Page 7 of Last Chance for Her Rancher Boss

“Meg, we need to have a discussion about you turning off your walkie while you’re on the yard.”

He said it with the tone of a disappointed school teacher, and it made Meg’s eye twitch. Trying to talk to him about anything, ever, was always a matter of going in circles. Like a snake eating its own tail.

“Mitch,” Meg said, with such venom in her voice it would have had Dougie ducking for cover. “Don’t. Touch. My. Schedule.”

Mitch tutted. Actually tutted.

“I wouldn’t have to touch your schedule,” he said, “if you ran it properly. You?—”

“There’s a heifer you wanted me to check?” Meg said, cutting him off. She just wanted to be out of this office, and if it meant appeasing this man, then… whatever. She’d just do it to shut him up.

Mitch paused as if he didn’t know what she was talking about.

“You told Dougie,” Meg said, enunciating slowly so that he’d understand. “That there was a heifer you wanted pregnancy checked or you would rearrange my calendar.Which heifer?”

“Well, not one specifically.”

“What are you talking about?! So you don’t want any heifers checked?”

“I didn’t saythat,” he snipped.

“Then explain it to me. Like I’m four, please, because right now I have no idea what you want, Mitch.”

“You need to be more on top of things,” he said, standing up and puffing his chest out as if he were a bigger man. “How many cattle are out on the yard right now that we have no idea if they’re pregnant or not?”

Meg felt her brain cells dying off as he spoke.

“I have a rough estimate for early pregnancies,” she said, explaining slowly, amazed that she had to explain this at all. “And then solid numbers for late-term pregnancies. Is that the information you want?”

“We need solid numbers forallstages. You need to begin testing sooner.”

Oh. My. God. This can’t be an actual conversation I’m having.

Meg simply didn’t know how to respond. The statement was too stupid to even compute. This was just further proof that this idiot, who was in charge of an industrial cattle farm, had no idea how cows worked. Like, at all.

Meg could only describe her current feeling as an out-of-body experience. In fact, it felt just like the end of high school, where for a moment everything was so awful and so hard that hitting rock bottom had provided her a few seconds of perfect clarity. Back then, that clarity had helped her make the decision to leave for college and not look back. Now it was the same. She was done here. She deserved better, and she’d be damned if she ever set foot here again. The moment she made that decision, a thousand-pound weight lifted off her shoulders, and suddenly, Meg could breathe again.

She took a deep, long breath to savor the feeling and looked Mitch dead in the eye.

“I quit,” she said. The satisfaction of seeing his face drop was priceless.

“What?” he asked, his voice rising about three octaves.

“I quit. I’m quitting. I’m going to walk out that door, and you are never going to see me again.”

“W-why?” he stammered.

“Because, Mitch, I would rather eat a brick than have to talk to you ever again.”

“Meg, c’mon. We can work this out,” he said, sounding even more sniveling than normal, which was an impressive feat. “Let’s talk this out. You can’t just quit!”

“Why not?” she asked.

“What are we supposed to do without you?”

She shrugged. “If you’re such an expert, you won’t need me.”

“Iaman expert, actually,” he said, puffing out his chest. “That’s why I get paid more than you.”

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