“Cade is going to hate you for that.”
Her lips press together, and she shrugs, seeming truly unaffected by the prospect. “I guess I’ll have to hope Brother Number Three likes me. Or maybe I’ll go for the trifecta? Get you all to hate me? That might be nice for me.”
The balls on this girl.
“You could have told the truth.”
“I did.”
My teeth grind. “Learning the ropes? We both know you’re here to babysit me.”
Her head tilts, and she stares at me in the most unnerving way. “I guess we all see things the way we want to. I am new at the firm. They only recently hired me as more than a summer intern. And you are established. And I’d be an idiot to think I’m not here to learn something. Or Kip would have sent someone with more experience, no?”
Then she walks back toward the main house.
“Why didn’t you just throw me under the bus then? They’re going to figure it out, eventually.”
“Because that’s not my job. Keep up, we need to go over some things.”
I hang back for a few minutes, because when Summer Hamilton tells me to jump, I refuse to respond with, How high?
5
Summer
Dad: How’s it going?
Summer: It’s beautiful out here.
Dad: I meant the cowboy.
Summer: Oh, him? He hates me.
Dad: You’ll win him over. Just make sure he keeps his dick in his pants.
Summer: I’ll pass the message along. A sure way to win him over!
Men are so fragile.
I told Rhett to keep up, and I’m almost positive he stood in that field sulking just to prove a point. It’s kind of amusing. My lips twitch as I set up my files and laptop on the living room table.
We need to hammer out a schedule for the coming months, and I’m going to need Rodeo King here to do that.
Eventually, I hear the back door slam and heavy footfalls traveling in my direction. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of his frame. His broad shoulders, his unruly hair, and dark scruff. You’d have to be dead to not appreciate a man like Rhett Eaton.
He’s not pretty and polished. He’s rugged and a little rough around the edges.
He’s all man.
One hundred percent different from any man I’ve met. Girls like me don’t usually mix with men like him. We don’t even mix in the same circles, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating him. The way a pair of Wranglers fit him hasn’t changed since his early days on the circuit.
“I was worried a bear had attacked you,” I announce as I seat myself on one of the tufted leather club chairs.
“Black bears rarely attack people,” he husks as he strides into the living room, eyeing up my spread like it might be an explosive or something.
“Grizzlies?”
“Mostly stick to the mountains,” he grumbles.
“Okay. Cougar?”
He towers above me and quirks a brow.
“Yeah,” I sigh and lean back in the comfy chair, sensing the pressure of his honeyed stare on my body. “You definitely look like cougar bait.”
He shakes his head while I bite back a grin. “This is going to be a long two months.”
“You could always throw yourself down that well I saw on my way back to the house and put yourself right out of this misery.”
That comment sobers him and instead of responding with something flippant, he flops down on the couch across from me and runs his hands through his hair. The silence stretches between us as I regard him carefully. “My mom used to make wishes down that well with my brothers and me. Don’t remember it at all.”
Fuuucckkk. Talk about stepping in it, Summer. The sinking feeling in my chest has me clearing my throat noisily. “I’m sorry,” I say. Because I really am.
He just nods, and I opt to change the subject. Put the conversation back on the safe ground that is work. Our arrangement that he hates so much is preferable to where I just took things. “Tell me what the next two months looked like for you before I came onto the scene.”
“You mean before I got saddled with you? It looked pretty great.”
I just nod and say a quiet, “Yeehaw,” as I twirl my finger around beside my head like I’m swinging a lasso. Because it’s not like he’s making this fun. He’s acting like I’m some sort of enemy when I’m actually just here to make his life easier.
I reach for the day timer in front of me, grab my favorite silver pen, and proceed to stare at him until he talks. I listen and note specific dates as he reads them off his phone while completely avoiding eye contact with me.
We exchange phone numbers and email addresses, and I make clear that he’s to behave like a good little boy that no one can find fault in for the next eight weeks.
I don’t get too specific, because I’m hoping he’s picking up what I’m putting down as I speak in vague generalities about his behavior—that Little Rhett needs to stay in his pants. Because having to dictate a man’s sexual activities is just way beyond my pay grade. Kip can call him and break those details down himself. Rhett and I are going to need to maintain some semblance of dignity if we’re spending the next two months stuck together.
Rhett responds in grunts and stares up at the ceiling like he wishes it would open up and swallow him whole. And quite frankly, I can’t blame him.
“Okay.” I tap my fingers on the open page before me. “So, we have three qualifying events. Pine River is the first, then Blackwood Creek, then the one here in Calgary. That’s kind of nice. Has there always been a stop here on your tour?”
“Yup.”
“No rest for the wicked, huh? They bang these out back-to-back.”
He sighs and finally holds my gaze for a moment. “The World Bull Riding Federation, or WBRF, is as competitive as it gets. If I wasn’t sitting comfortably ahead and was chasing points instead, I’d probably be doing two more before Vegas. We usually go every weekend.”
“Right. World Finals in Vegas.” I stare down at the date on the calendar. That’s the day I’ll be free of this assignment and this grumpy cowboy.
“Championships, not finals. Do you even know anything about this sport?”
I draw a star on that calendar square and sigh wistfully before tipping my face back up to glare at Rhett, who is sitting across from me, taking up the maximum amount of space on the couch. Long arm draped over the back of it and jean-clad legs spread wide.
Man spreading.
“No. Just what I’ve searched on the internet. But I bet you’d love to tell me all about it.”
He glares back like he’s trying to figure out how his life turned into this, and then he asks, “Why do you need to go to law school to become an agent?”
“You don’t. Well, not really. But it’s a lot of contract work, so it definitely helps.”
“Huh,” is all he says while spinning the silver ring on his finger. “That’s a lot of school. You must love it.”
I give him a flat smile. I’m not sure I’d take it that far, but I’m not about to tell a client that. “Yeah. Can you explain the scoring? So I understand what I’m watching next weekend?”
He eyes me a suspiciously and then he starts. “So, you’ve got two judges. Each judge gives the rider a score out of twenty-five and the bull out of twenty-five. Add them up and you get an overall score out of one hundred.”