LITMIR.BIZ

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fired off a text instead.

      Taylor started pacing the rustic floorboards. If she got this job, then that would be the start of her upward climb. Her journey back to her old life. Proof to everyone that when Taylor Evans was faced with failure, she didn’t break—she bounced. It had been a long, slow bounce, but a bounce all the same.

      Taylor brewed a pot of tea, settled in her chair and started perusing rentals in the Eagle Valley. The problem with living in an area that was rapidly gaining in popularity was that housing was tight. New apartments and condos were being built along the lake at the center of the valley, but those prices were too rich for Taylor’s new budget, and the moderately priced housing was at a minimum.

      No. It was close to nonexistent, unless she wanted to rent a single-wide trailer on a small lot on the outskirts of town. If she did that, she may as well stay on the farm…for longer than four weeks, that is.

      Taylor set her tablet aside and got to her feet, feeling as if she needed another long run. But running wasn’t the answer. She had to come up with a way to convince Cole to let her stay on the farm without involving her grandfather. Definitely without involving her grandfather. In addition to not wanting to add to his stress, that remark about standing on her own two feet still stung.

      She’d made mistakes in her attitude toward Cole. No doubt about that. And now she needed to fix things. Mend fences.

      Start fresh.

      The big question was how.

      * * *

      COLE HAD JUST gotten out of the shower when a knock sounded at his door. He glanced at the watch he’d left on the counter beside the sink. Seven o’clock. What did Taylor need at this hour?

      He thought about ignoring the knock, but it came again as he struggled to pull his jeans up over damp skin. Best to deal with her and get it over with.

      When he got to the kitchen door, still buttoning his shirt, he found Taylor waiting on the porch with a small cake pan in one hand and a notebook in the other.

      Had he missed a memo?

      Taylor held up the pan, which smelled heavenly. “Peace offering,” she said simply. “My grandmother’s recipe.”

      He almost said that he didn’t know they were at war, then rethought his words. “Why?”

      “I’d like to talk to you.”

      He gestured for her to come into the kitchen, and she did, walking past him to set the pan on the table.

      “What do you want, Taylor?”

      “I want to renegotiate.”

      “Renegotiate what?” As far as he knew they’d yet to negotiate at all.

      She pushed aside his stack of mail and spread the notebook on the kitchen table. “Look at this.”

      He looked, and all he saw were columns of figures. “Okay…”

      She rubbed the back of her neck as if it were stiff from a night of heavy mathematics, then gestured at the book. “Last night I crunched numbers. Based on the salary mentioned during the interview—”

      “Did you get the job?” If so, he was buying a celebratory bottle of whiskey.

      “I have reason to be optimistic.”

      Good reason, he hoped.

      “If I stay here for six months, I’ll be in a better position to resume my life.”

      “Let me see if I understand this…you want to stay for free in the buildings I’m renting.”

      “You aren’t using the bunkhouse.”

      “I could be.”

      She let out a breath, and he could almost see her counting to ten. “Why,” she asked slowly, “can’t you give me a break?”

      “Because you expect it.”

      “No,” she said carefully, “I don’t.”

      “Yeah. I think you do. I think you’ve spent so much time focused on your needs and your achievements that you expect everyone else to be, too.”

      “And you came to this conclusion because of the rotten-floorboard incident?”

      “I guess it started when you tried to bully me out of the house I rented.”

      “You are more suited for the bunkhouse.” Her voice began to tighten, but she seemed to catch herself. “You grew up on a ranch.”

      “And I’m renting this ranch…farm. You invaded it. I let you. But only while you were out of work. That was the deal, and I don’t want to renegotiate.”

      “This is a big farm. Do you have some kind of complex about being alone?”

      “Yeah. I do. I’m still recovering from my last job, dealing with the rich and famous.”

      She gave him a long, slow look. “By rich and famous I assume you mean spoiled and entitled.”

      “Yeah. Pretty much.”

      “And you also mean me.” He didn’t respond. Taylor was nothing if not sharp, and now she was sharp and angry. Blue fire sparked in her eyes.

      “You judgmental prick.” She jabbed a finger at his chest as she spoke, and he automatically caught her hand and held on, stopping her in the middle of the second jab. Taylor yanked her hand free and took a step back. Just one, probably so it didn’t appear to be a full-fledged retreat. “You’ve given as good as you’ve got, Cole. It’s like you’re taking out all your previous job frustrations on me.”

      “Maybe so. But if you weren’t here, I wouldn’t be able to do that.”

      She smiled up at him. “I can take it if you can.”

      “You won’t have a chance. You stay longer than four weeks, I’ll charge you rent.”

      She picked up her notebook and the pan. “We’ll see about that.”

      A moment later she was gone, leaving only the delicious aroma of the coffee cake she’d brought to bribe him with.

      He should have eaten first and argued later.

      * * *

      COLE HAD DECIDEDLY mixed feelings as he pulled off the highway onto the road leading to the Bryan Guest Ranch, which had simply been the Bryan Ranch until Miranda gained control of the outfit.

      The operation would have scraped by, as older ranches do, having good years and bad, but Miranda had wanted more, and by converting one of the ranches into a ritzy guest ranch and leaving the smaller sister ranch as a pseudo-working ranch where guests could enjoy “authentic” ranch life, she’d essentially tripled their incomes.

      Cole didn’t have a problem with that. He had a problem with the way Miranda had set herself up as queen, and after her husband died, she became unbearable. The guests loved her because she catered to them. The workers, those that weren’t in her pocket anyway, despised and distrusted her. If not one of the chosen few, she could draw you into her inner circle one day, then viciously attack you the next. You never knew which Miranda you were getting, but odds were if you were on salary, you were going to see her scary side.

      Her relationship with Cole had been different from the rest of the staff, since he was family and she needed him. That didn’t slow down her passive-aggressive attacks, but she didn’t hit him with them full on as she did the other employees. Jancey was another matter. Yes, she was family, but Miranda didn’t need her in the same way she needed Cole. After she started college in the fall, Jancey would work only summers and that was mainly because of her stubborn determination to stay on the family ranch. “I won’t let her chase me away from home,” she’d muttered the last time they’d discussed the matter. Cole wished her well, because Miranda had succeeded in chasing him away from home. For now anyway.

      When

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