Hell, maybe she’d even leave the country once her trust fund was back in place. That thought should have made her smile. It didn’t. Everything seemed to make her feel empty these days.
But then Colt appeared in her head. There had been nothing empty about what that man had made her feel in the few minutes they’d been together.
Sick! That thought appalled her, so she left the house and began walking. Ready or not, her foreman was about to find out just how stubborn Brielle could be.
Chapter Five
What do you mean, ‘no’?” Brielle thundered at the man standing before her.
All he did was let loose with a long stream of spit that nearly landed on her toes. She squealed and jumped back.
“Do you realize that these are three-thousand-dollar Jimmy Choo shoes?” she gasped.
“Yeah. I figured they were some ridiculous amount, and they certainly shouldn’t be worn in a horse barn,” Tony said before spitting again.
“Well, that’s not your concern now, is it?”
“I don’t really give a damn what you wear,” he told her, then turned and walked away.
“You work for me!” Brielle yelled at his back, but her words didn’t even slow his pace. She found herself chasing after her foreman once again.
“I’ve got work to do, ma’am. I don’t have time to coddle you.” Tony moved into his office at the back of the barn.
She hated this room, hated how bad it smelled, and hated how cluttered it was. Still, she never complained about his space, because if it weren’t for this man, she’d be totally screwed. No doubt about it. Not that Tony listened to her. None of the men did. Including the first ranch hand she’d met on the very first day she was here. What was his name again? Colt. Like she’d really forgotten…
Two weeks she’d been there, and yes, she’d admit that she’d been less than pleasant at first, but the last few days she’d decided she was stuck, and she was through being bored. After speaking with Crew just now, she really wanted to prove she could do this.
She’d even watched about two dozen cowboy films this last week — wouldn’t that help her learn something about ranching? So far, though, she knew she was falling very short of what she was supposed to be doing.
“Listen, Tony. I think we’ve just gotten off on the wrong foot. How about we start over and be friends?” She gave him her most winning smile.
Tony looked up and gave some sort of movement to his lips that she supposed could be considered a smile, and she thought for sure that she’d finally won him over until a shadow fell over her and the room seemed to shrink.
Nope. Tony’s smile, or whatever it could be called, wasn’t for her. It was for the man standing behind her. And she knew exactly who it was. Not because she’d seen him yet, but because she could feel him.
“Afternoon, Tony. Problems?” Colt asked as he walked up beside Brielle.
She did her best not to look at him. If that happened, she’d lose her breath and get all airheaded. She wasn’t an airheaded type of girl. Yes, there were some people who might think that about her, but it was far from true. She’d actually been a straight-A student in high school and during her first year of college.
She’d made it into Brown, after all. Did these guys have any idea how much of an accomplishment that was? They had only a 9 percent acceptance rate for undergraduate applicants.
Perhaps her major hadn’t been the most practical: she’d studied English. But if anyone thought that was easy, far from it. She’d worked her tail off, and she’d planned on going into journalism, and working for a paper or magazine at some point. No, things didn’t end up working out, but it wasn’t over yet.
She’d ended up mixing with some people who partied hard after that first year, and fallen off a bit, but when she’d slipped up in a few classes, she’d manned back up and done better the next year. Everyone might think she didn’t have a care in the world, but she did take pride in accomplishing a difficult task. She would finish her degree!
But she’d never imagined she’d be doing something as difficult as running a ranch, especially when no one at the Ponderosa Pines Ranch would allow her to do anything involving the day-to-day operations. It wasn’t as if she could fire them all and start over.
She wouldn’t even know where to begin. She couldn’t say she want to wrestle around with the few livestock they had, or mend the fences, but she did want to see how it operated, wanted to understand it, wanted to know why it was failing, and how she could turn it around.
If she was stuck in this place for an entire year, then she was going to walk away with at least some knowledge. She might not like that her father had thrown this at her, but she had accepted the challenge. Still, that wouldn’t stop her from grabbing her calendar and marking off each day she was trapped here.
“The little woman here wants someone to take her out on the land,” Tony said, rolling his eyes in disbelief.
“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” Brielle said. What sort of a chauvinist was he? “Tony just said no. He didn’t explain why, just told me no.” She lifted her head and met Colt’s gaze.
Dammit. It had taken only about thirty seconds before she was making eye contact. The man really did muddle her brain. She seriously wanted to stamp her feet. But she was trying to grow here, and throwing a tantrum was the opposite of growth.
So Brielle just stood there, hating that her eyes were pleading for one of the two men to listen to her. She needed to inspect her property.
At least that’s what her brother Crew had told her to do. And since Crew was all happy with his project and kicking ass at it, she’d decided she’d better listen and check out the land she now owned.
Her father had called several times and left messages, but she was still angry with him and had refused to take his calls, refused to call him back. Let him sweat. She hoped he was worried that wild coyotes were going to drag her off into the hills at any minute. Wait. That thought stopped her cold.
“There aren’t wild coyotes who eat people here, are there?” she asked, and felt like a fool when both men grinned.
“Not usually,” Colt said, the start of a chuckle evident in his throat, though he was doing his best to keep his mirth at bay.
She wanted to imitate her last name and storm from the barn. The only thing that stopped her was that she knew both men would be a whole hell of a lot happier if she did just that. Well, tough. She wasn’t going anywhere.