The Rancher's Untamed Heart (5 page)

Early the next week, I finally ran out of pasta and chicken. After a long day at work, I went to the store to buy something else to eat.

I felt very virtuous, buying food to actually cook, instead of relying on pizza.

With spinach and carrots already in my cart, I headed for the meat section. It was time for a change from chicken. I rummaged through the pork, but when I turned to put a plastic-wrapped cut of meat in my cart, I saw something odd.

Normally I wouldn't take a second glance at a man and a woman walking through the grocery aisles together, but this was different. The man at the far end of the store looked familiar, looked like Justin.

I tried to watch them for a minute without being creepy.

A few glances showed the man, who I was more and more sure was Justin, wrapping an arm aroung the woman.

He didn't mention that his sister was coming into town, but he didn't mention a lot of things like that. It wouldn't be unlike him for it to slip his mind. He'd said a few times that he thought that she and I would get along.

I turned my cart and headed over to introduce myself.

Just then, the man I was watching turned, so that I could see that it really was my boyfriend.

Unfortunately, he turned so that I could see that it was him kissing another girl, one who looked nothing like him, and I sure hope wasn't his sister. He kissed her with all the passion and devotion he'd been showing me.

Justin was cheating on me.

I considered walking over there. I considered confronting him and the girl and accusing them both of being homewreckers, loudly and publicly.

Unfortunately, they weren't. What, exactly, were they wrecking beyond the expensive dinners and great sex? Justin and I didn't have a home or life together to destroy. We didn't have deep conversations I'd miss and long for.

We ate fancy food and we had sex.

I wasn't even as sad as I should be to see him with another woman. I was hurt, and jealous, and it stung like hell, but I wasn't sad.

Even more than that, that's just not who I was. I felt like it should be, like I should march over there and show him what he was missing, make him regret being unfaithful to me, but the idea of causing a scene like that made me squirm with embarrassment.

I turned the cart around and put the groceries away, one by one, in the order I'd selected them. I worked quickly and looked down at my cart as much as possible.

When I saw a flash of Justin's jacket, I wheeled the cart and went in the opposite direction.

I put my cart away and I walked out of the store.

It wasn't until I'd gotten in my car, started the engine, and drove to the other end of the parking lot and stopped it in a shady, secluded spot that I burst into tears.

Justin called me the next day on my lunch break. I saw his number flash on my phone, and I wondered whether he had seen me and was calling to apologize.

Or, even better, maybe he hadn't seen me, but was calling to apologize anyways. Perhaps he just kissed her, and then woke up and realized what he had done, and wanted to make it right.

“With another pint of mint chocolate chip forgiveness?” I heard Sarah's voice in my head.

I knew that my imaginary version of Sarah had a point.

I answered, anyways.

“Hey, sugar,” he said. His voice was as cheerful as it had been every other time he called me.

How many times had he cheated on me, and called me, just this pleasant and friendly?

“Hello,” I said.

“Your voice is about as warm as ice in January,” he teased. “What's wrong?”

I couldn't even answer before he interruped me.

“Oh, before I forget – are you free Friday night? I have tickets to see Dirty Dancing, the musical is coming to town,” he said.

“No, I don't think I am,” I said. “I don't think that I want to go out with you again.”

I was proud of how calm my voice sounded.

“Why not?” he asked, sounding annoyed.

“Well, the woman I saw you kissing in the grocery store last night might have something to do with it,” I snapped.

I guess I couldn't remain calm about it forever.

He was silent for a moment.

“Not going to bother denying it? Say that I saw someone else? Say that you'd never cheat on me?” I asked.

My voice caught a little as I added “Say that you love me?”

At that, he did the last thing I expected.

He laughed.

“Why would I bother falling in love with you?” he asked. “A self-centered workaholic who can't carry on a conversation to save her life?”

I gasped.

It felt like he'd punched me in the stomach. I wanted to throw up everything I'd eaten that day.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.

“You,” he said. “I'm talking about you. As always. It's all you ever want to talk about. Your job, your coworkers, your promotion, your sexist bosses.”

“That's not true,” I said. “You never answered many of the questions I asked you. I guess now I know why, you couldn't keep your lies straight between me and... and... whoever that was last night.”

“Lisa,” he supplied.

“Right, you never bothered making up stories for me and for Lisa,” I said.

“It is true, though. You love your job too much, Naomi. You haven't left room for anything alive, anyone to make you human.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard,” I yelled. “Why the hell would you say something like that?”

“Getting louder doesn't make what you say more accurate,” he said, in a maddeningly calm voice.

What a cold man. What a cold, petty, unpleasant man. How could I have spent so much time with him?

He answered the question I didn't know I asked.

“You liked being my girlfriend,” he said. “You liked the attention, the sex, the restaurants you couldn't afford. You don't have to give all that up. I'll still take you out this Friday. You'd like Dirty Dancing, I think.”

“And then go to your apartment and have sex with you?” I asked.

“Pretty much,” he said.

In that moment, I missed the phones my mother and grandmother had had in their house when I was growing up. If I could have slammed that phone on a wall, I would have done it.

Unfortunately, all I could do was press 'End Call,' gently, with an unsatisfying little beep.

He didn't even bother to call me back.

I told Sarah all about it the next day over our lunch break, at the little cafe where she'd told me she was pregnant.

“You told me he was too flirty,” I said, miserably. “I'm sorry I didn't listen to you.”

“I'm sorry I was right,” she said. She reached across to squeeze my hand, and smiled at me in a sympathetic way. “Are you going to date someone else? Charlie at the office is pretty hot, and he's asked about you a few times.”

“No way,” I said. “I don't think I'm up to dating anyone else for a while. Maybe a year or two. I don't know if I can trust my own judgement after failing so badly.”

Sarah grinned.

“Oh, you say that now,” she said. “I bet some long, tall drink of water is going to sweep you off your feet.”

"You've got to be shitting me, little lady," the man said. "I'm not taking time I don't have to drag your pasty ass around this ranch." He grinned around at the men standing with him. 

I squared my shoulders and raised my chin. I was standing by the little work van I was given, and I'd already shown him my badge. I couldn't get much more professional and legitimate than that, but some men always had to know better.

Before I spoke, I looked up into his face, very calmly. I spoke loudly and clearly. This man was almost a foot taller than I was, and I couldn't let him intimidate me with his size.

"If you refuse," I said, "You will be in direct violation of health inspection protocol. If you do that, I can have your ranch's safety certification revoked."

He rolled his small dark eyes.

"All right, now," he said, raising both of his hands. "Just calm down, I'm sure you misunderstood me. When I said that I didn't have time to show you around - " here he smirked, as though he hadn't cussed at me " - I, of course, meant that my number two man here, Juan, would show you around." He jerked his thumb at one of the men standing next to him.

"Thank you, Mr. Yates," I said.

I was standing in front of eight men in dusty clothes as they scowled at me. Yates and his 'number two man,' were slightly better dressed than the hands, who wore ancient jeans and patched shirts.

I'd heard that Yates always wore old clothes on his ranch, to keep up with his persona as one of the boys, aw shucks, who could take him seriously, he was just a poor old farm boy.

When he went out to dinner, he wore Armani suits.

I smiled at the man who was supposed to show me around.

"Are you ready, sir?" I asked. I held up my clipboard. "I have a lot to see."

"Yeah," one of the hands said, loudly, "You've gotta get done before suppertime. Wouldn't want to miss out on your date tonight."

"It's eight o'clock in the damn morning," the man growled, but he sighed and waved me along as he turned to walk over to one of the big cattle sheds.

As I followed him, I saw Yates take his phone out of his pocket and fiddle with it for a moment before placing it to his ear and turning away from me.

“I bet he’s calling your boss,” said Juan.

“He is welcome to do so,” I said, in my best matter-of-fact tone. “That won’t change the fact that I have a job to do here.”

He scowled even harder when he saw me watching his boss. "You bet your sweet ass he can get you off his ranch with a phone call if he wants to," he said. "Now come on, you might see two or three whole cows before we get to be done with you."

We stalked through the open barn doors together, walking around an enormous cow pat. I resisted the urge to look closely at it and made a note on my clipboard, which always pissed men like Juan off.

Juan was wrong. I saw nearly twenty cows before my work phone rang in my pocket and I excused myself to talk to my boss.

"Naomi Scott, USDA," I answered.

"You're not on speaker," Herman grunted. "I'm changing your schedule. Head to your next assignment, I'll take care of this one myself."

"Sir, may I ask why?" I said. It was my turn to turn away from my audience.

"He's not due yet. He's angry that we're here, we just inspected him three months ago. Don't worry about it," he said. "This one's on me."

I pursed my lips. “Mr. Banks, I’m already out here,” I said, “Why don’t I go ahead and take a look around? We need to up our percentage of surprise inspections as it is.”

“No, no,” Herman said. “No point. It’s a good, clean operation. Just go ahead to your next one, get it a little early, that’ll be enough of a surprise.”

When the call ended, I faced Juan again.

"Let me guess, your boss came to his senses," he said. His smirk was almost too much to bear.

I smiled brightly at him.

"Apparently you were just inspected a few months ago, our mistake. Mr. Banks said that he'd be in touch with Mr. Yates personally to apologize for the inconvenience."

"Shame," Juan grunted. His eyes traveled up and down my body, lingering on my chest. "Might have to do some real work today."

I handed him my card. 

"Have a great day," I said, and turned on my heel.

I waited until I was out of sight of the ranch to pull over and pound the steering wheel with my fists. I hated being treated like that, like some stupid piece of meat, like a silly girl. Having to back down and leave the ranch after all that made my blood boil.

It took a few more deep breaths before I calmed down enough to be professional. I picked up my phone and checked my schedule to see where I needed to go next.