‘Can I get you anything to eat?’
‘No, thanks,’ Bailey says, making it clear she wants to get this over with as quickly as possible.
‘Come on now, darlin’,’ I tsk, enjoying riling her up more than I should. ‘How ’bout some fries, at least?’
She glares at me, and I have to bite back a laugh.
‘We’ll have some fries,’ I say, turning my attention to the waiter. ‘And some wings. Anything else?’ I glance back at her on purpose. She forces a smile—to the waiter—then looks at me blankly.
She’s mad as heck. Because I don’t want to tell her my life story without getting something in return? Why would that be so hard for her? When I first came up with the idea, I didn’t even think it would be a big deal. But something about this exchange has gotten way under Bailey’s skin, and damn it if I don’t want to dig around and find out why.
Which is actually not such a problem, given that she just agreed to the same terms that bind me.
‘Right.’ I relax back in my chair, arms stretched on the rests, eyes fixed to hers. ‘Tell me about yourself.’
She rolls her eyes before she can stop herself, just like she did at the airport. As if to undo the unprofessionalism of that, she crosses one leg over the other, drawing my gaze down to her slender legs. She’s wearing your average corporate clothes—suit pants, blouse, heels. She looks good, but this isn’t her. Not really.She’s more the Cali girl I picked up at the airport, all sweet and natural in flowing linen and cotton.
‘That’s not how we do it.’
I arch a brow.
‘Vague questions don’t get you anywhere. You need to focus a person. Like this: what made you decide to put your ranch on social media?’
The question—when I’d been asking about her—hits me out of left field, and reminds me how much I don’t want to do this. My family’s my own, it has nothing to do with my riding life. And yet the whole damn ranch is online—nothing’s really private anymore.
I shift my weight in the chair.
‘We have a deal, don’t we?’
I compress my lips, reach forward, take a sip of beer. ‘Money,’ I say, after a small pause. ‘My sister-in-law, Beth—well, she wasn’t my sister-in-law when this happened. She was working for the place, doing the books. She knew we were in trouble. After my dad died, it was all in a bit of a mess—’ I cut myself off, realising I’ve already said too much. Way more than I intended. ‘Scratch that,’ I say. ‘Running a ranch is a complicated and expensive thing. You hit a rough patch, and it can be hard to find your feet again.’
‘And you hit a rough patch after your dad died?’ she asks, and the anger has dissipated, to be replaced by genuine, open curiosity.
I don’t directly answer the question. ‘Beth came up with the idea to build a social media following, to try to get some sponsorship dollars.’
‘And now you have millions of followers.’
‘The ranch has millions of followers.’
‘No doubt in huge part thanks to you.’
‘It’s Mack too—our intern. Beth and Cass—my sister—loaded a video of her singing. It went crazy. Like out of this world crazy. All of a sudden, the videos were being shared, remixed. It just kinda kept building after that.’
‘But when you went back to riding, a lot of people who wanted to follow you followed the ranch. You’re not on social media yourself.’
I square my shoulders, irritated for some reason that she’s done this much research on me, even when I get that it’s her job. ‘I have a private account,’ I say. ‘Under a different name. But no. I generally like to keep a little boundary between this world and that.’
Her lips purse thoughtfully. ‘So you really do hate the idea of this feature, huh?’
I glance toward the window—the sky is turning from dusk to night, the colours beautiful, but nothing compared to what it’s like back home. There, it’s like a whole palette of paint’s been spilled—it’s almost too luminous to be real.
‘It is what it is.’
‘Why’d you agree to it?’
‘Didn’t feel like I had much choice.’
‘You and I both know that’s not true. You’re not the kind of guy who does anything he doesn’t want to.’
