but she didn’t want to go back to that filthy post pile and dig out pieces of metal and wood. The best thing would be to hire heavy equipment to come in and haul the whole mess to the dump. To hell with recycling. Chances were the posts they were saving would merely become the beginning of a new boneyard.
Useless busywork. Done because Cole could make her do it. Maybe her grandfather had asked him to clean up the yard…but she didn’t think he expected anyone to sort through the whole damned mess. The waste in man-hours was ridiculous.
The next morning Taylor’s body creaked as she got out of bed. She loaded the coffeemaker, which she’d been too tired to deal with the night before, and then lowered herself down onto the plank floor and reached for her toes. She put her chest to her knees, then straightened back up, rubbing her shoulders. Her hammies were fine, but her traps, delts and pecs were killing her. Maybe she shouldn’t have let that gym membership lapse. She got to her feet, opened her laptop and looked up shoulder stretches. She did not open her job links or check her email. She couldn’t face it today.
She’d hit the job hunt hard again soon. Her student loans weren’t going away, but they also wouldn’t ruin her if she was living rent-free. She could scrape by. In a day or two, she’d send emails to Paul and Carolyn, confessing about the job and renewing her request to keep their eyes open for her. Right now, she’d focus on stretching her aching upper body.
And she might think about that guy she’d worked side by side with.
The guy who was going all power trip on her just because he could.
That didn’t take away from the fact that Cole was hot. Annoying, but hot. His face, his shoulders, his very fine ass. The way his eyes kind of crinkled when he let loose with a grudging smile. She reminded herself yet again that hot yet annoying men were nothing new in her world, but she didn’t seem to be able to disregard the hotness factor as easily as she did with all the other Ken-doll guys. Maybe because Cole wasn’t a Ken doll.
He was waiting for her when she’d finished her stretching and her coffee, and she had the feeling that he would have been pacing if his knee wasn’t giving him issues.
“Anxious to get going?”
“Debating the next move.”
“I thought we agreed on the scrap wood pile.” Which should be doused in gasoline and burned rather than sorted by hand. Taylor rubbed her sore shoulder again.
“I was thinking of something more fun.”
Fun?
Heat began to bloom in her lower abdomen—exactly where she didn’t want it to bloom.
“Ever drive a tractor?”
Oh, thank goodness. She swallowed as she lifted her chin and tried to appear as if her thoughts had not headed straight for the gutter. “Yes. But it’s been a while.”
He cocked a dark eyebrow at her. “You’re not being facetious, right?”
She scowled at him, stung that he thought she was kidding. “Grandpa taught me.” But they weren’t supposed to tell her mother, because Cecilia would have gone through the roof if she’d known her daughter was doing anything farm related. “I drove that tractor right over there.” She pointed at the blue-and-gray tractor parked next to the barn.
“Let’s see how well he did.”
The answer was that he’d trained her well enough that she didn’t embarrass herself. It took her a few seconds and some direction from Cole to remember exactly how to start the beast, but after that, muscle memory kicked in. Her clutch work was jerky, but it wasn’t long before she drove in a smooth circle, then up the driveway and back. Cole signaled for her to reverse the tractor to an area where a jumble of fence posts had been buried under other, smaller debris. Cole limped over to the pile and looped a heavy chain around a post.
“Put it in gear and pull forward slowly. Emphasis on slowly.”
“What if the chain gives?”
“That’s where the slow part comes in.”
Taylor put the tractor in gear and eased it forward. The pile shifted and then the wood post slid free.
Taylor looked over her shoulder once the post clattered onto the gravel driveway and arched an eyebrow at Cole in a decent imitation of his own mocking expression.
“Do you want to do a victory dance on the hood?” he asked drily.
“I might,” she called over the noise of the engine. “Care to join me?”
“The way my luck has been going, I’ll fall off and break a leg.”
Now this was the way farmwork should be done. Driving the tractor while Cole did the chain work—oh, yeah. A much better day. By noon, the semirotted posts were lying in the yard and the smaller debris was ready to be picked up with the bucket.
Cole set his hand on the fender of the tractor as Taylor scrambled out of the cab. “Your grandfather did a good job teaching you to run this beast.”
The compliment probably shouldn’t have made her want to smile, but it did. When a guy who didn’t really like you all that much complimented you, it was heady stuff.
And the fact that he looked like Cole…well, that didn’t hurt matters.
“I think in another life I was an equipment operator,” Taylor said after she jumped to the ground. “I had so much fun learning to drive this thing. Had to keep it from my mom, though. She had big plans for me that didn’t involve the farm.”
“And you followed through.”
“No. She wanted me to be a lawyer. I didn’t like law. I liked numbers. My dad and my grandpa encouraged me…then only my grandpa.”
He caught her meaning easily. “It’s rough losing a parent. I lost both of mine.”
He didn’t say how or when, and Taylor didn’t pry. Instead, she said, “Sorry to hear that.” She and her mother butted heads, but she hated to think of life without her.
“Yeah.” He looked back at the tractor. “How old were you when you learned to drive this beast?”
“Probably thirteen?”
“You spent a lot of time here?”
“I was supposed to spend a couple of months every summer, but Mom hated me being here, so she always arranged a camp or something so that I wasn’t here for more than a few weeks.”
“Karl didn’t care?”
“Karl paid for the camps. He wanted me happy. My dad’s death…the divorce before that. I didn’t see it at the time, but I think he played along with Mom so that I wouldn’t be stressed. I loved the camps and never considered the possibility that they were some kind of a power play by my mom.”
“She really hated the farm.”
“She claimed it ate her soul,” Taylor said matter-of-factly.
“That pretty much says it all.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“How did you feel about the farm?”
“I loved it when I was young, despite my mom constantly harping about how awful the place was. Grandpa wasn’t much for livestock, but he kept a horse for me and he always had a lot of cats and dogs, so I had fun. If I wanted something badly enough, he bought it.” She gave a reminiscent smile. “He drew the line at the potbelly pig, but in general…”
She looked up to see Cole smiling back at her. “Those pigs are cute when they’re small.”
“I thought the mother pig had a certain je ne sais quoi. We saw the litter at a 4-H show. I wanted to join 4-H, but I wasn’t here long enough during the year.”
“What project would you have