Finally her gaze went to the deep blue eyes that were wide open and staring at her.
They were still a little cloudy with sleep, and she kinda figured he was trying to figure out exactly where he was and why he was there.
She’d taken her beanie off from the night before, which she kinda wished she hadn’t. It was a little bit of a shield from the eyes that stared at her now.
Gritting her jaw, she lifted a brow and waited, her pen still poised above the note. The one she no longer needed if the man woke up and didn’t fall back asleep. His eyes drooped, and she thought maybe she’d need to write the note after all, but then they popped wide open and shot back to her.
He swore. That word had never been uttered in her house before, and she flinched. He hadn’t completely lost the small-town manners, because his mouth tightened just a little and his eyes dropped, almost in regret that he’d said the word in front of her.
“I’d hoped it was a nightmare.” His lips flattened, and his arm came out from under the cover, his biceps bunching as he ran a hand over his head. “But I guess not.”
She set the pen down on the table. His eyes shifted to it. “That my list of things you have for me to do today?” He yawned. “Can’t a man even get out of bed first?” He shifted as though intending to do what his words applied, but then he stopped. “Unless you want to get an eyeful, you’d better leave.”
“You can stay decently covered while I’m here. This is my house.” She’d never been a big talker, and typically she didn’t have a lot of people to talk to. But she wasn’t going to stand there mute and let him dictate the direction of their relationship. “You slept in my bed last night, because I didn’t have anything prepared for you. If you’re going to stay here, you can fix up your own place to sleep, and that’s your first task for today. Find yourself somewhere stay.”
She let the pen slap down on the table, but grabbed the paper and balled it up. He didn’t need to see what she was writing. For some reason, it felt safer to protect herself from him seeing it.
She turned to walk out. Unaccountably angry. Mostly at herself.
“Wait.”
She stopped with her hand on the door but didn’t turn around to look. She could hear rustling and movement, and if he truly didn’t have anything on, she didn’t want to know it.
Although his shoulders had looked nice.
She spoke to the back of the door. “If you have something to say to me, you need to spit it out. The day’s half over, and I have work to do.”
“It’s barely past breakfast; there’s plenty more time to work today. You don’t have to be rude.”
“Some of us depend on what we do during the day in order to survive. For those of us for whom that’s true, the day is half over.” She knew she sounded like a snob, and she also knew she was being mean. It wasn’t entirely true either. The day wasn’t half over technically, but she hated his rich-boy attitude, the one that said the world could just wait until he was ready. Obviously, his work didn’t depend on sunlight or good weather. And that was fine, but she wasn’t going to listen to him criticize her because hers did.
“I didn’t bring food. Did you cook something?”
Taking her chances, she turned her head. He sat on the mattress with the blanket draped over his legs. Mostly decent. “Not for you. If you want me to cook breakfast for you, you need to be up when I am doing it.”
“Yeah. You could’ve woken me up or something,” he mumbled, and he had a good point. She already felt guilty but couldn’t seem to stop the unkind words from rushing out of her mouth.
“Why would I? If you want breakfast, wake up and get it.”
“How about you tell me what time that’s going to be, and I’ll be up.”
“It’s going to be at 7:30. And you weren’t up.”
She was being petty. Of course she could have woken him up for breakfast. But in her defense, how did someone sleep through the kind of noise that she made while making breakfast?
“When’s the next meal?”
“Seriously? I have a ton of work to do, and that’s all you’re concerned about? Eating? There are a ton of things to do today, and I don’t have time to sit around and cook on your schedule.”
“I’m pretty sure you signed the paper yesterday saying that you’d give me three meals a day.”
That took the little wind she had left out of her sails. Because he was right. Oh goodness, she hated it when she lost an argument.
“I’m going to go through that door,” she pointed to the small room that contained her chest freezer and small refrigerator, “and get some eggs to cook for you. In that amount of time, you need to be decently clothed because I’m not going to twiddle my thumbs outside while you fiddle around.”
“I’ll take my duffel into the bathroom and change there. All I need is for you to get out of here long enough for me to walk from here to your bathroom. And then, I need you to not come in while I’m changing.”
“There is not enough money in the world to make me go into a room in which you were changing.” She stomped across the room and yanked open the door to her small freezer room.
Thankfully, behind her she could hear footsteps as he got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. Her movements were brisk, her anger still fresh.
She made looking for the eggs take a little longer than it normally did, and she knew she was being unreasonable. But her years-long animosity toward Chandler seemed to erupt out of her mouth every time they spoke.
As soon as she heard the bathroom door close behind him, she grabbed the eggs and walked out. She really didn’t have time to cook another breakfast, but it was her own fault. Why didn’t she wake him up and make him eat or at least cook something and let it sit on the table? Cold eggs were gross, but at least she would’ve done what she said she would do when she signed the paper. It hadn’t stipulated that his eggs had to be warm.
The butter was melting in the skillet when the bathroom door opened again.
She’d been thinking about the things she wanted to get done, and she wasn’t really focused on the present, or she wouldn’t have looked over.
She needed to make a mental note to not look at him. When she started looking at him, it was hard to pull her eyes away. The T-shirt was a touch too tight, or maybe it was designed to pull over his shoulders and stretch like that. His jaw was covered with stubble, and it gave him a rough and slightly dangerous look, one that curled her stomach and made her palms itch.
Her stomach and palms, and the stomach and palms of every other girl in America.
Maybe that was a negative thought, but it was enough to make her pull her eyes away. She wasn’t every other girl in America. She knew what he was really like and had been the butt of his insults.
Her butter had completely melted, and she poured the eggs into the skillet.
“You’re getting them over easy unless you say now you want something different.” She didn’t exactly mumble, and her voice held irritation, but it wasn’t at him.
It was her. She’d never allowed herself to be stupid over a man. She’d grown up with her mother, after all.
“That’s fine.”
His toast was already in the toaster, and she reached in the cupboard and pulled out a plate. “Here. There’s silverware in that drawer and a glass on the drainboard, if you want water. Anything else you have to make yourself.”
“You have coffee?”
“No.” She almost offered him tea, but she didn’t have very much, and she really didn’t want to share.
She hated what that said about her. “There’s tea in the cupboard. But you have to heat the water up on the stove.”
“Sugar?”
“Honey.”
“That’ll work,” he grunted.
He moved over beside her, and that scent from last night was even stronger and deeper this morning. She hated that she couldn’t stop herself from breathing it in. Shouldn’t be something that she enjoyed.
Sh
e stiffened when he reached around her to grab the tea out of the other cupboard.
“Your cupboards are pretty bare.”
She wasn’t sure if that was an insult, or whether he was just commenting on that like he might comment on the weather. Seemed kind of personal, and considering her feelings for him, it was hard for her not to take umbrage at everything he said.
“I don’t need much.” There. It was neutral. Just because she could hardly stand the man didn’t mean that she couldn’t be nice to him.
“Most people consider coffee and sugar to be basic necessities.” His tone was casual as he moved with a gracefulness a man of his size shouldn’t have.
“I’m not most people.” Surely he knew that if he didn’t know anything else. Whatever he thought about her, she wasn’t like most of the people he knew.
His next words confirmed it.
“No, I suppose you’re not.”
She didn’t say anything, and the eggs were ready to be flipped, so she put all of her attention on that.
“Where exactly were you thinking that I was supposed to ‘fix up’ a place to stay?” He used his fingers to do air quotes around “fix up,” like the concept was baffling to him.
She decided to be honest. “I really didn’t think you were going to stay.”
“Well, I am. Where do you want me?”
“The paper I signed yesterday didn’t say I need to keep you in my house. So you can fix yourself up a place in the shed with the animals. That’s where I slept yesterday.”
“So you slept in your barn?” His hands stopped with the tea bag half-opened. His voice sounded incredulous.
“Not really barn. Shed. And yeah, I don’t have anywhere else for you.”
“Next time you buy someone at auction, maybe you’ll want to consider the logistics of where you’re housing them before you spend your money.”
“Wasn’t my money.” Her hand slapped over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say that.
“What do you mean it wasn’t your money?” He stopped with the honey clasped in his hand, the cupboard door still open.
Her heart had started to thump. She didn’t want him to know anything about her. She wasn’t sure why it was so imperative that she not tell him, although it felt like protection, like he would exploit any information he could about her. She supposed it probably wasn’t true, but he had made fun of her a lot when she was younger, and then there was that one time, the one she could never forgive.
“I didn’t steal it if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
“Whoa.” His head snapped around. “I hadn’t even thought about that.”
“Yeah. I’m sure you didn’t.” She almost rolled her eyes. But she scraped the eggs off the bottom of the pan instead. “Your eggs are done.”
“Okay. I guess it’s going to take a little longer than I thought it would to heat the water and get the tea going.”
She set the eggs on the plate, along with the toast. “There’s butter on the table. You can sit down and eat. I’ll make the tea.”
Since she was making it, she might as well have a cup herself, too. It was a precious commodity that she didn’t use often. The less she went to the store, the better off she was. Tea was a little luxury that she might give herself after a particularly hard day of work, where she could sit on the porch with her feet braced on the ground, sipping and relaxing. Once a week maybe.
“After I figure out where I’m going to stay, what are your plans for the day?”
This morning had been nothing except uncomfortable for her. She didn’t want him here. In her head, she went through all the scenarios she could. What would be the worst one that would make him want to leave by the end of the day?
She could have him dig rocks out of the corner piece. But she thought, especially if there were no clouds and it was as hot as the folks in town last night had said it was going to get, she might be better off having him dig fence post holes to finish fencing the twenty acres. Her animals could be grazing in there right now, if they didn’t keep getting out because of the lack of sturdy fencing.
If she did it herself, she’d just pound metal stakes and string barbwire.
But if she were going to have Chandler do it, he could dig the holes and then cut trees down for the fence posts. She’d make sure he knew she wanted them sunk in at least 8 inches. She almost smiled at the thought. He’d be gone by suppertime.
Whatever he got done today would be the start of some good fence.
She had to button up her face before she turned around. “You go ahead and get yourself situated in the shed, although you can keep your toiletries in the bathroom. When you’re finished with that, you can meet me in the back where the beehives are, and I’ll give you your instructions for the day.”
“I figured I’d be working eight hours.” He slanted her a glance as he pulled out his chair. She hadn’t set his plate at the head of the table, and he didn’t move it.
“I don’t believe the amount of time that you are required to work was specified on the contract.”
“Isn’t eight hours a normal workday?”
“Not for me.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s standard in America.”
“That’s fine. Work eight hours.” She wasn’t going to fight with him, pretty sure after eight hours of digging fence post holes through that big, rocky field, he’d be gone anyway.
Chapter 6
Chandler stopped and wiped the sweat off his brow. He couldn’t believe it was only three o’clock. He felt like he’d been working forever.
Last night, as he lay in bed, he’d wondered how he was going to get to the gym. He couldn’t show up to the next movie set looking like he’d done nothing for the last thirty days. It wasn’t exactly an action flick—it was a romantic comedy. But he still needed to look the part of a Navy seal who’d been hired to be the bodyguard of a millionaire’s son, who lived with his mother, a brain surgeon.
The brain surgeon was his love interest and the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. It was sure to be a blockbuster hit. Especially since it was scheduled to come out around Valentine’s Day. It was the most romantic movie he had done to date and also the one with the highest expectations. The star power alone could carry it. There was no question it would be good.
After what he’d done today, though, the gym was the furthest thing from his mind. After pounding the hole digger into the rocky soil all day, he certainly didn’t need any weights.
He stopped, leaning the handle against his shoulder, lifting his hat to wipe his brow, and looking back across the line of holes that he’d dug through the field. Exactly eight feet apart and eight inches deep. Every one of them.
Shoving his hat back down on his head, he looked toward the other end and almost laughed. He wasn’t even halfway done. The rocks in this field were outrageous, and he wondered how in the world Ivory would’ve gotten these fence holes dug if it hadn’t been for him. Not that she was helpless, but she was about half his size. It would’ve taken her all summer to do the holes.
At his family’s farm, they would have used a hole digger attachment on their skid loader and had this done by now.
If Ivory had a skid loader, he had yet to see it. He assumed she couldn’t afford to rent one nor a hole digger to go with it.
He looked across the hollow to the hill on the other side where she stood with her white bee uniform on, doing something with the brown boxes there. He assumed they were hives, although they’d never kept bees on his farm and he’d never been around it much.
She seemed pretty set on working with them, and he supposed it was safe enough. At least for him, since he was far enough away that they shouldn’t bother him.
Two more hours. His arms felt like they were about to drop off, his hands burned, and he was dying of thirst, but he only had two more hours before he could quit. He sure hoped they were doing something for supper, because his breakfast had worn off a long time ago. She had said something about brea
kfast being late so there wouldn’t be a lunch, but when he reminded her she’d agreed to three meals a day, she’d thrown together a sandwich for him to take to the field with him. Peanut butter and jelly.
He had eaten that at ten o’clock and been hungry ever since.
By the time the next two hours were done, he was ready to drop in place. It was actually 4:59 by his cell phone when he dropped the post hole digger where it stood and started walking toward the shack that Ivory called her house.
She was still at the beehives and, from what he could tell as he’d watched her during the day, seemed to be taking them apart and putting them back together. He wasn’t sure exactly what she was accomplishing by doing that, but she’d been working hard at it all day.
He’d been back at the shack with his hands washed and sitting on the porch with his third cup of water in his hand, and she still hadn’t arrived.
His whole body ached, but he stood and walked around the shack, looking up the hill. She was still there. Working.
Maybe she’d been serious about working until dark. That was like another three or four hours. Surely she wasn’t going to work that long.
But at six o’clock, he decided yes, she was.
There was no TV, and he did not cook. But he was also tired of sitting on the porch. The signal for his phone wasn’t very good, although he could use it. He wasn’t used to having to wait forever for anything to load.
A little voice inside his head said, You could text your mom, she’d come pick you up. Or your brothers. They’d make fun of you, but they’d come.
He flipped his phone end over end in his hand. His stomach growled and cramped. His hands burned; the blisters that he’d had after one hour of work had long since popped, and new ones had formed. They bled in a couple of places. The sharp pain traveled up his arms to his elbows and squatted there, pinching.
Sold! In the Show Me State Page 4