Page 31 of Last Chance for Her Rancher Boss

Bolstered by Nash’s presence, Meg started to get annoyed. She folded her arms across her chest.

“Working.”

“Doing what?”

Good God. It was a good thing she never had anything to do with him in high school because she might have gone insane.

“I’m a large animal veterinarian.”

Mike blinked, his stare as blank as a goldfish.

“Livestock. You know… like cattle?”

“Oh…” he said finally. “That’swhat you ended up doing?”

Before Meg could ask what he meant by that, in her snippiest tone, thank you very much, Nash jumped in.

“We want five cans of that color, Mike, one-gallon cans,” Nash said, and Meg could practically feel the rumble in his chest. She couldn’t help herself and reached her hand up to grab onto the back of his flannel shirt. Clutching the soft fabric in her fingers steadied her.

This was precisely why she had been so anxious about coming back to Fordswell and why she’d avoided it for so long. People she hadn’t seen since she was a teenager felt perfectly at ease sticking their noses into her business.

“That’s a lot of paint,” Mike said, making absolutely no move to start mixing it up. “Do you really need that much? What’re you painting?”

“You want my social security number as well?” Nash said. “How about my birth certificate? Can I just get my paint?”

Mike looked offended, literally turning his nose up in the air. “I’ll mix this up, then.”

“Yes. Please.”

Meg looked up at Nash, who just rolled his eyes.

“Welcome back,” he muttered. “Still regret leaving?”

Meg smirked. But actually, a tiny little piece of her still did regret it. She couldn’t explain why, but there it was. After an awkward wait while Mike got their order ready, they collected the paint cans into the cart without any more invasive questions from Mike and fled for the aisles to get the last of their supplies.

“What was his problem?” Meg asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

“He’s inhaled too many paint fumes over the years, clearly,” Nash said with a shake of his head, steering the now very heavy cart through the store. “But also small-town gossip. Everyone in town thinks I’m some sort of bad guy because I don’t stop to chitchat with every single person every time I go to the supermarket. That makes me a suspicious person, apparently. I just don’t want them knowing my business. I swear there are some people who would hook you up to a GPS just so they can track your every movement.”

“They know we have, like, the internet now, right?” Meg said. “Streaming services? Hobbies?”

“Pfft,” Nash scoffed. “Gossiping is the number one hobby here in good old Fordswell, or did you forget that?”

“I think I forgot it, actually,” she said. “Blacked it out entirely.”

“Wise decision.”

By the time they were ready to head to the counter and pay, Meg’s mood had started to bounce back from Mike’s bizarre form of interrogation. Nash even had a little smile perched on his face. Seeing the cart full of paint and other supplies was motivating, making this plan feel actually achievable.

Unfortunately, Mike was now standing at the counter next to a curly-haired woman with too-thin eyebrows. Whatever. They could pay and leave and never look back.

“I’m ordering everything online from now on,” Nash muttered. “I don’t care about the postage.”

Meg laughed as he started piling things on the counter for the woman to scan.

“What’s funny?” the woman asked, her voice sharp. She was sneering too, and Mike was back to his former staring. Meg didn’t bother to stifle an annoyed sigh.

“A joke.”

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