“It is quite beautiful here,” she persisted. “You can see for miles. And the air is so clear.”
“I’m glad it meets with your approval in some way,” Tomas replied.
She defiantly re-wet her brush and worked on the trim of the window as Tomas moved to the main section around the corner. If this was a working ranch, then she’d work. Just like anyone else. Just because she’d never had to didn’t mean she couldn’t. She continued swiping the paint on the wood. What would Antoine say if he could see his very perfect fiancée now? The idea made her smile. She might hate the baggy coveralls, but knowing Antoine would drop his jaw at the sight of her gave her perverse satisfaction. And the work was surprisingly pleasant. Simple and rewarding.
“Is the morning meal something the female guests would do with Maria?” she asked, more determined than ever to get Tomas talking.
“Sure,” he answered, filling his can once more with the white paint. “But not just the female guests. Everyone helps where they can. Before the fire, we had one guest who made cornbread every morning for a week. It melted in your mouth, even without butter. He said he got the recipe from his grandmother. But his wife, she was hopeless in the kitchen. She was terrific at rounding up cattle, though. Once she got started.”
Sophia grinned. “Well, well. A regular speech at last. I must make a note—cornbread makes Tomas talk.”
He sent her what she supposed was a withering look, but there was little venom behind it this time, and she laughed.
“What are you good at, Sophia?” He efficiently turned the verbal tables.
She swallowed. The question took her by surprise. The lack of an answer was even more shocking. Was she really so lacking in self-assurance she couldn’t recognize her own strengths? “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Her pride was stung. She had worked as Antoine’s assistant and had done a good job. She doubted Tomas would see it that way. “I’m good at answering phones and taking messages and keeping a schedule. I can type seventy-five words a minute.”
Resentment bubbled up once more at how Antoine had used her capabilities for his own purposes, with complete disregard for any true feelings she might have. She stabbed the brush back into the can. “I’m good at showing up on time in the appropriate outfit, and saying the right things.” She realized how empty and foolish that sounded. “I’m not good at much, it seems.”
“Those things have their place,” he said graciously, and she began to feel a bit better. “But not at an estancia.”
The bubble burst. “I’m beginning to see that.”
“Giving in?” he asked mildly.
She took out her brush and gave the window trim an extra swipe. “You wish. Maybe it’s time I learned a new skill set. How’m I doing?”
It felt wonderful to let some of the old resentment go, to look forward. When she got back to Ottawa, she’d make some changes. She’d already resigned her job and this time she’d do something she enjoyed. Truth be told, she hated politics. She frowned, her brush strokes slowing. She thought about all the private meetings she’d set up, the hand shaking and air kissing. It was all so fake. There wasn’t a man or woman among that crowd who wouldn’t stab you in the back if it suited them. Then she thought of the wardrobe sitting in her suitcases. Yes, she loved those pretty things. They had made her feel feminine and, in her own way, important.
But maybe, just maybe, she’d sold her soul a bit to get them. Maybe Antoine hadn’t been the only one to lie. Maybe she’d been lying to herself, too. Maybe she’d made up for the lack of the right things in her life by filling it up with stuff. Was she more like her mother than she thought? For years her mother had insisted Sophia participate in one thing or another, when all she had wanted was to curl up in her room with a good book. When had that shifted? When had status become so important to her, too?
How many other lies had she told herself?
She bit down on her lip and dipped her brush in the can. It was something to think about.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE was so lost in her ponderings that she didn’t notice a long drip of paint trickling down the side of the building. “Watch what you’re doing,” Tomas called. “You’ll want to swipe that drip.”
It annoyed her to be under his supervision and she gritted her teeth, taking the brush and swiping it down the side of the shed. She was nearly to the bottom when a movement caught her eye. She jumped backwards, sending the paint can flying. At the clatter, Tomas came running around the corner while Sophia stared at the grass, shuddering. “Kill it! Kill it, Tomas!”
Tomas held his paint brush aloft as he stepped ahead to see what the trouble was. When he saw it, he scowled.
“It’s a little wolf spider, that’s all.”
“Little?” she gasped. She shuddered and took another step back. Anything with a body bigger than a dime lost the right to be called “little” when it came to spiders, and this one was substantially larger than that. “You call that thing little?”
“It won’t bite you. Even if it did, it wouldn’t kill you.”
Wouldn’t kill her. There was a sense of relief knowing it wasn’t poisonous, but Sophia’s skin still crawled at the thought of the hairy eight-legged monster getting anywhere near her. She hated spiders. Hated them! The look of them. The thought of their legs on her skin. And the one at the base of the shed was the biggest she’d ever seen.
Tomas went forward and merely touched the spider with the end of his brush. The contact made it scuttle away to parts unknown. He picked up the paint can. Half the contents were on the grass, and wide white splashes went up the side of the shed, spatters on the glass of the window. He sighed, the sound impatient and aggravated.
He patiently took his brush and, with no concern for spiders whatsoever, moved it back and forth over the wall to blend in the spilled paint.
It made Sophia feel completely and utterly foolish. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I have a thing about spiders.” A huge thing. She knew she looked silly and the words to exonerate herself sat on her tongue. But she could not tell him why. It was too personal. Too hurtful.
“Maybe you’d like to work on the other side,” he suggested. “I can finish here.”
She would be a wreck trying to paint and watch for spiders at the same time. Maybe she looked like a diva, but even the thought of one crawling up her leg made her weak. Spiders and dark places were the two things she simply could not handle. “Will you check it for spiders first?”
He had to think her the most vapid female on the planet. But she could never tell him the real reason why she was afraid. The hours spent in the cellar had shaped her more than she could express. There’d been spiders there, too. Just small ones, but they’d crawled over her arms and she’d brushed them away, unable to see them. She’d held on to her tears that day until one had crept through her hair. It had completely undone her.
This was bad enough. She didn’t need to let Tomas see any more of her faults.
Tomas accommodated her indulgence and checked the wall, foundation and grass surrounding the area. “Satisfied?”
“Yes, thank you.” Sophia was embarrassed now. No wonder Tomas looked at her as though she was more trouble than she was worth. She dipped her brush and continued where Tomas had left off, determined to overcome the panic that still threaded through her veins. Not that she didn’t watch. She did. Her eyes were peeled for any sign of foreign creatures. But if another spider came by, she would not scream or throw her paint can. She would shoo it away, just as Tomas had done.
The sun climbed higher in the sky and the air held a touch of humidity. Sweat formed on Sophia’s brow as they