“Yeah, I got your crash course right here,” Nate replied, flipping his brother the bird. This time Holt openly laughed at him.
“You know what your problem is, Holt? You think everything is a damn joke,” Nate bit out, and caught the gleam of humor in Shilah’s eyes as well. This time he included him in his middle-finger salute as well.
“Since when do we need your permission to hire help around here?”
“Since the help you hired was a woman,” he replied, not giving an inch. “I damn sure don’t need another woman around here. Especially who, after realizing living on a ranch is not some bullshit Hollywood glamorized version, cuts out with the first man that comes her way.”
“Man…what the hell?” Holt asked, frowning.
As soon as Nathan made the retort, he wanted to snatch the words back, feeling like a fool. He didn’t need or want the pity he saw lurking in either one of his knuckle-headed brothers’ eyes once it dawned on them what he’d said and why.
Holt grabbed the back of his neck again, rubbing it, his face reddening. “Yeah, well, sorry, bro. I guess I wasn’t thinking. With Lilly about to have surgery in a few weeks and all, I figured she could use the help around the house. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, you know that…” His voice trailed off into an awkward silence.
“You won’t see much of her, anyway, Nate,” Shilah said, pulling away from the wall he’d been leaning against. “You don’t want her in the kitchen, that’s cool. There’s plenty of other things for her to do. And she’s not staying in the main house. She’s using the guest cottage. No worries. She’ll only be here for a short time, just until Lilly has the surgery and is back on her feet. She’ll be gone before you know it.” Shilah finished.
Nate eyed him suspiciously, wondering at the swift change in attitude. Although he didn’t like her using the guest cottage, the place he had built and planned to live in before Angela left, it was a better alternative to her living in his house. Under his roof.
Where he’d have easy access to her, night and day.
The errant thought blew across his mind before he could stop it, irritating him further.
“When you boys are done, dinner’s in the oven. I’m going out to take the men their food, then I’m going to lie down before supper,” Lilly interrupted before Nathan could speak.
All three men turned to look at her, completely forgetting her presence in the room as they argued, they were so used to her being around.
The emphasis she placed on calling them boys hadn’t been lost on any of them.
“Let me help you with that, Ms. Lilly,” Shilah said first, and she nodded her head toward the large covered dishes set on the counter. “Grab those.”
“Truth be told, I could use a little help around here. That previous boy didn’t last longer than a frog in heat; didn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground and I ended up doing most of the work myself.” She lifted the last dish from the oven and turned to place it on the stove. “I told you that boy was more trouble then he was worth. Don’t know why you didn’t hire that nice young woman from town like I told you to in the first place,” she finished, staring a hole in Nate.
He felt all of ten years old, fighting the urge to duck his head in shame at the silent reprimand.
Lilly was going to have knee surgery in a few months, and with the date soon to arrive and lots of work to do, Nate had hired the young man to help with household chores, refusing to entertain the idea of hiring one of the local women from town at Lilly’s suggestion.
He’d made no apologies for his “no woman hired” policy on the ranch, something everyone, including Lilly, had simply accepted as fact.
But now, with Lilly’s silent reprimand, and the fact that he’d probably made an ass of himself not only to the woman, but to his brothers about her being there, he knew he’d overreacted.
“You’d do well to give this one a chance, Nate. She actually looks like she understands the value of hard work. And sacrifice,” she said, and after one more considering look added, “something you and your brothers know too well. Think about it before you throw her away.” With that she turned and gathered the food, Shilah and Holt helping her, leaving Nate feeling like an idiot.
Now, as he drove into town, the entire situation was giving him a migraine he could damn well do without.
He floored the accelerator on his truck just as he was passing a cop, cursing when, after a glance in his rearview mirror, he caught sight of the cop peeling out from the side of the road and the accompanying flash of red lights.
Chapter 5
When Althea’s radio alarm blared to life she woke up with a start, her heart thumping against her rib cage as the lyrics to the old Clash song “Should I Stay or Should I Go” blared loudly from the small speakers.
With a groan she slapped a hand over the knob, beating the alarm into silent submission.
“Should I stay or should I go?” She asked the question out loud, thinking how appropriate the lyrics to the song were in her current situation.
The light peeking through the wide slatted blinds cast a beautiful amber glow over the room.
Although she’d awakened to the sun rising often over the last two years, this one was different. It was as though it was embracing her, filling her with a “newness” that she hadn’t felt in a long time.
She shook her head at her flight of fancy, but the smile on her face lingered as she stretched her back. For once it didn’t scream at her in pain. The muscles weren’t tensed up as they usually were from a night spent on a bed that was either thin as paper or so lumpy it felt as though she’d slept on a bed of rocks all night.
Raising her arms above her head, she released a long, satisfying breath.
The bed she’d been sleeping on for the past week was queen-size with a thick, plush mattress, pulling a deep sigh of bliss from her lips.
She’d almost forgotten what it felt like to live decently.
No loud neighbors wakened her, either from cries of passion heard through the thin walls or screams and fighting, either. Nothing stopped her from getting a full eight hours of sleep. Not even her own mind.
After a week of this type of living, she knew she could get used to it.
The thought brought her eyes wide open and caused the smile to slip from her face. That kind of thinking was what she had to avoid.
Getting too comfortable in one place was something she couldn’t afford to do. With a sigh, she placed her hands on the side of her and pushed herself into an upright position.
She’d used the alarm to wake her, realizing after the first three nights the ease with which she’d slept, surprised when her personal inner alarm allowed her to sleep past dawn, was both surprising and disturbing.
Her glance slid over the room.
She spied her baseball bat across the room, propped up against the wall. She’d even forgotten to place it near her as she’d gone to sleep last night.
She flipped her feet over the side of the bed and rose. “Girl, you’re getting soft,” she murmured aloud to herself.
Althea headed toward the small, brightly lit kitchen to make tea, her bare feet sinking into the thick carpet, her mind on the changes in her life over the short time she’d lived at the ranch.
She’d been relieved when, after hiring her, the brothers had informed her she’d be staying in the guest cottage. It was close enough that the walk to the main house was only ten minutes but far enough