If he had been outfitting it knowing that it would be for Marlowe, he might have done it all differently. Might have actually paid more personal attention to it.
He shook his head. That was some dangerous shit. And he didn’t need to be pondering any of it.
Finally, they got every last box up the stairs.
“Thank you,” Marlowe said, wiping sweat off her brow. “I know that wasn’t necessarily how you wanted to spend the day.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” he said. “Like I said. I really don’t mind.”
Their eyes clashed and held.
“Well. Thank you.”
“No problem.”
“We’re going into town for dinner tonight,” Cara chirped. “Do you want to come?”
His eyes slid back to Marlowe. Did he want to come? No. He didn’t want anything to do with after-hours contact. It was a bad idea.
Even with Cara there as a buffer.
“I’ll have to pass. I’m sure my brother and sister are counting on me for dinner tonight.”
“Do you cook for them every night?” Marlowe asked.
He shook his head. “No. But if we don’t have a plan, then the plan is usually that I’m going to do something for them. Just like old times.”
He hadn’t meant to say that. There was something about Marlowe that brought out the honesty in him. He wasn’t disingenuous, not ever, but he didn’t usually give up information about his past quite so easily. Maybe it was because she was vulnerable, and he had felt like he needed to say something initially about how he wasn’t going to take her husband’s side.Had wanted her to understand why he was going to do right by her when it came to the job. But there were a few things since then that he couldn’t quite justify.
Maybe he shouldn’t waste so much time trying to do it.
Worrying too much about it would be admitting that.
“They’re lucky to have you,” she said.
Rather than prying or asking questions, which he was grateful for, because he just didn’t need to dig into all that now.
“They would probably tell you differently.” Except Walker had just spent the afternoon trying to tell him the same thing. But he didn’t need all that.
He had this place. It was getting him the closest to what he actually needed. Which was to prove everybody wrong. To prove his dad wrong. He had thought that he and his siblings weren’t worth anything. But they were going to take this ranch and make it into more than his dad ever could’ve dreamed of.
Because they were more than he ever could’ve dreamed of.
“I heard that ZB is working on putting in some shelving at the bakery?”
Cara blinked. “Oh. Is that… Zane?”
“The very one.”
“He sent me a text. It was…”
“Terse?”
“Yes,” Cara said. “I was a little bit worried I was being catfished by a psychopath.”
“Not catfish, no. Maybegenuinelycontacted by one. Jury’s still out on Zane.”
“Reassuring.”
