Page 21 of The Cowboy and the Bombshell
“Fuck off,” I said, but laughed anyway. “Besides, this isn’t about Harold. Well, not directly.”
“It’s not?” Silas looked skeptical. He stared at me for a moment, then his eyes went wide. “Holy shit,” he breathed.
“What,” I said cautiously.
“It’s a woman.”
“No.” I was immediately defensive. “It’s a work thing.” It happened to be about a woman I worked with, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of being right.
“Bullshit. This is a woman problem.” Silas had a smug grin on his face.
“It’s a problem with a woman at work, yes,” I tried, but he wasn’t buying it.
“Stone Pennington. I’ll be damned. You caught some feelings here in Sin City?”
“Absolutely not,” I insisted, probably too quickly. “I haven’t even been here two days.” He just laughed.
“Oh, just wait until your mama hears. She’s gonna be over the moon. She’s been waitin’ on you to settle down for ages, boy.”
“Don’t you dare tell my ma nothin’! She’ll start planning a wedding, for Christ’s sake.” This conversation was going all wrong. I parked the truck and turned off the engine, turning to my friend and just coming out with it. “There is a woman working on this project. She’s a walking disaster. Harold has her staying at the house with me.”
“You two are already livin’ together!” Silas snorted, clapping his hands. “Oh, this just gets better and better.”
“Not like that, you moron. Harold set her up at the house but she thought she’d be staying with my sister. She’s, I don’t know, she’s a mess and she’s beautiful and she hates me already, and she’s… she’s from New York.”
“Ah,” my friend nodded sagely. “There it is.”
I frowned again. “There what is?”
“The thing holding you back about this girl. She’s from New York, so in your mind, she automatically the devil incarnate.”
“That’s not true,” I protested again. But it was. I knew it was.
“Stone, man, when are you gonna wake up and realize that Harold did the best he could by you. The best that you would allow him to do.” Silas shook his head. I knew he saw my situation differently. His own family had been a mess, with a mother that left when he was little and a father who liked to get drunk and knock him and his brothers around. As far as he was concerned, Harold had offered me a golden ticket time and time again, and I had foolishly refused it.
And maybe he was right, but that didn’t mean my concerns about Penelope weren’t valid. Although, I was having a harder and harder time believing them myself.
We headed into the restaurant and got a seat. It was a middle of the road place, but their Yelp reviews said they served good steak, so I figured it was the place for us. After ordering our meals and a couple of beers, Silas started in again.
“So, aside from being an evil New Yorker, what is it about this girl that’s got your tail in a twist?”
I took a deep breath. “She is just constantly getting under my skin, ya know? Like, she’s always in the way, interrupting me at meetings and questioning my decisions. It’s inappropriate.” God, I even sounded like an asshole to myself.
“Is she wrong?” Silas asked easily.
“What?” I said, thrown by his question.
“When she questions your decisions, is she wrong?”
I swallowed, feeling like a complete heel. “Well, not my decisions, exactly. But she questioned the theme of the hotel. I think the old west theme is perfect, but she wanted something slick and morebig city.”
“So she didn’t so much question you, as where you come from.” Silas stated, that smug grin back on his face. “You felt slighted by her opinion of your roots. Let me guess; you immediately took it out on her?”
I sighed, remembering how I had cut her down in front of her colleagues. “Yeah. Shit.” I took another swig of my beer, rolling the bottle between my hands as I stared at the table.
“And how did she respond to this verbal admonishment?” The ass was enjoying this.
“She fired right back at me.” She had too, calling me out for being an asshole to her at the airport. She was right, but that was beside the point.
