Page 19 of Last Chance for Her Rancher Boss

Nash whistled and took a sip of his coffee. “See. I always knew you were going to be the best there ever was.”

Meg shoveled another bite of food into her mouth so that she didn’t have to respond. If he’d thought she was going to be the greatest, then why did he shove her away all those years ago, like she’d meant nothing? But that was in the past. Meg wasn’t going to delve back into all that nonsense. It was just a flippant remark from Nash, buttering her up. It didn’t mean he had been thinking about her all these years. It didn’t mean anything at all.

“You really love it here,” Meg said. “Even though it’s hard?”

Nash nodded firmly. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

“You take excellent care of your animals,” she said truthfully. Nash’s face lit up at that.

“I try,” he said.

“So why are you selling up, then?”

His face fell. Meg felt instantly embarrassed because the answer was glaringly obvious. Money. You could have all the good intentions in the world; if you didn’t have the money to back them up, it was all for nothing.

“Sorry,” she said, and he just shrugged as if he wasn’t offended.

“I gave it my best shot,” he said, making a valiant attempt at sounding chipper and failing miserably.

True, Meg thought. He had given it his best try, but he’d been doing it all alone. He hadn’t had anyone to help.

Well, help is here now. I could help.

How her attitude towards Nash had managed to do a complete one-eighty in less than twenty-four hours, Meg wasn’t quite sure. But she was sure, very sure, that the last thing she wanted to do was rip this place away from him. The thought of ticking off the ranch as nothing more than asuitable asset, for someone like Mitch to run… it made her physically sick.

“I mean, I can always fail your evaluation,” she said. “You know, if you wanted to back out of the sale.”

He gave her a look across the table, waiting for a punchline, some sort ofgot youmoment. But Meg just stared back with a deadpan expression and a shrug.

“I mean,” he said, poking at an egg. “Sure, that sounds great. I don’t want to sell, but I need to. Also,whyexactly are you going rogue on your employer?”

“Because working for a major corporation, I’ve come to realize that I hate them. Very much. So say you come up with a magical, last-minute solution to this whole thing… I will happily tell them that the soil is toxic and there are killer bees hiding around every corner.”

Nash rolled his eyes at that. “Because they would believe that excuse?”

“The people who make these decisions aren’t farmers. They’re office people. They have no idea what actually goes on outside.”

“I’ll keep that in mind if I come across some sort of miracle.”

He thought she was joking, but Meg knew that she was going to spend every waking moment trying to think of ways to save this place.

So much for ignoring Nash Callahan…

CHAPTER 8

NASH

The air was clear in more ways than one. The morning itself was fresh and clean, the way it always was at this time of year. But more importantly, the ice between him and Meg seemed to have melted away over the past two days. Sure, it was still a little awkward when they interacted. But that was more to do with not knowing each other very well these days. There was going to be some sort of awkwardness withanyonestaying on his ranch, settling into new routines and whatnot. But it was so much easier now, interacting with Meg. There was no longer a wall between them, and Nash’s stomach didn’t twist itself into knots at the sight of her. It wasn’t like they were suddenly best friends again, and it hurt to think that they probably never would be. But Meg didn’t seem to actively hate him anymore, and that was all Nash could ask for really.

He had no clue what had caused such a massive shift between them; all he knew was that it had started with Tilly giving birth to Opal, the forced proximity between them working wonders. Either way, he wasn’t going to turn his nose up at a gift from the universe. Nash was determined to just go about his day as usual so as not to jinx anything.

He had no clue where Meg was right now, and he wasn’t about to go snooping for her. She didn’t need to think that he was creeping around and spying on her. Not when their newfound truce was so fragile. So he was in the kitchen, by himself, drinking coffee that you could no longer call hot. For a handful of seconds, he could pretend that everything was back to normal. Pretend the ranch was running smoothly, or smoothly enough. Pretend an evaluation wasn’t taking place, and he wasn’treallythinking of selling up and moving on. But if he pretended life was normal again, that would mean pretending that Meg wasn’t really there. Not all these new changes were bad, he supposed. Meg blasting back into his life was nowhere near bad.

The rumble of an engine snapped him back to reality. So much for having a few minutes to himself. It would be Will, because no one else ever came out this way. Nash would know the rattle of that truck’s engine anywhere. Will and his family popped over on the weekends a couple of times a month. Nash checked his phone, because surely it wasn’t the weekend already? But there it was, written out plain as day on the screen. With all of the madness that had been going on all week, Saturday had snuck up on him.

Well… guess he was entertaining Will and his wife today. He hoped they weren’t expecting any sort of lunch fancier than sandwiches, because grocery shopping certainly hadn’t been on his to-do list lately.

Nash drained the last of his coffee — grimacing because it was now the complete opposite of hot — and went out to talk to them.

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