Except for the woman who hated him.
Oh, hate might be too big of a word for how Mackenzie felt about him. He was a pebble in her boot. An annoyance that she planned to ignore.
And then she approached the table where he was eating lunch with guests and other staffers and did exactly that.
She asked the guests how their day was going. She made sure to acknowledge each of the staff. And then she left the dining room. Didn’t she realize that completely ignoring him was more noticeable than treating him like she did everyone else?
Jace popped up, cleared his dishes and then chased after her. He caught sight of her in the lodge living room—an inviting place with high ceilings, comfortable furniture and a massive fireplace that begged for snowstorms and cold winter nights.
Mackenzie’s hair was down today—long and wild, and bringing him back to high school and the memory of what it had felt like to thread his fingers through those waves and kiss that mouth that had once been receptive to his.
Even in her jeans and a simple Wilder polo, the woman could cause a freeway pileup. She had on turquoise boots today—the third different pair he’d seen her wear since he’d arrived at the ranch. Mackenzie had hated shopping back in high school. Her only girlie addiction had been boots. Apparently that infatuation had continued.
No guests occupied the lobby at the moment, so Jace called out to her, “Kenzie Rae.”
She turned to face him, upset heating her cheeks. At his presence or the use of her nickname?
Either way she’d have to adjust.
He stopped in front of her, ignoring her obvious irritation at his interruption. “What do you need me to do tonight?”
Being that this was his first week, he was still learning the schedule. Mackenzie might not want him here, but while he was, he planned to do a good job of whatever they asked him to do.
The glint in her eyes was quick as a bullet and disappeared just as fast. “The square dance is tonight.”
Huh. He wouldn’t be much of a help with that.
“Why don’t you lead it?”
Jace snorted. “Ha. Very funny.” She didn’t laugh, didn’t join in. “Wait. You’re serious?”
“Why not? Luc seems to think you’re so qualified to be working here. Not that anyone asked me. So, if that’s the case, you can be in charge tonight.”
“So that’s how you’re going to play it? I don’t have any idea how to square-dance. You know I’m a pathetic dancer.” The only real rhythm he’d ever had was on a bull. When he’d competed on the weekends in high school, Mackenzie had always come to watch him ride when she hadn’t been working herself. After, there’d often been a dance, a band, a crowd. A few times they’d attempted the steps, but never with much success. Once or twice he’d just held her. Held on as if his life had depended on it. On her. He supposed it had in a way. She’d been everything to him. The future he’d denied himself when he’d chased Evan’s dreams.
“I haven’t seen you in seven years, so I know nothing of the sort.”
Silent accusations brimmed, and Jace understood them. Had she wondered what he was up to over the years? If he was dating anyone? Because he’d wondered those things about her. It would have destroyed him to find out she was in a relationship or married, even though he didn’t have any right to her anymore.
“I didn’t take you to be vindictive, Kenzie Rae.” He dropped the name on purpose now, goading, a little of her anger seeping over to him.
“Really? Maybe you don’t know me at all anymore. I’m not sure you knew me then either.”
Sweet mercy. The woman’s punches were fast and furious and vicious and deserved. Jace rubbed a hand over his certain-to-be-gaping chest wound before that same traitorous hand snaked out and latched onto her arm.
The heat between their skin sizzled as much as their rising irritation. “I knew everything about you back then and vice versa.”
“The Jace I knew would never have left like you did.”
There would be no closing the wound today. Not with Mackenzie hitting the same spot over and over again. “I tried to tell you.” His voice dropped low, aching with remorse. “So many times. But the words always got stuck.” He swallowed. “And when I did manage to get some of it out, you didn’t listen.”
For a split second she’d softened during his speech. Those mesmerizing eyes had notched down from bitter to curious, tell me why shooting from them. But at his you didn’t listen, everything in her hardened and lit like fireworks.
“I’m not doing this.” She shook his hand loose as if he were nothing more than dirt—or worse—hitching a ride on her boots. “This is exactly why I was so mad that Luc hired you. Wilder Ranch is my family business, Hawke. My life. And you’re not in it anymore. As far as I’m concerned, your time here is strictly about work. I don’t want to hear any of this. It’s too late to make apologies...if that’s even what you’re doing. It’s too late to try to blame me for what you did. So if you want to be here, figure out how to lead the square dance, because as your boss, that’s what I’m directing you to do.”
Before Mackenzie could take off or Jace could process his jumbled thoughts enough to respond, the screen door to the lodge opened and Emma walked inside. Thankfully it was her and not a guest. She was all sunshine in a yellow shirt, jeans and rain boots as she paused to study them—probably taking in their irritated body language or analyzing whatever she’d just overheard.
Emma bravely continued in their direction. “Everything okay in here?” A faint curve of her lips attempted to diffuse the negative energy that surely radiated from them.
Kenzie’s gaze slit and slid from him to her sister. “We’re great.” Fake perkiness punctuated her answer. “Jace and I were just discussing his duties for tonight. And he was expressing how excited he is about them. I mean—” her sarcasm ramped up “—since this is the perfect place for him to work, and Luc seems to think he’s so qualified, I thought I’d give him some more responsibility.”
Vicious woman. Jace willed himself not to find her attractive in the middle of her feisty little speech.
It didn’t work.
If Emma wasn’t watching them like a spectator at a UFC fight, Jace would seriously toy with the thought of kissing Mackenzie just to get her to stop spewing venom. An action that might very well leave him as messed up as stomping through a field of rattlesnakes.
“Of course. I’m happy to do anything I’m assigned.” Square dance? Fine. He’d figure it out. Somehow. There had to be another staffer who had a clue about what to do.
Mackenzie’s determination to boot him out of here only increased his resolve to stay. She should know better than to challenge him, to turn this into a competition. His whole livelihood depended on him besting a two-thousand-pound bull.
Emma’s strangled sigh was filled with exasperation, and a tinge of remorse lit in Jace. He shouldn’t have engaged with Mackenzie at all. Certainly not in the lodge lobby, where guests could walk through at any second of the day.
“Feel like you two could use a mediator. Or some workplace counseling. Is that a thing?” Emma beamed, finding her own joke amusing. Jace’s lips twitched, because the idea of Mackenzie and him sitting on a couch, trying to figure out how to work together when she couldn’t stand the sight of him, was funny, but he couldn’t let Mackenzie win the third-grade angry-staring contest they’d somehow begun.
“Um, so...listen.” Emma was made of velvet—a stark contrast to Mackenzie’s most recent tone. “I need people to get along. I can’t handle all of this.” Her nose wrinkled, and she waved a hand, encompassing them. “What