he being cute or was he just toying with her? “Do I have a choice in the matter?”
He spread his arms wide. “You could leave,” he reminded her.
“Right,” she said sarcastically. “And forfeit my birthright?” she asked, stunned that he would even suggest that.
“Is that important to you?” Mitch asked. He was curious to hear what her response to that would be.
“Honestly?” she asked. When Mitch nodded, she told him, “What’s important to me is not letting that old man win.”
There was that stubborn spirit of hers again, Mitch thought. “Despite whatever I might have alluded to earlier, I don’t really think it matters all that much to him one way or the other,” he told her, covertly observing her expression. “The old man is past the point of caring.”
“Well, I’m not and it does to me,” Ena informed him. “And I’ll be damned if he gets to ace me out of something that’s been in the family for three generations just because I had the audacity to be born a female and not his male heir.”
He, for one, thought that her having been born a female was a great boon to the world, and especially to him, but he wasn’t about to voice that sentiment to her, at least not right now. It would get him into a lot of hot water for a hell of a whole lot of reasons.
“Just so I’m clear on this, you’re going to stay on and run the ranch?” he asked, waiting for a confirmation from her.
Ena closed her eyes. The frustrated sigh came up from the bottom of her very toes. “It certainly looks that way,” she replied, opening her eyes again.
If he let himself, he could get lost in those eyes, Mitch thought. He always could.
“You’re going to need help,” he concluded.
“Ordinarily, I would take that as an insult,” she told him. She liked to think of herself as self-sufficient and independent, but she also knew her limitations. “But right now, I have to admit that you’re right. I’m going to need help. A lot of help. To be perfectly honest, I don’t really know the first thing about running a ranch—” She saw him opening his mouth to say something and she got ahead of what she knew he was going to say. “And yes, I know I grew up here, but just because you grow up next to a bakery doesn’t mean you have the slightest idea how bread is made. Especially if the baker won’t let you into the kitchen.”
He looked impressed by the fact that she could admit that. “Best way I know how to get started is to just jump right into the thick of things and start working,” he told her. She was looking at him quizzically, so he explained, “There’s a foal in the stables whose mama died giving birth to him and he needs to be fed if he has any chance of surviving.”
The very abbreviated story unintentionally brought back painful memories for Ena. Her mother hadn’t died in childbirth, but her twin had. She could definitely relate to that foal on some level.
“Take me to him,” she told Mitch.
Mitch suppressed a smile. He’d been hoping for that sort of reaction from her.
“Right this way, Ms. O’Rourke,” he said politely, leading the way into the stable.
The foal was skittish when she came up to him. Ena was slightly uncomfortable as she glanced toward Mitch for guidance.
“Just start talking to him,” he told her.
“What am I supposed to say?” Ena asked, at a loss for how to proceed.
Mitch shrugged. He’d never had to think about it before. “Anything that comes to mind. Pretend you’re talking to a little kid,” he suggested.
But she shook her head. “Still not helping. Not many little kids need an accountant,” she pointed out.
He thought for a moment, searching for something she could work with. “Tell him how good-looking he is. Every living creature likes to hear that,” he told her.
Ena wasn’t sure about that. “Really?” she asked him uncertainly.
“Really.” Rather than demonstrate, he thought it best to leave it up to her. “Come on,” he coaxed. “You can do it. You know how to talk. I know you do,” he insisted. “I’ve heard you.”
Ena looked at him sharply. Was he telling her that he remembered going to school with her? That he’d eavesdropped on her talking to someone? Just how much did he remember? Because she instantly recalled the less-than-flattering memories of all but throwing herself at the mysterious new stud who had walked into her school and her life. She also painfully recollected having him politely ignore each and every one of her passes. If he did remember all those passes that fell by the wayside, then working with him to run the ranch was not an option. She didn’t handle humiliation well and she’d worry that he was laughing at her.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked suspiciously, bracing herself.
“Just what I said,” he answered innocently. “I’ve heard you. You talked to me when you came here this morning.”
“Oh,” she responded, simmering down. “That’s what you meant.”
“Yes. Why?” Mitch asked. “What did you think I meant?”
“Never mind,” Ena told him, waving away the foreman’s question.
Taking the bottle from one of the men she gathered was working with Mitch, she turned her attention to the foal. The wobbly colt all but attacked the bottle, sucking on it as if his very life depended on it.
He was probably right, Ena thought. “What a good boy,” she murmured to the foal, pleased by the success she was having.
Mitch stood off to the side of the stall, observing Ena as she fed the foal.
“See, it’s coming back to you,” Mitch told her. The bottle was empty but the foal was still trying to suck more milk out of it. Drawing closer to Ena and the foal, Mitch took the bottle out of her hand and away from the nursing foal. “You’re a natural.”
Ena shrugged. “It doesn’t take much to hold a bottle. The foal’s doing the work. It’s not like I’m forcing the liquid down his throat.”
Mitch shook his head. He didn’t remember her being like this when they were in school together.
“I would have thought that being away from here would have made you less defensive, not more,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong in accepting a compliment.”
“I don’t need you to tell me what’s right and what’s not right,” she informed him.
Mitch was not about to get embroiled in an argument, not over something so minor.
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