AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She shoved her phone under her shirt, where her bra strap probably held it in place. Mike wouldn’t be going after it there, that was for sure.
“Was it your daddy?” he challenged.
Gerty’s eyes blazed with blue fire. “No.”
“Who was it?”
She lifted her chin. “Someone in town,” she said. “I ordered some straw for Dusty, and it’s ready.”
“Oh, so you’re going to work right now.”
“Yeah.” She glared at him as she went past him. “You worked a million hours today. I can too.”
He turned in time to watch her walk out the door and slam it closed behind her. Instantly, the military fight and alpha vibes inside him deflated, and Mike collapsed onto the couch.
“Now what?” he asked, but the empty, silent house had no answers for him.
29
Gerty spread the straw inside Dusty’s stall while the horse continued to snack on the autumn grass outside. He wouldn’t come in here unless she made him, and Gerty simply lifted another section and kept working.
Work, she understood.
The hollow feeling inside her chest, she did not.
You think I work too much.
Yeah. And I do too.
“Mike does too,” she said, as if that made her tendency to push herself to exhaustion better. As if the fact that someone else worked too much validated her drive.
“I’m not going to apologize for who I am.” If she’d learned anything at all from her relationship with James, it was that. She was Gertrude Whettstein, and she had certain talents and abilities that others didn’t understand.
So what if she’d been up since five o’clock that morning to nurse Max as he’d eaten a little too much steak last night? She’d told Daddy to stop feeding him.
The move hadn’t been easy on any of her animals, and a tension rode in the air that had Max on his feet, barking a few clipped warnings at something or someone.
For a moment, Gerty hoped it would be Mike. Of course he’d follow her and make sure she was okay.
James never had, but Mike wasn’t James.
She definitely heard tires crunching over the dirt road beyond the stable, and Gerty straightened and tightened her ponytail. It was actually falling loose, and once that was done, she leaned the pitchfork against the wall and went to see who’d come to her farm.
Everyone she knew—minus Mike—had been on her property today, and it had taken less than two hours to get her moved out of the generational house and into the farmhouse here.
The porch had been shored up properly. The house had newly painted walls and refinished floors. The main stable and barn were ready for use.
She’d done nothing else with the land, the yard landscaping, or any other buildings. She didn’t need them right now, and she could work on them over time.
September was sinking toward October, and the fall leaves had already started to appear in droves. Whatever she couldn’t get done before the first snow fell would wait until spring.
Her heart wailed at her that she didn’t want to wait until spring to make things right with Mike. They’d both been incredibly busy since her return from Montana. She hadn’t told him about any of the personal revelations that she’d had there, because—well, they’d each been burning the candle at both ends. Mike had even stayed over at the downtown condo a couple of times.
Gerty liked that he could take care of himself now, though a piece of her had really enjoyed that she could be there for him in a way no one else could. She’d loved taking care of him, sipping coffee she’d made for the two of them together, and getting to see his struggles and pain. They’d talked about a lot of things in those moments, and Gerty’s chest collapsed on itself when she stepped out of the stable and saw his company SUV there.
Of course he’d come.
He opened the door, and Gerty ran to him. She said nothing, because she didn’t need to say anything. She was gangly and improper. She ran hot, and she walked out sometimes.
