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The longer they maintained eye contact, the more Mason thought he needed to say something. But then Harley saved him from that when she pushed open the door. She paused once again just outside of his truck. “I had a really nice time.”
Mason wasn’t about to admit to any of that. He needed to keep the upper hand if he wanted to come out on top. So, he did what any rational person might. He told her the one thing that would push her off balance.
“I know your real name isn’t Harley.”
She froze much like he would have thought a gargoyle would—mid-shock.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Harriet.”
10
Harley
Harley gaped at Mason until he pulled his truck forward and she was forced to slam the door shut. She watched the truck drive away until it was out of sight. There was only one person who would have told him that.
Her hands balled into fists. She’d told everyone in her family, all her friends, that she never wanted to be referred to as Harriet. And her uncle had gone and done the worst thing he could have. This was worse than him withholding supper.
He’d spilled a secret she’d never wanted to follow her here.
Harley let out an exasperated growl and stormed toward the barn. If Vern was in there, he was going to get a piece of her mind. And if he wasn’t, he would be lucky. She didn’t even allow her mother to call her by her given name.
Unsurprisingly, Vern was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t in the barn anyways, which was fine by Harley. No matter, she’d be seeing him for lunch after she got all her chores done. She’d rub it in his face and then let him have it for letting her name slip.
Over the next hour, Harley shoveled out all of the manure with a vengeance and dumped it in a bucket she’d retrieved from the storage shed. The whole time she worked, she went over and over what Mason might be thinking now that he knew what her real name was.
He probably thought she was just some prissy rich girl who was trying too hard to be something she wasn’t.
Well, the joke was on him. She had decided long ago who she was. She didn’t have a crisis of identity, no matter how much her mother would have loved to use that as an excuse.
She’d gotten every piercing and every tattoo knowing exactly why, and she loved every one of them. Harley had only gone to college because she’d stupidly thought that would be enough for her parents to relinquish the trust fund she knew she was going to get.
That had been her only mistake and the one thing she regretted. If she’d been smarter, she would have figured everything out before she fell down the rabbit hole that led to her uncle’s ranch.
In no time, the horse stalls had been cleaned out and were ready for the animals to settle in. Harley set her focus on the next chore her uncle had wanted her to do yesterday when he’d gotten her started—but only because she wasn’t ready to face Vern and tell him off.
There was something to be said about manual labor and how it seemed to burn off her fury. The fire that had once roiled in her stomach had fizzled out, and now she wasn’t ready for a confrontation.
The anger was still there. She could feel it pulsing quietly in the back of her mind. She despised her name for no other reason than it belonged to someone she didn’t identify with. The memory of her late great-grandmother lingered no matter what choices Harley made. She could feel the old woman quietly judging her in everything she’d done.
On more than one occasion, Harley had been compared to her or reminded of her namesake. Why couldn’t she uphold the family name the way it ought to be done?
That was why she’d changed her name—not legally, of course—but enough to make it clear she no longer wanted to be associated with it.
Vern wouldn’t understand.
Or he wouldn’t care.
Harley had made it to the loft of the barn and had dragged a bale toward the edge to toss down. She paused as that thought sank in. For all intents and purposes, she was alone. She’d thought she’d come to terms with that.
Apparently not.
Her fury continued to fade away, simmering into something less volatile. If she charged into Vern’s office and yelled at him over telling Mason what her given name was, he would probably just give her one of those dead-pan stares of his. For all she knew, an argument would only lead to him adding to her list of chores. In the end, she’d be put in her place just like yesterday.
Harley gave the bale one final shove and watched it tumble to the main level. Now all she needed to do was grab the pitchfork and spread it. She spent the next hour painstakingly tossing the straw into the stalls.
By the time she was done, her arms and legs ached. She wouldn’t have been surprised if they fell off right then and there. She wiped her head with her forearm, huffing and puffing and willing her heart to slow.
A shuffling sound behind her set her heart racing once again and Harley spun around to find her uncle standing a few yards away. His blank expression masked everything that might have given her a clue as to what he could be feeling.
