“I said I was sorry.”
“Weren’t you the one who said sorry doesn’t cut it?” he charged back, and then he stalked off toward the barn.
She followed him, but found it hard to keep up with his long stride.
“I suppose I deserve that,” she said, following him into the barn and down the center aisle. “Please stop so I can apologize.”
“Why? So you can accuse me of something else, get me fired from my job, and have me hauled down to the police station for no reason? No, thank you. I’ve had my fill of that for this lifetime.”
She stopped walking, and then leaned against one of the stall gates. The horse inside the stall poked its head out from above the gate and started sniffing her so she pulled away and chuckled at its playfulness.
Turning back to Brody, she saw that he wasn’t amused. “I said I was sorry. I came out here to apologize. What more do you want me to say?”
“I’d say you could tell my boss that this whole thing was a huge misunderstanding and that you were out of your mind on some wild mushrooms or something like that.”
She frowned and stood up straight. “I will not.”
“You won’t tell Trip that you made a big mistake in accusing me of something I didn’t do?”
“You know damn well I meant the part about the mushrooms. I don’t take drugs and I never have.”
“That’s good to know,” Brody said quietly. He paced down the aisle a few paces and then stopped and turned to her. “Look, let’s just agree to stay away from each other if we can. I am not looking to make things difficult for you.”
“Neither am I.”
He rolled his eyes. “Next time, please try harder.”
She huffed. “Anyway, I already called Trip and explained what happened. I told him the truth.”
His eyes narrowed in anger again. “You did what?”
“I told him there was no proof that you were anywhere near my shop and the fingerprints didn’t match. Trip said that you’d been here the whole time.”
Brody shook his head and glared at her. “Can you imagine if this had gotten out of hand and I had to call Trip to come down and bail me out of jail for something I didn’t do?”
“But you didn’t have to be bailed out. Caleb told me they didn’t even press charges. They just questioned you.”
“And compared my fingerprints to the prints they found in the shop.”
“So? That’s their job.”
“I’m lucky they didn’t bring me down to the station in handcuffs. I’m the ranch manager here. What kind of example would I be to this crew if I had the law on my back all the time and they saw me in handcuffs? Have you ever felt handcuffs around your wrists?”
“I don’t have an answer that question.”
He laughed. “It’s a simple yes or no question. But if you have to plead the fifth then don’t bother answering at all.”
She scowled at him. “I came here to apologize, and now I’ve done that. Have a nice day and have a nice life.”
Tara turned to walk away and heard him chuckle. Irritation worked its way right up her spine until she couldn’t take it. She snapped around and saw him staring at her.
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re laughing,” she said.
“You’re mistaking laughter for appreciation.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Are you ogling over me?”
“You’re feisty. That’s where the appreciation comes in. You can take that any way you want.”
He started to go back to his task, and she should’ve left but she found herself having difficulty pulling away from what felt like some sort of a challenge.
“For your information, I’ve had to be…what was it that you said? Feisty? What I have here in Sweet was built brick by brick. When my brother died, I was left with a whole lot of debt and a whole lot of responsibility to take care of my family. It took a long time for them to get over losing my brother. In the end, the only way to move on was to leave this area completely. Sweet Sensations helped them do that because I was able to provide a little extra for them to move. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished.”
He frowned. “You should be. Did you think I was making fun of what you do, and what you’ve accomplished?”
“Weren’t you?”
He shook his head. “I understand brick by brick. I’ve been there. This job, this ranch, is my first brick after all the others I’ve laid have been torn down for one reason or another. If you don’t mind, I want to keep stacking bricks that won’t fall on top of me. One at a time.”
Tara’s shoulders sagged. She hated Brody and what he’d done to her family. But for some reason it didn’t feel as intense as it had been these last ten years. And maybe that was because she done him wrong and she hated that nearly as much. She hated being wrong about something that then turned around and affected someone else.
“Fine.”
She turned around and started walking away. Her insides were shaking. It amazed her that her hands weren’t trembling and her voice hadn’t shook with anger the way she thought that it might. She was the one who’d done wrong this time. He was owed the apology because she wouldn’t sentence him for something that she knew he didn’t do.
She walked back to her car, biting her lip and kicking at the dirt as she went. Something was nagging at her, and she knew what was.
There were years after Doug died the people looked at her strange. They looked at her in a way she didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand. She didn’t know those people. That they had already formed an opinion of her and she didn’t know why.
She opened her car door and climbed inside listening to the ding from the dashboard because she’d left her keys in the ignition. Then she
