Harlequin Superromance September 2017 Box Set

Was she supposed to be learning some cosmic lesson from this?

What had she done to be put in a position where she had to learn a cosmic lesson? She’d donated to charity, volunteered, ran 5Ks for good causes. She’d never judged people…much. Okay, she’d judged a few of her colleagues, but that was from a purely professional standpoint.

Taylor rolled over and punched her pillow, trying to make it comfortable. She’d been surprised to find the mattress on her bed frame when she’d come home, but when she’d looked for Cole to thank him, he’d been elusive. Almost as if he were avoiding her. He hadn’t answered her knock on his door, and then, just when she was about to try again a half hour later, his truck had roared to life and he’d left the property.

Avoid away, farm guy. If she wanted him, she’d find him. Right now she couldn’t see any reason she would want him. She was here for only a short time, right? Somewhere out there was a job for her. It might not be as high-powered as the one she’d left, but she’d accept almost anything within reason to keep from blowing a hole in her résumé.

If you take a lower-paying job, then you’ll have to stay here until you catch up financially.

Taylor let out a breath at the very logical thought. How temporary was her temporary? Was she going to have to give up and paint, rather than move, to escape tan walls? And what about a bathtub? At the moment she’d consider giving up her Z for a long soak.

Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t go that far, but she wanted a tub, and amenities, and a fridge that wasn’t from the 1970s. Who knew fridges even lasted that long?

Flopping over on her back, Taylor stared up at the moonlit ceiling. There were stains there that she needed to take care of if she was going to stay in this place. She closed her eyes. Beneath the floorboards, she heard the occasional rustling and thumping. After a particularly loud bump, she pushed back the sheets and crept across the floor, cautiously opening the cupboard to check her repair by the light of her phone. Nothing jumped at her, and she sat back on her heels, admiring her work. Pretty darned good, if she did say so herself. The boards tightly screwed into the nonrotten floorboards and the steel wool would keep the critters at bay, so let them thump and rustle all they wanted.

Besides, it was possible that the gnarly cats that she’d yet to see were responsible for the odd noises under the floor. In a day or two, she probably wouldn’t even notice.

Or so she hoped.

Taylor got back into bed and pulled the blankets up under her chin.

So things had taken an unexpected turn. She could deal. Live her life as she had in Seattle. Reestablish the routines she’d let slide over the past months as she focused on her job hunt. Tomorrow she would take a short run to ease back into her neglected exercise program, make a tea latte on her ridiculously old stove, read the news. Then she’d attack the local—or relatively local—job market. Get something to tide her over while she shopped around for a real job in a company that competed with Stratford.

And then there was Cole. Great-looking guy, until he opened his mouth. Taylor had a feeling that he would, for the most part, continue to avoid her. And if he didn’t, she could deal.

* * *

IT WAS A go-to-town day—for groceries, to be exact—so when the sun peeked over the top of the mountains on the other side of the valley, Cole was at his kitchen table dressed in clean jeans and sipping coffee out of a mug, instead of sucking it out of the beat-up metal thermal cup he used when he farmed or worked on equipment. The lights were on in the bunkhouse, and every now and again he caught sight of a shadow moving purposefully past the curtained window. The window hadn’t been curtained the day before, so Taylor must have nailed something up.

Cool. This way they didn’t need to look at one another. In fact, after talking with Jordan the night before, he was starting to believe they could lead parallel lives and not run into each other that often. He’d overreacted because of the way she’d sailed in and expected him to move into the bunkhouse and fix the hole in the floor. Yeah—it was the expecting part that got to him. But now that they’d hashed things out…what could go wrong?

He started to get up from the table, then sat down again as the bunkhouse door opened and Taylor came out, dressed in shorts and a hoodie, which she zipped up over a cropped top as she headed toward the driveway. She pushed her hands down into her pockets and walked, chin down, to the county road, where she broke into an easy jog. A moment later she disappeared around a gentle bend in the road.

Well, that explained why she was in such good shape. Not that he’d wanted to notice, but it wasn’t all that easy to ignore toned legs and a nice ass.

Cole drained his cup and rinsed it in the sink before heading to the door and slapping on his hat. Thankful that Taylor had run in the opposite direction from town, he glanced that way before pulling out, surprised to see Taylor coming back. Had she spooked herself running along a country road in the early morning hours? But it wasn’t like she was a total urbanite. She’d spent summers on Karl’s place.

She lifted an arm and hailed him before he could turn to town, so he cranked the steering wheel the opposite direction and drove toward her. She stepped to the side of the road, propping her hands on her hips as she waited for him to come to a stop beside her.

“There are a bunch of cows out on the road ahead.”

“Are they Angus?” Then, realizing that she might not know an Angus from a Hereford, he added, “Black cows?”

She gave him a withering look. “I know what Angus look like. Both red and black.”

“Yeah?” That surprised him. Karl had never owned livestock as far as he knew. He was all about the crops.

“I have a good base of general knowledge,” she said blandly. “And yes. Angus. Black ones.”

“Eric Pollson. He lives about a mile away and his pastures border the road.”

“Thank you.”

She started toward the farm, looking back when he leaned out the window and called her name. “You want me to give him a ring?”

“I didn’t want to make assumptions about what you will and will not do.”

“Hey,” he said without pausing to think, “just because I didn’t ask ‘how high’ when you told me to jump yesterday, it doesn’t mean I’m unreasonable.”

Taylor stopped in her tracks. “How high?” she echoed as she spun around and started back toward him, her running shoes crunching purposefully in the gravel as she strode toward him. She stopped in front of his window and squared her shoulders. “I merely assumed that, because you’re leasing the place, because you allege yourself to be Karl’s friend, because you probably own tools, that you would fix the bunny hole.”

“But you didn’t ask me if I would fix it. You asked when I would fix it. As if it were a done deal. Like I’m yours to order around. Guess what? I’m not.”

“Sorry,” she said with a small sniff. “We, the entitled, usually focus only on ourselves. Any perceived slight was unintended.”

She was baiting him.

It was working.

Drive away.

He didn’t.

“But you’re trying to do something about that, right? The me-first attitude?” Snide felt good.

“Maybe I am,” she agreed, her mild tone belying the smoldering look in her eyes. “I’m certain you’ll give me updates on how I’m doing.”

“Oh, I will—unless, of course, you manage to get a job and move on.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Hasn’t worked so far, has it? What’s it been? Three, four months since you got fired?”

She started to speak, then closed her mouth. Tight. Really tight. White-lipped tight. A second later she opened it again. “Those cattle are a hazard. Is this Pollson guy in the phone book, or do I need to drive to his place?”

“I’ll go,” Cole said. Enough was enough. He wasn’t generally one for cheap shots, but hey, everyone had their weak moments. He gave her a curt nod and put his truck in gear, easing back onto the road. In his rearview mirror, he saw Taylor standing right where he left her, staring after him and looking very much as if she wanted to flip him off.

So much for peacefully living parallel lives.

* * *

“HOW’S THE JOB search going?” Her grandfather asked the question cautiously, as if afraid of treading on dangerous ground. He was, but after the confrontation with Cole yesterday, Taylor was once again in full job-search mode. That guy was going to eat crow, even though she’d concluded that he’d made his snide comments to fire her up and get her off the farm. Since the result was the same—gainful employment—she decided to let him win this round. Let him think he lit a fire under her—what did it hurt?

Her pride. A little. But she’d taken so many knocks lately that her pride was starting to grow calluses.

“There’s not a lot out there, but I’ve submitted two applications. I should hear soon. Both jobs close in three days.”

The positions were several rungs down the ladder from where she’d been but still respectable, and she would be able to explain to future employers that she’d taken the job when the market had tightened. No shame there.

“Local?”

“Missoula.”

“I wouldn’t mind having you closer on a more permanent basis, you know.”

She knew. Missoula was about seven hours closer to him than she’d been before. And she also knew that her mom was probably going to send her a calendar to mark the days until she could leave Montana.

“How’s Aunt Elise?”

Her grandfather sighed. “Better. Looks like I might be here for the better part of the year, though. Until I convince her to move to the Eagle Valley anyway. So far she’s not real receptive to the idea.”

“Do you hate living there?” She was used to living in a small space, but she wondered how her grandfather was dealing with the confines of the tiny duplex.

After a silence, he said, “Not really. There are things to do. I have new poker buddies, a couple of guys I knew a long time ago.”

“I’ll drive down to see you one of these weekends.”

“You’d better be mindful of the gas.”

“You’re worth a tank of gas.”

“Wait until after you get the job. You can call until then.”

“Thanks, Grandpa. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Keep me posted.”

“Will do.”

They said their goodbyes and Taylor hung up, then settled back in her overstuffed chair—the one she’d taken from Karl’s basement, with his permission, while Cole was out doing something in the fields the day before. She’d climbed down the stone steps at the back of the house and unlocked the cellar door with the key from under the flowerpot. It’d been no easy task manhandling the chair up the steps by herself, but she wasn’t in the mood to do battle with Cole—especially when she’d lost the last battle. And she knew better than to think they could do something as easy as moving a chair without snapping at one another. She preferred to do it herself, even if the chair almost did her in when she’d lost her grip and it pushed her back down the steps. She’d been pinned against the cellar door, the wind knocked out of her. Thankfully she was able to push the chair off her, get a better grip and wrestle it back up the stairs. The only damage had been a couple of bruises on her thighs, and now the bunkhouse was a bit more comfortable. Emphasis on “a bit.” It was a dreary place, and what bothered her most was that it represented failure. Living in the bunkhouse was the culmination of a steady downward slide, and even now she wasn’t certain that she was at the end of the ride. If she were in the main house, she could sleep in her old bed. Feel as if she were just visiting. She would have a bathtub, a real kitchen. And she wouldn’t be brought upright in bed by noisy thumps beneath the floorboards.

If she was in the house, maybe she could pretend that she wasn’t so close to the very end of her rope.

Taylor sighed and laid her head back against the soft, crushed velvet cushion.

In five years, this experience will be an interesting anecdote.

But the problem was that, for an experience to become an interesting anecdote, one had to successfully survive it.

A knock on the door startled her, and she scrambled to her feet. There was no question who her visitor was. All the same, Taylor pushed the sheet she’d tacked over the window aside. Safety first and all that.

It was Cole. And while he didn’t look cheerful, he didn’t look angry either.

A neutral visit?

Could be the start of something good. Taylor pulled the door open and she was struck—again—by just how ridiculously good-looking he was. High cheekbones, crazy-hot mouth, blue eyes. Dark lashes.

Touchy temperament.

Taylor smiled coolly. “Hello.”

“Hi. I was wondering if you would mind parking your rig on the other side of the building. I’m having trouble getting my equipment through.” He looked as if he’d like to be anywhere but her tiny porch.

“Sure. I can move my…rig.” If he was going to be polite and nonconfrontational, then so was she. She’d even call her vehicle a rig. “That side?” She pointed at the wall opposite from where Cole stood. Cole who was now frowning at her overstuffed chair.

“Where did you get that?”

Taylor glanced at the chair. “The cellar. Karl said I could get some furniture.”

She knew the instant she looked back at him what was coming next, so she launched into her defense. “I had permission. You were out in the field, and I didn’t know when you were coming back.”

“You shouldn’t enter people’s houses without asking.”

“It was only the cellar, and I entered from the outside. I didn’t set foot in your part of the house.”

He did not appear to be mollified by her reasonable explanation. If anything, his expression hardened even more. Taylor pressed her lips together as she dropped her gaze to study the floorboards. Then she drew in a breath and met his eyes dead-on. “Are you looking for a fight?”

His eyebrows jerked up. “No.”

“I think you are. I think you’re looking for reasons to engage me, because getting this chair out of the cellar didn’t impact you one bit.”

He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Why would I engage you?”

“Maybe you get off on it.”

His mouth curled at one corner, but she could see she’d surprised him with her answer.

“Trust me, that isn’t what I get off on.”

“Yeah?” she asked in a low voice as she raised her eyebrows. “What do you get off on?”

Instead of giving her a sarcastic reply as she’d expected, Cole came a step closer, looking down at her with a considering gaze, and for one heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to show her. Instead, his rather incredible mouth quirked up at one corner. “That’s none of your business, and I can’t ever see that changing.”

“Ouch,” she said softly, thankful that he had no way of knowing that her heart was beating harder than it should.

He was too close. Or maybe she was. Whatever, the pull of gut-level physical attraction was there, making her wonder what would happen if she took another step forward, settled her palms on his very solid chest, tilted her chin up…

That was nothing short of crazy.

“Wasn’t meant as an ouch.” His voice was a little lower than before.

“Gee. I wonder why I took it that way.”

Cole casually eased back a little and, even though Taylor told herself to hold her ground, she did the same, folding her arms over her middle.

“How’s the job hunt coming?” A small twist of the knife, but one she welcomed because it eased her toward safer ground, away from thoughts of touching him to see what would happen.

“I’ve applied here and there. I’m hopeful of landing something soon.” Even though she was overqualified for the positions she’d applied for, and that was almost as deadly as being underqualified. Maybe more, since businesses didn’t want to hire people who were probably still looking for a job more closely suited to their abilities.

“How soon is soon?”

Taylor shrugged and then leaned over to grab her keys off the bookcase, feeling the strong need to both end this conversation and put some distance between them. He needed to go back to his fields, and she needed to get back to her battle plans. “You want me to park on the north side of the building?”

“Yeah. I’d appreciate that.”

She jingled the keys before palming them and moving past him. She heard him start after her, but instead of veering away, he followed her to the SUV. She opened the door, creating a nice barrier between them, before glancing up at him with a question in her eyes. “Yes?”

“I need a time line. If you get a job, how long do you think you’ll be here?”

He settled a hand on the door frame, and while Taylor’s gaze drifted down to his very strong, very tan fingers, she didn’t allow herself to move. “Can’t wait to get rid of me?”

“I want to store grain in the bunkhouse. I’m getting some calves.”

Not the answer she expected, but an easy one to reply to. “Then how about I’ll move into the house and you can stay in the bunkhouse with your grain?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t have a time line, but when I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Thanks.”

Taylor smiled—kind of—then slipped into the driver’s seat as Cole turned and started walking toward the machine shop, leaving her to wonder which of them had won that round.

CHAPTER SIX

TAYLOR TWISTED AROUND, doing her best to see her reflection in the small bathroom mirror, but short of jumping up and down, there was no way to see if her hem was hanging properly in the back. She’d have to assume it was.

Something thumped on the floorboards beneath her feet, but she no longer startled at the sound. Instead she leaned in over the sink, did a last-minute makeup check, then smoothed her hands over the light gray tailored dress. Simple, but not plain. Applying for a midlevel job in a smaller community was new to her, so she’d done her research. The last thing she wanted was to come off as overdressed for the position—not when she was overqualified for the job. Kiss of death.

After the interview request, she’d made calls to people she’d meant to contact before but hadn’t because she was embarrassed about not instantly landing a job. Funny how being out of work for several months took some of the edge off her professional pride. She hadn’t rebounded immediately, but she wasn’t the only one. A few of her peers had landed primo jobs, but she was among those who hadn’t. She wasn’t alone—but it kind of stung that she’d twice thought she’d be the exception, as she’d invariably been during her educational career, and she wasn’t. Sailing through life during high school and college hadn’t prepared her for this, and she was starting to see that encountering the occasional obstacle might have done her some good.

She grabbed her leather carryall and headed out the door to the SUV. Again, probably a good thing she wasn’t driving the Z. And maybe it was a good thing that Max wasn’t yet with her, because she’d been unable to find her lint roller. The trailer thieves were probably having a fine time with it, or it was in the trash somewhere, along with her much-missed bras.

As she drove to Missoula, Taylor practiced answers to the usual interview questions, focusing on sounding efficient but not coming off as a know-it-all. Again—overqualification. That was a tough one to get past. Would it be wrong to pretend that she was willing to live on less because she loved living in Montana so much?

She was starting to feel desperate enough to lie.

Taylor parked in the lot behind the brick building that housed the bank and the financial services offices on the floors above and sat for a few minutes, getting into battle mode. She was competent, a good team player with strong leadership qualities. She was hardworking, willing to go the extra mile, put in the extra time. She was someone they’d be foolish not to snap up.

Drawing in a breath, she opened the SUV door, got out and caught her heel in a crack in the sidewalk, twisting her ankle hard. She stopped before she fell and yanked her heel free.

Not an omen. She’d recovered her balance without breaking an ankle, and that was an analogy for what was going to happen next. She was going to recover.

As it turned out, catching her heel hadn’t been a harbinger of things to come. The interview went well. Really well. Almost-too-good-to-believe well after months of nothing.

The committee of four were positive throughout the interview and seemed pleased to have someone of her qualifications interested in joining their team. There was no mention of being overqualified, and as the interview wound down, the committee members were nodding and smiling as she spoke. They liked her. She liked them. But more than that, she could do something for their company. They would benefit from her expertise, and eventually she could apply for transfer to the corporate office in Seattle. She had nodded matter-of-factly when they’d mentioned that possibility while answering her questions about advancement within the company, but inwardly she was doing a happy dance. That was why they hadn’t been put off by her résumé—they were looking to grow people. Perfect.

The salary was exactly half what she made in her former job, but the cost of living in Montana was lower. The cost of maintaining her professional wardrobe would be lower. She wouldn’t be paying an exorbitant sum to her landlord to park the Z under cover to keep the sea air from corroding it. There were a lot of positives.

Just getting a job would be a positive.

You are getting this job.

It had taken a while to get the first interview, but she was moving forward in a positive way. It would be days before she heard anything, but she felt good. Hopeful. Positive.

Finally.

Taylor stopped at the coffee shop near the building supply center where she’d bought her new macho drill and again treated herself to a chai latte. She settled at a table in the corner and texted Carolyn, telling her that she’d interviewed and felt good about it, but that was as far as she could go before her jinx factor kicked in.

Regardless of what happens, I’ll be getting Max soon.

She missed her cat.

The reply came back quicker than she’d expected, since Carolyn’s phone was always lost somewhere in her humungous purse.

Can we meet in Spokane this weekend?

Taylor frowned before writing: Sure.

Her phone rang a split second later. Carolyn must have been on break. “Is Max being bad?” she asked.

“Oh, no, no,” Carolyn said with a laugh. “Nothing like that—well, no more than usual anyway. It’s just that I have an opportunity to take the Alaska cruise with my new guy and I’d hate to put Max in kitty day care.”

“He’d hate that, too. So yes, I can drive to Spokane on, what? Saturday?”

“That would be great. And you said the interview went well?”

“I think so. I’ll tell you about it when I see you.”

“Can’t wait.”

They figured out a time and place for the cat-and-gossip swap, and then Taylor drained her latte. She had to buy cat food and kitty litter and maybe a nice bottle of wine to be opened upon the occasion of her employment.

Her jinx voice whispered again as she debated about the celebratory wine, and she told it to be quiet. If she didn’t get the job, then she could drown her sorrows before continuing the search.

* * *

TAYLOR HAD JUST been to an interview. Either that or she’d dressed to the nines to go grocery shopping. Cole stopped sweeping out the barn storage room where he planned to store his grain and watched as Taylor slid the rest of the way out of the SUV and then reached in to grab a leather carryall, showing about a mile of leg in the process. No grocery bags. Interview for sure.

He swept a couple of decades’ worth of dirt into a broad flat shovel and then dumped it into the small barrel he’d brought into the room to collect debris. A cloud of dust went up, and he grimaced as he bent to load another shovelful of barn dirt. The bunkhouse would be better, since it was already clean, and it had been used to store grain in the past. But Cole wasn’t going to push things. Every time he came in contact with Taylor, some sort of small explosion seemed to occur. It was as if they somehow sparked one another—and not in a good way.