Expelled

by Claire Adams

  “You keep telling me I need to find a girlfriend and now that I’m trying, you’re busy going after her yourself every chance you get. Can’t you find someone else?”

  Eric’s face hardened, and he finally lost that aggravating smile. I was happy to see it go, though it meant things would probably take a turn for the worse right about now. “Maybe I don’t want to, Cash. Have you ever thought about that? You said you weren’t interested in a relationship with Hailey. She’s been here for weeks. It’s not like I started moving in on her right away. I gave you all the time and encouragement in the world. It ain’t my fault you decided to drag your feet.”

  “None of that changes the fact that I’m interested in Hailey, and I think we have a connection, but I can’t do a thing about it with you hanging around every damned day.” I crossed my arms over my chest, staring hard at him.

  “This girl you suddenly decided you like wouldn’t even be here if not for me. I was the one who answered her emails and got her out here, and all because of the ad I placed on the internet. You know, that thing everyone else in the world is using.”

  I scowled, my internal temperature turning up several notches all at once.

  “You didn’t even want her to stay,” he pointed out. “I had to shame you into it and mention how much you needed the money.”

  I wasn’t even going to travel down that road. The money had been a great help, but now my concerns were about something completely different.

  “I’m asking you to step aside, Eric,” I said.

  He squared his shoulders for a second time, standing a little taller, his hands swinging free of the belt loops on his pants. He looked ready to cross the few feet of distance between us and settle things the way we all used to back in school, only there wasn’t a teacher here to stop us.

  “You were more than happy to sit alone on your goddamned ranch before last week. I literally deliver a beautiful girl to your doorstep and you ain’t interested. But the minute I show that I am, you suddenly need to have her all to yourself.”

  I didn’t take any of that bait. That was his way, trying to get folks to lower themselves in an argument by going around in circles over shit that wasn’t even an issue. This had nothing to do with money or him putting up a notice about my extra room. It was about stepping aside when you could see it meant doing a solid for your friend. It was about common decency. I was the one with both legs to stand on in this fight, not him. And he had women all the time, sometimes two different ones in a week. I was lucky to have two different women in the span of two years. Not that I was interested in sleeping around—if that’s what Eric did; I didn’t know because I didn’t care to ask about how many beds he jumped into every year. When I thought about my future, I was beginning to like the thought of settling down with a sweet, honest woman one day. Could be that was Hailey. I’d never know if Eric got there first, turning her into another one of his goddamned conquests. I didn’t want that for Hailey. She deserved better. Hell, I might not even be good enough for her.

  “You’ve been on my ass every day to get back out there and find someone. I’ve had other shit to worry about, but now that I’m ready, you’re cutting in. A friend would step aside instead of standing in the way.”

  “Ain’t you a friend?” His razor sharp smile was back, the cutting edge to it sparkling in his eyes. “Why don’t you try following your own advice?”

  I shook my head. “You know what I mean. I like Hailey, and I think she might like me too. Give me a chance to see how things develop.”

  “How long should I wait, Cash? Two years? Three?” He snorted a derisive laugh, his expression hardening even more, though he was still grinning in a challenging way. “Because it took you almost a month to sit down and have a real conversation with her, and she was living in your damned house. And you only sat down with her because I shamed you into it.”

  “I got the farm to take care of, Eric. That’s my priority and always has been.” I scowled deeper at the way he smiled at me. “And you invited this girl to stay here without even asking me.”

  “Exactly. I found her. Not you.”

  “This ain’t some game,” I snapped.

  “We should let Hailey decide who she wants to be with. She’s a grown woman with a mind of her own. If me coming around is bothering you, I can take her out in town. We had a great time the other day together.” His smile changed, and though the challenge was still there, it was harder, flashing like the glint in his dark eyes.

  I stepped closer to him, cutting the distance between us in half. My hands curled into trembling fists on their own. Eric straightened up too, his own fingers curling into his palms as he faced me.

  “Back off,” I said in a low, controlled voice. The rage was underneath, igniting the words, but I sounded perfectly calm. My entire body was trembling right along with my fists. I wanted to hit him, and I hadn’t felt like that in a long time.

  “No,” he replied, ditching the smile and staring me straight in the face. We were near the same height, so now that we were squared off, we were standing eye to eye. He was shaking too, and I could see how furious he was, which only pissed me off more.

  “Then keep away from the ranch,” I said.

  “That won’t stop me from seeing her.” His lips curled into that damned smirk, and that pushed me right over the edge.

  We reached out at the same time, just shoving each other’s shoulders. That rapidly turned into him grabbing me by the neck and me punching him hard in the stomach. He grunted and punched me back, both of us struggling to stay upright on the cement, our feet scrambling as we tried to lay punches. I slammed my elbow into his chest as he tightened his grip on my neck, trying to pull me into a headlock. I jerked away from him, stumbling back a few steps, breathing heavily. We glared at each other, me waiting for him to make the next move and him waiting on me. All of a sudden, a smile stretched over his face, and we burst out laughing, that tension between us forced out by the few good punches we’d landed. The desire to beat the shit out of him just disappeared from my muscles, loosening them so my arms dropped to my sides and my fists unclenched.

  “Holy shit, Cash,” he said, laughing so hard he had to wipe the tears forming in his eyes. His blond hair was a mess from our fighting. “How long has it been since we got in a fight?”

  I was laughing too, hard enough that I had to bend over onto my knees to keep from crashing to the cement driveway. “Freshman year?” It had been over a girl then too, though Eric had ended up winning that contest when she picked him. The rancor between us had built up for weeks, finally bubbling over into a fight on the football field. Once it was done, we were good again, even after he started dating the girl we’d beat the shit out of each other for. It seemed like that was going to happen now, too.

  “We’re too fucking old to be fighting like horny teenagers, ain’t we?” I asked, and now that we’d gotten it out of our systems, it really did seem damned stupid that we’d been on opposite sides over this.

  He nodded to show his agreement, the last of his laughter dying in the aftermath of our pathetic excuse for a fight. He pushed his blond hair off his forehead, smoothing it back to being tidy again, and straightened his button-up shirt, tucking the part of it into his pants that had come out during the grappling.

  “Cash, you know you’re like a brother to me.”

  I nodded, indicating that I felt the same about him.

  “I don’t know what’s come over me. I like Hailey a lot, but I’m going to back off the way you asked. If you think you can make something work with her, I don’t plan to stand in the way.”

  I offered him my hand, and he shook it. “Thanks, Eric. I appreciate it.”

  He didn’t let go of my hand, and instead used it to pull me into a quick hug, each of us pounding the other on the back.

  “I seen you by yourself for years and it bugs the shit out of me,” he said. “Don’t let Hailey go back to New York without trying to get something going between y
ou.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure how to accomplish that, but I had a little more time to figure it out now that Eric wouldn’t be right there in competition mode. I was just going to have to put myself out there. I didn’t see any other choice. She could reject me, which might make things awkward for the rest of her time in Wyoming, or she could feel the same. Hell, for all I knew, she was sitting there waiting for me to make the first move.

  “I don’t plan to,” I told him, sounding a hell of a lot more confident than I felt.

  PART THREE

  Chapter Twenty

  Hailey

  Late August

  I’d been getting up a little earlier every day since I’d started staying at the ranch. I was still more night owl than early bird, but I was improving a great deal. Instead of noon or 1, I was routinely getting up at about 10. Cash smiled when I told him country living was rubbing off on me, and then he made sure to let me know that he got up no later than 4, which was abhorrent to my urban sensibilities. I didn’t think I’d ever get to that point—at least, I hoped I wouldn’t — but I wouldn’t mind 9 o’clock. So much happened on the ranch before lunchtime. I hated missing so much every day. One morning, for the sake of my writing, I might just need to bite the bullet and see how things were before the sun came up. I could always take a nap later in the afternoon.

  Today was one of those magical, productive days. I woke around 10, grabbed a quick bite in the kitchen, and then spent my day buried in my outline, only coming up for air for bathroom breaks and refills on coffee—that was another thing that surprised Cash, that I could drink this much caffeine and not drop dead of a heart attack. I was just about done with the story planning at this point. I’d be able to start writing in a few days, and the excitement stuck to me all day long. I found myself smiling at random times during the day. A new project always invigorated me, and the more it came together, the better it felt. This book was going to be my breakthrough novel. I could feel it.

  I went for a short walk in the late afternoon before I started cooking dinner, just wandering the property and loitering around the corral where Cash had put the horses for the day while he worked in the far field tilling land or whatever the hell he did out there. I should probably find that out so I could include it in the story. I made a mental note to ask him at the dinner table—I had a running list of these notes and would probably never remember them. For the rest of the time outside, I just breathed the fresh air and took in the scenery. I’d never get tired of looking at the mountains and all of this gorgeous, untouched land.

  I got started on dinner as soon as I returned to the main house, choosing a frittata I’d learned how to make one summer in Italy, chock full of zucchini and capers. It had been some time since I’d cooked regularly and I had to admit that I was loving it. Cash cleaned his plate every night, never seeming put off by my progressively outlandish dishes. I put together some classics too—the meatloaf Marie-Laure hated, spaghetti, baked chicken, etc.—and it was great to come together at the end of the day and share stories and jokes. It reminded me of home, with the four of us arriving at the table at 7 no matter how crazy our lives had been during the day. Cash was actually pretty funny, I was finding out. You just had to dig deeper to get beyond what was right on the surface. The more he revealed himself to me, the more I liked him. Turns out the scenery around the ranch wasn’t the only thing I couldn’t get enough of.

  I had the table set for two and dinner just about finished when Cash wandered in, freshly showered, dressed in loose-fitting jeans and a T-shirt, his damp hair pushed back off his forehead. I liked him best this way, relaxed and natural, a smile on his face as he wandered in to see what I’d made for us to share.

  “Smells great in here,” he commented as he slid into his seat at the table. The kitchen smelled like the onions and garlic I’d sautéed in butter. You couldn’t go wrong with that stuff.

  “Let’s hope it tastes good, too,” I said, and he laughed a little low in his throat the way he always did when I tried my hand at being funny.

  I pulled the frittata out of the oven and brought it over to the table, cast iron skillet and all. We had some bread, of course—I’d gone to Europe too often to exclude some quality, crusty bread from a meal I put together—as well as some sautéed, seasoned eggplant. Cash gave the purplish veggie a sideways look but tried it anyway. I’d introduced him to a lot of things he’d never tried before, but he always gave them a chance and ended up liking them…or he at least pretended to like them. He had a pretty cosmopolitan palette overall, especially considering he’d hardly ever left the state of Wyoming.

  “This is great, Hailey,” he said, after finishing his first mouthful of frittata. “Thank you for filling this old cowboy’s belly every night.”

  I smiled, not just at the praise—he thanked me nightly for cooking dinner—but at the way he was looking at me, his green eyes wide and so warm I wanted to lean into them until that heat spread over my skin. At times like these, I caught the barest traces of interest, but though I’d spent a lot more time with him in the last several weeks, I was no closer to learning how to actually read him. Something about the rugged cowboy exterior wasn’t letting me in. I still had absolutely no idea how he felt about me. He could be madly in love with me or think about me the way he would a sister. It was aggravating, and it didn’t help that Paige kept texting all the time asking me how things were going. Had I told him how I felt about him? Did he feel the same way? Had we kissed yet? When was the wedding? She’d sent a message a few hours earlier that said in all caps WHAT IS THE HOLDUP?! None of that was especially helpful, of course. At least Eric had stopped showing up here every day. I still saw him, and we emailed some, but he was nowhere near as interested as he’d seemed to be just a few days ago. Of course, that was another reason for me to doubt myself. I’d been sure he’d wanted to kindle something between us, but now he barely spoke to me. It was disorienting, and it made me question everything about Cash and his potential interest in getting something going between us. I’d clearly been wrong about Eric. I could be wrong about Cash as well.

  After we’d each enjoyed a few bites of the dinner I’d put on the table—it gave me a strange thrill to even think those words after so many years of quick takeout eaten alone in my apartment — the conversation got started again.

  “How are things on the ranch?” I asked. That or a question about a specific book were the easiest ways to get Cash Ogden talking. Once he started, he usually kept going on his own, but you had to start him spinning, like a top.

  “Oh, about the same,” he said, green eyes moving from his plate to my face and back to his plate. He was just about finished with his first serving, including the eggplant. “Another couple months of me working everything alone, and I should be able to bring someone else on again. That’ll be a big help.”

  Eric had already told me about the devastation on the farm after Cash lost so many horses and cows to disease. He’d really taken a serious financial hit that had almost landed him on his ass without a penny or a ranch to his name. After I heard that, I started helping him out any way that I could. Eric had sworn me to secrecy, and I knew Cash would never take money directly from me, so I split the groceries I bought into two purchases, and only gave him the receipt for one. There wasn’t much more I could do. The payment for my room rental had been made upfront. I’d love to be able to help out on the ranch, but the time it would take Cash to show me what to do would take precious time away from other chores he needed to perform.

  “That’s good,” I said. Eric had stressed multiple times that I not bring up the sore spot of all those poor dead animals in my conversations with Cash. If he wanted me to know, he would tell me. So far, he hadn’t brought it up, and neither had I. “It’ll be nice to see you get some help around here.” I could see he was becoming uncomfortable with the subject, so I didn’t pursue it when he asked about something else.

  “How’s your writing coming along? Have you started
yet?” Cash glanced up at me, his dark eyebrows raised.

  “Not quite yet, but I’m close. This ranch has been such a great inspiration.” I smiled at him, and he cut his eyes to his empty plate. After a few seconds, he served himself more frittata and eggplant. “I can’t thank you enough for letting me stay here.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re getting what you need out of it.”

  “I’m happy we’re friends now, too,” I said, and ventured another, warmer smile that pulled one out of him as well. His smiles didn’t come or stay for very long, so it felt like an accomplishment to see one, even if just for a brief moment.

  “Yeah, I am too.” He held my gaze for a few more seconds and then went back to slowly and politely demolishing the meal I’d made for us. I’d never seen a man devour so much food, but he probably needed it after toiling all day long. I didn’t even want to guess how many calories he burned in a day. He didn’t seem to eat lunch, and I was never up early enough to see what he did for breakfast. There was always coffee in the pot—he was nice enough to leave half of it for me, though I had to warm it up—but no other signs that anyone had even used the kitchen. Of course, he never left a mess behind anywhere in the house. It looked like a damned museum, only cleaner.

  We started talking about books again, which always happened near the end of the meal. He was so well-read, which I found incredibly attractive in combination with his tanned, muscly body from all the work he did outside. Brains and brawn together. A girl couldn’t ask for much more than that.

  “You ever been to a rodeo?” Cash asked, the question coming out of nowhere. We’d been in the middle of a discussion about books we loved from high school when his face changed, as though something had just occurred to him.

  I smiled, a little confused by the sudden change in direction. “We don’t get many of those in New York City.”

  He smiled too, which only made me smile wider as my cheeks reddened at the attention. “I wouldn’t imagine so.” He set his fork down, now finished with his second serving. “The rodeo rolled into town yesterday. It’s a big deal here in Jackson. You might benefit from going.” He pressed his lips together before adding, “For your research, I mean.”