Off to the Races (Gold Rush Ranch, #1)

by Elsie Silver

And that anger? It makes the people around me uncomfortable, and if I’ve learned anything in my twenty-eight years on this earth, it’s that most humans will do almost anything to salvage their own comfort. They’ll grasp at it with white knuckles, sweaty palms, and hold on to it with absolute frantic desperation. Destroy relationships with family members, endure shitty marriages, stab friends in the back—you name it. Comfort is king.

Pity parties are for chumps.

“Okay, first of all, I am downright fascinated by your blow-up doll preference. Can we table that for now but revisit it someday?” A sneer touches his lips. Ha. Didn’t like that one. “Second, I’m a grown-ass woman, don’t call me a girl. And third, when you’re finished having this epic man-child meltdown,” I wave my hand up and down his body like he did to me, “can you please let Hank know that Billie Black is here for her job interview?”

“Billie, Billie, Billie. What did you do to that poor boy?”

Surprisingly, being a shitty, misguided person isn’t enough to make a little girl stop loving her dad. But it is enough to make me lose respect for him. And that is a heart-wrenching combination… loving someone you can’t respect.

“You’re young,” I say. “I have energy,” she counters. “You’re inexperienced.” “And I’m hungry to prove myself.” She grins.

“How do you feel about an extra ten percent on my base salary for my, what did you call it… sweet ass?”

“Well,” I say, gazing ahead, “why don’t you introduce me to the new man in my life?” He turns towards me slowly with a grave look on his face. “He’s going to be a lot of work, Billie.” “Of course, he is, Hank. Men always are.”

One owner to deal with, more horses to spend my time with. The prick to horse ratio is favorable.

I know I fly off the handle too easily. I often feel like the ballerina in a music box. Every irritable thought twisting inside of me like another crank of the key. I know I do it to myself. And, in the end, I’m the one left twirling around like an idiot, with no way to turn that obnoxious twinkling music off.

I’ve always had this theory that there are two types of men. The ones who look edible in a suit, and the ones who look edible in their birthday suit. Suit guys are a little more slender than I like. Naked guys, a little too bulky to pull off that GQ suit look. I’m not saying I’d kick either out of bed if they knew what they were doing, it’s just an observation. Like Goldilocks, my ideal man is somewhere down the middle. And Vaughn Harding is right down the middle.

I marvel at what good listeners horses are. I can lay it all out, my deepest darkest secrets, and they never judge me or think less of me.

This seems to be my new normal. Work. Stress. Poor sleep. A vicious cycle.

The gist of it was that I’d been such an ass that I’d driven a woman I hardly know to drink wine straight from the bottle and hash her day out with a horse in the dark. That’s a new low, even for me.

Obviously, my ovaries don’t know what my brain does. Men like Vaughn are bad news. Knock, knock, ovaries! It’s brain here. Let me in.

“Where did you learn your manners?” “Private school. Where rich kids get away with behaving badly.” I turn to get our steaks going on the barbecue. “And here I could have sworn wolves raised you,” he says to my back. To be fair, he’s not far off.

Vaughn rises and with one large side-step moves between my legs. When he almost instantly wraps his steely arms around my waist, I can’t hold back the sigh that escapes my lips. He feels so warm and solid pressed up against me—soft and vulnerable. I snake both my arms around his neck and we melt into each other. I’ve never hugged a person who needed to be held so badly. It should feel strange, hugging your boss like this, but wrapping myself around Vaughn Harding in the middle of my kitchen feels like the most natural thing in the world.

“You can feel disappointed, and angry, and sad, and whatever the fuck else you want to feel. You can feel whatever you want. There is no right order or right way. You’re entitled to it all. Because at the end of the day, he’s not here to explain things to you, so it all just comes down to how much you can forgive. How much you can accept. And there’s not a single other person in the world who can tell you what that threshold is.” I look up at him now. “But you need to keep searching for it, no matter how much it hurts, because otherwise it will eat you alive.”

“Okay, you can drop the private school vocabulary now. No one is here to impress. Your name alone is already a big enough testament to how expensive you are.” “Excuse me?” “Vaughn Harding,” she announces, pronouncing it with an English accent and rolling one hand through the air folding into a bow.

This ‘I’ll rub your dick if you rub mine’ mentality pisses me off. It’s the garbage I left behind for a reason.

He thinks he’s subtle, but I’ve spent the last decade of my life studying body language and using it to my advantage with horses. People are no different. Same shit, different pile.

Zoning out at the bar, musing to myself, I feel the room go quiet. I turn back to the door to see Billie, wild-eyed and muddy. Covered in raindrops, her bronze braid looks darker than usual. Loose pieces of hair plaster against her forehead, and her eyes look like burning coals. Wearing a black pantsuit, she looks downright scary.

Billie stalks up behind the small man, and my brain is obviously a little slow on the uptake, because I am downright floored when she winds up one arm like she’s the batter up at a baseball game, racing whip in hand, and gives him one sharp spank smack dab in the middle of his tiny ass.

I thought I’d seen Billie mad before, but now I feel like all I’ve seen from her mood is good-humored child’s play.

“And as for me? My family has no bearing on my professional life. I’m no mother hen. I’m a fucking mother bear. And you poked me. So, when you see me around, I want you to turn and run the other way like the snively, little bitch that you are.”

“Give your head a shake. Before me,” she pokes her chest with her pointer finger, “he was an expensive lawn ornament. Not a Denman Derby contender. He is a living, sentient being—not a pawn. And you put him in the hands of an asshole who has your asset so scared he can’t stop trembling in his stall.” She tosses the whip down at his feet, causing Cole to rear back ever so slightly. Which is a bigger reaction than I’ve seen out of him in years.

“Man. You’re like the clap. I can’t fucking get rid of you,” is her muffled response.

And thank you? A fucking thank you? After we both just completely incinerated each other? With chemistry like that? I don’t think so, Billie.

Did I seriously just suck on the finger of the man who signs my paychecks?

price. That fucker was lucky I only hit him once. I was ready to turn him into a spit roast on that whip.

“I’m going to kill that arrogant little fuck,” Violet spits out. Hank and I both turn to look at her with jaws unhinged and flapping in the breeze. “Vi… did you just swear? Are you sure you’re old enough to talk that way?” I ask, trying to infuse some humor into the moment. “That’s rich coming from you, B,” she barks back. “You swear like a sailor daily.” “She behaves like one too,” Hank adds with a chuckle.

“Patty may or may not be nursing a big old whip welt across his ass,” I explain with a cringe.

Passive aggressiveness is a tactic reserved for hormonal teenagers and simple-minded adults.”

“Remember that time you made fun of me for having a rich person name?” I try to hold back my laughter, but my shoulders bob, and my eyes water under the strain. “Wilhelmina fucking Farrington,” I blurt out, before dissolving into uncontrolled laughter.

“How long you been staring at me, Boss Man?” she mutters. “Since day one,” I whisper in her ear. “Take the sappy shit somewhere else, Vaughn.” I snort. “There she is.”

“I don’t want to talk. We’re not friends.” His words are like a paper cut. They sting, but don’t produce any blood. “What I want is you, straddling me, and I don’t let friends do that.”

I bite at my lips nervously. “I’m going to regret this tomorrow.” “No, Billie.” His hands stroke me. “I’m going to eat that perfect pink pussy and then put you back to bed. And tomorrow? Tomorrow all you’re going to think about is how good you felt with my tongue inside of you.”

Cringe. Cringe. Cringe.

Then he cuddled me. And I wasn’t sure what to do. So, I just laid there and took it like a champ.

Close a high-stakes business deal? No problem. Fire someone? I’m your man. Talk to a girl you like and respect? I guess I’ll just crumble instead.

Trust her? I more than trust her. Looking at her now, she’s strong and resolved, saying what she wants and fighting for it. Not some giggling heiress amenable to everything I say or do. She’s her own person. So thoroughly. So unapologetically.

I would give this woman anything she wants, which is hilarious, because she might be the one woman I’ve ever met who wants absolutely nothing from me.

That special look she has that’s reserved for all things horses. I want her to look at me like that. I want to bottle that up and drink it. Save it for the days when I’m feeling gloomy and generally unlovable.

“Let me redefine that line you keep talking about: you are more than my employee and I am more than your boss. I’m done giving you space that we both don’t want. It’s not at all complicated. You’ll work with me during the day and underneath me at night. Every night. There will be no tiptoeing. There will be no running. There will be no one else.”

Vaughn Harding is not the square he appears to be.

“Eyes open, Billie,” he rumbles as he squeezes my chin and tips it down. “I want you to watch me fuck you.”

“Planning on telling me what’s up now that he’s gone?” She quirks an eyebrow at me and nods her head up towards the barn. “I don’t know. You planning on telling me what’s going on with you two?” I lift my mug towards her to acknowledge her point. “Good talk. You ready to take that little psycho for a light breeze? See how he feels?”

Impostor syndrome is a raggedy ass bitch

“Don’t you dare interrupt me. I have some choice words to share with you as well, but I can only handle one spoiled asshole at a time, so you just wait your fucking turn.”

Real, living beings are going to suffer for this. And that’s all an acceptable sacrifice to polish up a dead man’s reputation?”