The Rancher's Rules
“Right now, I’d consider just about anywhere.”
“What about that place near the school?”
“No dogs.”
He tossed out several more names and met with the same terse reply. No. He could understand her irritation. “I’m not taking you to the Courtyard.”
“Where I live is my decision.” Her bravado melted and she sighed. “It will just be for a little while anyway. I’ll start looking for a house come spring.”
He wondered what had changed her mind about buying a house. He didn’t ask. Instead, he said, “There has to be someplace better, even if it is only temporary.”
She frowned, her pixyish face set in mulish lines. “I don’t want to waste the entire day looking at places that won’t even consider me.”
But that was exactly what they did. Over the next several hours they visited every apartment complex, room for rent and house for rent in the nearby county. No one wanted to rent to a woman who had a large dog, two cats, a hamster, a parrot and a goat.
Grant would not back down and take her to the Courtyard. They argued about it again when they ran out of alternatives.
“Zoe, living in a place like the Courtyard is not an option. I used my cellphone to call the Sheriff’s office while you were talking to that couple about the duplex. They get calls to the Courtyard at least once a week.”
She glared at him. “I’m not going to be causing any disturbances.”
“Don’t be stubborn.” He knew he had hit rock-bottom with his arguments when he asked, “What would your parents think?”
Her silence spoke with more volume than any shouting match.
“Don’t look like that. Just because they aren’t coming home for Christmas doesn’t mean they don’t care about you.” But he decided it was time he called her father and told the older man a few home truths—like that was exactly how Zoe saw their actions. He’d talked more intransigent men than Mr. Jensen into doing what he wanted, and he wanted Zoe’s parents there for her at Christmas. “Your mom would flip if she knew you were even thinking about living there.”
Zoe took the newspaper and folded it with exaggerated precision. She tucked it into the side pocket in the door of the truck, and then pulled her seatbelt across her small waist and buckled it. “Do you want to pick up dinner before you drop me off, or just take me home?”
She had always had a knack for changing the subject when she did not want to dwell on something. He sighed, and started the truck. “Dinner first. I’m starving.”
He pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward Main Street and the few restaurants in Sunshine Springs.
She said, “Okay, but let’s make it a drive-thru. I want to get home. I’ve got work to do, and the cats are probably sick to death of the bathroom.”
He turned onto Main Street. “I have a better idea. Let’s get pizza, pick up your cats and eat at my place. We can drive to the pageant together afterward, and let the cats roam free.”
She looked out the window. “I was thinking about skipping the Nativity Play.”
“I know you get nervous when your kids are on stage, but they’re counting on you to be there.”
Her almost child-size hands clenched in her lap. “You’re right, but you don’t have to go with me. I’m a grown-up. I don’t need you along to hold my hand.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” he asked jokingly.
“Yes.”
He nearly ran one of the only two stoplights on Main. “Why?”
“I think you were right. We need to spend less time together. Tonight seems like the ideal place to start.”
Fear washed over him like water from a mountain stream, leaving his heart cold in its wake. He’d decided to explore the possibilities of a relationship with her and she was pulling away. “I said the kitchen. We need to spend less time together in the kitchen.”
Realizing how idiotic he sounded, he shut up. Damn. He’d known kissing Zoe would be a risk. He was losing her, and he wasn’t even dating her yet. Had she already decided he wasn’t worth compromising her lifestyle for?
His mother had made that decision when he was too young to understand but old enough to remember the pain. His ex-fiancée had followed the pattern his mom had set when she’d dumped him because he had opted to run the ranch rather than stay on the east coast. Even his stepmom, Lottie, was a prime example of the way women used marriage and love to tie men in knots and force them to change or be abandoned.
She’d given his dad an ultimatum: move to Portland and leave the ranch to be run by someone else, or lose her.