Page 2 of Stranded with a Bossy Rancher

She turns, but the sight of her wiping the tears off her face has me practically stumbling on my feet. Her voice is filled with emotion. “I’m sorry, Mr. Barnett. I no longer work at the Feed Haven, but I’m sure someone else can help you.”

The defeat in her voice is killing me. “Stop. Just stop, okay? I heard what…” I have to stop myself from calling Wyatt something I shouldn’t be saying. “Wyatt said to you.”

She nods her head and sucks in a strangled breath. “Okay.”

“Do you need a job? I’m looking for an assistant. Ever since my sister had her baby, she’s been wanting me to hire someone to help her, but I’ve been putting her off.”

She crosses her arms over her chest, and I try to catch my breath because standing this close to her is a little overwhelming. I want to touch her, and nothing can stop me from reaching for her and putting my hand on her shoulder. “You would be doing me a favor.”

She gasps when my palm cups her shoulder, and she blinks her big brown eyes at me. She stutters over the words. “I’m pregnant.”

I nod my head. “I know. I heard.”

Her arms tighten around herself. “Why would you want to hire me? If you heard, you also heard that I’m not married… that I’m a homewrecker.”

She seems disgusted by even saying the word, and even though I hear her saying it, I’m still not believing that she’s the type to be a homewrecker. There’s more to the story, but I’m not going to get into it now. She blows out a breath. “Thank you for the job offer, but it’s not a good idea.”

She turns to go, and I get in front of her to block her path. There’s an urgency inside me, but I try to keep myself calm. If she gets away from me now, I may never see her again. My hands go to her shoulders, and even though I want to pull her against me, I don’t. “Look, you’re upset, and I get it, but I can’t just let you walk away. You shouldn’t be like this… in your condition. Let me do something… can I take you home?”

She takes a deep breath. “It’s out of your way.” Her face turns red. “I mean… I know where your ranch is… I mean since we sent orders to your ranch and I saw the address.” She puts her hand up and covers her face as embarrassment flames her cheeks.

I reach for her hand and gently pull it away so she’s not hiding from me. “I don’t care how out of the way it is. Let me take you home.”

She finally relents either because of my insistent nodding or the fact that I’m still holding her hand and not intending to let it go. I don’t give her time to change her mind, and we retrace our steps and circle back to the parking lot. When we get to my truck, I help her in, even reaching over to pull the seat belt around her. She gasps and seems to hold her breath, and I realize that maybe I’m intimidating her a little, and that’s not what I’m trying to do. “Sorry… you just can’t be too careful.”

I take a deep breath as I close her door and walk around to the driver's side. When I get in, I notice she’s wiping the tears from her eyes again. It guts me to see her so upset, and I lift the console to see if I can find any napkins. When I don’t see any, I grab my shirt that’s lying in the back and hand it to her. “Here you go.”

“What’s that for?”

I gesture to her face, and the tears really start to roll again. She mutters, “I’m not using your clean shirt.”

I lean over the console and start to wipe her eyes with it while speaking to her in a soothing tone. “Come on, sweetie. I can’t stand to see you cry. Everything’s going to be okay… you know that, right?”

I thought I was helping, but if anything, her tears come harder. Flustered and unsure what to do, I do the first thing that comes to mind and what I’ve wanted to do since the first day I met her. I lift the console up, unlatch her seatbelt, reach for her, and pull her over against me. I wrap my arms around her and hold on to her like I never want to let her go. I have one hand smoothing up and down her back and the other cradling her head. “It’s okay. Sometimes you gotta let it out. I got you, Camille.”

She cries in earnest, and every sob is like a punch straight to my heart. I want to fix it and make everything all right, but the best thing I can do right now is let her get it out. She curls into me, and I hold her as I try to commit to memory how she feels in my arms. Regardless of the tears, having Camille with me feels right.

When her sobs start to wane and it’s just a sniffle here and there, she starts to pull away. I want to keep her where she’s at, but I reluctantly let her go. She uses the shirt between us to wipe hereyes, and when she’s done, she’s laughing. She holds the shirt up. “I’ll clean this and get it back to you.”

I just shrug. I don’t really care about the shirt, but if it means I get to see her again, I’ll take it.

She moves back to her side of the truck and looks out the window, and her voice is heavy with the emotion she’s feeling right now. “I live about a mile out of town in the trailer next to Johnson’s Junk Yard. I was stupid to walk to work today, but it was such a beautiful day out.”

I start my truck and pull out of the parking lot to start driving out of town. Camille has her head down, and I’m not sure if what I’m about to say is going to upset her anymore, but I tell her, “Congratulations on the baby.”

She crosses her arms over her belly and mutters, “Thank you.”

“When are you due?”

She blows out a breath. “October.”

I do some rough calculations in my head and figure she’s about three months along. I should stop while I’m ahead, but I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut. “And the father… is he in the picture?”

She keeps looking out the window. “I’m sure if you don’t know by now, you’ll know soon enough. Raymond, Wyatt’s nephew, is the father.” She holds her hand up and finally looks at me. “And no, I didn’t know he was married. He lives in Billings and would come to see his uncle. I didn’t know anything about him except the fact he was charming. I was a fool.”

My hands tighten on the steering wheel. “You’re not a fool. You were lied to in the worst possible way. None of this is your fault.”

And there she goes again, looking at me with hope in her eyes, but there’s still a bit of mistrust on her face. When I pull up to her house, she starts to get out, and I jump out of the truck to meet her. “I wasn’t kidding. I am hiring. You’d fit in real nice at the ranch.”

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