Читать книгу Cowgirl Makes Three / Her Secret Rival - Myrna Mackenzie, Abby Gaines - Страница 8

IVY SEACREST STRUGGLED to keep her chin high and her backbone straight. She forced herself to stare directly at Melanie Pressman. “Are you sure you don’t have any openings at the diner? I’m not afraid of hard work.”

Melanie’s smile was small and condescending. “Afraid not. I’d like to do something for an old…friend, but I just don’t have a thing.”

Right. Ivy and Melanie had never been friends. They’d never been anything, even when Ivy had been living here in Tallula, Montana, ten years ago.

Given the situation, Ivy knew the smart thing to do was hold on to the few shreds of pride she still retained after these past few days of begging for a job and just walk away. Melanie wasn’t going to help her any more than anyone else had. But her situation was desperate enough that Ivy had to try one more time. Looking around to see what menial position she could volunteer for, she opened her mouth.

The bell over the door jingled as Melanie’s portly husband, Bob, entered the diner. He smiled. “Hey, Ivy. I heard you were back in town. You staying for a while?”

Ivy nodded even though she wasn’t planning on staying any longer than she had to. She turned back to face Melanie, but even the small smile was missing from the woman’s face now. Ivy could practically feel the cold blowing off the woman. It had been that way with almost every married woman in town. As if they thought she had come here expressly to lead their husbands down the path of sin.

“I could clean,” she told Melanie, knowing that even that was futile now. Melanie had the look of a woman out to protect her territory.

“I told you no,” Melanie said. “I don’t have any jobs open at all. Nobody here in town does.”

Which came as no surprise. This had been Ivy’s last chance, and she wouldn’t even have tried it, knowing how slim her odds were, if she hadn’t needed the money so badly.

She turned to leave.

“Nobody in town, I guess,” Bob said, “but I heard that Noah Ballenger was looking to hire a ranch hand.”

Even though Ivy’s back was turned, she heard Melanie’s hiss behind her. “Ivy’s a fashion model. Don’t you know that? She doesn’t hang out with ranchers and people like us anymore. She doesn’t do ranch chores. Things have changed.”

They certainly had, Ivy thought as she stalked toward the door. Her world had come tumbling down. She’d lost everything that mattered. The pain and the memories threatened to make her stumble, but somehow she stayed on her feet.

“I’ll try that. Thank you, Bob,” she managed to say.

“Stupid man. Noah’s not going to hire her, and he’s not going to thank you, Bob,” Melanie said as Ivy left the diner.

Ivy knew that both of those statements were probably true.

Too bad I can’t afford to care, she thought as she headed down the road that led to Noah Ballenger’s ranch.