Wrangled and Tangled (4 page)

Abe reluctantly tore his gaze away from her and grilled the EMT. “How bad are her injuries?”

“Bumps and bruises mostly. She’s lucky she wore a seat belt and the air bag deployed. They’ll run more tests at the hospital.”

Janie shivered and they whisked her away.

He hated he didn’t have the right to ride in the ambulance with her. To comfort her. To give himself peace of mind that she wasn’t dealing with this alone. He stuck his head inside the driver’s side door and spied Janie’s purse on the floor.

Deputy McConnell glared at him. “What exactly do you think you’re doing, Lawson?”

“Takin’ her purse to the hospital. She needs it for insurance. Is my truck cleared to go?”

“It wasn’t involved in the accident as far as I can tell.”

Abe looked at Janie’s crumpled car, then back at the deputy. “Lemme know as soon as you’re done doin’ whatever you need to do and we’ll get this towed outta here.”

“Do you need someone to ride into Rawlins with you?” Celia asked after the deputy wandered away.

“Nah.” He blew out an impatient breath. “Thanks for coming. I’ll keep in touch.” He climbed into his truck and took off, his thoughts a jumbled mess. He didn’t remember he was supposed to contact Renner Jackson until he’d parked in the hospital parking lot. Her command “call Renner right away” didn’t sit well with him, but he shoved his annoyance aside and scrolled through Janie’s contact list.

Chapter Three

H
ome at last.

Inside her modular log cabin, Tierney Pratt pressed her back against the door and inhaled a deep breath. Although it was tiny compared to her Chicago apartment, she loved the coziness of the space. She loved that it was one hundred percent hers.

Daddy had to buy you a brand-new house? You too good to live in a used trailer, brainiac?

Once again she’d allowed Renner’s rude opinion to intrude on her thoughts. The man was everywhere. She’d run into him while buying groceries. Granted, Muddy Gap had only one store, but his smug comment irritated her—how it must be a real hardship she couldn’t find caviar and lobster rolls at the C-Mart.

How little the man knew about her. How much he assumed.

Tierney remembered the tipping point last night at Harper and Bran’s wedding reception as she silently reeled from the insufferable man’s incendiary comments. On impulse, she threw her martini in Renner’s face, and secretly basked in his total surprise as the vodka dripped off his stubborn chin. She’d sidestepped him and headed to the bar. No one had intercepted her, but plenty of curious eyes had followed her across the room. Sometimes she felt like a character in a Clint Eastwood movie—an unwelcome stranger in a small Western town.

Dwelling on it won’t change anything because you’re here for the duration.

Faced with a boring Sunday, Tierney opened the Sudoku program on her computer. When her cell phone rang ten minutes later, she answered, “Hello,” without checking the caller ID.

“Tierney. How are you?”

Great. Now she’d have to hide her sour mood from her father. Then again, it was doubtful he’d notice. Forcing a chipper note in her voice, she said, “I’m fine. And you?”

“Can’t complain. The stock market is up. The weather has been decent. Now the reason I called is . . .”

Of course you have a specific reason to call. You’d never ring me up to shoot the breeze or ask what’s been going on in my life besides work.

There was a situation of her own making—her life had revolved around work, work and more work for the past four years. Slaving in front of a hot computer seventy plus hours a week hadn’t done a bit of good when push came to shove; her father had passed her over for a promotion again. In a rare show of backbone, she’d handed in her resignation and escaped the Windy City for the windswept Wyoming prairie.

But Gene Pratt, CFO, CEO and world-class SOB, was treating her defection as a “sabbatical” after she’d invoked the obscure clause in her upper level employment contract that allowed her six months of hands-on management training at the PFG property of her choosing. A clause her father couldn’t argue with, since he’d been enforcing it for years whenever he needed to divest his company of troublesome managers. His response had been predictably businesslike.

Why are you wasting your skills in some backwater burg? This isn’t an acting-out episode like I’m suffering through with your sister, is it?

Acting out. As if. But she’d never gone against the grain. Never bucked the system. Never argued with her father.

Never stepped out on her own.

After she first arrived at the Split Rock Ranch and Resort, she worried Renner Jackson would call her father to send her packing because of her obvious lack of people management skills. But she soon realized Renner was swamped doing ten billion other things, including running his stock contracting business, so he turned the accounting over to her entirely.

It’d almost been too easy to slip into the role of ball-busting bottom-line financier. But it gave her a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: she’d recreate herself. Shake off the remnants of boring, brainy, geeky, reserved Tierney Pratt and find out who she really was when she wasn’t her father’s
yes
woman. Find a new direction for her life. Because the truth was, most of the time for the past two years, she’d felt more than a little lost.

“. . . plans for Thanksgiving.”

Tierney grabbed the aspirin bottle on her desk—guaranteed she’d have a headache after this conversation—shaking out two pills and knocking them back with a swallow of coffee. “I’m staying at the Split Rock, since we have a full booking that week. What are your plans?”

“Since Europeans don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, it’s the perfect time to go to Barcelona to check out a property that’s nearly bankrupt.”

No surprise her father had figured out a way to operate during the holiday. Official holidays had always been just another day to him, or worse, an inconvenience that interrupted his work. “Are they searching for a buyer?”

“No. But when has that ever stopped me?”

A short bark of laughter escaped. “You are unstoppable when you get your mind set on something and you don’t see anything except the bottom line.”

The phone line iced over with stony silence. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

Crap. Rewind. The last thing she needed was to antagonize him so he hauled ass here and messed everything up. “Nothing. Only that I hope you allow free time to enjoy yourself. I’ve always wanted to go to Barcelona.”

“I’ll take you with me if you come back to Chicago where you belong.”

She retorted sweetly, “Maybe you should take your newly promoted right-hand man, Steven the wonder boy, to Barcelona.”

Petulant much, Tierney?

A weary sigh. “When will you stop this nonsense?”

So he thought it was nonsense that he’d passed her over for promotion again? “I’ll stop when you understand that calling my career
nonsense
only strengthens my determination not to come back to work for you. Ever.” So much for not antagonizing him. But she felt . . . freer for saying it.

“Sometimes I do not understand you at all.” Another impatient paternal sigh. “Very well. Have your little adventure. You’ll tire of it soon enough. I’ll touch base with you in a few weeks and we’ll see if you’ve come to your senses.”

Tierney said, “Nice talking to you too, Dad,” to dead air. She tossed the phone on a pile of books.

Distracted, she stared out the bay window beside her desk. No snow had fallen yet, but heavy gray storm clouds hung in the distance. Before moving to Wyoming she’d never noticed how the time of year affected the color of the sky and the shape of the clouds. After spending hours gazing in wonder at the wide-open space where rugged, unforgiving land met endless horizon, she could discern some differences in impending weather. But it’d take a lifetime to catch the nuances. That prospect appealed to her more than she’d ever imagined.

Bang bang bang
pulled her out of her musings
.

Only one person knocked with that much authority. And arrogance. Mr. Tenacious would keep banging until she answered.

She took her time crossing the room. Wouldn’t want him to think she jumped when he beckoned. She peeked out the blinds to find those vivid blue eyes peering back at her. Eyes the same beautiful hue as the Wyoming sky on a hot summer day.

“Dammit, Tierney, let me in.”

Sighing, she flipped the locks.

Renner rushed over the threshold. “We need to talk.”

“How about in the office tomorrow morning?”

He stopped wiping his boots on her rug, peeking at her from beneath the brim of his black cowboy hat. “Why not now?”

“Because it’s my day off.”

“Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but there are no days off in the ranch business.”

“Hate to break it to you,
sweetheart
, but this isn’t a working ranch—I’ve yet to see a single cow. And last night you put me in my place as far as the horses are concerned. Since we won’t have guests checking in until tomorrow, I’d like one day this week without a confrontation with you.”

“
You
threw the drink in
my
face, remember?”

“You deserved it, remember?”

A scowl twisted his full lips. “Believe it or not, I don’t get off on fightin’ with you.”

She resisted the urge to retort,
Coulda fooled me
.

“You gonna move and let me off your rug, or what?”

Say no.
“Fine.” Tierney headed for the kitchen, where they’d have to stand, to keep this talk short. “What’s on your mind?”

“It occurred to me when I saw you at the store today that we didn’t discuss your role in helping out at the Split Rock until Harper gets back from her honeymoon.”

“Helping out how?”

“Hands-on help with the guests and employees instead of hiding in the office.”

Her cheeks heated. “I don’t hide. There’s actual work done in my half of the office.” Sort of. For the first time in her working life, she had little to do and all sorts of time to kill. She stretched out her accounting duties, but they still took less than half of her workday. In the last month, she learned to look busy, disguising her online chess games and closing her e-books whenever he blew into the room like an angry bull.

“We’re shorthanded on opening week, so I’ll need you acting as Split Rock hostess for the guests.”

“No.”

He cocked his head like he’d misunderstood. “Come again?”

“I said no. Now, was that all?”

It pissed her off that Renner stalked her until her back hit the edge of the counter. It really pissed her off she allowed him to force her retreat.

“What? Think you’re too good to mingle with the common folk?”

No. I’m too awkward. I’ll embarrass the resort and myself with my obvious lack of social graces.

Not that she could tell him that because the shrewd man would lord her insecurity over her forever.

At her nonresponse, he goaded her. “Don’t want to get your manicured hands dirty? You feel it’s beneath your lofty position as financial whip cracker?”

Rather than lashing out, Tierney said, “You really have me pegged. I’m a stuck-up bitch who has no place in the hospitality business. I can’t imagine why you’d want a snob like me hanging around making our guests feel uncomfortable, so I’ll pass on your charming request. Now please leave my house.”

“Like hell.”

The man remained as solid as a stone wall in front of her, but he sure threw off a lot of heat. Tierney kept her face aimed at the floor, her arms folded over her chest. Her posture screamed “back off,” but apparently Renner was deaf because he kept trying to provoke her.

“Is this some new tactic?” he demanded. “Insulting yourself, then giving me the silent treatment? Hoping I’ll get confused and fed up and go away? Guess what, it won’t work.”

“It’s worth a try.”

He laughed abrasively. “You don’t give an inch, do you?”

“Not usually.”

Another laugh. Softer. “I don’t like talkin’ to your hair. Can you look at me?”

“Even if my eyes shoot fireballs at you and you spontaneously combust?”

“I’ll take my chances.” Her pulse leapt when his rough fingers slipped beneath her chin and tipped her face up. “Gotta flash them pretty browns if you want to start my hair on fire.”

Pretty browns? What was he up to, complimenting her? When she met his gaze, the compassion in his eyes stunned her. As did his gentle, “Ah darlin’, what’s really goin’ on?”

Tierney blurted, “I stay in the office because I’m good with numbers. I’m not good with people. I’m not charming like Janie or sly and sweet like Harper. The Split Rock would be better off having
no
hostess than having me acting all fake and shit.”