“Do people knock in California?” His deep voice rumbles in his chest and I lift my chin, refusing to let him intimidate me.
“I knew you would ignore me if I knocked.” I take a stepinto the room and the smell of smoke and sandalwood tickles my nose.
Dropping his hands to his sides, he says, “Here in Oklahoma, a closed door usually means the person on the other side doesn't want to be disturbed.”
Cocking my head to the side, it’s my turn to narrow my eyes at him. “So, you make a habit of being obnoxiously insulting at the dinner table before you go hide in another room?” I take a step deeper into the room. “You asked me not to mention why I’m here and I did as you asked.”
His neck turns red before he turns his head with a grunt to the side to look at the bookcase on the wall before he looks back to me. “I apologize. That was uncalled for.”
The sincerity in his voice takes me by surprise; I expected righteous indignation like I would get from my father or one of the people I work with. I’m so used to navigating my argument around ego driven jerks that I have to mentally pivot my thoughts for my next words.
In this light, his hazel eyes is more green with brown flakes and they are locked on mine. The intensity of the stare makes my heart skip. “Look, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here…”
I don’t get to finish my thought before he huffs a laugh and interrupts, his eyebrows halfway up his forehead. “Then why in God’s name did you drive here in an ice storm?”
Good question.
This whole situation has thrown me off my game, I take a breath and put on my mask of diplomacy. “I’ve never been in an ice storm before, it was just sleet and was melting on the ground when I left the hotel. I wasn’t expecting to get stuck.”
“The warnings have been crawling across the TV since before you showed up here yesterday.” He fans his arms out to his sides with the palms open like it should have been obvious, “Only a foolish person would drive around on ice.”
Foolish?
The insult pushes my molars together, and anger sends a hot flush over my skin, up my back, and to the top of my head. “I beg your pardon?”
He shifts his weight to one foot and hangs his hands on his hips, the movement stretching the cotton t-shirt across his chest, outlining all the dips and lines. His eyes don’t leave mine as he presses his lips together in a tight line like he is weighing his words carefully or trying to curb his anger. “You were told not to come back, why are you here?”
If I were my father, I would let the insults roll off my back and focus on why I’m here, try to soften him up or change tactics. But I’m not my father.
Schooling my features, I shake off the hurt and lift my chin and try to keep my voice even. “It was an error in judgment. I’m sorry I’m intruding on your family and home, I didn’t plan to be stuck. I’m just doing my job.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I regret it. He’s got me so flustered that my filter is only half working. And, damn it, he smells good.
Narrowing his eyes further, he steps around the desk so we are just a few feet apart. “Is that what my family is to you? My home? A job?”
Anger is flowing off him in thick, hard waves again, making me suck in a breath at my error. I resist the urge to step back away from him. He’s right, I just reduced his life and his family to a job. Rubbing my forehead, I close my eyes. “That’s not what I meant…”
“Then what did you mean?” He slowly growls, interrupting me again as he punctuates each word.
Damn it. I think I just lost any foothold I may have had on smoothing things out between us.
My anger is at its boiling point. In the past half hour, he’s insulted me more than I would normally allow anyone else. Iopen my eyes and take a step closer to him so I have to tip my head back. My voice is low and calm, but inside I feel anything but. “I’m sorry if that sounds cold, that wasn’t my intention. But I can’t change why I’m here or what I do for a living.”
His eyes volley between mine for a moment as we have a stare down, both of our chests rising in anger.
His eyes narrow ever so slightly before he asks, “What do you know about the documents from the original landowner?”
The shift in subject catches me off guard and I jerk my head as my eyebrows knit together. Why is he asking about documents from over a hundred years ago? Is it something I should know about?
“I don’t. The file I received mentioned nothing about that, but I was only read into it a couple of weeks ago.”
My heart beating in my ears is the only sound in the room as he watches my face, searching for something. Deception, maybe?
“We’ve been getting letters for over a year and you were just brought in two weeks ago? The letter we got in December had your name on it.” He thinks I’m lying.
December?
Did Harris send out a letter with my name on it before I even knew about this assignment? The wariness in my gut has all my senses on alert.
