Billionaire Mountain Man

“You aren’t at all what I expected after seeing your ad in the paper,” she said, staring me right in the face, her brown hair blowing over her shoulders in a hot burst of wind.

I gave a smile that she didn’t return. She hadn’t really changed her expression since she arrived. “I get that a lot. Technology and me just don’t get along.”

She still didn’t smile. Damn. It was starting to feel like a challenge.

“I’d like the job, if you’re offering it.” She was blunt. Direct.

“Give me a day or two. I’ll call you by Friday to let you know what I decide once I talk to the trainer. But you seem like a great fit.”

Emma nodded, again just once. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Gains.” She shook my hand, leaving me so stunned by her confidence, that I just watched her get into her car and drive away without saying another word.

As she was pulling out, Lacey was pulling in, steering her big red truck to the left to avoid plowing right into Emma Flowers. Lacey jumped out of her truck and walked over to where I was standing in the middle of the driveway. She was dressed to work, in a flannel shirt, jeans, and boots with her hair braided and tucked under her hat.

“Who was that?” she asked, motioning to the blue car driving away from us in a traveling cloud of dust.

“You owe me five bucks for one,” I said, grinning and holding out my hand.

She slapped it away. “The hell I do.”

“That was Emma Flowers. She came about the job I posted in the Register.” I put my hand out again.

“Shit,” she spat. She dug into her pocket and pulled out a few crumpled bills. She separated out a wrinkled five and stuffed the rest of the money back into her pocket. She wouldn’t be caught dead carrying a purse. She wadded the bill up and threw it, so I had to catch it before it fell in the dirt.

“I

told her I’d call on Friday to let her know if she got the job.” I whistled and shook my head. “She’s cute as a button. You should’ve seen her.” I didn’t know if I wanted that kind of distraction on the ranch. But Emma seemed so self-possessed and confident. The few questions she asked made it clear she knew her shit. I liked the idea of her being able to jump right in without needing any training.

Lacey rolled her brown eyes, a devilish grin spreading across her face. “I feel sorry for the poor girl if you decide to hire her.”

“Why?”

“She’ll have to deal with your dumb ass!”

I pushed Lacey, not hard, just enough to knock her off balance. “Oh, shut up.”

“You realize you’ll be outnumbered if you hire another girl?”

Now it was my turn to curse. “Shit,” I said, but I busted up laughing when Lacey did.

Chapter Six

Emma

Wednesday

I passed a big red truck as I was leaving my interview with Pete Gains — the decidedly not sixty-year-old rancher who put the ad in the paper that Daddy found. As I drove past the pickup, I saw a woman behind the wheel, though I couldn’t see much of her face past her hat. I clicked my tongue at that.

I hadn’t noticed a wedding ring on Mr. Gains’s finger. He seemed pretty young to be married already, but he could definitely have a girlfriend. He was a great looking guy — tall and muscled from so much time spent working hard in the sun, with steel-blue eyes, a few days’ worth of dark stubble coloring a strong jaw, and an easy smile that he flashed at every opportunity. A guy like that could even have two or three girlfriends if he played his cards right. Not that his dating life was really any of my business.

But I was impressed by the look of his property, especially after my interview at Myers. Mr. Gains had a several hundred well-maintained acres from what I’d glimpsed during my tour. Ten well fed, healthy horses kept in one of the tidiest barns — outside of the one on Daddy’s land — I’d ever seen. A fully stocked tack and feed room. The paddock and fenced off land for grazing. He even grew and baled his own hay. He couldn’t be older than thirty, if that. I didn’t know how he’d managed to be so successful at such a young age.

I drove over to Daddy’s, wanting to tell him about how well the interview had gone. If Mr. Gains called on Friday — and I was pretty sure he would, I just had that feeling — I was going to accept the job.

I found Daddy in the living room reading the Register. It reminded me of Mr. Gains, how he had been sitting on his porch reading the paper when I drove up. Only Daddy always read it at the end of a busy day, not at the beginning.

“Hi, Daddy,” I said, and sank into the couch across from him.

He looked up from his paper and gave me a small smile. His glasses were perched near the bridge of his nose. He only wore them when he was reading. He’d had perfect vision until he was fifty. Then, as he was fond of saying, it all went straight to hell.