My mother warned me to stay away from him, she told me I had work to do and so did he. But we kept talking and flirting, then suddenly one morning the young man was gone. He had just up and left us in the middle of the night, just as suddenly as he had arrived. He never said goodbye to me, never told me he was thinking of leaving; I was so heartbroken that I hardly left my room for a week. It was then that I realized my mother had only been trying to prevent me from getting a broken heart.
Sure, there were good guys and bad guys who worked at our ranch. But they were all going to leave sooner or later and that meant I needed to guard my heart and keep it from getting broken. Even a good-looking, funny guy like Garrett wasn’t going to catch me off guard. I had already had my heart broken by the company I loved, there was no need to open it up and have it broken by a man in the same month.
“You’re afraid the other guys will get jealous of me?” Garrett joked.
“Just do what I tell you,” I said sternly.
I didn’t mean for my words to come out so bitchy, but I wasn’t going to take them back. The truth was, I was his boss and he was an employee of the farm. I wasn’t going to flirt with him and I didn’t need him flirting with me. If he couldn’t even be honest with me about little details of his life I wasn’t going to hold out hope that he was even going to be at the ranch for long.
Men who had lots of secrets to hide weren’t my type. I liked guys who were strong, handsome, caring, and honest. So far, I was beginning to wonder if Garrett was honest at all. He certainly seemed to be strong and handsome though. He was the kind of guy I could see myself marrying somewhere long down the road, but the one I finally settled on would have to be caring and honest, too. I wasn’t going to settle for anyone that didn’t have all four traits.
“You must have been a really good boss; you’re excellent at giving orders,” Garrett said.
“I wasn’t a boss.”
“In that picture I saw, you looked like a boss.”
“Why? Because I was dressed in a suit? I asked him.
Again, I noticed the stern tone in my voice, but I didn’t mean to argue with him, my work was just a bit of a sore subject. I had dedicated myself to my job since getting out of graduate school. I worked up to twenty hours a day sometimes, yet at the first sign of financial distress, the company chose to let me go. It wasn’t what I had expected. I certainly couldn’t have planned it or even prepared myself mentally for the news. But there I was, back home on my parents’ ranch at twenty-seven years of age.
It was hard not to feel like a failure and Garrett bringing that photo up just reminded me that I was no longer that person. Maybe I had never really been that woman at all. All I knew at that moment was I enjoyed being home and I was going to do everything possible to ensure my father could keep his farm. Maybe we would have to sell part of it, or maybe we would have to change how things were done, but I was home for a reason and that was to help my family.
“And the large corner office.”
“Well, in New York there are a lot of corner offices; I wasn’t anything special.”
“I doubt that,” Garrett said as he took a couple steps forward. “You’re special no matter what you’re doing for your job.”
He was only about a fo
ot away from me as his large chest hovered near me. I looked up at him and felt my breath catch as my body reacted to him. Garrett had a delicious looking smile filled with confidence as he looked down at me. For a moment, I could have sworn he was going to kiss me from the look he had in his eye. I quickly took a step back and looked away. There would be no kissing going on in that kitchen on that morning. I appreciated a good man as much as the next woman, but Garrett needed to understand that I wasn’t interested in his charms.
Okay, maybe I was interested; but I wasn’t going to give in until I knew more about the man. He was going to have to show a little bit of honesty before I would be falling for his flirting. But I suspected Garrett wouldn’t be around all that long. From the way he was keeping secrets, he was probably going to be back on the road within the week.
“You better get out there so you can eat.”
Garrett nodded his head and gave me one last glance before he turned to leave the kitchen. Every muscle in my body relaxed when he had finally left and I shook my whole body in a big shiver. The way Garrett made me feel was unsettling in a way a man hadn’t made me feel in a really long time.
I hated it, but liked it all at the same time. I felt energized and ready to take on the day like I had just finished a whole pot of coffee. I wouldn’t give up on him totally, not just yet. There was always the possibility he would come around.
I wasn’t the type of woman who had one night stands, or even relationships that I knew wouldn’t go anywhere. But if I was that sort of woman, the idea of sleeping with Garrett even if he was only at the ranch for a short time, well, that didn’t sound all that horrible.
“No, no, no; you stay away from that one,” my mother said as she walked into the kitchen. She was smiling as she looked at me and I knew right away that she was joking.
“What are you talking about? He was just helping me with breakfast.”
“Oh, I saw how you looked at him. Just remember, we know nothing about these men and any one of them could have a past that is dangerous. He could be a murderer.”
“Mom, any man could have a past he’s not telling a woman about. You can’t tell me to stay away from every man on the planet. Anyways, why are you up? I told you I could handle breakfasts. There’s no reason you can’t sleep in.”
My mother had already started unloading the plates and piling them up near the front of the kitchen. It felt like when I was a teenager and I was helping her out; she was instantly in charge of everything. I knew she just wanted what was best for me and I wasn’t going to argue with her logic. It was true: Garrett could be hiding a lot from me. I felt like he was hiding something, but I certainly didn’t think he was a murderer.
“I’ve been getting up before dawn for over twenty years. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
“So what do you know about Garrett?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. “Do you know something about him that I should know?”
We continued setting up the line for breakfast as we talked. The men were going to start arriving shortly and I liked to have everything ready for them before the first one entered the hall. They worked hard and a good meal was the least we could do for them. I actually really enjoyed helping with the meals on the ranch; it was more fun than dealing with the pigs — that was my least favorite job on the farm. Those damn things always ran from me and I inevitably ended up injuring myself in some way.