“Cole’s degree is in…aggiecon?” Whatever that was. Taylor was surprised to hear that Cole had a degree at all, which drove home the point that she’d been as judgmental about him as he’d been about her.
“Agricultural economics.”
Ag. Econ. Ah. “That wasn’t a course of study at my university,” Taylor said with a smile.
“He was working on an MBA, too, before he left the ranch. Online.”
“No kidding.”
“Cole’s a smart guy.”
Taylor considered why he’d kept working at the guest ranch he hated, but she had a feeling that the answer was sitting in front of her.
Once the pasta was ready, Taylor strained it and dumped it into a pan on the stove. She added the pasta sauce and a little Parmesan cheese, warming everything through before getting a plate and a plastic container out of the cupboard. “You don’t care if I take mine with me, do you? I have some stuff to catch up on.”
“Are you kidding? I’m thrilled you stayed long enough to cook for me.” Her expression softened. “Thanks. I kind of needed a pick-me-up.”
Taylor loaded the wine and damp towel into the tote she’d brought. “Trust me. I totally get it.” She headed for the door just as the lights swung into the driveway. She didn’t want to look as if she were running, but for reasons she didn’t quite have a handle on, she didn’t want to be there when Cole got home.
* * *
COLE’S STOMACH WAS in a knot by the time he parked next to the house. Taylor was just leaving as he pulled into the drive. She raised a hand and scurried toward the bunkhouse. Well, at least Jancey’d had some company while she waited for him.
He pushed open the kitchen door and stepped into the heavenly scent of fresh spaghetti sauce.
“You cooked?”
Jancey snorted. “Right.”
“Taylor cooked.”
“She felt sorry for me.”
“Dare I ask why?”
“From the way she was looking at me, I’d say she’d guessed I’d been crying.” And was about to start again, which disturbed him, since Jancey wasn’t by nature a teary person.
He pulled out a chair and sat on the other side of the table. “What happened?”
“She who shall not be named.”
“That goes without saying. What did she do?” Because he was going to hurt her if she hurt his sister.
She drew in a shaky breath then exhaled. “She threatened me.”
Instant blood pressure spike. “Threatened you how?”
“She invited me to this private lunch, and we had this…dainty food…and she tried to make me feel all special. Then she said that she knew I was going to have some difficulty paying for college and that she could help me from getting too deeply into debt.”
Cole pressed his fingers to his forehead. Miranda made people feel special only when she needed something. Her minions felt special all the time, which was why they were loyal to her.
“She asked me to sell my part of the ranch to her. She told me that since I was eighteen, I could do as I wanted, according to the trust, and that you weren’t that interested in keeping the ranch—if you were, then you wouldn’t be farming fifty miles away.”
“You know that’s not true.” He hoped.
She cleared her throat. “She said you were only hanging on to your share to make her angry and if I asked you, you’d tell me to hang on for the same reason. She said it was selfish of you, when the money could help me through college.”
“I’m hanging on because it’s ours.”
Jancey gave a jerky nod as she worried the amethyst ring she wore.
“That’s not really a threat, Jancey. She tried to scam you—”
His sister’s eyes came up. “She said that if I didn’t sell, that she’d talk to people at my college. Tell them…stuff, I guess. I thought she was blowing smoke, and then I got a call from my high school counselor. College admissions called her because they were concerned I’d had someone else write my entrance essay. They sent it to her. Asked her whether it reflected my abilities.”
Cole stared at her, stunned. “I thought this just happened.”
Jancey shook her head. “It happened a couple weeks ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“I…thought I could handle it. Right up…” Her voice cracked. “Right up until I got the call from Mrs. Chavez.”
“Your counselor.”
“Yeah.”
Cole leaned back in his chair, carefully unclenching his fists. She should have told him sooner, but he needed to deal with it now. He scraped his chair back and Jancey reached out to touch his hand.
“Don’t go to the ranch.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m afraid of what she’ll do.”
Cole gave a choked laugh. It was more of a question of what he would do. Mess with him, fine. Mess with his baby sister…
Cole did his best to look reassuring as he said, “There’s nothing she can do, Jancey. She wants you to think she can.”
“Look what she did to Jordan.”
“Tried to do. There’s a difference.” She’d done her best to take control of his hideaway ranch, but ultimately, Jordan had prevailed.
“She did do it to me,” his sister said darkly.
True. And she wasn’t getting away with it.
* * *
TAYLOR CLOSED HER LAPTOP, taking care not to slam it down, and got to her feet. Three, count ’em, three, rejections. Two of them were for jobs that she didn’t want, but the third rejection stung, having come after that lengthy, hope-inspiring late-afternoon Skype interview. She’d wanted that job. She stopped in front of the mirror and glared at herself.
“Three? Really?”
Max raised his head as she spun around, then laid it back on his paws, keeping his green gaze on her as she took a turn around the room, trying to get control of both her disappointment and her fears for the future.
“You may end up mousing for a living,” she told the cat, “because I think we may be stuck here forever.” Which clearly wasn’t an option, but after receiving three rejections—bam, bam, bam—the doubts started rolling in.
She didn’t want to live here forever. She had things to do, professional dragons to slay.
She had a goal list, for Pete’s sake, and “stay on the farm forever” wasn’t a line item there.
She started to shrug out of her shirt when she stopped moving. Was that…?
Oh, yeah. She could hear the now-familiar sounds of the calves stampeding around their pen and glanced at the clock. A little after ten, just as it’d been the first time Chucky had come to call. Was the Curly Terror back?
If so, at least she knew the magic words to get him out from under the grain shed. Unlike the last time that she encountered the poodle-in-the-night, Taylor didn’t feel the least bit cautious as she headed out the door. She was glad to have something else to focus on.
She strode across the gravel toward the barn with a no-nonsense stride. The calves were milling nervously around in their pen, but she didn’t see any flashes of white.