Page 41 of Snowed In with the Rancher

Fury flickered in his blue eyes and his nostrils flared. “What the fuck gives you the right?”

She shrugged, ready to spar with him if it meant finally getting to see a few cracks in the reinforced stone wall that he’d constructed around himself. “I dunno maybe the fact that I’m a total stranger, have known you for like three days and yet I can pretty much read you like a book? Or the fact that just because I’m a speech pathologist doesn’t mean I haven’t studied psychology, trauma, and PTSD. I don’t just work with kids with lisps, you know. I work with all kinds. Veterans, the elderly, adults with brain injuries. I’ve met people who had seen some scary shit, so I know what it looks like when they’re triggered.”

His lip curled up into a snarl, but she rolled her eyes and that seemed to actually diffuse some of his ire. Had nobody ever stood up to Asher before?

“I might let you throw me against the wall and spank my ass, but there’s a difference between consensual disrespect for pleasure and blatant disrespect where you’re intentionally hurting me. I’m not looking for a future from you, but I am looking for some goddamn respect.”

“So what, you’re just going to leave me here high and dry?” The desperation in his voice almost had her breaking her composure and wrapping her hands around his waist. But she held her ground.

“Well, for starters, you just told me to leave. I haven’t said a damn word about leaving. All I’ve asked for is an apology and some respect. Secondly, no, I don’t quit a job before I’m done. But I also don’t back down to bullies.” Then at that, she turned around, stepped up to Mercy’s stall, opened the door, and stepped inside. She’d rather take her chances with the misunderstood man with a silky mane, than the brooding sexy asshole who was glaring daggers at her.

At least that’s what she kept telling herself.

Chapter Fourteen

“Hand me his halter,” Triss said, holding out her hand from where she stood in Mercy’s stall, talking gently to the beast and petting his neck.

Anger flared hot and nauseating inside Asher, but he did as she requested and handed her the halter that was hanging up beside his stall.

She put it on Mercy just like Asher had taught her, and the horse gave her zero problems.

“Excuse me,” she said, leading Mercy out of the stall and into the barn. “We’ll be in the corral.” Then, not bothering to look at Asher again, but telling him with the flick of her hair and the sway of her hips that he could shovel shit for all she cared, she walked past him toward the corral.

Growling at the infuriating woman with the rocking ass, he stalked back to Greenleigh’s stall where he had the wheelbarrow and wheeled it down to Mercy’s stall.

Where the fuck did she get off talking to him like that?

More importantly, why the hell did it turn him on?

She had no right.

He had PTSD from that explosion—and many others like it—in Iraq and loud noises were a trigger for him.

She should understand that.

She does, and is giving you a huge by, what she’s not letting you get away with is how you spoke to her.

Yeah, he’d overreacted and was a dick, but owning up to his reaction, to his trauma, just made him feel like such a failure. He’d failed Mauricio when he left him in that hospital to die. And now he was failing at keeping his shit together. It was a fucking bucket that fell for Christ’s sake, not a goddamn grenade.

He didn’t want her to go, but it seemed like the safest option at this point.

Safest for you, maybe. She doesn’t seem scared at all.

Fuck. Their morning had started out so great, even after his stupid panic attack last night, and now he went and fucked it all up by treating her like crap.

He finished cleaning out Mercy’s stall, filled the trough with hay, and replenished his water before he moved on to a few more horses’ stalls. He really did need to get them all into the corral for some exercise.

After about thirty minutes of shoveling shit and mental flagellation, he made his way to the corral where the tinkling sound of laughter drew him like the Pied Piper.

“What a pretty boy you are,” Triss said as Mercy came happily trotting over to her, gently head-butted her, then began to nuzzle her head with his. “And very loving, too.”

Asher cleared his throat which drew both Triss’s and Mercy’s attention.

Mercy snorted, made a noise of frustration, then left Triss and trotted over to the other side of the corral. But he kept his eye on Asher and Triss.

Oh great, another horse possessive of Triss. First Macklin and now this moody bugger.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, his gaze on his boots, he approached her. “I uh … I owe you an apology.” His head tipped up and he met her eyes with his. Patience and kindness shone back at him in the soft, beautiful brown. “I overreacted when the bucket fell … as you guessed, loud noises are a trigger for me. But I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did and I’m sorry.” He swallowed. “Truly.”

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