Page 20 of Lost and Lassoed

“Yeah, but it still applies,” she said. “Where would I be if I hadn’t listened to you?” Honestly, probably engaged to Luke Brooks anyway. They still would’ve found each other.

I bit the inside of my lip and thought about what Emmy had said.

“Teddy,” Emmy said again, more seriously this time. “Gus is struggling. He’s always loved Rebel Blue so deeply, and he’s always been the most devoted father I’ve ever seen, besides our own, and now both of those things are pushing and pulling at each other, and I can’t watch him get torn up by them. He feels like he’s failing. He feels guilty about it. Cam feels guilty for leaving. She called my dad after the soccer situation. She’s worried that she put too much pressure on Gus and she’s asking if she needs to come home.” I knew what was coming next. “And he’ll never forgive himself if she does.”

And I’ll never forgive myself if she came home and I could’ve helped.

“Don’t say it,” I said, holding up my hand. “You don’t need to finish your guilt trip, I know where you’re going with this.”

Emmy scooted closer to me and laid her head on my shoulder. “So, what do you say, Teddy Andersen? Fancy a summer job?”

Chapter 9

Gus

Theodora Andersen was sitting across from me at my kitchen table. Her hair was pulled up in that stupid fucking ponytail, and the cold stare she was giving me made me wonder if her eyes had always been that icy. Or that blue.

It was early—six-thirty. Riley was still asleep. Which was good. A lot of things could go wrong while Teddy and I figured out the logistics of this new arrangement.

“Cam usually had Riley on Monday and Tuesday, and we’d switch at some point on Wednesday, depending on when I was done with everything for the day,” I said.

“And that’s the schedule you want to keep?” Teddy asked.

“Yes,” I said. “In the summer, Riley hangs out with me on the ranch on Thursdays, and Emmy and Brooks on Friday afternoons after riding lessons. One of them takes her to soccer”—I swallowed, thinking about the event that had caused this whole thing—“and I’ll pick her up there.”

Teddy arched a brow at that, and I let out a growl, daring her to challenge me on it.

“No weekends?” she asked, undeterred by my demeanor.

“No weekends,” I said, which was the plan. I wanted thattime alone with my daughter. “So you can continue to terrorize the town. Or whatever it is that you do on the weekends.”

Teddy rolled her eyes. The morning sun was streaming through my thin curtains and lighting Teddy’s face. Her eyes had been blue a few seconds ago, but now they were silver.

She didn’t dignify my jab with a response, which annoyed me. Teddy was normally all flames and chaos. Right now, she was cool and stoic.

For some reason, I didn’t think I liked it, which was a weird feeling for a man who spent half of our interactions begging her to shut the fuck up. Still, I moved on.

“I normally leave the house around five-thirty”—I gritted my teeth at having to say this next part—“so Emmy suggested it might be easier for you to stay in the guest room Sunday through Wednesday so you don’t have to commute.” Teddy and Hank lived on the other side of town—it would probably take her half an hour to navigate the mountain roads up to Rebel Blue from her house.

“You want me stay in your house?” Teddy sounded amused.

“No,” I shot back, “I really don’t.” The smile that grew on Teddy’s face was infuriating. She was staying in my house, with my kid, I was going to pay her non-Monopoly money, and she still somehow found a way to get the upper hand.

Fuck.

Teddy flipped her ponytail, and I got a prime view of her stupid neck. “I’ll see if the accommodations you’re offering are up to my standards,” she said in a languid tone.

I clenched my fists on the table, which she must’ve seen, because her smile grew again. I was trying to keep my cool. Ididn’t need to wake up my kid because Theodora Andersen decided to bring her boxing gloves out so early in the morning.

She started digging through her purse for something, I couldn’t tell what. She pulled out pepper spray, a pocketknife, a lighter, a small sewing kit, a half-empty plastic water bottle, a protein bar, a bunch of gum wrappers, and Jesus Christ, it didn’t look like the inventory was going to end any time soon.

“Do you live in there or something?” I asked. Why did she have so much stuff? And why was she throwing it all over my clean kitchen table? “What the fuck are you looking for?” I asked.

“A pen and some paper,” she responded. She kept digging—now elbow-deep in her purse. She pulled out a small pink rectangle that looked like—

“Are you carrying a taser?” I asked. Teddy gave me a terrifying smile and pushed a button on the side of the hot pink rectangle, and two electric currents zapped between the metal points on the end. I wiped my hand over my face.

Thisis the woman I was trusting with my child?

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