Page 76 of Last Chance Love

“I don’t know, and no.”

Mona sighed, shaking her head. “Your stubbornness is as much a plus as a minus sometimes. I hope you know that.”

“You sound like Reed,” I said with a grin, pleased I’d gotten under her skin a little.

“Nice to hear the two of you are hitting it off,” she said with a look that was a little too knowing. In retrospect, itwasodd that the two of us kept being put together out of nowhere. “I thought having a little time to reconnect might do you two some good.”

“And here I was, afraid you’d think I was lonely,” I sighed, realizing I probably had my answer. Maybe she wasn’t exactly the romantic type, but there was bound to be sentimentality if she was going to work and believe in a place like the ranch. She might not have been aiming to get something romantic out of Reed and me, but clearly, she wanted to interfere.

Which was still better than everyone calling us out on ‘mooning’ over one another. Which I had never done, despite what everyone insisted. And yes, perhaps there was a fluttery feeling in my stomach when I thought about him that had nothing to do with nerves about what I was going to say to him when we saw each other again and everything to do with, well, him.

“Yes, well, it’s nice to see the two of you getting along,” she said. “I was curious to see how that would play out.”

I had no idea what ‘that’ meant, and something told me I didn’t want to know. I didn’t know what I’d do if I found out she’d arranged for us to be in close contact so often because of the constant rumors. It would shake up my perception of Mona as a levelheaded woman who didn’t interfere in something so banal.

“Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not here to talk about Reed,” I said. “I’m here to talk about Reno and Elliot.”

“Oh? Did they get into another rough wrestling match, and I wasn’t told…again?” she asked, arching a brow.

She had been irritated when she found out about their totally not a fight, mostly because I hadn’t told her. That she was holding onto it showed a grudge-holding I wasn’t surprised by and a pettiness that tickled me a little. Sometimes, it was too easy to see someone in Mona’s position and hold them high, and seeing something human in them was comforting, if occasionally jarring.

“No,” I said with a laugh. “As a matter of fact, I think they’re doing fantastic.”

“I would point out that they’ve been seen still bickering, but,” Mona adjusted a braid behind her ear and chuckled, “I also have it on good authority that Elliot did that quite a lot with another of the men here.”

“Dom,” I said and nodded. “They’ve got a strange brotherly thing going on. I haven’t quite figured it out, but I don’t think I need to. And they bicker like siblings, but they’re close.”

“And that’s where Elliot and Reno are now?” she wondered.

“No, they’re more like…” I trailed off as the phrase ‘bickering like an old married couple’ rose in my mind. Not that it was entirely off the mark, that was what the two of them reminded me of, but that…well, I didn’t know if it was weird or if I didn’t want to dig too deep into something that was just a random idea. “They’re something else. Again, I haven’t dug into it, but I’ve got a good feeling.”

“Well, that’s good,” Mr. Isaiah said with the earnest grin he’d worn the first time I’d been introduced to him. Back then, I was convinced anyone running a program like this had to be involved in it for something other than helping people. Yet Mr. Isaiah came across so genuine and warm it was impossible to hold onto any cynical suspicions about his motives. “That’s real good. I guess Mona was right about your instincts, and you were right about them. That Reno boy hasn’t caused trouble with anyone else?”

“Believe it or not, he’s started talking to people and in more than just grunts,” I reported. “And the two of them work well together. And they’ve been sticking to the rules we gave them for the most part.”

“The most part,” Mona said in amusement. “And which parts aren’t they obeying?”

“Well, we stressed they should stick close to one another pretty much all the time, but as the months have passed, I didn’t really see the point in enforcing that too heavily. Reno still mostly sticks by himself when they’re separated, apparently only socializing when he’s around Elliot, but Elliot likes to go and hang out with other people, Dom mostly,” I said.

“And therein lies the ‘most part,’ I suppose,” she said, sounding faintly irritated.

“The whole point of the restrictions was to bring them back to a kind of base zero and let them grow from there, like the ranch does,” I said, feeling a flash of irritation. The woman had wanted me to lead the charge on how they were handled, and now she got annoyed when I made a decision on my own? “I did the same thing on a smaller scale. They can’t be expected to grow if they aren’t given the room to do it.”

Mona glanced at Mr. Isaiah, who was watching me with a thoughtful expression. “Told you.”

“That you did,” Mr. Isaiah said with a laugh. “Not that I ever doubt you, but it’s always fun to watch you give me sass over it.”

“He says that as if he has a choice,” Mona informed me. “When, in fact, he does not.”

“I know the feeling,” I said, earning a cheeky wink from Mr. Isaiah, presumably for my sass.

“Let’s bring the subject back to the main one at hand,” Mona said, looking again like she was irritated. “Is that why you came up here unprompted? To sing your praises?”

“You were the one who kept questioning me about my confidence and whether I was willing to stand by what I said. So here I am, pointing out that I was right and telling you so.”

“Which serves you how?”

“It serves me because I think it’s time we started giving them more leeway,” I said, turning my chin up slightly. “I think we need to let them roam.”

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