Page 84 of Five Mountain Daddies

His smile gets bigger as I approach. “Having fun?” heasks.

“Where have you been?” I stop a few feetaway.

“Been keeping my distance.” He shifts against thetree.

“Why?”

He shrugs a bit. “Wanted you to have a good time before you told me whatever you gottasay.”

I frown at that. “You were… beingnice?”

He shrugs again. “Something like that. I got other reasons,too.”

“Well, I’m glad you invited me,” I admit. “I’m havingfun.”

“Good. I knew you would.” He looks past me, back toward the party. “It’s a good place. Goodpeople.”

But he’s not smiling as he says that. In fact, he looks a little haunted, like he’s thinking about somethingelse.

“You want anything to eat?” I ask him, trying to change thesubject.

“Already ate.” His gaze comes back to mine. “You should tell me whatever you have tosay.”

I take a deep breath. I didn’t want to do this, not anymore. This has been such a good afternoon, I wanted it to keep on going, but I know I have to get this out of theway.

“They’re not accepting our contract,” I say, maintaining eyecontact.

He doesn’t really react. Just nods, leans over, and spits on the ground. “Figures,” hesays.

“Figures?”

“I knew it was too good to be true. Those fuckers don’t care about what’sright.”

“Samuel,” I say. “I tried, I reallydid.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame you.” He looks angry suddenly. “It’s those greedy fucks that don’t know us from anyone else. Sure, we work for them, but they don’t give afuck.”

“I’m not like that,” I saysoftly.

“I know you aren’t.” His face softens and he sighs. “Sorry. Just been a stressful week, isall.”

“We’re going to figure it out. Ipromise.”

He laughs a little bitterly. “You know, I don’t get why you seem to care atall.”

I look at him, confused. “Why wouldn’tI?”

“For the same reason all those bastards don’t care.” He gestures vaguely into the distance. “You’d make way more money if you negotiated a more favorablecontract.”

I glare at him. “Is that what you think ofme?”

He stares back at me and sighs. “No,”

“Good.” I step toward him, feeling that anger rise inside of me. “I’m not some little small-town idiot you can push around, Samuel. I want to help you, heck, I want to help all these people here. But I won’t take shit fromyou.”

That makes him perk up. A grin slowly starts to spread across his face. “Well, well, well. Are you starting to grow a pair,Amelia?”

“Asshole,” I say. “Don’t push me, Samuel.” I walk right up to him and I stop inches away, losing control of mytemper.

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