Page 17 of The Little Things
She slowly grinned, giving me a nod. “Yeah, I did. But still. You’re my boss, and I should be more respectful.”
I waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. How about this? How about we start over?”
She beamed again and I thought I might go blind from the sight of that incredible smile. “Okay. Yeah. I’d really like that.”
I moved closer, extending my hand. “Welcome to Safe Haven. I’m Zach, and I run this ranch.”
She bit down on her lips like she was trying to mask her smile as she lifted her hand and placed it in mine. “I’m Rae. It’s really nice to meet you.”
Her hand felt soft in mine, small and delicate, and I had to work to ignore the tingling sensation that touching her shot up my arm. “Nice to meet you, Rae. You like horses? ’Cause we have this one that’s full of attitude. Doesn’t seem to like anybody, but I think she just may like you.”
“I love horses,” she exclaimed on a giggle. “I’d be happy to help you out, but I’m working the lodge tomorrow. How about the next day?”
I told myself the sinking sensation in my stomach had to have been a reaction to something I ate. It had nothing to do with the fact that I wouldn’t be seeing her around the ranch tomorrow. “Sounds perfect. It’s late. You should probably get some sleep.”
Her features softened as she released my hand and stuffed both of hers in the front pocket of her jeans. “Okay, Zach. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Hollywood.”
She shot me a grin over her shoulder. “Grumpy Cowboy,” she said with a nod before stopping like a thought just occurred to her. “Hey, Zach? Why doesn’t she have a name?”
“Because I hadn’t been able to think of one that fit her. But I think you landed on it.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Me?”
“Yeah. When you called her sassy. Feels like the perfect name to me. What do you say?”
She nodded happily. “Yep. It’s perfect.”
“Then I’ll get her nameplate ordered tomorrow. Get some sleep.”
I watched as she left the barn, only pulling my gaze from where she disappeared when Sassy let out a short whinny as if you say: you really are a sucker for that girl.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I grumbled at the animal’s judgmental stare. “I’m thirty-five years old, for Christ’s sake. I can exercise self-restraint. Besides, she works for me.”
But why the hell did that make it seem even hotter?
Chapter Ten
Rae
Working in housekeeping at the lodge was a totally different world than ranching, but just as exhausting in its own way. After half a day of stripping beds, vacuuming, dusting, and scrubbing toilets, the place was starting to feel endless, like no matter how many beds I made, there were still a million other rooms waiting.
There was one thing I learned in this job that I’d never taken into consideration until today. People on vacation were terrible at picking up after themselves. A ball of shame swirled around in my stomach at the realization that my friends and I had been guilty of that very thing. Actually, we were probably worse than the people staying at Second Hope Lodge whenever we’d gone on vacation. All form of manners had been thrown right out the window. We trashed hotel rooms and villas because it was expected that someone else would pick up after us while we were busy working on our tans out by the pool or sipping fruity cocktails on the beach. We hadn’t given the poor people whose job it was to clean the disasters we left in our wake a single thought.
If my parents’ plan was to send me here to humble me and make me see the error of my ways, they had succeeded brilliantly. I’d been here less than a week, and I already knew I’d been the worst kind of asshole back in L.A. I was determined to change that.
“Hey, how’s it going?”
I looked up from the trash can I was emptying into a larger garbage bag and smiled brilliantly at Ivy, the pretty woman a few years older than me with pale strawberry blonde hair who was my boss for the day. She was the head of hospitality for the lodge. I wasn’t exactly sure what all that job entailed, but apparently that put her over the housekeeping staff. “Great,” I chirped, lying through my teeth. The work wasn’t easy, that was for damn sure, and before coming here, I was a pampered little brat. But I would be damned if I didn’t pull my weight or complained about it being hard when all the people around me did this day after day. The longer I was here, the more I realized I wasn’t the person I had pretended to be back in California. I’d been faking it, wearing the layers of a vain, self-absorbed mean girl in order to fit in.
I wasn’t exactly sure who I really was, but I knew I wanted to do everything in my power to find out, and I was starting to think this was the place to make that happen.
“Lucinda says you’ve been doing great.” My chest started to feel warm, pride swelling inside me and filling the space at finding out I was doing a good job. I hadn’t been sure what Lucinda, the head housekeeper, really thought of me. The woman wasn’t exactly easy to read. She was an older woman, probably somewhere in her late forties, if I had to guess, who grunted one-word answers and wore a perpetual frown. I’d worried at first that she hated me on principle alone. That she didn’t want to waste her time with a spoiled socialite. However, a couple of the other lodge staffers had pulled me aside to assure me it wasn’t personal, that it was just how she was.
“I appreciate that.”
“It’s time for your lunch hour. Do you have any plans?”