Page 6 of Bound and Branded

I don’t have anything else for me. Nothing else but this.

So I’m going to hold it close while I can.

Chapter Two

Avery

I get up and I’m vaguely ashamed about what I did the night before, which is stupid. I don’t have baggage about masturbation. But I am mixed up in a lot of shame around my desires and the fact that I’m even considering hooking up with a stranger to express those desires. It just isn’t me.

But I’m also about to lose my mind with everything going on with the ranch, and this is about the only thing I can think of that quiets the panic in me.

I put it to the side now, and make myself a very strong pot of coffee before getting in my truck and heading up toward Caleb’s ranch. If you can even call it that. He has horses—beautiful horses—and an absolutely glorious facility, but it’s not like ours. Not a real, working cattle ranch with work that actually has to be done.

I do my best not to admire the view as I drive up the long, dirt road that leads to the top of the mountain where his house sits. The stunning valley below, bathed in golden light. My own ranchwhich looks idyllic and pristine and not like hard work and grit, when I’m all the way up here.

He wouldn’t know anything about that. About the hard work that it takes to run a ranch, about everything I do, and have done since I was sixteen, to keep it running. I’m twenty-four now and feeling older and also desperately behind on everything and too tired to pull ahead.

He doesn’t know anything about that.

The guy is a billionaire. He’s playing at being a cowboy.

I tell myself that as he walks out onto the front porch, the spitting image of every cowboy fantasy anyone’s ever had. Stetson firmly in place, broad shouldered, tight black T-shirt, and painted on jeans. My mouth is dry, and I have to remind myself that he is not a fantasy. He’s the enemy.

“Good morning,” he says.

“Not really,” I say.

“I’ve got an offer for you,” he says. “Work for me and that work can go toward your dad’s debt.”

I am shocked by the statement. Immobilized. I cross my arms and tilt my chin up, trying not to look surprised like I feel. “There’s not any work to do here,” I say. “And I’m busy.”

“With your ever-shrinking ranch?”

“You–”

“Your dad is in deep, Avery. I know you don’t want to hear it. Least of all from me. But I don’t make myself a presence in your life for my own entertainment.”

“Then why do you do it?”

He shrugs. As if my survival is a casual gesture for him. “Worst case scenario I end up with the land next to mine and it doesn’t become a whole subdivision.”

“How benevolent.”

“I never said that I was benevolent.” His eyes connect with mine. “Everyone wants something.”

The way that he looks at me sends a shiver down my spine. I’m suddenly aware that I’m alone with him. Like I was that night that I tried to light his barn on fire. That he could do whatever he wanted with me.

“You can work for me by cleaning my house.”

The comment sends me back down to earth with a thud. All he wants from me is for me to be a cleaner. All he wants is to humiliate me. I get it. Kind of. I did something to him, tried to sabotage his ranch six years ago, and I suppose this is a way of him getting some back. Even just a little bit.

It makes him a dick, though. I was eighteen when I did that and there was no real damage. But he’s just the kind of man who holds a grudge while holding all the power on top of it.

“You want me to be your maid?” I ask.

“Functionally. Would you take the money for nothing?”

I stare at him. “What?”

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