“Both,” I manage to say. “They’re both the real me.”
He examines me carefully, that penetrating gaze leaving nowhere for me to hide.
“Here’s the deal,” he says softly. “I need a live-in nanny. Someone to handle basic meals for Jonah. Breakfast and packing up the lunch he takes to summer camp. Driving him to and from said camp. Spending afternoons with him until I get home. Ideally, getting him up to speed on reading. In the evenings and weekends, I’ll take over, and you’re off-duty.”
“Why a live-in?” I ask, unable to restrain my curiosity. “Sounds like you could get away with a normal nine-to-five.”
“Sometimes we get emergencies in the middle of the night on the ranch. An animal goes into a difficult labor. Lightning strike sets off a brush fire. Wild Rose never sleeps. Not really. I need to be able to get up and go at three o’clock in the morning and know my boy is safe and sound in his bed.”
Despite my newfound dislike of him, at least this side of him is the same as his music implies. The cowboy living life tied to his land. The man who handles his business no matter what sacrifices he has to make.
At least this side of him seems genuine, the side that loves his son and is fiercely protective of him.
I can respect that.
I only wish I knew firsthand what it was like to have someone be fiercely protective of me. All I ever longed for wassomeone dependable in my life. Someone to see everything you're juggling and step in without you having to ask. Someone who makes you feel like you don’t have to carry the load alone.
I've read about men like that my whole life. Occupational hazard of loving books, I guess. You start believing in things that might only exist on the page.
Walker Rhodes is not the hero in those books. But the man sitting across from me right now, talking about getting up at three in the morning for his ranch and making sure his son is safe… he's not the villain, either.
Even if he sure looks like an outlaw.
“Can I trust you with my son?” he asks.
“Yes.” I say it without hesitation, because it’s true.
I don’t try to sell myself on him or babble out my qualifications. He’s no doubt heard them already. And he’s not asking about my resume anyway. He’s asking about my character right now, and that’s the kind of thing a person has to judge for themselves.
He holds my gaze for a long moment, and I don't look away. I have nothing to hide. With me, what you see is what you get. If he’s going to invite me to come live in his home and take care of his son every day, I’m not going to pretend to be anything other than what I am. A small town girl with a smart mouth who had to grow up too fast. If that’s not good enough for him, there’s nothing else to be said.
“Then you’re the one,” he says.
He leans back, and it’s like a spell has been shattered.
“You start on Monday. Eight in the morning. We’ll go over everything at the house.”
He gets to his feet. His cowboy boots are the same battered brown leather ones he was wearing earlier, and they still have dust on them.
He extends a hand to me. After a moment’s hesitation, I take it.
His hand closes around mine. His palm is calloused and twice the size of my own. He pulls me to my feet in one easy motion, like I weigh nothing, and for a half second we're standing close enough that I catch his scent. Clean and warm, like soap and sandalwood.
He must have showered between the lake and now.
The image of him standing beneath the spray of the water flashes through my mind, unbidden. All that tanned skin and hard muscle, water streaming down the planes of his chest, tracing the lines of his stomach, all the way down…
I cut the thought off right there, because I work for this man starting Monday.
“Don’t make me regret this,” he says.
Just like that, any grudging respect or overheated shower fantasies I have evaporate.
“Your son will always be cared for and happy when he’s with me,” I say. “I make no promises whereyou’reconcerned.”
“Wouldn't dream of asking you for promises where I’m concerned, darlin’.” His drawl deepens. “You'd probably break them just to prove a point.”
Walker Rhodes calling you “darlin’” inthatvoice would bring a lot of women to their knees.
