She turned it over, and there, staring back at her, was a younger version of Mr. Pierce, two people she assumed were his parents, and another boy who appeared to be a couple of years younger than Mr. Pierce in this image.
Hazel tilted her head as she studied it. He had a family! Well, of course he had a family, but it was so strangeseeingtheir images. His mother looked kind and gentle. What would she think of the way Mr. Pierce had—
“What are you doing in here?”
Chapter Five
She let out a squeakas if he’d startled her. Wade’s eyes wandered to her hands, which held . . . His stomach went sour as he realized she had that photograph he’d pulled out days earlier in a moment of weakness.
Bright spots of pink colored her cheeks as he took two steps forward, yanked the photo from her hands, and strode around the desk to shove it into a drawer where it belonged. He should never have taken it out.
But Hazel oughtn’t have been going through the items on his desk either.
“This is my office,” he said, pressing his hands to the desktop.
Hazel clasped her hands together and lifted her chin. “I can see that. I thought you might appreciate a tidy desk.”
“I’d appreciate it if you kept yourself out of this room.”
Her lower lip trembled, and she immediately bit down on it. He’d upset her. A curl of guilt unfolded somewhere deep inside him, but he ignored it. He was not after anything more than a partnership of sorts, and the sooner Hazel understood that, the better off they’d be.
“Did you make dinner?” It was an unnecessary question, considering he’d enjoyed the scent of something bubbling on the stove from the moment he’d walked in the front door.
“I did. I thought I’d acquaint myself with the rest of the house while it simmered.”Because you didn’t show me around. She didn’t say that last part aloud, but she didn’t need to. The accusation lingered in the air, and he heard it loud and clear.
Wade ignored it. “There are many other things that need attended to. The chickens need feeding, the cows need to be milked, there’s a vegetable garden to tend, not to mention the state of the house, which you surely noticed on your little tour.”
Hazel’s eyes turned watery. Had he been too harsh? He was simply laying out his expectations, as he would with anyone he brought onto the ranch. And those included not snooping about his office.
“How am I supposed to know all of that?” she said, her eyes still swimming with unshed tears but her hands now clenched into fists at her sides. “In the event you’ve forgotten, I grew up in a city. We had neither a cow nor chickens. And we certainly never had a garden plot. I am adept at negotiating a good price for potatoes at the market and remembering to collect the milk delivery off the stoop, but tending a garden and milking a cow are hardly things I would think of doing, much less know how to.”
Wade stood agape at the agitated fire that tinged Hazel’s every word. As slight and docile as she might look, she had a spirit he hadn’t expected. Something about the way she glared at him with those dark eyes and the way her cheeks had turned red with her anger made him want to reach out and take her in his arms to soothe her.
He swallowed hard at that thought. Where it had come from, he didn’t know. But it would be no use to him, and so it was best he banish it quickly. “Hazel—”
“Don’t call me that.” That spark in her eyes seemed to blaze even brighter.
