CHAPTER FOUR
Amber
I stared at the entry in the ledger, trying to make sense of it.
A payment to a feed supply store dated a month ago, but there was no corresponding invoice. No delivery receipt. Nothing in the inventory logs to show what had been purchased.
It could have been an oversight or an entry error.
But it wasn’t. It was a pattern I’d already discovered. The previous accountant had been siphoning money through fake invoices. The question was for how long.
The King Ranch was prosperous. They ran cattle and bought and broke horses. Their money wasn’t tied up in one basket, which made it so much easier to do exactly what the accountant had been doing. Stealing, then using funds from the various accounts to cover his tracks.
I gave Dalton a report every evening—if he wasn’t avoiding me that day. If I wasn’t so attracted to him, I would have found his behavior amusing. But something about him had sent me spiraling. Yes, he was handsome as sin and had a body to die for. But it was the man behind that gruff exterior that got to me.
He paid a fortune for food for his hands and even had a live-in cook, but he didn’t have a housekeeper for himself and Cade. Instead, he got up every morning and made breakfast for his brother, and now me. He had a sweet tooth that hedidn’t indulge and a temper when any animal on his ranch was mistreated. He was careful with things that mattered, even if he pretended not to care.
I pulled out my phone to text him about the discrepancy, then stopped.
He’d been avoiding me even more the last two days. Ever since the incident with his hand.
He’d thanked me. Sort of. In that gruff, uncomfortable way of his. Then he’d practically run out of the kitchen like I was something dangerous instead of a woman who’d simply bandaged his hand.
Since then, he’d made sure we were never alone. He came in for meals only when Cade was there. He worked later than usual. He found excuses to be anywhere I wasn’t. The daily reports had become shorter and more clipped.
It shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did.
Because for those few minutes in the kitchen, when I’d been holding his hand and cleaning his wound, I’d felt the tension between us shift into something else. Something heated and aware.
And I’d wanted him to act on it.
God, I’d wanted it so badly I could barely breathe.
He’d made it abundantly clear that he and his brother were off limits.
But I still needed to ask him about this payment.
I could wait for him to come inside. Or catch him at dinner
Or I could go out to the barn.
The thought made my stomach flip and heat pool low in my belly.
The barn was his territory. His space. Going out there felt like crossing a line I wasn’t sure I should cross. It felt dangerous. Reckless.
But it was the middle of the afternoon and Cade or some of the other hands would be around. It wasn’t like we’d be alone.
And I had a legitimate work question.
I was overthinking this.
I left the office and grabbed my coat before I could change my mind. Outside, I pulled my coat tight around me and made my way across the yard to the barn, my heart beating faster with every step. The door was open and I stepped inside.
Then stopped.
Dalton was in the middle of the barn, working on a tractor. His back was to me, and he wore only a dark t-shirt that clung to his broad shoulders and the muscles of his back. The fabric stretched tight every time he moved, and I could see the flex and play of strength underneath.
I tried not to think about what he looked like under it.
