Page 39 of Last Chance for Her Rancher Boss

“We?” he said with a raised eyebrow. “Are you two in cahoots or something now? Aren’t you employed by the enemy?”

“I’m a rogue agent, I guess,” she said with a shrug, and Will cackled. Nash finished off the last of his muffin and shook his head.

“You wanna see how they look?” he said, brushing crumbs off his hands.

“So none of the roofs caved in? No one’s going to catch tetanus staying there, are they? ’Cause that’s just a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

“Do you want to see or not?”

“Yeah, yeah. I want to come look at what you’ve done, you busy beaver. Just want to make sure that everything’s above board, that’s all.”

“There was a skunk living in there,” Meg added, not super helpfully.

“Aw, but they’re cute,” Will said with a smirk. “In a stinky sort of way.”

“You’re both as bad as each other,” Nash said, and went to find his keys.

Will whistled as he looked around, spinning slowly and drinking it all in.

“Jeez, I would never have believed it. It didn’t even look this good in its heyday, I bet.”

Meg couldn’t help it; she preened at the praise. She and Nash had worked so hard on these buildings, pouring all of their energy into this last chance for him to keep his family’s ranch. What had sounded crazy down by the farmhouse actually seemed plausible as they stood inside the freshly painted barn, smelling of lemon-scented cleaner and white paint. With the morning sun lighting up the space and the tall ceiling rising above them, Meg could so easily see this taking off as awedding venue, excited guests taking their seats with the scenery spreading out around them.

“Man, Nash,” Will said, pulling his gaze away from the ceiling that was now free of cobwebs. “This place looks amazing. Like something out of a magazine. You’ve done great, my dude.”

“You should be giving your praises to Meg,” Nash said, deflecting the compliments as if he had nothing to do with all of this.

“I just had the idea,” she insisted, which was true. “Nash actually followed through with it.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know how to decorate stuff,” he said, waving a hand. “You’re the one who knew to paint it all white and pretty-looking. You knew how to take all the photos too, to make it look good. It wouldn’t be looking like this without you.”

“I think you’re selling yourself short.”

“No, you’re just giving me too much credit,” he drawled.

Meg rolled her eyes at Nash’s inability to take even the simplest compliments. In doing so she caught sight of Will, standing there, not saying a single word. His hands were planted on his hips like he was concentrating on something while he was glancing between them, his eyes growing more and more narrow by the second.

Meg started tugging at her hair, rearranging it into a fresh ponytail, her hair tie between her teeth so that she had an excuse to pretend like nothing was happening. Will’s eyes grew even narrower, his gaze switching back to Nash.

“You two cool?”

“What?” Nash asked, looking annoyed, his arms crossed over his chest. “What are you talking about?”

“Why’re you acting weird?”

“We’re not acting weird. You’re the one who thought the earth was flat for like two years.”

“Maybe,” Will admitted, more gracious than usual, not letting Nash’s barb distract him. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with why you two are acting all shifty.”

“It’s early in the morning,” Nash deflected.

“Yeah, and you’re ranchers,” scoffed Will. “Being up early is kind of part of the job.”

He was onto them; Meg knew it. Instead of hoping to avoid the inevitable, she just braced herself internally for the moment when he finally figured it out.

“Dude,” Nash said, sighing in annoyance while trying to act completely unbothered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The deflection might have worked, except that Nash’s neck was turning bright red, and that was all Will needed to know that his brother was talking complete garbage.

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