Rancher at Risk (8 page)

No need to ask whose neck would land on the chopping block.

“I haven’t heard from the contractor yet today.” All business, she had moved on to the next item on their agenda. “He usually texts to let me know when he’s coming out this way. When he plans to stop by again, I’ll let you know and introduce you.”

“I’ll want to talk to his crew.”

“Fine.”

“And I’ll take that file of resumes.”

“The resumes?” She eyed him. “Are you sure you need to get involved with those? Caleb could be back in a week.”

“Like the man said, it’s springtime on a working ranch.” He shook his head. “You don’t know a whole lot about ranching, do you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Is that what you were getting at last night when you asked what I knew about horses? Were you trying to put me in my place?”

So that was what had her slamming drawers this morning.

“Did you already know Caleb’s plans?” she demanded.

“Hell, no.”

“Well, if there’s something I haven’t encountered yet, I’ll learn as I go. I’m a quick study.”

He laughed shortly. “Are you?”

“Yes, I am. And I may not know much about horses, but I can sure recognize a horse’s a—” She snapped her jaw closed. Her chest rose and fell with her deep breath.

He set his mug down and leaned over the desk. “Cussing out the boss won’t look so good in your personnel file, darlin’.”

“And I don’t see you winning supervisor of the month.”

Draw.

Still, she stood there, head-to-head with him. He wasn’t backing down from those pretty blue eyes.

Finally, she gave a small shrug he chose to read as an apology.

He acknowledged it with a stiff nod and picked up his mug. “Time for a break. Let’s meet up tomorrow afternoon. I want a firsthand look at this project.” He walked away, fighting to keep his stride easy.

Damn.
He deserved everything she’d shot at him for sounding like such an ass.

He just wished her heated reply hadn’t struck so close to home.

* * *

T
HE
WALK
TO
the construction site took less time than it usually did, thanks to Ryan’s long-legged stride. Lianne didn’t ask him to slow down.

When she stopped beneath the stand of pine trees sheltering the new cabins, he continued to the expanse of open land half-cleared of brush beyond. He probably wanted to ignore her existence.

The best solution for them both.

Things had started off on the wrong foot between them from day one, and they had only gotten worse since then. Despite her caution to herself, she had let her irritation with him make her blow up in his face. He
had
acted like a horse’s rear end, confirmed by the way he’d finally nodded and backed off. Still, though he’d provoked her, she couldn’t stop the brief feeling of regret for what had happened.

And now this.

She could handle it. Caleb would be home…eventually. Meanwhile, she would go about her business. Do her job. And just make sure she didn’t, in Caleb’s words, “need anything” from the annoying man a few hundred yards away. He still stood facing away from her, looking better than any man should from this angle.

As much as she wished otherwise, she couldn’t keep from enjoying the view.

He returned, gesturing over his shoulder. “What’s with the clearing?”

“Caleb wants a separate corral for the school. Most of the boys will more than likely never have been on a horse. As I’d told you, we’ll include lessons as part of the noncredit classes, and we plan to give them out here.”

“I didn’t see a corral on any of the plans.”

“The contractor’s not building it. The cowboys are going to take care of the job.”

“Something you forgot to cover.”

She shook her head. “Something I planned to tell you now.”

He waved toward the cabins. “Let’s have the grand tour.”

“We’ll start here.” She pointed to one of several smaller buildings. “Everything is in different stages of completion. This is one of the student cabins. As I showed you in the plans, they’re all built the same. They’ll hold eight, and ten if necessary.”

She went quickly through the one-room structure and then brought him to the first of the two larger buildings. “This is for the live-in staff and any local employees who might need to stay overnight on occasion.”

Inside, she showed him through the large great room and the bunkrooms. They finished up in the long, narrower space that ran the length of the back of the building. “Kitchen, laundry and bathroom facilities.”

He leaned against the open archway. “The dudes aren’t roughing it in outhouses?”

She shook her head. “Nate and Ellamae fought for that. Tess and Roselynn were against it.”

“So Caleb was the tiebreaker and wimped out.”

“No, he gave me the deciding vote.”

How quickly things change.

Now he’d given someone else a say over what she did. And somehow she had to get along with this man. “Since the buildings will be in use year-round, I considered indoor plumbing the logical choice.” She forced a smile. “But Nate was happy to hear we’ll have an outdoor shower room for the warmer weather.”

“Are all the buildings this far along?”

“Not quite. It’s only a small crew. But they’re making good time.”

“Yeah. Sounds like they’re keeping busy.” He gestured in the direction of the largest building. “I can hear them over there.”

And she couldn’t. Was that his point? “Nice to know they don’t wait till I’m walking through the door,” she said evenly.

She led him out to the small porch again and turned back.

Ryan braked to a stop within inches of her. She avoided his eyes but couldn’t keep her glance from sweeping his face.

Years of reading lips and expressions had left her with no doubts about what she liked best when she looked at a man. And to her dismay, Ryan Molloy fulfilled every item on her wish list. Firm, wide mouth. Strong jaw. Chin with a tiny cleft in it. Tanned skin the perfect contrast to his five o’clock shadow. His changeable eyes only made her add a brand-new item to the list.

Those eyes, stormy-green again today, stared right at her below dark brows raised in question.

Oh, please.
He hadn’t said anything while she was staring, had he? She couldn’t have missed seeing those lips move.

She took a half step back. “I’m sorry—”

He shook his head. “No, my mistake.” His rueful one-sided smile put a deep groove into his cheek. “I said something on the way out. Forgot I should have waited since you wouldn’t hear me.”

She wanted to shake her head, too—in confusion. At times, it didn’t seem to matter to Ryan that she was deaf. But it was the other times she needed to watch out for. “What was it you’d said?”

“Why are you so caught up in this project?”

Blindsided again. She leaned back against the porch rail, hoping her surprise hadn’t shown on her face. He had learned more about her than she had expected in such a short time. The thought should have unsettled her, should have warned her away.

Sunday night she had seen his doubts—in his eyes, his posture, on his lips—even before Caleb had arrived and changed their working arrangements. Now the wrinkling of his brow said he’d asked out of pure bafflement. And maybe a genuine desire to know.

Neither of them shifted an inch, yet she would swear they had moved closer.

“It’s a worthy goal,” he continued. “I don’t deny that. But it’s a real jump for a businesswoman from Chicago. What is it that makes you care so much about overseeing this project?”

Buying some time, she boosted herself up to sit on the porch rail. She should take his interest as a positive sign. As a way to make him understand how much the school meant to her. Not the fact that it gave her the chance to prove herself. She could never tell him that. But she could let him know just enough so he would trust her to do her job. So he would back off and let her manage the project.

“Caleb’s committed to the idea of this school,” she began. “And so am I.”

“Why wouldn’t you be? It sounds like a solid investment.”

“It’s not just for the profits,” she protested. “It’s a way to change the lives of the boys who are going to stay here.”

“Do you think they’ll see it that way?” He settled against the railing on the opposite side of the steps and crossed his arms. “From what you’ve said, the kids will come here from all over the country. Won’t it be tough for them to leave their homes and everyone they know?”

“That’s just it. Most of them will be leaving situations they need to get away from. Neglect. Abandonment. Abuse.”

“What about other issues? Won’t you have to deal with things like drug and alcohol problems and criminal behavior?”

“Yes, and we’re prepared to handle it. That’s what we’re here for—to give them what they don’t have. A safe home. Support. Adults they can trust and friends they can relate to.”

He frowned. “Why do I get the feeling this is a personal issue for you?”

She hesitated and then shrugged. “It
is
personal in a way.” She gestured at the row of buildings. “I know what it’s like to live in an environment like this. I grew up in a residential school.”

If the statement surprised him, she couldn’t read it. He’d hidden his reaction as well as she’d hoped she had masked her surprise at his first question.

“Everything you plan to give the boys—is that what you needed from your school?”

She tightened her hold on the railing. Somehow he had zeroed in on one of the topics she least liked to discuss. “Yes,” she said slowly, “my school provided all those things. In the beginning.”

That was all she would tell him. She couldn’t let him get that close.

Wishing she had kept her mouth shut and her guard up, she pushed herself off the railing before the next questions could come. As they always did. Questions she didn’t want to answer for this man.

Not if he would respond the way so many others did, making it clear he saw her as different and strange. As less than whole.

* * *

D
AMN
GOOD
SAVE
, M
OLLOY
.

He’d been so wrapped up in looking at Lianne’s long blond hair fluttering as she walked that he’d gotten too close. When she abruptly stopped and turned back to him, he’d nearly run her down. Off-balance in more ways than one, when she’d asked what he had said to her, he blurted out what he’d really wanted to know. He had managed to tone his question down for her.

Why the hell did she keep fighting him?

That wouldn’t get her anywhere. He was her boss now, and instead of challenging him at every turn, she ought to consider proving herself to him…just the way he was having to do—all over again—with Caleb.

As they walked toward the final structure, two-storied and larger than all the rest, she seemed determined to keep her focus on their tour. “This is the main building. The first floor is the combination mess hall and recreation center. Upstairs are the classrooms, office space and a nurse’s station.”

A few woodworker’s tools littered either side of the school building’s porch, and a sawhorse partially blocked the entrance.

She reached for it, but he stepped forward, lifted it out of the way and set it aside.

She frowned.

“I can manage something as simple as that, Ryan.”

There she went again, both fists down in front of her, the way she’d done on Signal Street that first morning. “I never said you couldn’t.”

“Sometimes actions speak louder than words.”

“Not in this case.”

She eyed him for a long moment before stepping through the unfinished doorway.

He followed her into a room large enough to hold a barn dance. In one corner an open stairwell rose to the second level.

As they started toward the back of the room, a boy in his late teens appeared at the top of the stairs. He wore work boots, denim cutoffs and a carpenter’s belt. “Hey, Lianne,” he called. “We’re up here.”

Ryan tapped her shoulder. When she turned to look back at him, he pointed toward the stairs.

Changing direction, she smiled up at the kid. “Hi, Joe.”

He waved at her and said, “Hey, man, if you are who I think you are, we heard about you. From Tony.”

Damn. Already?
The old man spent too much time running off at the mouth. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. He told us Caleb had a new foreman.”

“That’s right,” he confirmed, making a mental apology to Tony. “Ryan Molloy.”

Lianne had reached the landing. “What did you say, Joe?”

“Huh?” For a moment, he looked puzzled. “Oh, I said Caleb has a
new foreman.
” He repeated the two final words in a louder tone.

Lianne nodded.

“You know,
manager. Supervisor. Boss.
”

“I think she got it the first time,” Ryan said. “And there’s no need to yell.”

“Whatever.” He shrugged.

Lianne turned her head from the kid to him and back again. “This is Ryan.”

“Yeah.” The kid grinned at him.

Ryan followed Lianne’s glance down a long hallway as littered as the porch had been.

“Looks like you’re busy up here,” she said. “I’ll show him the offices another time.”

He trailed her down the stairs and out to the porch again. “It also looks like they’ve got a way to go on these buildings.”

“We’ll get there,” she said flatly.

“In time for the scouts?”

“Of course.”

Frowning, he looked back into the building. “Mind telling me why we’re changing the agenda? We could work around the mess upstairs.”

She settled onto the sawhorse he had shifted and stared up at him. “Would you mind telling me what that was about with Joe?”

“What?”

“‘There’s no need to yell.’”

“He was getting carried away, repeating himself and raising his voice because you couldn’t hear what he said.”

“I didn’t
see
what he said. I was watching my step climbing the stairs. He didn’t realize I had my head down.”

Just as he hadn’t realized in the other building, speaking when she’d had her back to him. “That must happen a lot.”