Chapter Two
Another job interview,another bust. Ella Slade sipped her margarita and watched the bartender draw beers from behind the bar of the Neon Moon in Austin, Texas. Some locals had told her it was good, and since it was too late to drive back to Amarillo by the time her interview was over, she’d decided to stay the night. She checked into a hotel and ordered an Uber so she wouldn’t have to navigate Austin traffic. Plus she could have more than one margarita if she wanted. She wouldn’t but it was nice to know she could.
She hadn’t ordered any food yet, preferring to let the margarita work its magic. Except that it wasn’t doing much. She’d been looking for a job as a ranch manager for three weeks and so far she’d been zero for four. A couple of them weren’t manager jobs as advertised. Instead they wanted an assistant, and a not very well-paid one at that. She’d been there and done that. So no and no.
One refused her on the grounds that she was too young, regardless of her impressive-if-she-did-say-so-herself résumé. She was twenty-eight, for God’s sake, not sixteen, and had worked in the business since she was fifteen years old. This most recent one she’d turned down because the man who interviewed her had given her the creeps. The way he’d looked at her had made her very uneasy, so she checked that one off.
She shouldn’t have quit the Double K before finding another job, but she had, so there was no use crying over it. She had enough money to last her another few weeks, and Midnight and Dawn, her horse and dog, were staying with a friend, so the situation wasn’t desperate yet. And she had another interview in a few days in a small town not too far from Austin.
She finished her drink and ordered another. She’d quit the Double K after she and her longtime boyfriend-then-fiancé had broken up. She couldn’t live her life playing second or third fiddle to the rodeo. Once she and Phil were over she’d known she couldn’t keep working at his family’s ranch. It would just remind her again and again that she’d made a huge mistake in allowing herself to fall for someone she should have known would never put her first. Or hell, even second. She’d had ample evidence of that if she’d only looked.
They’d broken up once before when he’d cheated on her but she’d allowed herself to believe him when he swore he wouldn’t do it again. She took him back and for a while things had been all right. She didn’t think he’d cheated again, though she couldn’t be sure. But the more he was gone and obviously loving his life without her, the worse their relationship had gotten. Finally, she confronted him about what he wanted. Phil said he wanted things to go on just as they were. He was happy. Why wasn’t she?
Because everything revolved around Phil—that’s why. She finally realized nothing would change unless she changed it. So she’d broken up with him. Breaking up had been a huge relief. She should have ended it long before, but better late than never, as the saying went. She was over that now. It had made her older and a little wiser, she hoped.
She was well into her drink when she heard a commotion and saw two men near the door fighting over a purse. Scuffling, more aptly.Wait a minute.She stuck her foot down to feel where she’d left her own purse, and came up empty. She looked, thinking maybe she’d just moved it back, but no, it wasn’t there. Damn it! That was her purse they were fighting over!
Now she watched the fight with more interest, trying to decide if she should put herself in the middle of them or let it play out. If she did get in the middle of them, one or both might slug her, accidentally or not. One of them, a dude wearing a cowboy hat, had his arm in a sling. The other guy wasn’t wearing a hat and had two good hands. You’d think fighting with one arm would put the cowboy at a disadvantage, but eventually he secured the purse and said something to make the other guy scramble away. Then he looked her way, smiled and started walking toward her. She gave a huge sigh of relief.Looks like the right man won. And I didn’t have to risk getting crushed in the middle of that.
“Excuse me, ma’am. I believe this is yours.” The quintessential cowboy stood in front of her, holding her purse by the strap. He had dark, curly hair beneath a battered Stetson and sinfully blue eyes. He was tall and lean, wearing a dark button-down shirt that stretched just tight enough over a wide chest to hint at serious muscles, old, faded blue jeans and well-worn cowboy boots. And a sling.
“My hero,” she said, taking it. “Thanks. I just noticed it was missing.” She strapped it across her body this time rather than risk losing it again.
He flashed her a wicked grin. “You seemed lost in thought.”
“I was. Please, sit down and let me buy you a drink. It’s the least I can do.”
“I’ll take the seat but I’ll buy the drinks.” He signaled to the bartender as he took the seat beside her. “What are you drinking?”
“Margarita. But I’ve already had one.”
“Are you driving?”
“No.”
“Well, then.”
“What the hell. It’s not every day a handsome cowboy comes to my rescue and stops me from being robbed.”
“A draft for me and another round for the lady,” he told the bartender. Turning back to her he asked, “How did you know I was a cowboy?”
“Lucky guess. The hat and boots help, though they’re not one hundred percent. But you look like a cowboy. Are you?”
“Yes, ma’am, I am.”
She frowned and looked down at her drink. “That’s too bad. I’m down on cowboys right now.”
“You just haven’t met the right one.”
“And that would be you?” she asked, amused.
“I don’t like to brag,” he said modestly. “But remember, I did save your purse. One-handed too. Surely that counts for something.”
“You have a point. But I’m still down on cowboys.”
He patted his heart. “I’m wounded.”
She laughed. “I sincerely doubt that. Speaking of being one-handed, what did you do to your arm?”
