Page 54 of Toxic

It was my turn to narrow my eyes on him. “My Gramps can barely make a phone call on that damn phone…”

Guilt flashed over his face, but he masked it almost as quickly. “Oh, really.”

“Suddenly he’s ordering Ubers?”

“He’s a wiley old bastard,” Toxic said in an agreeable tone.

“I wanted to take him to the airport,” I said in a soft voice. Now that Gramps was gone, I let the melancholy steal over me. We hadn’t been apart more than a couple days since my father’s death.

Toxic sighed. “And he didn’t want you driving home alone after dropping him off. He knew you were going to be upset seeing him go.”

I sat down at the table and shook my head. “You must think I’m so weak.”

It was Toxic’s turn to blink at me in surprise. “What? Why the fuck would I think that?”

“Because I’ve done nothing but complain, cry, and shirk my duties since you showed up.” I peeked over at him to gauge his reaction. His opinion of me shouldn’t matter. But it did. Meeting his family the other night had only solidified my respect for him.

I wasn’t sure there was anything he couldn’t do. He was a pro with my animals. I was sure they all loved him more than they loved me now. He handled Irene, my most stubborn red mare, as though she was a sweet tame perfect little lamb. My house and barn were painted. Hay was stacked and piled neatly in strategic places that was going to make winter feeding so much easier.And my damn equipment was all working again. Seriously, even the tractor that has been broken down since Dad died.

There was still a lot left to do, but he’d blown through half of the ever growing to do list and hadn’t even broken a sweat. Well, fine, he’d sweated, and I’d gotten to watch a bead of it trail down between tanned shoulder blades yesterday morning, as he picked up and delivered hundred pound bales of hay to the animals out by the barn. But it all seemed so…effortless for him. And it was all a struggle for me.

I was feeling sorry for myself. I honestly almost never did that because I hated it. But my life was veering out of control and I couldn’t seem to get it right.

Toxic dragged the chair next to me out from the table and sat down. He was staring at me with a grim look on his face. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Woman,” he said.

My brows shot up at that, but he didn’t let me get a word in.

“You’ve been running this place by yourself for fucking months. Years,” he corrected, “but without any help for months. You were so fucking run down your body gave out on you, forcing you to actually rest. You’ve got some dickheads trying to bully you off your own damn land. And you think I’m judging you for crying once?”

I wanted to cry right now. Because he was validating the fact that my life had been a bit of a shit sandwich lately. I’d been telling myself for months to just suck it up because this was life, and this was definitely ranch life at that. But in all reality, it was a lot worse than normal. I should have had a whole crew of guys helping me over the last five months, not doing it alone.

“What else could you do?” Toxic asked, taking the words right out of my mouth. “I get it. All you can do is move forward and keep working, but trust me, I know how fucking hard it is to keep all this going. Especially when someone is sabotaging you.” He leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest.“Speaking of, now that your Grandpa is gone, I need to fill you in on a few things.”

I hadn’t seen his expression darken like that before, so I knew whatever he needed to tell me wasn’t going to be good news.

CHAPTER 20

Toxic

It’d been five days since I’d brought Billie to my clubhouse. Five days since I’d been sitting on information about Fission Solutions. Though I’d told her about finding the men inside the barn, and insinuated that I’d taken care of them, I knew she was going to be pissed that I hadn’t told her everything right away. But if I had, her grandfather would have insisted on staying put. And frankly, I needed him gone. For a couple different reasons. This wasn't a time for feelings, I had to think tactically.

The first, and most important, was so that he was out of the line of fire. As soon as this company got wind of us looking into them, shit was going to hit the fan. Fuck. If I could send Billie away with Robert, I would. But I knew she’d fight me on that and I hadn’t felt like banging my head against the immovable wall of her stubbornness. So I hadn’t bothered. Besides, I kind ofneeded her around for the other reason I wanted Robert out of the way.

Couldn’t make my move on her if she was gone. And I couldn’t fuck her with her grandfather sleeping in the room next door. Not even I was that disrespectful. So, everyone got what they wanted out of this arrangement, but it meant I’d had to withhold the information I was about to tell her.

“Rip found out why Fission Solutions is targeting you.” There was no reason to not just throw it out there.

Her jaw dropped open and she sat forward. “What? Really? Why?”

My lips twitched as she opened her mouth to ask more questions before I’d even answered any of her first. “You’ve got Uranium deposits all over this ranch. Under it, to be specific.” That shut her up.

Her eyes widened and those kissable lips parted in shock. Jesus, I wanted to kiss her again. I hadn’t touched, teased, or flirted with her in the last five days. Mostly because she’d been giving me a wide berth after I’d kissed her against my bike. It worked for me because it eased the guilt of not telling her about this right away. Plus, once her grandpa was gone, I was planning a full on assault on the walls she was trying to build against me.

“Uranium?”

“Yeah. He found maps that showed it. Said something about new technology making it worth digging it all up. If you have more questions about that, I’ll get Rip on the phone for you. That’s pretty much all I know about the deposits themselves.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Implying you know more about other things?”

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