I stiffened. “I have a plan.”
“Me?”
I ground my molars together but couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I wasn’t done taking everything personally. “I’ll figure it out.” A tiny pile of dust gave me enough of an excuse to turn away from him to clean it up.
His boots were heavy behind me. “If I’m your plan, can you let me help?”
I didn’t answer. I squatted to capture the barely perceptible debris with my dustpan. I nearly ran into him when I turned to find a trash bag to dump my pile into.
He didn’t move. “I’ve been making and selling spirits over half my life. Almost as long as ranching. I help out with the animals, but my day is spent keeping the doors of Copper Summit open.”
“This isn’t Copper Summit.” I tried to sidestep around him, but he did the same, blocking my path.
“I’d hate to do all this work and then the business flounders because there’s no business strategy in place.”
“I said I’ll figure it out.”
“I can help.” Frustration filled his voice.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Not to boast, but I’m an expert at this, Mads.”
The fine wire of my patience snapped and embarrassment flooded in. “And I do what? Just clean butts and bedpans?”
Confusion filled his expression. “No?—”
“I’m just the help? I’m supposed to shut up and spoon-feed someone’s loved one until you’re all done?”
“I didn’t say?—”
“And then what? You tell everyone how you did all the work because I was too inexperienced?”
“Madis—”
“I might not have finished college, but I’m not incompetent.” Heat burned across my eyes and my vision got blurry. Dammit. Crying around his mom was different and it’d been about my brother.Thiswas my humiliation out there for Teller to witness.
He gripped my shoulders. “I never said you were incompetent.” He ducked his head to look me in the eyes. “I want to workwithyou, not bulldoze over you.”
I fought back the tears, but one escaped. The hot drop rolled down my cheek. Teller captured it with the pad of his calloused thumb, a gentle touch, but brushfire swept through my body.More.
I tried to draw back, but his hold was too firm. Both hands were back on me and he wasn’t releasing me. Nor was I fighting to be set free. I was really damn tired, and I soaked in all sorts of comfort from him touch.
“Can we talk about this?” he asked gently. “Like really talk, where I tell you what I can offer and you consider it while trying like hell to keep that impressive baggage of yours from interfering?”
“Impressive baggage?” Apt description.
“Listen to me, Madison.” His voice was a low growl. “I’m not any of them. The people who hurt you. We had some issues, but you and I are in a new place, and they’re not with us.”
Tension vibrated through my body. I wanted to put miles between me and him, but I also desperately wanted to close the last few inches between us. “I know,” I said quietly.
I’d bought Teller for fifty grand, and he hadn’t gotten a cent of that money. He probably didn’t need it, but that was beside the point. He was working for free. For charity. Also, for me. I was a charity case whether I liked it or not.
I could set some of my baggage aside and quit tripping over it. He deserved somewhat of an explanation. I licked my suddenly dry lips. His gaze dropped down to my mouth, tracking my tongue. The air between us thickened, but it had to be my nerves.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Do you know why I didn’t go to nursing school with Wendi?” She had gotten her degree and moved back to Bourbon Canyon to work at the clinic. To date Teller.
He shook his head. It was still the two of us, standing in the middle of the bar. The sun was dropping lower in the sky outside. It’d be dark soon.
