Page 26 of A Cowboy in the Streets

“We’re in,” I said.

“Hey!” Chloe protested.

“Why not?” I grinned wickedly. “Maybe I can embroider Adam’s face. That might be fun to stab.”

“Great.” Hannah pushed to her feet with a swish of her skirt and started gathering her things. I had the feeling she was making a quick exit before we could change our minds. “I’ll see you at the library Saturday at ten.”

When she was gone, Chloe stared at me like I’d lost my mind. “Her first words to us were literally I like to stab things.”

“She seems nice!” I protested.

“She seems weird.”

“Okay, maybe that’s true. But it’s hard making friends as an adult, and that pillow she was making was awesome. This could be fun.”

“Okay,” Chloe relented. “But if she’s secretly a murderer, I’m tripping you and saving myself.”

Chapter 10

Adam

The second we passed under the sign welcoming us back to Lodestar Ranch, James tapped a dainty finger on my forearm that rested on the console between us.

“Pull over,” she said.

I steered the truck into the narrow patch of overgrown grass that separated the dirt drive from the fenced pasture and shifted into park, then turned to face her. “What’s up?”

“We’re back on Lodestar property. You’re my boss again.”

The tone of her voice suggested this did not bode well for me.

“Okay,” I said carefully.

“Which means we can talk about what happened today with Ben.”

Oh, for shit’s sake. Did we really have to do this? If she hadn’t insisted on no work talk during her lunch break, we’d have laid it to rest by now.

“Look,” I said, “it was a mistake. I get it. You didn’t know any better. Let’s move on, okay?”

The ensuing silence was long and deafening. A trickle of trepidation crawled down my neck. I shifted in my seat to face her and found her considering me thoughtfully with those big doe eyes of hers.

“We are going to talk about what happened with Ben today,” she said, as though I hadn’t said a damn word, and this time it wasn’t a suggestion. “The way I see it, you already had your say. Now it’s my turn.”

“Fair,” I grunted.

She blinked. I had surprised her. Apparently, she didn’t expect me to be reasonable.

Also fair.

“I feel like there’s been a misunderstanding,” she said. “If we’re going to work together, we need to be on the same page.”

I nodded briskly, hoping to hurry this up so I could get back to work.

“I am not Ben’s babysitter or nanny. I was very clear on that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a duty to keep him safe when he’s with me. I owe him the same care I would owe anyone else. More, really, because he’s a kid. I know that. And I did that. I kept him safe. But it’s not my job to make sure he follows your rules. That’s on Ben. That’s on you.”

My brows furrowed deeper with every word. She wasn’t wrong. I had come to pretty much the same conclusion five minutes after I had reamed into her. Maybe I was a little miffed that she had no problem articulating her feelings on the matter. I put a burden on her shoulders that didn’t belong there, and she simply shrugged it right off again, easy as you please. People could do that?

“Yeah,” I said.

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