Her eyes flicked to mine, wide for half a second before she caught herself. I watched every twitch of her face. Every blink. If she was lying, I’d know.
“Zane Michael McKade,” Mom snapped. “That’s not your business.”
“What?” I said with a shrug. “I’m just trying to get to know thestrangerin our house.”
“Have some compassion,” she shot back, voice sharper than the knife on my plate. “She’s a guest.”
I bit back what I wanted to say. Instead, I just pushed the damn food around on my plate and kept quiet as my mother kept going—like we were supposed to pretend that wasn’t at all awkward.
“Norah mentioned you’re looking for a place to stay,” she said to Andi.
I didn’t even have to look at her to feel the shift in her body language. I could practically hear her spine stiffen. She hated that this was happening in front of me.
“I am,” she said quietly.
“Well, you’re welcome to the spare room until you find something more permanent,” Mom said. “You can help out around the ranch while you’re here for rent.”
I stopped chewing. So did she.
My fork hit the plate with a hard clatter. I stared at my mom, not even bothering to hide my disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”
“My house, my rules,” she said without blinking.
That was the last straw. I shoved my chair back harder than necessary and it tipped over, hitting the floor behind me.
My mother’s voice followed me as I stormed across the room. “Now where are you going?”
I grabbed my hat off the wall. “I’m not hungry,” I muttered and stepped outside, letting the screen door slam behind me.
I needed air. Space. Anything but the way Andi looked at me—like she didn’t understand why I hated all of this.
Truth was, I couldn’t explain it either. At least, not in a way that made any damn sense. The only thing I knew for sure though was that I had this gut-deep ache I didn’t understand, and something told me it wasn’t going away anytime soon.
Just like her.
Chapter Thirteen
Andi
“I’m so sorry about that,”Lindy said, breaking the awkward silence caused by Zane’s abrupt departure. “He’s not usually that rude.”
Norah made a face. “Not out loud, anyway.”
Luke huffed a quiet laugh and reached for the butter. “Ignore him. That brooding shit is a choice, not a lifestyle. He’ll get over himself, eventually.”
I shook my head as I pushed my food around on my plate. “It’s fine. I’ve dealt with worse than moody cowboys.”
That brought a chuckle out of Norah, but Lindy’s eyes lingered on me like she was trying to read between the lines. I quickly dropped my gaze back to my plate, pushed my food around again, and cleared my throat before continuing, “Mrs. McKade, you mentioned?—”
“Lindy,” she said sweetly. “Just Lindy.”
“Okay…Lindy.” I smiled politely. “You mentioned helping out around the ranch… I’m all for earning my keep, but to be honest I’m not even sure what you guys do here.”
She nodded at that and sipped her coffee. “We breed and train quarter horses. Most of the horses out there right noware in various stages of training, but you wouldn’t have to do anything with the horses directly…unless you wanted to.”
A short, surprised laugh fell past my lips. “That might be a little out of my scope of work. Is there anything else I can do?”
Luke caught my eye. “Well, if you’re askin’—ow!” He shot daggers at Norah as his hand fell over his chest where she’d backhanded him. “What the hell was that for?”
