Unbridled (13 page)

“Fine, but I only have a few minutes. I’ve got things to do.” He opened the door so she could walk in.

Alex felt the heat from his body, along with the odor of frustration and a day without a shower. It should have put her off, but for some reason it didn’t. She’d already had sex with the man, after all, so his emanations shouldn’t bother her.

His mood, however, did.

He flopped down in his chair and she noted the receipts scattered around the desktop. She vaguely remembered sitting on those during their episode a few days ago.

“So what about the books?” He picked up a pen and started tapping it, much to her annoyance.

Alex looked for the right way to tell him what she wanted. “The books are in good shape, nearly spotless, and that’s saying something. However, the accounting entries are vague; there doesn’t seem to be enough detail in them. If you want to make more money, you’ve got to keep a better eye on what you’re spending.”

One brown brow went up. “You have experience as an accountant?”

“As a matter of fact I do, for eight years now.” She gestured to the desktop mess. “I’d say you have a need for one.”

“I’ve been handling it just fine.” He scowled. “I don’t need help.”

She gave him a dubious look. “Your accounting entries tell me differently. I think you’re not being truthful with me, Connor.”

“I expect you have a lot of experience with that.”

Stung, Alex managed to keep her composure even if she wanted to smack him upside the head. “There’s no need to be defensive. I have every right to be a part of this ranch legally. No matter how obnoxious you want to be.”

He ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t have a lot of patience right now, especially for you.”

“Especially for me? What does that mean?” Alex managed to keep her voice steady. The longer Connor talked, the more she grew annoyed with him. Again.

“You come in here and throw everything off center, including me. I can’t balance these damn receipts and for some reason, I fucked you on this desk a few days ago.” He looked as shocked as she felt. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Yes, you did.” Alex knew the truth when she heard it even if it packed a punch. “I can balance the receipts and take over the books. I know some excellent accounting techniques and ways to cut costs.”

“I don’t want you to.” He almost pooched out his lip, appearing suddenly like a little boy who didn’t want to share his marbles.

“Too bad. I can take this to the legal dogs if you want. I don’t think you do, and truthfully neither do I.” She leaned forward and focused on the desk rather than on his green eyes. “I need to find my place here, Connor. It’s important. I have to stay here an entire year or I lose my share of the ranch.”

Alex wanted to tell him that she felt out of place, out of sorts and floundering like a fish. Numbers, accounting, balancing it all would be like a piece of normalcy in a storm rivaling a hurricane. She desperately needed to anchor herself, and accounting had been that anchor for eight years.

Aside from that, she was already falling in love with the land and the ranch again. Perhaps she could find her place if she used her skills as an accountant. It was so hard to be in limbo, without a real direction.

When she looked up, he was staring at her hard, his eyes bloodshot with dark circles beneath them. “I don’t trust you.”

She snorted. “That makes two of us.”

“I would want to check everything you do until I feel otherwise.”

Alex could hardly believe he’d given in to her request already. “I would expect no less. I’ve seen how tight you run this ship.”

His brows went up. “Have you been checking up on me?”

“No, but I’ve got eyes.” She recalled how cleanly, smoothly and exactly things were done at the ranch. Although she wouldn’t admit it to him, it impressed her. All except his accounting techniques.

“I know. I heard you rode Rusty on Friday.” He started putting the receipts into a neat stack. Her gaze went to his fingers and she couldn’t help but remember just how skilled they were.

A blast of heat brushed through her, making the small hairs on her body stand up. He must’ve sensed it because his pupils dilated and his nostrils flared. It was like sensing when another animal was in heat.

Alex surely felt like an animal.

“He’s still got a smooth gait.” She noted a small tremor in her voice, reflected in the rest of her. “Are those all the receipts from this week?”

He handed her the stack. “Yep, and the entries are already in the system, but something’s not right. I hope you can figure out what’s wrong because I sure as hell can’t.”

She took the stack of papers from him; the feel of the weight in her hands was comfortable and comforting. “Thanks, I think.”

He barked out a rusty chuckle. “You’re welcome, I think.” Connor pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I’d say you need to go to sleep.” Oh, the images of his bed flew through her brain and made her nipples pop. Jesus, did she have no control when it came to this man?

“Can’t. I’ll knock off early but I need to check on things first.” He let loose a jaw-cracking yawn.

“It’s going to rain.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yeah, it is. If you’d actually left this building, you’d notice the sky is full of clouds and it even smells like rain.” Alex rose with the laptop and the receipts in her arms, unwilling to allow herself to lose control over Connor again. At least not so soon.

“Really? It’s going to rain? Damn, that’s going to mess up the schedule.” Connor rose, swaying a bit on his feet.

“Let someone else do it. Go to bed and get some rest.” She backed toward the door. “I’ll let you know what I find later.”

Before he could protest again, she slipped out of the room and headed away from Connor, away from the distraction. The papers felt warm in her arms, real. She couldn’t wait to balance them.

 

 

Connor sat at the desk, staring at the closed door for a few minutes. He resisted the urge to chase her down and snatch back the receipts. The very idea that he’d given away control of the ranch books to her made him itch all over.

He prided himself on the control he exerted over the running of the ranch and himself. Alex had made him lose that control within three days of being there.

He wanted to send her away.

He wanted to keep her in his bed.

With a growl, he rose from his chair and went in search of breakfast. As he passed the front desk, Jennifer straightened up from reading a magazine and smiled.

“I’m going to eat, then go to bed. Tell Jed to keep everything on schedule and to wake me if he needs me.” The words felt like gravel in his mouth, uncomfortable and rough. Yet he got them out just the same.

Apparently he surprised the hell out of Jennifer, who gaped at him as he passed. Was Alex right? Did he never allow his people to relax and do their jobs without looking over their shoulder?

It was an uncomfortable realization. Grant had taken him in, a pain-in-the-ass twenty-year-old with a chip on his shoulder bigger than Alex’s. He’d been inches away from being convicted of a felony and destroying the rest of his life. Grant Finley had offered him a chance to build a real life and a real job. Although Connor had wanted to say no, the judge urged him to accept the offer.

Connor had never been more grateful for someone else’s intervention. It had been a hard eight years, working his ass off to build Finley’s. His blood, sweat and tears littered the beautiful land under his feet. However hard it had been, he wouldn’t change a thing.

An aimless kid with nothing but time and an inclination to do the wrong thing was trouble with a capital T. Connor wasn’t about to make excuses for himself. Lots of kids came from abusive homes, from poor parents, from last-chance neighborhoods. Not all of them made choices like he’d done to get himself into a hole so deep he couldn’t get himself out.

Of course, not all of them had a man like Grant Finley to reach down and yank them out by the hair. With a wry grin he remembered walking into the ranch house and thinking it looked like shit. Then, of course, he’d said that to Grant.

The older man had narrowed his gaze and snapped, “Good thing you’re here, then, Matthews. Better get used to working your ass off.”

Connor shook off the memories, and the melancholy they brought, and went toward the mess hall. He glanced up and realized Alex was right—it was going to rain and hard if he wasn’t mistaken. That always put the guests in an antsy mood.

He started to turn around and head back to the main house to find Jed, his second-in-command. Then he stopped himself and remembered he trusted Jed implicitly. The man had a degree in hotel management and had been one of the first employees Grant hired. He was smart enough to recognize they needed to activate Plan B—the entertainment.

Connor’s steps were slow but steady as he walked into the mess hall and headed straight for the eggs. His stomach yowled noisily as the delicious smells tickled his nose. Bernice stood behind the counter, her expression unreadable.

“You know, if you keep going without sleep, you’re not doing yourself or this ranch any favors.”

“How do you know I haven’t slept?” He reached for a plate and started heaping eggs onto it.

“If I hadn’t been able to smell you, which I can by the way, I can tell by the state of your clothes, which I saw you wearing yesterday.” She folded her arms across her more-than-ample bosom. “What kept you up this time?”

Connor always felt like a little kid being chastised by his teacher around Bernice. She was tough and no-nonsense, didn’t take shit from anyone, but that didn’t mean she didn’t reduce him to two feet tall.

“Receipts,” he blurted as he put half a dozen pieces of bacon on top of the eggs.

She handed him two biscuits. “You should ask Alex to do the books. She’s an accountant, you know.”

Connor didn’t want to admit he hadn’t known that fact until she’d told him that very morning. “As of twenty minutes ago, she’s got the receipts and the books.”

Bernice’s brows went up. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

He didn’t want to look at whatever expression she wore, so he took the biscuits and walked away. Quickly. He found an empty table and sat, then dug into the hot breakfast. It was as heavenly as it smelled and he ate like a madman.

A steaming mug of coffee appeared in front of him and he took a grateful gulp. He glanced up at Bernice with a mouthful of eggs, ensuring she wouldn’t expect him to speak.

“I’m proud of you, Connor,” was all she said before she walked away.

He swallowed the eggs and the lump that had formed in his throat. It had been more than two years since anyone had told him that. Bernice reminded him of how much he’d lost and how stupid he’d been since then.

It was time to attempt to get a life.

 

 

Monday morning came, and with it the sun, thank God. Connor balanced the muffin on top of the to-go cup and opened his office door. At first he could hardly believe what he was seeing; then he realized that Miss Alex Finley had set up her own workspace on his desk.

“What the hell are you doing?”

She glanced up from her laptop. “Working on the books. Just in case you forgot about giving me the job yesterday.”

He gritted his teeth at her sarcasm. “It may come as a surprise to you, but this is my office. I work here, not you.”

As he set the coffee and muffin down, she made a grab for it. Connor held firm to the cup, but she managed to snatch the muffin.

“Is this cinnamon chip? Oh, these were my favorites growing up. Bernice bakes the best muffins, doesn’t she?”

As he watched her take a big bite of his breakfast, Connor had to hang on tight to his temper with both hands. It was like trying to control a team of eight with dental floss, but he managed.

“I let you do the accounting work, but I never intended for you to do it here. There isn’t enough room.” He sat down and booted up his own laptop.

She shrugged. “There’s no other office free, so unless you want me working on the books in a public area where everyone can see exactly what I’m doing, then it’s going to be here.”

“What about your cabin?”

She picked up the next invoice and read it with her brow furrowed, concentrating on the trash collection fees. “The WiFi sucks that far away, so here I am. You’ll just have to deal with it.”

Connor gritted his teeth and counted to ten. The fact that she was right rankled him more than the fact that she stole his muffin. He should have made arrangements for her to have a private office, at least temporarily, until she decided Finley’s wasn’t the place for her.

“Couldn’t you have asked me?”

One slender brow rose. “Ask permission to work in this office? I am half owner in this ranch, am I not? I don’t think I need permission to contribute to the financial well-being of Finley’s.”

“I don’t like sharing my office.” Connor punched in his password with enough fervor to hurt his fingertips, which was saying a lot.

“I could tell.” She smiled sweetly. “Is there a way to order more muffins and coffee? I’m starving.”

Connor gestured to the door. “The mess hall is down on the south side of the ranch. You can’t miss it. It’s a big building with tables and chairs for people to eat.”

Alex surprised him by laughing. “You make it hard to be a bitch sometimes, Matthews.”

“Then don’t be one.”

“Ha, as if that’s going to happen.” She shook her head. “You’re not getting off that easy. You will just have to deal with me playing in your sandbox.” She popped a piece of muffin in her mouth.

“Then stop throwing sand in my face.”

Alex smiled at him and went back to the invoices. At least it appeared she really was working, and he didn’t know whether or not to be surprised. He tried to focus on the schedules but he kept glancing back at her while she worked.