we should drop this subject.”
She hurled a piece of wood with rather impressive force, making him wonder if his name was on that one. “Yes. Maybe we should.”
Taylor didn’t talk as she drove back to the farm. She focused on the road with an intensity that told Cole that he might have his wish. She might back totally away from him, and all it had taken was his acting like an ass.
Did he regret it?
He told himself no. He needed to focus on his livelihood. And what if Karl was the old-fashioned sort who didn’t like his tenant screwing around with his granddaughter?
Not likely, but there was always a possibility.
After returning to the farm, they broke for lunch, heading off to their respective abodes. Cole made himself a sandwich, leaning back against his counter to eat as he wondered how the afternoon would play out. Until he’d asked about her place in high school society, there’d been a sense of something simmering just below the surface, ready to break out.
Hopefully he’d taken care of that.
Taylor was already sorting through debris when he walked around the barn, pulling a glove onto his good hand. He dived in, pulling bent rebar out of a stack of pipe and metal rails. They worked for most of the afternoon with next to no conversation.
It was not a comfortable silence.
Taylor worked methodically, seemingly lost in thought, but the few times they’d reached for the same piece of debris, she’d pulled her hand back as if not wanting to chance touching him.
And since that was what he wanted, it made no sense that he was so stupidly aware of her. Taylor was a hard worker. She may not like farmwork, she may still believe that clearing the boneyard was busywork, but she was now committed to the task.
And maybe he’d made his point about working her ass off. Did he really want to spend time like this, working next to a woman he would be better off avoiding? There were things they could each do alone.
The stack of pipe shifted, and Taylor let out a yelp as the fingers of her glove got trapped. She yanked her hand free of her glove, which dangled from where it was caught between two pieces of rusting metal.
“Son of a—”
“Are you okay?”
Taylor frowned at him before working her glove free. “Fine.” She rubbed her thumb over her forefinger, which must have gotten pinched, then slipped the glove back on and went to work again.
Cole moved farther away. Working next to her was driving him kind of crazy—because he wasn’t being honest about this whole situation.
Maybe he needed to say, “Hey, what should we do about this mutual attraction that won’t be good for either of us?” Then Taylor could come up with some parameters and goals and they could deal. Together.
Yeah, right.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he stepped down off the pile of debris he was sorting through to answer.
“Hey, Jance. What’s up?” Nothing bad, he hoped, but Jancey didn’t usually call to shoot the breeze.
“I just wanted to touch base.”
“Yeah?” he asked gently, staring off over his fields as he held the phone to his ear, yet totally aware of the woman still working behind him.
“Yeah.” She fell into silence, and he waited. “I was wondering…since you’ve left and stuff…do you feel differently about the ranch?”
“Where’s this coming from?”
“Oh…I’ve just been thinking a lot. Now that I’m about to leave the place.”
“I love the ranch. I don’t think anything will change that.” He paced away from the debris piles toward the barn. If he was going to have to talk his sister down, he wanted to do it in private.
“So you’d never sell. Right?”
He made a sputtering noise. “No.” He’d never sell because Miranda would somehow end up with the entire place, and he wasn’t going to let that happen. And because it was his and Jancey’s birthright. Their family settled that land, and it would damn well stay in the family.
Jancey let out a small breath. “That’s what I thought. I’m just feeling kind of unsettled, you know?”
“That’s normal when you’re about to leave home for the first time.” He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Do you want me to come out to the ranch for a while?”
“No. I’m good. I just… I guess I wanted to be reassured that after I left I wouldn’t feel differently.”
“You might, Jance. I won’t lie. But I don’t.”
He could hear the smile in her voice as she said, “Thanks, Cole. I feel better.”
“Good. Are you sure you don’t want me to drive out?”
“No. Really. I’m doing great. How are my babies?”
Cole smiled. “Your babies are greedy eaters. They’re gaining weight fast.”
“Good to know. I’ll try to get in to see them—and you—soon.”
“You do that, kid. And call anytime you’re feeling unsettled. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He dropped his phone back into his pocket as he strode back toward the pile. Taylor didn’t even glance his way as he went back to work. Maybe he did need to take a drive to the ranch soon. Going back invariably stressed him out, but he needed to keep tabs. Make sure that Miranda was minding her p’s and q’s.
“Why’d you leave your ranch job if you owned the ranch?”
The question came out of the blue, startling him after a day of silence. Cole carefully set the pipe he’d just extracted onto the salvage pile. “I quit because I didn’t like my boss. And I only own part of the operation.”
“Do you miss it?” Taylor put a hand on her hip, and Cole couldn’t help but follow the movement before bringing his gaze back up to her face. She wore her business expression, which made him think that she fully intended to get answers. So much for distance.
“I don’t miss what it became.” He went back to sorting the pipe. Taylor didn’t move. He didn’t look at her.
“Is the subject off-limits?”
“Pretty much.”
“Because you’re private, or because it’s me?”
“Private.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Nothing personal, Taylor.”
“Right.”
He gave a small snort. He wasn’t lying. “I don’t discuss the ranch.”
“Maybe you should start.”
“Because?”
“You bottle things up and they come out in weird ways.”
“I’ll take the chance.” Because the thought of opening up to…well, anyone, really…made him freeze. Telling the truth about his family…he hated what the ranch had become and hated that he no longer felt welcome on his own property. Talking about it only twisted the knife a little more.
“It isn’t like I can use the information against you,” she continued as she went back to battling the rebar. A moment later the pieces she’d been working on slid free and she put them in the junk stack.
“I don’t like talking about it.”
“In my world, you grow a thick skin.”
“In