Page 104 of A Forever Kind of Rancher

“I like you,” she said, feeling girlish and silly as soon as the words left her mouth. She liked him. What the hell was this, junior high?

“Well, that’s only because you mostly don’t talk to me,” he said, turning to face the big, wrought-iron figure at the center of the room.

She was captivated by it. Completely. There was a heaviness to it, a sadness. She wasn’t sure how he’d managed to pour emotion into metal, but he had.

“This is amazing,” she said.

“It’s junk.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is. I don’t know what it is except metal. It looks like everything else I’ve ever made. It has no inspiration.” He pushed his hand back over his hair again.

“You’re an artist,” she said, laughing. “You play it off, but you care about this. And you’re temperamental.”

“So?” He growled the word. “It’s my right.”

“You act like you don’t care at all. But you’re...”

“I’m a wreck over this. Happy? I don’t have anything else to care about. So I care about...these,” he said, sweeping his hand in the direction of the iron statue. “Not because people will see them, but because...”

Because they were his emotions. Because it was the way he was dealing with his grief. It felt intimate to see this, knowing his past. She wondered if it was what everyone else saw when they looked at his work, even if they didn’t realize it.

“Yeah,” she said, “I get it.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then maybe you can tell me what this is supposed to be.”

“I don’t think I have an answer for you.” But it meant something that he’d asked, even if his words took on an exasperated tone.

“How was your day? Boss from hell poke you with a pitchfork?”

“No, but he gave me busywork to do like I’m an intern and not one of his most valued team members. He’s putting me in my place.”

“What a jerk. Because you wouldn’t screw a client?”

Grace shook her head. “I don’t know...maybe it’s just because of the way I handled it. I stepped out of line and I... I probably shouldn’t have. I should have...”

“Do you really think that, Grace? That you should just be polite when a guy starts talking about your ass in the middle of a business lunch? No. That is ridiculous. You’re supposed to feel guilty about dealing with someone else’s inappropriateness? No way.”

“I know,” she said, “I know you’re right but...but my parents taught me that you just work hard. They...they tried to instill in us the importance of that. I... I have a sister. Hannah. And she...”

“Let me guess, she’s a doctor or something hugely successful?”

“No,” Grace said. “She’s a junkie. A junkie who’s God knows where. We were taught all of the right things but she...she didn’t want to work hard. She didn’t care about school. Or even our parents enough. But I do. I care. And I want... No one gets anywhere by taking shortcuts, or checking out of life, Zack. Things happen, they aren’t always fair, but you have to be able to rise above it. And I’ve spent my whole life believing that, because I’ve seen what happens when you don’t. Because I won’t disappoint my parents the way she did.”

“To what end?”

“To not being a loser burnout,” she said, frustration rising in her.

“Bull, Gracie. There’s so much freaking ground between being so hard on yourself you feel guilty for telling some jerk to shove it and being a junkie—the two aren’t even in the same hemisphere. So you tell me, really, to what end?”

She took a deep breath, shrugging her shoulders. “Success,” she said.

“What about happiness?”

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