4. Angie

Chapter 4

Angie

I was buried in a cowpie up to my neck, and the only way I could get out of it was to lie my ass off. But then that kept me securely in the manure. Countless people lied when they dated online, yet I’d never actively participated in catfishing.

That was what I was: a filthy, bottom-dwelling catfish. When I’d told Lili, Gabby, and Ryan on shift at the hospital, they’d busted a gut and instructed me to lighten up. It was easy for my friends to get entertainment out of this situation when they weren’t the ones performing fabrication acrobatics.

My tractor hit a rock, and my head bounced into the ceiling.

“Ouch!” I yelled over Garth Brook’s voice coming from the speakers.

Smoot knew his stuff. Apparently, he and his buddies were BASE-jumping fools. He also paraglided, rock climbed, rock-crawled, sky-dived, kite-boarded—whatever the hell that was—and zip-lined in the rainforest. He’d even rappelled down Lincoln’s face at Mount Rushmore during his stint as a park ranger.

Currently working as a skydive instructor, he lived and breathed extreme sports. He also owned a cabin in Pine. Smart. Motivated. Successful. More than ready to settle down. These were all things I’d been searching for in a prospective partner, so I couldn’t let one teensy thing, like my fear of anything remotely dangerous involving heights, ruin our potential future.

Far out of my comfort zone, I couldn’t keep pretending much longer, either. I didn’t know the lingo, the necessary gear, and, most importantly, I didn’t have the experiences to back up my lie. Normally, I’d ghost him. But what if he was the one , and I let him go because I was a coward?

Old Angie would back away. New Angie did research and talked about barrel racing and rounding up the cows as much as possible. He found that fascinating, but already he was asking to FaceTime. Could I be this fabricated woman without the aid of Google?

Remi, the guy from the airport, popped into my mind. The helmet strapped to his backpack and his carefree attitude said it all. He lived for extreme sports … and women. I still couldn’t stop memories of his tight body, and the way he’d helped my parents, from sneaking into my thoughts.

Why would I waste time thinking about him? His true colors shined as bright as a neon sign. All those texts from different women? I stuck out my tongue and made a puking sound. Men like him who toyed with women, who used them solely to satiate their needs, were the scum of the Earth.

It was like two different men resided within him. The kind man who helped the elderly, and the devilish douchebag sitting in the car next to me. The caring man had to be fake as a plastic plant.

Shoving Remington James the Third out of my thoughts, I neared the end of the row and slowed the tractor. The bouncing tires jolted my seat. In one sweeping motion, I U-turned, dragging the plow in the opposite direction. A giant cloud of dust billowed behind me like I was vacuuming the field.

The water was going to be turned on in a couple of weeks. My favorite day of the year was when the canals filled. With it, the valley shook off the dust of winter and sparked back to life.

Yet before the floodgates opened, the plowing, fertilizing, and planting in all our fields needed to be finished. I’d be working the farm every minute I wasn’t at the hospital. Then watering would begin, and I’d disappear into fricking early mornings, working until long after the sun dipped below the horizon.

How was I going to do this without Papa? And keep up with my nursing job?

At first, I’d gone into nursing to help Papa when he was first diagnosed with cancer four years ago. But when the time came to pick my specialty, I couldn’t work on the cancer floor. Day in and day out, watching patients live through what I was going through at home. No. Emotionally and mentally, I’d break.

So, I’d picked babies—fresh, new lives full of endless possibilities. Of course, I also knew a hell of a lot about cancer, especially the colon kind. Colostomy bags and chemo—weight loss—pain—we’d been through it all, and now it was back.

I lifted my chin and stretched my back as I slowed the tractor for another turn. We’d beaten it once, and we would beat it again. I didn’t care what those doctors in Salt Lake said.

With the tractor facing our house once again, I saw our pick-up truck bouncing toward me through the field.

Papa? Had something happened?

I slammed the tractor to a stop, pulled the parking brake, and threw myself out of it. I hit the ground running. The truck slowed next to me, but Mama wasn’t the one driving it.

Remington? The perfect ten from the airport? My previous thoughts came together into the apparition in our farm truck … only he was real.

The womanizer had returned.

I skidded to a stop in the soft, plowed dirt and put a hand to my chest. My heartbeat knocked against it.

He opened the door.

“What in the hell are you doing out here?” My shock at seeing him came out abruptly in my question. I sucked in air through my nose and slowly let it out through my mouth. Thinking before speaking had never been one of my strengths.

“Well, I—uh—heard you were lookin’ at hiring some help—”

“No.” The word flew out of my mouth before it’d been fully formed in my mind.

“Your mom offered me a job. She told me to come out here and have you show me where to get started.”

Mr. GQ himself, Mr. I-can-get-any-woman-I-want, was coming to work on my farm.

Turd in a bucket! How much was Mama paying him? I’d fought her about hiring help. We couldn’t afford hiring a high school kid, let alone a full-grown man with brand new clothes and enough money to fly here to go BASE jumping. I tilted my head at him, looking for a tag on his crisp Wranglers, bright-white shirt, and brown Carhart jacket zipped to his mid-chest.

When I finished with him, his shirt wouldn’t be white. And was that a Stetson on his head? Hats like his cost well over a thousand dollars. What the hell was a man who could drop that kind of money on a hat doing here, in my field, asking to buck hay and feed slop to the pigs?

For once, I didn’t speak.

He slapped his hands together. “Where do I begin?”

“You ever worked on a farm before?” I asked.

“Sure. I’m from Texas.”

Like being from Texas qualified you for farm labor. “You can drive a tractor?”

“Yes sirree.”

“Buck hay? Feed chickens?”

“Yep.”

“You know how to milk cows?” I asked, even though we didn’t own a dairy. We ran beef cows on our land; milking day and night wasn’t something I’d choose to do with the rest of my life.

“Uh-huh. But I may need a refresher course on that one.” He held his pointer finger in the air.

I kicked my boots lightly in the dirt. If we were playing Bullshit, I’d write a big BS on his forehead. “Okay. Get in that tractor and drive it to the end of the field.” If he could get it in gear with the implement running, I’d strip off my shirt and jump in the ditch.

“That tractor. Right now. The big one.” He took a few steps toward my John Deere.

“I don’t see any other tractors.” I held my hands out, palms up, and swept them in all directions.

He laughed. “No. I guess not.”

He approached my Deere slower than my Grandma Anne and placed his foot on the step, giving me a pleasant view of his butt in those tight jeans. Dang. I bet I could break a board on it.

I closed my eyes and refocused. He climbed into the driver’s seat and looked around at all the levers. We’d bought this tractor before the cancer, back when we had good harvests and plenty of money to invest in the farm. It was fully equipped and as confusing as hell to someone who didn’t know anything about farming, like stepping into the cockpit of a plane.

He pulled on the door. It didn’t budge. “The door won’t close. It’s stuck.”

“You have to pull on the lever under the—”

He moved his hands over the glass. “What?”

“Here let me!” I yelled over the running engine and marched over to him. “This lever. Right here.”

“Oh, yeah.” He smiled and went to close the door but paused. “Look!” he shouted. “When I said I could drive a tractor, I meant more like a lawn tractor.”

And there we had it. The truth. “Here. Let me shut it off.”

I stepped onto the bottom step and leaned over him. I’d done this hundreds of times with Papa—stretching over him to grab my drink, or car keys. It wasn’t until my chest pressed against Remi’s toned thigh that his scent—clean sheets and cedar—penetrated my senses.

This wasn’t Papa. I turned and looked at him. He met my eyes with a level of heat I wasn’t prepared for. We were within an inch of each other, and despite my best intentions, an awareness of this proximity sent chills zinging through me. I breathed in short intakes of air to keep my chest from touching his.

I turned off the key, pulled back, and climbed to the ground. The increasing wind caused a sprinkling of rain to dot my dusty arms. This path only led to heartache for me. Sure, Remi possessed an unnatural level of attractiveness, but beauty only ran skin deep, and attraction didn’t equate to kindness.

I’d be no better than those poor women texting him, dying for one drop of attention. I’d been in that position before too, and I’d never allow myself to go there again.

“This is a little different than a lawnmower.” I looked up at him. The brim of his hat blocked the bright sun. “Are you really here to work for us?”

“Yes, but I know nothing about farming.”

“Then you’re fired. We don’t offer any severance packages, but I’m sure Mama will give you a jar of pears on your way out.”

“You can’t fire me.”

He challenged my gaze, and I lifted an eyebrow at him. He had no idea what I could and couldn’t do. Mama surely would come to understand my reasons. On the other hand, I would be passing up an opportunity to make his life a living hell.

I smiled. “Fine. You can stay, but only on probationary status. Why didn’t you tell me the truth earlier?”

“Technically I’ve fed my dogs. And I have no idea what bucking hay is, but I’ve gone on a hayride, so I figured it was close enough.” He quirked his mouth in a sideways grin, maneuvered down from the tractor, and closed the door.

He was masterful at twisting the truth to suit his needs, a skill he probably acquired while tricking women into falling into his bed. I narrowed my eyes. “Mama hired … you ?”

“I think I convinced her to take me on with my winning personality.”

“I think it had more to do with your good looks.”

He tucked his bottom lip under his teeth, his eyes dancing. He glanced at the ground before he looked back at me. “You think I’m good-looking, huh?”

“Yes.” Think before talking would be my new mantra. “But your pretty face isn’t going to get the pigs fed.”

He laughed.

“Come on.” I motioned for him to follow me to the truck. “Mama will have lunch ready. I’ll give you a rundown of the daily chores. You can start tomorrow morning.”

“Will you teach me to drive that?” He pointed back at my Deere.

“Baby steps. Tractor lessons only start after you prove you’re worth my time.” That and I couldn’t be locked in the cab with him without jumping him.