by Rye Hart
He went off and found the quickest source of attention he could find.
I walked into the conference room, and a middle-aged man was sitting at the desk. He was balding on the top of his head, and he looked tired. I could only imagine the exhaustion dealing with Drake Blackthorn on a daily basis brought with it. I sat in the chair across from him and placed the file folder in my lap, waiting for him to ask me his first question.
But instead, he began to rattle off a bunch of things he was going to require of me.
“Here’s what I need. I need someone who can handle Drake. Someone who doesn’t mind standing up to him and telling him what he needs to hear. What I need is someone to make Drake predictable. He’s an unpredictable man who is tanking his image with the media, and someone needs to help him clean up his act. He has a problem he won’t admit to, an attitude that can’t be adjusted, and I’m fresh out of options.”
“Sounds like a true southern gentleman,” I said, unable to hide the sarcasm in my voice.
Hank sighed and rubbed his temples. “Truthfully, he's not a bad guy. Deep down and all, he's been through a lot, and it's changed him. Not for the better, obviously. He's a drunk, but won't admit to it, and someone needs to help him manage his life, to get things under control before it ruins his career.”
I'd heard about Drake’s downward spiral after losing his wife and daughter, so I knew what Hank was talking about. Still, it didn't give him an excuse to treat people like shit.
“That sounds very challenging,” I said. Helping a man who'd been through so much, who was still dealing with the pain, wasn't going to be easy. It's also why I agreed to the interview. If I could help him, I could make a real difference. This is the type of help I wanted to provide for people, the reason I studied psychology in the first place.
“Every other woman I’ve interviewed wants to fall all over him, tell him what he wants to hear and inflate his ego. I can’t hire someone like that. He needs someone who isn’t afraid to pop the little bubble he’s created for himself. I’m not just looking for a personal assistant, I’m looking for someone who can help get him sober.”
“And you think I can do all of that?” I asked.
“To be honest, I haven’t gotten this far into the interview with anyone else yet. Don’t disappoint me now.”
“I don’t intend to,” I said.
“Good. I like that. Okay. Let’s start with your credentials.”
“I’ve been working with this company for three and a half years now. Always part-time, always from home. I specialize in time management and over-the-phone counseling.”
“Getting a degree?”
“Yes. From Vanderbilt.”
“What’s your degree?” he asked.
“Psychology with a focus on substance abuse counseling.”
“Sounds like the perfect person for this job.”
“I’ve never taken on a full-time client like this. If you want to hire me for the job, I’d like your permission to use it as a bargaining chip with my professors.”
“Why? You failing a class?” he asked.
“No. But I could use it for credit in a couple of my courses if I smooth talked them enough, which would free up my schedule to do all the things you’re requiring of me. I have online courses I’m finishing up, but I had two that required me to be on campus this year. I could get out of them with this job if I phrased it as a paid internship. That would free up my time to work with Mr. Blackthorn.”
“If it helps you with your own time management, I’ll write a personal request and sign it myself,” he said.
“Anything else you want to know?”
“Yes. How familiar are you with people who have autism?”
“Mr. Blackthorn doesn’t strike me as someone who has autism,” I said.
“Because he doesn’t. Are you familiar?” he asked again.
“I can’t say I have any close friends who struggle with it, but it’s something I can read up on and learn about.”
“Good,” he said. “When can you start?”
“As soon as you need me,” I said.
“I’ll need you to sign the NDA before we leave the office. Congratulations. You got the job. God help your poor soul.”
Sighing, I shook my head as I stood and took the hand Hank offered.
I left the room and went back to my desk, then closed out the article in front of me. I got the job. Holy shit, I’d actually scored the job. Drake was still enjoying the women that were gathered around him, oblivious to the fact that someone had been hired to whip his life back into shape. I wondered if he knew the type of light Hank was painting him in during these interviews.
Hank gave me the impression I would need to be strong to corral a man like Drake, but I knew I was up for the task. No one ran me over, not even my professors. Sometimes it bit me in the ass, but most of the time it worked in my favor. My mother, despite her difficulties, raised me to be a strong woman.
“Drake, I want to introduce you to your new P.A.”
I looked up at the sound of Hank’s voice as Drake’s form towered over me.
“Hey,” Drake said, sounding uninterested in the whole thing.
I stood up and offered my hand to him as his eyes raked up and down my form. I held my head up high, waiting for him to shake my hand. I wasn’t going to allow this man to reduce me to a piece of meat, nor was I going to allow his piercing gaze to weaken my knees.
Though as I watched him up close, I could definitely see why women were attracted to him.
I shook the thought from my mind as Drake finally took my outstretched hand. The worst thing I could’ve done was allow my hand to drop. Getting him to shake my hand, no matter how long I held it there, established dominance. It was a small step, but it was a step in the right direction. Drake following my lead instead of me following his.
I watched a grin tick Hank’s cheek. He knew what I had done, even if Drake was still trying to dismiss me.
“Be there at six in the morning tomorrow. We start early,” Drake said.
He dropped my hand and walked away as my eyes glanced toward Hank.
“He means his ranch. The address is in here. Read it through and sign the NDA. I can’t leave without it.”
I took the document and flipped through the pages, scanning the lines as quickly as I could. It looked like a basic enough non-disclosure agreement, so I signed and initialed where I needed to. I tore off the bottom of the paper that had everyone’s contact information on it; Drake’s cell number, the address to his ranch, and Hank’s cell phone number and email.
“Good luck,” Hank said, as I handed him the papers.
“Will you be there in the morning as well?” I asked.
“Nope. I’m going to take a well-deserved break from babysitting. This is your show now.”
After tilting his head toward me and bidding me a quick farewell, he scurried off in the direction of the elevator. This was going to be a bumpy ride, but it was one I was buckled in and ready for.
Drake Blackthorn wasn’t going know what hit him.
CHAPTER 5
Drake
The bourbon swirled with my coffee as I screwed the flask tight. I was still pissed that Hank hired me a fucking babysitter. I may have gotten my pick, but it was like picking the best from the worst. That was what this woman was. A glorified fucking babysitter to help get me from Point A to Point B. I didn’t need shit like that. I was a grown ass man.
Hank could call this woman whatever the hell he wanted, but she was nothing but a babysitter, and I was going to make damn sure she’d want to quite. No matter how pretty she was, no woman was running my life. No one could run my life better than I saw fit. I’d only allowed one woman to have any level of control over me and she was gone. I’d been the man of this damn house for years, taking care of my sister and running the ranch when I wasn’t on tour. No one knew my fucking life, or the shit I went through just to keep the people I cared about afloat. Fucking tabloid
s could paint me however they wanted to.
But if they walked a half a mile in my fucking boots, they’d be dead in the water.
As I sat there, downing my coffee and bourbon, I hoped she wouldn’t show. I hoped she couldn’t find the place or got a fucking flat tire and was late. If she was late for her first day of work, I could tell Hank, and she’d be fired. He didn’t tolerate that bullshit.
I knew. He’d lectured me over it a million times.
I sighed as I heard a car pull up in the driveway. I brought out my flask, bypassing the coffee as I took another swig. The clock on the microwave read five-fifty-eight as a door slammed shut.
Fuck. She was one of those annoying people who was always early.
Pulling my ball cap low over my head, I pushed up from the kitchen table. The last thing I needed was some prim and proper woman clopping her heels through my damn house. Elsie was still sleeping, and Tammy hadn’t gotten up to fix breakfast yet. I was still exhausted from the meltdown Elsie had last night over the thunderstorm that had rolled through. Though I’d set her up in her own apartment close by to help her exercise her independence, she refused to stay there during the storm, and she and Tammy had both ended up staying the night.
Making my way out toward the porch, I shut the door behind me. I saw the girl get out of a truck, stepping onto the pavement. She was dressed in a pair of boots, jeans, and a plain t-shirt. Her hair was up in a bun, and she had sunglasses on the top of her head. She looked different than she had yesterday. No heels or a skirt. No makeup or a nice blouse.
It suited her.
Her jeans molded to every single part of her; the light curve of her hips, the slenderness of her legs. Her boots were scuffed, worn down and broken in from years of wear and tear. She turned around and shut the door of her rusty truck, her tiny little ass perfectly rounded.
Goddammit! Stop checking her out.
Her eyes connected with mine as she grabbed her bag from the back of the truck. She was comfortable in her own skin. Maybe this woman wasn’t afraid to get dirty. Maybe she wasn’t the prim and proper little girl I had seen yesterday.
I waited for her to come to me. I knew that little trick she’d pulled in front of Hank yesterday. Holding out her hand until I shook it. She played a good game in front of him, but she was no match for me. I was the one running the show here. This was my life. My home. My ranch. My schedule. My career.
She didn’t own it, and neither did Hank.
Soon enough, she stood in front of me. Staring up at me with her big doe eyes as wisps of her honey blond hair fluttered around her cheeks. She was as pretty as she was yesterday, and that was dangerous. A woman who could be pretty even when she wasn’t trying, was almost any man's downfall.
“I’m already late gettin’ into the field,” I said. “The cattle need milkin’, and the chickens need to be fed. Fertilizer needs to be laid, and some of the empty fields need to be tilled again. The horses have been runnin’ all night, so they need to come in for breakfast. I’ve got a couple of foals that’ll need to be groomed, and their hooves’ll need to be picked ou—”
“Mr. Blackthorn, I’m your personal assistant, not your ranch hand. I’ll be helping you with your schedule and various other things that have been brought to my attention.”
Her voice was steady and girded as I leaned against the doorframe. I slowly slid a grin across my face, deadly and conniving. I watched my reflection in her eyes as she took a small step back, bracing herself as I loomed over her. She was small, which meant she was explosive. But even a firecracker made a loud boom before it was rendered useless.
Stone called it my ‘get ‘im smile.’ It showed people who was in charge. I leaned in real close to her ear. I felt her turn her head slightly, so her eyes never left my face.
“You work for me now,” I said. “And when I’m not on tour, I’m a rancher.”
I stood back up as her eyes followed me, big and bright as I turned on my heels. I could feel her eyes on my back as I opened the door, walking back into the house.
Then I turned my lips over my shoulder as I grabbed the flask from my pocket.
“You might wanna hurry up. We’re burnin’ daylight.”
CHAPTER 6
Delia
“Pompous ass.”
I watched as he turned back around and made his way to the house. I rushed to catch up with him, pissed at the game he was playing. I’d dealt with enough manipulative men during my short career as a personal assistant to recognize what he was doing. He was trying to establish his dominance over me in order to prove a point. He didn’t want anyone changing him, and he thrived on people following him around, obeying his every order while making sure they understood he was not to be controlled.
Soon, I found Drake thrusting a massive shovel into my hand.
“Get in there and dig it out,” he said.
I looked at the horse stall and sighed at the sheer amount of shit in it. Surely this wasn’t what Hank had in mind. I was a P.A., not a ranch hand. But I refused to show any sort of weakness, so I stepped into the stall and began shoveling the horse shit, tossing it out into the main hallway of the barn since I’d been given nothing to put it in. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to do the work. I was very familiar with it, despite how people thought I was raised. But I was supposed to be handling this man’s addiction and his fucking schedule.Not doing his fucking job. However, if I wanted him to know he couldn’t scare me off, this was the game I needed to play. For now.
“I need a horse.”
I saw a man running into the stall, huffing, and puffing as Drake turned his head.
“What’s up, Paul?”
“One of the calves got loose,” Paul said.
“Fuck. Seriously? Did you not drink your coffee this morning?” Drake asked.
I looked out the window to the pasture and saw the calf stumbling toward the broken fence line near the woods. By the time those two idiots were done arguing over what had happened, that calf was gonna kill itself wandering over to the woods, where animals of prey were typically lying in wait. I dropped my shit scooper and took off, my boots carrying me as fast as I could across the field as I tried to get to the calf that was wandering to its death.
I kept my breathing under control as I ran after the animal. The stumbling thing didn’t look to be any older than a few weeks, far away from the comfort of its mother. How the hell it got out of the grasp of someone like Paul was beyond me.
I huffed and puffed, wrangling the calf in and getting it moving back in the right direction. This was not what I signed up for. This was not what I was being paid to do. I turned toward the barn and set off, moving toward the herd of cows as the men stood at the horse barn. Their arms were crossed across their chests, and I could see the sly grins on their faces.
Holy fuck. I’d been set up.
I watched the calf rejoin with the herd as I shook my head. This was not going to happen much longer. So long as I was around, things were going to go differently.
At least, that was what I told myself as I handed Drake and Paul tools half an hour later.
“Ever been around a tractor?” Paul asked.
I stayed silent, leaning against the toolbox as I stared off into the horizon.
“Earth to city girl, hello?” Paul asked.
“Yes. I’ve been around a tractor,” I said.
“Did ya think it was sexy?” Drake asked.
“Shitty song reference, but thanks for trying,” I said.
“That hurt. That song’s a classic,” Paul said. “Could you hand me a bigger wrench? This ain’t doin’ it.”
I took the wrench Paul was holding up to me as I traded it for one a few sizes up.
“You looked good wranglin’ that calf,” Paul said. “Took off pretty quick.”
“Because you were too busy whining about needing a horse while that poor thing wandered toward wildcat territory,” I said.
“Man, she’s a spitfire, ain’t she?”
Paul asked.
“Told you,” Drake said. “Pass me the pliers, would ya?”
I grabbed the pliers and tossed them at Drake, watching as he caught them expertly in the palm of his hand.
Pity. I was hoping they’d smack him right in his smug face.
The entire day went like that. I didn’t get one solid break to call Hank at all, and something told me Drake had planned the day that way. I was really going to hate this fucking job. If Drake wasn’t bossing me around like some fucking ranch hand on his farm, he was drinking from the flask he thought he was hiding. I saw him tip it back at least twice before he went back up to the house unannounced.
If I had to venture a guess, I would say he had been filling the damn thing back up.
That was probably how he had worked all day without stopping to eat. He drank water and booze like a fucking camel, but shit like that suppressed the appetite. And depending on the concentration of the alcohol he was consuming, that was probably how he stayed so fit. Farm life like this, plus not eating the calories he needed to keep up with the energy he exerted, resulted in the sinewy body plastered on the few magazine covers he had done over the course of his career. Though nothing could hide the bags under his eyes.
I guess dehydrated alcoholic was the new sexy.
As the sun started to set, my shirt was plastered to me. I was soaked to the bone with sweat as I stumbled to my truck. I flung the door open and dug through my truck, finding a box of granola bars I’d tossed in there. I unwrapped three of them and scarfed them down, trying to get my stomach to stop growling long enough for me to wrap my head around things. I found a bottle of lukewarm water tumbling around in the back, so I grabbed it and twisted the top off.
I threw it back, chugging it down as sweat dripped down my neck.
I was exhausted. My feet hurt, my back hurt, and my stomach was still growling. My head was dizzy from the lack of food, and my throat was still burning for more water. I leaned against my truck, polishing off the water bottle as I heard footsteps approaching me.