“So, now they know.” Peyton’s voice became soft, almost too calm for the situation. Her hands clenched and unclenched, as if holding an imaginary stress ball.
“They don’t know. Peyton,” he said when she wouldn’t look at him. “They don’t. They heard one man they’ve never met before blowing smoke. If I just take the time to tell them my father’s a jackass who likes to stir up trouble—”
“But they’ll know.” Peyton rubbed her palms over her jeans. “I don’t hire stupid men. You might tell them it’s not true—which is a lie in itself, and I hate even the thought of lying to my staff—and they might nod and agree and say it’s too bad we all had to deal with that man. But the seed was planted. It’ll always be in the back of their minds now, won’t it?” She looked up at him, almost begging him without words to disagree with her, tell her it wouldn’t happen, tell her everything would be all right.
He couldn’t. “Yeah. It will.”
“And now they’ll be watching closer, looking to see if there are any subtle signals between us. Which there probably are,” she added, almost biting the words off. “Because I can’t get within ten feet of you and not get flushed.”
“Really?” Hope sparked for a moment. “Peyton—”
“And your dad is mad at you for some reason I don’t know or understand, and he might go spreading this to other people. People I do business with. People I depend on for their loyalty. God, just when I thought things were starting to get better.” She clenched her fists and pounded against the side of the garage, metal ringing dully.
“Peyton, come on—”
“Stop.” She let her head droop for just a moment until her forehead touched her knees, like a child in protective mode. “Just give me one moment, please.”
He heard a gate opening in the distance, closing again. The almost inaudible sounds of men speaking to their mounts, speaking to each other. The ranch hummed with activity beyond the walls of the garage.
“Okay. All right. Okay.” She did that palm-rubbing thing again, bit her bottom lip, then stood with enough force to almost catapult her off the step. “That settles it then.”
“Settles what?”
Peyton watched him for a minute, as if she couldn’t believe he hadn’t put two and two together yet. “What we need to do. We’ll deny it, though I hate lying. It’s just nobody’s business. We’ll chalk it up to a guy with a personal grudge spouting off stuff he doesn’t know about.”
That sounded simple enough. Red nodded.
“You and I will have to keep our distance for a while.”
Wait a second. “I don’t think that’s—”
She rolled right over him. “And eventually, once something else happens in this small town or some other piece of gossip floods the area, you can quietly slip out and move on to your next job.”
“Next job?” What the hell? “This was a permanent thing, Peyton.”
She huffed out a breath. “You’re never permanent, Red. I knew that going in. I hoped you’d stay as long as possible. Hoped I’d keep you. I mean, the ranch.” She flushed and turned to the side, looking out past the property line. “I’d hoped M-Star would keep you. But I think in the back of my mind, I knew you wouldn’t stay.”
Just a slip of the tongue? Or was she sharing more than she wanted to? He shook his head numbly.
“You were going to take off eventually—let’s not kid ourselves on that one. So it’ll just have to be sooner than later. God knows, with your reputation, you could find a dozen operations in this state alone that would drool all over the chance to snap you up. Give it a week or two and you’ll get other offers in the surrounding states.”
“I don’t want to go.” He grabbed her arm, shook her a little. “Stop doing this. We can work around it. Don’t push me out the door.”
“I’m not pushing. I’m just . . . clearing a path.” She stepped back, out of his reach, then slid past him down the stairs. “It’ll be fine.” Her eyes were a little bright in the late morning sun, but her mouth was firm and her shoulders set. “It will be fine. We can weather this, and we’ll do okay.”
She turned and left, disappearing around the corner of the garage. Red sat down, butt thumping heavily against the old wood of the stairs, and flicked his hat out of his way.
That couldn’t have gone worse if he’d scripted it. She was upset, and he’d known that part would come. But tossing him out on his ear? Sending him on his way? That hurt. That fucking hurt. He thought they had enough time together now to fight for each other.