Page 13 of My Cowboy Boss
“To who?” I bite down on the bread. It tastes like a dust bunny. I chew and swallow anyway.
“He told Jude and then Jude told Marshall—”
“So basically everyone,” I cut him off.
“Yeah.” Jonas grins.
“We have a bet going about you and the new hire,” Marshall adds his fucking two cents worth.
I grip my fork, my knuckles going white. “What kind of bet?”
“That you’re going to be a married man before the year is out.”
“And give Mom those grandkids she wants,” Jonas says.
“It’s not like that. I don’t trust her. She’s not who you think she is,” I explain.
“I don’t know. I think Aspen’s pretty nice. She was the few times I’ve talked to her,” Marshall says.
“Aspen? You mean Arizona,” I correct.
Wilder frowns and looks at Jonas. “Wait a second…”
Jonas scratches his head and looks around the table. “Does anyone remember what was on her resume? Maybe I looked at it wrong.”
Wilder frowns then says. “I thought her name was Aspen too and when I heard her go by Arizona, I assumed that maybe she was using her middle name.”
My heart thuds painfully. I make myself sit still and I have to fight to keep anger from showing on my face, but I can’t keep itout of my voice. “You thought? You assumed?” I don’t know who I’m mad at. Him or myself.
Wilder’s brows raise. “What the hell does it matter if she’s using a middle name?”
“If that’s her name. But if she lied about that…” Jonas doesn’t finish what he was going to say.
“And he likes her…” Marshall adds.
“Well, shit,” Wilder says.
I stand and push away from the table. I don’t want her to have lied to me about anything. I don’t want the worry clawing in my stomach to tear through me. I don’t want to be right that she’s up to no good.
Enough. I stride out of the house. One way or another, I’m getting the truth.
Chapter 6
Flint
I walk outside and go to the barn where I can make a phone call away from the interested ears of my brothers. I call ‘Nado, a buddy in Nevada, who works investigations with a security firm and ask him to do a background check.
Then once he calls me back, I’ll know if Arizona is anything like the former ranch manager who screwed my family over. We’re still looking for his skeezy ass but it’s like he vanished into thin air. I hate that he was in our lives. Hate that we trusted him. It’s my fault. I should have…
Hell…I rake my fingers through my hair. I don’t know much about anything at the moment I’m so tied in knots.
If Arizona’s like that…like our former ranch manager…if she lives to take advantage of people, would I be able to hand her over to the sheriff’s office? I pace back and forth in the barn. No. I wouldn’t. Because fuck it all, Wilder’s right. I do have a thing for Arizona as he labeled it.
Would I give what’s going on my heart that same label? No. Because I know exactly what it is. I like this woman. I can’t call it love or maybe it’s that I don’t want to because frankly that scares the shit out of me. You love someone and you get vulnerable.
I learned to love my found family, and I would die for them. And it would kill me if anything bad happened to any one of them. That same feeling burns through me at the thought of something happening to Arizona.
Please let me be wrong about her.
