He didn’t offer his in return, but it seemed the girl couldn't take a hint.
Molly English wasn't goingto let the rancher intimidate her.
Even if he was three decades younger than she'd expected.
She kept her arm outstretched, kept her smile fixed in place, even though it meant clamping down on her back teeth. Hopefully, he wouldn't notice the tremble in her hand.
She needed this job. Badly.
She'd escaped. Now she needed a place to land.
Somehow, she was going to convince him to give her the job.
"It's Mr. Coulter, right?" she asked, when he still hadn't responded.
He winced. "It's Cord."
Finally,finally, he took off one leather work glove and shook her hand. His was cool and chapped. Like hers.
"I'm here about the job," she said.
The angle of the afternoon sun meant his hat was shading his face. His expression was inscrutable.
"The hired hand," she went on. She didn't see a line of applicants, so that gave her a little confidence boost. She pulled her own pair of work gloves out of the back pockets of her jeans, and they flopped over her hand as she motioned to the barn. "We're doing some cleaning?"
He held out one arm before she could start toward the barn. "We'renot doing anything." He shook his head. "I think you've got the wrong place. I'm not hiring."
Her smile faltered, but she wasn't giving up. Couldn't.
She put on her sweetest smile, the one that had always worked on Mama. At least when Molly was little. "I might not look it, but I can carry my own weight. More than."
He shook his head, his eyes shuttered. She was losing her chance. The fear boiling in her belly made her blurt, "Gender discrimination is illegal, you know. And unethical."
He huffed out a disbelieving laugh. "I'm not discriminating. I don't need a hired hand."
Really? The barn listed to one side, its boards so bleached they were more white than gray. The far field was overgrown, no sign of winter wheat green shoots. And the barbed wire fence running nearby was badly mended. Get one horse or cow to lean on it, and the whole fence line would fall.
He obviously needed help.
He just didn't want hers.
That wasn't going to deter her. She set an expectant gaze on him.
His hands went to his hips. "Let me rephrase. I can't afford hired help."
Yeah, right. "Then why'd you post that flyer? At the superstore. On the community bulletin board...?" She went on when he just stared at her blankly.
"I didn't post any flyer."
She growled under her breath and dug in her front pocket to pull out the burner phone. She pulled up the photo she'd snapped, the red flyer against the bulletin board, and turned the phone in his direction.
He took it reluctantly and stared at it, his expression registering disbelief and then a quickly-banked anger.
"That is your address, isn't it?" she asked.
His mouth was drawn in a tight line. "I don't know who made that, but it wasn't me. I really can't afford to hire anyone."
He handed her the phone back, and the tightness of his expression hadn't lightened. He wasn't joking.
