Unbridled (15 page)

He slammed into the truck and let out a long breath. When he turned to her, she expected him to start yelling, but instead she literally saw him swallow down the anger. Connor obviously kept all his fury inside, which wasn’t good for him, but in this case, it was good for her.

“Next time, listen to me and let me do the talking. That was embarrassing, to say the least.” His gaze stayed on the windshield, never once looking at her. “I don’t like your tactics.”

“Tough shit. I got the job done and stopped a thief from skimming from his uncle and robbing you blind.” She wanted to fight with him, but he wasn’t living up to his end of the argument. It pissed her off.

 

 

Connor didn’t remember the last time he’d been so angry. It wasn’t all directed at Alex, but she was a big damn part of it. She’d sashayed into Hanson’s as if she owned the place, confused Martin, then blackmailed his scumbag nephew into refunding Finley’s money.

Therein lay the reason Connor was seething. He’d missed the fact that he had been ripped off for at least six months by a weasel like Brian.

He drove back to the ranch with a silent Alex in the cab, grateful at least for a short reprieve in the arguing. She’d been right about the invoices, but her methods were enough to make him see red.

Connor had spent too long in the bog of emotion and destructive behavior. He wouldn’t let his hard-won self-control be tested by another wild child like Alex. No matter that he’d already lost control, more than once if he was honest with himself. He had to keep the reins tight in his hands from now on, no matter what shit she tried.

When they got back to the ranch, she hopped out of the truck without waiting for help. He heard her curse as she hit the pavement and stomped into the main building. No doubt she was going back to her perch in his office.

Connor took his time getting out of the pickup and went in search of a solution to his problem. He found it fifteen minutes later in a small storage closet in the back corner of the building. No doubt it had likely been a linen closet or something similar when the family lived there.

It was about to become Alex’s new office.

He had to get her out of his space, to find some peace in the one place he used to feel safe. She’d infiltrated every nook and cranny on the ranch—he refused to let her stay in his office any longer. He’d never get anything done if she was there.

It didn’t matter if he was putting her in a six-by-eight room with no windows. Connor refused to feel guilty about relocating her. She’d brought nothing but chaos and he couldn’t handle that much more of it. He’d get a line run so she could have a phone in there. Other than office supplies, which they had plenty of in the étagère in his office, she would want for nothing.

With a grin worthy of any cartoon villain, Connor enlisted a few people to help him empty the storage unit of the various boxes of records. They carried them up to the attic where he found an antique desk gathering dust in the corner. It was perfect for what she needed so they cleaned it up and brought it back to the closet—or rather, Alex’s office.

There was one electrical outlet, fortunately, so he swiped a corner table lamp from the lobby and stuck it on the desk. Cozy as a bug in a rug, even if it did look like a solitary confinement cell.

He asked one of the housekeeping staff to wipe everything down so it smelled piney fresh. Then, filled with something like glee, he went in search of Finley’s newest accountant.

 

 

Alex couldn’t make sense of Connor’s filing system. The man had the folders labeled with vague titles such as “Supplies” or “Food.” A man like him, with his perfectionist tendencies, should be better at the details. It surprised her as well as annoyed her. He was infuriating even when he wasn’t in the room. She gave up trying to figure out what he’d been attempting to do with the files and yanked them all out of the drawer.

As she spread the files on the desk and started looking through them, she knew he’d be pissed. Alex, however, didn’t care a whit. Perhaps it gave her a mild satisfaction to tweak his nose, but she wasn’t doing this to annoy him. She was doing it to be a part of something larger, to make a difference in the world even if it involved a shady feed salesman.

She set to work looking through the files, labeling them more accurately, adding additional folders and placing them all in the filing cabinet in a logical order. It was a tedious task, but one she didn’t mind in the least. Alex was so focused on what she was doing, she didn’t realize so much time had passed until her stomach rumbled, reminding her it was lunchtime.

There were still at least three dozen folders to be reviewed and they were stacked on Connor’s desk. She really shouldn’t leave them there, but there was nowhere else to put them. Besides, it would annoy him, and she didn’t mind that at all.

She stood up and stretched, then turned to leave the office. Claire stood in the doorway. Alex’s heart did a flip-flop as she remembered their last conversation. Her emotions were still running high when it came to the woman who’d married her father.

“Connor’s not here.” Alex kept her gaze on the folders.

“I wasn’t looking for him.”

Alex’s gaze snapped to hers. She tried to figure out what Claire was thinking but it was no use. She didn’t know her well enough to read her face. “I was just going for lunch.”

“May I join you?”

“Um . . .” Alex wasn’t sure she was ready to face Claire across a table yet. She had to understand she represented everything wrong with Alex’s past.

“I just wanted to talk to you about Daniel again.” Claire’s dark eyes pleaded with her to listen.

Alex sighed and leaned against the desk. He seemed like a good kid from what she’d seen of him, but that didn’t necessarily mean she wanted to hang out with the kid. “I’m listening.”

Claire stepped into the office. “It’s been over a week since you got here. He’s so excited to have a sister, someone he can look up to and emulate. Unfortunately you haven’t been—or rather, you’ve been busy since you arrived, and he hasn’t had a chance to get to know you.”

Alex knew what was coming and dreaded it. She didn’t want to be around kids, least of all the one who reminded her of her own failings as a child and as a woman.

“I’m working on the accounts now, so I don’t have a lot of spare time.”

“Just a ride or two a week is all I’m asking for. He’s a really wonderful boy. Please.” Claire obviously loved her son very much. Alex could hear it in her voice and it resonated within her. She remembered hearing the same tone in her own mother’s voice.

Alex wasn’t a cruel person, or one who enjoyed making others feel bad. She had no experience with children and didn’t know whether Daniel would even like her when he got to know her. But the crux of the problem was that Alex had never been the boy Daniel now was and she damn well knew it. He reminded her of all she wasn’t.

She knew it wasn’t his fault, but it was so hard to simply dismiss those deep feelings.

“I’m not trying to aggravate you, Alex.” Claire looked down at her shoes. “I know Grant left a mess behind and I just want you to understand that my son and I are not the enemy. He left us behind in that mess too.”

With that, Claire left Alex alone in the office with a churning gut instead of a rumbling stomach. She sat back down, her appetite gone. The conversation with Claire hit Alex in an elemental way.

She wanted to continue thinking about how much she’d been hurt and how she was suffering. It was a bitter pill to swallow to think of someone else in the same boat she was—especially if that someone else was on the “to blame” list.

Alex wasn’t a kid; she was a grown woman who could see right from wrong, yet she hugged her wounds to her. They were hers to wear, and the scars would last a lifetime. It didn’t seem quite fair to allow anyone else to have the same privilege. It would likely sound petty to someone like the perfect Connor Matthews, but it was reality to Alex Finley.

“You’re still here, I see.” Thinking of the devil, Connor stood in the doorway, a smug expression on his handsome face.

“Where else would I be? The guy who runs this place is a disorganized slave driver.”

That wiped the smugness off his face. “I’m not disorganized.”

“Okay, then, an amateur accountant with haphazard tendencies and nearly nonexistent auditing abilities.” She folded her arms and sighed. “What do you want anyway?”

“Way harsh there on my accounting. I did the best I could. It wasn’t like I went to college or anything.”

Now, that was extremely interesting. He didn’t go to college, yet he ran this entire operation? What or who gave him the power to do that? Well, she knew who it was, but wondered what set Connor apart that he would be left in charge.

“That’s what I’m here for. It’ll take time to untangle the last two years, but as you can see I’m working on it.” She gestured to the pile of files on the desk.

“What are you doing?”

“Organizing your receipts, invoices and tax records so you actually have your paperwork in order.”

“Oh. I guess you’ll need a filing cabinet in your office, then.” He peered at the only one in his office, a four-drawer putty-colored behemoth. “That won’t fit. I’ll have to see if we can get one of those smaller two-drawer ones.”

Alex stared at him. “Connor, have you been drinking?”

“What? No, of course not. I’ve been finding a place for you to work.” The smugness crept back on his face.

That did not bode well for Alex.

“Where, pray tell, is this place?”

“Down the hall past the sitting room. It’s been cleaned up and furnished already. But I forgot about the filing cabinet. I’ll need to see if I can find one of those.” He frowned at the folders as if they were to blame for him losing his mind.

“Why don’t you show me this new office, then?” She rose and forced a smile to her face. “My day can’t possibly get any worse.”

Only minutes later, Alex chewed on those words and they tasted like old socks.

The “office” had been a linen closet when she lived there. Somehow Connor had decided the closet would be a great place for her to work. It was gloomy enough in there that she could hardly see.

“Is there a light or am I to work in the shadows like a scribe of old?” She peered in, unable to see clearly.

“There’s a lamp. Wait; I’ll turn it on.” Connor stepped in and a snick sounded, the soft glow bathing the closet, or rather her office, in a warm glow.

He moved out of the way and Alex’s breath caught in her throat when she saw the furniture. It was her mother’s writing desk, a treasured antique that had belonged to her great-grandmother. As the story went, the desk had been a wedding gift from her husband, a carpenter and craftsman who had made it with his own hands.

Tears sprang to her eyes as she touched the newly polished top. The inlaid roses were in perfect condition, the quality of the furniture still evident even after a hundred years. Her fingers trembled as she traced the wooden flowers.

“Alex?”

She shook her head. “Where did you find this?”

“Um, up in the attic. It was covered in dust but in great shape. I thought it looked sorta feminine, and it was free.” Connor sounded guilty, damn him. If only he was a complete ass and treated her like shit, she could ignore him. He had to go and be a gentleman again.

“It was my mother’s.” Her voice was very soft.

There were a few moments of silence and then a breath gushed out behind her. “Shit, I’m sorry. I had no idea. I really was trying to, um, find you a place to work.”

“I know you were. You don’t want me camped out in your office and you saw a way to solve the problem. It’s kind of small.” She managed a strangled chuckle. “I might have to step outside the room just to change my mind.”

“So will you use it?”

He sounded hopeful, annoyingly so. She should refuse it, considering he was putting her in a closet. Yet the desk, well, that was a lovely surprise. It was a piece of her mother she could use every day. Of course, she could still annoy him as needed by simply walking down the hallway to his office.

“Yes, I’ll use it, provided I can still come to you when I need to ask a question.” She hoped she sounded innocent enough.

“Fine, and I’ll see to putting a phone and a filing cabinet in there.”

Alex turned to him and smiled. “I guess this is our first official agreement, then.”

He looked startled. “I guess it is.”

Her stomach picked that moment to yowl again. Connor didn’t laugh but he did raise his brows. “Lunchtime?”

“Yeah, since I can’t squeeze in a soda
and
a sandwich in my new closet, er, office, I’m going to the mess hall.” She stepped out into the hallway where Connor stood. Alex didn’t know whether or not to invite him to go, but he took the decision out of her hands.

“Me too. All that cleaning made me hungry.”

Alex stifled the chuckle that threatened. No need to let Connor know she actually thought he was amusing. That was dangerous territory.

A
fter two weeks at the ranch, Alex developed a routine that included rising early and going for a ride. She felt confident enough to take harder trails with each passing day and always returned with a grin on her face and a bit less pain in her behind.

Alex was now comfortable with taking care of the saddle and tack herself. The staff knew her on sight and she got to know everyone’s names. Although she didn’t want to like anyone, they made it hard not to. The one person she was still off center about was Connor. Until she was ready to deal with her feelings about the dude ranch and her father, she couldn’t seem to pinpoint why the man occupied her thoughts so much.

And her dreams.

She’d had nothing but erotic, heart-pounding dreams that made her wake up with a wet pussy and aching nipples. Each morning she’d pushed aside the thoughts and gone riding instead. However, she knew it was a temporary solution, and the fact she’d already had sex with Connor made her a coward.