Page 16 of Second Chances with my Billionaire Bosses

“Sorry. Allergies.”

“Bless you.” Shep sounded like he was going through his own struggle to not laugh and it made it even harder for me to keep myself together.

I didn’t let loose in front of my brothers. Or anyone. The idea of erupting into a fit of giggles in front of everyone at the table was so horrible that I decided I had to escape before I did. I pretended to see something out of the window behind Arlo and stood up.

“Jolene must need something. I’ll go see what it is and clean up when y’all are done.”

Tate looked out the same window I had and raised his eyebrows.

“Are you and Jolene sharing thoughts now?”

I nodded without paying any attention to what he said and got out of there as fast as possible. I barely made it out the front door before a strange sounding bubble of laughter erupted out of me. It had me doubled over, clutching my sides, with tears leaking down my cheeks. I didn’t even know what I was laughing at anymore but the sensation made my head buzz. I covered my mouth with my hand to try and stop it but it was like the dam had burst and I couldn’t stop.

I probably looked insane as I made my way to the barn because I was fighting the laughter but giggles kept breaking free. My face and abs hurt from all the usage.

“Holy shit.”

I jumped at the sound of Jolene’s voice. My laughter turned into hiccups and I couldn’t do anything more than stand in the entrance to the barn and wonder exactly when I’d lost my mind.

“Are you…giggling?” Jolene had been a friend of my mothers and was one of the best riders I’d ever known. She was a championship rider but she was even better at breaking wild horses so we could save them instead of allowing the government to kill them. She was intense, to say the least. She was also one of the only people I felt close to comfortable with because she’d been around until the end with my mom. She knew things that no one else alive did.

I tried to hold my breath to stop hiccupping but it was no use.

“I don’t giggle.”

She stared at me for a few more seconds and I felt like a frog on her exam table.

“Uh-huh.”

I looked over my shoulder at the house and blew out a short burst of air.

“I was just laughing. It was nothing. Do you need any help?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the new ranch? Why are you here, trying to help me?” She jerked her head towards Bob’s stall. “When are you taking that asshole to the new ranch and leaving him there?”

Bob responded like he knew she was talking about him, throwing his head back and chomping his teeth at her. I pressed my lips together, determined to stave off any more laughter. But then Bob lifted his tail and let out the loudest fart I’d ever heard.

Jolene stared at me with wide eyes as I erupted in laughter again. I couldn’t help it, though. It was like the rubber bands holding me together had finally snapped.

“It was only a matter of time before you snapped, kid. Just don’t murder anyone and we’ll be good.” Jolene shook her head at me but there was a smile playing at her lips. “I guess you couldmurder someone if you really wanted to. Who am I to tell you what to do?”

CHAPTER 12

Maxie

I decided I would go back to the ranch after lunch but I made the choice to set up in a far corner of the property and work on the fence there first. I worked until the sun went down and then rode Bob home to my little cabin. Once I was inside and showered, I looked at my phone and saw I had missed messages from all three of my bosses.

Arlo: You still didn’t eat anything, Max. I’m bringing home a plate for you.

Rhett: Where are you? We’re back at the ranch and we can’t find you.

Shep: You can run and hide, sweetheart, but it won’t change anything. We have unfinished business.

I dropped my phone like they were somehow watching me through it and I was doing something wrong. Shep’s words hit me harder than the rest, the reminder that we had business at all enough to make my core clench. If he meant the kiss we’d shared ten years earlier, what was unfinished about it? There was a ten-year gap, that meant the business was finished.

Yet… It didn’t feel that way. Seeing them again and spending time with them was taking me right back to that night. I’d always been a good girl, never one to earn my parents’ ire. I played every role I was supposed to. So what if I didn’t have friends? So what if I spent more time on the ranch than in school? I still got great grades, good enough to get a full ride to any college in Texas that I wanted to attend. Not that I ever left for college.

That night ten years earlier had been possibly my one and only break from the strict life I led under my parents’ thumb. It was late and I’d had to be up before the sun to start my morningchores but I’d seen them earlier that night, my brothers’ friends and the men I had painfully inappropriate crushes on. They hadn’t looked like themselves. They’d looked…broken. So I stayed up late and snuck out with a basket of my baked goods for them. I told myself that if they were already inside their cabin and asleep, I’d leave the basket and go. They weren’t inside, though. They were outside, sitting around a fire, the smell of beer and liquor stronger than the burning pine.

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