Billionaire In Hiding: The Complete Series (Alpha Billionaire Romance Western Love Story) by Claire Adams Page B

the situation. They were rarely honest and hardly
ever actually interested in a relationship that lasted longer than a night.
    New York had to have been one of the worst place in the
world for dating. Although, the middle of nowhere Montana probably wasn’t the
best place either. I was pretty sure Garrett was the only man even remotely
worth me flirting with, and when he decided to leave I’d be left with no one.
    Leaving was what the ranch hands did. I knew not to have
feelings for them or to expect much more than a little flirting. But it was fun
to imagine a little fun with a guy like Garrett around.
    “You
seem to have picked up the art of cutting vegetables very quickly.”
    “Maybe
I just had a really good teacher?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Perhaps
you’d like to help me with my French kissing skills later?” Garrett asked as he
moved toward me.
    “Hold
it, bucko; I don’t think you need help with those skills.”
    “How
do you know?” Garrett said as he inched closer toward me.
    There
was no doubt in my mind that Garrett didn’t need help with French kissing or
any other skills that involved his mouth. He had the confidence level of a man
who spent plenty of time with the ladies. Plus, Garrett was just too damn
handsome to need help with any of the stuff like that. Even if he was a
horrible person, which he wasn’t, he would have gotten plenty of girls.
    “Stop
playing with me; I don’t think you need help French kissing,” I said as my face
turned bright red.
    “Perhaps
you’d like to teach me how to saddle up a horse sometime? I’d love to learn
that.”
    I
was much more comfortable with the request to help with horses, but it did seem
odd to me that the man had come to work on a ranch but didn’t know how to work
with horses. It was one of those things that almost all the men who came to the
ranch knew how to do. Why else would they be looking for work on a ranch unless
it was something they were familiar with?
    “So
why exactly did you come to a ranch to work if you’ve never been around horses
before?”
    Garrett
looked away from me and walked back over to his vegetable work area. He smiled
but then looked back down at his vegetables and started to cut them again. I
hit a nerve with him, I was sure of it. It was a tell-tell sign that he wasn’t
interested in telling me why he really had arrived at our ranch. But I was open
to hearing the version of his story that he wanted to tell me too.
    “Oh,
you know. A man’s got to work.”
    I
waited to see if there was anything else he was going to add to his story.
Maybe why he was traveling from Wyoming to Washington? Or how he had even found
our ranch in the first place. I wanted something, any sort of real explanation,
but it was clear that he wasn’t going to give it to me.
    Over
the years, I had heard some pretty crazy stories for why people ended up at our
ranch. Some were traveling away from their past, others just trying to waste
some time. I tried not to judge people when they ended up at our ranch. Ranch
hands were needed, that was a fact. It didn’t really matter how they arrived on
our doorstep; we needed them and they needed work. But I did prefer to know the
truth of what was going on with them. The truth was something I valued very
much in the people I associated with.
    “Yep,
that’s true,” I said. “Let’s finish up and get you out of here so you can eat
and get started on all that work you need to do,” I said as I tried to hide how
annoyed I was with him.
    Why
couldn’t he just talk to me like a normal person and tell me why he was there?
Garrett seemed to love keeping secrets and it was all fun and games at the
moment, but I was going to get really tired of it really quickly.
    “I’m
happy to help serve the guys too if you’d like.”
    “No.”
    “Why
not?”
    “Don’t
let the guys see you back here with me,” I said as it got close to breakfast
time. “Go wash up and come in for breakfast with the rest of them. I