They Kicked Her Off the Ranch for Helping a Cowboy… Unaware He’s a Millionaire—Then, He Bought Ranch

Chapter 2

“You heard all of that,” she said. It came out as a fact, not a question, because there was no room left in the barn for pretense. The man gave the smallest nod, his eyes never leaving her face.

“Every word, miss.” He sounded exhausted, but there was a steadiness in him like the deep water of a river under ice. “From the first door to the last.”

Her cheeks burned. She had been weighed in front of this man, found wanting by the men who fed her and defended by no one but herself, and he had watched all of it from behind his closed lids. She didn’t know why that should matter. But it did. She busied her hands with the splint, cinching the boards against his forearm, and he clenched his jaw until the tendons stood out in his neck and did not make a sound.

“You know,” she said, working the cloth tight, “you could have said something. Told them who you are. What you’re about.” It was a foolish thing to say, and she knew it. Dead men had no introductions.