Page 7 of Nashville Cowboy
“Hey, Jackson.”
“Eve,” he said, his voice sounding as warm and fuzzy as a glacier.
No surprise. He was still angry. She could tell him a few things that had happened to her between now and that day when her stupid twenty-year-old self left him at the church. She hadn’t been the wisest woman on the planet at the time, but now realized she hadn’t been much different than any other twenty-year-old. Or, at least any twenty-year-old that grew up in a lopsided town like theirs. Maybe it gave her illusions of grandeur to be so special, one of few women. And she’d thought she deserved better than a man who would only marry her because he couldn’t figure a way out.
“Supper is served,” Eve said, and turned her back to him.
“Hope y’all made enough for me. I’m so hungry I could eat my left arm,” Lincoln said. “Sadie’s away at a teacher event in Kerrville, so I’m on my own.”
“Got plenty. Your father said to eat without him,” Mima said. “Let’s go in the dining room.”
“Need to talk to you, Eve.” No sooner were the words spoken by Jackson that it seemed all the air was sucked out of the room. “Now.”
No one spoke. It sounded as though they’d all stopped breathing, too.
“Outside,” he said and then headed out the back door without waiting.
Eve turned to Mima, who gave her an encouraging smile.
Seriously?The woman was the eternal optimist. Anyone in their right mind should be fearing for Eve about now. Like Daisy. She was shaking her head “no.” Lincoln was simply studying her, like he would love to be able to place a bet right about now. Mr. Former-Rodeo-Star was still a gambler at heart.
“Be right back,” Eve said and followed Jackson out the door.
Because she’d now faced far worse in her life than the wrath of Jackson Carver. Having met evil face to face, she understood who she should fear and who she should not. And though she was still a work in progress, she was slowly getting back to her feisty old self. Baby steps, her former therapist had said.
She tilted her chin and walked to where he stood several yards away next to the stable of family horses. Thimble, their oldest mare and Eve’s favorite, canted her regal head over the partition and seemed to be appraising Jackson.
Jackson turned to Eve, arms crossed, his eyes now clearly visible due to his tipped hat. They were narrowed and simmering with resentment. “You’re fired.”
“Wh-what?”
“You heard me.”
Eve drew in a shaky breath. The words were a punch to the gut.You heard me.
But she understood why he wanted to fire her. Much as she appreciated living on the ranch, it would be easier not seeing Jackson every single day. The weddingwasgoing to be bad enough. And this was the Carver family home.Hisfamily. She was the intruder here, no matter how much Mima tried to make Eve feel welcome.
“Okay.” She turned to go. “That’s f-fine.”
Eve turned to head back to the relative emotional safety of the house when a sudden thought wrapped around her so quickly that she whirled around to face him.
“W-wait a minute. Youcan’tfire me. I don’t work for you.”
“The hell I can’t. We’ll hire a nurse or a doctor for Mima.”
“Iama doctor.”
“You’re a veterinarian.”
“So? There’s a lot I also know about the human condition. We humans aren’t wired all that differently from some mammals. Hearts, circulation and nervous systems, bones. Besides, Mima broke her rightarm. We don’t exactly need a specialist to look after someone who needs help cooking and driving meals out to the ranch hands.”
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
She had rights, too. He couldn’t just kick her out. She’d given up the cabin on Lupine Lake, and someone else was already moved in. There was no place to go now. These plans were hatched before Jackson showed up. He couldn’t just come in now and change everything.
Thimble whinnied and stomped. In tune with Eve’s emotions, Thimble would be feeling anxious, too. Before temporarily moving in with Mima, Eve took care of the Carver horses just as she’d done for the horses on the ranch where she’d grown up, doing the job of a groom for some extra cash. She’d also ridden Thimble for the exercise, and the therapy was exactly what Eve needed. Thimble basically started the healing process for Eve. And if she wasn’t quite all the way there, well, that wasn’t Thimble’s fault.
“I’ll talk Lincoln into hiring her a cook,” Jackson said. “Between the three of us, we can manage to pay.”
