Page 82 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

I furrow my brows. “You think that little of me?”

“I think that little of how powerful men react when the woman they hired starts attracting the wrong kind of attention.”

I don’t instantly know what to say to that, because it’s not entirely about me. I know that. She’s talking about pattern, not just person.

Past experiences. Old reflexes. The shape of the world as she has had to survive it.

That doesn’t stop the irritation from cutting.

“You should’ve told me anyway,” I say.

She throws up a hand. “And then what? You assign me an escort every time I want to breathe outside? You start watching me like I’m one bad day away from breaking? You decide I can’t do my job because someone else decided to make me uncomfortable?”

Have I really given her this impression? “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“Then give me better ones.”

I step closer. “If someone’s moving around this property threatening people, I need to know.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“It should make you understand the stakes.”

“No,” she says, anger coming cleaner now, less defensive and more direct, “it makes me sound like inventory.”

I correct my tone, not the truth. “It means your safety on this property is my responsibility.”

She lets out a breath through her nose. “And there it is.”

“What?”

“That thing you do. You take a situation and wrap control around it until it looks like care.”

The words settle under my skin.

Control is how I keep things standing. It’s how this ranch survived my father’s death, how my brothers grew up with something other than grief, how bad situations get handled before they become disasters.

Control isn’t cruelty. It’s structure. It’s protection made practical.

But Annie looks at it and sees a cage.

“I’m trying,” I say very carefully, “to prevent whoever is doing this from getting closer.”

“And I’m trying to do my job without being treated like fragile baggage.”

“You think taking a threat seriously turns you into baggage?”

“I think people love using protection as an excuse to sideline women.”

I stare at her.

The certainty tells me this conversation didn’t begin with me. I’m simply the current target standing in front of a much older argument. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“I think it’s what you’d like to do.”

I take another step.

Now I’m crowding her.