She took the pie to her mouth, and clumsier than planned, took a bite. Heavenly pieces of crusty crumbs fell from her lips, and she slipped her tongue out to salvage the couple of crumbs at the corner of her mouth. “Already on my to-do list. So now will you get off my back about the house?”
He stared at her mouth as she took another bite. “If you turn this house into a circus, I don’t want to be the one picking up the pieces when you leave.” His eyes searched for hers, barely moving his lips to speak.
She swallowed the last chunk of pie, pushing food past the resentment clogging her throat. “What is it going to take for you to believe in me, Jack?” she asked, hating herself for wishing he could believe her potential. Why did it matter?
“Suppose this plan of yours works and you open your B&B. Is that what you want, to be tied up to a remote tourist destination for the rest of yourlife?”
“I’m taking one step at a time. I’m not planning the rest of my life yet…” She wiped her mouth on the napkin and rolled it into a paper ball with her hand. The way he sucked his breath warned her he didn’t care for her answer. But what could she do, lie?
“And who’s going to run it foryou?”
She clasped her hand around the now damp ball of paper. “I will. I’ll take it off the ground and make it successful. And I’ll buy your share one day and make Red Oak allmine.”
Big arms folded, he squinted. No need to be a rocket scientist to know he challenged her every syllable. “Thenwhat?”
Jamming the paper in her pocket, she shook her head. A tightening claimed her chest, her stomach, her throat. What if he was right? What if her enthusiasm didn’t make up for her lack of hands-on experience? Old doubts mingling with past failures resurfaced. Still, she soldiered on. This time she would make her idea work. “To own a successful business you don’t have to sign your life away and reside in it, Jack. People who own gyms and movie theaters don’t sleep inside the buildings,” she said, her voice surprisingly assertive. Fake it until you makeit.
“Yes but you’ll need to be involved.”
“I plan to. I’ll always be involved.”
A strangled chuckle left his mouth. “Even when you leave?”
Was he still talking about the B&B? “I’ll be involved even if one day I have enough profit to hire a talented manager.”
“It’s nice to know you have it all planned out.” He opened his hands wide, mocking her. “Am I going to live with your talented manager?”
No, because by then she would have bought the other half of the ranch. Why did this place mean so much to Jack? Daddy had even shown her an article on her estranged husband once in a magazine. Jack’s other properties were decorated in far better taste, and he could live in any of them. Yet, he chose to make this hishome.
He kept staring at her. His nostrils flared, his eyes gleaming with anger.
She inhaled hard and strong to prevent her tired shoulders from sagging. “You’re successful Jack. Don’t you wish it for me?” she asked genuinely, willing the weight on her back tolift.
He gave a long, frustrated sigh. “I wish for you to learn how to commit to things.”
Commit. How many times had he used that word in their four month marriage, always asking for more than she was willing to give? Always. A bolt of bitterness shook her emotional exhaustion away and a thread of energy surged through her. “Well, lucky me I’m learning from the best. Especially how you committed to the Goody Two-Shoes Vet while you’re legally committed to me. Or how you screwed me on the stairs when she clearly has feelings for you. You’re just a wholesome wealth of good values and morals, aren’tyou?”
