Page 44 of Wild Highway (Runaway 2)

“That’s right.” She nodded. “I assume you’ve been here since I left.”

“Besides the occasional vacation, this is it for me.” I’d work here, live here and, God willing, die here too.

“Ever get married?” I asked, for no other reason than I wanted to know.

Maybe most women would take offense to the blunt question, but not Gemma. She faced me and leaned a hip against the counter. “No. You?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Not presently.” I took a sip of my beer, drinking in the liquid and her gorgeous hazel eyes. “I don’t have time for a girlfriend.”

“Because you’re so busy with work.”

“Yeah. As the assistant manager,” I muttered.

She threw her head back and laughed, the musical sound stirring something in my chest. Making the urge to stand even stronger.

Gemma set her wine aside to snap some pasta in half and put them in a pot of boiling water. Then she crossed the room, floating with an easy grace, to curl up in the chair beside the couch. “What’s happening with the ranch these days?”

“Same old. We’re always wishing for rain and good cattle prices. The resort has grown these past few years—Kat gets a lot of credit for that—which adds a level of complexity. More staff, more guests, more problems. But we’re getting into a good groove. Mostly, my headaches come from men with the last name Greer.”

“Jake and JR.”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t something I’d confided to anyone but Cash in so many words. But talking with Gemma, despite how she frustrated and baited me, was surprisingly easy. She listened. She wouldn’t play mediator like my family members and try to fix the problem.

Sometimes, all I really wanted was a person who listened.

“They don’t want to let go,” I said. “And I wish I could say I didn’t understand, but when a place is your whole life, when you’ve given it everything year after year, I get it. It’s just . . .”

“It’s your turn.”

“I want to build upon their legacy. I want to take the ranch and the resort a step further and be able to give that to the next generation. It’s hard when they don’t want to let go. When no one bothers to ask your opinion and when you make a decision, it’s under a microscope.”

“Makes sense. When I sold my company, the new owners asked me if I’d stay on for a year and act as interim CEO. But I knew I’d hate it. I wasn’t going to answer to someone else’s rules when I’d been making them for so long.”

“So what would you do if you were me?”

She ran a finger around the rim of her glass. “I don’t think you want my answer.”

No, I was pretty sure I did. “Tell me.”

“If this was my home, if this was my family, I’d thank my lucky stars that I had a grandfather and a father who were still trying to give what they have to offer because they’d rather die than see me fail.”

“Well, fuck.”

Gemma laughed. “I told you that you didn’t want my answer.”

“No, you’re right.” I sighed. “You’re completely right and I hate it.” Because I wasn’t going to fail. And if I did, they’d be there to pick me up.

“I can empathize where you’re coming from,” she said. “And in your shoes, I’d feel the same. But you’re talking to someone whose mother thought the next generation was there to service her boyfriends when they’d grown bored with her.”

The beer bottle nearly slipped from my fingers. “What?”

“I don’t know why I said that.” Gemma flew out of the chair and returned to the kitchen.

She left me speechless while she ran.