My opinion on this had recently changed, but I was now convinced that it was much easier to hate your boss than it was to be attracted to him—especially when he literally looked like he’d just stepped out of every woman’s cowboy fantasy.
For the past week, I’d successfully avoided being alone or having to interact with Weston beyond questions about the project. Luckily, he woke up earlier than me and did whatever it is that cowboys do for the first few hours of the day before stopping by the project site. Usually he’d find some way to be helpful, but other times he would just check in before going back to work.
Even though I was seeing less of him than I had during my first day in Meadowlark, I wasn’t able to avoid him entirely. That was impossible.
And as the weeks went on, it would only get more impossible. At the beginning of a project, Evan took the lead. I basically became a part of his crew during this time—doing demo, framing, and construction—but it was also my crunch time for making sure we had the materials to put on top of the foundation that Evan and the crew were creating once it was ready.
I also had to worry about keeping up with my socials. I posted stories every day, three photo posts and one video post per week during projects. It could get overwhelming, but I didn’t see it as a chore. My job as I knew it existed because of the community that I’d built around my page, and I loved sharing my work with them.
There were people out there who thought I wasn’t a “real” interior designer because I didn’t go to school for it. I wondered what those people would think about me if they knew I did go to school for it—I just didn’t finish.
Like any space, the internet had its share of assholes, but I was grateful that they were minimal on Home Is Where the Hart Is. And my community seemed to like me. I ignored the little voice in my head that told me it was only because they didn’t know me.
A few days ago, I’d posted a photo that had Wes in it. It was unintentional, and he was just in the background, staring up at the house with a smile, but it took less than five minutes for me to start getting comments that said things like “Save a horse” and “That cowboy is hitting different.”
I tried not to be annoyed by it.
And right now, Weston was wearing a white T-shirt that might’ve been slightly too tight and swinging a sledgehammer into the wall between two of the bedrooms.
He was letting out these little grunts that were making me wonder if someone had accidentally jacked up the thermostat.
Being physically attracted to him was…weird. It wasn’t something that happened to me often. I could look at someone and know that they were good-looking, but if any other man I’d been attracted to had been letting out mini porn grunts, I’d probably have wanted to punch him in the face.
Not Weston, though.
“Ada, you good?” Evan said next to me, and I realized I’d been staring at Weston.
“Yeah, sorry. What’s up?” I asked. Evan and I had been working together for a little over a year, but I felt like I’d known him my whole life. He wasn’t really my friend, but he was more than a co-worker.
He also knew more about me than anyone else, but not because I’d told him. Evan’s husband, Carter, worked with my ex-husband, Chance. It’s how we met, so when everything with Chance went down, Evan knew all about it.
We didn’t talk about it, but I knew Evan would be there for me if I needed him, and his being in Wyoming was proof of that. This was my first job outside California, and most of my jobs had been in the San Francisco area. When I told Evan about Wyoming and the project timeline, I didn’t know if he would come, but he did.
And I was grateful.
“Nothing,” Evan said. “I just wanted to make you aware that your staring is about as subtle as a gunshot.” His eyes moved to Weston and then back to me.
I rolled my eyes but was grateful he’d called me out on it. The last thing I needed was for Weston to catch me staring and get the wrong idea about what that meant.
Even though something told me he wasn’t that kind of guy. When I told him that nothing was going to happen and that this was just a job, I expected him to…push—at least a little.
But he didn’t.
He respected my boundary, and even though that was the bare minimum, it was new for me. Something about the way he interacted with me, the crew, everybody, made me think he was a nice guy.
But I’d had bad experiences with a nice guy, and I wasn’t about to go for two. Plus, I had no desire to be in a relationship. My life was finally mine, and I was still trying to figure out what that meant for me.
When I went back to the materials spreadsheet on my laptop—marking off what had been ordered and what hadn’t, checking confirmations and updating my supplier contact logs—I heard a sound that I didn’t normally hear on a construction site in this stage: heels.
I looked up and saw a woman coming through the front door. She was probably taller than me even without the heels, but with them, she was most likely closing in on six feet. She had dark curly hair that fell to her elbows. She was wearing the hell out of her long-sleeved-white-shirt-tucked-into-black-wide-leg-slacks ensemble and carrying a leather messenger bag. It looked like one of those bags that were simple but cost an insane amount of money.
Her eyes, which looked black from here, were scanning the space, looking for someone. When they locked on Wes, my heart dropped.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Did I accidently mack on a man with a girlfriend? A very hot, very powerful-looking girlfriend?
That’s what you get for making out with a stranger in a bar and not asking any questions, Ada. But he’d kissed me back. So this was his fault too.
I fucking knew it. I knew that this man couldn’t be as nice as he seemed.
Wes had stopped hammering and brought his T-shirt up to his face to wipe away some sweat.
Damn.
If I posted that on my page, I’d have a million followers within the week. And now that I was really mad at him, I got angry thinking about how all a man had to do was exist and be semi-attractive for people to flock to him.
He made eye contact with the woman and gave her a wave and a dimpled smile. When she got closer to him, he went in for a hug but she stopped him with a hand in front of her and gestured toward his sweaty form.
Glistening form might have been the more accurate term.
He laughed and then motioned toward the table that I was sitting at. Great. They were coming my way.
“Ada,” Weston called as they approached the table. “I want you to meet someone.” I stood up and thought about how I would tell her that her boyfriend actually sucked. I’d have to do it later—I couldn’t drop that bomb in the middle of a construction site.
“This is Cam, or, uh, Camille,” he said like he wasn’t used to using her full name. Her name fit her. It felt…regal. “She’s the attorney who’s helping with the project.”
“Lawyer, Wes,” Camille corrected. “Lawyers have graduated from law school, and attorneys are lawyers who have passed the bar. I haven’t done that yet.”
“Yes, you have. You just don’t have the results yet,” he said. Huh. What would it be like to have someone be so sure of you and your abilities? She rolled her eyes, but she was clearly fighting a smile. Okay, so he did have that effect on everyone.
“Ada,” I said as I reached out my hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Camille, but everyone around here calls me Cam.” Because everyone around here, including Weston, was familiar to her. As I shook her hand, I noticed the absolutely massive diamond on her left ring finger, and my heart dropped again. Was he…engaged? God, I’d really fucked up. “I’ve never actually been in here before,” she said as she looked around. “I can already tell it’s going to be great.”
“Ada’s vision is incredible,” Weston said immediately, and his eyes landed on me, bright and soft. “She’s talented.”
“Obviously,” Cam replied, and she smiled at me warmly.
“So, uh,” I said, trying to think of a way to ask about Weston and Cam’s relationship. If they were engaged, I felt like she had a right to know about the kiss, but I didn’t really have any friends who were women, or friends in general, so I didn’t know for sure how I should handle this. But surely Weston would’ve mentioned a fiancée in the rundown about his family? “How long have you guys been together?”
Weston’s eyes looked like they were going to bulge out of his head, and Cam guffawed. I didn’t get it.
“We’re not,” Cam said at the same time Weston said, “She’s family.”
Oh god.
Did I just assume that he was engaged to his cousin or something? Goddammit, Ada. You are on a roll.
“Wes’s brother is my daughter’s dad.” Well, that was a mouthful. So she was engaged to his brother? Cam must’ve seen my eyes dart to her ring because she said: “And no, I’m not engaged to his brother either. It’s a whole thing,” she said with a wave of her hand.
“I—I’m so sorry. I saw the ring, and I just assumed…” Foot, meet mouth.
“No, it’s okay,” Cam said with a laugh. “It’s refreshing to meet someone who isn’t aware of my entire romantic history.” She seemed so genuine. I hadn’t met anyone in Weston’s family yet besides his dad, but if all of them were like this, I was going to need to work on the fact that I always assumed the worst.
Weston, who looked like he was still recovering from the fact that I’d assumed he was engaged to Cam, said, “Now that we’ve established the fact that I’m not engaged to my brother’s baby mama”—he looked at Cam—“do you have those papers for me to sign?”
Cam laughed again. “Seriously, Ada. You made my day. It’s fun to feel like a mystery,” she said. “And yes. Just a few occupancy papers that I need to take to City Hall this week.” She set her bag on the table, and I felt bad that it was going to be covered in dust within a millisecond, but she didn’t seem to mind.
She flipped through a few files with her fingertips before pulling out a manila folder. She opened it and went through a few pages, quickly telling Weston where to sign, before she looked at me again.
“So, Ada, how are you liking Meadowlark?” Cam asked. When she smiled at me, it felt genuine.
“It’s nice,” I said truthfully. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t totally smitten by the mountains and the big blue sky. “I haven’t seen much of it, but the ranch is beautiful.”
“I mean, you’ve been to the bar and the coffee shop, so you’ve seen half the town, basically,” Cam said with a wave of her hand. I had no idea how she knew about either of those things, which must’ve been written all over my face. “Small town, remember?”
“The Hallmark movies aren’t lying, are they?” I said, hoping my sarcasm landed the right way.
“No, but we definitely don’t have as many hot inn owners.”
“But you seem to have a monopoly on hot cowboys.” I said it without thinking. It got Weston’s attention, his head snapped up to look at me. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second and I immediately regretted it.
The air hummed, and I did my best to ignore it.
Cam laughed again. “You are definitely in the right place for those.”
“Tell me more about these hot cowboys,” Weston said, leaning on the workbench in an annoyingly cocky and attractive way. “Anyone specific?” He crossed his arms over his broad chest, and even out of the corner of my eye, I could see those godforsaken dimples on full display.
“Your dad,” I quipped without meeting his gaze. I’d already made that mistake today, and I didn’t want a repeat of what happened last time Weston and I had prolonged eye contact. Cam smacked her hand over her mouth and broke into a fit of giggles, but I was saved from Weston’s response by a little human throwing herself into the back of Cam’s legs.
“Mama!” the little one squealed. Cam was still recovering from her laughter but wrangled her kid up into her arms and gave her a squeeze.
“Hi, Sunshine,” Cam said. Cam’s daughter had her hair, but her eyes were green and she had two big dimples that looked familiar to me. She was wearing what looked like a pink soccer uniform.
“Riley,” a gruff voice called from the door, “I literally just told you that you needed a hard hat before we went inside.” I looked up to see who the voice belonged to and what do you know, I was met with yet another cowboy. This one I assumed was Gus.
It was obvious that Weston and Gus were related, but where Wes wore a smile, Gus wore a frown. His hair and eyes were also darker, and he was sporting a neatly trimmed mustache. It took a special kind of man to pull off a mustache, and Gus seemed to be doing it.
“I already have a hard head,” the little human—Riley—called back to him. “You said that when I didn’t want to put my jammies on.”
“Not a hard head, a hard hat,” Gus said with a sigh. He was walking toward us now.
“I don’t know what that is,” Riley said, and Gus shook his head.
“She’s got you there,” Cam remarked. “Wonder where she gets that hard head from.” Her daughter had her arms around Cam’s neck and was looking at me as she nuzzled into her mom’s shoulder.
“Who are you?” Riley asked, looking straight at me.
“I’m Ada. Who are you?”
“Riley Amos Ryder,” she said. Cute.
“Nice to meet you, Riley Amos Ryder,” I said with a smile I couldn’t help.
“Do you have a middle name? What’s your last name?”
“Sorry,” Cam interjected. “This is one of her things right now. She needs to know everyone’s full name.” I nodded at her, letting her know it was okay.
“Ada Althea Hart,” I said, sure that my mother would be thrilled that someone had asked my full name. Althea was my grandmother’s name. The grandmother who gave my mom the money she needed to get to the United States from Greece when she was twenty-two.
Riley nodded in what looked like approval. “That’s pretty,” she said. “I like your drawings.” She pointed at my arm that was covered in a tattoo sleeve.
“Thank you. I like your pink soccer uniform.”
“My dad has drawings too, but you can only see them when we go swimming,” Riley stated. I liked that about kids—they would just tell you things. No secrets, no filter, just vibes. “And Uncle Wes told me that Uncle Brooks has a drawing on his butt, but I’ve never seen it.” See what I mean? “So I don’t know for sure.”
I heard Gus sigh, and Cam started laughing again.
I felt a laugh bubbling up too, and I didn’t know how to react to it. It felt like when you eat a bunch of sour candy and wash it down with a soda and the back of your throat fizzes. It wasn’t a bad feeling, but it was a feeling I didn’t know how to handle.
“Riley,” Gus said.
Riley looked at him. “What?”
“It’s not polite to talk to someone about your uncle’s butt when you’ve known them for less than five minutes.”
“Oh.” Riley looked confused. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Thank you for telling me about all the drawings.”
“On that note,” Cam said, “I need to get this little chatterbox to soccer practice”—she looked at Riley—“and we’ve gotta do something about this thing your dad calls a ponytail.” Wes gathered up the papers he’d signed and placed them back in Cam’s folder and then put the folder back into her messenger bag, since her hands were full.
“I did my best, Cam,” Gus said with a shrug.
Riley groaned in a way that hit a little too close to home coming from someone who couldn’t be older than five or six. “Can I be goalie today, Mom? I hate running.”
“I’ll think about it,” Cam said with an amused smile. Gus took Cam’s bag off the table and gently slung it over her shoulder.
“Kick ass, Sunshine,” he said to Riley. “Love you.” He kissed his daughter’s forehead, and she kissed her palm and pressed it against his cheek.
“Love you.”
“Can you pick her up tomorrow?” Cam asked.
“Yeah, I should be able to,” Gus said. “If something comes up, I’ll send Brooks or Emmy.”
Cam nodded. “Thank you,” she replied. “All right, Riles. Say bye.” Riley waved her little hand, and Wes, Gus, and I all waved back.
“Love you, kid,” Wes said. “Thanks, Cam. For helping out.”
“No problem. I’ll drop these off, and I’ll text you with anything else. And, Ada, it was nice to meet you. Let me know if you ever want to grab coffee or something—we can really get those Meadowlark tongues wagging.”
“Sure thing,” I said, even though the chances of my joining her for coffee were slim. I wanted to—Cam seemed great—but I just didn’t know how to have friends, really. I was afraid that if she talked to me for more than five minutes, she’d decide she didn’t like me as much as she thought she did. I was best in small doses.
“See you all later,” Cam called as she walked to the door, and Riley waved to us again, and I couldn’t help but wave back.
I turned toward Wes, who was looking at me.
He was always looking at me, and I was always looking at him.
It was a problem.
A big fucking problem.
So I decided to look at Gus instead, but he was already looking at his brother with one eyebrow raised, and his brother was looking at me, so we were just in a big weird lookfest, and I needed it to stop.
“I’m Ada,” I said, reaching my hand out toward Gus. He kept his eyes on his younger brother for a second longer before turning to me.
“Gus Ryder. Nice to finally meet you,” he said as he shook my hand. Firmly. Ah, so he was one of those guys.
“Likewise. I like your kid.”
Gus shook his head, but I could see a smile in his eyes. “She’s a good one.”
“All right.” Wes clapped his hands together. “Now that we’ve all met, Gus, I’ll give you the walk-through.”
“It’s okay,” Gus responded as he folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the workbench. “I want to talk to Ada about the project.”
I’d never seen Weston anything less than jovial until now. He looked…nervous. His throat was working and he was tapping one of his index fingers on the workbench repeatedly while he rubbed his chin with his other hand.
“I’m happy to walk you through,” I said. “But Weston knows everything that I know.”
I didn’t know why I suddenly felt the need to do something that I thought would calm Weston down.
That wasn’t like me.
