Читать книгу Rich, Rugged Rancher - Joss Wood - Страница 10

Two

Fee slid into a booth in Royal’s diner and nodded her appreciation. Every time she walked through the doors, she had the same thought: that this was what a diner should look like: 1950s-style decor, red fake-leather booths, black-and-white checkerboard linoleum floor and the suggestion that gossip flowed through here like a river.

She rather liked Royal, Texas. It was, obviously, everything New York City wasn’t—a slow-paced small town with space to breathe.

From being yanked from town to town with her parents, Fee had honed the ability to immediately discern whether a town would, temporarily, suit her or not. She’d hated Honolulu—weird, right?—and loved Pensacola, tolerated Tacoma and loved Charleston. But something about Royal called to her; she felt at ease here.

She would never belong anywhere—Manhattan was where she’d chosen to work and socialize but it still wasn’t home, she didn’t think any place would be—but Royal was intriguing.

Strange that this small town with its wide, clean streets and eclectic mix of people and shops was where she felt more relaxed than she had in a long, long time.

Fee grinned. If she kept on this mental train, soon she would be thinking she could live on a ranch and raise cows. She snorted and looked down at her manicured fingers and soft hands. This from a girl who believed meat came from the supermarket and eggs from cardboard cartons?

Now, crotchety Clint Rockwell looked like he was born to ride the range. The man was one sexy cowboy. Pity he had the personality of a rabid raccoon. Fee put her hand on the box lying on the table and grinned.

Twenty thousand to fix a heap of rust? Ok, that wasn’t fair, it was vintage truck and probably rare but the repair, from her research, wouldn’t cost that much! She knew she was being hustled; she wasn’t the village idiot.

Well, she might be a reality TV star but she was a pragmatic reality TV star and she didn’t hand out money like it was M&M’s.

If he hadn’t been such a snot she might’ve tossed in a few extra grand to compensate him for the inconvenience but the guy had taken jerk to a whole new level…

He needed to be brought down a peg or six.

Fee heard the door to the diner swing open and watched as Lulu threaded her way through the tables to fall into the seat opposite her. Like her, Lulu had also dressed down in jeans. In her case, they were topped with a simple white, thigh-length jersey, a brightly colored scarf in a complicated knot around her neck. Lu slapped a paper folder on the table between them and frowned at the board game Fee had purchased from the toy shop down the road. It was a game to teach kids about money and, importantly, the notes inside looked remarkably real.

“I’m sure we can find something to do in Royal that doesn’t include board games,” Lulu stated.

Fee grinned. “I’m not playing with you. I’m going to play with someone else.”

“You’re going to pay him in toy money?” Lulu caught on instantly. That was one of the many reasons they were best friends. “Oh, clever.”

Fee put her hands together as if to pray and bowed her head. “Thank you. Did the Secret Lives researcher dig up any information on Clint Rockwell?” she demanded, pulling the folder to her. “I mean, I don’t think he’s one of Royal’s leading lights—not with a personality like his—but maybe he made the papers because he did something stupid. I can see him busting up a bar or racking up speeding tickets, maybe breaking and entering…”

“You have a hell of an imagination,” Lulu commented, thanking the waitress when she offered coffee.

Fee was certain that Clint Rockwell was not the boy next door, not someone who was part of the Chamber of Commerce or a member of the illustrious Texas Cattleman’s Club.

He was an outsider, a loner, someone who didn’t do group events. Someone mysterious, possibly dangerous…

Fee flipped open the folder and looked down to see a photograph of Rockwell looking very un-farmy. In this photograph, his short dark-blond hair was covered by a tan beret immediately identifying him as an army ranger. He wore a dark blue dress uniform with about a million medals on his chest, including a Purple Heart.

Well, she’d gotten one thing right—as part of that elite regiment, he was definitely dangerous.

Fee was about to move the photograph to the side when she heard the waitress sigh. Fee looked up to find the young girl’s eyes firmly on the photograph. Fee couldn’t blame her for taking a moment. Rockwell, looking like Captain America in his dress blues, was definitely sigh worthy.

“It’s so sad.”

Fee exchanged a look with Lulu and frowned. “What’s so sad?” Lulu asked the waitress, whose name tag stated she was Julie.

Julie gestured to the photograph with her coffee carafe. “Clint Rockwell. Poor guy.”

Ooh, gossip. Fee leaned back, her full attention on the waitress. “Why? What happened to him?”

“He’s a Rockwell, so obviously there’s no shortage of cash. Like his daddy, his granddaddy and his granddaddy before him, Clint is an oilman and a rancher. But he leases his oil fields and occupies himself with his ranch. And with coordinating Royal’s volunteer fire department.”

Fee’s head spun with all the information. She held up a hand. “He’s a fireman too?”

“Apparently, he did some firefighting course in California before he enlisted.” Julie pulled her eyebrows together, looking a little confused. “Where was I? Right, his daddy died when he was young, really young, and he and his mama don’t talk.”

Yeah, that was sad. Her parents might have hauled her from pillar to post and back to pillar but they were now settled in Florida and she saw them occasionally. In fact, she was heading there shortly to spend Christmas with them. They weren’t super close but she knew she was loved, in an abstract kind of way.

“The Rockwells are a Royal institution, a founding family and really rich.”

“How rich?” Fee asked, as direct as always.

“Mega,” Julie replied.

And he was stiffing her for twenty grand? The bastard!

“What else can you tell me about him?” Fee asked, her temper bubbling.

“He lost his leg in a helicopter crash. That’s how he earned his Purple Heart. His leg was mangled. His whole unit was seriously injured. Apparently, the helicopter crashed in an enemy-controlled area and he, and another guy, held off the bad guys until reinforcements arrived. Half of his unit survived, but Clint lost his leg.”

Fee frowned at Julie, not understanding. “He lost his leg?” She’d noticed he walked with a slight limp but never suspected he wore a prosthetic.

Julie nodded. “Yeah. That’s why he left the army.” Julie shrugged. “Ever since he got back, he’s become a bit of a recluse and doesn’t have much to do with Royal residents, except for the volunteer firefighters. And he never, ever talks about his tours, his regiment or his injury. Like, ever.”

Someone called Julie and she sent them an apologetic smile. “Sorry, got to go.”

Fee transferred her gaze to Lulu, who looked equally disbelieving. “He’s disabled?”

“He looked plenty abled,” Fee replied. “I would never have thought…”

“Holy crap.” Lulu rested her hand on her heart. “Hot, brave and sexy—I think I might be a little in love with him.”

Fee felt a surge of jealousy and did an internal eye roll. What was wrong with her? Flipping the folder closed—why had they sent the researcher to the local library when the source of good information could be pumped for details over coffee?—Fee stared out of the window and watched the activity on the street outside.

Did this information change anything? She was as much a sucker for a wounded war hero as the next person and she had a million questions. Why was he a loner? How had he managed to master his prosthetic leg to be able to ride as he did? Why was he holding her up for twenty grand if he was loaded? But mostly, she just needed to figure out whether this changed her plans.

If he hadn’t lost his leg, she wouldn’t have hesitated to confront him and toss the fake money in his face. But should this revelation really hold her back? Her thinking she should go easy on him because he’d lost a leg was insulting in the extreme. He’d already proven he could more than handle her, and lost leg or not, the guy needed to learn some manners.

“You’re still going to confront him,” Lulu stated, sounding resigned.

“Damn straight I am.”

“He’s pretty intimidating, Fee,” Lulu said, concern in her voice. “I’m not sure whether you should go out to his ranch alone.”

Fee instinctively shook her head. “He’s not going to hurt me, Lu. Oh, his tongue might raise some blisters, but he’d never raise a hand to me.”

“How do you know?”

Fee lifted both shoulders and ran her hand through her hair. “I have a strong gut feeling about him. He’s not dangerous…sad, confused, bitter, sure. But he won’t hurt me.”

Lulu sighed. “And you see his lack of manners and his rudeness as a challenge.”

“Sure. Someone needs to set him straight. I’m sorry he lost a leg but it doesn’t give him the right to act like an ass.”

Lulu pinned her to her seat with hard eyes. “Oh, I know you, Seraphina Martinez—and I know what this is really about. Yes, bad manners and rudeness annoy you, but you also see him as a challenge. You want to know if you can be the one who can break through to him, make him more sociable.”

Fee avoided eye contact, waiting for Lulu to drop the topic. But her friend wasn’t done.

“I don’t think he’s going to like being one of your projects, Fee,” Lulu told her, worry coating every word. “He’s not going to bend under the force of your personality and if he wanted friends, he would make his own. You don’t need to rescue every stray who comes across your path, Seraphina.”

Lulu’s use of her full name was a solid clue to her seriousness. Fee wrinkled her nose. “Do I really do that?”

“You know you do! You have the strongest rescue gene of anyone I know! He’s a veteran, you have a soft spot for soldiers because you grew up on an army base. Add hero and wounded to the mix and you want to wrap him up in a blanket and coddle him.”

“I’d rather unwrap him and do him,” Fee admitted. She pulled a face and forced the words out. “I’m crazy attracted to him, Lu.”

“Any woman, and more than a few guys, would be,” Lulu replied. “And that’s okay. Although you’re not big on one-night stands or brief flings, if you want to sleep with him, do. But when he puts his clothes back on, don’t try to fix him, Fee. Respect his right to be alone, to choose how he interacts with the world. From the sound of it, he’s gone through hell and back. If he wants to be left alone, he’s earned the right.” Lulu gripped her hand and continued. “Fixing him might make you feel better but it’s not about you, it’s about him.”

Lu’s words smacked her in the chest. She stared down at the folder, her breath a little ragged. She did like the feeling of accomplishment she got when she managed to solve someone else’s problems. Sometimes it felt like she was filling in pieces of herself. But Lu was right, this wasn’t a makeover, or a blind date, or a rescued horse. This was a man of pride, honor and discipline who’d served his country with distinction. He’d trained hard, sacrificed much, seen and experienced situations no one should have to see and she had no right to make judgments about his life. Or to presume she knew what was best for him.

Fee pulled in a deep breath and met Lulu’s eyes. “Okay.”

“Okay…what?”

“Okay, I won’t try to fix him, to rescue him from his lonely life,” Fee clarified. “But I am going to confront him about his rudeness and his lack of manners. You can be a hermit without being an ass.”

Lulu slapped her hand against her forehead and groaned. “And are you still going to pay him off with toy money?”

Fee nodded. “Damn right I am.”

“And are you going to sleep with him?”

She couldn’t lie, she was very tempted. Fee lifted one shoulder and both her hands. “He’s tempting, so tempting, and I shouldn’t…”

“But?”

Fee didn’t want to be attracted to him, and as God and Lulu knew, she wasn’t in the habit of falling into bed with guys on a whim—or at all—but she didn’t think she could resist the sexy, sad, rude cowboy. “But if he asks me, I just might.”

Clint hated surprise visitors—he never wanted to be caught without his prosthetic or using crutches—so he’d installed cameras all over the ranch and had them wirelessly connected so they sent an alert to his phone whenever he had company. He grabbed his cell from the back pocket of his jeans, pulled up the screen connecting him to his camera feed and saw another convertible—red, this time—flying up his driveway.

Yep, she was back.

Clint, walking a mare that had colic, whistled and when Darren’s head popped out from a stall, he jerked his head. “Can you carry on walking Belle for me?”

Darren’s eyes widened with concern. “LT, I have no experience with horses and this one is, so I hear, one of your best.”

Clint smiled at the familiar nickname for lieutenant. “It’s just walking, Darren, and we’re civilians now—you can call me Clint. If you run into trouble with her or you think something is wrong, just yell for Brad. He’ll hear you and take over.”

Brad, his foreman, didn’t always agree with his policy of hiring out-of-work veterans instead of experienced hands but Clint insisted that learning to muck out stalls and fix fences didn’t require experience. The ranch needed people who wanted to work and there were so many vets needing to find a way to support themselves and their families.

And, as he knew, open skies, fresh air and animals were a great way to deal with the memories of war.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Darren nodded, took the reins and led the horse to the entrance of the stable. Clint broke into a jog, heading for his dirt bike parked just outside. Gunning the accelerator, he headed back to his house, cutting around the back of the stables to arrive at the main house at the same time she did.

They both cut their engines at the same time and Clint rested his forearms on the handlebars of his bike, watching her from behind his dark glasses and the brim of his Stetson. The sun was starting to dip and he could probably ditch both but they provided a shield he badly needed…

He couldn’t let her know how attracted he was to her, how he wanted nothing more than to take her inside and get her naked and horizontal.

Actually, he just needed her naked because vertical worked too.

Clint watched as she shoved an expensive pair of designer shades into her hair, the arms raking her loose curls off her face. She wore less makeup today than she had yesterday. Her lips were a pale pink instead of bright red and her outfit consisted of a cranberry-colored jersey that worked well with her creamy skin and those brilliant dark eyes.

God, she was hot. He couldn’t invite her into the house: first, because his crutches were leaning against the wall in the hallway—he’d put on his leg while sitting on the bench in the hallway early this morning—and second because he wasn’t sure he could resist her.

Fee opened the door of the rental and climbed out, shapely legs in tight blue jeans tucked into low-heeled, knee-high boots. The jersey clung to her breasts and curves of her hips and Clint felt all the moisture leave his mouth.

He’d stormed houses filled with terrorists in Afghanistan, had faced down a Somalian warlord and protected his guys while they waited for an evac after the crash but he’d never experienced such a dry mouth.

But this woman, with her black-brown hair and expressive eyes, managed to achieve what a dozen treacherous situations hadn’t…

And that scared the crap out of him, which added another layer to his grouch.

“Have you got my money?” he demanded, staying where he was.

“Hello, Fee, how are you? Did you find the place okay?” Fee singsonged, calling attention yet again to his lack of manners.

Tough. He didn’t have the time and energy to play nice; he just wanted her to be gone before he made a stupid suggestion like, “Let’s go to bed.”

Because that was a disaster waiting to happen. He’d have to explain he was missing a limb and then, if she didn’t rabbit, he’d have to wait and see if she could deal with his stump and scars.

Such fun…

Nope, it was a game he was better off not playing.

“You’re wasting my time, Martinez,” Clint warned, dismounting the bike and pocketing the keys. He waited for her at the bottom of the stairs leading up to his wraparound porch and the front door. He wouldn’t invite her inside but they could, at least, get out of the sun.

Instead of following him, Fee placed her hands on her hips and tipped her head back to look at the house he still thought of as his Grandpa’s—the place where he’d visited the family patriarch every summer from the time of his dad’s death when Clint was five until he turned eighteen and enlisted.

At the time he hadn’t cared where the army sent him, as long as it kept him away from his mother’s hounding to study law or something equally boring. He couldn’t have known that shortly after he enlisted, his beloved grandpa would die, and Clint would become the fifth Rockwell to own the land.

Grandpa Rockwell always said that he didn’t want the land to be a burden, to be a noose around his neck. He’d been the biggest supporter of his military career so Clint hadn’t felt the need to rush home when he died, comfortable to place the ranch in Brad’s capable hands until his return.

He’d always preferred the ranching side of his inheritance so he’d leased his oil fields. Years later, he was still happy for someone else to deal with that side of the business.

“I like your house,” Fee said, and he frowned at the note of surprise in her voice. “It’s big, obviously, like everything else in Texas, but it’s not ostentatious. I don’t do ostentatious.”

“Says the girl driving another fast, expensive convertible,” he drawled.

Fee looked back at the car and her husky laughter surprised him. “Touché. But I’m a real gearhead and I don’t get to drive as often as I’d like to.”

“I’m sure all the residents of New York City are eternally grateful for that fact, because you have a lead foot,” Clint said. “And how did you charm the rental company into trusting you with another fast car after your crash yesterday?”

“I apologized sincerely and asked them nicely,” Fee retorted, her eyes flashing with irritation.

“You didn’t apologize to me,” Clint pointed out.

“I tried to! But then you started barking orders and tossing me into hay bales!”

Clint lifted his index finger. “One. One hay bale.”

Fee rolled her eyes. “Whatever… Anyway, you should try this thing called charm or, this is a radical idea so beware, a smile. Oh, your face might crack but I think you’ll survive the experience.”

Clint felt the corner of his mouth twitch with amusement. He loved her sassy mouth and now rather liked the fact that he didn’t intimidate her. He walked up onto the porch and gestured to a cluster of outdoor furniture to the left of the door.

“Take a seat.”

Fee’s winged eyebrows shot up. “Ooh, manners. There’s hope for you yet.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Clint replied, putting his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. He watched as she sat on the arm of one wicker chair, casually draping one gorgeous leg over the other and tucking her foot behind her calf. Such a female, sexy movement, full of grace and charm.

Clint waited her out, knowing silence was usually a good way to hurry the conversation along by forcing the other person to talk. But Fee confounded him again by ignoring his scowl and silence, seemingly content to watch the mares frolicking in the paddock closest to the house.

Why couldn’t this woman do what he expected her to?

Clint rocked on his heels, his eyes constantly dropping to her lips, wondering whether she tasted as spicy as she sounded. He eventually broke their silence. “Why are you here, Seraphina?”

Fee flashed a smile and leaned down to tuck her hand into her very large leather bag—big enough to carry a change of clothes, a bag of groceries and a saddle or two—and pulled out a couple of rolls of cash. He saw a fifty-dollar bill under the rubber band of one and a hundred-dollar bill around the other. He sucked in his breath.

He’d been annoyed yesterday and tossed out twenty thousand as a figure, hoping to annoy her. But, judging by the cash she’d brought along, she’d taken him seriously.

He couldn’t take her money, not now and not ever.

Clint was about to tell her to put it away when he noticed the rolls seemed irregular, that not all the edges of the bills lined up. If he hadn’t been so distracted by her, he would’ve immediately noticed that something was wrong with the roll, that her sweet, innocent expression was as fake as hell.

Oh, hell no, she wouldn’t dare…

He held out his hand and instead of handing the first one over, she threw it at his chest. He caught the first one, then the second and tucked it under his arm, snapping the rubber band off the first.

Yep, as he thought. A real note covering fake money. Toy money…

Clint felt a bubble of laughter rise within him, tried to swallow it and failed. When his husky-from-lack-of-use chuckle filled the space between them, he was as surprised as Fee.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed…

He heard Fee’s smothered laugh, a cross between a hiccup and a giggle. And because he wanted to taste his laughter on her lips, because he wanted to taste her, Clint moved quickly and, after placing his hands on either side of the arm of the chair, bent down and kissed her.

And immediately wished he hadn’t.

Because, as their lips touched, as her mouth opened and her fingers came up to touch the scruff on his jaw, he knew he’d never be satisfied with just one kiss…

He wanted more. Much, much more.

He was a grouch and a grump, curmudgeonly and contrary, but hellfire, the man could kiss. Fee found herself surging to her feet, her arms looping around his neck, her breasts pushing into his chest. She felt his big hand on the top of her butt, pulling her into a very thick, concrete-hard erection, and she whimpered in delight.

He was so big, everywhere. Fee found herself on her tiptoes, straining to align their mouths, knowing they’d both have cricks in their necks at the end of this make-out session. Clint solved the problem by placing his hands on her hips and boosting her up against his body, holding her weight with ease. What else was a girl to do but wind her legs around his trim waist, hook them behind his back and slide her most sensitive spot over his impressive bulge?

Fee heard Clint’s moan of appreciation and then his hand encircled the top of her leg, his fingers on the inside of her thigh, and Fee wished he had his hands on her naked flesh, that she could feel his clever mouth sucking her nipples, maybe even going lower.

His mouth, as she was coming to learn, was a weapon of mass temptation. Fee knew that if he asked, she’d eagerly follow him into his house and down the hallway to his bedroom, or whether he decided to stop. She would take whatever he’d give her, grateful to be the recipient of the profound pleasure he managed to pull to the surface.

They didn’t need to talk, their bodies were better at communicating than they were. Fee felt Clint take a step and she felt the hard coolness of wood through her jeans, dimly realizing he’d planted her on the wide sill of a window.

He lifted his hands to hold her face, his thumbs caressing her cheekbones as he feathered kisses across her eyelids, down her temple. Fee closed her eyes, enjoying the moment of tenderness. Then Clint covered her right breast with his hand, and her nipple tightened, rising against the fabric of her sweater to press into his palm. Clint jerked his head back, looked at her with stormy eyes and muttered a quiet obscenity.

“Why aren’t you pushing me away?” he hoarsely demanded.

“Why would I, since you kiss like a dream?” Fee responded, her voice just this side of breathy. Hearing his sharp intake of air, Fee decided to rock his boat a little more. “You are abrupt and annoying but, God, you know how to touch me.”

Clint ran his knuckles up her ribcage and across her nipple. “Like this?” His fingers burrowed under her sweater and landed on her bare skin.

“Exactly like that,” Fee murmured. Then Clint pulled down the lacy cup of her bra and pulled her nipple with his fingers. Fee couldn’t help crying out.

Fee put her hand behind his head and shook her head. “No, don’t stop! Do it again.”

Clint’s repeated the action and Fee arched her back, dropped her leg and banged her heel against the back of his lower thigh, just above his knee. Instead of bone and sinew, the heel of her boot bounced off metal hidden behind the fabric of his jeans.

Clint reacted like he’d been scorched. Leaping backward, he put a healthy amount of distance between them. He stared down at the floor as Fee tried to make sense of why he stopped.

The answer came to her on a quiet whisper: she’d kicked his prosthetic leg.

Well, okay then. No big deal…

“Come back here and kiss me, Rockwell,” Fee suggested, wanting, no, needing his mouth on hers. She wasn’t done with him, not yet.

Clint had frozen, his big arms folded across his chest, his face a blank mask. She didn’t like the lack of emotion in his eyes, in his expression. She could handle pissed off and irritated, turned on and taciturn, but she didn’t like this cyborg standing in front of her, acting like she was a fly he was getting ready to swat.

“I think it’s time you went home,” Clint said, in the blandest of bland tones. “You can take your gag money with you and start arrangements to pay me the twenty thousand we agreed upon.”

They were back to this, really? “That number is just something you pulled out of your ass to piss me off, we both know it’s stupidly excessive. As for leaving…”

Fee jumped down from the windowsill and walked up to Clint until her breasts brushed against his arms. She saw the flare of heat in his eyes and knew he was nowhere near as unaffected as he was pretending to be.

Good to know.

“I don’t like mixed signals, Rockwell. You can’t devour me one minute and ask me to leave the next.”

“On my spread, I can do anything I damn well like,” Clint muttered.

Fee cocked her head at his statement. “Now you’re just sounding petulant. It’s not a good look on you, Rockwell.”

Clint rubbed his hand over his face. “Will you just go? Please?”

“No, not until we talk about why you jumped away from me like you were hit by a bolt of lightning.”

Annoyance and frustration jumped into Clint’s eyes and Fee didn’t mind. She could deal with those emotions. She far preferred anger to his impassivity. “Let’s break it down, shall we?” she continued.

“Let’s not.”

Fee ignored him. “You touched my boob and I banged the back of my heel against your prosthetic leg. Now, because I know that couldn’t hurt you, there has to be another reason why you’re overreacting.”

Clint handed her a hard stare, his eyes reflecting confusion and more than a little fear. At what? What was the real problem here?

“You know I have a prosthetic leg.”

Yes, she did. It was the least important thing she’d discovered about him. “I also know you are a billionaire, you were some sort of super soldier and now you are a semi-recluse, much to the dismay of the Royal residents, who’ve placed you somewhere between God and Friday-night football.”

Finally, a hint of amusement touched his lips. “That’s a huge exaggeration since I have little to do with them.”

“Trust me, ten minutes dealing with your sarcasm and general orneriness would have them reevaluating your wonderfulness,” Fee said, her tone tart. She slapped her hands on her hips. “But we’re getting distracted from the point of this conversation.”

Clint looked past her at something beyond her shoulder. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

Damn straight. “No.”

“I lost my left leg above my knee. When you kicked it, I realized I should stop this, now.”

“Why?”

“To save both of us the embarrassment of you running out of here squealing when you see me, and it, fully exposed. It’s not a pretty sight.” Clint’s smile was hard and his eyes glittered with pain-laced fury. “I don’t need your sympathy or your pity. I just need sex.”

Fee felt anger boil inside of her. She was angry at the people who had so obviously hurt him by making him feel less than, and angry at him for projecting those people’s feelings onto her. Yes, she was a reality TV star but she wasn’t shallow, dammit.

To make her point, Fee gathered a handful of Clint’s T-shirt in her fist. She knew with a quick twist he could be free of her grasp, he did have a hundred pounds of muscle on her, but she was trying to make a point here.

“You just keep pissing me off, Rockwell. It’s quite a talent,” Fee murmured.

“Just get to the point, Seraphina. I’ve got work to do.”

Fee pulled him over to the steps and pushed him down two of them so they were eye to eye, face to face. “That’s better. Now, listen up because I’m only going to say this once…”

“Man, you’re bossy.”

“If I were a man, you’d call my behavior assertiveness,” Fee quipped back.

“If you were a man, I would’ve had you in a headlock by now.”

Fair point, Fee thought.

“And I certainly wouldn’t have kissed you and we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Clint continued.

Fee waved his words away. “I’m not going to get into an argument about semantics with you, Rockwell. Not right now anyway.” Fee was surprised that Clint—a taciturn, will-only-use-one-word-when-three-are-needed man—was even arguing with her.

Fee placed her hands on either side of his face and rested her thumbs against his mouth. “Be. Quiet.”

“Nothing makes me angrier than when someone who doesn’t know me compares me to someone else,” Fee told him, keeping her voice low but intense. “I’m lots of things—I have a hundred faults—but I am, one hundred percent, my own person. That means I make up my own mind and I get very pissed when people assume they know what’s inside my head.”