him with her answer.
“Trust me, that isn’t what I get off on.”
“Yeah?” she asked in a low voice as she raised her eyebrows. “What do you get off on?”
Instead of giving her a sarcastic reply as she’d expected, Cole came a step closer, looking down at her with a considering gaze, and for one heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to show her. Instead, his rather incredible mouth quirked up at one corner. “That’s none of your business, and I can’t ever see that changing.”
“Ouch,” she said softly, thankful that he had no way of knowing that her heart was beating harder than it should.
He was too close. Or maybe she was. Whatever, the pull of gut-level physical attraction was there, making her wonder what would happen if she took another step forward, settled her palms on his very solid chest, tilted her chin up…
That was nothing short of crazy.
“Wasn’t meant as an ouch.” His voice was a little lower than before.
“Gee. I wonder why I took it that way.”
Cole casually eased back a little and, even though Taylor told herself to hold her ground, she did the same, folding her arms over her middle.
“How’s the job hunt coming?” A small twist of the knife, but one she welcomed because it eased her toward safer ground, away from thoughts of touching him to see what would happen.
“I’ve applied here and there. I’m hopeful of landing something soon.” Even though she was overqualified for the positions she’d applied for, and that was almost as deadly as being underqualified. Maybe more, since businesses didn’t want to hire people who were probably still looking for a job more closely suited to their abilities.
“How soon is soon?”
Taylor shrugged and then leaned over to grab her keys off the bookcase, feeling the strong need to both end this conversation and put some distance between them. He needed to go back to his fields, and she needed to get back to her battle plans. “You want me to park on the north side of the building?”
“Yeah. I’d appreciate that.”
She jingled the keys before palming them and moving past him. She heard him start after her, but instead of veering away, he followed her to the SUV. She opened the door, creating a nice barrier between them, before glancing up at him with a question in her eyes. “Yes?”
“I need a time line. If you get a job, how long do you think you’ll be here?”
He settled a hand on the door frame, and while Taylor’s gaze drifted down to his very strong, very tan fingers, she didn’t allow herself to move. “Can’t wait to get rid of me?”
“I want to store grain in the bunkhouse. I’m getting some calves.”
Not the answer she expected, but an easy one to reply to. “Then how about I’ll move into the house and you can stay in the bunkhouse with your grain?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I don’t have a time line, but when I do, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Thanks.”
Taylor smiled—kind of—then slipped into the driver’s seat as Cole turned and started walking toward the machine shop, leaving her to wonder which of them had won that round.
TAYLOR TWISTED AROUND, doing her best to see her reflection in the small bathroom mirror, but short of jumping up and down, there was no way to see if her hem was hanging properly in the back. She’d have to assume it was.
Something thumped on the floorboards beneath her feet, but she no longer startled at the sound. Instead she leaned in over the sink, did a last-minute makeup check, then smoothed her hands over the light gray tailored dress. Simple, but not plain. Applying for a midlevel job in a smaller community was new to her, so she’d done her research. The last thing she wanted was to come off as overdressed for the position—not when she was overqualified for the job. Kiss of death.
After the interview request, she’d made calls to people she’d meant to contact before but hadn’t because she was embarrassed about not instantly landing a job. Funny how being out of work for several months took some of the edge off her professional pride. She hadn’t rebounded immediately, but she wasn’t the only one. A few of her peers had landed primo jobs, but she was among those who hadn’t. She wasn’t alone—but it kind of stung that she’d twice thought she’d be the exception, as she’d invariably been during her educational career, and she wasn’t. Sailing through life during high school and college hadn’t prepared her for this, and she was starting to see that encountering the occasional obstacle might have done her some good.
She grabbed her leather carryall and headed out the door to the SUV. Again, probably a good thing she wasn’t driving the Z. And maybe it was a good thing that Max wasn’t yet with her, because she’d been unable to find her lint roller. The trailer thieves were probably having a fine time with it, or it was in the trash somewhere, along with her much-missed bras.
As she drove to Missoula, Taylor practiced answers to the usual interview questions, focusing on sounding efficient but not coming off as a know-it-all. Again—overqualification. That was a tough one to get past. Would it be wrong to pretend that she was willing to live on less because she loved living in Montana so much?
She was starting to feel desperate enough to lie.
Taylor parked in the lot behind the brick building that housed the bank and the financial services offices on the floors above and sat for a few minutes, getting into battle mode. She was competent, a good team player with strong leadership qualities. She was hardworking, willing to go the extra mile, put in the extra time. She was someone they’d be foolish not to snap up.
Drawing in a breath, she opened the SUV door, got out and caught her heel in a crack in the sidewalk, twisting her ankle hard. She stopped before she fell and yanked her heel free.
Not an omen. She’d recovered her balance without breaking an ankle, and that was an analogy for what was going to happen next. She was going to recover.
As it turned out, catching her heel hadn’t been a harbinger of things to come. The interview went well. Really well. Almost-too-good-to-believe well after months of nothing.
The committee of four were positive throughout the interview and seemed pleased to have someone of her qualifications interested in joining their team. There was no mention of being overqualified, and as the interview wound down, the committee members were nodding and smiling as she spoke. They liked her. She liked them. But more than that, she could do something for their company. They would benefit from her expertise, and eventually she could apply for transfer to the corporate office in Seattle. She had nodded matter-of-factly when they’d mentioned that possibility while answering her questions about advancement within the company, but inwardly she was doing a happy dance. That was why they hadn’t been put off by her résumé—they were looking to grow people. Perfect.
The salary was exactly half what she made in her former job, but
