“Of course.” She gave him a sidelong look. “Some people even liked me.”
Cole let out a snort. “Imagine that.”
“Watch it,” she said pleasantly. “The next post might have your name on it.”
“I’ll take care.”
“You better.”
Cole pulled his post free and handed it to Taylor. “Pretend it’s Johnson.”
Her gaze held his as she took the post from him. Are we playing?
Maybe a little.
She heaved the post. It landed perfectly in the bed of the truck, and then she reached into the pile and chose her next victim. “I’m still not convinced this isn’t busywork.”
“Ask Karl.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m going to call Grandpa to ask if you were supposed to clean up the boneyard. Then he’ll ask why, and I’ll have to come up with a watered-down version of what’s going on.”
“Why watered down?”
Her hair spilled over her shoulder as she turned toward him. “Because I don’t like to upset him, and I think you’re using that to your advantage.”
“No, Taylor. I’m striking while the iron is hot.” She smirked as he echoed her words. “You’re the one who chose to land here.”
“And I’m the one who agreed to this deal.” She went to work on another post that slid free with relative ease because it was one of the few straight ones. She held it up, and he pointed to the place where they’d stack the salvageable posts. She laid it down and went to work on another.
“I’m a hard worker,” she said as she methodically twisted and pulled a pretzel of a post, “but this isn’t the kind of work I do.” She shot him a look. “Don’t you have any financial stuff you need advice on?”
“Uh…”
Her expression darkened as she caught the reason for his hesitation. “We addressed that.”
“Yes.” He carefully freed a post and laid it in the straight-post pile. “I don’t blame you for trying to pay off student loans and feeling bulletproof.”
“But you still think I’m entitled.”
“If our positions were reversed…”
She let out a breath. “Things look different on the outside.”
“What?”
She put her hand on her hip. “I guess I’m saying walk a mile in my shoes. Your perspective might change.”
“I guess that goes both ways.”
“I guess.”
The conversation ended there and, oddly, the tension between them seemed to dissipate as they worked in an almost companionable silence. Almost. He was too damned aware of her noncompanionable assets for it to be fully companionable.
“Did you live alone in the city?”
She stopped pulling on a post and shot him a frown.
“Yes.” The word came out cautiously, as if she were expecting a setup, but this time he was just curious.
“Then living alone in the bunkhouse isn’t a big change.”
“No. It is a big change. Being alone is the only part of my life that’s the same.”
Over the course of the next hour, they sorted through the worst part of the web of bent and tangled posts. He heard Taylor’s stomach growl a couple of times, but when he asked if she wanted to stop for lunch, she shook her head. “I don’t eat much when I’m stressed.”
But she did work. Cole would give her that.
“You should eat something.”
“Thanks, Mom, but I’d just as soon finish my hours and be free of this.”
“I need to eat.”
She shrugged. “Whatever.” The post she was working on finally came free, and she tossed it into the truck bed. “I don’t mind continuing.”
“I mind.”
She rubbed her shoulder. “Fine, but you should know that once I stop, I may never get going again.”
“Maybe you can pretend the next posts are the assholes who robbed you.”
He caught the flash of amusement in her eyes, there and gone. He wished it had stayed. There were layers to Taylor. A woman beneath the princess exterior whom he thought he could like. He just needed to find her.
What the hell was he thinking?
He didn’t need to find a hidden side to Taylor. He needed to focus on the job at hand and his life ATL—After Taylor Leaves.
* * *
BY THE TIME the day was over, Taylor would have happily killed for a long, hot soak. She briefly thought about negotiating for use of the tub—Cole was showing signs of being reasonable—then decided that maybe she didn’t want to be naked that close to him, even if there was a door between them.
The guy set her on edge. And every now and again a random hot thought would flash into her head. What did he look like naked? Pretty damned awesome.
So, no bath. Instead she stood under a shower head that drizzled more than it sprayed, rolling her shoulders, soothing her sore muscles and feeling thankful that the hot water tank worked well. Small blessings.
Damn but she didn’t want to go back to that filthy post pile and dig out pieces of metal and wood. The best thing would be to hire heavy equipment to come in and haul the whole mess to the dump. To hell with recycling. Chances were the posts they were saving would merely become the beginning of a new boneyard.
Useless busywork. Done because Cole could make her do it. Maybe her grandfather had asked him to clean up the yard…but she didn’t think he expected anyone to sort through the whole damned mess. The waste in man-hours was ridiculous.
The next morning Taylor’s body creaked as she got out of bed. She loaded the coffeemaker, which she’d been too tired to deal with the night before, and then lowered herself down onto the plank floor and reached for her toes. She put her chest to her knees, then straightened back up, rubbing her shoulders. Her hammies were fine, but her traps, delts and pecs were killing her. Maybe she shouldn’t have let that gym membership lapse. She got to her feet, opened her laptop and looked up shoulder stretches. She did not open her job links or check her email. She couldn’t face it today.
She’d hit the job hunt hard again soon. Her student loans weren’t going away, but they also wouldn’t ruin her if she was living rent-free. She could scrape by. In a day or two, she’d send emails to Paul and Carolyn, confessing about the job and renewing her request to keep their eyes open for her. Right
