“That was business, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t have time for fun, Zac. I have a ranch to run.”
His brows drew together in a frown. “You shouldn’t be running that ranch by yourself. You need some help.”
“I’ve been doing just fine on my own, thank you very much.”
“Damn it, Delaney! I’m not criticizing. I’m just saying you’ve taken on too much for a woman all alone. What are you trying to prove?”
“What am I trying to prove? How about that I actually have a brain in my head, that I can make my own decisions, that I can even run a business successfully.”
“All right.” He nodded. “Why bulls?”
“Why not bulls?” she countered. “When Ty and I first married, I always assumed I’d work behind the scenes in his stock contracting business. Although he’d sold most of the livestock before he left for Vegas, we still had a number of decent cows, so I saw no reason I shouldn’t give breeding a go.”
“It just all seems out of character for a woman like you, unless you’re just trying to spite Ty.”
“It that what he thinks?”
“Pretty much.”
“Ty’s wrong,” she said. “Maybe it started out like that, but that’s not how it is now. I’m not just fooling around here. My first two bull calves, Caesar and Romeo, are entered in the futurity and I have a dozen cows that I’m going to breed to champions. I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I’ve learned a lot too. I’m serious about this business, Zac, and I intend to be taken seriously. If anyone takes issue with that, it’s their problem, not mine.”
He slouched in his chair and pushed back his hat. The action revealed a small white scar just below his hairline. “Sweetheart”—his mouth curved in a subtle smile that made her go warm all over—“if anyone around here takes issue with that, their biggest problem is gonna be me.”
CHAPTER THREE
He’d thrown her off balance. He could see the confusion flickering in her baby blues. Good. He needed every advantage he could get. For weeks since his return to Oklahoma, he’d been trying to come up with some plausible excuse to “happen by” Delaney’s place, only to get cold feet every time. Now here she was. He still couldn’t believe his luck in running into her at the bucking stock sale. Better yet, he actually had something she wanted.
He’d spent double what he’d planned to on that heifer, but would likely have paid many times more for the bargaining chip if it had come down to it. He knew she had little reason to trust him and he was desperate to change that. He’d wanted Delaney from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her at the Houston Livestock Show when he and Ty had crashed a private party in one of the VIP pavilions. She’d been surrounded by people then, all decked out in a skin-tight sequined dress and wearing one of those rhinestone beauty-queen tiaras. When she smiled, she hadn’t just lit up the tent, she’d set the damned thing ablaze. Looking at her now, he was pretty certain she hadn’t had reason to flash that heart-skipping smile in quite a while.
She reached for her wineglass and took a sip, watching him intently over the rim. She set the glass down, looking like she had something more to say but didn’t know how to say it.
So he waited. He’d already waited eight years for another chance with this woman. He wasn’t about to blow it again.
“You’ve decided to appoint yourself my champion? Why, Zac? And what are you really doing here? Last I knew, you had your own place. What made you want to come here and run Ty’s?”
“I had my reasons,” he said. “My place needed a lot of work. By the time I fixed everything that needed fixing, there wouldn’t have been any money left to buy livestock. I need the livestock to make a living and don’t want to get into debt, so I decided to sell out instead and invest what I have in something that’ll make me money. Ty said he was looking to get back into stock contracting, so I asked if he’d take me on as a partner.”
“I guess that makes sense,” she said and went back to playing with her wineglass.
“There’s another reason I wanted to come here,” he said. “A more personal one.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
He’d been looking for a chance to broach the subject all night, and she’d finally given him his opening. “You, Delaney. You’re the other reason I came here.”
Her brows drew together in a questioning look. “Me?”
“Yeah, you,” he said. He swallowed hard and took a breath. “I thought you could use some help with your . . . er . . . breeding.”
“I don’t need any help. I have it all worked out.” She began ticking off on her fingers. “I have a dozen healthy cows and as many straws of frozen semen from some of the rankest bucking bulls the pro tour has ever seen. And now, thanks to you, I have my first bucking bred heifer. What more do I need?” She finished with a bright smile.