?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “How did you ever work on a guest ranch?”

  “By not talking.” He reached out with his good hand to cup his palm against her cheek. Touching her again felt right, as did lightly running his thumb over her bottom lip when her mouth parted. He felt her breath catch, felt it when she slowly exhaled a split second later.

  “The pain meds are making you act out of character,” she murmured.

  “Not on pain meds.”

  “Take the excuse,” she said lowly. Then she turned and reached for the door handle. Cole did the same, awkwardly climbing out of the SUV.

  Taylor met him behind the SUV, her back very straight, her chin lifted as she said, “If you work my ass off, I want more than a shack in compensation.”

  “What else could you possibly need?”

  “Use of the washing machine so I don’t have to go to the Laundromat. And when you have your poker nights, I want bathtub privileges.”

  “Not going to work, Evans.”

  She frowned at him. “What?”

  “First it’ll be the washer and the bathtub and then the entire house.”

  “Then I guess you’ll have to be on your guard. Do we have a deal or not?”

  He gave her a hard look. Waited for her to squirm. She didn’t.

  “Deal.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  TAYLOR REFUSED TO allow herself to replay the conversation she’d had with Cole—not more than a couple of times anyway.

  Did he feel sorry for her? After all, it had been a slam in the gut to expect the job, think that she was on her way out of the hole, then find out that she wasn’t. Was that why he was compromising with her?

  Or was it simply a matter of needing her help? If so, it would be for only a few days. Why sign on for six months or more?

  Maybe he needed more help than she was aware of, but that didn’t explain why he had touched her that second time. When he’d set his hand on her knee, it’d been to stop her from getting out of the SUV. It’d worked. She’d been so surprised that she probably couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. But when he touched her face...her lip...that had been different. A tentative move in a direction that she was sure he hadn’t considered taking up until that moment.

  Her breath still went a little shallow when she thought about it.

  Her instincts told her that a guy like Cole didn’t make those kinds of moves lightly. So what did he want?

  She’d bet money that he didn’t know. She knew what he didn’t want—her on his farm, which led her back into her circle of thought. Maybe he’d finally realized that she was free help. Hard to beat that.

  That was the theory she was going with. Free help. Any good businessman would accept free help.

  Taylor put her fingers back on the keyboard. She had no qualms about earning her keep, but what did she know about farmwork? During the times she’d spent here with her grandparents, she’d done chores, but they’d been fun chores—harvesting from the garden, maybe pulling weeds with her grandmother. Nothing that would come close to earning her keep. What on earth would he have her doing? What was she capable of doing? Digging, hoeing...she had no idea.

  She glanced down at her pearly pink nails. This was going to destroy her hands.

  And since when have you been such a priss?

  Working would also help fill her days when she wasn’t job hunting, and that was how she needed to look at the situation. Maybe working would also help her tamp down some
of her residual anger. Give her something else to focus on. Even though what happened to her wasn’t that unusual in the world of business, it still irked her. The guy they’d hired instead of her was already showcased on the bank website newsletter. So despite the assurances that US West Bank was all about growing people within the company, the bank had chosen a local guy with far less experience than her...one who planned to stay in the community. As would most rural institutions. They would grow local people from the ground up, because those people would stay.

  So what now?

  She put her fingers back on the keyboard to bring up a search engine.

  A different career? A return to school? More student debt?

  No to all.

  She loved what she did for a living...she used to anyway. She was good at it. She loved the dynamics of her industry. Had there been moments when she’d wondered if it was all worth it? Very few. She refused to allow herself to think such things or deviate from her chosen course. Yes, all the hours were worth it when she had a job with prestige in a city she loved.

  Now she had no job and was living in a farm building.

  What if she spent the rest of her life on this farm? What if she never got another job in her field?

  What if she’d been blackballed?

  What if she was thinking crazy thoughts out of stress and anxiety? She settled her hands in her lap as she stared blankly at her monitor. Maybe she was the one who needed to pop a couple of pain pills. An escape from reality would be lovely.

  Or maybe she needed to reshape her reality. During the first weeks after being laid off, she’d been centered on anger. She was still angry, but she was also hurt. Devastated. Her confidence wasn’t entirely shattered, but it was shaken. She was questioning herself, wondering how this could have happened. Not once had her guidance counselors and mentors mentioned that hard work could lead to this. Or that hard work and advancement could make it difficult to get a lower-paying job.

  She let out a sigh and got to her feet.

  Maybe it was time to start focusing once again on what had happened between her and Cole this morning. At least that was a distraction.