“Just that things aren’t as black and white as you seem to think they are.”
I don’t respond right away, and look out the window instead, staring at the snow-white fields rolling by and the red sun starting to go down behind the mountains beyond.
“Fine,” I say. “I get that it’s not easy to report with no evidence. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.”
Nathan just grunts in response and doesn’t say anything else. Conversation over, I guess.
The dayafter we get back from the ranch, I studiously avoid Nathan in the barn. I hide out in the office and try my hardest to focus on paperwork. But the fight we had in the car keeps replaying in my mind. We haven’t bickered like that in a few days, and I was forgetting why I disliked him so much in the first place. I let my defenses down. I let him worm his way into my good graces, with his big smiles and his talented fingers and his huge dick.
But I need to get my head back on straight, because Nathan and I clearly do not work together for anything more than sex. I repeat this fact to myself as I date and initial the next week of work on his community service log. He’s more than three-quarters of the way finished with his hours.
“Good riddance. He’s an idiot,” I mutter, flipping over the page and turning to the next thing in my paperwork pile.
“I agree,” Jenny says.
I look up startled and find her standing in the doorway of the office.
“You should have knocked.”
“I did. You didn’t answer. You were too busy taking all your anger out on that sheet of paper.” She raises one manicured, red brow at me.
I look down and find that I’ve crumpled the corner of Nathan’s community service log.
“Sorry. Just got a bit too caught up with work, I guess.”
“Clearly.” She sits down in the old leather chair across from me and crosses her legs. “So come on, tell me about whatever Nathan has done now to piss you off so badly.”
“Nothing.”
“Are you serious?” she asks.
“Fine,” I say. “We got into a fight on the way home from the ranch.”
“Isn’t that normal for you two?”
“It’s been happening less and less now,” I admit begrudgingly.
Jenny whistles. “And how was staying at the ranch?”
“It was fine. It was nice meeting his family. We went for a ride together, too,” I say quickly. I feel my face heat at the memory of what we did on that ride, and I know I must be visibly blushing.
“Oh my God,” Jenny whispers. “You two hooked up.”
“No!”
“Yes, you totally did. You’re blushing. You and Nathan hooked up and now you’re mad about it.”
“Fine,” I say. “We kissed. And then we fought in the car on the way back and it annoyed me.”
“Who did you kiss?” Lila shrieks as she barrels into the office, her little feet pounding against the ground.
Beau and Tomás are hot on her heels, and I immediately say, “No one, sweetie. I said I was missing someone, not kissing them.”
I glance up at my brother to assess his reaction, but he’s busy trying to stop Lila from crawling around on the floor and he seems none the wiser. Whew.
“I leave her alone with you two for ten minutes and she escapes,” Jenny says.
“She’s a demon,” Tomás says. “A cute one, but a demon nonetheless.”
