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I was going to leave it at that, but I found myself adding, “More than dated him, actually. We lived together. He was… my person. For a while anyway.” Even I heard the slight catch in my voice. I cleared my throat to get rid of it. “And when you’re dating James Allen, Oscar just sort of comes with the package.”
Boone said nothing for a moment, and I worried I’d accidentally given too much away at the end. I felt oddly exposed, my emotions closer to the surface than I usually allowed them.
I was about to say something flippant to change the topic when Boone asked, “Why didn’t it work out with you and James?”
The question surprised me. Boone didn’t seem like the kind of man who wanted to know about the love lives of any of his employees, and he surely didn’t want to hear my own sad tale. Not even my friends had been interested in discussing the fallout of my breakup with James—to them, it had just meant I was even more available to join them at parties and on trips.
Plus, it was clear what the gruff rancher thought of me, and it was about as flattering as my father’s opinions.
How to answer an impossible question?
“Irreconcilable differences,” I finally said, deciding less was more in this case.
“Mpfh.”
He didn’t say anything more, and silence stretched between us again. “You said it yourself,” I continued, almost against my will. “He’s straight-laced, and I’m… not.”
“No,” he said, as if even the very idea was laughable. “I can see that much already.” He didn’t make it sound like a good thing.
I huffed a little, feeling defensive. “Some people find straight-laced boring, you know,” I said, crossing my arms. “They want a little spice in their life.”
He lifted an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Do they?”
Ugh. Talking to Boone Hammond was like talking to a brick wall. One with a surly attitude.
“They do. Some people want to be around other people, socialize. Joke with friends. Some people want to see more than the four walls of their town house and boring artwork on the walls. Some people want to try new things, challenge themselves, bask in the sun, and…” Once again, I remembered who I was talking to. “Fuck lots of other hot men. James didn’t want that. The end.”
I felt Boone’s eyes on me as the truck made its way over the rutted country highway. As soon as we were past the small town’s edge, vast fields of nothing but grass and cows covered the land as far as the eye could see. In the distance, there were pockets of trees, most following the meandering curve of a river. And beyond that were the mountains sitting rugged on the horizon, formidable and unmoving.
The wind blew in from the open window, and I closed my eyes to breathe it in. Maybe the fresh air of the pristine Wyoming tundra would wash away the pollution I’d grown up breathing in the city—wait, was it a tundra? I wasn’t sure. As Boone had helpfully reminded me earlier, I had never been good at paying attention in class. For all I knew, Wyoming was a desert or a plateau. Maybe a prairie. Whatever it called itself, the air was clean and felt so refreshing I couldn’t help sucking in giant lungfuls as the truck bounced its way back to the ranch.
After a while, Boone broke his stubborn silence. “No fucking men on the ranch.”
I craned my neck around to stare at him and then deliberately misheard. “I beg to differ. There are quite a few fucking men on your ranch.”
His nostrils flared. “You know what I mean. No shitting where you eat.”
He seemed perturbed, as if he didn’t normally have to give this kind of rule to his help. Did he think I was a special case? That I would run on some kind of fornication rampage through his cattle ranch?
“I promise you I never shit where I eat,” I said as calmly as I could. “But I’m not sure I’ve ever held a job where I didn’t at least sleep with three or four coworkers…”
As the red flush began to appear over his shirt collar, I decided to go easy on him. “Relax, cowboy. I’m messing with you again. While I can appreciate the muscles and maleness of some of your fine stock, I have no interest in entanglements at the moment, physical or otherwise. I have one goal here, and fucking your ranch hands isn’t it.”
“Then what is?”
Fucking their boss.
I closed my eyes to get my wayward thoughts back in line. “Honest work for honest pay. Plus, proving to Oscar that I can last a month on the ranch and winning the bet we made.”
“I wondered what he’d done to get you out here.” Boone sounded amused.
