Page 7 of Bound and Branded

“If I just decided to write the debt off, as a gift, would you take it?”

I stare at him. At that sculpted face, the lines by his eyes, the deep grooves by his mouth. The angular shape of his jaw. He’s hard. All over. Set in his ways and brutal, which is a strange word to apply to a modern man, though he feels more like a relic to me.

In my way, making proclamations about what we were supposed to do with our land. Invading my dreams, my fantasies.

“No,” I say.

Because I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t trust a gift from Caleb Flynn, not for any reason at all.

“I didn’t think so. So I’m offering you a job. An official way to work the debt off. Your father hasn’t signed any papers yet. You and I can. The money will be considered paid back to me.”

“Just for some housework?”

“Yes.”

This is a game, and I don’t like it.

I’ve never fully had him figured out. Hell, I don’t have him figured out even a little bit. I don’t know why he’s here in this small town if he’s everything that people say he is – and according to the internet he is. Wealthy beyond the scope of my comprehension and able to live anywhere he wants.

Yet he chooses to be here. And play with me, apparently.

He’s probably a sociopath. Playing experimental games on the little people, trying to see what they’ll do. If they’ll jump when he says.

“I still have chores.”

“Get them done early. Come over here in the afternoon. You can do my laundry, dishes, and meal prep. Your dad says you’re a pretty good cook.”

I grind my teeth together. “You’ve talked to my father about me?”

His face goes hard. “Whether you believe it or not, your dad loves you. In fact, he’s damned proud of you. He knows you’re the reason that the ranch is staying afloat.”

“I would never know that based on how he acts.”

He shrugs. “Well, I wouldn’t know how dads usually behave. Given that I don’t remember my own.”

If that’s supposed to humanize him, make me feel something for him, then he’s an idiot. It doesn’t. It won’t.

“Come inside,” he says. “I’ll show you around the place.”

He opens up the door and I’m ushered into a modern, rustic masterpiece. The tall windows in the living room are floor-to-ceiling, and look out at that same view I was just admiring on the drive up. He can see my house from here. My ranch. My every move. My chest goes tight, along with my throat. I am quite literally under his eye all day, every day, if he so chooses.

It’s a creepy way to look at it, I grant, but I’m not really sure how else to look at it at the moment. I curl my fingers into fists and fight against the strange, throbbing feeling between my legs and the way my heart is beating faster in my chest.

The house is beautiful and tidy enough that I question why he needs help with anything. He gestures to the right. “This way’s the kitchen.”

The kitchen is even more spectacular than the living room. Massive with smooth appliances. All kinds of modern technology that we certainly don’t have. Our house could probably fit inside his living room.

He moves me through the kitchen into the dining room, then gestures up the stairs. “Bedrooms are up there. Bathrooms. There is a laundry room down there. I’d appreciate help with the folding and washing.”

I can’t escape the feeling that I am a child being given busywork. That he’s patronizing me. Well, he is. He made it pretty clear. He knew that I wouldn’t take the money back without some kind of real deal in place. Some kind of real trade. It’s a sop to my ego, and even though I know that, I’m still going to take it. Which is annoying as fuck. But I don’t trust him. Nor do I have any reason to. But he seems to know that too.

“You can start this morning, since you’re already here. I’ve got the ingredients for roast, if you wouldn’t mind putting it in the crockpot.”

Somehow, I have a feeling that he knew that I would agree to this, that those ingredients are in the house because he anticipated my acquiescence, and that makes me want to punch him in that proud jaw.

But then, I always want to punch him in that proud jaw as much as I want to have him wrap his hands around my wrists and pin me down.

God. I have to stop thinking things like that while I’m here. Not in the relative safe space of my room.

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