Page 33 of Last Chance for Her Rancher Boss

“In fact, she’s such an expert in her field that thisnationwide mega corporationwould probably double her salary in a heartbeat just to keep her on the books. She had a team of fifty-something men under her command at her last post. She’s here for a vacation, helping me out on the ranch, and I’m grateful for it. ’Cause there’s no way on earth I’d be able to afford expertise like hers if she wasn’t kind enough to lend me a hand.”

Now it was Meg’s turn to stare between them all like it was a tennis match. Mike’s expression hadn’t changed much, and thatwas to be expected. But Genevieve’s mouth was hanging open, her cheeks bright pink as she stared at Nash, then back at Meg.

“So,” Nash continued, not out of steam yet. “Maybe think a little harder before you decide who to look down on next time, all right? And maybe get your own claims to success straight as well because I know for afact,Genevieve Salanger, that your daddy is the one that still owns this place and you just work here. It’s the only reason Mike has a job here too, so how about you get off of your high horse and hand me my receipt.”

Genevieve was simply too shocked to say anything else. She tore the receipt from the machine and handed it to Nash with a blank look on her pink face. Considering her surname, she must have married Mike, which actually made a lot of sense seeing them together like this.

“Thank you,” Nash said, the picture of kindness. “We’ll return the cart in a second. We’re just parked up the street a little.”

With that, he pushed the cart out of the store and Meg followed, feeling pretty shocked herself.

“Uh, well, thanks,” she said as they got outside and headed for the truck.

Nash tutted, that old man’s sound he liked to make. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to bring those two back down to reality with the rest of us for years. Insulting you was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Mostly because it was justridiculous.”

He snorted but also sounded absolutely gleeful, running on an adrenaline high.

“I didn’t realize you had remembered all that information about my job and stuff,” Meg said.

Nash gave her a look like that was a weird thing to say. “Why wouldn’t I remember it? It’s all impressive as hell.”

He said it like it was really that simple. And maybe it was. Maybe Meg really was that impressive.

“She actually married Mike?” Meg asked, because it was the only thing she could think to say.

“No accounting for taste, I suppose,” Nash said and started loading paint into the bed of the truck. And that, it seemed, was the end of that adventure.

Meg had been so anxious all morning that, at first, she didn’t notice the fizzy feeling that had started between her ribs. A tingling, warm sensation that was filling her up more every second. It grew every time she looked at Nash for the remainder of the drive home, all thirty minutes of it. It was the same feeling she had had in high school, before prom that was. And Meg could dismiss the feeling as a crush all she wanted, but she knew deep down that it was so much more than that.

Seeing Nash jump to her defense like that, when he owed her nothing and expected nothing in return… reminded her why she’d had feelings for him in the first place. Now those feelings were back, quietly buzzing around her insides like they’d never left in the first place.

CHAPTER 11

MEG

“Is it weird that I’m kind of looking forward to the cleaning part?”

They were loading all of the supplies they would need into the back of Nash’s truck. Brooms, mops, scrub brushes and every chemical cleaning agent they could legally get their hands on. They weren’t just going to clean the place; they were going todisinfectit.

“I mean, yeah, I’d say that’s a bit weird,” Meg said, looking at him over the bed of the truck. “Do you just really like manual labor or something?”

“No, I mean…” He stopped to think about it. Meg had just been joking, but apparently Nash was perfectly serious about looking forward to their cleaning mission.

“I just mean,” he continued. “That it’s going to be nice to build something again, or at least fix it up. I haven’t been able to do that since I built the treehouse, and that was ages ago.”

“It’s maybe not so weird when you put it like that. But let’s revisit how enthusiastic you are in an hour.”

He grinned at her, looking happier than Meg had seen him since she’d arrived, and jumped in the driver’s seat.

Meg definitely wouldn’t say that deep cleaning the buildings inside and out wasfun, but it wasn’t exactly terrible either. It was satisfying, a deep-in-your-bones sort of achievement. At first it did kind of feel impossible. It took hours just to sweep out all the debris, including cobwebs from the corners, piling leaves and animal nests into bags to dispose of later. She would sweep away some dirt only to turn around and find twice as much. For a while there it felt like she was caught in a time loop from a movie. She didn’t even get to see the skunk.

Then, slowly, they started to see progress. The floorboards, once swept and mopped, were beautiful, aged wood that had been worn smooth over the years. There were cornices around the ceiling that looked hand-carved, once hidden by cobwebs and dust. Meg’s favorite part was finding a little cubby hole in the wall that she was one hundred percent going to turn into a shabby-chic wine holder. Nash had just shrugged at the suggestion and said that he trusted her judgment.

It took a full day just to clean out the buildings, with the two of them working nonstop. Meg’s back ached by the end of it, her shoulder blades protesting with every movement, and Nash was so dirty he looked like a groundhog that had popped his head out of the ground. She probably didn’t look any better.

“I’d say we’re doing well,” Meg affirmed, looking around the barn that was now somewhat hospitable. Nash nodded, drinking deeply from a water bottle.

“I don’t know if we got enough paint,” he pondered, surveying the walls.

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