Ellie sipped the coffee. “I’m not panicked. Yet.”
Except for the fact he was in her house, and he was a little too pleasant to look at. No, nothing whatsoever to panic about. Just because her belly tightened and her libido sat up and took notice whenever he was near didn’t mean she needed to panic. She was temporarily celibate, not dead.
The man in question emerged from the barn just then and wiped an arm across his face. He’d agreed to help Miguel muck out stalls today. She wasn’t sure why, but he had. She thought maybe he was the kind of man who needed to be busy, or maybe he wanted to know more about how the farm worked before he sold it. He’d removed his shirt, which was definitely not good for her libido.
Or Lacey’s, it seemed. “Oh my,” she said. “Holy crap.”
“Yeah, right?”
“And he’s staying in your house? Like that? Girl, you need to change the plan.”
“What plan? I don’t exactly have a plan.”
Lacey swatted at her arm, but she didn’t take her eyes off Max. He hadn’t yet looked over as he twisted the cap off a bottle of water and took a drink.
“The plan to sell Champ and buy the farm. Get him to stay. Permanently.”
Ellie nearly choked on the coffee. “What? Why?”
“Look at him. Why not? You’re twenty-eight, and your clock’s ticking. You could do worse than a billionaire’s son. A lot worse, trust me.”
“Lacey, the fumes at the salon have gone to your head. My clock is not ticking. And he may be pretty, but if he turns out to be an asshole then he’s not worth the trouble. Need I remind you about Dave? Or that crazy ex of yours?”
She’d told Max she knew he wasn’t an asshole, but what if she was wrong? What if, when push came to shove, he really was a jerk? Wouldn’t be the first time she’d gotten it wrong.
Lacey gave her a look. “Seriously? The man ripped out your carpeting, and now he’s mucking stalls. Is that what assholes do? Trust me, Brice only cares about himself. He would never offer to help unless it benefited him somehow.”
Ellie’s cheeks flamed. Dang it. “Maybe. Look, Max owns the place. Technically. So maybe he feels obligated to keep his property in fine order. I don’t know—but mucking stalls does not automatically exclude him from assholeland down the road. Dave mucked stalls.”
“He worked here at the time. Doesn’t count.”
Ellie frowned at her. “Go get your horse and stop wasting my time.”
Lacey grinned over her shoulder as she walked away. “I’m just saying, Ellie. Might at least be worth taking for a spin.”
It turned out that mucking stalls was seriously hard work. Miguel showed Max how to dig up the wet spots and old shavings and then toss them into the wagon attached to the tractor that sat in the aisle. Once they’d gone down the row of stalls, they had to get fresh shavings for each stall and shovel them in. It was backbreaking, sweaty work. It was also smelly.
But Max didn’t shrink from it. God knew he’d suffered through worse. Carrying a buddy six miles to the extraction point, weighed down with weapons and feeling his blood seeping into your clothing, was a lot worse than horse piss.
“It’s good Ellie have a friend,” Miguel said at one point. “She no have many people who can help her.”
Max couldn’t stop himself from asking, “She doesn’t have a boyfriend?”
Miguel smiled a crafty smile. Okay, so asking that question wasn’t precisely subtle.
“No, nobody since Dave. He used to do work here when Miss Pamela had a full barn. There was much more to be done then. Dave left when Miss Pamela got sick. It was no surprise after what happened—but what he do to Ellie was wrong.”
There was a lot to process in that statement. Max stopped shoveling shavings and frowned. “What happened to Ellie’s mother?”
Miguel looked fierce, and then he just looked sad. “She got a brain tumor. She was sick for a while, acted crazy sometimes and not crazy others. Did terrible things and most of the clients left. When she finally learn what was wrong, it was too late to fix anything.”
Max wondered if he meant the brain tumor or the situation with the clients and decided he actually meant both.
“When the clients left, we had to let people go. That is why Dave left. But he break up with Ellie too?” Miguel shook his head. “She never complain, but I know it hurt her.”
Max hated the idea of Ellie being hurt, but he couldn’t say he wasn’t unhappy that she didn’t have a current boyfriend. Though the idea of Ellie being single for the past two years or more was rather surprising. She was a lovely woman. It was hard to imagine there hadn’t been other men, other dates.
“It hasn’t been easy for Ellie, has it?”
“No. She been building up the client list again, slowly, but they are not the same kind of people we have before.” Miguel leaned forward conspiratorially. “If you ask me, I like these people better. They are not rich, they do not purchase expensive horses and complain if their child no win the blue every time. They are hardworking, love the animals, and don’t expect Ellie to perform miracles. Miss Pamela put up with a lot of shit from people, so it was no wonder she lost control of her tongue when the tumor grew. It would have been better if she had not, but we cannot cry over spilled milk.”
No, you shouldn’t dwell on the past, but sometimes that was easier said than done. Max liked that Miguel was so straightforward and honest. He was a good man to have on your side, and Max was glad Ellie had him.
“You know,” Max began, because he couldn’t see keeping the truth from this man any longer when he’d been so kind, “Ellie wasn’t sure how to tell you this, but I’m actually the son of the man who made the loan on the farm. I own it now.”
Miguel didn’t look surprised. “I know the name Brannigan. Ellie no think I do, but Miss Pamela tell me. So yes, I know you aren’t here as a friend.”
“I don’t mean her harm,” Max said.
Miguel shrugged, but it wasn’t an unconcerned shrug. More of a what can anyone do kind of shrug. “I hope not, amigo. Ellie deserve happiness for a change.”
They continued working on the stalls for another hour. Ellie came and went inside the barn. A couple of kids arrived with their mothers. They saddled horses and went outside to ride. He could hear Ellie instructing them. He didn’t understand what a lot of it meant—soft hands, easy, inside leg, more snaffle—but the tone of her voice was firm and yet encouraging at the same time. She exuded confidence in what she was doing.
He thought of her on the porch last night, sounding so small and lost when she’d said she missed her mother. He’d wanted to reach out and take her in his arms. It was as much a surprise to him as it would have been to her if he’d done it. But she’d gotten up and said she was going to bed, and that was the end of that.
He glimpsed that hint of vulnerability in her from time to time, and it intrigued him precisely because she did seem so strong and in control. He wondered what it would be like to make her lose that control. What it would be like to see her spread out on his bed, her hair wild and free, her lithe body bared for his delight before he took her over the edge.
He shook his head to rid it of that image. He didn’t need to get involved, didn’t need to take what was essentially a business relationship across the line into personal territory. How much harder would that make it for him to sell this place when time was up? Or to convince her to sell before then?
He knew himself. He liked women and he liked sex, but that’s all it would be. He didn’t do relationships. Didn’t commit. Ellie didn’t need that in her life, not after what Miguel had said about Dave. She needed someone she could rely on, not someone who might jet off at a moment’s notice to a foreign location where he’d be putting his life on the line. She didn’t need someone who might not come back.
She needed stability, not instability. As much as he might like to kiss her senseless and explore her lovely body, he wasn’t going to cross that line. They could be friends, maybe, but
that was it. And even that wasn’t necessary since once the farm was gone, they’d never need to see each other again.
Ellie headed up to the house around twelve thirty and found Max hard at work in his room. She could hear the sounds of scraping and sanding, so she went down the hallway to the former sitting room. Max had his back to her. He was wearing a T-shirt, thankfully, and jeans. The way the shirt stretched across his shoulders had her thinking about what Lacey said earlier. Might at least be worth taking for a spin.
As if her body wanted to chime in on that possibility, her nipples tightened and her core started to ache. Jeez.
She cleared her throat to let him know he wasn’t alone. He stopped scraping off the peeling plaster and turned with a warm grin. He was covered in plaster dust. “I already knew you were standing there. Figured I’d let you ogle my ass for a while first.”
Heat rolled through her. “I was not ogling your ass.”
“Then why did you wait before announcing your presence?”
He had her there. She folded her arms over her breasts and leaned against the doorjamb. “I didn’t want to scare you. I was being polite.”
He snorted. “If that’s what you call it.”
“It is.” Because there was no use arguing with him. She’d only turn redder, and she’d lose by default.
“What’s up?” he asked, setting the scraper down and picking up a bottle of water.
“I heard the noise in here. I wondered what you were doing.”
He gestured to the wall. “I decided to scrape off the chipping plaster and peeling paint before patching and sanding the wall. I can paint it if you decide on a color. No gloss or semigloss though. They’ll show too many of the imperfections in the plaster.”
Ellie walked into the room and turned around in it. Granny had picked the yellow because she wanted something sunny, but Ellie didn’t like it. Never had, and neither had Momma. “Honestly, I know it might be crazy, but I want something creamy. Not quite white. Something that contrasts with the moldings but isn’t so bright as this yellow. Something that suits a home of this age.”
“Maybe we could run to the paint store and look at samples at some point.”
“That would be great.”
He set the water down and picked up a towel, wiping it across his forehead and dropping it on the mattress again. “Never thought I’d be working my ass off when I set out for this place two days ago.”
“Life is full of surprises,” she said. “I never thought I’d have a roommate either. Yet here we are.”
“Here we are.”
She hated feeling nervous around him, and yet she did. It was Lacey’s fault, dammit. She’d set up the idea that Ellie should give in to her attraction to this man in spite of the fact he held a metaphorical ax over her head.
Liar. You already had that idea.
“Thanks for helping Miguel today.”
“It wasn’t a problem.”
“It’s hard work. And smelly. A lot of people don’t appreciate that.”
He laughed. “Ellie, compared to what I usually do, this is a walk in the park. Trust me, there’s nothing I’ve done yet that makes me want to run screaming. I suppose that disappoints you, but the truth is I’m actually enjoying myself. It’s hard work, backbreaking work—but nobody’s trying to kill me.”
Her heart squeezed at the thought of him in danger. She did not understand why he did what he did. He came from the kind of family where he had so many options in life. But how could she judge? She could have done something besides work with horses too, but that was her choice. She’d never wanted to do anything else, even when Momma had encouraged her to do something that would give her more security and stability.
So he was an adrenaline junkie like some of his brothers. He just chose to add in the element of having people shoot at him.
“Well,” she said, trying to keep her voice light, “the horses might try to kick you or bite you, so that’s an element of danger.”
“You got me there. I think I can handle that though.”
“I’m going to go get lunch with Lacey in a few minutes. She’s cooling her horse—do you want to come with us?”
She hadn’t meant to invite him. Not because it wasn’t polite or she didn’t want him around, but because ever since Lacey said what she did, Ellie was overthinking everything she said and did. Would he think she was crushing on him if she invited him to lunch? He’d already accused her of looking at his ass—which, yes, she had been—so did she need to add in more evidence that she might be attracted to him?
But how could she thank him for helping out today and then tell him she was going to lunch without asking him to go? It would be rude, right?
He hesitated for a moment, and she started mentally kicking herself. Because he surely was thinking that she liked him, and he was clearly not interested in return. But then he smiled at her, and her heart kicked up higher.
“Sure, I’ll go. Thanks for asking. But do you mind if I meet you there? I need to take a quick shower. Then I want to get a few things afterward, so I’m going to need my truck.”
Why were her insides glowing? Why was she feeling as giddy as a kid in a candy store?
Oh my God, Lacey, I am going to kill you.
“No rush. We aren’t leaving for a while yet, so just come on down to the barn when you’re ready and you can follow us there.”
8
They took him to a restaurant in Versailles—Ver-Sales, they pronounced it—called Mary Lou’s, a greasy spoon that turned out to have the best hamburger Max had ever had in his life. The fries were crispy and hot, and the company was far prettier than he’d been keeping in the weeks before he came to Kentucky.
He was enjoying himself, but at the back of his mind a voice whispered, Don’t go soft. This isn’t your life.
Lacey was the chattier of the two women. But Ellie chimed in here and there while Lacey talked and gesticulated wildly as she told a story. They talked about horses and about growing up together. He imagined his mother with Ellie’s mom and wondered if they’d been like this. Two friends who had wild adventures together and finished each other’s sentences sometimes.
He definitely needed to call Aunt Claire and ask about her and Mom’s life here. He’d texted her the picture of Mom on horseback, and she’d replied with a long, gushy text that must have taken her forever to type out with just one finger—which was the way he’d seen her reply to texts in the past, picking each letter carefully—about how wonderful it was and how much Mom had loved to ride, how she’d wanted her own saddlebred but their parents couldn’t afford the expense, so she’d done something called catch riding, which was basically showing someone else’s horse for them. The horse she’d shown had belonged to the Applegates of course. And then Aunt Claire said she hoped he was having fun and ended by sending her love.
Max leaned back in the booth, an arm along the edge, and idly ate fries as they argued over who forgot to latch the gate on the goat pen when there used to be goats at the farm. Apparently the goats had gotten out and tap-danced all over the cars parked by the barn that day. One poor woman in a Mercedes had actually screamed and chased one of the goats down the hill before she tripped and landed in a pile of horse shit.
“Momma was so mad,” Ellie said between giggles.
“Mrs. Oakley. She threatened to sue, but her husband came out the next day and apologized,” Lacey said.
“Seriously?” Max asked. He could understand why Mrs. Oakley would be angry.
“Yeah,” Ellie said. “There was no damage to the car, thankfully, but she said some very rude things about how important she was and how her husband would get every penny we had. He was a lawyer.”
“So what happened after that?”
Ellie and Lacey exchanged a look. “Nothing. Mrs. Oakley pretended it never happened because her daughter loved riding with Momma and insisted she wasn’t going anywhere else. Though Mrs. Oakley bought an SUV and drove that to the farm from then o
n. Lacey and I… Well, we were sixteen and we felt the loss of our privileges keenly. Momma didn’t let either of us ride for two weeks.”
Lacey ate a fry. “We both missed the next show. My parents were completely on board with whatever Ms. Applegate wanted to do.”
“We never forgot to latch the goat pen again,” Ellie said.
“Nope, never did. And then she sold the goats to a lady who wanted to make cheese, and that was the end of that.”
It sounded like a fun childhood. He’d had a good childhood, even fun sometimes. Things had been difficult after his mother died and his father basically threw himself into work and disappeared, but Max and his brothers never wanted for material goods or things to do. He knew they were privileged. He knew they’d had it good even if they’d lost their mother and hardly ever did anything with their father. It was wrong to feel as if he’d missed out on anything.
But he still sometimes did.
“So what about you, Max?” Lacey asked. “What was it like growing up in California? Did you meet lots of movie stars?”
“I met a few. My father was a movie producer, so he sometimes had parties at our house.”
“Who was the most memorable movie star you ever met?”
Before he could answer, Lacey’s gaze flicked to the front of the restaurant and she paled. Beside her, Ellie’s expression grew fierce. She reached over and squeezed Lacey’s arm, and Max’s danger signals went through the roof. He had his back to the door, which he did not like, but he’d told himself when he followed the ladies into the restaurant and they took a seat where he’d prefer to be sitting that he didn’t need to make them move so he could face the door. He could handle himself well enough here, which was part of the reason he’d leaned into the corner of the booth so he could scan as much of the restaurant as possible from his vantage point.
Now he turned his head to see what the trouble was. He had to fight his instincts to leap to his feet and prepare to fight. Logic told him that if a gunman had walked into the restaurant, not only would Lacey and Ellie react differently, but everyone else would also be reacting—and the noise level would have changed drastically.
Max (7 Brides for 7 Brothers Book 5) Page 7