Page 12 of Operation Wolf: Hunter
CHAPTER 5
Hunter
IT WAS NEARLY ANhour later before I stomped up the porch steps and back into the main house, and I was furious.
What the fuck has been going on at this ranch?
It had only been two weeks since Daniel died, so the sheer amount of neglect couldn’t simply be attributed to my old friend’s absence.
Grinding my teeth in frustration, I slammed the door behind me and then felt guilty as Kia shot up from where she’d been resting on the couch.
“What’s going on?” she asked groggily, looking at me with half-lidded eyes, still clouded with sleep. Her hair was a tousled mess, and the couch had left an imprint on her right cheek from where she’d rested on it.
I was oddly touched by how damn cute she looked.
You have my permission to mate with this one,my wolf rumbled in my head.
I bit back a growl.Fuck that.I was not letting my wolf pick and choose whom I could mate with, for fuck’s sake!
“Sorry,” I muttered, scraping my shoes clean on the welcome mat inside. I joined her in the living room, sinking into the matching recliner by the fireplace. “I didn’t mean to wake you . . . though, on the other hand, I guess I should be glad that you woke up instead of falling into an unconscious stupor. Must mean your head injury isn’t so bad after all,” I teased.
Kia rolled her eyes, but I caught a hint of a smile curling the corners of her lips.
She shifted into a sitting position, and her expression grew more serious as she looked at me. “Really, though, what pissed you off so much to make you slam the door?”
I sighed, taking off my hat so I could drag a hand through my hair. “It’s just . . . I don’t understand what the hell happened to this place,” I said after a long moment. “I went out to check on the horses—and, by the way, I let them all out to pasture, which is what you should have done. And while I was in the stables, I decided to check on the feed stores. They’re extremely low, as is the cattle feed, and with winter only a few months away, that’s a really bad thing. And we need to figure out a solution for the feed since no grain crops were planted this year. I decided to go and do an overall inspection of the ranch, and there are all kinds of things that need to be fixed. Machines need to be oiled, and fences need to be repaired.” I pressed the heels of my hands against my temples, a headache forming behind my eyes from just thinking about it.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about any of that,” Kia said, surprising me with her nonchalant tone. “I’ve been here for a few days, trying to figure out what to do with this place, and I’m just going to sell off the livestock and machinery, fix up what I can around the house, and then sell this place.”
“Like hell you are!” I snapped.
Her plan is to dismantle the ranch and sell it off? Over my dead body!
“Excuse me?” Kia lifted her chin, her brown eyes turning hard.
I slowly got to my feet, stretching myself to my full height so that I towered over her. “You arenotgoing to tear down everything Old Daniel worked so hard to keep,” I told her. “That man built this whole ranch with his bare hands and passed it down to you so that it could stay in the family. Not so that you could sell it off piecemeal just to make a quick buck!”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to be a rancher!” Kia jumped to her feet and then swayed slightly.
I instinctively reached out my hands to catch her, but she steadied herself on a nearby table and batted my hands away.
“Maybe it hasn’t occurred to you, but I actually came from somewhere. I’m a fashion photographer, and I have my own life and plans back in New York. I’m not throwing away everything I’ve worked for just so I can become a rancher, which is not something I ever envisioned as a career choice, by the way.” She jabbed a finger into my chest and glared up at me. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you don’t have the right to tell me what I can and can’t do with my life!”
“A fashion photographer, huh?” I wrapped my hand around her finger, pulling it away from my chest, but I didn’t let go of her hand. “Well, Little Miss High and Mighty, what if you just hired a few ranch hands to fix up and maintain the place for you, so you can go back to your glamorous lifestyle?” Something twanged in my chest at the idea of her up and leaving, and I scowled.
What the hell do I care if she goes back home? I’ve known her for less than twenty-four hours.
I pressed on. “Not only would you be able to get out of doing some actual hard work, but you could also even turn a profit here at the ranch and pad your wallet a bit more.”
“I don’t have the money to pay a bunch of cowboys to run this place.” But I saw the wheels turning in her head. “You really think this place can turn a profit?”
Ah, so moneyis the way to this girl’s heart. Good thing I have plenty of that to go around.
“Hell yeah, it can turn a profit,” I said, crossing my arms. “When I was growing up, Daniel sure was able to live nicely off what he made on the ranch while paying his hired help a decent wage.”
“If that’s the case, then why is this place such a wreck?” Kia demanded, sitting back down.
I followed suit.
